When Caesar Is First Introduced In The Hunger Games, Katniss Describes Him Like That:

When Caesar is first introduced in The Hunger Games, Katniss describes him like that:

"Caesar Flickerman, the man who has hosted the interviews for more than forty years, bounces onto the stage." (THG, 9)

It's without a doubt the movie's influence that I do not see Caesar as having been on stage for forty years. While we have no canon information to the contrary, people have usually taken this line as a truthful statement.

Yet, this feels like such a teenage thing to say. Age is so relative when you're younger, two years are an "eternity", your teachers must have been teaching for over "ten decades" and parents are always "so very old" it's impossible to imagine getting that old yourself.

It's very much my own preference on how old Caesar is & that his story paralleling Plutarch's requires a similar age. Still, I am curious how Katniss would even know something like this to make this assessment—if we don't assume the forty is a hyperbole, which I can easily envision.

It seems unlikely that Katniss would have seen arenas before her time. That's not to say there weren't reruns, but electricity seems so fickle that I doubt the TV was running, nor do I think the Everdeens would have tuned in during the times it was.

The only way Katniss might know is that Mrs. or Mr. Everdeen commented on Caesar's presence the first few times she's had to watch the Games. Something akin to "he's always been there" or "I remember seeing him when I was your age". But if we assume her parents are around Haymitch's age, I doubt they have memories beyond the 40s ADD. This would move Caesar closer to three decades than four.

There could be the possibility that they blend in old footage during current Games, such as an interview with young Beetee. While I can see this as a possible explanation, it seems a bit counter to Katniss other statements. She does mention that some years are rather vague due to her father's death—which they might not be if there were frequent callbacks on TV. She also mentions having vague memories of Tigris from the first Games she's watched, which indicates she's not seen much from before she was born, either.

At the point that Katniss is making this comment, i.e. when we first meet Caesar, she yet lacks the insight of the tapes that Effie hands them in Catching Fire. Out of all the places, this would have been the easiest to give a brief insight into Caesar's timeline. For example, mentioning watching some tape in the 30s ADD and Caesar is present in there. Instead, we only see Caesar during the 50th Games, which only has him on stage for (a minimum of) 25 years.

Many readers are taking much of what Katniss says with a grain of salt while the forty years line is taken as a canon fact. I know this is mostly because of (A) Caesar not being a very thought about character and (B) the terrible high chair line in TBOSAS with fans taking it as a fact that this must have been Caesar.

In my own interpretation, Caesar started in his early 20s during the late 40s ADDs. This would make him the same generation as Haymitch and Plutarch, which feels much more natural in terms of generational divides between the likes of Katniss, Haymitch and Plutarch, and Snow.

One difference between the Lord of the Rings books and the Peter Jackson films that I find really interesting is what the hobbits find when they return to the Shire.

In the books, they return from the War, only to see that the war has not left their home untouched. Not only has it not left their home unscathed, battle and conflict is still actively ravaging the Shire. They return, weary and battle-scarred, to find a home actively wounded and in need of rescue and healing. All four launch themselves into defending their home and rousting those harming it, and eventually succeed. But their idyllic home has been damaged, and even once healed, is never quite again the Shire they set out to save.

In contrast, in the Jackson films, they return to a Shire shockingly untouched by the horrors of war. The hobbits of the Shire talk, in the Green Dragon in Fellowship of the Ring, about not getting involved with issues "beyond our borders," and it seems those issues have not invaded their sanctuary. After having been bowed to by kings, dwarves, elves, and men alike at the coronation in Gondor, their only acknowledgment upon returning home is a skeptical head shake from an older hobbit.

One of the most poignant scenes to me in Return of the King (and there are a considerable amount) is the scene where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are sitting in the Green Dragon. The pub patrons bustle around them, talking loudly, clapping excitedly, drinking cheerfully, just as they had in the beginning of the story. But the four hobbits sit silently, watching almost curiously at what was once familiar but is now foreign to them. Their home has not changed. But they have.

Which is the deeper hurt? To come to your home to find it irrevocably changed, despite all you did to keep it untouched and the same? Or to return home but no longer feeling at home, because it is only you that is irrevocably changed?

good luck to the ppl who consider lucky flickerman caesar's father and then think caesar will be in his 20s at the time of 2qq

good luck

summer is summering and I'm just curious how to function in this heat... genuine question

Reading Mockingjay as an adult is extra devastating because. Of course the plucky teenager and her ragtag friends aren't going to sneak into a government building to kill the president with a bow and arrow. That's absolutely ridiculous. It's the kind of thing that's only possible in the kind of propaganda that Coin developed. But she's so good at it that in some ways she tricks the reader into thinking that's the kind of story this is, too--even after 3 books reminding us that pretty much everything that Katniss does the second she volunteers is manipulated by adults pulling strings to make propaganda in some form or another.

Julien Fournier Fall Winter 2023-24