The First Time That Katniss Has To Go Into The Cylinder And She Goes Up Into The Arena And Looks Around

““The first time that Katniss has to go into the cylinder and she goes up into the arena and looks around and sees it for the first time,” says Lawrence. “Knowing that when that trumpet blows she could die. The thing that’s great about her is she’s not a murderer. She’s a hunter, but she’s not a killer. I told Gary, ‘I totally understand if you don’t hire me, but please remember that after Katniss shoots a bow and kills someone her face cannot be badass. It has to be broken.’ She has to be heartbroken because she just took another person’s life. It’s so tempting, especially with a cool, big budget franchise movie, but we have to remember that she’s a 16-year-old girl who’s being forced to do this. These kids are only killing each other because if they don’t, they’ll die. It’s needless, pointless, unjustified violence. So there’s nothing cool about her. It’s not like she looks around the arena and goes ‘Yeah, I got this, I’m going to do this.’ I think she looks around terrified and thinks, ‘Well there are all the million different ways that I can die.””

— Jennifer Lawrence on The Hunger Games (via maytheodds)

As a longtime fan of The Hunger Games, I admit that I probably won’t be able to critically analyze how good the worldbuilding was for Ballad’s story for a while. I’m definitely still in the “wow, new information about one of my special interests!” phase. But if there’s one thing I already know was a smart decision - aside from making Reaping Day July 4th - it was the story of how the Games were created.

This crime against humanity that the masses in the Capitol have long accepted as a fun spectacle by the time the 74th rolls around? That Snow sees as a necessary means of maintaining control and preventing chaos in the districts? The whole thing literally started as a joke. A laugh two drunk friends shared while doing their homework. Then it got co-opted by their professor and put into practice as equal parts a means of punishing the districts and a self-serving experiment to validate her ideas about humanity’s need for control.

I’ve seen a few people complain that this cheapens the Games, but if anything, it makes the book even more haunting. How timely is this? We’re living in a world where a substantial number of people write in joke candidates or refuse to vote at all, yet are horrified when everyone is left to deal with the consequences. The fact that nobody can tell the difference between an actual headline and something from The Onion anymore has become a meme. And if the people voicing their concerns about the rise in authoritarianism around the world are anything to go by, the state of the world is, for all of its absurdity, no joke at all to the people who stand to gain the most from it.

The most uncomfortable part is that this is a prequel, where we know that the Games keep going for another 60 years. Given how symbolic everything in this series is, I think Casca and Crassus’ story is meant to be a warning.

Nobody thinks anything like the Hunger Games could ever actually happen, much less become normal.

Nobody would ever allow that to happen to their kids, to their world! It’s just a joke, right?

But the joke stops being funny when it becomes real and we have to live with it.

well in the epilog katniss didnt really seem to want the children or feel anything for them but went through with it becuase "peeta wanted them so badly" so theyre sort of right becuase "woman pushed into having children she didnt want , possibly traumatising hermore becuase of someones desires" is a very anti choce stance.

See, that’s the prevailing viewpoint, but I’ve always had a problem with it. It’s so widely accepted by the fandom, but it ignores that the birth of those children fulfills both the character and thematic arcs of the series.

Let’s look at the entire quote.

They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much.

At first glance, it looks kind of bad. Like Peeta pushed her into having children despite her bone-deep terror. But this overlooks the fact that Peeta waited those five, ten, fifteen years for her to be ready. If he wasn’t concerned about Katniss’ choice, Peeta could have been more forceful in taking what he wanted. He could have left her and found a woman more willing to provide children. But he didn’t. And that heavily suggests that Katniss, in the end, is the one who made the choice.

Katniss feared having children because she feared for their future--feared a world where they’d starve to death, feared a world where they could be ripped from her arms and thrown to the slaughter of the Hunger Games. Katniss fears, more than even her own death, losing those she loves--look at how she was devastated by the loss of her father. Of course she’d be afraid to bring children into a world that’s designed to kill them. But the struggles of the series wouldn’t have much point if Katniss remained trapped in that fear, if her world remained a place hostile to new life. So the end of the series has to show that growth and change.

Of course it’s Peeta who helps her to move beyond her fear. Never forget that for Katniss, Peeta always represents hope. A new chance at life. When she was starving, at her lowest point of despair, he provided, at the cost of pain to himself, the bread that gave her hope. When they were in the Hunger Games, he gave her hope that the world could be transformed into something better by choosing to look beyond their own fears for survival and putting someone else’s needs above their own. Acting, not out of fear or self-interest, but for the good of the other could--and did--change the world. That changed world is one that welcomes children, and makes it possible, eventually, for Katniss to do so, too.

Giving birth to children doesn’t add to Katniss’ trauma. It shows her healing from it. Choosing to hope despite her fear. And what is her reward for it? Joy. Not mere happiness that ignores the pain, but joy that transcends it. Joy that does not erase the fear but makes the fear worthwhile. Joy that heals her enough to face a second pregnancy. And the joy of having two children who don’t know what it means to live in fear.

I appreciate that having children doesn’t magically erase Katniss’ trauma. Children are not a magical balm that will heal all ills and will bring fulfillment to every woman’s life, and the series isn’t arguing that it does. As the passage above shows, she will continue to live with her fears and regrets. But with Peeta and her children around her, she will also live with new life. And love. And always, always, hope.

my ideal suzanne collins written heroes of olympus would end with an epilogue of annabeth permanently blinded from tartarus being handed her daughter by percy. she asks what color her eyes are and he tells her they’re green like his. she tells him she doesnt remember what that looks like. the end! :)

Divergent is a bad book, but its accidental brilliance is that it completely mauled the YA dystopian genre by stripping it down to its barest bones for maximum marketability, utterly destroying the chances of YA dystopian literature’s long-term survival 

things the hunger games movies left out that should have been included (side eying you, gary ross)

katniss should have been a woman of color.

gale was also a man of color. most likely haymitch was too.

katniss was disabled in her left ear.

peeta and the district 10 tribute were disabled - peeta’s leg bit off by a mutt and the district 10 tribute having gone into the games with a pre-existing cripple.

THE TRIBUTES SHOULD HAVE BEEN PLAYED BY TEENAGERS

cato begging clove to stay with him, showing his rare humanity and emphasizing the fact that the tributes were literal children and NOT warriors.

the movies should have focused on the victors more, and their lives after winning the games - especially annie/wiress’s mental illnesses and finnick’s forced prostitution not long after he won the games at 14 years old

stop whitewashing canonical characters of color, stop erasing disabilities, and more importantly, stop with the nauseating shaky cam. that was weird and unnecessary.