Welcome to STRONGWILLED, the multimedia project aimed at helping survivors of religious authoritarian parenting methods develop autonomy and find solidarity. Today’s post is the audio/transcript of a conversation about what it’s like when you start to notice your partner’s family is dysfunctional, as well as what it’s like when you’re the one in the enmeshed family — and your partner starts to point it out to you.
We’re taking a side quest and spending a few episodes discussing The Hunger Games series, it’s analysis of power dynamics and violence against children. We’ll be recapping each movie from the original trilogy. Please send any questions or comments to strongwilledproject @ gmail.com, and we might include it in an episode.
This is episode is Part 2 of two parts.
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(transcript has been lightly edited for clarity)
Catching Fire Pt 2.
Krispin: So yeah, you want to talk about how the victors respond to the Quarter Quell?
DL: Yes. There's so much good stuff in seeing Katniss meet all the victors. Because again, she's Katniss, she's autistic, she's whatever. The victors have a variety of trauma responses. The book doesn't get too into this, but all of them basically have hellish lives from that point onwards.
And they're constantly being threatened by Snow into subservience in some really, really sad and scary and horrific ways. But they all have these sort of different personalities. Who are some of the victors that stand out to you?
Krispin: Finnick is one of the first people we meet, and it's such an interesting dynamic because he's so charming. And then he's trying to talk to Katniss, and Katniss is just like, I do not care.
DL: Well, he's trying to be sort of seductive. Right?
Krispin: Right. Yes, totally. And something that really stands out to me in that is, maybe this is just a throwaway line, but they're talking about money or being wealthy or something, and he's like, I don't care about money. I haven't dealt with anything as common as money in years. I deal in secrets. And I was like, is Suzanne Collins talking about like Jeffrey Epstein? Not like specifically, but…you know what I mean?
DL: You said it, not me. Okay?
Krispin: Right, but it feels like this nod to, we know that in high power, in these communities a lot of times it's a lot about the secrets, right? That's how power is maintained, not through money necessarily.
DL: Oof. And Diddy's going to trial on Monday, so this is extremely apt.
Krispin: Right. It's just one line, but it I was like, right now, with, with the Diddy trial, with all the stuff we're aware of…
DL: Violence against children. Yes. It's absolutely a part of the subtext. Plus, one of my favorite tributes is Johanna Mason, and she won basically by pretending to be very weak and just crying all the time.
She's from District Seven, which is lumber. And basically everyone ignored her in the arena until there's just a few people left. And she took her axe and she just ruthlessly murdered everyone, right? Well, it turns out that Snow forced her into sexual slavery after the games and said, I will kill all your family and loved ones if you don't do this.
But then, she won four years ago before the Quarter Quell. By the time of the Quarter Quell, she tells Katniss, everyone I love is dead. So he ended up killing them anyways. So that's some Jeffrey Epstein, you know what I mean?
Krispin: Right. Yes.
DL: So that's absolutely a part of what's going on. And same with Finnick. Most of these people are forced into some sort of sexual slavery. Which would've been Katniss's life. It's just really upsetting the more you see how these victors are treated, yet they have to have this sort of relationship with the Capitol to get money to get some level of protection. So that's what we're seeing here, all the victors are gathered. We mentioned Finnick, we mentioned Joanna. I am trying to think who some of the other ones are, but maybe I'll just talk about…
Krispin: Well, should we talk about like who Katniss chooses as allies? Is that jumping ahead?
DL: No, that's great!
Krispin: Hamish is like the other tributes really like you. They think you perform well, you get to choose. And so who does she choose?
DL: She chooses, basically, the super old woman who can't talk, nonverbal, and then these two people who won by being smart
Krispin: Just like super nerds.
DL: One of them literally can't communicate very well, and the other one is just a huge tech nerd.
Krispin: Right. And just would get killed on the spot given the chance, right? Has no physical abilities but just knows how to calculate things in his head.
DL: Yeah. So, Haymitch is like, oh my God, these are not great allies.
One of my favorite things happens in this whole scenario. Peeta is still totally in love with Katniss, but again, trying to play it cool. Finnick’s basically like, I know you'll be so devastated that your wedding's been called off.
Finnick knows Katniss is totally pretending, and this is all a lie, but all these tributes are trying to mess with Katniss because they're like, is she for real? Is she really this pure? And so they are all extremely highly sexualized around her and she just hates every minute of it.
Krispin: And that is one of my favorite scenes. Yeah, when Joanna strips down and the elevator gets naked, and if you just watch Katniss's face,
DL: Oh my God. It's so good.
