The Ninth

[anticirclejerk]

RP HATE MEME

Go nuts. Namedrop, rant, rave, and wank up a storm.

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I am going to delete all the dumb, aspergers worthy discussion threads.

this is not the place for talking about butts and farts and shrimp. take that to your plurk or rpanons.

"No kidding. This breach of privacy can be argued on the fact that the people posting the caps were given permission to be in the private links. So the fault isn't on Anticirclejerk or the ACJ mod, but the component that decided to make the screencap." - Anon

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It's not used as a way to divide the citizens and turn them against one another as a form of victim blaming.

Actually it is, voluntary or not. Unless you're a career (where the audience knows that eventually they'll happily turn on each other to win), there isn't a lot of inter-district cooperation. Katniss helping Rue and doing that shit with the flowers was supposed to be a really exceptional instance of cooperation and the start of this remarkable "omg the districts are TALKING TO EACH OTHER" thing. There's no travel between the twelve districts, so in theory, the Games are supposed to encourage them to all root against each other so their kid wins and brings home a bunch of prizes to spread around.

Of course, all of this falls fucking flat as a pancake thanks to the limited POV from Katniss.

There is propaganda stuff later, though it isn't handled nearly as well as I would've liked, and iirc the people in the districts are pretty much forced to watch at least part of the games whether they want to or not, at like mandatory rallies or something.

[(Anonymous)]

See, that's kind of horse shit to me. I just can't buy that in 74 years, no one has ever teamed up with someone outside their district. Even in cases like Katniss and Rue, I just can't buy that in 74 years, there wasn't a single older kid who went "this 12 year old doesn't deserve to die alone out here, I'll stick by them and protect them long as I can."

It's like Katniss thinks of these horribly obvious courses of action that no one has ever even considered.

[(Anonymous)]

Katniss is just A Kid. She's not even supposed to be That Heroic of a kid; she is a catalyst for revolution not because of what she does, but because of the symbol she becomes. Don't look at it as 'this is the story of Katniss and all of the awesome things that she does,' but as 'this is the story of the first time that the Hunger Games went very, very wrong, and this is how.'

[(Anonymous)]

if we're supposed to think the latter, then why does the author keep insisting on the former??

that's seriously all i've been getting from the author. i mean, i'll grant that it's from Katniss' perspective, so some of that is going to happen as a matter of course, but if Collins wanted us to think the latter, but kept writing it like it was the former, that's bad writing, especially when you take into account all the other logic loopholes that were pointed out above and the serious lack of basic research.

not the worst writing in the world by any means, but it's definitely not worth everyone in the world having a collective orgasm over it. it's mediocre at best.

[(Anonymous)]

to be fair though, in that situation you'd have to operate under the understanding that either you will have to kill this kid to survive, they will kill you, or one of you will watch the other die

plus there's the fact that teaming up with someone could well be a bigger disadvantage to you than otherwise - especially if you're teaming up with a kid

I mean I agree that it's highly fucking unlikely that it's as rare as the books try to make it seem, but it doesn't seem that weird to me for a lot of people to just not want to put themselves into that situation either

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, I agree with you on those points. I don't think it'd necessarily be a first instinct for most kids, as it would be very selfless and could hurt you more. I'm just saying that out of the 1850 or so kids in the past 74 years, Katniss, a girl characterized as being untrusting and fairly solitary, is the first to reach out to another and that is really absurd.

Re: ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

Technically speaking, Rue was the one who reached out first? Saved Katniss' bacon like twice, possibly because she thought she herself didn't have much chance and decided to back up the badass with the cute sister about her age, I dunno. Rue was cool beans.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

[(Anonymous)]

"There's no travel between the twelve districts, so in theory, the Games are supposed to encourage them to all root against each other so their kid wins and brings home a bunch of prizes to spread around."

so the Games themselves aren't the cause of this, but it's the fact that the Districts are very isolated in the first place. The fact that people from every District is pulled to participate in he childmurder deathball games would then theoretically serve as a uniting factor, since every District is being effected (except for like the Career Tributes or something, which I don't even get how that's a thing)

even with that explanation, it falls flat and doesn't make sense.

[(Anonymous)]

The fact that people from every District is pulled to participate in he childmurder deathball games would then theoretically serve as a uniting factor, since every District is being effected (except for like the Career Tributes or something, which I don't even get how that's a thing)

Because they'd already lost a war. Badly. Chances are you've never lived in a country right after it lost a revolution, so set aside the "we can do this" mindset. War isn't something you just "try try again!" from, especially when the victors are constantly proving they can turn your children against each other or deny you XYZ that you need for survival.

Yeah, it's a stretch. It's a fictional book for teenagers. But look at the psychology of countries post-war when they've lost almost everything and it does make more sense. Unless you're being deliberately obtuse because you don't like the book, then I guess just carry on.

[(Anonymous)]

no, i get you. on it's own, that would be understandable. it's just when it's mixed into everyone else in the book that doesn't make sense to me...i just can't get into it.

which normally wouldn't be a problem since, you know, YA, don't have to read it, but all my friends have been bugging me to read it and i tried to and "....nope"

sorry, i guess