Hyperfixation Post: The Hunger Games Part II
The Prequels
It’s exactly as the title and subtitle say, and the rest of my rant. These are a little more fleshed out because these two are the most recent reads, and it took me longer to read them.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:
I texted the above message to my friend upon finishing this book. It feels very apropos given the nature of the story.
Once again, Suzanne Collins is a genius in her depiction of a villain in his developing years. She knew how to build a charming and objectively desirable young man and how he could manipulate an entire population into falling for him and his traps. Coriolanus Snow is charismatic and sincere enough to believe his own lies and characterization. The discrepancies between his internal monologue and his actual dialogue with others made my jaw drop more than once. He is so careful in his wording and his presentation, presentation is everything to him. Even his use of sympathy and empathy, reflected in his further development of the Games, is meticulously detailed.
He also is such a distinctly different character than Katniss Everdeen. Coriolanus’ understanding of himself and others drives his motivations to control others and prevent atrocities and the end of humanity. His limited understanding of how he and others like him respond to immediate dangers and stress— ie. cannibalism and murder— allows him to project himself onto the rest of the Panem. He sees humans as inherently violent and animalistic, incapable of governing themselves. This is a frequently discussed topic of what people believe to be inherently human. We think of these things first, of fire and destruction and selfishness, sometimes we mention the drive for knowledge, for innovation, and we forget the rest. The powers that be want us to finish the list with just those.
Enter Lucy Gray Baird, snake charmer and handler. She is literally introduced as a snake handler, though shoving a snake down someone else’s dress is not the kindest move. She saves Coriolanus during the arena’s explosion, she does not fight to kill Jessup when he rabidly chases her down, she does not fight off the snakes when they come to her. She sings to them. And Coriolanus recognizes her ability to recognize the Games for what they are and her instinctive ability to survive and win them, but he doesn’t understand what motivates her. He understands him though, enough to figure him out and enough to escape him and live.
Lucy Gray, a symbol of art and song, shows us how Coriolanus hates art and song because he doesn’t understand it. An offhand mention of his problems in English class is an intentional detail from Collins. People who choose not to engage in the humanities struggle with understanding and empathizing with the rest of humanity.
Songs are a connective device in this series. Rue’s song and whistle that unites District 11 and Katniss, the Capitol falling in love with the ultimate victor of the erased 10th Hunger Games because she sings, the moment of delight and levity at Finnick and Annie’s wedding, the propo of Katniss singing The Hanging Tree, all of it is a way to unite people.
Art and song and creation and connection, empathy is just as much an integral part to humanity as anything else. I have been listening to the soundtrack of this movie for over a week now.
And of course Suzanne knows how to write songs, of course she writes an exquisite singer character, because she also knows how to not waste her breath.
Sunrise on the Reaping:
This is the most heartbreaking book I’ve ever read, and I can just look at the last couple of pages of Flowers for Algernon and start crying. The consequences of failing, of being the face of a failing attempt of revolution in the middle of a horrible war is lifelong. As long as a life lasts. Haymitch Abernathy deserves peace, often symbolized by doves.
We see the younger versions of Mags, Wiress, and Beetee in this book, as well as why they became the damaged characters they are in the original trilogy. Mags’ commitment to compassion should not be overlooked, and neither should Wiress’. Beetee’s punishment is one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever read, and is also a clear warning as to what Haymitch’s horrible homecoming was going to be. Beetee being forced to mentor his son and watching his death, Ampert’s death being what it was, is horrific. It is awful.
So too, are the deaths of the other tributes. Louella’s end was quick but her family not knowing she was replaced by a doppelganger is something that makes your heart beat in deafening silence. The doppelganger and her treatment, the fact that, like Foxface in the first book, you feel affection for her but never know her real name, the fact that her death was engineered to be something that makes her homesick, is nauseating. Maysilee dying after saving so many people and thinking of someone else as the victor, after proving that she was still a human to the rest of the Capitol, and Haymitch recognizing her twin sister as Maysilee after he comes home is heartbreaking. Wellie, beheaded by the last Career tribute who wants to do the Capitol proud, after Haymitch went through the trouble of essentially bringing her back from death, is going to kick you in the gut. Haymitch intended Wellie to win, and the Capitol, through Silka, took that from him too.
Haymitch feeding Lenore Dove the poisoned gumdrop that kills her is enough to kill you too.
Of course Haymitch forces the people who love him away. Like Katniss, he is conditioned to believe that love will kill you and everyone else. Love kills, but Haymitch loves people so easily that it takes total isolation to prevent him from “killing” anybody else. So when he is forced to mentor Katniss and Peeta, of course he loves them, of course they become his new family, and of course he joins the rebels again. It’s in his nature.
Of course he loves Lenore Dove, another symbol of art and song. Of course he becomes the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, haunted by his lost love forever. Haunted by this poem that is referenced so often throughout the narrative as a method of dramatic irony. He memorizes the whole thing and sings it to her on her birthday, and on his birthday he buys a bag of gumdrops for her before he’s reaped.
As they announce the casting of Sunrise on the Reaping, and as they begin filming, I do hope they record The Raven as a bluegrass song like those in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I think that would make for an incredible soundtrack.
If you’ve read this, my goodness you deserve a gold star, sweetheart!