Krispin: She is so uncomfortable.
DL: So upset. Peeta's kind of giggling, trying not to look at Joanna and Haymitch is just having a great time. And Katniss gets so mad at Peeta for laughing at her because he's like, it's you, Katniss. They're all making fun of you. They're all trying to get under your skin. It's just kind of cute, you know? You're so pure and you don't really…she gets so mad at Peeta and refuses to talk to him for two days. It's just so funny to see Katniss just being an autistic teenager, right?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: Who has no clue what's going, but she hates Joanna. She really doesn't trust Finnick partly because of that, because she just doesn't understand seduction. She doesn't understand any of that. It's not how her brain works.
Anyhoo, they kind of become friends with some of the tributes. And then the thing happens where, you pointed this out in the last episode, everybody has to go and talk to Caesar Flickerman on this Capitol TV show. I don't know if you want to say anything about what happens at this Quarter Quell interview, but to me it's really, really, really important.
Krispin: Right. And you were talking about how all these tributes are under constant threat by Snow. So they have upheld this image and reputation and upheld the Capitol, but now they're all like, we are being shipped off to die. What else are they going to do to us?
DL: So true.
Krispin: We have nothing left to lose. And so in these interviews, really what they're doing is making a plea to the people in the Capitol in various ways to say I shouldn't deserve to die.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: In a lot of ways. Like, Joanna just screams. She's just like, this is fucking unfair. I hate all of you. Fuck you. I shouldn't have to do this. But then, then you have someone like Peeta who—am I jumping ahead?
DL: We cannot get there yet, Krispin! Okay, but you set the stage beautifully. So, one of the things is when they're training, in with all the other tributes, one of the things that Beetee says is he is, him and Wiress are looking at the Gamemakers.
The Gamemakers now have a force field surrounding them because last year Katniss did an arrow up there. And so Beetee and Wiress are like, you can see this little shimmer and that's how you know there's a force field. And Beetee is like, there's always a chink in the armor, if you know where to look. There's always a weak point if you know where to look. Then we get to…maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. When do the victors show their talents to the Gamemakers? Because that's another really important thing that happens probably right before the Caesar thing.
Krispin: Oh, right. Yes.
DL: So basically both Peeta and Katniss, this time around, they have to go at the end, of course. Neither of them know what they're going to do in front of the Gamemakers.
Krispin: In the first movie, what they did just for reference is they would shoot an arrow really straight or throw something. They're showing their strength and skill.
DL: To get a pretty good score or whatever. Peeta goes first. Katniss is just there waiting. When Katniss goes into the room, first of all, Peeta took forever. Way longer than normal. When she goes in, everything's super tense. In the book, this huge carpet has been put over part of this. So she's like, I have no clue what happened here. And she just was looking at the Gamemakers. They're barely paying attention to her again.
She gets so pissed that she gets one of the practice dummies, makes a noose, hangs the dummy, take some red paint and paint Seneca Crane on it. Who was the original Gamemaker from last year, who you love how he died. You know, he was forced to eat the nightlock berries. And she bows and leaves. Something came over her. So she's trying to tell the Gamemakers, you’re not safe.
I know what you're doing. I know how despicable you are and you're not safe. Which is a power move if you ask me. So you are thinking as you're reading the book, you're like, wow, Katniss is like badass. Then they get back and Effie and Haymitch are like, how did it go?
And Katniss is really kind of nervous, you know, like, I don't want to tell them. And Peeta's like, uh… and Kat's like, what did you do, Peeta? Did you do camouflage? He's like, sort of. And then it turns out, and in the movie you see this, he paints a picture of Rue surrounded by the white flowers that Katniss arranged around her. He took like 45 minutes and just painted that. Sort of as this grieving, using art to—you know, it's so Peeta,
Krispin: I think in the movie she sees that he painted it.
DL: Right. But in the book she doesn’t. So Haymitch is upset and then Katniss shares what she did, and Effie's just like, I'm done with both of you. I'm done. They both end up getting like the highest score possible, meaning they're going to be targets by the career tributes. You know what I mean? So that's how all that goes. Then we get to going onto the Caesar Flickerman Show, and I just want to read this from the book, if that's okay.
Because I thought it did a great job of sort of—and this is all in the movie too. I love my source text. So, first of all, Snow ordered that Katniss be in a wedding dress for this. And so she looks ridiculous. Cinna is the one who made this wedding dress, and he’s like, don't raise your arms up until the very end and then you twirl and you know, she's like, okay.
Katniss has to go almost last. I think Peeta is actually the last one, and so she is watching the victors and she's like, oh my God, everyone is incredibly angry. Like while they were training, there was some camaraderie, there was all this.
