Fandoms And Mad Ravings

donate to feed refugees in rafah

spreadsheet of gofundmes to evacuate families

fundraiser for esims for gaza

first, we may note that Katniss does not start going to the Hob until after she figures out how to provide for her family; I have previously wondered why Haymitch didn’t notice how much in a bad way the Everdeens were if Katniss was coming to The Hob: here’s your explanation

second, the icy weather will be personified in a few paragraphs as running its fingers down little Katniss’s back, a very invasive image; mark it, because it’s going to be juxtaposed against another “intimate” image

third, Katniss drops the baby clothes and is unable to pick them up for fear she won’t be able to go on; I see this as a two-fold metaphor; she can never pick up her childhood again, and she must leave any notions of a future with children of her own behind if she is to survive, physically and emotionally; she must leave past and future in the mud of now

there may be a tragic third image here, one that points us ahead to the final book: an image of Katniss ultimately losing her baby, Prim

here, we get our first really meaningful mention of fire (outside of the mention in the “here’s how Panem became a dystopia” exposition dump from the mayor) in the series, and there’s a strong correlation between fire and hope, and, therefore, lack of fire and lack of hope; fire means many things in this world, but it’s significant to me that this is the first major association we get

the next image that stands out to me is the image of the garden beds not yet planted for spring; again, I think ahead to the third book, where Greasy Sae heralds Peeta’s return by mentioning that spring is in the air; it’s not yet spring, but it’s coming

then, of course, we get this flood of sensory imagery about the golden glow of the bakery; here again is another image of fire, and this time, in addition to hope, it represents warmth and sustenance, food

I do not think the use of “golden” is accidental here, as we have gold and yellow imagery used often for Peeta

Katniss is made almost dizzy by the rush of scent and light, but then that icy personification of reality (of despair? of death?) runs its fingers down her back and she begins desperately digging in the trash

it’s pretty telling that the bins are described as “heartlessly” bare and then we immediately meet the heartless witch herself

Mrs. Mellark is quick to dehumanize both Katniss and Peeta, treating Katniss like an animal “pawing” in her trash, beating Peeta (seemingly with an object, not her hand) and calling him a stupid creature; what is particularly cruel is that she knows Katniss is out there, or was a moment ago, starving, and yet she tells her son to feed not the little girl, but the pig

but Peeta, kind Peeta, brings the bread to Katniss; and remember, we are told of his small (not so small) sacrifice as Katniss is standing on the reaping stage, having sacrificed herself for her sister; we know these two characters are sacrificial and compassionate from the jump

of course, with the information we are given in the second book, we can see this moment as a symbolic sort of toasting; a wedding, not by party or paper, but by pity and provision

and here’s that beautiful, intimate image that stands in opposition to the icy fingers of death; the heat of the bread, of life; it burns itself into Katniss’s skin, as a brand of hope and of connection to the boy with the bread, and she welcomes it, clutches it closer; Gale may have fire, yes, but Katniss held Peeta’s fire to her heart first

(as an aside, of course Peeta makes an incubator for Haymitch’s gosling eggs: he is the one who brings warmth and life)

speaking of Gale: I will forever give him credit for helping Katniss feed her family … but, again, Peeta did it first

notice that Katniss falls into a dreamless sleep; he isn’t even sharing her bed yet, and Peeta is already helping her have “no nightmares”

and now, at last, spring is here; spring comes to Katniss with Peeta; he is springtime, with all its color and brightness

Katniss notices the dandelion that reminds her of her father (by the way, unless I’m much mistaken, burdock is in the same family as dandelion, and what’s even crazier is that the flower family they both belong to is the Asteraceae family—yes, this is where Asterid comes from—which is the daisy family) (“here it’s safe, here it’s warm / here the daisies guard you” indeed) reminds her she is not doomed; we learn later that Burdock told Katniss as long as she could find herself (her name plant), she wouldn’t starve; Katniss does manage to find herself, in more ways that one, but she has to find the dandelion (Peeta) first

growing up as a fat bullied girl means that book carrie was everything to me and seeing her constantly stripped of her physical reality feels like a personal insult at this point. even if you want to argue about "beauty standards of the seventies so maybe she wasn't fat but she was just a bit more curvy" the text is right there. she has weight on her and she has acne and she's frumpy. by making her "hollywood ugly" they’re completely missing the point of why her story is a tragedy. it’s easy to feel bad for a beautiful girl who’s just a little shy but it’s a lot harder for a general audience to look at a fat weird girl and acknowledge her humanity and that's exactly why the story needs to be told that way

and i just know they’re going to make her a perfect little angel again because they’re too scared of her actual personality. in the book carrie is genuinely spiteful even before the prom scene (when we see her inner thoughts she has violent fantasies about hurting her bullies iirc amongst other moments) because being bullied for years doesn't turn you into a saint it turns you into someone with a lot of repressed rage. she’s a sweetheart deep down sure but she’s also weird and difficult. the whole point is that she’s an unconventional victim. she isn't "relatable" to the people who would have been her bullies and that’s what makes the prom scene so visceral

It’s a moment of pain, delusion, hypocrisy, grief, magic, and rebirth. A teenage girl has lost, to her knowledge, her last blood relative and has been told she will never have another. She’s full of postpartum hormones. She has to cope with the fact that she traded her last relative for the life of the man she had to convince herself to love, her abuser and rapist, and it didn’t work. And it didn’t work by any fault of her own—it was Jorah’s. And she knows it was his fault but he’s her fucked up security blanket. Her only link to Westeros, the place she has been groomed to believe is her birthright and destiny.

