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daydreamer-in-reverie · 5 months ago

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The Victor’s purge is absolutely something that just blows my mind.

The Capitol propaganda against Victors were so effective, even the very people fighting for their freedom turned on them.

During the events of TBOSAS, we learn that the first 10 winners of the Hunger Games received no compensation for their participation in the games. Why would they? They’re nobodies. Reminders of a war that had forced the people of the Capitol to turn on each other, forcing them into such desperate lengths that they had to resort to eating other people just to survive. They were not celebrated like the Victors we recognize in the 75th Hunger Games. They were not victors but survivors. In fact, we learn that not many people wanted to watch the Hunger Games in the beginning. It left a bitter taste in a person’s mouth to watch children fight to the death and have the event sensationalized, even if the child is considered the enemy.

And yet, with Victors being placed on a pedestal after the events of TBOSAS, we saw how quickly the Victors were woven into the Capitol’s society.

Upon winning, Victors were alienated in their own Districts. They were given beautiful mansions, fed three square meals a day, and their families wanted for nothing. They became mentors, becoming active participants in the very Games designed to kill members of their own Districts. Their participation may have been forced but when you smile and wave at cameras and show off your new found wealth, it’s hard to believe you didn’t want these things.

Victors are even further alienated outside of their own Districts with the Victor’s parade. A whole week of traveling through the 12 districts to show off your vitality and strength and your life, the very thing you took from the other tributes in order to survive. Victors did not need to drip themselves with jewels to offend the other Districts, their survival was insult enough. Never mind that you didn’t want to kill these kids. Never mind that you are a child yourself.

Every place you turn, you’re met with jealousy, derision and contempt. No longer the perfect quintessential victim but a killer of children who “benefitted” from the very system designed to oppress you. By winning the Hunger Games you are no longer District.

So you turn to the one place that showers you with any hint of adoration.

Ingratiating themselves into the Capitol’s society cemented their identity as Other. They may live in the Distrcts, may be forced to subject themselves in horrors that are far worse than any modicum of starvation they faced in the Districts, but they are no longer one of them.

And so the Rebels forget who exactly they’re fighting for, forgot who actually experienced the horror they could only dread.

Yes, they are fighting against their own oppression. Yes, they fight for their child’s right to live and never play in the Games. But they forget about the 59 other Victors who actually went through the horrors they’re fighting against. They forget about the biggest victims of the system they are fighting against.

Snow alienated Victors from the rest of the Districts so much that of the surviving 59 Victors before the events of Mockingjay, only 7 come out alive.

7 out of 59.

There’s not even enough of them to distribute one to every district.

The biggest victims of the Capitol’s oppression also became the biggest victims of the rebel’s war.

#hunger games #media analysis #catching fire #mocking jay #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #haymitch abernathy #finnick odair #betee latier #johanna mason #sunrise on the reaping #annie cresta #lucy geay baird

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