#implicit submission

this post has been in the works since i finished sotr, but i wanted to revisit ballad before sharing my thoughts. one thing i absolutely loved about sotr is that snow was not the #1 Main Antagonist so much as The Capitol, abstractly, because it hammers home one of the most essential points of the trilogy. we have this image of tyrants like snow as all-powerful, hyper-intelligent demigods four steps ahead of everyone else. like a snake charmer, they woo a population into submission with superhuman charisma. we have that concept of snow because that's katniss' view of him, and certainly the view he has of himself in ballad. snow in sotr entirely disrupts that perception. in fact, during each substantial interaction between snow and haymitch, snow appears, more than anything else, weak. in haymitch's words, "he's just a man, as mortal as the rest of us."

in private, snow's fragility is a striking juxtaposition with the young man he presents himself as in his own narrative. in the meeting at the heavensbee home, snow is retching and shuddering from poison. he seethes over how, half a century ago, the heavensbees were rich enough to keep books when he had to burn them. though haymitch doesn't, we know that he's word vomiting about the covey because he’s still not over a girl he had a thing with 40 years ago. the implications of this doomed tribute are so concerning to snow, a man with indefinite and unlimited authority and resources, that he arranges a meeting with haymitch under the guise of warning him that, should his behavior continue, his family will be harmed.

only, that's exactly what happens. publicly, snow and haymitch are caught in a chess match in which, each time the audience is paying attention, haymitch forces snow to forfeit a pawn. when haymitch slow claps over louella’s body, snow has no escape. he is "mocked" on camera by a boy wearing a covey necklace. later, the most snow can do on stage at the victor's ceremony is issue a subtle threat to "enjoy your homecoming." yes, haymitch's family will pay. but that wasn't what snow wanted. it wasn't sid who drank his milk. it wasn't willamae who flooded his watchful eye with its own tears. snow had been unable to kill haymitch, even in the middle of a televised battle royale. amongst the roaring applause for the victor, snow must crown him victorious, kneecapped by the demands of his own people.

not only is snow astonishingly fallible, but he is never solely responsible for any of his horrors. in ballad coriolanus was powerless, and he had to take matters into his own hands. he killed bobbin personally. he used highbottom's weakness against him by poisoning the morphling. only sejanus was not his death blow—but he, a lowly, rank-and-file peacekeeper, reported his friend knowing it would inevitably result in his death, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise. in sotr, not a single one of the atrocities snow orchestrates happens by his hand. from lou lou to beetee and ampert to the games themselves to the deaths of sid/ma/lenore dove, each one involves a substantial number of people. each requires scientists and escorts and gamemakers and arsonists and peacekeepers willing to execute his plans.

so why would people back someone so feeble? someone who is not only personally weak, but whose power depends entirely on other people? because it's not snow they're supporting. it's not even the games, for which people still need convincing. it's what they represent. the message, even 50 years later, must be constantly reinforced to every citizen of panem with posters painted in blood to spread the narrative of "no capitol, no peace." in the districts, "no peacekeepers, no peace" means that, without the peacekeepers upholding the system with their guns and whips and ropes, they will be obliterated for their crimes. just like district 13. in the capitol, "no hunger games, no peace" means that, without the games to punish the enemies responsible for "starting" the war, they will forget and try again. and the capitol will fall besieged once again.

this messaging works because both sides still have people who remember the dark days. they remember the brutality of the capitol and the siege of the rebels. to the survivors, capitol and district alike, giving up their rights and self-determination is unequivocally worth preventing a return to war. it's not a conscious choice, of course. it's implicit submission. and the critical point is that people implicitly submit not to their specific role in upholding the system, and not even to snow, but to the narrative. to the opinion of government. to the inevitability of the system itself. and snow, as the #1 peacekeeper, manifests that narrative.

we meet characters from the districts and capitol alike who represent various points on the spectrum of implicit submission. people who swallow the propaganda wholeheartedly like drusilla, someone who lived through the aftermath of the war, who has dehumanized her enemies so much that she channels her cruelty and selfishness to abuse "their" children. ones who, in the face of hopelessness, forfeit their morality, like jethro callow and the booker boys. those who believe, as mr. donner does, that whatever facade of power their wallets provide is enough to spare them from the system which fuels that facade. and people like effie, whose kindness and humanity remains intact, who feel true sympathy for those who suffer in the name of upholding the system, but swallow like sugar the belief that it is for the greater good.

snow, specifically, appeals to each of these people, whether as a villain or as a savior, not because he is so intuitive or charming or brilliant as he considers himself to be, but because no one believes the propaganda more than coriolanus himself. throughout ballad, he constantly questioned his theory of governance, but he never, not once, questioned his core belief that the capitol is superior to the districts. that capitol people are superior to district people. when lucy gray threatened this fundamental reality by becoming someone worth loving, he first tried to distance her from his enemy by emphasizing her covey background. but when he went to 12 and saw her among his enemies, he decided he'd rather kill the piece of himself capable of love than consider that his belief system might be flawed. 40 years later, he's still not past her because she is the lock on the dam which keeps his cognitive dissonance from spilling over.

