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conulyMan, some of the things people are saying are cracking me up!
1. Katniss is so selfish, and it's her fault thousands of people died and she doesn't seem to care....
My response? Dude, it's not Katniss' fault that people died. Nope, that goes right back to the folks who killed them. If she hadn't acted, people would still have died - and sooner or later that rebellion was GOING to happen, with her or without her.
Now, I recognize that Katniss thinks it's her fault everybody dies all the time. This is because Katniss has a very depressive outlook on life, and who could blame her?
2. It wasn't until I heard Finnick's sordid tale that I realized how this story is really not for children.
My response? No, I get that. The fact that every year 24 kids are forced together in a no-holds-barred death match, the fact that people are shot in the street every day, the fact that people routinely starve to death, yeah, that's not very dark. One guy being forced into prostitution - OMG TERRIBLE!
(I mean, it *is* terrible, but it's just the terrible cherry on the whole terrible cake, you know?)
3. I get that Katniss had some very traumatic things happen to her but by the end of the book she was almost completely INSANE! (and she was getting there the entire story too.)
(This one's an actual quote.)
My response? Yeah, two death matches. A love triangle. Having her father and sister killed. Having her entire community of 8000 people wiped out, including her friend. Having her comrades killed in front of her, by critters chasing HER specifically. Knowing that one of her closest companions is probably complicit in her sister's death (and certainly would've thought something like that up). Seeing another close friend tortured and brainwashed into hating everything about her. And of course the whole starving in the streets for her whole life thing.
That's just "some traumatic things". It's certainly no justification for mental instability or anything, oh no! Why, if she didn't like this life, she should've signed up for a different one!
4. I don't like that she ended up with Peeta! I don't like HOW she ended up with Peeta! OMG!
My response? This is the only thing you cared about, how that little subplot would resolve? Can the shippers go off and fight it out somewhere else, please? Thanks!
5. Oh, wow, this is not a children's book at all!
My response? Ya think?
I also had some personal thoughts on it....
1. I always SAID Primrose was an inauspicious name. A flower that blooms and is picked in the early spring? Sounds just about right for a girl dead at 13. (Katniss, by contrast, is the plant also known as "arrowhead". Their parents clearly went to the Rowling School of Prophetic Baby Names.)
2. Cinna isn't a great name either. Especially not when you're bothpoet stylist AND conspirator. Sheesh.
3. What really bugs me about the Hunger Games, and all the other acts of oppression, is that it's all so damn inefficient. With all the money that went into making weapons and making armor and training peacekeepers and paying peacekeepers, with all the money lost by executing workers or keeping them out of work for a few weeks, and where does it get them? Rebellion brewing all the time. And don't get me started on the Hunger Games! All that money down the drain - did they even sell advertising space? I think not.
Meanwhile, they could've had peace at a fraction of the price if they'd done as little as feed the people in the districts. They could've still lived in abject poverty (if absolutely necessary), but they would never have risked their lives if they weren't already dying of hunger and, when it comes right down to it, petty bullying.
4. For that matter, even the folks in the Capitol didn't have it so hot. A lot of people were in debt all the time? They had their sewers fully staffed by Avoxes? How the hell do they even GET so many traitors that they're an integral part of the workforce (and with some left over to do nothing more than make Katniss feel bad)? There's plenty of them coming from the Capitol. We can tell because of their Roman-history names.
What the hell was everybody doing while their country was being mismanaged so badly? Even Snow should've seen this coming.
5. So... ARE there other nations out there? ARE there possibly people living in between the districts? There's a lot of open space outside those fences. (Or not open, if people are there.)
6. Back to the Capitol... did the TV really never show anything but news and Hunger Games clips? Seriously? That's what it sounded like to me, anyway. That's depressing.
7. How is the new government being run?
8. I didn't want Finnick to die. I still don't want Finnick to die. I liked him!
9. Also, I liked Johanna. Whatever happened to her? I hope she's all right.
10. So, those muttations. Many of them seem... kinda... well, intelligent. Are they? Are they perhaps not vicious, but enslaved? And if they are vicious, but intelligent, could they be altered to be, well, less dangerous to humans? It seems more wrong than anything else, I don't know.
