bookishprincessc

[bookishprincessc]

[bookishprincessc]

it's interesting to see thg having a renaissance bc i was 12 when i read the first book, and found rue to be the character i could most relate to, given that she was my age. katniss felt like a cool older sister that i looked up to. now i'm 22 and reading the series is a completely different experience, katniss is a child and rue is a baby and the whole thing is so much more devastating. so fucked up how getting older recontextualises shit.

[bookishprincessc]

Rereading the Hunger Games as an adult is so funny because yes Katniss is being a girlboss, igniting a rebellion and toppling an oppressive government. But she’s also beefing with a cat, napping in supply closets and missing every social cue that is ever thrown her way. 

[bookishprincessc]

There have been many posts crediting President Snow for his “genius” decision having the tributes being previous winners for the 75th Hunger Games, however, I think it is probably the biggest mistake he makes in the series… And Plutarch’s smartest move.

The main rule in the Hunger Games is that there is always one winner. Not only is the winner awarded a fancy house and a large sum of money, but they are paraded around the capital. Their status is elevated and their home district views them as a celebrity. It is the only ticket to “rise up” in society. We as the reader know that being a Victor is still a terrible fate (body sold to capital citizens, used as a prop, forced to be a mentor), however, they symbolize a win for the district as a whole and enforce the hatred districts have for each other. 

In the 74th Games, Crane makes the decision to change the rules and allow two tributes from the same district to win the games. Whether this is purely for drama to make the romance element sell better or a clever way to introduce false hope, all tributes believe this rule is real. There is a chance Katniss and Peeta can really win together. When the rug is pulled out from under them, they are forced to choose who will win causing all hope of their dual survival to be lost. Both Katniss and Peeta want the other to win, however, they know the toll it will take emotionally on that individual to be the lone survivor (survivor’s guilt). With no hope of a fair life, they are both willing to die together creating an all or nothing situation. Crane is forced to let both of them win, knowing that if no one wins the games, the districts might realize that “their sacrifice” was for nothing. He believes two winners are better than none (And honestly he’s lowkey right), and it costs him his life. 

During Snow’s conversation with Crane he states, “Fear does not work as long as there is hope”. Katniss and Peeta winning together is not inherently revolutionary, it was not done to spite the capital, but Snow cannot let go of the idea that they broke the carefully constructed rules of the games, and, therefore, must be punished. He forgets that Katniss and Peeta are not universally liked, especially in districts where they had to kill their tributes (district 1 and 2). Snow blames Crane for even introducing the idea of two winners in the first place, the rules of the Hunger Games have been solidified for good reason. Ironically, the ending of the games is not what brings on the rebellion, it is really Rue’s relationship with Katniss. The kindness Katniss shows shows during Rue’s death unites the Districts for a moment, and creates a connection between District 11 and District 12.

This push for fear and punishment blind Snow when Plutarch becomes the game maker. Although all the districts know the 75th Games will have a twist, deciding to draw tributes from the existing Victors is a critical mistake. Yes, it allows Snow to “punish” Katniss for bending the rules, however, Snow forgets that the Victors symbolize hope to a necessary degree for society to function. The districts need to feel like they can win something, they need some distraction of power to stop them from realizing they are constantly being manipulated. Taking two of the golden children away from every district unites the efforts of rebellion. It is the clearest way to say “no, you are all losers at the end of the day”. This blatant reminder is not needed, and spreads anger throughout the entire Panem system. 

Snow’s weakness is he doesn’t understand that fear cannot work without the idea of mercy. There must be some possible reward to work for, or hopelessness will take over and people will act without care for their lives. If both options bring death and torture, why not rebel? The additional scenes in Mockingjay Part 1, demonstrate this notion perfectly (the dam in District 5 and the bombs in District 7). 

[bookishprincessc]

Things people don’t talk about enough from the Hunger Games:

Many of Katniss’ strongest allies are women that are over looked by others (Madge, Rue, Mags, Wiress)

While Katniss has a strained relationship with her mother, her mother is never demonized. Katniss recognizes the trauma her mother went through and was willing to try to improve their relationship in CF

The rebellion didn’t start with the berries. The rebellion started when Katniss showed compassion towards a dying, black girl that the world had already written off as unimportant

One of the beauty trends in the capitol that Katniss finds odd is the shaving of body hair. When her leg hair grows back in CF, she expresses comfort in it.

Katniss’ character arc throughout the series is her understanding of who the enemy is. It isn’t the rich people in district 12, or the other tributes, or the other districts, or the people in the capitol. It’s the government and it’s Snow.

Katniss never wanted another hunger games with the kids of the capitol. In that meeting she recognizes Coin’s commitment to perpetuating the cycle of violence. She votes in favor of it to cover her plans of killing Coin.

The violence in the books is SUPPOSED to feel random and unfair. Prim being reaped was supposed to be against all odds because in the real world, violence is indiscriminate.

Gale is a victim too and was not solely responsible for the death of Prim. He spent the first two books feeling helpless as he watched people he loved be put in danger and suffer. Coin offered him a way to regain control. At the end of the day, Gale is only 18 and doesn’t realize the depth of the games being played.