snow only learns one lesson in those 40 years, the one he adopts in the epilogue of ballad during his gamemaker internship: the value of a group project. he is successful in coming to power because he realizes that, whether they’re the intoxicated capitol crowd cheering on haymitch’s scar or the gamemakers who maysilee and maritte kill, every capitol citizen is fundamentally necessary to upholding the system over which snow now presides. regardless of their degree of complicity in its maintenance, the implicit submission of the feeble-minded masses is what keeps it running. what snow does not learn by the 50th games is that he is one of them.

not, of course, that he had the opportunity to understand that before—it was the heavensbees, after all, not the snows, who got to keep books for reading and not kindling. by the 50th games, however, coriolanus has no such excuse. yet, he still decides to send haymitch the milk pitcher in the arena. he could have had haymitch killed at any point before now, but he needs haymitch to suffer more than just an agonizing death. he needs him to die a selfish being, who deprived a poor, starving girl of her salvation, or live as a pariah, who poisoned her to survive. it is not just haymitch who needs to die. it is his poster. the opposition to the narrative. to the essence of snow's being. but it's that very choice which causes snow's plan to collapse. because his catch-22 is cut off by silka’s axe.

this moment, not his performance of illness to plutarch and haymitch, not his notice of a covey necklace while haymitch stands over a dead girl, not even his crowning haymitch victor, is what best portrays snow's weakness. that best demonstrates that he doesn’t have ultimate control over the depravity of the games and panem’s system of stratification and subjugation. snow fears chaos more than anything in the world, swallows the propaganda and rises to the top of the government in search of unimpeachable control. yet, despite his supreme power, he does not find what he seeks. because the fear, the pain, the oppression, and the deaths do not serve him; he serves them. his efforts are undermined not by some powerful capitol usurper, but by a scared and brainwashed teenager from district 1 desperate to get home to her family and to glory. his authority is undermined by his own belief system.

snow does not learn his true place during the 50th games. but the lesson is still there to be learned. and people do. plutarch, beetee, wiress, mags, and every subsequent member of the rebellion learn that snow is only one step of the battle. coin, too, learns it, training the focus of her most problematic adversaries like katniss and finnick on him so that they don't notice her. but no one learns the lesson better than haymitch. over time, he comes to realize that the threat to be defeated is a pitcher of milk, not a bag of gumdrops. the real enemy, the true antagonist, is not one man who positions himself as the villain, but the movement from where he sources his power. the real enemy has always been the capitol itself. snow was never the snake charmer. he was always just a snake.

which is why, when the war finally comes, haymitch is not among the parade of people clamoring to kill snow, but rather in the control booth directing the mockingjay. undoubtedly, haymitch wants snow dead. but, at this point, he has the perspective to recognize that his failure in the 50th games was snow's failure, too. which is why, when the war is won, he aligns his vote with katniss. because, after 25 years, he's come to know exactly what she's known from the minute she held out the berries. the lesson she learned from peeta, who's always understood that everyone, even snow, is a piece in the capitol's games. that snow’s death changes nothing. because the power is in the message, not the voice. and if the message isn't contained, its voice can change with a flip of a coin.

I’ve just finished re-reading The Hunger Games (book one) and there are a few themes that I expect SOTR will develop based on Hume’s implicit submission theory. Specifically, these are the main six tactics I believe the Capitol uses to thwart another rebellion present in the first book alone: 

Societal Pressure:

District 12 has a “keep your head down” culture. Any talks of rebellion are frowned upon. Any anti-government statements will cause social repercussions. It’s not just Katniss rolling her eyes at Gale in the woods, it’s how she has been groomed by the culture to keep quiet about the issues pervading life in the district:

“When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually, I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob.… Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food shortages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be?” (p.6)

All of this proceeds the statement:

“Even here, in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you.” (p. 5)

Under this point, it is also telling that during the reaping ceremony, Katniss says the “boldest form of dissent [the audience] can manage,” is silence. Not outrage, not yelling, not like district 11, but silence (p. 24).

2. Division between Classes 

The Capitol has created conflict within the districts to draw hatred to a local target. In the case of the first book, Gale remarks tesserae is a tactic to keep them divided. 

“Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected. On other days, deep in the woods, I’ve listened to him rant about how the tesserae are just another tool to cause misery in our district. A way to plant hatred between the starving workers of the Seam and those who can generally count on supper and thereby ensure we will never trust one another. “It’s to the Capitol’s advantage to have us divided among ourselves,” he might say if there were no ears to hear but mine.” (p. 14)

Interestingly, tesserae is already known as the “courtesy of the capitol” as stamped on Haymitch’s shorts in SOTR. The Capitol markets tesserae as something it does out of goodness. It attempts to make itself seem well-intentioned via the distribution of necessary goods. It’s their courtesy, after all. 

This point also includes the division between the districts. In the games, Katniss remarks how allying with the careers is essentially traitorous. 

“No one from District 12 would think of doing such a thing! Career tributes are overly vicious, arrogant, better fed, but only because they’re the Capitol’s lapdogs.” (p. 162)

By treating certain districts better, the Capitol promotes distrust between the districts, dampening potential unionization with planted hatred. By choosing favorite children, the parent that is the Capitol forces the districts to fight. 