Now that this is like, again, they have no fucks left to give because they're going to the arena like tomorrow. She was like, wow. And then she says, everyone is so wonderfully smart about how they play it because everything they're saying to Caesar is actually coming back to reflect on the government and president Snow in particular.
So each tribute who kind of had the capabilities and facilities, they went up there with Caesar and basically did their own dilemma resistance, right?
Krispin: I love Beetee’s.
DL: Okay. Yeah. Do you remember Beetee’s?
Krispin: Yes. He says, if the Quell, the Hunger Games was written into law by man, certainly it could be unwritten by man.
DL: Yeah, exactly. So this what it says in the book. It says—Cashmere and Gloss are two of the people from District One. Cashmere starts the ball rolling with a speech about how she just can't stop crying when she thinks of how much the people in the Capitol must be suffering because they're going to lose her.
“Gloss recalls the kindness shown here to him and his sister. Beetee questions the legality of the Quell in his nervous twitchy way, wondering if it's been fully examined by experts. Finnick recites a poem he wrote to his one true love in the Capitol. And about a hundred people faint because they're sure that he means them.
“By the time Joanna Mason gets up, she's asking if something can't be done about the situation.” And it's just like so interesting, right? “Who could ever be so cruel as to sever such a deep bond? Cedar, quietly ruminates about how back in District 11, everyone assumes President Snow is all powerful. So if he's all powerful, why doesn't he change the Quell? And then Chaff says, insists that the president could change the quell if he wanted to, but he must not think it matters much to anyone.”
Aren't those all such interesting ways of getting at this narrative of this is unchanging, it cannot be meddled with? And I just love that. I love all these different approaches. And of course, in the movie, you know, Johanna's screaming and angry, and I think that's actually much more true to her character. I think this is a great way of showing we need all kinds of resistance. And some of these people are so crafty about it.
Krispin: Right. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting because yeah, some of it is the legal route of, how does this hold up, but then you have like Finnick who's playing on this, I love you, to all these people. And they're all just different strategies.
DL: Yes. They're all different strategies. Now, Katniss is terrible at strategy, as we know. And so her strategy is just to wear a wedding dress and make people feel sad that they don't get to watch her televised wedding. She talks to Caesar about that.
And then at the end she twirls and then her dress erupts into flames. Burning away the white wedding dress. And basically she's left in this black feather dress, and when she lifts up her arms they're actually wings. She becomes the mockingjay. She becomes the symbol and the crowd is like, whoa.
Now again, all this is televised. It's forced into people's homes, it's forced into the arena. So like everyone's watching her turn into the mockingjay. She had no clue this was going to happen but she's rolling with it. She’s looking at Cinna and like Caesar's, like, wow, this is all thanks to Cinna.
So then the cameras go on Cinna and Katniss is like, uh oh. You know, like, that doesn't seem great. Katniss is down. And then the best resistance action in this entire movie happens. You want to tell everyone what happens with Peeta?
Krispin: Yes, yes. So, Peeta looks really distraught and I love that he is playing it up. He's like, I can't even get the words out. He's like stumbling over his words. And so it kind of brings Caesar and he's like, what is it? And he's like, I don't know if I can even say, you know? And Caesar says, no, we need to know. And Peeta says, Katniss is pregnant. She has a baby. I mean, I forget how he says it, but he's like, I'm worried about the baby. If Katniss is killed in the Hunger Games, what happened to her baby?
DL: So basically he says we were married a secret, because Caesar’s like, it’s such a shame we didn’t get to see you married, and Peeta says, we were actually married in secret.
Krispin: Oh right.
DL: And he says, I would be sort of okay with this if it weren't for the baby. And the whole arena freaks out.
Krispin: And they're yelling, stop the games.
DL: Yeah. Stop the games. Stop the games. And Katniss is like, oh my God.
Krispin: And Caesar doesn't know what to do either!
DL: Oh my God, Caesar loses control of the audience for sure. And Peeta smirks to the camera because he's like, I did that. Haymitch didn't know. Katniss didn't know. This is just something that Peeta came up with on his own.
One of my favorite TikToks is Gale being forced to watch this and see Peeta. Peeta's loving this in so many ways. Which I think is so funny. And then what's sort of horrifying is that that's when the Capitol really is like, stop the game. Stop the game. Stop the game.
Krispin: Which fits very much with conservative America.
DL: Exactly. Exactly. Caring about a fetus much more than you care about a 12-year-old.
Krispin: That tracks.
