The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping

But this is a prequel. My understanding is it's a prequel to the original Hunger Game's trilogy yep, dealing with I believe, twenty five years earlier the Hunger Games that Hamage the Woody Harrelson mentor character participated in and spoiler he wins, yeah, well yeah, exactly, Like I mean, because it's a prequel, we have that problem of you kind of know where people will end up, right, and maybe there are characters who are introduced to You're like, I

don't know who this is, so they're probably gonna die type of thing. But it's so I'm going to spoil what I have read, sure, and that is that a lot of the things that take place in this novel are described in the original trilogy, like Hamage's Games, and what happens in reality is not at all what was described in the Hunger Games. And it's kind of like a the Hunger Games had a revisionist history and this is like, this is actually what happened.

obsessed with it along with my sisters. And so since then have just been, you know, have loved this series and this kind of world that Susan Collins has built. And when the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes came out I, which, for people who don't know, is about Snow. It's from Snow's perspective, but it's written President Snow, president of pen M. But it's written in third person, and the other Hunger

Games books, including Sunrise, are written in first person. When that first came out, I was kind of hesitant about it because I was of the belief then that, like, we don't need any more of Hunger Games. The trilogy is fine, it's perfect way it is. I don't want to risk going back into that and kind of ruining it, And so it took me a couple of years to read that book. I think I read it like a year and a half two years later and quickly realized

I was wrong. I actually really love Ballad of Songbirds of Snakes, which I think Matthew, you and I have talked about that.

it was going to be about. But then they told us it was going to be about the the second quarter quell Hamig's Games, but they didn't still didn't tell us who the who the voice was going to be, and and so I was kind of like, I don't know if she'll give it give us Hamage's perspective, because we've already we know the gist of what happened in his games because Catness uh watches it with Peta in Catching Fire. We don't really need to retell that story.

So Zan Collins isn't isn't one who tells the story that's already been told. Well, I should have known that she pulls something out of her hat to surprise everybody, which is that obviously it's it's propaganda what Catness and Peter watch and Catching Fire and and we don't know the real story, and and the you know, propaganda becomes

the big theme, which we'll talk about later. But I just that's really speaks to what I love about Suziane Collins and about the series in general, is that she's such a good writer and respects I think the craft of storytelling too, like she would really views it as as the art that it is, but also that there's a structure to it. There's a way to like break things down and to help things flow easier and help people understand it, not make it so complicated and convoluted,

and still tell really engaging and important story. And so I think so many people love The Hunger Games for a reason, and I think that that is the start of it all.

up something that kind of doesn't match with what we already have in the established canon for what comes later. And I found myself going through that same process of reading parts of this book and thinking, wait a minute, this is not this doesn't match up with what we know happened is even Susanne khl Oh okay, I get

it now. And I thought that was just so brilliant that she, like, like you said, approaching as a craft, approaching it as the art form that it is, and really knowing, like, here's the way people think about prequels is that we are going to be, whether consciously or subconsciously, trying to match this up to the story we know.

And what she's reminding you is that a part of so much of this being first person narrative is that everyone is to some extent a unreliable narrator because you know, sometimes they don't understand their own emotions, which are these are really great things they did in batness for so often, but also they're telling you what they experience, and everythink

they're experiencing is through the media that they know. And it's kind of funny too, because she'd already done that to us, you know, the books had told us that Area thirteen, District thirteen doesn't EXAs because it was cat miss telling us and she didn't know that it existed, and so I kind of should have been ready for that, but for herd it is again was so great.

reader's expectations. I think is an excellent technique and use of the first person, and it kind of loses a little like in film form because even though you have a protagonist that stories are often told from the perspective of a film, really like takes you outside of them and makes is like third person by default, right unless you have a very specific st or right.

certain reason, but it is sometimes something else. And and so I kind of I always viewed Catnus a little bit as like a biased narrator, an inherently biased narrators, as we all are as humans.

Like I enjoyed what I watched to the most degree, but I mean, from a perspective of it wasn't a happy ending, right, Yeah, Yeah.

writes when she has something to say. Danielle, what do you think she was saying in this book? What was the thing she wanted to say when she sat down to write this book, at least as it came across to you.

never like truly know. Even if they tell us themselves, they could be it could be lying or exaggerating whatever. But my own feeling from it is just that she was she was angry at a lot of things that are happening now politically in the US across the world, and propaganda is such a good theme, I think, to channel that anger through, because propaganda isn't inherently a negative thing. You can use propaganda for rebellions, as we see in the original trilogy, but you can also use it to

to ensure the longevity of an empire. Yeah, and and there's some quotes at the beginning, right before the actual narration starts, where it talks about, you know, all propaganda is a lie. I think George Orwell says that I don't think it's inherently bad as long as you know

what it is that you're doing with it. And I think that that's such a perfect just tool to use to talk about what's happening now in the US and just you know, all over the world, largely because of the US, to see where we lie on that what propaganda are we being exposed to? Are we aware that it's propaganda? If we are, why aren't we doing anything about it? Like, if it's bad, it's propaganda for something that is harmful to other people, why aren't we doing