She is 14. She is prepared to die. Fire cannot hurt a dragon, and she has been told her whole life she is the blood of the dragon, that she is better than the others. She must find out the truth. She condemns Mirri to a terrible, cruel death. But she is also willing to face that death. She tempts the gods to strike her down. If she lives, she is the blood of the dragon, she really must be destined to rule, and thus the execution, in her mind, would be justified. And if she dies, then perhaps she was wrong, and as punishment, she suffers the same cruel death as Mirri.

But she lives. More than just lives. She weds the fire. She awakens dragons from fossils. She puts her own life at stake to ask the universe if she really is the chosen one and the answer she hears is yes. So now she must live with that answer—even if she comes to find she does not like it. It weighs heavy on her. “This could be my home if I were not the blood of the dragon,” she thinks wistfully. She does not want to rule Westeros, but how could she turn back now? She bargained with her life and she was spared. She traded everything to receive this magic, this purpose, how could she ever go back? She can tell herself now that everything she does is justified because the universe told her so by allowing her to be reborn in fire with three baby dragons. If she looks back, if she stops her quest, what was it all for? What did she suffer being raped for? What did her brother die for? What did her baby die for? What did she execute Mirri for? What did she sack those cities for? What did the people of her armies give their lives for? How could she ever stop?

But it doesn’t change the fact that she condemned a slave to a painful death, violating her own principles. Mirri’s death was likely one of the most painful deaths that happens on page in the series. Mirri would not strictly have known that Dany was sold to Drogo at 13. All she knows is that her home was destroyed, her place of worship burned, her people raped and killed, and the survivors kept as slaves. And yet, even so, for all we know, she did try to help Dany. Drogo did not follow the instructions to treat his wound. Whether or not it’s fair to say she deceived Dany about the “life for life” and Rhaego is hard for me to say. Mirri didn’t want to do it. She did make it clear that it was a dark ritual. She was solemn. She warned Dany that Drogo’s death would be cleaner. Mirri never goaded Dany into saving Drogo. Mirri would have been perfectly content to let Drogo die and Rhaego live. She even offered to help make Drogo’s death as painless as possible—the very man who owned her as a slave, who ordered the sack of her village. Dany insisted.

Whether it was fair for Mirri to assume this 14 year old understood the cost, I can’t say. But it is worth noting that Mirri didn’t want to do it. She was not in a position to refuse. Dany even offered to free her, which, to Mirri, would highlight Dany’s power. It says to her that Dany has the ability to free her (which, in all fairness, if Drogo was alive and well, I don’t think she would’ve had that power, but that’s speculation and Mirri wouldn’t have known that). Even after this, Mirri still warns her. And I do believe based on that text that Dany truly thought the horse was the cost. But that’s just my speculation. What might have happened to the baby had Jorah not taken her into the tent? She thought to herself that Jorah had killed her child by bringing her in the tent, but after that, Mirri’s comments make it seem as though Rhaego would have died regardless. But perhaps it is the same as Tyrion telling Jaime he killed Joffrey. A lie meant to sting. Mirri was told that if she did the ritual, she would be set free. And the ritual was interrupted, and there she was, not freed, and then condemned to die.

Dany could not see things from Mirri’s perspective. She could not see the cruelty in her actions. How could she? She lost nearly everything. Her husband, her child, most of the khal, the survivors like Eroeh she had tried to protect. But Mirri was a slave, a slave Dany herself had claimed, who tried to help her. She did as she was asked and she did it with a kind attitude towards Dany. Mirri would have let Dany and Rhaego live. Mirri warned her. Dany insisted.

The fever dream Dany has when she’s sick after Rhaego’s stillbirth tells it best.

She’s running. She’s afraid of waking the dragon. Those are the words that haunt her as she runs. She’s trying in all her futility to run from the dragon. To the only thing she really wants. Home. Love. Warmth. Security. Peace. And it only gets further and further away as she runs towards it. She sees Drogo, now lost. The dragon will wake. Jorah tells her of Rhaegar, the last dragon, now lost. The dragon will wake. She sees Viserys, declaring himself the dragon, now lost. The dragon will wake. She sees her son, who would have been a dragon, now lost. The dragon will wake. She sees her ancestors, dragons of the past, now gone. The dragon will wake and she’s so terrified. She’s running from the inevitable. She feels the wings burst through the skin of her back. She sees the world, “and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings.” The dragon, the dragon is waking. She throws the door open and there before her is the last dragon. It is her.