3. Weaponized Language

The name of the Treaty of Treason, the treaty that makes the Hunger Games necessary per the law, is definitive of how the districts are forced to see themselves. They are the ones who committed treason by rebelling, and therefore they are guilty. They must repent by sending the children to the games. The permanent treaty, read during every reaping ceremony, enforces the guilt the districts are supposed to feel. In turn, the fact it is a “treaty” means the districts must have agreed to and signed it. Regardless of the circumstances around the signing of the treaty, the capitol then has the ability to wave it over their heads henceforth. 

The name itself points a finger and keeps the districts forever at fault. 

Furthermore, the fact Katniss is referred to by her district number until and even after she is given something to remember her by (the fire) further dehumanizes the tributes. During the parade, she says the citizens of the capitol have liked her and Peeta enough to "read the program" and learn their names (p. 70).

There are many more examples of villainizing and dehumanizing language in the book, but I have chosen those examples for the sake of brevity.

4. Propagandizing Education

A major theme in many dystopian novels is how the system treats education. In District 12, Katniss tells the reader:

“Besides basic reading and math, most of our instruction is coal-related. Except for the weekly lecture on the history of Panem. It’s mostly a lot of blather about what we owe the Capitol.” (p. 42)

A weekly lecture in a school is quite a lot of time to devote to any one subject. Seeing as how the rest of their curriculum revolves around district-specific content, the weekly lecture must be mandated across all districts, likely leaving the rest up to the discretion of the district itself. The Capitol once again emphasizes how the districts were wrong. It is repeated week after week, and eventually, it becomes ingrained in the social psychology of the district. 

5. Hunger and Deprivation of Needs

Continuing from the section about Katniss knows the weekly lecture must be propaganda, saying,

“I know there must be more than they’re telling us, an actual account of what happened during the rebellion. But I don’t spend much time thinking about it. Whatever the truth is, I don’t see how it will help me get food on the table.” (p. 42)

This point coincides with my second point about the division of classes. By keeping the people hungry, they are too busy thinking about the lowest rung on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. They see those who have food, and they are the opposition in front of them, rather than examining the source of the problem. By keeping the people hungry, they are less likely to have the time or ability to even think about a collective uprising. 

6. Limiting Flow of Information

The Capitol limits the flow of information between districts. In doing so, the districts are forced to make bridging assumptions about one another. This is revealed through Katniss and Rue’s discussion in the games: 

“It’s interesting, hearing about her life. We have so little communication with anyone outside our district. In fact, I wonder if the Gamemakers are blocking out our conversation, because even though the information seems harmless, they don’t want people in different districts to know about one another.” (p. 203)

By keeping them separate, they can turn any district against another. They rely solely on the Capitol for information about other districts, and therefore the Capitol has all of the power. 

Interestingly, another division between classes is shown through Peeta’s knowledge about other districts. He knows the different types of bread from the districts, implying the merchant class may have more access to information than those of the seam, leading to further division between classes. 

All in all, these are the themes I expect to be addressed in SOTR based on the pretense of implicit submission.

See Catching Fire's themes here

"In the girls' pen, Maysilee's gripping Asterid's hand while weeping Merrilee embraces her, their three blond heads pressed in a tight knot" (Collins 21).

Asterid was best friends with one of the tributes who died. Considering that they were both part of the merchant class, she could have been distantly related to Maysilee, too, although that's more of a theory.

I wonder if Asterid ever had an argument with Burdock and mentioned that his best friend survived the Hunger Games while hers died. It's hard to know whether Maysilee would have pushed Asterid away like Haymitch did to Burdock, but that's an interesting parallel that Burdock's friend survived, only for Haymitch to forcefully ruin the relationship by throwing rocks at them. I wonder if Asterid looked at Haymitch's face in absolute disgust because here he was literally throwing a stone at her head when her best friend should have lived instead.

"Out of the corner of my eye, I see almost everybody around me follow suit, but Otho Mellark, a big lug of a guy whose folks own the bakery, seems bewildered. His meaty hands dangle loosely at his sides and his feet shuffle back and forth, and then I notice his blond hair's splattered with someone's blood. Burdock punches him hard in the back of his knee and it's enough to get him down on the ground and out of the line of fire" (Collins 23-24).

Having grown up with his parents owning the bakery, Otho has always been well fed and probably knew that he would inherit the bakery. That upbringing explains why he would consider resistance to be more futile than implicit submission. In this moment, he is given a direct view at the dangers of rebelling, which reinforces his ideas, but is also much closer to him than normal. Being from the Seam and having Lenore Dove as a girlfriend explains why Haymitch and most of the kids around him like Burdock know the real danger of this.

For Otho, that blood on his hair was probably the first close call, the first person killed right in front of him. That was the first moment that he was directly impacted by the dangers of rebelling, which explains why he was so shocked and bewildered. These events also provide reasoning for why he taught Peeta to find the middle ground, helping build the character that was able to smile when he saw the Capitol citizens. That directly contrasts with Burdock's upbringing of Katniss, which was that Panem had major problems, but that looking out for yourself and your family were the primary goals. Burdock taught Katniss to hate the Capitol but to visibly tolerate them; Otho taught Peeta to see the wrong in the Capitol but to visibly accept their ways, two forms of implicit submission.

