Posted on 03/24/2012 4:50:45 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network
Actually, even your comment is funny. I read interviews with the author soon after the 1st book started being successful. She had no political bent at all. The idea of the book actually began revisionisning of the Roman empire and the outlying vassal states that Rome used as slave labor, even reaping slaves from those states to fight to the death in Roman arena's for Roman audiences, but in a post apocalyptic setting. Everything from the arena to the tessarae is lifted directly from history. I don't think the author gave the cause of the apocalypse, the rebellion of the outlying districts or the politics of either much thought.
The government and central control is CLEARLY the bad guy in this movie, and their hideous caricatures help to enforce that. When I got home I made it a point to bring up the way the government official thought these poor starving kids who were about to fight to their deaths would be impressed by 'platinum doorknobs' - a platinum doorknob probably being worth over $100,000 (way more expensive than gold) and how the government hordes wealth for itself and lives in splendor while the people are starving.
The books do get more complex. Eventually, there are few good guys. Even those in rebellion against the capital are shown for what they are. As ever is the case, the little guy is always the pawn, and those in power are always corrupt. A message that I personally agree with.
A lot of people question how parents can let their children be taken from them to die a bloody and terrible death, televised and celebrated even, and not fight back.
The answer is that Snow, and those in power before him, use not fear or hope to keep people in check, but rather guilt. Specifically “suvivor guilt”.
This is the third generation of parents (74 years) under this system. Which means that these parent, and thier parents, breathed that horrible sigh of relief for 7 years of their lives when their names were not called at the reapings.
That these people breathe a horrible sigh of relief when someone they don’t know is called to be sacrificed. One of the reasons why in such a small community Katniss and Peeta don’t know each other is that it is emotionally safe to not get to know someone you may have to watch die on the screen one day, or even may have to kill one day if that’s what it takes to live.
But even the victors don’t survive. Haymitch is a classic example of someone suffering from suvivor’s guilt. For 23 years after he wins the games, he has to deal with the guilt of surviving. Then he is forced to mentor two other children every year and watch them die.
He crawls into the bottle to escape from his life. Some victor.
And yet, we find out, there is no one left for him to protect, so why not fight?
Because guilt destroys the ability to act more than anyother emotion. Guilt is what wracks all of the “survivors” of the story. Guilt is the heavy weight on Katniss’ emotional pendulum.
Guilt is something we don’t talk about in our culture, but Collins puts it on full display in her books.
Guilt is the tool of the Devil, and in the book of his acolyte Snow, and is how good people who want to do good, find themselves frozen by self-doubt, self-recrimination, and self-loathing.
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