by yomargey

Hunger Games didn’t really eat holes in my brain the way that it did for some other people but god the opening lines. The opening lines. Katniss wakes up in bed and immediately, instinctively reaches beside her, only to find the bed empty and cold. Before we even know her name – before we know literally anything about her or this world or her place in that world – we know that she loves someone. We know that she is reaching for where Prim should be, sleeping safe and warm beside her, but Prim is not there. She is not there, and her half of the bed is cold and empty.

People talk about characters being “doomed by the narrative” when most of the time the character was literally just a well-foreshadowed death, but Prim WAS doomed by the narrative. It’s the very first thing we learned. It’s the most key, integral, important piece of information we’re given about everything that is about to happen: Every single choice Katniss makes is to protect her little sister, and it isn’t enough. In the end, Prim still dies. Prim was dead before the story even started.

Katniss, reaching. Prim’s side of the bed was cold and empty. There is no version of this story where Prim could have been saved.

Katniss, reaching. The very first thing she does in the series. She wakes, and she reaches, but Prim is already gone.

THAT is how you do Doomed By The Narrative.

Edit: Also it is key that there was literally nothing Katniss could have done differently. If she had not acted to save Prim, Prim would not have survived the Hunger Games. But by acting to save Prim, Katniss accidentally kicked off an entire rebellion and ultimately massively increased the amount of danger Prim was actually in. The key is that this is irrelevant. If Katniss had done literally anything differently, Prim still would have died. If Katniss had faltered or changed course at any point, Prim still would have died. There was never a point where Katniss could have changed Prim’s fate.

There’s no version of this story where Prim lives to see the end of it. She’s dead before the story begins. That’s doomed by the narrative.

losing my mind at how the opening line “when i wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. my fingers stretch out, seeking prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress” immediately sets up the hunger games story to be pyrrhic if not outright tragic. (SPOILERS!!) line one establishes katniss’s only goal is to protect prim and in line one she’s already too late. she puts herself in harm’s way over and over, kills people, goes to war and brings down the entire world government all for her love for prim, who was doomed from the start. the love didnt save anyone but it was there etc the shire has been saved but not for me etc etc

I unironically love the character names in the Hunger Games series.

Haymitch, Peeta, Hazelle, Leevy, Maysilee, Finnick and Greasy Sae look bizarre when you first see them written down, but then if you think about how they look and/or sound it's pretty clear that they're meant to be modern names, only modern names that have changed spelling and pronounciation over time— as you would have expected them to have done so over how ever many hundreds of years it's been since our modern day.

(Remember, though The Hunger Games themselves have only been going on for 75 years, the universe they're in is canonically post-apocalyptic— the reason nobody ever mentions what's happening in the rest of the world is that everywhere except America was destroyed in a nuclear war. We're not given much of an indication how long it's been since then.)

Peeta is Peter, Haymitch is Hamish, and Hazelle is Hazel, Maysilee is Maisie— the changes in pronunciation are slight (Peeta and Peter are already virtually identical in my accent), and the spelling has changed to match.

Leevy is either a corruption of Lily, or more likely I suspect 'Livvy', a common nickname for Olivia; Finnick is probably from Finnegan (shorten in to 'Finneg' and then say it over and over very fast); Sae could be short for Sarah, or Sally or even Susan— it's not uncommon for nicknames to become real names in their own right (look at Harry or Molly as examples).

I also love the trend of having District 1 parents give their kids names relating to the luxury items their district produces— Glimmer, Marvel, Gloss, Cashmere, Velvereen (presumably a corruption of 'velveteen'), Facet— because those things are all a) objectively pretty/nice (like naming a kid 'Diamond' or 'Star' today) and presumably status symbols in their district.

Meanwhile District 3 does the same thing, but all the pronunciations are corrupted. You've got technical names to do with the manufacture of electronics— Wiress (wireless), Circ (circuit)— but you've also got what I'm pretty sure are meant to be corruptions of modern brand names— Beetee (BT), Teslee (Tesla).

To me this kind of suggests that District 3 is less conscious of this influence than District 1. Like, parents in 1 are more likely to deliberately think "I'll name my kid Glimmer, because things that glimmer are pretty" whereas 3 as a culture might have genuinely forgotten that those names used to mean something, in the same way that most of us don't think much about how the name 'Arthur' comes from the old word for 'Bear'.

And of course, then you've got the Capitol leaning hard into those ancient Roman vibes with names like Fulvia, Plutarch, Seneca, Tigris… but still using the European/American personal name+family name format, which the Romans didn't really do. Like it's very clear that this is a future society fetishising the classical era, rather than an actual resurgence of Roman culture.

It's just such a cool world-building detail. So many dystopian novels just go for modern names (and there's nothing wrong with that, especially if you're only looking a couple of hundred years into the future) but thinking about how names might have evolved over the centuries and the different naming traditions that might have developed in different areas really adds a whole new dimension to the culture of Panem.

I think the saddest character in the Hunger Games franchise is Mags Flanagan. She is as almost as old as the Games themselves. She won the 11th Hunger Games. Then, for the entirety of her life, for over 60 years, she was forced to relieve that same trauma year after year, trying to train kids, save kids, just like herself. Over time Mags watched the Games get more brutal, more “entertaining”. She watched her community sacrifice two children over and over again. There is nothing Mags can do but bare it. She desensitizes herself. She reaches her 80s. She is old and almost free of the pain; the trauma has formed a callous. But Mags will continue to work until she dies. This is all she has ever known. 

Then, the 75th Quarter Quell is announced and Mags is back on the stage for the first time in 60 years. A reaping outfit. Her name in a glass bowl. The tension, the dread, the silence before the reading of the name – Annie Cresta. But to Mags, it never mattered the name that was picked. She knew her hand was going up. And for the first time since she was a child, she is back in the Games. 

During her the 11th Hunger Games, Mags was caged in the zoo with the other tributes. This time, she is presented with a gorgeous suite, the best food the Capitol has to offer, and the finest clothes. The 11th Hunger Games were televised on a blurry screen; now, all of Panem is going to watch her every move. Mags knows she isn’t going to win. But, as she spends the last weeks of her life walking in the shoes of every child she couldn’t save, as the trauma of her own Games is as alive and present as it has ever been, she knows that, for the first time in her long life, she was able to truly save at least one person from this fate. 

Hope is a funny thing. Mags picked apart the Capitol’s logic and the heart of the Games long ago. She knows why they allow one victor, and how every tribute goes into the arena hoping its them. She knows this is unrealistic; all of Panem knows that only one will come out alive. But even as she rises into the ticking clock of the arena, that stubborn feeling flutters in her chest. Maybe she will get out of there with the rest of the rebels. But if not –

Mags looks to Johanna. To Katniss and Peeta. To Finnick. Her hope for them is stronger, steadier, than the hope for her own self-preservation. She looks into the cornucopia of weapons, the familiar ring of twenty-four tributes, and allows herself to dream that maybe, maybe, this is it. This will be the last one. 

For the first time in over half a century, Mags won’t be watching the Games from the comfort and safety of a faraway room. This time, she has the chance to help directly. To be able to protect others with more than just a parachute full of supplies. To have the ability to save another life. To save multiple lives. To save all the future children of Panem. 

The gong sounds.

Mags smiles. 

She dives into the water. 

happy new year besties remember to feel the rain on your skin no one else can feel it for u only you can let it in

love that it’s been more than 10+ years on this hellsite and i’m still the kind of asshole who will spend a 3-day weekend complaining about being bored, only to finish the actual work i had after midnight on sunday

question. do your irl friends know about your presence on this hellsite or are you in full hannah montana mode for life