Another interesting point is how Burdock, Katniss's dad, literally saves Otho, Peeta's dad. I wonder if that's one of the reasons that Otho showed up with those cookies for Katniss. He likely remembered when her father got him down on the ground to keep him out of the Peacekeeper's spray of bullets. Otho did the best he could as a form of comfort to Burdock's kid, since there was no way he could protect her.

Also, page 26: Plutarch is literally trying so hard to keep Haymitch from getting himself killed.

"Don't be stupid, kid. She'll kill you with a snap if you mess up again" (Collins 26).

i’m still processing all my *thoughts and feelings* so this may be a bit half-baked, but i think asterid is a fascinating case study in implicit submission. because she doesn’t start that way. and most importantly, she doesn’t end that way.

asterid can be analyzed by considering hume’s doctrine of implicit submission from his “of the first principles of government” essay iv, which says that while “force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.” hume extends the “opinion,” which can be understood to mean ideology (maybe not the best word idk), into two categories—opinion of interest and opinion of right. the former involves the idea that government in general is a good thing, and also this government isn’t really worse than any other conceivable form. opinion of right can be further divided into the right to power and the right to property.

right to property is somewhat self-explanatory, so we can look next at the right to power. that is largely about how a government in power gains a lot of its power from the idea that it (and by extension, the people in power) has always had power, so it will, and thus should, continue to have power. this concept is much like the heavensbees in the capitol—snow himself disdains but cannot refute the notion that the heavensbees embody panem, because the heavensbees have always embodied panem, and thus maintain the right to wealth and the sprawling mansions and the endless libraries. he tolerates it, largely because he, too, is among this class. he implicitly submits.

asterid, likewise, is among the privileged within her community. the “government” which affects her day-to-day life is, yes, the capitol, but more so its extension of the peacekeepers and the mayor in district 12. she doesn’t engage with the capitol citizens or its rulers, but she does engage with the peacekeepers that require her family to place a banner in the window and the mayor who reads the treaty of treason at the reaping.

asterid should subscribe to the “opinions” of government more than most—she certainly should have an opinion of interest, because, she is decently fed, has friends, and not the worst life. yes, she’s in the reaping, but so is everyone tangible in her world, and she’s in the bowl less than most. there’s no real reason for her to be able dream up a better system, or necessarily to want to.

as far as opinion of right, the government owns the property (see katniss and snow’s conversation in the study in cf, where she says “he has no right, but ultimately every right,” to occupy her home). but asterid has all the access she needs. and with the right to power, the capitol has always had power, true, but so has she—it’s understood through the physical features that the merchant class shares (blonde hair, blue eyes), which differs tremendously from the seam (lower class) people, that the privileged, “powerful” class in district 12 have always been afforded proximity to the government’s right to power and the benefits therein.

but asterid doesn’t. she, much like plutarch, rejects the submission which should come easier to her than to most of the people of district 12. why? because of the three limitations on the opinions which empower government—“self interest, fear, and affection.” hume emphasizes that these limitations don’t overthrow a government on their own; they require a lot of people to reject and/or utilize them accordingly. that said, an individual’s expression of any of the limitations can extend somewhat far in terms of their own autonomy.

asterid, of course, fears the government, and protects her self-interest (her life as described above). she doesn’t run from the reaping. she doesn’t step too far out of line, as far as we know. but she does wield her affection as a healer as a means of force. she treats those in the seam and takes no payment for her services. she falls in love with a man from the lower class and rejects the relatively comfortable life to which she was born entitled. in doing so, she sacrifices the right to extend such comfort to the future children she may have had with otho mellark. these actions are inherent objections to the stratification of the classes of district 12. in other words, our girl is a class traitor, and she commits.

however, embracing these limitations only goes so far. her fear for her family’s safety takes over when she bans the hanging tree, and when she silences katniss’ defiant speech at home. when her husband dies, asterid’s affection turns against her. she enters a catatonic state which endangers the life of her children. had she fallen in love with a man from town, she may have still gone into a catatonic state, but she would have the resources to treat herself and go on. because of her small acts of opposition, otherwise insignificant to the government and its power, she lost the privileges of her prior proximity to the government’s right to power. so, she implicitly submits.

but that’s not true anymore once her daughter comes back from the games. she returns to treating people with no payment. she’s in more danger than ever before, and yet, she brings gale to her home in the middle of the night. after that, she risks prim’s safety by allowing her to aid the steady stream of beaten bodies which arrive on her doorstep. she begins to envision a better world—in district 13, she does her part to help the rebellion. she models the same behavior for her impressionable little girl. a child best known for following in her mother’s footsteps in appearance and in behavior. a daughter whose life is blown to pieces because she, like her mother, refuses to submit.

while it’s true that asterid suffered far more from her small acts of defiance than was proportional, and certainly far more than she gained, i think that she stands as a extension to hume’s assertion that the limitations on the opinions of government can only achieve so much. his example is in collective action, like the rebels fighting the war. it’s true that asterid did not participate in destroying an arena or shooting a gun. but without her affection for a seam boy overtaking her fear and self-interest, we would never have had katniss. without her demonstration of love across stratified lines, katniss would not have prim to protect, or, if she did, a will to do so. without her healing, katniss would never have known how to save peeta (or herself) in the arena, and panem would have never seen the trick with the berries.

