#Suzzane Collins

[daydreamer-in-reverie]

I think that, as a literary device, Finnick’s story is one of the most effective ones I have ever read.

When you think of victims of sex-related crimes, you so rarely think of a man.

In our modern society, we more often imagine women to be victims of such crimes. Beautiful women who are battered and bruised, their eyes holding that faraway gleam of pain and trauma. Sex-related violence against women is such a common occurrence that it is difficult to find a woman who doesn’t have intimate knowledge about it. Perhaps not every woman has been raped but every woman knows at least one who has. As young girls, we’re told so many things to try and prevent rape. Don’t go out by yourself at night. Be careful of what you wear. Don’t drink alcohol. Fight them off. And yet, if you did everything right and still fail at protecting yourself, just give in. Better raped than dead. Come home to your family and friends hurt and bruised but alive.

And it is this message that Finnick, a man, lives by.

Better taken advantage of, bruised and hurt, than dead. Better you than your parents or your siblings or Mags or Annie. Do whatever it takes to stay alive.

And, the thing is, we didn’t have to hear this story from him. We could have heard it from Cashmere.

In his propo to the Capitol, Finnick reveals that attractive Victors are pimped out by President Snow to the residents of the Capitol. One such Victor is Cashmere.

Knowing this layer of her story makes Cashmere the picture perfect victim. A woman who is repeatedly described as beautiful. She is a typical description of what a rape victim is. Suzanne could have used her character instead of Finnick’s to portray an instance so familiar to so many women and yet, she didn’t.

She chose Finnick. And I think the reason why she did that is because hearing it from Cashmere would have made the story fall flat.

Would we have blinked an eye had it been Cashmere who revealed the horrors of being a Victor? Would we have felt anything other than a vague sense of sympathy? I don’t think so. Like so many women before her, Cashmere’s story is so familiar to us that it no longer leaves that bitter taste in our mouths. We, as a society, have been so deeply desensitized to this plight that we no longer feel the same indignation we used to feel. Instead we are resigned to our fate. Cashemere isn’t the first victim of rape and she won’t be the last.

Yet to hear it from Finnick had us shocked. Finnick? A man? Attractive, to be sure, but he is at the prime of his life and yet he is a victim? Finnick, who can wield a trident so effectively he became the youngest Victor in the 75 years the Hunger Games operated, was raped? Finnick, who has literally killed people with his bare hands, was prostituted? Finnick, who cracked jokes about killing people was whored out by President Snow?

It is absurd! It is a bizarre and strange! It has to be untrue!

And yet it’s not.

Finnick being representative of that particular storyline was effective at reminding us of what it means to be victimized like that. And using Finnick, a man, instead of Cashmere, a woman, reminded us of why we have to be rightfully angry and upset about such things instead of resigned to our fates.

Suzanne Collins is an absolute literary genius.

[i-know-the-endss]

i think the most frustrating part about tbosas is the fact that you want to root for coryo. you want him to be a better man for lucy gray. you want him and sejanus to become closer, to become the best friends sejanus believes them to be. you want him to run away and find a way to relearn all the oppressive and tyrannical ideals the capitol instilled in him.

but that’s not what happens.

coriolanus isn’t necessarily a good person. he’s not a bad person either, not yet, but he’s no where near good. and rather than try to be good, he gives up, he lets himself “go bad”, he rats out sejanus, he lets his anger get the best of him and loses lucy gray.

the idea that coryo could be a good person but chooses not to be is exactly the reason this book and this character are brilliant.

[mythicalyeticat]

Okay but “District twelve where you can starve in safety.” Is such a cold line. It just has a raw honest feel to it, like that’s what Katniss thinks of her district in a nut shell. I love how Suzanne Collins was able to put so much information in the first chapter without it feeling like it’s overwhelming.

[how-the-feathers-have-fallen]

IM SHAKING YOU HAVE NO IDEA IM HAPPY CRYING

[margojacksonpotter]

Suzanne Collins really took a small detail from the first Hunger Games book and ran with it.

[i-am-mldy]

This has all been said before but I just need to put it in my own words.