anything about it? If we're aware of that, what choices do we have? And it's not really placing the blame on any one person. It's genuinely what I felt, asking the reader to question these things, to question if you have the opportunity to do something, to take action, and you don't, why, YEA, like genuine curiosity, Why haven't you done that? What are the reasons? And if you understand the reasons, then you can maybe understand how to work around them or how to work through them, how to

push against them. And I think that that was just so cleverly done in here by using some characters like Plutarch for example, I thought he was a perfect character to really explore that through. But Yeah, what struck me the most because I could go on and on about this, but it was just really the anger I think a lot of us can relate to, and that we ourselves have felt. It is just I think there's a reason. I think she says in the Q and A that she finished the book or not the hum and aid

the acknowledgments at the end. I think she finished the book in like August of last year, and I thought and the production company for the film was surprised whenever they were contacted about it. So she started writing it I think probably the beginning of twenty twenty four, end of twenty twenty three, So this is soon, like not that long ago. It's definitely in like there's a reason for it, right. It's an ants in response to something, and I think a lot of us know what that is.

And I think the other major theme that she talks about, and I really love it what you said, Danielle, it's

not about blame. The word she uses a lot is complicity, and it's heemits really thinking about how everyone in this system, including in some ways himself, is complicit in what allows things to happen, because and this is a theme that one of my favorite movies that I'll talk about again and again, Viva Vendetta really talks about, is that these systems, like the capital, like any kind of tyrannical government, exists

because the people are constantly doing things. They're complicit and allowing it to exist and allowing it to use its fear and whatever. And sometimes it's like you're complying, you're complicit because your other alternative is something truly awful, like imprisonment or death. And so that might be a legitimate choice you make, but that you have to understand that the cost of that choice you're making is to allow the horrible thing to continue.

he is like that. They becomes a part of imperial of the capital propaganda, and how he fights about against that and tries to rebel against that in a system that utterly kind of is ready for that and doesn't allow doesn't allow him to do it in any.

But it's also, like you said, a thread throughout the other books is how the truths themselves and especially the victors are are made to be complicit, but how the games, and this is a point in the ballot of Songbirds and snakes too about how the games like encourage that complicity to where it's almost like the tribute's choice at

that point. And and we see this in the original trilogy with Catnus in the first Games, her first games, there are parts where I have like little notes where's she sees one of the other tributes make a stupid choice about lighting fire in the middle of the night, and she's like, I have half a mind to go

over there and end it in her myself. And because she's so stupid, I probably wouldn't even feel guilty about it, and I was happy in the margins, Like this is Catnus thinking how the Capital wants the tributes to be thinking in the arena, because that is proof of Snow's philosophical ideology that once someone is put into the arena, their inherent nature, which according to him is evil, will take over. And I think it's so interesting that we see almost the opposite with Hamich. He goes into the

games accepting that he's probably gonna die. He is not trying to fight his way out of there. He has a mission, which, as we learn, is you know, like the starts or the kind of the little bow spark of rebellion. He has a mission, he's going to get it done, and he expects to die on his way out. And there is no part where he is thinking, how am I going to kill this person? I'm going, like seeing a person over there, I'm going to go get rid of them. Now, there's no time where he's thinking that.

The only time he does is whenever it's self defense, like genuine self defense, and he's horrified by that, like absolutely horrified by what he does. Yeah, and so I think it's not to say that like Catnus is worse or more susceptible than him, but it's interesting to see how differently this plays out with the two of them and what they both come to learn about each other.

Catnus's mother. And we learned also that himself Hamich has a girlfriend who is a Covey girl, Covey being the group that was kind of established as I don't think they're actually romani but they are kind of like traveler kind of community in this world at the time of Sunrise of the Reaping, at the time of Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds, and are similar in this time.

about in a bit. But uh so she gets in real danger, Hamich comes to protect her, and because of that, and because he fights a peacekeeper to do it, they just decide, you know what, we're just going to pretend that he was the one who got picked instead, So like Catness, uh he's not actually the one who's supposed to be picked. And like the the main tribute in Sunrise in Ballot of Snakes and Songbirds, so we kind

of had that through line. All three of them weren't supposed to be picked, but in some ways things were

rigged or another choice was made. So but he does get picked, he gets shipped off, and there's a girl who's supposed to be from their district who is very sick, having real problems, doesn't really adjust to this as well, and winds up dying on the journey, and in order to kind of like, well but we still have to make everything look right, they give them a different girl who basically is like someone the Capital has tortured for whatever reason, and have her pretend to be I think

the original character's name is Louisa, Is that right, And they call her Lulu to kind of separate Luela, thank you, And they call her Lulu to separate her, and we learn eventually that she is clearly from District eleven, and that's going to play into a lot of the kind of like district against district feelings. They get to the Capital, they have kind of some similar things because at this point District twelve has never won, or at least not

since uh uh, what's her name? Lorna Gray in Lucy Gray, who has disappeared. They are the only people who can be who can be mentors to Hamich are former victors from other areas, who turns out is going to be uh wires and mags who we learned learned about in the in the trilogy, and they kind of try to mentor him. He is disgusted by a lot of the things he sees. We go into the arena, and Wires has kind of tried to get him. I'm sorry, no, it's not Wires, it's what it's the other one.

