Part II: The Quell
Shit gets exponentially totalitarian in District 12 because President Snow is working out his anger on the rebels by punishing Katniss. What's funny is that eventually, everybody will acknowledge the fact that Katniss has only a symbolic role (albeit a powerful one) in the whole war effort--which should be obvious already given that it started without her and is now going on without her, away from her--and even Snow (eventually) seems to know this. So the fact that he'd waste so much time and energy making her miserable is weird, but whatever, and eventually he announces that since it's the 75th Hunger Games, they're going to mix it up. Former winners from each district will fight it out (So yeah, Catching Fire is to Real World/Road Rules Challenge as Inception is to Scrooge McDuck or whatever). Since Katniss is the only living female champion from D12, she's in.
So she gets drunk with Haymitch and they make a pact to protect Peeta at all costs. Now, the getting drunk thing is kind of great and subversive at first--teen drinking! Never mind that girl has SEEN SOME SHIT and deserves a drink every now and then, but still! But Katniss wakes up with like, the worst hangover of all time and makes sure to note, several more times, what a bad, bad idea drinking is. Teens: Katniss is lying to you.
Once we're back in the Capitol (Haymitch gets picked for the games, which would have been BADASS, but Peeta volunteers in his place. Fucking Peeta!) in the Capitol, the rest of part II consists of escalating acts of political subversion. Cinna dresses Katniss up in a terrifying Black Swan number for the parade through the city. Which is nice, because girl has been White Swan for a half a book too long. For real though, that section of the book is pretty gnarly.
But then another stupid thing happens. SURPRISE. Katniss is getting in a elevator and this chick Johanna Mason (who I visualized as Joanna Newsom) starts talking to her. Johanna is complaining about her outfit for the just-finished opening ceremonies, and then she just gets naked and keeps talking to Katniss. So far, so good.
But once she leaves, Peeta laughs at Katniss and tells her that the other victors are making fun of her for being prudish. That all of the weird encounters she has had with them so far have been intended to mock her purity. Peeta points out her unwillingess to see him naked back in the arena in the first book (I mean he doesn't say "Remember in the first book?" but anyway). So we already know about the sins of excess at the Capitol—they of the ipecac parties and all that shit—and the Hunger Games themselves are the crass violent fixation of a corrupt, evil society. So why do we have to bring sex and nudity into our crosshairs, too? You guys know that I am a champion of sex and nudity, so this shit really offended me.
Dig it: Katniss, our hero, is righteous and tries to avoid unecessary violence and is generous with food and money. Enemies at every turn do none of these things, as Katniss is the opposite of them. And now the other thing that bad people do is fuck. Now one of Katniss’s most important traits is that she is “pure.” She’s killed some people, but she’s a virgin. Katniss = purity, charity, nonviolence, and now ABSTINENCE. The Capitol = excessive violence, greed, and now SEX. Having sex, therefore, is essentially suggested to be as bad as killing, as bad as tyranny. All excess is the same. Except: Oddly, the only sin that seems to be okay for the righteous side of the fight is alcohol and drug abuse. Okay! I don’t feel good about these themes.
But I do like Katniss's slutty new friends, Joanna Newsom and Finnick Odair (for the record, I picture him as Michael Fassbender and I think you should too).
And if you're doubting this purity argument that I am putting forth here, well:
At the interviews before the Games, Katniss and the other victor-tributes pull on heartstrings (some of them are super old, some of them have families) to win audience support. And then Peeta causes a near riot by implying that Katniss is actually pregnant. Uh-oh. Best of all possible worlds, this could be a cynical, crass use of Potential Baby Life--Peeta exploiting the sympathies of the lay-folk to win support (like, you know, many Republicans).
But this is not a cynical, crass use of Potential Baby Life, and in fact Katniss very quickly makes sure we don’t draw that conclusion, thinking “Well, yeah, I COULD be pregnant. And after all, the Capitol DID take away my ability to safely have children.” (And before this, Suzanne Collins is even vague—OBVIOUSLY she's fucking vague—about time Katniss and Peeta spend in bed. They aren’t fucking, but it is written in such a way that you might accidentally think they are, and that she really IS knocked up, for a little while. Suzanne Collins mistakes confusion for depth.) So now the weapon against the excessive, sexually promiscuous Capitol is the potential life of a (fake but again that doesn't matter) baby! LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION, PRESIDENT SNOW! The Hunger Games are as bad as an ABORTION! Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Couple this with the misguided, vaguely condescending racism and the whole rationing/starvation motif and you basically have a sci-fi series written by Newt Gingrich. Or maybe Peeta IS Newt Gingrich. And Gale is John Galt. Seriously, is that guy going to ever do anything other than get his ass kicked?
I've omitted pretty much all of the depth and shading in part 2, so please fill in my blanks in the comments.
7 comments:
Finnick is my favorite character!!! And personally Michael Fassbender isn't hot enough, Hewer Mitch from Skins is more like it.
