sophiedrinkincoffee

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

Okay I've been thinking on it for about a week now and I think that Sunrise on the Reaping did a lot to illuminate the role of cages (both physical and mental) in the series.

In tbosas, the tributes are transported to the Capitol in cattle cars and then kept in the zoo until the games. They are kept shackled and caged for the entire process, from the reaping to the zoo to the arena and then home, for Lucy Gray. Despite this, if Snow hadn't gone to District 12, we can assume that Lucy Gray and the Covey would have been mostly free to continue on as they had. The games, for all their trauma, would have ended with her exit from the arena. The cage is only present, for her, when Snow shows up in 12 and has expectations for their relationship, for how she should be or act. He expects his songbird to be content in her cage, but it isn't enforced because that system hasn't yet been constructed.

In Sunrise on the Reaping, the literal cages have decreased but we've seen their presence continued into the aftermath of the games. The tributes are transported in normal train cars and fed. They're given apartments and fed and clothed. Instead of a physical cage, we see Haymitch woven into a mental cage of how he should act, what he should say. He isn't constrained by an enclosure, but instead by the consequences of what he says and does. The cage only solidifies when he wins his games. Snow places him in a literal birdcage, traps him like he wanted to with his District 12 songbird. On his return to District 12, Haymitch sees Snow snap the doors shut, sees that the consequences are playing out. The metaphorical cage is complete and keeps him boxed, not docile but semi-compliant, for 24 years. This connects to the theme of 'why would the many comply to the will of the few.' They comply because, in the time since the 10th games, the cages have been snapped into place in the districts. Mags, Beetee, Wiress, Haymitch- all of them show that victors were not safe, that they can be punished. Drusilla implies that the prostitution of desirable victors had already begun by the 50th games. Rules are stricter, propaganda more overt, songs forbidden. We see this with Effie, as well. They're far enough removed from the war that young people don't have the same anger at the rebels- they never saw the rebellion so why would they? But they still buy into the propaganda, the narrative, that the Capitol spins. It lets the Capitol keep the districts in the box of 'other', paint them as something less worthy, less human than the Capitol.

Which brings me to my final point, by the time we hit the trilogy, the cages are almost entirely mental. Tributes are given every luxury, victors showered in gifts and wealth, but the threat hangs over the districts all the time. We even see it in District 12 during Catching Fire, Katniss wonders if 12 could rebel like 11 and the other districts but fears that people would just close their doors and windows, that there wouldn't be enough buy-in from their already small district. Instead of a literal birdcage, Katniss gets trapped in a cage of Snow's design where she has to comply or everyone she loves will pay for her actions. When she sees Coin start to construct the base of a similar cage, this time for Capitol citizens, that's when she realizes Coin cannot be left in power. Which leads to the final point of the series, chronologically: the many stop complying with the few when they can look beyond what they've been told. When they recognize the cage they're in and work together to deconstruct it.

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

whats always struck me as genius in THG is that there's no research/academia district, theres JUST physical production. on the surface, this denotes ALL district citizens as fungible working class, and it also emphasizes the fact that the districts are just resources to the capitol. However, what's really interesting about it, at least to me, is other dystopia around the same time DID have academia "districts." Divergent (Veronica Roth, book released 2011) had Erudite, in "Uglies" (Scott Westerfield, book released 2005), you still go to school before and after the operation and its possible to pursue higher education and become a Special. I know that Dist 12 (and presumably the rest of the districts) had education, but Katniss barely mentions it and Haymitch doesn't really mention it at all, leading us to believe that it's not a priority.

However, this is much more in line with older dystopia like 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale where reading/academia is illegal. Language has always been a crux of revolution and power; it's just that even in the past few decades, dystopia tropes have been influenced by propaganda to show that an authoritarian government still totally definitely allows it's subjects to learn. That's not the case and Suzanne Collins is tired of it.

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

Lenore Dove Baird. Sunrise on the Reaping (2025).

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

a world without trans people has never existed and never will

prints

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

Haymitch and his ducklings

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

Moo-ving In series by Ethan Harper

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

district 12

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

“There’s a bad moment where I see my ally, wearing her District 12 black and start for her. ‘Maysilee!’ Her face crumbles into tears and hides in a handkerchief. Not Maysilee. Merrilee.”

Yeah, pack it in, it’s so over.

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

iconic things suzanne collins did in sunrise on the reaping:

had haymitch declare himself an lgbt+ ally

confirmed snow is still habitually crashing out over lucy gray 40 years later

made me cry over the regina george of district 12

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

rip maysilee donner you would have loved johanna mason

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

haymitch: love is love <3

clerk carmine: yeah, but not your love. get AWAY from my niece.

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

haymitch seeing a bunny: "how could I possibly kill a creature that brings to mind my girl?" 🥺

snow seeing mockingjays:

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

Okay but it’s fucking brilliant that one of the themes of the book was about the distortion of history.

Usually prequels are a dangerous thing to write because unless they’re planned out well in advance, they risk contradicting lore in the main series. Even still, we knew barely anything about Haymitch’s games. They were the perfect stomping ground for new information, with a rough series of events but without a close temporal connection to the main books.

But though she had this freedom and safety net, while she could have just written a story that aligned with what we knew, Collins leaned into the idea of contradicting past lore head on and made it the damn thesis of the book; that yeah, actually, it did play out entirely differently from how the characters saw it, and yes that contradicts what you were told, that’s the point.

We didn’t really know what happened in the 50th games until we read it from Haymitch’s perspective, because what little information we did have was spliced up and edited. The video evidence was processed through the Capital, and twisted to serve their purposes.

Tackling that idea of history being written by those in power with a notoriously inconsistent medium? Goddamn, writer that you are, Suzanne Collins.

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

“Well, there’s no proof that will happen. You can’t count on things happening tomorrow just because they happened in the past. It’s faulty logic.”

How are we holding up? I’m still crying about Lenore Dove and the gumdrops

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

Suzanne Collins writing books like “thought I was done with this shit but clearly yall have learned nothing”

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

I love you like all-fire

[sophiedrinkincoffee]

also I love that suzanne wrote katniss and haymitch in first person pov but with coryo she was like “third person for you… you get some distance, creep.”