DL: That's evangelical Christianity a nutshell, if you, if you ask me, but it's so fascinating that Peeta knew that would create that desired response. And create this tension within the Capitol. Nobody in the districts cares, because they're like, yeah, our kids are already dying. The Capitol cares, and that's why Peeta did it. And I just think it's like such a great resistance move.
Krispin: Right. Mm-hmm. And then at the end, they're all brought to the stage. I think this is really important. And they all hold hands. All the tributes hold hands and raise their hands.
DL: Yeah. It's sort of a show of solidarity against the Capitol. Then they just cut the live feed.
Krispin: Well, the audience continues to freak out. Like, we need to stop this. We need to end this.
DL: Everybody’s sobbing.
Krispin: Right. And then they actually just cut the feed, cut the lights. Which is a, a picture of the Capitol losing control. They're like, if we lose control, all we know to do is shut it down. There's no way to spin this.
DL: Yeah. So all the victors in their own way decided to do the most, to them, the most effective way to cut through the propaganda that the Capitol citizens have consumed, and they did. I feel like they're quite effective and Snow is like, oh no.
This is not great. So they're already losing the battle going into the games. Now it's time for Act Three! The games. The games, which I don't actually want to talk about a ton.
Krispin: Okay. Yeah. One thing that is important right at the beginning of Act Three is Katniss is about to be taken into the arena, right? They're all put in these platforms ready to be risen, and what happens?
DL: Yeah, so Cinna is with her up until the end, but as she's in this tube going up, to go into the arena, she sees these Peacekeepers come in and start beating up Cinna. That happened on purpose, right? Snow wanted her to see Cinna being beaten unconscious for his sins of helping turn Katniss into the symbol of rebellion. And Cinna dies.
Krispin: So sad!
DL: It is really sad.
Krispin: We can't skip over that part. It's heartbreaking.
DL: It’s really important to show that Cinna is one of the people from inside the Capitol who resists.
Krispin: And Cinna knew, I think he knew what was going to happen. When we see the mockingjay dress and then the cameras are on him, what I read in his face is like, I know I'm going to die, and I knew I was going to die.
DL: Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, the lore is right, that Cinna has been preparing to become a fashion designer to do all this, to help, very strategically. Kind of like we end up finding out about Plutarch Heavensbee. People who are part of the Capitol, who have been planning resistance for a really long time and are prepared to face the consequences for that rebellion.
So Cinna is the first person from the Capitol we see killed for supporting the rebellion. I don't think Katniss knows that he's killed then, Snow was trying to terrify her right before the games begin. So then the games start. Katniss just wants to keep Peeta alive.
Finnick is wearing Hamish's bracelet. And so Katniss really wants to kill Finnick, but then she's like, I think he is going to be an ally. So Mags, Finnick, Peeta, and Katniss form this little crew.
Krispin: Mags is the old woman. But Finnick really cares about her.
DL: Right. They're both from District Four. And Mags volunteered instead of an Annie also from District Four, and Finnick and Annie are together,
Krispin: Right. So it puts Finnick in this interesting position of, he is probably one of the most fit and prepared fighters, but because he cares about Mags and doesn't want her to die, it really puts him in a vulnerable position.
DL: Right. And. Haymitch told Katniss before they went into this arena, remember who the real enemy is, which I think is another theme of this movie. So, lots of shitty things happen in this arena.
Krispin: Well, that's the thing is that idea of like, remember who the real enemy is. It feels like in this, we don't exactly see how it all plays out, but there definitely feels like a much more of a hesitation to kill each other.
DL: Yes. Right.
Krispin: And in, maybe in response to that, maybe not, but what ends up happening is people are killed by the Capitol because the Capitol does all these quote unquote natural disasters, right?
DL: Well, yes and no. I mean, in the books actually, there is this disturbing moment where Katniss is looking down at the carnage down there and Finnick's like, what? You thought everybody would be holding hands? Just like we were on the television show? No Katniss, that's not how it works. So they were killing each other. But not that many of them.
Krispin: Right. It’s interesting in the movie he says that, but it's more in context. You don't see as much violence. And it does feel much more like people are trying to avoid each other and just survive.
DL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is generally true, but Katniss is still disturbed, like, it is still happening.
Krispin: Right. Yeah, totally.
DL: Now, something happens at the beginning with Peeta, and I don't know if you caught this, but at some point in the arena, Katniss realizes her feelings for Peeta. When do you think that happens?
Krispin: Yeah, I did not catch that.
DL: You did not catch it! I love this. I love talking to a movie viewer. Okay. What happens when Peeta dies? Like Peeta dies at one point in the movie, and in the book, right?
