News from Panem, and elsewhere
Mar. 29th, 2025 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakSuzanne Collins: Sunrise on the Reaping.
Personal background: Unlike, I imagine, a great many of Hunger Games readers/viewers, I actually wasn't yearning for a Haymitch prequel. Now of course I had loved Haymitch in the original novels - I mean, who didn't? - , but part of what I loved was that in contrast to our young heroine and the majority of characters, he was middle aged, broken, cynical yet, as it turned out, still able to fight, plan, and win against the tyranny. As for Haymitch as a young man, I thought the glimpse we got when Peeta and Katniss find the recording of "his" games and his few remarks were all we needed to know. If anything, I would have wanted to read about how Haymitch later connected and bonded with the other Victors, something quintessential to the plots of both Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
However, I had been pleasantly surprised by Songbird and Snakes, aka the young Coriolanus Snow prequel (ironically more the film than the book - I thought the book was good but did not quite achieve what (at least I assume) it wanted to do, whereas the movie did -, and also Suzanne Collins, like the rest of us, is living in a world where propaganda, spectacle and autocracies are flourishing more than ever, and thus I was curious whether this would be reflected in the novel. Which I've now read.
Something immediately noticeable: we're back to a first person present narrative, as in the original trilogy with Katniss and unlike Songbirds and Snakes, where it was third person present for young Coriolanus. And Collins takes great care not to make the way Haymitch ends up as a tribute and later his time as a tribute a copy or close to Katniss' later experience. If anything, she goes for the deliberate contrast: in Haymitch's day, a mentor for the Tributes from 12 can't be bothered, ditto for the callous stylist, and Drusilla, who has the job Effie has in the trilogy, just hates everyone on sight. (BTW, this isn't just contrast for contrast's sake. It means that when a young Effie* shows up to do the job these people can't be arsed to, readers and Haymitch alike are glad, while the irony is of course there: Effie actually tries her best for the tributes in making them look good so they can win sponsors - but she's completely refusing to admit the horror of the system she participates in and determined to believe there is a good purpose behind it all - and thus helping the Tributes also means glamourizing their future deaths. At the same time, very unlike Katniss, Haymitch's games are the second Quarter Quell, the 50th Games, and Snow's idea for that one is to double the number of Tributes per district, so Haymitch shows up with three others from 12, and we get far more interconnecting between our pov character and the other tributes. Which, given the very premise of the Hunger Games and the fact we know ahead of time that Haymitch will be the Victor - and what it means to be a Victor in these games - , means the reasons for Haymitch to end up broken are fastly piling up. (Young Haymitch isn't exactly naive at the start of the novel - he is a sixteen years old who is growing up in the world of Panem, after all -, but he's a far cry from how he will end up at the end.) And yet it's also clear why the "Victors" Haymitch encounters will later trust him in Catching Fire in the most dire of circumstances.
Before I get to the new characters and how I feel about them, let me say Collins handels the return of fan faves perfectly, i.e., they're there, but not in pointless cameos but always and only in scenes that contribute to the narrative. I.e. Haymitch encouring previous Victors like Mags, Wiress and Betee is an important part of the plot, and where I really sat up was when he kept running into Plutarch. Unlike Haymitch's backstory, Plutarch's is one I truly was curious about for eons - especially what made him turn from part of the system to freedom fighter who still in order to maintain his cover continues to inflict great damage on people, and whether this impacted him and how. I didn't completely get my wish in that this was Haymitch's story, after all, not Plutarch's, but we do see enough of him to learn a bit more (including that his double life started way earlier than I had assumed).
The new ones (and here I include ones whose names might have shown up before (or rather, decades later in Katniss' day), but whom we didn't meet in person until now): as mentioned before, due to the nature of the 50th Games Haymitch gets "reaped" with three more people from his District, and Collins does a good job in subverting his and readers' expectations with Wyatt and making Louella (both versions) endearing and symbols of the cruelty of the Games much like Rue was. But by far the most prominent and the character whose relationship with Haymitch grows and changes the most, plus the character who has no direct counterpart in any of the previous books, is Maysilee Donner. Who turns out to be basically the Cordelia Chase (old school Cordy, not the s3 AtS onwards edition) of District 12.
This, I had not expected, and it was great to read. Now, she and Haymitch are not, repeat not, each other's love interest. (Sadly, Haymitch's love interest, Lenore Dove, named after the Poe ballad and the reason for it getting quoted a lot in this novel, is perhaps the most life less character in the entire book. No pun intended, though her ultimate fate, given her name, is obvious.) But they do go an odd couple arc of starting out with dislike - she's the daughter of the closest thing 12 has to a rich man and very much into fashion, again as much as can be afforded in 12, and prone to dissing people left, right and center with cutting remarks, which Haymitch only starts to change his mind about once he observes her doing this to the Capitol people (biting fashion critique from a girl from 12!) - moving on to grudging acceptance as they need to ally against a common foe and ending up with basically adopting each other as brother and sister. Maysilee should be a gift of a part to any young actress in the inevitable movie version, and I just hope they avoid the temptation to inject romance, because I do love a non romantic close m/f friendship with verbal sparring.