I don't have much to add because I read these books a looooong time ago- but one thing that has really irked me is the book's popularity. I mean, why are teenage girls so into these death novels?!!? The only appealing thing is the love triangle, and the way the main character is constantly being used.
Actually that's probably the appeal: the fact that the main character repeatedly declares her independence, her individuality, and is treated as such (she's vital and everyone around tries to protect her) and yet she's not REALLY the center. She enjoys the benefits of being doted on but none of the negatives, being: actually LIKING the attention like a normal sane person, trying to see things from everyone's perspective, trying to take on the responsibilities of a leader, and mainly worrying about people other than herself and those who will impact her. Think about it- her only concern during the first book is for Prim and Peeta, not at all about the injustice of the games. Later on she expands her circle slightly, but she never really acknowledges the revolution or actively tries to help BECAUSE she can't see the bigger picture. She's someone who can only be effected by things that touch her personally.
Reminiscent of a certain political party's campaigning much? How about the idea of "gays will hurt our children's thinking", or "every child must be born"? I know I'm going a bit off-topic here (I can't articulate as well as you zach :)) but my point is: These books appeal to the idea of "family first" and that the GREATER GOOD is bad. And I HATE that.
...That was long. Zach your opinion??? (wait is it Zac or Zach?!? I DONT KNOW)
Nah, I was a teenage girl who loved dystopian and dark fiction for the fact that it was dark. Some like the love story, but many like the crazy politics and the fighting just as much or more. We weren't all obsessed solely with stupid love triangles or one dimensional. Girls can like more than romance, just like boys do. :)
Honestly, I think this series is one where you can see whatever politics you want. If you look for conservative themes, you'll find them. If you look for liberal themes, you'll find them. They're all there.
Yo X, the part in MOCKINGJAY that got to me THE MOST was when [SPOILER ALERT] Finnick dies. I put the book down and was like, holy shit, I am experiencing EMOTIONS right here.
And Kim--is it that you can interpret the politics either way, or is it that the political stuff is mostly not even there? There's TWO over obvious attempts are finally making an attempt to be political in Mockingjay, and they are kind of pathetic.
But as far as the baby stuff in particular goes, I mean, I tried to see it in a Liberal way. But ultimately I think S. Collins is skewing pretty Santorumy here.
don't you feel like Katniss was just a pawn the whole time? like Cienna knew the significance of that Mockingjay pin...that it was ALREADY a symbol against the capital...so even if Katniss had been killed (which he didn't think she would) the symbol was out there and he did his best to make her unforgettable.
I know Plutarch Heavensbee was a member of the rebellion but maybe Seneca Crane could have been too?
The rebellion didn't just spring up because of Katniss. it had been going on for a LONG time. I mean, how long does it take to design and build a game field....i'm sure the 75th games were going to be a big deal no matter what.
So, She was JUST the symbol. Just the spark (or whatever they said.) Was her last little trek in Mockingjay...was that needed? the people who died for her? Finnick? The rebels were coming for the capital anyway. they would have won without her? By making Snow so focused on the symbol it helped the rest of the rebellion get the real work done?
I don't know were i was going with this. #theend
Joe, my sense was sort of that D13 had been more or less ready to get the rebellion started for a few years, but they did need that spark to capture the imagination of the people. And probably around the time that the Capitol tried to switch the rules last minute on Peeta and Katniss in the 74th Hunger Games is when they said, "This could work."
I imagine that people like Cinna and Plutarch and even Haymitch were sort of like sleeper cells, knowing that sooner or later the call was gonna come and so they positioned themselves such that they'd be of use whenever it did.
Regarding nudity, pregnancy, etc.
I took Katniss' weirdness about nudity to be more of her aversion to intimacy on most levels. Most of the things that bothered you about HG was her inability to believe Peeta when he said he liked her, which was really her way of not accepting vulnerability, both hers and his. She has a really hard time dealing with basic tenants of human relationships (emotional and physical intimacy, trust, vulnerability (and with good reason!)). It can be just as hard to open up your heart to someone as it is to have someone open their body to you, especially if they're acting like it's no big deal. It's also telling that even Peeta thought her embarrassment over Johanna and Finnick was hilarious. If this was real pro-abstinence plug, why make Peeta be on the other side, when he's the closest to a paragon of virtue in the whole trilogy?
And as for the pregnancy and the wedding, have you never seen a sitcom before? When a show has started to wane a bit, they always have a character get married or have a baby. Peeta knows they're in trouble, and the fake baby is their version of jumping the shark in a last ditch effort to get viewers and sponsors. I took it as further criticism of reality tv ploys. Any given rag at the grocery checkout has some pseudo-celebrity with the "exclusive" scoop on her baby bump (worst phrase ever). I mean, look at Snooki from Jersey Shore. There's literally no way that baby wasn't conceived purely for the publicity. It's just that in Catching Fire, their lives actually depend on it, not their narcissism.
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