arena and flood part of it. Meanwhile, there's this group, there's this attempt to basically combat the careers by getting a whole bunch of the non career districts together to bound together in an alliance.

to Hamich being able to do what he did. But for me, the real crux of it, and I think for Hamich as well, is how they change his character and when he has his interview, the big interview they do the day before everyone's dropped into the arena. He has to put on this kind of persona as everyone does, as all of the tributes do, and it's the persona that we come to know Hamige as in the original trilogy, but when we're reading Sunrise, we recognize it as just

a mask he's putting on. And even I think in Catching Fire, when Catnus and Peter are watching the recap of his games, she sees the interview and she thinks, well, he didn't need any coaching, Diddy, he knows exactly what he's doing, Like, that's just Hament and it's really sad to me. I made a note in Sunrise that it was really sad to me that Hamich had to be that fake persona he put on for the Capital for the rest of his life, like for the next twenty

five years, he had to be that. And I think he thinks this whenever he's watching the recap of his game for the first time. Is that none of the good things he did in that arena, you know, leading Lulu to safety, protecting her, going to look for the last remaining tribute from the non career districts because he would rather her win than him, and and all of these beautiful things that he does, dropping the chocolate down to the career tribute because she was crying and needed

a little comfort. None of these things are are shown on there, but for me, What really really portrays that is that when we watch that, when we read about the recap and catching Fire, we see him team up with Maisie Lee Donner and then they're together for a little while, and then it goes to a point where Hamich is obsessed with the edge of the arena. Maizie Lee wants to go somewhere else. Hamich doesn't want to leave, and so Maizle Lee says, well, I guess it's we'd

have to split ways eventually. I don't want to have to kill you, and then it goes the next scene is is Hamich hearing an attack and he runs and Maizi Lee's Maisley's dying, and so you think that they actually chose to, you know, separate, that that was their mutual choice, And in Sunrise it's such small change, but it's really really meaningful that Mazi Lee turns to go and a canon goes off, the canon that signifies the that a tribute has died, and they both spin around

to each other because they think that they're so scared that the other one might have died the minute they took their eyes off of them, and Hamich says, are you sure? Are you sure, you want to go, and Mazie's like, I don't know. I'm going to go get us some food and then we'll talk about it again, and that's when she dies.

stick together until the end. And like I said, it's a small difference, but it speaks so much to the sense of loyalty based on affection and not just logistics, not just strategy, that the capital wants so badly to deter anyone from thinking about even within their own district, Like, of course they're not going to want people to think that about people from different districts teaming up, but even within their own district, they don't want to show any sense,

like really a sense of unity while they're still alive for affection's sake. And I think that hurts Hamage the most too, is that the way that they recrafted that.

I've been watching one on Netflix called Million Dollar Secret, which is similar to The Mole, and it's a social deduction reality TV show where you're trying to figure out which contestant is the secret millionaire in the group. So it's like very similar to The Mole. And there are some contestants who play the villain on shows like this, right, Like they act in a certain way, and part of it is the editing, like the propaganda of it all.

The editor see this person act in a certain way and then edit it to accentuate that personality even more to the audience. And so I've participated in some discussions about this show and people are like, oh, I hate this per They're terrible. I'm like, it's it's a TV show like edited, Like it's not it's not personal, right, Like this is not necessarily who this person really is.

So I felt that strongly in that Hamage discussion in that like he had to play a certain character, and then on top of that, the Capital through their editing, made that even more a bigger personality, especially after he won, you know, in the post. In the post his Games editing, they obviously wanted to make him even more of the main character for the future, for the future broadcasts of this.

So that's yeah, I think that's like very prescient to just like propaganda in general, but especially like Reality TV, Like these these people did their human beings and they are to a certain degree playing characters.

element comes through and when I read it, it's it definitely hits the reality TV stuff and it also it hits to me on every time someone like takes one sentence a person says and blasts it on Twitter or

on TikTok or something else where. You're taking like, you know, one hundred and twenty eight characters or two hundred and thirty six characters or thirty seconds, and how easy it is to like, I think when we think about propaganda and lies and stuff like that, we think about making up things out of whole cloth.

And but the more I thought about, the more like it really makes sense that Like I think, so I saw someone say that was Lulu like one of their early attempts at hijacking a human, which is what we see them do to Peta in mocking Jay, like was she like a first iteration of that, and and like to think now, like I mean, I don't know whether Suzanne Collins had Lulu planned from the beginning like before, like back when the original trilogy was written. I don't know.

I think maybe not, But obviously it gives a new perspective to like Hamich's thoughts around Pete's hijacking and how much of that was was familiar to him, like painfully familiar to him. And did he think that he would ever see the real Pita again, because you know, Lulu was never the same after that and never got the chance to be the same after that. But yeah, it was devastating.

book we're going to see him like start drinking. And early in the book he makes some trades and someone gives we find out that he does work for a bootlegger, and someone gives him a bottle of alcohol, and I felt myself holding my breath in a way that I never really fully let go of until he got rid of that bottle, because I was so thinking, like, is he going to take his first drink because he just got reaped or something like that, And in some way it built up in my head that I was thinking, oh,

so maybe the last line of the book is going to be him thinking fuck it and cracking open the bottle because of like greeking, you mentioned all the just the devastation that Catnus goes through. He goes through just as much, but instead they kind of sneak it in in such an interesting way where they talk about how, you know, they don't really have morphine in this world. They have like medications that you take, uh, like basically you drink as you know, ways to dull the pain.