Thanks for your ask!

The answer comes from a few different places, but it ultimately leads back to David Hume’s essay Of the First Principles of Government. (It's a short read, and I highly recommend it!)

In Of the First Principles of Government, Hume discusses implicit submission. He maintains governing bodies derive their power from public opinion, and it is exactly why all of the characters acted the way they did in that scene. I will break it down by character, but first I want to examine some context in SOTR.

In the text, the training scene right before Plutarch begins to question Haymitch foreshadows the later scene:

“There’s this moment, just as I get to my feet, where I look around, and I’m armed, and they’re armed. A half dozen of us hold sleek, deadly knives. And I see that there aren’t many Peacekeepers here today. Not really. We outnumber them four to one. And if we moved quickly, we could probably free up some of those tridents and spears and swords at the other stations and have ourselves a real nice arsenal. I meet Ringina’s eyes, and I’d swear she’s thinking the same thing.” [...] “The more I think it over, the more my dismay grows. Every year we let them herd us into their killing machine. Every year they pay no price for the slaughter. They just throw a big party and box up our bodies like presents for our families to open back home.”

When you read this as context to the scene in the arena, it is the same idea. The armed tributes outnumber the Gamemakers, and in the arena, everyone is on equal footing. The tributes have the numbers and the momentum of days in the arena behind them. 

There are two lines that are thematically significant in this section. The first line is from a Gamemaker: 

The Gamemaker with the drill raises her mask and straightens up to a full height. "That’s right. And all four of you are in absolute violation of the rules. You must immediately withdraw or there will be repercussions." "That’d be a lot more impressive if you weren’t shaking like a leaf," observes Maysilee, fingering her blowgun. 

The only defense the Capitol worker has is that of governing status. She attempts to assert the rules of governance on her side by claiming that they are all in violation of the rules, and therefore they must submit to the Capitol by leaving them alone. Even she knows, as her shaking voice exposes, there is no true way to enforce this rule. This is where David Hume’s essay comes in:

"When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion."

The force is always on the side of the governed. The governed, in this case, are the tributes of the arena. Yet, in the arena, where the purpose, according to Dr. Gaul, is to strip man down to his base instincts, a governing body cannot exist. The government exists to make sure man doesn’t regress to said instincts. Therefore, the government cannot exist in the arena in the same way it does in the rest of Panem. Ergo, the public opinion needed to enforce the rules is obsolete, to the point where both parties are on equal grounds. There is no illusion of power. 

The second line is: 

Silka seems stunned into inertia as well. “What’d you do? Did you kill Gamemmakers? They’ll never let us win now!”

Silka still believes there are winners in the games. In fact, she goes so far as to say “let us win”, thus she recognizes that the Capitol has true control over who wins, and prior to this, she expected to be able to win. Now, she believes winning is a right that the Capitol can revoke, which lends itself to the idea of Hume’s secondary principles of government:

"There are indeed other principles, which add force to these, and determine, limit, or alter their operation; such as self-interest, fear, and affection: But still we may assert, that these other principles can have no influence alone, but suppose the antecedent influence of those opinions above-mentioned."

Because Silka expects to be able to win, she is stunned into submission under her expectation of particular rewards:

"For, first, as to self-interest, by which I mean the expectation of particular rewards, distinct from the general protection which we receive from government, it is evident that the magistrate's authority must be antecedently established, at least be hoped for, in order to produce this expectation."

On the other side, fear stuns Haymitch. Hume details how fear is a form of submission:

"No man would have any reason to fear the fury of a tyrant, if he had no authority over any but from fear; since, as a single man, his bodily force can reach but a small way, and all the farther power he possesses must be founded either on our own opinion, or on the presumed opinion of others."

Haymitch recognizes how futile it would be to take down a few Gamemakers. It is the same reason he deduces when he reflects on his time in the training center. They may outnumber the peacekeepers in the training center, but what would happen? It would be a fruitless rebellion, and public opinion would squash anything that could potentially develop from it. Hume’s discussion of fear is not exactly fear of the tyrant himself, rather, fear of the power he possesses over others. Snow had public opinion on his side outside of the arena. Killing a few Gamemakers here would just bring upon the tyrant’s arsenal.

Maysilee and Maritte, however, both recognize that the perception of power via public opinion doesn’t exist in the arena. Both realize they cannot be punished more than they already are. I don’t usually quote the movies, but I think Reaper’s taunting of the Capitol when he rips the flag down in the 10th Games suits this philosophy extremely well: 

“Are you gonna punish me now? Are you going to punish me now?”

Both girls act because they are disillusioned with the power of the Capitol. They refuse to submit. They are free from the secondary aspects of self-interest, fear, and affection. Maysilee alludes to the idea that winning was never going to happen in the first place: 

Maysilee’s voice drips honey. “Still chasing that sad little dream, Silka?” 