In terms of media critique/satire - definitely an element of the original Hunger Games - the sequence early on where Haymitch sees how what really happened during his Reaping is completely changed for the final newsreel so it fits the story the Capitol wants to tell, completely with all the screw ups by Capitol officials edited out, and its counterpart near the end of the novel where Haymitch has to witness the "documentary" of the 50th Games which of course is full of distortions and realises actual history keeps being removed, edited out and changed to fit with the official narrative is pretty chilling and effective, plus I suspect informed by current day goings on.
Weaknesses (other than Lenore): the Careers are one dimensionally Evil again, with, again, only one of them getting flashes of humanity shortly before their death. And well, let's face it, this book is still fanservice. As in, it's not really necessary, it doesn't fundamentally change our understanding of the world or its characters that we already got from the previous books. But by the time I finished this book, it was fanservice I didn't mind.
(Plutarch: His life and times is still the only prequel I really wanted and want, though.)
*Effie I feel is the one character where I think the movies have impacted the way Suzanne Collins is writing her. Bearing in mind the Mockingjay movies, building on the strength of Elizabeth Banks' performance in Catching Fire where despite having no different lines from the book she managed to hint at Effie's increasing inability to stay in denial about the horror of it all and the fact she did care, gave Effie the rule Fulvia had in the novel. Young Effie here isn't incompatible with the woman who shows up in The Hunger Games, by no means, especially bearing in mind she's a lot younger and more naive here, but it's still a very sympathetic introduction she has in Sunrise at the Reaping, and you can see her turning into Banks!Effie from Mockingjay the movie, which Book!Effie didn't.
Daredevil 4.05 + 4.06: Episode 5 is basically a (mostly) self contained bottle show, a bank heist story - and by now self contained episodes have become a rarity on tv - , and very enjoyable as Matt finds himself at a bank getting robbed and in the classical costumed vigilante dilemma of being without his costume, i.e. he has to save the day as Matt Murdoch and without giving his secret identity away - and one of the hostages in the bank, the one he has the most interactions with, is Kamala Khan's Dad. Still as adorable as he is in the Ms Marvel series (and in The Marvels), and I do hope for a Kamala cameo in the future. I do have a soft spot for episodes where the hero has to save the day in an out of his comfort zone way, and this one was a good example of the trope.
Episode 6 moves the arc along with both Fisk and Matt reaching the point where they return to their old identities (albeit does it count as "returning" in Fisk's case, given he's kept Adam imprisoned all this time anyway?) while serial killer "The Muse" stops being just represented by graffiti and cameos and has his first outing as an opponent as Our Hero tries to save Hector Ayala's niece in time. Fisk using the Muse's serial killing to license an anti vigilante task force consisting exclusively on the cops with the Punisher tattoos who are into suspect killing and/or beating up, complete with some distinctly fascist rethoric, has been something that was building up to since the pilot as well, making the point Fisk now can do this without having to resort to bribery, as he used to as gangster, just by dressing it up as the will of the people who want to see "getting things done". (Something, again, that this series so far had him repeatedly hinting at being his plan when he refused to intercede in gang warfare when Vanessa asked him to.) I'd say the present day commentary is alive and well here, too.
Wheel of Time 3.05: Interesting as all the history last episode was, I'm glad we're catching up with everyone else here. Mind you, I think the subplot with Siuan and Elaida would have landed harder if they hadn't essentially pulled off this earlier this season with the other Red Ajahs (i.e. the we think a Red/several Reds are in cahoots with Liandrin, but no, they aren't! They're ruthless in a non-Black Ajah way!), but I did like Siuan being shown here not a sitting target for Elaida's moves to replace her, and having her counter moves prepared, and that "can't stand each other" doesn't have to mean "one of them is a Dark Friend" but good old politics. Moraine's second scene with Lan where she finally tells him what her visions were was wonderful, complete with him managing to make her laugh at the end, and while Egwene getting taught to dreamwalk in order to be able to fight back against her dreamstalker just in time to find out about Rand/Lanfear the worst way was predictable, it was well executed. Matt, Nyneave, Elayne and Min on the ship were hilarious with some serious undertones - not just Min's vision and Matt finding out, but also Nyneave finding another case of non-Tower women being able to channel.