And they're basically like you know, some kind of sedative uh that has probably some alcohol in it. And they talk about him like there isn't a moment where he's like, well I don't need it for the pain anymore, but I need it for the mental pain. He just keeps taking it and again in the like I don't blame her in any way, but literally Catnus's mother just keeps bringing it to him without thinking that, like, without like wondering.

to him. And so what hit me when I read that was this is another thing that the capital has taken from him. Yeah, they've taken his ability to enjoy life without being numb to it. And I think that that is a is a tragedy in itself. And I don't know that I felt negatively towards Astrod Catnus' mom simply because it's one of those things that like cat Simpede, don't try to stop payment from drinking. They encourage it actually because of how awful it is for him without it.

And granted that was because yeah, yeah, And and I think that maybe with Cannis's mom it was kind of made probably similar like who am I to deny him this thing after everything he's been through?

we can't stop that from him. And then and then like also to her credit, they stopped seeing Hamage after several months because of what he did to them, and so there wasn't much chance, I think for her to really try and help because being around him became a danger to themselves as well. And I just think that that is just like the tragedy is just he used to have so much enjoyment of life and he didn't need this to help him through it, and the Capital took that from him.

Because yeah, so it's just it's just it's all part of this, this this piece and exactly so, Yeah, wreaking out ahead and ask your question.

story type of thing. This seems like an outlier, Like these are these sound like they are really well written books?

weaknesses to make it stronger. Actually, there's there's a part in mocking Jay where I I think a lot of people's criticisms of a first person mine included with some you know, underdeveloped writers is that it can tend to read like a log of what has happened, like what that person's day is like. And Suzanne Collins uses that to describe Catnus when she is at her absolute worst mentally,

where she cannot notice the specific like she usually. Catiness is very descriptive in her how she notices things, how she notices a room, how she notices a person or or something that's going on. But when after prim dies and she is just you know, she's heavily medicated and she's just wondering around the President Stowe's old mansion, she doesn't notice any of these things. We just get that she walked into a room and there was this thing over there, and then all of a sudden she's in

another room, and then she's walking down the hall. It's very very like, you know, it's like a log of what she's doing. But then slowly, over time we get those descriptions back. And to me, that is such a masterful way of using what most people criticize first person for to actually strengthen who Catinus is as a character, our understanding of Catinus and our ability to be in her head. And so for that, like I think that she has a firm grip on what first person is

and should be and can be at its best. But I also think that she is so familiar with how to tell stories to kids that doesn't like sugarcoat things, but also is really easy for them to understand. And I've seen other people talk about how the Hunger Games and even still Sunrise and Ballad being shelved as Ya and being so accessible to students, most importantly being published by Scholastic, which has incredible access to schools and young kids,

is intentional. Is very intentional. Uh So that these stories that are so important to have from as young as possible are getting to these students, and and that that it's not clunky, it's not it's not difficult to understand. The flow of this is so good. And I could talk about this forever. But the way she breaks down the narrative itself, the chunks of text, she does it almost like scientifically, like mathematically, there's uh, what is it?

There's three parts in each book, and at least in the first person POV books, those three parts are broken down into nine chapters, and across those nine chapters you get a full arc of a story. Now it's not a complete like the complete book. You wouldn't want to end a book on that arc, but you get a

pretty full arc. You have, you have a rye, you have, you have you start off, if you have a rise, you have a somewhat of a conclusion, but then you have a lead in to another one, and in each chapter those have their own little mini like three act arcs kind of, and that's what keeps the flow of reading. To me, like, so so well done for adults, but

also especially for kids. You want to keep kids interests in that, you want to keep teenagers interests and have them guessing about what's coming next, And the best way to do that is to have you know the rise and fall, the natural rise and fall storytelling as often as you can in the story without it becoming like overwhelming.

And I was interested to see if she would do that for Sunrise too, And she does three parts, nine chapters per part, a three act part, with a three act story within each chapter, almost definitely within each act. And I just like to me, like, I don't know, I didn't appreciate that as much as a kid like the structure behind it, but I knew that I just kept reading. I keep kept reading, kept reading, kept reading. Like I said, I finished them all, like each book

in a day. And but as an adult and as i've I've you know, I've taken writing classes, I've done my own writing and everything with that, I know how hard that is, and I know how intentional it is. And for her to put so much intention that way, like so much work and so much thought behind it for a YA book, like not to say that YA isn't as deserving is that as you know, as other books are, I think they're even more deserving of it.

I think it's even more necessary. But I just I think that it's I can tell that it's intentional, and I just really respect respect her for that. She doesn't phone it in.

of the books. But then also when you look at like the trilogy, you know, and I think there's a lot of questions about like is there gonna be a third third book in this sort of prequel trilogy, And I think there probably will be when she has something to talk about that, and we're gonna talk about that

a bit in the bonus section for members. But for me, I think the best thing I would say is that, like I, I often am aware of YA writing as being significantly different than adult writing, and it doesn't mean it's bad. I think there's some wonderful, wonderful YA writing out there. But like when I would read a high republic book that was written for adults and a high republic these are with Star Wars books written for YA, I could tell the difference. When I'm reading a work

by Susan Collins. Most of the time I completely forget that it's a YA book until we get to a romantic scene where the book will emphasize. And then they were kissing and kissing, and by the way, we mentioned like they never say making out, they never talk about hands, like it is very clear that all they ever do is kiss.