Krispin: Oh, right.
DL: He's electrocuted, he has no pulse. Then that really freaks Katniss out because she loves to snuggle him and hear his heartbeat. And she's like, he has no heartbeat. And she loses it. Then she thinks Finnick is trying to kill Peeta. So she's trying to kill Finnick because he’s holding Peeta's nose. Because again, she's never heard of CPR. He’s from District Four, so he's done CPR on many people.
So she's trying to kill Finnick as Finnick is trying to save Peeta. Finnick eventually does revive Peeta and Peeta comes back to life. And then Katniss loses her shit. Can't stop sobbing. Can't stop crying. And both Peeta and Finnick are very confused in a way. Like…what? So Finnick is like, oh, I guess it's the hormones from the baby, like trying to play it off to the cameras watching, and not like Katniss is this really emotionally distraught person.
Krispin: Oh, okay.
DL: Finnick trying to be like, she's the leader of the rebellion, she cannot be sobbing like this, and screaming and crying.
Krispin: Right. Yes.
DL: And Peeta’s like, it's okay, Katniss, I'm alive. It's okay. And I think that's when she was like, I can't imagine him being dead. I can't imagine my life with him being dead. And how much that impacted her is how she would've reacted if Prim died. She's like, wow, I am extremely… and Finn is like, oh damn. I think she actually, I think this is real actually. Which is really fascinating. And just in the Games, loving people is a liability.
Krispin: Right.
DL: In authoritarianism, loving other people puts you at risk. It makes you vulnerable. And then right after that, this poison gas is impacting all of them.
Krispin: Which felt very biblical to me, by the way.
DL: Oh, the boils.
Krispin: Right. because it's this, poison gas, but it's just a wall of poison gas. And then it creates boils. But then they wash in the river and they're gone.
DL: Oh, you’re right! This is very Prince of Egypt coded. Okay. But basically, Finnick has to choose between, you know, saving Peeta or saving Mags, and Mags makes that decision for Finnick, walks into the gas, and dies.
So there's that. They eventually meet up with Johanna who has saved Beetee and Wiress for Katniss. That's what she says. And Katniss's like, what are you talking about, for me? So then they're this kind of a little bit of a larger crew. They figure out some of the mechanics of the arena. And then Beetee has this plan to use this wire coil to kind of like electrify all the water and do all this stuff.
Krispin: Right. Also, there's a scene in there—it you were talking about like how Joanna said, I saved them for you. There's also this part where all these huge killer baboons are like going to attack Katniss and someone from District Three or Six sacrifices herself. And Katniss was like, no, she just got hurt. But I think Peeta's like, no.
DL: Yeah. Peter's like, no, she sacrificed herself for me. And I don't even know her. What's going on? So you start to-
Krispin: And of course if you've seen the movie, you know what's going on. But this first time you're just sort of like, there are these weird things that aren't quite adding up, right?
DL: Yeah. And so Katniss is quite slow to recognize, oh, people are trying to save me and Peeta, for some bigger purpose. Some bigger thing is happening. Well, the bigger thing that ends up happening—I want to hear your perspective as a movie watcher.
Krispin: So Beetee has rigged up this wire to the electrical thunderstorm tree, to use it to kill other players. But Katniss connects it to an arrow and fires that arrow directly up to the ceiling of the arena.
DL: To the chink in the armor.
Krispin: Exactly. Mm-hmm. Metaphorically, it feels like it's right at the camera, it's at the Capitol. And effectively what ends up happening is, and you have to clarify this, but it looks like she blows a hole in the arena so that they can escape. She also gets electrocuted in this process, but she doesn't die.
DL: Yeah. Yeah. So basically behind the scenes there's been this rebellion planned. Plutarch Heavensbee, is in on it. He's working in conjunction with District 13, which does exist, and they've been planning to rescue Katniss from the arena, from these games, at the very end.
Kind of show the whole world, we are here, the rebellion is happening. Now Haymitch seems to have been in on it. And what ends up happening is that District 13 has hovercrafts and they get Katniss, they get Beetee—who else am I missing? Finnick?
Krispin: Yeah. Finnick is there, Joanna, or no, not Joanna.
DL: No. Joanna and Peter are grabbed right by the Capitol.
Krispin: And also worth noting, I just want to say as a movie watcher, it's so disorienting.
DL: To have it all end like that? Yeah.
Krispin: Yes, because you're just right in it. You're just like, who's going to die next? Who's going to survive? You're just in the Hunger Games mode. You've forgotten about what else is going to happen outside the arena.
