Always Stay Cool Like A Swimming Pool

These books aren’t subtle, but that’s the point, considering how easily readers and Hollywood alike ignored Collins’ intentions and her messages about oppression and authoritarianism. Sunrise on the Reaping isn’t just a primer on media manipulation; it’s Collins confronting a certain type of Hunger Games fan head-on, asking them exactly why they’re editing out her stories’ most uncomfortable themes and what they hope to achieve by softening the overall message to cater to their own palates. 

My biggest gripes about Sunrise on the Reaping center around how I feel that Collins had softened her own message and edited out her story’s more uncomfortable themes to cater to the palates of readers. I’ve argued that Collins has done exactly what the author of this article is suggesting fans have done. Perhaps the reason for that has something to do with the fear that she would not be able to get her message out without packaging it in the way she did: with an easy-to-love and easy-to-root-for Haymitch who does nothing to cause dissonance in the reader’s interpretation of him; the sanitizing of victors like Wiress with her “bloodless win” and Mags with her motherly touch; garish caricatures of the loathsome Capitol types and Careers we’re supposed to hate; a sea of Rues to cry over when our plucky and heroic Haymitch fails to save them; an easy to digest and overly-explained plot; and on and on. So many things about this book do not serve to challenge the very notion of propaganda that it is supposedly trying to highlight. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think Sunrise on the Reaping is the propaganda.

Propaganda is designed to deliver information in such a way that appeals to our emotions and not to our reason, because if it appealed to our reason, we might question its message. One way to accomplish this is to make the vehicles of your story All Good or All Bad so that each clearly imparts your message. We cheer when Maysilee claps back at Drusilla or when the Careers die because we’ve been primed to hate them. We cry when Ampert and Wellie die because we’ve been primed to love them. There are few gray areas in any of the characters, and the only characters who ostensibly do get to keep a little of their original grayness are such blunt instruments of exposition and plot escalation that it’s hard to take them seriously, either.

It's not even the book itself (which has all the problems I’ve been outlining) that concerns me as much as the fandom’s reaction to it, because they are reacting to it in exactly the way propaganda functions to facilitate. We’re told:

-You cannot engage with the material in a transformative way; you must only engage with exactly what Collins wrote and how she wrote it. Speculation is frowned upon (and because the book is so bluntly direct, there’s little room for it anyway).

-You cannot ship any ships that Collins did not explicitly declare in the story.

-You cannot criticize any choice that Collins made within the narrative. Such terms as “retcon,” “fanservice,” and “plot holes” are heavily discouraged. Anything that happened happened as we’re told it happened, even retroactively, and if you notice contradictions as a result, you’re wrong.

-You must only engage with the content from a Watsonian, in-universe perspective. One is never to engage in a Doylist interpretation of considering Collins’s motivations for one choice or another, because to do so might suggest she did not possess all the answers for her own canon. All decisions are final and perfect, and when things don’t make sense, they actually do, you just need to read it properly. Like a fundamentalist’s interpretation of an infallible Bible.

-We must accept that Collins Had Everything Planned Out Perfectly From The Start, and if she didn’t, she stitched everything together so well that you can’t even tell! To suggest that she may have created plot holes, retconned a few things, or contradicted prior concepts within her own canon is to suggest, well. You’d better not suggest it.

-You’re frankly not allowed to dislike this book, period. Of course, people do, but it’s so damn hard to say so outside of specific spaces and tags because the hordes of “thou shalt nots” descend upon us when we try. It’s similar to anti rhetoric, except instead of just anti-shipping they’re anti-critical engagement of any kind, and they make sure to silence it when they see it. Why? Because propaganda creates a strong attachment to a certain narrative, and the narrative here is: if you dislike SotR, it’s obviously because you’re bad and wrong. (“You’re racist, you’re sexist, you hate the South, you hate innocent children, you didn't get the message, you're too young to understand the themes, you're too old to enjoy YA anymore, you this, you that.”)

I’m certain that Collins had never intended to assert herself as a god or put herself on this pedestal that fans have heaved her on (and if she were one of those authors heavily critical of fandom, welp, since when has that ever stopped fandom from transformative engagement?) So for the fans to assert the Word Of God anytime someone engages with the content in a transformative way, speculates on a different outcome, ships a non-canon ship, or criticizes decisions within the narrative is frustrating, and more than a little Orwellian. And, if Collins was trying to prove a point by the way she sanitized and bowdlerized SotR, she made it loud and clear.

How does the whole body double thing work on a practical level? Do they have doubles for all tributes? For all years? What about the cases of favourites such as Silka, Mariette or Panache? Because part of the reasons stated for why the whole Lou Lou thing is that she (and the tribute she is replacing) would likely die in a bloodbath. But for favourites, would the Capitol ensure that they die in the bloodbath/ early?

The group's name is 'Ghost A.D.' because somebody at the Ministry thought it stood for 'After Death' instead of 'Anno Domini.' They sing only the songs that metal-heads on Reddit don't like. Buying enough merch gets you sacrificed live on stage after the encore. 'De Profundis Borealis' is the OP for the anime adaptation ('I Was A Satanic Pope And I Got Reborn As An Idol?!'). Working on releasing figurines that you will be embarrassed to have on your shelf.

oh my