Mask of Fear, but my god, is it long. And while I would like a little more of the Hunger Games books, I could have used with a lot less.

there's so much nuance. The only characters who like me say this again, as to the POV thing, I think a lot of times what YA means is that you get less nuanced characters and characters who are more two dimensional, two dimensional and more like this is the love interest, this is the villain in Suzanne Collins books, especially in

this one. I think you get that. But the reason they appear two dimensional is because our point of view character is only looking at them two dimensionally, and that so often when our character gets the chance to know them better, like with Maislely Donner, they actually develop into

a much more rounded character. And so it's kind of a way to get away a little bit with some of that, like, oh, this is just a kind of you know, this is just a bad person or whatever, because our characters doesn't see them more than that, instead of the narrator telling you that a third person objective narrator and let me astually you use that to talk about the character of Maislely Donner some or Danielle not to talk with you to put it on to Danielle,

tell us a little about Maislely because I know she's one of your favorites.

But Mazie Lee starts off as I think it was probably a bit of a surprise to people that Hamidge does not like Mazie Lee at the beginning, like and most of were come to understand that most of District twelve doesn't like her, that she's a real uh like brat and snooty and thinks that she's better than everybody else and gives really mean nicknames to people. Is she calls hamich itchi itchy hey, Mitchie. When he had of what was there was like a it was like flea

season or something. I can't remember what exactly what it was. But so she's she's been really mean to the other tributes from District twelve before, so they don't really have any kind of feelings towards her. And for those who don't know, I think you I think you explained this earlier, Matthew, But just to reiterate, Mazie Lee is the aunt of Madge, who in the books is the girl that gives Catness

the mocking jpin. Right, So if you've seen only the movies and not read the books, you don't know who Madge is because she's not in the movies, but she gives Catness the mocking jpen before she leaves for the Games and tells her that it was her aunt's pen first and she was also in the Games. And that's the last we hear of Maisley Donner until this book.

And so you go in kind of expecting, like, oh, this is someone that I'm just gonna have like real kind of feelings about, I'm gonna love, and of course I do love her, but she starts all like she is just a real a real brat, and I think, yeah, But what's interesting is that as soon as they're on the train to the Capitol, all of her meanness is directed to the Capital people. It is not she actually sticks up for and defend and all of her District

twelve fellow tributes. Anytime someone from the Capital says something mean to them, she's like steps in and is like actually and gives them the most the like most insane reads ever, Like she is the queen of just takedowns of people, and she just really sticks up for everyone, herself included, and that continues throughout the rest of it. And she is actually the one who, when they're in the arena, encourages Hamich to not let the Capital use them.

It's very much kind of like how Pete is like, I don't want to be just another piece in their games. Maisie Lee is is that dialed up to like ten to one hundred even, And as you mentioned earlier, Hamich really comes to love her. They call each other brother and sister in the end their family, and it's a really beautiful evolution. I think she probably has the best arc in this book, Maizi Lee does, just because it's not what you would expect from when you first meet her.

And in the Q and A, Susanne Collins talks about her and says that Macy Lee is the angriest character she's ever written, and when she's in District twelve before

the Reaping, that anger manifests as meanness. But once she's around the Capitol, she knows that the Capital is who has made her life terrible, has made her life less than it can be, less than what she wants it to be, and so she knows exactly who the real enemy is and she directs all her anger to them the second that she is around them, And I think that that's just speaks to her character a lot like you.

I think it reminded me a bit of like, you know, when you're in school, there's someone who who is maybe mean to you a few times or or you know, wasn't the best, but then you kind of learn something about them or meet them on different grounds later on, and you realize like who their real character is and who they really are, and that that meanness was just a mask for something else. And that doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes people are just mean, but sometimes there's

more to them than that. There's a lot more. And I think Masie Lee was a perfect example of that.

making about how easily we are divided by propaganda. You know, because yes, in the world of the district, Masally's economic circumstances are significantly better than they are in you know, for someone like Hamig, who is very much the same, which is the neighborhood that Catnus also grows up in. It's like the poorest area of this district. But it's again, it's like sort of like, you know, if Hamig is one percent of the capital, she's maybe three percent of

the capital, you know, compared to their wealth. And that, to me, one of the moose striking scenes is that one of the first time that she turns that anger towards the capital is when they're on the train and they're being treated pretty badly, you know, being taken to the capitol. But they're all given sandwiches and they're just you know, kind of like, you know, if I went to a conference someone handed me a sandwich just wrapped up in paper, I'd be like, Okay, that's what we're doing.