DL: And then the arena dome is fractured. People are getting transported out. And Katniss wakes up and she's on this hovercraft with Haymitch and Plutarch Heavensbee, and Finnick. And she's just like, where's Peeta? Where's Peeta? Where's Peeta? Because she's like, Haymitch, you promised me, you promised me you would save him and not me. And the exact opposite happened. And so the movie ends with them telling her, you're the face of the rebellion now. It's happening.
And she is furious. So that's how Catching Fire ends. So this is all about the sparks of the rebellion happening. But I think the most interesting parts are seeing how people are fanning the flames within the Capitol throughout this book, and this movie.
Krispin: Yeah. Right. And it's funny because the first movie feels so powerful and so important and then this one I feel like is like one and a half times that. It just is so, like, all the intensity of pushing against an authoritarian government is just there the whole time.
DL: Yeah, totally. Totally. Okay, we ready for some rapid fire?
Krispin: Yes.
We ready for some rapid fire? Okay, Krispin. Who's the most attractive tribute?
Krispin: Finnick.
DL: Oh! I mean, he is, but…no, Peeta. I believe Peeta is, except for the baby…if it weren't for the baby line and the painting of Rue. What's your favorite district?
Krispin: District 11.
DL: Aw! I love that.
Krispin: Of course. How about for you?
DL: I'm intrigued by Seven. I don't know much about it. The lumber district.
Krispin: That's where I would've come from.
DL: Lumber?
Krispin: Mm.
DL: Eastern Oregon. Yeah.
Krispin: Southern Oregon. Yeah.
DL: Yeah. Southern Oregon. I always call it eastern and you always correct me because-
Krispin: Because it’s directly south.
DL: I have directional insanity, as you know.
Krispin: Right. I grew up in a town that was the lumber capital of the US for several decades.
DL: How fun. You're just like Joanna.
Krispin: Right? Mm-hmm.
DL: Always stripping down, making people uncomfortable, being highly sexualized. And wielding an axe. What was your least favorite scene?
Krispin: The training scene where they have the virtual people, you know. It just feels so like, sort of eighties, but also sort of like trying to be cool 2012 in a way that's not. I don't know. Maybe it's not supposed to be cool. Maybe it's supposed to be cringe, but it just feels cringe.
DL: The orange boxes are kind of… Okay. Mine is any scene with Gale in it.
Krispin: Why?
DL: I hate Gale.
Krispin: Why do you hate Gale?
DL: Everybody hates Gale. What is there to like about Gale?
Krispin: You mean because he is just sort of like-
DL: He’s like, Katniss, kiss me.
Krispin: Uh huh. Mm-hmm.
DL: I don't get it.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: Also he reminds me of like the most annoying leftist possible. Like he really wants a revolution And just doesn't take time to think through the ethical implications of it. And something he ends up saying a lot is, I should have been in the games instead of Peeta, I should have volunteered and then we wouldn't be in this mess.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: And Katniss is like, you have no fucking clue what it's like to be in the games. He's like, Hey, it's easy for you, you won. I have to be here and be in the mines. And she is like, what? Anyways, the Gale love triangle thing is interesting because Katniss does love him, but I don't think it's romantically.
You know what I mean? But she feels kind of trapped. But Gale is just like so annoying to me. Now. What is an existential crisis you had while watching this movie?
Krispin: I said this before, it's painful to watch, but watching Katniss be stuck in this place of like, I can be an icon for this movement and my family will be killed or I can not and they won't be. And it just is that there's no good moves in an authoritarian system.
DL: Like that's such a depressing way of looking at it. It's not that there's no good moves, it's that certain moves will have consequences in an authoritarian regime.
Krispin: That’s true. But I think that there's that element of like, I think a lot of times we have this idea of, well, the ethical decision is clear.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: And I think that kind of highlights that sometimes there's not a super clear ethical decision. I don't know, maybe there is there, but it just is really complicated and I think growing up evangelical, I'm just realizing this now, that there's this idea of you always do the right thing and it will always work out for you, even in the sense of, well, if you die then you go to heaven. So maybe this is me post-Christian being like, oh my God, that's a really hard decision.
Whereas being a Christian pacifist for years, I was like, well, yeah, you just resist and if you get killed, you just trust that you'll be risen from the dead and it doesn't matter.
DL: Yeah, totally. Your death will mean something.
Krispin: Right.
