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Mockingjay.
Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. New York: Random House, 2010.
I quite enjoyed the first two books of The Hunger Games, and in the end I really liked this one too.
To get right to the point, I was not happy that Collins fridged Prim, even though, as![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
cupcake_muffin_feed rightly pointed out, as soon as she became an interesting character in her own right she was probably doomed. I loved the other characters, particularly Finn, and the character interaction, and I still loved Katniss' bitter, bitter sarcasm and irony, and I liked that Collins rather determinedly didn't give Katniss magical healing powers; she spends most of the book drugged and/or less than hale, which is an interesting way to fight a war. And I liked the circles-within-circles plots and conspiracies, and that Katniss eventually did manage to figure them out.
So, here's the other thing. I don't mind the war is terrible and destroys people even who survive it message--at the risk of sounding banal, because this is not a new insight, Collins is right about that. But I do mind the fact that Katniss, after shooting the president (which was awesome), does nothing else political, and I do mind that she rejects politicking as a way of accomplishing her goals even before that. She learns to play the game only to accomplish what she wants in the very short-term and then withdraws from the field completely, and quite frankly I don't think that this is really the way to have long-term peace: if the people who can attest to the horror of war are off being misanthropic, who's to stop the people who don't know from going back to war? Yes, this is wildly simplistic and simplified, but you get my point.
The other thing is that I'm not terribly thrilled with the optics of Katniss living like a hermit in District 12. She was a female soldier, in a war on multiple fronts, and before that she killed people bare-handed, but I wonder whether her response to what she did doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes about women being unable to "handle it." I don't know, but I can at least think of this interpretation.
I am making it sound like I didn't love the book. I did! Katniss is still amazingly awesome, quite probably one of my favorite protagonists just for her attitude. Sarcasm FTW.
I quite enjoyed the first two books of The Hunger Games, and in the end I really liked this one too.
To get right to the point, I was not happy that Collins fridged Prim, even though, as
cupcake_muffin_feed rightly pointed out, as soon as she became an interesting character in her own right she was probably doomed. I loved the other characters, particularly Finn, and the character interaction, and I still loved Katniss' bitter, bitter sarcasm and irony, and I liked that Collins rather determinedly didn't give Katniss magical healing powers; she spends most of the book drugged and/or less than hale, which is an interesting way to fight a war. And I liked the circles-within-circles plots and conspiracies, and that Katniss eventually did manage to figure them out. So, here's the other thing. I don't mind the war is terrible and destroys people even who survive it message--at the risk of sounding banal, because this is not a new insight, Collins is right about that. But I do mind the fact that Katniss, after shooting the president (which was awesome), does nothing else political, and I do mind that she rejects politicking as a way of accomplishing her goals even before that. She learns to play the game only to accomplish what she wants in the very short-term and then withdraws from the field completely, and quite frankly I don't think that this is really the way to have long-term peace: if the people who can attest to the horror of war are off being misanthropic, who's to stop the people who don't know from going back to war? Yes, this is wildly simplistic and simplified, but you get my point.
The other thing is that I'm not terribly thrilled with the optics of Katniss living like a hermit in District 12. She was a female soldier, in a war on multiple fronts, and before that she killed people bare-handed, but I wonder whether her response to what she did doesn't reinforce gender stereotypes about women being unable to "handle it." I don't know, but I can at least think of this interpretation.
I am making it sound like I didn't love the book. I did! Katniss is still amazingly awesome, quite probably one of my favorite protagonists just for her attitude. Sarcasm FTW.