While one can interpret this by assuming Maysilee means she was going to kill Silka, it can also be taken to counter Silka’s belief of a fair win, calling it a dream. Maysilee likely recognizes the Capitol can always give advantages to people they want to win, or send mutts on whoever they don’t like. We see this with Titus in his games. She doesn’t submit. 

I would like to cross reference this with the 10th Games in Ballad, where Coriolanus and Sejanus entered the arena. Dr. Gaul used Coryo’s experience in the arena about a lesson on human nature: 

“Without the threat of death, it wouldn’t have been much of a lesson,” said Dr. Gaul. “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.”

Later in the scene, she talks about how the death of Coryo and Sejanus would not have brought anyone closer to winning. This is the same idea, just from the perspective of what would have been the Gamemakers, had they survived: 

“What did you think of them, now that their chains have been removed? Now that they’ve tried to kill you? Because it was of no benefit to them, your death. You’re not the competition.”  It was true. They’d been close enough to recognize him. But they’d hunted down him and Sejanus — Sejanus, who’d treated the tributes so well, fed them, defended them, given them last rites! — even though they could have used that opportunity to kill one another.  “I think I underestimated how much they hate us,” said Coriolanus.  “And when you realized that, what was your response?” she asked.  He thought back to Bobbin, to the escape, to the tributes’ bloodlust even after he’d cleared the bars. “I wanted them dead. I wanted every one of them dead.”

Interestingly, he makes a point about human nature that calls back to what Hume is saying:

“I think I wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if you hadn’t stuck me in that arena!” he retorted.  “You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.” Dr. Gaul began to wrap his wound in gauze.

While initially it seems to validate Dr. Gaul’s argument that humans, by nature, are violent creatures, his refutation actually provides the basis for the very reason Maysilee and Maritte killed the Gamemakers. “[They] wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if [the Capitol] hadn’t stuck [them] in that arena”. 

The arena does not strip people of their nature. It forces them to submit for the very secondary aspects Hume provides. The governing body forces them to kill, and by stepping into the arena, where the Capitol has stripped itself and all beings of their own power to display what it believes to be human nature in its primitive form, it has erased the protection of public opinion. 

The Capitol holds no real power in the arena itself. Sure, they bomb it afterwards to clear out the four tributes. Sure, they sic the mutts on Maysilee and Maritte, but they do not govern in the way they do over Panem. 

Inasmuch, the Gamemakers died because the arena disillusioned Maysilee and Maritte to their implicit submission. The moment the Gamemakers entered the arena, they were powerless as of their own creation.

Catching Fire introduces new, more violent tactics of implicit submission early on. Just like the first book, the themes start right in the first couple of pages. I discussed six themes of implicit submission in the first book here if you’d like to read how Collins ingrains submission into Panem. Otherwise, here are five new tactics of implicit submission introduced in Catching Fire:

Control of Thought

The Capitol presents itself as the sole authority figure for information. In doing so, it is able to change the public opinion in an Orwellian way. 

Collins represents the control of information early on through Greasy Sae. Upon returning from the games, Katniss learned the Capitol promoted Gale as her cousin. 

“Gale going to see you off?” She asks me. “No, he wasn’t on the list,” I say. “I saw him Sunday, though.” “Think he’d have made the list. Him being your cousin and all,” she says wryly. It’s just one more part of the lie the Capitol has concocted. When Peeta and I made it into the final eight in the Hunger Games, they sent reporters to do personal stories about us. When they asked about my friends, everyone directed them to Gale. But it wouldn't do, what with the romance I was playing out in the arena, to have my best friend be Gale. He was too handsome, too male, and not the least bit willing to smile and play nice for the cameras. We do resemble each other, though, quite a bit. We have that Seam look. Dark straight hair, olive skin, gray eyes. So some genius made him my cousin.” (p.12)

The most important part of this discussion comes afterwards. Katniss can tell Greasy Sae knows they’re not related, but both women know that they are not free to discuss it openly. 

“Greasy Sae knows we're not related, but even some of the people who have known us for years seem to have forgotten.” (p. 12)

Through the Capitol's continuous promotion and assertion of the relationship between Katniss and Gale, the insistence from the highest authority of information changes the minds of even those who have known Katniss for “years”. Nothing is safe.

The Capitol also plays a “mixture of propaganda and displays of the Capitol’s power” on the television. (p. 162) This is likely most damaging in districts with reliable power. Citizens in d12 cannot watch television all day due to both their labor and unreliable electricity, but citizens in higher districts, like career districts, would be more susceptible to this kind of indoctrination. 

For example, the citizens of the capitol are able to vote on the wedding dress. Despite the pictures of Katniss launching the same day as the announcement of the quell, they still vote. They likely do not understand they will not see a wedding. The vote gives them something more to worry about. Something frivolous, like the girl-talk of clothes, hair, and shoes Katniss says she hates in the elevator with Johanna. The propaganda is a pacifier in itself. Katniss will die, there will be no wedding, yet they still vote on the dress like their vote matters. 