DL: And I think that's sort of an existential crisis I have throughout this book is again, sometimes I view myself as a member of the Capitol, a citizen of the Capitol. It's not really a one-to-one correlation, however, because again, we live in America where our kids are subjected to violence just by being born here, by us bringing them into this violent world.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: One of the things that Katniss thinks about in the book, which again, they couldn't really do this in the movie, but as she's feeling really trapped and like, my entire life is going to be like this if Peeta and I are supposed to be in love, what if they forced me to have a baby, which Katniss has never wanted to have children because of the reaping, and then what if they reap my child sort of to punish me?
She's just like, I'll never get out of this. There will always be violence against those I love. And for the citizens of the Capitol they don't have to have that. So what does radicalize them? It's these very interesting sideways things. I don't know how Cinna got radicalized. I don't know how Plutarch did. Maybe that's in the newest book.
But I just think that's what's so interesting is once you're part of the privileged class and you're like, wait, this doesn't seem great, what do you choose to do with that information? I think it’s really interesting. It's something that's always on, on my mind. Anyhoo, we have some feedback
Krispin: Okay.
DL: From listeners. Are we ready? Should we do Appalachia first?
Krispin: Yes.
DL: Okay. Basically, people are like, Appalachia as a region has this really complex and unique and amazing history of fighting back against injustice and oppression, specifically when it comes to minors and all this stuff. People even are like, I actually have those racial identifiers that Katniss does and I'm from the region, you know, so I got that wrong.
You know, people did not like me joking about it being JD Vance territory. I would like to formally apologize and say he is a pox on our world and on the name Appalachia, he's a grifter and I don't actually believe he speaks in any way, shape or form for the region. People from that area have a lot of pride.
I think that's really cool for me to learn about as someone who, I have no pride. I don't have pride about being an Oregonian. I don't have pride about being born in North Carolina. I come from stupid, effing pioneers, Okay. And I don't have any interests in romanticizing or glorifying that.
I don't know all the details of what's going on in Appalachia. I'm just saying if I missed some of that, that makes sense because I'm just like, ugh, I, we come from pioneer land over here. And it's not fun to engage with that history or pride.
Krispin: Yeah. Yeah, totally.
DL: We’re not experts. We're sorry. We love you. District 12 are amazing. Katniss Everdeen. Keep resisting, please, keep going. I am sure it's complicated there right now anyways. Politically, so.
Krispin: Right.
DL: There's all that. Now we have someone, Missy, who sent this amazing audio clip. I had heard her, on BlueSky talking about violence against children in ancient mythology, and I just asked her if she could just do a quick little video clip kind of explaining where this mythology comes from. I think there's going to be a lot of names in here you maybe aren't familiar with, but just kind of push through that. This is like a three minute long clip. And be thinking even about the name, the Hunger Games.
Krispin: Right.
DL: This has been a part of this book and Suzanne Collins' aims and purposes from the beginning, is talking about this sort of trope or theme of what it says about a society when it sacrifices its children. So you ready to listen to that?
“Hi, DL and Krispin. I'm so excited for your series on the Hunger Games, but I wanted to provide a little primer on the mythological background of the story as I see it. The Curse of the House of Atreus is a central myth of ancient Greece intersecting with many other well-known stories like the Iliad and Jason and the Argonauts.
“It begins with a father Tantalus who kills his son Pelops and serves him to the gods to prove his power over them. Thereafter, each generation of the family is cursed to enact violence against family members, often sacrificing or serving their own children. Tantalus's grandson Atreus killed his nephews and served them to his brother, Thyestes, the father, thus consuming his children.
“Then Atreus’s own sons, Agamemnon and Menelos of Trojan War fame perpetuated the curse when Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to gain favorable wins for his army to sail. In revenge for the death of her daughter, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, killed him and his concubine, Cassandra, a daughter of Troy, when they returned from the Trojan War. Apollo then demanded that Agamemnon's son Orestes avenge his father by killing his mother.
“Orestes obeyed, but is racked by guilt and fleas pursued by the vengeful Furies. At last Orestes begs Athena for justice. She puts him on trial in Athens, and in the end he has acquitted of his father's murder and Athena councils the Furies to become merciful and benevolent, transforming them into the Eumenides or the kindly ones. This ends the cycle of violence with mercy, and thus ends the curse of the house of Atreus.
“So a common theme in this story is the sacrifice or consumption of children like Pelops, the Sons of Thyestes, Iphigenia, and Cassandra. When stories pull on this theme, it typically appears in three motifs. You'll see fire, which consumes as it burns, snakes which consume their prey, and the act of eating where of course one is consuming as food.
“These themes appear throughout world folklore and in modern media. For example, in Game of Thrones, Arya feeds the Frey children to their sire, Walder Frey in an act of revenge for her brothers. In Star Wars, Anakin kills the younglings in the temple at the Emperor's bidding, and then is himself consumed by fire.