But she's like, no, we all should get plates, and we all should get nice silverware. And Hamach just baffled at first, and at first is like, why is she worrying about this frou through nonsense when we're all about to go die, until he listens to her explain that no, the point is that like, we need to still be respected, they need to treat us like people, and that for her these things matter because that's how you show that you're still a person worthy of.

that way. I'll also say I appreciated that you mentioned the brother and sister because it is a nice part of the dynamic, But it also kind of felt like Susy Colin saying, I am not creating another love triangle here. He is just in love with his covey girl back home. That's all that's going on. Please don't think that that's what's happening here instead. Yeah, So I thought that was a nice way of her to being like, Nope, nope, cutting that off right at the past.

a year. Great would help support us all the informations in the show notes, and you get at every content, bonus content every episode, and bonus episodes once a month. But I'm trying that, and there's so much about this book that we haven't touched on. You had a great question Earlierre's any more questions you want to ask? I think there's probably one or two more comments I'm going to come up with, But anything else you want to ask about this book and kind of what we've said, well, I.

about adolescents. I write about War four adolescens, and that really like shows like how much respect she has for her audience, both young adults and adults, and it really made me think, like the classification of young adults is kind of bad in this case. You know, the three of us love our Star Wars cartoons, right, and we are all adults for like this is just good television, a good storytelling, And I feel like that's what's going

on here. But just cartoons a lot of people think are for kids, but in our discussion, like no, like there's definitely like adult stories being told here and they are accessible to kids but can be for adults. And I feel like that's the same thing that's going on here. But just the fact that books are classified in this young adult section means that just by definition, they get

bookended haha. Pun intended into this section where someone like me, like I have never considered reading Hunger Games until now, and like I think I should read, like because they're not even though they're they're classified as young adult, they're not necessarily for kids. Just like the cartoon discussion, they're accessible to kids, but they can be for adults.

and maybe even a little bit later than that. And it's purely business strategy, purely business strategy from publishing companies that has there's a lot of conversation amongst authors and readers and publishers themselves about about whether YA has been useful or not, whether it's it's kind of you know, boxed in these stories that people are trying to tell, and and and if the perception of it has maybe you know, led to some really great stories not getting

into the hands that they should be in. And what I like about The Hunger Games being classified as YA is that, again, like the accessibility to kids, because I think that if Susie and Collins had wanted, she probably could have shopped this as an adult novel or adult series and it would have it would have been fine. Would it have gotten the amount of attention it did

if it hadn't been classified as white? I don't think so. Yeah, I think that teenagers really like the the marketing Scholastic did for this Harry Potter levels, which I mean Harry and Harry Potter like not to talk about that, but just as far as marketing goes. That was really word of mouth, that was booksellers and librarians and you know, putting these in the hands of kids. And I think Hunger Games followed a similar similar route. But I do

love that it is something that teenagers. I don't know if it's the same now as it was when I was a teenager, but when I was a teenager, it did feel like like this is ours, this is ours, And maybe I didn't understand it the way that I do now, but I think there's something to be said about about kids feeling like that's something for them too.

people exist, or the trans people exist, or that you know, racism has ever existed. And Susanne does cover those kind of things. Like, you know, one comments made up with the Hunger Games is that everyone seemed to be straight. She she very intentionally puts in a character who has two fathers who are clearly in love with each other as just a night, not a big deal, but just like, hey,

this is just a normalized part of the world. But I think one of the things that that Susane Collins is really getting at in her books is like, as you said, it's a it's a book about war for adolescents, because the thing is that in our world right now, war is happening to adolescence. You know, the bombs in Gaza and Yemen and all over the world. Don't like say, oh, well there's a teenager in this building, We're not going

to bomb there. You know, the horrible immigration stuff that's happening in this country, like obviously kids are getting deported to Like she writes about these experiences for kids in young adults in part to remind people who are in much safer circumstances that the stuff is happening to kids right now. You know, both young adults, but also people as young as prim or Lulu or or rou you know who aren't teenagers yet really.

to these themes. You can encourage how they're confronted with it, And I think that literature is such a good way at not controlling the narrative, but at being honest with them about it instead of really I mean, I mean, it's another form of propaganda, it really is, Like I mean, like I said, not all propaganda is bad, but you can introduce it to them in a way that is more honest maybe than other ways are. And it encourages them to think about it themselves and doesn't just give

them the answers. And I think that that's that's what's so important I think about these books and what especially Sunrise does is that it encourages thinking. It encourages really kind of self exploration and asking these questions that no one really has the answer to, but that we should be thinking about anyway.

And one of the reviewers I read also suggested that she is angry or perhaps like wants to change course from how her novels were adapted into the movies and the way that the message in the movies is a little more diluted and the focus is a lot more on like how great Catnus is is the protagonist, and so like this this newest novel, Sunrise on the Reaping, is kind of like a hey fan, my fans, like, you're you're kind of missing the point that this is what I want. Want the point to be is that.