2. Looming Threat of Authority

As I discussed in my previous post, District 12 has a “keep your head down” culture. Even if they know something is wrong, they will close their shutters and disassociate from the offender. Collins puts it more bluntly in Catching Fire. After the new peacekeepers begin stationing in the district, Katniss realizes she was wrong to expect people to revolt.

“An uprising requires breaking the law, thwarting authority. We've done that our whole lives, or our families have. Poaching, trading on the black market, mocking the Capitol in the woods. But for most people in district 12, a trip to buy something at the Hob would be too risky. And I expect them to assemble in the square with bricks and torches? Even the sight of Peeta and me is enough to make people pull their children away from the windows and draw the curtains tightly.” (p.130)

They even refuse to use Hazelle’s services. While they claim there's nothing to be washed, it's likely due to her association to her son Gale. 

This increase in fear is mirrored in the architecture. The peacekeepers hang banners, occupy “nests” of machine guns, and construct “an official whipping post, several stockades, and a gallows” (p. 128). The increase in presence of the authority through visual materials, such as banners, seals, and swept cobblestones, all exist to apply pressure to the culture of submission of District 12. 

Katniss and Peeta, who have brought food to the district through winning the games, are left out in the cold both literally and symbolically. 

This tactic is used across all of Panem as well. 

After the scoring sessions, Peeta blatantly tells the dinner table he wanted to “hold them accountable,” to which Effie responds:

“This is dreadful…. That sort of thinking… it’s forbidden, Peeta.” (p.240)

She later leaves the table when Katniss follows up Peeta’s admission with a confession of how she hung a dummy of Seneca Crane. While her reaction may be partially credited to wanting to protect the pair from the wrath of the gamemakers in the arena, when coupled with what Haymitch says after the interviews, it emphasizes how free thought is dangerous and taboo in the Capitol:

“I don’t think they know themselves what to ask. The whole situation is unprecedented. Even the idea of opposing the Capitol's agenda is a source of confusion for the people here,” says Haymitch. (p. 259)

Under a government that presides on obedience and submission, free thought is a weapon in itself. To thwart the sparks of ideas, the capitol relies on both social pressure and grandiose displays of authority to scare citizens into submission. 

3. Formulated Presentation

Often, the Capitol will spin the truth to shift the blame onto the districts for their shortcomings. Collins represents this in the conversation about shrimp at Octavia’s party: 

"Oh, Katniss, we haven't been able to get any seafood for weeks!” says Octavia. “You know, because the weather's been so bad in District Four.” (p. 165)

The uprising is the real reason there is a seafood shortage, but the Capitol cannot tell the citizens that. To maintain the image of an all-powerful entity, they must blame something out of their control- like the weather. They cannot blame the district, or it would raise questions as to why they don’t just put an end to it. It’s a leash with a noose at both ends. If the capitol obliterates four like they did thirteen, they would sacrifice the fishing industry, but maintain their image. If they lose their image by telling the truth, the citizens will begin to see the cracks in their trusted figure. Therefore they must lie. They must spin the truth.

We see this in the lie of the graphite mines. Katniss is under the impression d13 mined graphite until she meets Bonnie and Twill. We then learn even Katniss is susceptible to the lies the capitol orchestrates. A district that has the skill set and resources to create nuclear weapons is more frightening than an opponent that mines pencil led. There is some truth to this lie, as well, which is why it works. Katniss knows there are mines in d13. 

“They were graphite miners,” I say. But then I hesitate, because that’s information I got from the Capitol.  “They had a few small mines, yes. But not enough to justify a population of that size. That, I guess, is the only thing we know for sure,” says Twill. (p. 147)

The only thing Twill can be certain of is the conclusion she came to herself on her own logic, not the information from the authority. 

4. Restriction of Speech

During the victory tour, Peeta must speak off of Capitol-prepared note cards. When he tries to add his own remarks as encouraged, Effie and the Capitol must review and edit them, meaning his personal remarks are no longer his own, rather, a diffused version of his once personal prose. 

Inevitably, the victors become figureheads on their tours. Anything they say can cause outrage or docility. The censorship of their speech is an important tool to keep all of the districts in line.

Even during the party in the Capitol, Peeta begins to simmer over. He bluntly says:

“Maybe we were wrong, Katniss.” “About what?” I ask. “About trying to subdue things in the districts,” he says. My head turns swiftly from side to side, but no one seems to have heard. The camera crew got sidetracked at a table of shellfish, and the couples dancing around us are either too drunk or too self-involved to notice. “Sorry,” he says. He should be. This is no place to be voicing such thoughts. (p.81)

5. All-Powerful Entity

One of the more striking traits the Capitol attempts to embody is that of the all-powerful entity. Panem lacks religion. Katniss does not know what angels are when she visits the dome in District 11. Religious iconography is a relic of the past. Their god is that of President Snow. Interestingly, the language Collins uses to represent this theme is best in the quote right after Bonnie and Twill announce their destination. 

