Your funeral, bud

-The Awakening.18′

Customer (calling from Ireland): “Yes hello, I would like to -”

Sheep in the background: *gentle baa*

Customer: “Uh, sorry, what I want to do is -”

Sheep: *slightly more insistent baa*

Customer: “No, not now! -cough- Excuse me. I have a reservation and -”

Sheep: *VERY LOUD ACCUSATORY BAA*

Customer: “Arnulf! Please be quiet, I am on the phone! … Sorry, I sincerely apologize on behalf of Arnulf.”

me: “I love and forgive him.”

Customer: “Don’t, he doesn’t deserve it. Anyway, I’m calling about -”

Arnulf: *small, very self-satisfied baa*

These books were about an indigenous woman (with a brain injury in book 3) living in poverty overthrowing a corrupt white government.

She was demisexual, had stomach hair, was not even remotely romantically driven (and canonically didn’t even find romance until after she had finished a revolution.)

And Peeta was disabled and physically abused as a child and they both suffered from mental health problems and the parallel between the Capitol and the ruling rich was so very transparent.

And I’m seeing fun coloured makeup in stores labeled “Capitol colours from the Hunger Games”!

These books were about the revolution of the most oppressed taking over the extravagance and elitism and decadence of the ruling class while citizens starved.

These books were a parallel to our current social dynamics, they were a call to arms. They were a battle cry for the impeding ruin of the rich white ruling class.

When Katniss thinks about running away in the second book it is the memory of Rue that makes her decide to stay and “cause all kinds of trouble.”

That is an indigenous woman deciding that the death of a Black child is so horrific and unacceptable that she needs to start an entire uprising about it. That is WOC solidarity.

Then again, when Katniss is talking with Peeta about not leaving he literally, canonically and verbally SAYS it’s because of Rue.

The movies did not lend enough weight to the injustice and violence that Black women face; they didn’t waste any time in deciding the rebellion came from their White Katniss’s determination to overthrow the Capitol.

The movies purposely and aggressively erased all of the racial oppression and power and dynamics that were so apparent in the books.

They made Katniss white, they made Gale white, they erased Peeta’s amputation, they seriously diminished the PTSD both of them faced (which was actually one of the more accuract accounts of PTSD I had ever read in the books), they drastically lessened the weight and importance of Rue’s death.