Do you feel like that's a fairly accurate read?

on collective action. There's lots of scenes that we don't get in the book of the districts uprising and and the things that they do, the sacrifices they make to further this rebellion, and and so I think that was also like in response to like, hey, this isn't just about Catinus Catiness, isn't the only one doing these things. These other people like as a reminder, like all of the districts are willing to sacrifice themselves for a better future and to to you know, like kind of unchain

themselves from the capitol. And with Sunrise, I think what I saw more maybe was that Vallid I don't know. Have you seen Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Ricky? I had not, Okay, But like I said, the book is written in third person, and to me, that was very an intentional choice because I think that Snow excuses his actions and explains them away to himself by separating himself

from his feelings. And so if you write in third person instead of first person, third person is how Snow thinks to himself, Like ye, like that is like you know, he he thinks about people really horribly, like absolutely disgusting thoughts in his mind about some of these people that he pretends to really care about, and on some level he does care about them, but he doesn't want to

admit that he does. So again that's where the kind of third person is, that degree of separation between true feelings and the mask that you're kind of using to cover that those up. But you still get, like, you get all of his off thoughts, all of his his you know, really ridiculous reasoning for his actions. That's hard to translate into film because you don't get those. You don't get his internal monologue, even if it's in third person,

it's still there in the film, it's not. Instead, you get mostly the mask that he shows to everyone else. And that mask is very charming. Yeah, like it's it's very very charming. Tom blythe who plays him, is very attractive, and so you get a lot of people who make kind of like thirst at its about it, like like on on TikTok and how kind of romanticizing him and almost in some cases excusing who he is. And I think that that goes against everything that the Book of

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is trying to show. And based on some of the things we find out that Snow did to Hamich and his loved ones in Sunrise, I wouldn't be surprised if she went in and wrote the parts that Snow is in this with the idea of like, hey, by the way, as a reminder, this guy that you've been romanticizing for the past like year and a half almost two years is a horrible person,

and he is horrible by choice. And here's your reminder of that, because here's this list of horrible things that he's done and that he will continue to do to Hamig. And that to me, if Sunrise, if any part of Sunrise is a response to how the movies have intentionally or unintentionally skewed the message of her books, it would be that.

of this book. Well there is, but it's mostly off screen. And that he's doing everything to get back to the woman he loves, and the woman he loves dies horribly in a very sadistic way. That's clearly what parts it breaks him. But for most of the book there's no romantic tension, and like young adults love romantic tension.

has better eyes, which one is better job prospects? Like, and I'm saying that kind of what sounds like a sexish way, like every gender does that kind of a thing, But like, I felt that that was a very intentional choice of her being like, no, stop focusing on the romance, focus on the dystopia, because yeah, I think I think that they're just I didn't even know that that Susannah said.

you can still focus back on that, right. I think that's what's going on here, And that's what has me most interested in actually reading these is that she is the author herself, knows what she's doing, yeah, and is making deliberate choices to keep the focus on certain things and not get distracted by the team Peter aspect of it all.

One of the complaints about the book is that a lot of characters who we see in later books show up, and some of them like have to because it's already Kennon, like, for example, that there's a scene in Catching Fire when she's watching the video of Hamish's games and she recognizes her mother as one of the best friends of Maisley Donner, so like that was already in there, but like, you know, Hamish's best friends with her father, and we get to

see them romance. We get all of the people who are mentors to Catnus, are mentors to Hamich are people who we will later see in those books, Mags and Beatie showing up and Wires and all of them.

of it and some that I think was necessary. But I'm curious Danielle your thoughts because I've heard you defind it from the cameos conversation. But I'm curious what you thought of in terms of like, would you have liked to see more characters, more newer characters to remind you like there were a lot of other tributes, there were a lot of other people in District twelve, or do you like it being so self referential to other characters we've seen before.

Peta are on their victory tour. She notes the District eleven and I can't remember which other one, but some of the other ones are massive compared to twelve, right, and that really when she walks around, there's no one that Catenus doesn't know in twelve, like there's no no part where she, you know, is you know, there's just this random person like she knows everybody, and like it really seems like District twelve is just this this this really close knit community to the point of even like

close knit in the sense that like not everybody loves each other, but they all know each other well enough or have heard of each other to the point where you know they are there, they're each other's like, and so that made sense to me. I think it would have made less sense to me if there weren't as many people that we had heard of before that were being referenced, because it, I mean, twenty four years is a long time, but it's also not that long. I am realizing that again as you know, as I get

older myself, is that these people are still there. They're still in Catus's life. It makes sense that they would be in Hamage, especially because they're both from the scene, right and so there's goals would have been relatively similar, and so that didn't bother me. The capital didn't really

bother me either. When I will say, when Effie was first brought in, I was my immediate reaction was, okay, this feel this is starting to feel a little bit like not necessary, But then I actually really liked it for a couple of reasons. Effie is the perfect example of propaganda working of capital propaganda doing what it was meant to do, and that I don't see that in the audiences at the interview who are fawning over Hamage and clapping and loving him. That's a form of entertainment

and that is an element of propaganda. But what propaganda genuinely wants and how it becomes so long lasting, is that it genuinely gets people to believe what it is telling them. And for the Capital and the Hunger Games, what they want people to believe is that it is absolutely necessary to peace, is absolutely necessary for peace and penem to last, and for there to never be another war, for there to never be any of any more disrupt

there has to be the Hunger Games. And Effie has bought into that, as Hamich says, hook Line and Sinker, and the crux of her character is that she's not

a horrible person. Like she doesn't relish the thought of the Hunger Games, she doesn't relish the outcome of them, she doesn't celebrate people's deaths, but she still believes that it is an absolute necessity to the longevity of pinem and it takes her a long time to kind of deprogram herself from thinking that way and never really even see her like the outcome of that in the books.