Snow truly believe he had Peeta after the hijacking, right on the palm of his hand, to be wielded like a knife that would always strike true into Katniss's heart. Because that's humanity for Snow — animals whose hunger can be twisted and corrupted, and would kill to sate it. To him, this boy from 12 was just a smoothtalker who trailed after his childhood crush like a lovesick puppy, had his feelings manipulated by this stubborn brunette from 12 who could sing, just like how Snow was.

So he sought to twist that adoration into something ugly, feeding the mistrust and indignance that he thought was in Peeta, thinking them powerful enough to overshadow any affection. Because that was what happened to Snow. Lucy Gray is wrong once again. Snow lands on top.

But no. Despite it all, Peeta's heart, who he is at his core, survived because Snow never really understood him.

Though Katniss had Lucy Gray's songs and heritage, Peeta had her heart. The pair of them combined was the true threat. Two halves of a Lucy Gray.

Lucy Gray and Peeta didn't hunger.

They fed.

Him with his burnt bread, and her with her haunting songs.

[senecantragedies]

Suzanne Collins referencing Hume in her description of the new book is a great continuation of the literary references she made in tbosas.

I truly wonder if the juxtaposition of this year’s MET gala and the genocide in Gaza - and its subsequent comparison to the hunger games precipitated this new book. Or, at the very least, the decision to announce it now. The hunger games series is uniquely poignant and powerful in this era of increasing class disparity and violent political turmoil.

Anyway, free Palestine!

[miserablebl00d]

Seeing Sam claflin as finnick odair in 2013 was the most life changing thing that happened that year, then it was my younger sister being born 😁

[dread3r]

im gonna need some of you to freak out with me hELLO WE'RE FINALLY GETTING HAYMITCH'S STORY!! I AM GOING TO CRY OH MY GOD

Sunrise will take place 24 years before the events of the first novel The Hunger Games, “starting on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell,” per Scholastic.

"With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,’” Collins said in a statement. “The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”

[yourmothersinnerthoughts]

The way everything makes sense now. District 12 going from a district that enjoyed music and concerts on the regular to people almost never singing. The hanging tree being banned because of how much jealousy it brought in snow when he first heard it.

How the mockingjay symbol must have really killed snow because this man hated them from the get go.

How the hunger games developed over the years. How in the beginning they were kept in cages and then the tributes saw how lucy performed and it got her fed and so they started entertaining the crowd to get people to give them food as well. Later on its the same concept. They please the crowd (they dress up and ride on chariots waving to the crowds) in order to stay alive (get sponsors) and adopt personalities for interviews. The crux of it is the same entertain the rich spoiled capitol people to stay alive.

[mags-writes]

me, 14 and reading the end of mockingjay:

me, 24 and reading the end of the ballad of songbirds and snakes:

[beautifullucygray]

"I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me."

hey suzanne collins, i want you to know that that is not okay and my lawyers will be in contact!! luv ya

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

I'm reading TBOSAS, so have some memes.

Me: talking myself down from shipping Tigris & Lucy Gray

Me, reading the bread pudding scene:

Snow mentally whenever Sejanus does something genuinely kind:

Snow when his grandma's rose pricked his finger:

When Snow has unkind thoughts about Tigris despite everything she does for him:

What happened in the woods

Vs

What I wished had happened in the woods:

[tiredofthehumanlife]

Thought you guys might want to see my English project

Photos with flash underneath (fyi they are ugly)

Also there's a quote on the back

The QR code goes to the clip of Lucy Gray singing the hanging tree in the field yk

[cherries-in-wine]

A good dystopian novel is one that makes you reflect on your own society and I think Suzanne Collins understood that very well. Everyone has become so desensitized to war, every "free palestine" comment I see on Instagram has a "womp womp" or "just stfu no one cares" reply to it. It's so disgusting and uncomfortable to see celebrities at a charity event (the met Gala) dressed like people from the Capitol when there's currently a genocide going on. Books like the hunger games and 1984 feel almost like a prophecy now, everyone is so indifferent to what's going on around them, so many countries are funding a fucking genocide, people trying to spread awareness getting shut down by a "it not affecting me why would I care" ass attitude.

[expectopatronum18]

Sunrise on the reaping is essentially the hunger games equivalent of a marauders era story I m SOO hyped up for this