Jane Austen Was Right!!!!! I AM Half Agony Half Hope!!!!! If I Loved You Less I COULD Talk About It More!!!!!!!!

the hunger games with a sprinkling of our universe's problems as if they needed any more

"He's still smiling when he settles the second on my head, but his eyes, just inches from mine, are as unforgiving as a snake's.

That's when I know that even though both of us would have eaten the berries, I am to blame for having the idea. I'm the instigator. I'm the one to be punished." (THG pg 348)

Snow ignored Lucy Gray's flaws. He looked past them thinking that she belonged to him and therefore it was forgivable. He could look past it by saying she just didn't understand. He rationalized it for her in order to not have to feel he was compromising his own fucked up morals.

But it's the very thing he rats Sejanus out for. He's a part of the rebellion and Snow can't look past it. Both Sejanus and Lucy Gray dislike the Capitol but Snow ignores it for Lucy Gray.

He also pretty much ignores Peeta, the boy who reminds us so much of Lucy Gray. He's a performer, a lover at heart, and more importantly he's just along for the ride.

Katniss is who Snow blames. She's another Sejanus. She's set on tearing down the Captiol and watching it burn. I was just so shocked to find this beautifully reflected back in the original Hunger Games book one.

Suzanne Collins has such a deep understanding of her own material. It's rare to see books hold up so long and even more so to get a good add on to a series years later.

But still you can find a ton of small moments in the original trilogy that hammers home what tbosbas says.

Maysilee’s final poster wasn’t her death, it was her pin being the face of the rebellion 25 years later.

its haunting honestly

a lot of loving and being loved by people is recognizing when they're sincerely trying to help or comfort you even if their words are clunky and unhelpful at best and holding onto the sentiment that they are trying to reach for you at all. and a lot of the time that has to be enough because it's all you're going to get

Something that I think is important about Wyatt as a character is how he highlights the stupidity of the district system. I know that the human love of sorting ourselves into categories meant that every YA series for a while had a bunch of different groups with associated traits that tweens could take uquizzes about, but The Hunger Games isn't like Divergent or Harry Potter where young adults get grouped based on their personalities. Sure, the districts all have industries they're known for and the tributes are clearly shaped by wherever they grew up, but being born into District Four doesn't actually mean that you'll like fish. Wyatt is brilliant when it comes to numbers, but in District Twelve he can only channel that into gambling. Imagine if he'd been born into District Three with a father like Beetee, what he could have done with his mathematical talents. There's mention of it with Maysilee too, how she doesn't want to run the candy store but her options are that or the mines.

I guess what I'm saying is that the district system is great for keeping people oppressed because they see their fellows as "other," which is why it is a tool of fascism and not a practical way to run a society. It doesn't matter who is in what group, it matters that they internalize their group identity to the point that they ignore the similarities between them.

listen, listen. A few things:

Jennifer Lawrence did an outstanding job portraying Katniss in the movies. I cannot really imagine any other actress in her place.

THAT BEING SAID

it pisses me off that people conveniently forget that Katniss is a colored girl.

That's right, folks!

People from the Seam are described as dark skinned, with grey eyes. Katniss is personally described to have 'olive skin' in the books. I know that there's not much compensation that could have been done in the casting, since Jenn was such a perfect choice- but at least depict her as colored in fanart. Same as Haymitch. Haymitch is also from the Seam.

I also find it so beautiful that Suzanne Collins had a teenage colored girl to be the one to dismantle an oppressive and tyrannical government, acting as a huge symbol of rebillion.

And keep in mind, while the series is marketed as a 'dystopia' it has an alarming number of similarities to the current real-world.

On my walk home

shout out to suzanne collins for, in the middle of Everything Else she was doing in sotr, dropping a paragraph that’s just “btw fuck ai”

Everyone has been focusing mostly on Snow shitting his pants when he heard "The Hanging Tree" sung by Katniss but if I remember correctly, that clip of her singing wasn't transmitted in the Capitol so it's unknown if Snow saw it. But there is another clip of Katniss singing one of Lucy Gray's songs that Snow definitely saw and it definitely haunted him.

The Meadow Song.

And you know what probably made him shit his pants even more? How Katniss not only sang one of Lucy Gray's songs but she also honoured a dead tribute. In that moment he wasn't only haunted by Lucy Gray's ghost, he was also haunted by Sejanus'.