Katniss is great with kids and actually enjoys being around them. She says the only reason she doesn’t want them is because she can’t imagine them being put in the hunger games. Her having children in the epilogue is a sign of her healing and finally feeling safe

[bookishprincessc]

gale: katniss will choose whoever she can’t survive without

peeta who was just peacefully sitting in the corner, trying to remember what the color orange looked like and didn’t even know there was a love triangle to begin with: ok??😐

[bookishprincessc]

you can't tell me katniss "i used pattern recognition to destroy the arena in catching fire but can't tell when someone's being genuine" everdeen and peeta "oh i have to hide? guess i have to disguise myself as a rock with the icing skills ive aquired over the years" mellark weren't the blueprint for autistic x adhd dynamics

[bookishprincessc]

Suzanne collins is a certified GENIUS because by making most of the book about the PUBLICITY of the rebellion and not the fight itself, she was telling us that wars are won by who persuades more- who controls the narrative .

[bookishprincessc]

Peeta Mellark is the type of person to follow a grieving girl to her broken home and plant a garden. But people forget Katniss is also the type to sing a lullaby to a dying girl and lay her in a bed of flowers. Despite being subjected to the cruellest games, they’re two kids who continue to be kind and choose love. Not everyone could find light and love atop a graveyard in a meadow, and that is why Katniss and Peeta have always deserved each other. 

[bookishprincessc]

suzanne collins is such a genius... the cultural phenomena of her series leading to the hanging tree house remixes, mockingjay being milked for two (bad) movies, the capitol-inspired makeup palettes, the halloween costumes, the explosion of the market for dystopia, the butchering of her characters and removal of disabilities, disfiguration, and racial tension + representation to sell more tickets, the extra gale scenes to fuel discourse, and the audience showing up to cinemas to watch what was pretty honestly marketed to them (the jacob vs edwardification of the symbolic love story and also to watch children fight to the death) it's just so ridiculously ironic i would say you can't write this shit, but she did write about it... in The Hunger Games published 2008

[bookishprincessc]

the point of ‘the ballad of songbirds and snakes’ is that the coriolanus snow we meet in the prequel is the same exact person we meet in the trilogy. the only difference is that in the prequel, he is a powerless teenager and an underdog who is good at hiding his true nature with charm and wit. the essence of him is the exact same - a despotic, manipulative, power hungry tyrant. he has some redeeming qualities and a chance to change into something better through lucy gray and probably even more through sejanus, but he actively chooses to let the worst side of him to surface on top once he gets the power he always wanted. 🫶

[bookishprincessc]

Actual footage of Lucy Gray Baird and Sejanus Plinth in heaven watching an 83 year old Coriolanus get his ass handed to him by a 17 year old girl

[bookishprincessc]

The only way Katniss has an effect on him during the reaping is because she got the attention of Panem, as Lucy did by singing

[bookishprincessc]

bringing my thread here in honor of the ballad of songbirds and snakes trailer today because the "lucy gray parallels katniss" people are out there and they are wrong, lucy gray baird is peeta mellark and sejanus plinth is katniss everdeen and i will die on this hunger games hill

[bookishprincessc]

I think about Pyrrha Dve and I want to scream a little. Imagine, being eaten by your best friend and then living in the back of his mind and in his body for thousands of years, during which you meet a beautiful woman hellbent on your destruction and let yourself fall in love, in fact you're ready to raise her daughter if she'd ask you to, but you and your best friend have to kill her. You spend 19 years thinking you killed your own child along with the love of your life, 19 years of guilt and grief. Your love comes back to you, you find out the child was never even yours and your love dies again. So does your best friend, and now you're stuck in his body without him. Then fast forward to Nona the ninth, you finally get the domestic bliss you've been waiting for in the form of Nona (a different person in the body that you spent a year watching your best friend try to kill) and Camilla (another one of devotion's casualties) and Palamedes (inhabiting the body of his best friend, just like you did for so many long years). And you make breakfast for them, and you do Nona's hair before she goes to school and you give her tons of adorable nicknames and you walk to work with Camilla and look for radio stations with music on them because Nona likes them. You bicker with the Warden over what food to buy, you roll your eyes with affection when they try and get you to stop smoking cigarettes. Sometimes, you talk to Warden and Camilla about moving to a half flipped moon, together with Nona, and living off the land; teaching them to farm, teaching them to wait. You're so close to the life you've wanted for so long. But slowly you can see Camilla, a woman you don't quite love but could see yourself loving in the future, get more and more lost in Palamedes, losing herself to her necromancer. And you see them both fall victim to that total loss of self and codependancy that you saw so many of your old comrades fall too, and you lose them both. Its completely done, and it's not something that can be undone, and you know they're never coming back. Now they're a stranger in a body you recognise, in a body you almost built a life with. And then there's Gideon, the child of the woman you loved, the child you might’ve raised in another universe, being the saddest girl in the world and a reanimated corpse, a puppet for the empire that killed her (and yeah, you guessed it! She died for her necromancer too). And then, just when you think it can't get any worse, there goes Nona. Nona, who loved being alive and loved to love things just for the sake of loving things, who just wanted a birthday with 10 dogs and her friends from school, literally dies in your arms. She falls apart while you hold her and is now in the unrecognisable body of someone who is the pinnacle of cavaliers being mistreated. They're all gone, but Pyrrha is still there, right where they left her. She remembers everything, she remembers that she was happy, if only for 6 months.

[bookishprincessc]

"The Priestess and The Holy Sword"

Art by @Anajulia19841 on Twitter.

#acotar #ACOSF #SJM #fanart #Gwyn

[bookishprincessc]

I’m absolutely in love with this Gwynriel commission that the lovely @lulutina_art drew for me! She has been an absolute joy to work with and so kind to me. She even gave me three different color pieces when I couldn’t decide on which color for Gwyn’s dress 😂. I’m so happy I got to work with another insanely talented artist.

Artist: lulutina_art ❤️

Link to Instagram post