11. Is there any religion in Panem? There's never been any mention of it at all, one way or another.
1. Katniss is so selfish, and it's her fault thousands of people died and she doesn't seem to care....
My response? Dude, it's not Katniss' fault that people died. Nope, that goes right back to the folks who killed them. If she hadn't acted, people would still have died - and sooner or later that rebellion was GOING to happen, with her or without her.
Now, I recognize that Katniss thinks it's her fault everybody dies all the time. This is because Katniss has a very depressive outlook on life, and who could blame her?
2. It wasn't until I heard Finnick's sordid tale that I realized how this story is really not for children.
My response? No, I get that. The fact that every year 24 kids are forced together in a no-holds-barred death match, the fact that people are shot in the street every day, the fact that people routinely starve to death, yeah, that's not very dark. One guy being forced into prostitution - OMG TERRIBLE!
(I mean, it *is* terrible, but it's just the terrible cherry on the whole terrible cake, you know?)
3. I get that Katniss had some very traumatic things happen to her but by the end of the book she was almost completely INSANE! (and she was getting there the entire story too.)
(This one's an actual quote.)
My response? Yeah, two death matches. A love triangle. Having her father and sister killed. Having her entire community of 8000 people wiped out, including her friend. Having her comrades killed in front of her, by critters chasing HER specifically. Knowing that one of her closest companions is probably complicit in her sister's death (and certainly would've thought something like that up). Seeing another close friend tortured and brainwashed into hating everything about her. And of course the whole starving in the streets for her whole life thing.
That's just "some traumatic things". It's certainly no justification for mental instability or anything, oh no! Why, if she didn't like this life, she should've signed up for a different one!
4. I don't like that she ended up with Peeta! I don't like HOW she ended up with Peeta! OMG!
My response? This is the only thing you cared about, how that little subplot would resolve? Can the shippers go off and fight it out somewhere else, please? Thanks!
5. Oh, wow, this is not a children's book at all!
My response? Ya think?
I also had some personal thoughts on it....
1. I always SAID Primrose was an inauspicious name. A flower that blooms and is picked in the early spring? Sounds just about right for a girl dead at 13. (Katniss, by contrast, is the plant also known as "arrowhead". Their parents clearly went to the Rowling School of Prophetic Baby Names.)
2. Cinna isn't a great name either. Especially not when you're both
3. What really bugs me about the Hunger Games, and all the other acts of oppression, is that it's all so damn inefficient. With all the money that went into making weapons and making armor and training peacekeepers and paying peacekeepers, with all the money lost by executing workers or keeping them out of work for a few weeks, and where does it get them? Rebellion brewing all the time. And don't get me started on the Hunger Games! All that money down the drain - did they even sell advertising space? I think not.
Meanwhile, they could've had peace at a fraction of the price if they'd done as little as feed the people in the districts. They could've still lived in abject poverty (if absolutely necessary), but they would never have risked their lives if they weren't already dying of hunger and, when it comes right down to it, petty bullying.
4. For that matter, even the folks in the Capitol didn't have it so hot. A lot of people were in debt all the time? They had their sewers fully staffed by Avoxes? How the hell do they even GET so many traitors that they're an integral part of the workforce (and with some left over to do nothing more than make Katniss feel bad)? There's plenty of them coming from the Capitol. We can tell because of their Roman-history names.
What the hell was everybody doing while their country was being mismanaged so badly? Even Snow should've seen this coming.
5. So... ARE there other nations out there? ARE there possibly people living in between the districts? There's a lot of open space outside those fences. (Or not open, if people are there.)
6. Back to the Capitol... did the TV really never show anything but news and Hunger Games clips? Seriously? That's what it sounded like to me, anyway. That's depressing.
7. How is the new government being run?
8. I didn't want Finnick to die. I still don't want Finnick to die. I liked him!
9. Also, I liked Johanna. Whatever happened to her? I hope she's all right.
10. So, those muttations. Many of them seem... kinda... well, intelligent. Are they? Are they perhaps not vicious, but enslaved? And if they are vicious, but intelligent, could they be altered to be, well, less dangerous to humans? It seems more wrong than anything else, I don't know.
11. Is there any religion in Panem? There's never been any mention of it at all, one way or another.
