Just Finished The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes. What Blows Me Away Is How Coryo Has All The Influences

Just finished The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. What blows me away is how Coryo has all the influences for him to become worse and to become better.

Here's what I mean, he's a mentor, so he has a close view of the games, which could make him more sympathetic with the districts or more cruel to them.

He writes the papers for Dr Gaul and talks with her a lot, their interactions could have made him more pro or more anti Capitol.

Dean Highbottom resents the Snows, which makes coryo anti-whatever-highbottom-believes, but hearing about the origin of the games could have changed his mind.

Sejanus, Tigris, and Lucy are all anti-capitol and they are the greatest influences in his personal life.

Spending time in D12 could have made him sympathize with the people that are the same as Capitol people, but instead he becomes more pro-capitol.

But as the first chapter makes very clear, he's out for personal success. It foreshadows everything. At the beginning he has some sympathy for the tributes but sees them as pawns for his own success. At any point, he had the catalysts in place for him to become anti-capitol. The conversations and family and friends. He could have been.

My least favorite thing about multiple pov books, is how the author inevitably tries to switch povs consistently but there are always those parts where one pov is full of action and really interesting and the other (s) is soooo boring in comparison. And I have to force myself to not skip the boring povs temporarily, and I hate it

now that i have finished tbosas, i have started to reread the trilogy with my husband and i came across an interesting structural parallel for katniss’s first interaction with peeta when she was eleven and her first interaction with peeta after he returns to district twelve in mockingjay. 

when the reader is first introduced to peeta, we are immediately drawn into katniss’s flashback to the bread scene where peeta takes a beating from his mother in order to give katniss the bread. the part that i want to center on is how peeta specifically gives the bread to katniss as an offering.

katniss first hears feet slosh towards her and her immediate thoughts turn to peeta’s abusive mother, thinking that she is coming to attack katniss as well. Yet, when katniss looks up, expecting to see a threat, she is surprised that it is peeta instead, bearing two loaves of bread that he intended to give to her. these loaves act as a sort of selfless offering that peeta is giving to katniss, allowing her the substance she needs to continue to the next day, giving her life and a means to hope for the future.

fast forward to mockingjay, after prim has died and katniss has returned to district twelve, depressed and hopeless. when katniss first reunites with peeta, similar to just how katniss’s thoughts immediately thought that a threat was coming to harm her, she mistakes the scraping of Peeta’s shovel for that of the people in her nightmare using shovels to bury her alive. (although she is in no threat of physically dying, her grief is threatening to bury her alive). however, when she runs at the sound of the scraping, convinced that it is the same one from her dream, she is surprised that the sound actually comes from peeta’s shovel as he plants primrose. just as eleven-year-old peeta gave katniss the bread as an offering of life and hope, peeta gives katniss the primrose as an offering of condolences and remembrance. in many ways, peeta’s offering of the primrose gives katniss an avenue to keep living, finding a way to remember the dead and memorialize them, giving their deaths meaning. in this simple act, peeta was able to help remind katniss that there is a path forward.

the parallels between the two experiences demonstrate to the reader what katniss soon realizes later in the chapter: that peeta, the boy with the bread, is a gifter of a hope that life can go on and can give her the strength she needs to continue. she truly needs him. and just as katniss was never able to “shake the connection” between peeta and dandelions and hope, she couldn’t let go of peeta throughout all of mockingjay, even when he was made to be a threat to her. because to let go of peeta would mean to let go of her hope for a better tomorrow and if katniss doesn’t have that, what does the entire revolution even mean to her? for there would never be a girl on fire to flame the rebellion, a mockingjay to take flight against the capital if there was not a small boy with bread promising a better future through his courageous selflessness and goodness.

It also plays off of the hysterical woman stereotype and it normalizes violence as a form of love

Women hitting people in movies and books.

(This has been bouncing around in my head for a while but it's not like cohesive thoughts, so apologies)

There are the Molly Wesleys (Harry Potter), the Aunt Cass' (Big Hero 6, specifically after they get arrested), Katniss Everdeens (The Hunger Games, especially at the end of the first book), and I know there are more but that's just off the top off my head.

There are these scenes where the woman gets so upset, usually because she's worried about someone, and hits the person. It never injures them, but she hits them and saying something like "how could you do this!! I was so worried about you!!" And it's played as just a sign of their concern and it's no big deal. But like ??

I haven't really come to a conclusion on where I stand on this, but it feels wrong. Like, it's not violence because they actually love the person??

Also please reblog because I have like 5 followers and I want more opinions 👍👍

I like it but it's kinda boring for like, the first half if I'm being completely honest. But Thick As Thieves is worse so whateve

The comedic timing in episode 28 of season 11 of lego ninjago is unmatched

Lloyd, currently in jail with a shapeshifter who’s been stuck there for 60 years: “my friends are out there, and if I know one thing it’s that ninja never quit. They never give up, ever!”

Smash cut to Cole, shoveling snow out of an impromptu driveway: “maybe we should just give up”

[two minutes later]

Aforementioned shapeshifter, mournfully monologuing: “the only way out of this dungeon is if someone lets us out, and I do not see that happening any time soon”

Random unnamed guard walking by, immediately unlocking and throwing open the doors to their cells: bet