“That snaps me back to my senses. These are delusions. District 13 doesn’t exist because the Capitol would never let it exist.” (p. 148)

The Capitol convincing everyone they have the ultimate authority to decide who and what remains creates an ecosystem of fear. The citizens are afraid of Snow’s power. However, when faced with certain death, Seeder weaponizes the fear herself in her interview:

“Back in District 11, everyone assumes President Snow is all-powerful. So if he’s all powerful, why doesn’t he change the Quell?” (p. 251)

This is a common argument used by atheists against God- which is why it is so powerful in Seeder’s interview. If God is all-powerful, why does He allow bad things to happen? It’s chipping away at Snow’s image by putting it in front of his most powerful devotees- the entire audience. 

Interestingly, right before the interviews, Katniss says:

“However much Snow may hate me, this Capitol audience is mine.” (p. 249)

They are listening to the victors. It’s the same reason why Snow did not allow Katniss and Peeta to meet previous victors on the tour. It’s all optics. He cannot show the victors agreeing with the stunt of the berries. It’s why the berries are a big deal in the first place- the Capitol must prove it can control every situation even down to just a few berries.

Continued Themes from the First Book:

Monopolizing Information

One of the buildings the rebels had to overtake in District 8 on the night of the proposal was the communication building. Panem lacks robust communication systems between districts. They must rely on the Capitol for communication, which not only allows the Capitol to spread misinformation easily, but it also isolates any embers of rebellion. 

“This, of course, you don’t know. You have no access to information about the mood in other districts.” (p. 21)

They also isolate the districts through other infrastructure:

“But Eleven has transportation now, so there’s at least a hope of them getting some food out.” (p. 383)

2. Hunger and Deprivation of Needs

Beyond just social pressures, the negative punishment of closing the mines, moldy, rat-crawled rations, and increased sentencing for forgotten crimes all serve to punish even the thought of rebellion in District 12. 

I’ve finally finished re-reading Mockingjay before the release of SOTR, and as expected, there’s absolutely themes of implicit submission on both sides of the rebellion. While the other two books largely focused on the ways the Capitol enforced submission, d13 is guilty of the same crime. This is a continuation of my two previous posts about implicit submission: The Hunger Games (Book One) and Catching Fire. The following is a list of tactics either the Capitol or d13 employs to govern the many. 

Timing of Information

A key factor in swaying public opinion is timing. In d13, both Katniss and Coin know this. Katniss attempts to use it to her advantage by forcing Coin to solidify the terms of their agreement in front of an audience. She thinks this will ensure Coin is held accountable for her side of the conditions. Instead, Coin uses this request to attempt to sway d13’s opinion on Katniss.

Katniss, who has not been following her schedule, attending to her duties, or socializing with d13 citizens up until that point, has lacked the conformity d13 desires. Coin emphasizes this fact and uses it to single her out in a place where uniformity is the standard. 

“She has been the quickest to determine that I have an agenda of my own and am therefore not to be trusted. She has been the first to publicly brand me as a threat.” (p. 59)

In turn, she brands Katniss as different, as other, as not to be completely trusted. In the eyes of d13, this strengthens Coin's status, as it cements the idea that she is working to serve the people without condition, while Katniss is working to serve herself.

2. Permitting Only One Story

As known from Catching Fire, Katniss avoids the television in her house, as it usually only broadcasts propaganda. Interestingly, we get more intel into what kind of content is permitted on the airways:

“An anti-Capitol statement. There’s never been anything like it on television. Not in my lifetime, anyway.” (p. 106)

This correlates with how they refused to air the interviews in Catching Fire. The Capitol does not want to present opposing ideologies. To the capitol citizens, there is only one answer, and there can only be one answer. They are constantly fed the same programming on their televisions and any media source they acquire. The capitol cannot present any form of opposition, as it could lead to anti-Capitol thoughts. It’s the same reason why Octavia believes shrimp is impossible to get because of storms in District Four, when it’s actually due to the rebellion. There can be no other side, only the narrative they know, or the Capitol risks losing its omnipotent image.

3. Illusion of Safety

This point is more symbolic than a specific, implementable tactic, but I still think it belongs to this list. The Capitol citizens’ reactions to being told to gather in the city center is particularly interesting under the lens of panic.

When Katniss arrives, she describes it as people “milling around, wailing, or just sitting and letting the snow pile up around them.” (p. 345).

When contrasted with the chaos of the fall of the Nut in District Two, where people were “slamming, shoving, scrambling like ants as the hill presses in,” Collins juxtaposes true panic from human instinct to the lulled reaction of the capitol citizens (p. 207). 

In this way, it seems the capitol citizens, who still transport valuable items with them, believed Snow would protect them. Some had even seen what the rebels could do from the gunfire on the roof, but, similar to the Games, much of their exposure to the rebels came from their televisions. The Games had conditioned them to have a heightened sense of protection. Take Fulvia Cardew’s reaction to seeing wounds: 

“I swear, the sight of [my scar] triggers Fulvia’s gag reflex. For someone who works with a Gamemaker, she’s awfully sensitive. But I guess she’s used to seeing unpleasant things only on a screen.” (p. 62).

The conditioning of capitol people through years of watching violence on a screen, only to be shown clean, polished victors on stage after the games, created a disconnect between real violence and televised violence. Because the capitol relied on televisions to warn the citizens of the intruders, they instinctively did not render it as a panic-inducing threat. Instead of scurrying to safe havens like ants, they grabbed their valuables and walked.