Personal background: Unlike, I imagine, a great many of Hunger Games readers/viewers, I actually wasn't yearning for a Haymitch prequel. Now of course I had loved Haymitch in the original novels - I mean, who didn't? - , but part of what I loved was that in contrast to our young heroine and the majority of characters, he was middle aged, broken, cynical yet, as it turned out, still able to fight, plan, and win against the tyranny. As for Haymitch as a young man, I thought the glimpse we got when Peeta and Katniss find the recording of "his" games and his few remarks were all we needed to know. If anything, I would have wanted to read about how Haymitch later connected and bonded with the other Victors, something quintessential to the plots of both Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
However, I had been pleasantly surprised by Songbird and Snakes, aka the young Coriolanus Snow prequel (ironically more the film than the book - I thought the book was good but did not quite achieve what (at least I assume) it wanted to do, whereas the movie did -, and also Suzanne Collins, like the rest of us, is living in a world where propaganda, spectacle and autocracies are flourishing more than ever, and thus I was curious whether this would be reflected in the novel. Which I've now read.
Something immediately noticeable: we're back to a first person present narrative, as in the original trilogy with Katniss and unlike Songbirds and Snakes, where it was third person present for young Coriolanus. And Collins takes great care not to make the way Haymitch ends up as a tribute and later his time as a tribute a copy or close to Katniss' later experience. If anything, she goes for the deliberate contrast: in Haymitch's day, a mentor for the Tributes from 12 can't be bothered, ditto for the callous stylist, and Drusilla, who has the job Effie has in the trilogy, just hates everyone on sight. (BTW, this isn't just contrast for contrast's sake. It means that when a young Effie* shows up to do the job these people can't be arsed to, readers and Haymitch alike are glad, while the irony is of course there: Effie actually tries her best for the tributes in making them look good so they can win sponsors - but she's completely refusing to admit the horror of the system she participates in and determined to believe there is a good purpose behind it all - and thus helping the Tributes also means glamourizing their future deaths. At the same time, very unlike Katniss, Haymitch's games are the second Quarter Quell, the 50th Games, and Snow's idea for that one is to double the number of Tributes per district, so Haymitch shows up with three others from 12, and we get far more interconnecting between our pov character and the other tributes. Which, given the very premise of the Hunger Games and the fact we know ahead of time that Haymitch will be the Victor - and what it means to be a Victor in these games - , means the reasons for Haymitch to end up broken are fastly piling up. (Young Haymitch isn't exactly naive at the start of the novel - he is a sixteen years old who is growing up in the world of Panem, after all -, but he's a far cry from how he will end up at the end.) And yet it's also clear why the "Victors" Haymitch encounters will later trust him in Catching Fire in the most dire of circumstances.
Before I get to the new characters and how I feel about them, let me say Collins handels the return of fan faves perfectly, i.e., they're there, but not in pointless cameos but always and only in scenes that contribute to the narrative. I.e. Haymitch encouring previous Victors like Mags, Wiress and Betee is an important part of the plot, and where I really sat up was when he kept running into Plutarch. Unlike Haymitch's backstory, Plutarch's is one I truly was curious about for eons - especially what made him turn from part of the system to freedom fighter who still in order to maintain his cover continues to inflict great damage on people, and whether this impacted him and how. I didn't completely get my wish in that this was Haymitch's story, after all, not Plutarch's, but we do see enough of him to learn a bit more (including that his double life started way earlier than I had assumed).
The new ones (and here I include ones whose names might have shown up before (or rather, decades later in Katniss' day), but whom we didn't meet in person until now): as mentioned before, due to the nature of the 50th Games Haymitch gets "reaped" with three more people from his District, and Collins does a good job in subverting his and readers' expectations with Wyatt and making Louella (both versions) endearing and symbols of the cruelty of the Games much like Rue was. But by far the most prominent and the character whose relationship with Haymitch grows and changes the most, plus the character who has no direct counterpart in any of the previous books, is Maysilee Donner. Who turns out to be basically the Cordelia Chase (old school Cordy, not the s3 AtS onwards edition) of District 12.
This, I had not expected, and it was great to read. Now, she and Haymitch are not, repeat not, each other's love interest. (Sadly, Haymitch's love interest, Lenore Dove, named after the Poe ballad and the reason for it getting quoted a lot in this novel, is perhaps the most life less character in the entire book. No pun intended, though her ultimate fate, given her name, is obvious.) But they do go an odd couple arc of starting out with dislike - she's the daughter of the closest thing 12 has to a rich man and very much into fashion, again as much as can be afforded in 12, and prone to dissing people left, right and center with cutting remarks, which Haymitch only starts to change his mind about once he observes her doing this to the Capitol people (biting fashion critique from a girl from 12!) - moving on to grudging acceptance as they need to ally against a common foe and ending up with basically adopting each other as brother and sister. Maysilee should be a gift of a part to any young actress in the inevitable movie version, and I just hope they avoid the temptation to inject romance, because I do love a non romantic close m/f friendship with verbal sparring.