And so to see her in this made absolute sense to me because there's no character I can think of where it would have hit hard, like as hard as it needed to then Effie for how propaganda is working in the Capitol at this time, but also on top of that, you introduce that, and then you have to introduce some reason as to why we shouldn't despise her.

kind of thrown at him left and right. The comfort, I think, at least for me, was knowing that he has had a familiar face that entire time, at least someone who is genuinely kind to him and who may be annoyed at him for his antics the longer that his alcoholness continues, But who has been there and who extends a kind hand to him every now and then, and that is e Fie And and so in that instance, it like I just I went straight from being like I don't know she needed to be in this to

feel like there's no other character who needed to be in this more. I think actually, and the other virus and Mags and BT being in it again, I think that they their purpose was to show that these people have been trying for so long, and at least two of them aren't going to see the outcome of everything they've worked so hard for. They don't they're not going to get to enjoy a penem without the Hunger Games.

But they did everything they could to ensure that it would happen for someone, and they didn't let this instance that didn't work bring them down. Yeah, they just tried harder and they kept going. And I think that that is such an important message for young people, especially that just because one doesn't work doesn't mean that the next one won't. And you keep going and you keep going, and so you kind of need those characters that people are already familiar with to make that message work, and

so I get it. I mean I also get like, I get the initial like put offness, but of that some people have of it, but it didn't make it seem small to me. It made it seem I don't know, it made it seem real. But I also think that you talk about like smallness of it is I think I don't think the capital is huge, like, I don't think it's like a huge, huge place.

favorite property Star Wars. We are also seeing that, you know, with and Or, we are seeing the connections that are being made between disparate rebellions and rebels and characters and how they all end up, you know, on Yavin or wherever within the rebellion. So I enjoy that, Like for me when I think of like of cameo that makes the world feel small, like in Rogue one, the character of doctor a Vasin right, the I don't like you either,

guy from the Canteen. Yeah, just randomly bumping into cassiean on Jeda. I was like, at first, it's like, oh, it's that guy. And I did the point and I was like, what is he doing?

we the one group. I feel like that has really still been demonized by our point of view characters and hasn't gotten into too much detail. Beyond that are the careers, And Susan's not going to write another novel again to she has something to say, And I think when people hear a career novel, they what they really want is finnic.

and it's a slow, painful, awful death. And and Catinus in that moment is like she doesn't see Kato or she doesn't see a career, she doesn't see an enemy. She just sees like a kid, yeah, dying and that that could easily be her, and she, you know, puts him out of his misery. And in this book, that moment is with the career who like there's it's just Hamuch Welly, another little girl from one of the other districts, and one of the career tributes left and Hamich and

Welly are both up in a tree. Welly is not long for this world. Hamuch is trying to nurture her, and at the bottom of the tree is the career tribute and she's crying. Haymich cheers her crying, and him and Wally have just been sent some chocolate in their parachute and he drops a bit of chocolate down and the crying stops. And for that moment, for those few hours of that night, they're not like tributes. They're not competitors,

they're not enemies to each other. They're just kids who were terrified and who have been left alone like this Career Tribute had a partner and her partner has been killed and she's all alone now. She doesn't even have another you know, a person who she's aligned with to comfort her. And that was so heartbreaking to me. Like I cried during that scene because it was just like I cried because hay Much is such like pure goodness in him really like shined through there. But also for

the Career Tribute, who is just a kid. And a lot of people speculated that the way that she kills Welli, which, by the way, earlier I said Lulu's death was one of the most terrific in the book. No, it was Wellie's death. Sorry, the way that she kills Wellie is so awful. But a lot of people have speculated that she did that to make up for thath like weakness, weakness like quote unquote weakness that she showed the night before.

And I think that that's true. And I it would be really interesting to get like a point of view from a career district, a Career Tribute because of how they're raised, how they're raised to view the Hunger Games as another another form of propaganda, like they've bought into what the Hunger Games are what the capital wants the tributes to view the Hunger Games as, which is a lifeline and something to aspire to to some greatness that makes you like a warrior, you know, a king in

your own right essentially, and the careers have by necessity, but then sometimes willingly.

this up. The career tributes are the contestants, the tributes from the lower number districts who have basically trained for the Hunger Games and have like used the privilege of their districts to be like super athletes like panem gladiators, and they actually volunteer for the games because they've trained for them, and many of them win because of that advantage versus people from the higher number of districts who are selected by by which McCall.

brainwashed into that. And so I think one of the justifications given sometimes for the the Hunger Games is, look, the careers want to do this, they're not being forced into it, and that if only the other districts could see that that this is consensual, they're all happy to

be a part of it. And and I think you know that it's it's it's the consent of you know, highly propagandized, you know, very limited options kind of a thing where where someone's setting up a winner and a loser, but you're both still trapped in this game that you actually have no escape out of.

to question it. And I think that that's what the careers are a part of, that little bit of hope that that almost almost like climbing the like social ladder, like the day link fruit, like you can have this, you can have this, but actually you can't. You will never be at this level. You will always be something else.