“In Peter Jackson's Return of the King, Denethor tears ravenously at his meal as his son Faramir rides to his probable death with the juice of a tomato dripping down his chin like blood. And Hunger Games, of course, is explicitly a tale of a culture sacrificing its children, and it includes these exact motifs. Like Katniss's, fiery dress, poisonous snakes, and the moment when she and Peeta prepare to eat the poison berries. I really can't wait to hear more of your thoughts on this story.”
Okay, so that was Missy, who is a guest host on the What The Force Podcast. So obviously she knows so much about these themes and motifs, and I just thought, thinking about, we talked a bit about being evangelicals at the beginning. There's a scene in this movie that centers around Peeta and Katniss the Capitol and food that I wondered if you wanted to talk about really quick,
Krispin: So they're coming from District 12 where they've gone there, especially Katniss has gone her whole life with food insecurity. And then they're at this party and people are taking things to expunge from their stomachs so that they can eat more food. Is that what you're talking about?
DL: Yes! Yes, because Katniss is quite the foodie, it turns out. Katniss loves food. And you know, she just never had much access to it. So in the Capitol, at the end of the Victory Tour, her and Peeta are in the Capitol. Everybody's eating this food. And Katniss is like, I can't eat another bite. And they're like, oh yeah, so just drink this. And it's this liquid that'll make you throw up so then you can keep eating. And all her stylists are like, I've already thrown up twice, or whatever.
And Peeta is enraged. Enraged by this. And Katniss is like, why does this upset you so much? They're literally killing kids in the Hunger Games, why is this upsetting to you? Peeta is like, it just does, you know. But to me it's because it's all connected.
It's because of this theme of you'll consume the children of these other districts, as you consume all of this food over and over and over again, right? And I just like, wow. That's, that's some pretty powerful stuff.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: And the fact that it is like so ethically upsetting to Peeta, again, to me, just shows his character. Where Katniss is like, this pales in comparison to the Hunger Games. And he's like, it's still just really bothers me.
Krispin: It's all the same system.
DL: Yeah, exactly.
Krispin: Yeah. I mean, listening to that, I was just like, what is wrong with humans? Why do we keep doing this over and over and over again?
DL: I mean, that's what STRONGWILLED is about. Right? If we can interrupt these cycles of violence against children, I believe we have a shot at a better world for everyone. So that's why I want to talk about the Hunger Games, is to ask, how do we interrupt these cycles of violence using our personalities, using our histories, using our social locations. Using all of this, I think we can interrupt these cycles of violence. And that's why I feel like the Hunger Games is such an amazing piece of media to talk about. And I do feel like Suzanne Collins has been very intentional about these motifs that we see in some other works.
Krispin: Yeah. Yeah.
DL: Wow. We talked a lot, bro. There's even more we could talk about and even more questions that came in but I kind of feel like we got to save them for another episode.
Krispin: Great.
DL: But I'll give you a teaser of some of the listener questions we can get to next episode. Okay. Some of them are about why do right wing conservative people think Suzanne Collins is on their side?
Krispin: Uh huh, that's a great question.
DL: Similar to that, why does some material that seems to have anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist themes become really popular and people like it without ever seeming to equate that to our actual situation. I'm thinking about Harry Potter, all this stuff, right? So we can talk about that more.
Krispin: Wicked being really huge.
DL: Wicked, yeah! So we, so we might even talk about that in a Patron only post actually.
Krispin: The Israelites in Egypt,
DL: Right? It's a lot. So we could talk about that. We've done a lot. I feel like, I am not an expert. You can feel free to, you know, contact us, correct us. Give us your favorite fun facts. Who's your favorite tribute? What's your favorite way people resist Snow and like totalitarianism in Catching Fire.
But hey, I feel like if we get 10 new Patreon subscribers I will buy the new book Sunrise on the Reaping and I will read it. And I will allow that to infuse my analysis. But we’ve got to get 10 new ones. Because hardbacks aren't cheap. So if you've been listening to this, you enjoy this info, this ad free info dump, consider supporting us on Patreon for only $4 a month. Thanks for being here. Thanks for letting us do this. Is there anything else you want to add, Krispin?
Krispin: No, I just appreciate people listening along. This has been just really fun to like take a little break. Obviously this is intense content, but it's fun to take a break from talking about evangelicals and talk about some media that we enjoy.
So thank you all so much for listening and again, send your questions and comments. We're just having a conversation here. We would love for you to be a part of it and we will be back soon.
DL: Bye.
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