In terms of media critique/satire - definitely an element of the original Hunger Games - the sequence early on where Haymitch sees how what really happened during his Reaping is completely changed for the final newsreel so it fits the story the Capitol wants to tell, completely with all the screw ups by Capitol officials edited out, and its counterpart near the end of the novel where Haymitch has to witness the "documentary" of the 50th Games which of course is full of distortions and realises actual history keeps being removed, edited out and changed to fit with the official narrative is pretty chilling and effective, plus I suspect informed by current day goings on.
Weaknesses (other than Lenore): the Careers are one dimensionally Evil again, with, again, only one of them getting flashes of humanity shortly before their death. And well, let's face it, this book is still fanservice. As in, it's not really necessary, it doesn't fundamentally change our understanding of the world or its characters that we already got from the previous books. But by the time I finished this book, it was fanservice I didn't mind.
(Plutarch: His life and times is still the only prequel I really wanted and want, though.)
*Effie I feel is the one character where I think the movies have impacted the way Suzanne Collins is writing her. Bearing in mind the Mockingjay movies, building on the strength of Elizabeth Banks' performance in Catching Fire where despite having no different lines from the book she managed to hint at Effie's increasing inability to stay in denial about the horror of it all and the fact she did care, gave Effie the rule Fulvia had in the novel. Young Effie here isn't incompatible with the woman who shows up in The Hunger Games, by no means, especially bearing in mind she's a lot younger and more naive here, but it's still a very sympathetic introduction she has in Sunrise at the Reaping, and you can see her turning into Banks!Effie from Mockingjay the movie, which Book!Effie didn't.
Daredevil 4.05 + 4.06: Episode 5 is basically a (mostly) self contained bottle show, a bank heist story - and by now self contained episodes have become a rarity on tv - , and very enjoyable as Matt finds himself at a bank getting robbed and in the classical costumed vigilante dilemma of being without his costume, i.e. he has to save the day as Matt Murdoch and without giving his secret identity away - and one of the hostages in the bank, the one he has the most interactions with, is Kamala Khan's Dad. Still as adorable as he is in the Ms Marvel series (and in The Marvels), and I do hope for a Kamala cameo in the future. I do have a soft spot for episodes where the hero has to save the day in an out of his comfort zone way, and this one was a good example of the trope.
Episode 6 moves the arc along with both Fisk and Matt reaching the point where they return to their old identities (albeit does it count as "returning" in Fisk's case, given he's kept Adam imprisoned all this time anyway?) while serial killer "The Muse" stops being just represented by graffiti and cameos and has his first outing as an opponent as Our Hero tries to save Hector Ayala's niece in time. Fisk using the Muse's serial killing to license an anti vigilante task force consisting exclusively on the cops with the Punisher tattoos who are into suspect killing and/or beating up, complete with some distinctly fascist rethoric, has been something that was building up to since the pilot as well, making the point Fisk now can do this without having to resort to bribery, as he used to as gangster, just by dressing it up as the will of the people who want to see "getting things done". (Something, again, that this series so far had him repeatedly hinting at being his plan when he refused to intercede in gang warfare when Vanessa asked him to.) I'd say the present day commentary is alive and well here, too.
Wheel of Time 3.05: Interesting as all the history last episode was, I'm glad we're catching up with everyone else here. Mind you, I think the subplot with Siuan and Elaida would have landed harder if they hadn't essentially pulled off this earlier this season with the other Red Ajahs (i.e. the we think a Red/several Reds are in cahoots with Liandrin, but no, they aren't! They're ruthless in a non-Black Ajah way!), but I did like Siuan being shown here not a sitting target for Elaida's moves to replace her, and having her counter moves prepared, and that "can't stand each other" doesn't have to mean "one of them is a Dark Friend" but good old politics. Moraine's second scene with Lan where she finally tells him what her visions were was wonderful, complete with him managing to make her laugh at the end, and while Egwene getting taught to dreamwalk in order to be able to fight back against her dreamstalker just in time to find out about Rand/Lanfear the worst way was predictable, it was well executed. Matt, Nyneave, Elayne and Min on the ship were hilarious with some serious undertones - not just Min's vision and Matt finding out, but also Nyneave finding another case of non-Tower women being able to channel.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-29 04:34 pm (UTC)I'm happy to hear they're still using her one of her supporting characters at least. Though it might have been planned since before The Marvels got the reaction it did.