The Hunger Games Prequels: Sunrise on the Reaping

0:00Traci Thomas: Hi guys, just to let you know, this is part two of a conversation I began with Traci Thomas last week about the Hunger Games prequels. This episode covers off Sunrise on the Reaping. It's also, it's really, it's part of a three-parter that began in May when we did the Hunger Games original series. So please, if you haven't heard the other ones, go back and listen, especially if you're a Hunger Games fan. They really are a real treat. Okay, on with the show.

0:32Traci Thomas: so we've spoken about sunrise and the reaping quite a lot actually throughout this um so maybe it's just best to basically highlight scenes and bits that we love the most i mean what's good is that it has a less complicated storyline which is that i'm like because we if you've read catching fire you know the story already kind of which is that haymitch was in the second quarter quell it was a games where they reaped twice the number of tributes he is uh he ultimately wins it by using the force field against itself um and that is a big part of his thing and and that's what we've done all along and so i would say that sunrise and the reaping there is far less plot than there is in Ballad but there's a lot more depth of character I would say um what were the parts of it that struck you most that we haven't spoken about already obviously well I think like Haymitch as a character because we know him as sort of this like curmudgeonly drunk yes who hates everybody and I felt like she did a really good job similarly to how I felt about Coriolanus she does a good job of getting us to where we are when we meet him in the Hunger Games like she has this great family man kind of kid who has a similar story to Katniss like his dad dies in the mines or as a rebel or some other combination of things yeah um and and she and he like goes from being this guy to be like she sets us up to get to him being yes totally she does a reverse and just like damaged person you know it's like we met the 50 year old disappointing individual and now we're gonna see the cool person they used to be right exactly and like i i mean i think cambridge is an extremely easy and likable character um so i thought that was great i think the biggest i mean we talked a lot about the abolition stuff but the biggest thing i think the thing she did so beautifully in this book is that she continually reminded us that these are children yes like i think in some of the other books it's kind of easy to be like they're like they're young adults right like it's jennifer lawrence in this i was like these are small children like with luella oh my god and like even maizley and like the like like maizley's just such a great character because even the parts where she's trying to be grown up being like i just i just drink coffee it's just like of course that is a 15 year old girl like oh i don't eat breakfast i just drink coffee because that's what adults do and i'm an adult and i want to be an adult so bad And of course, that's juxtaposed with the idea that we know you're going to die.

3:32Like you, child, are never going to be an adult. And I think she really just nailed that in this book.

3:40Traci Thomas: You're so right. All the characters do seem an awful lot younger in this one. So as you said, Maiselie does feel just like kind of a vaguely conceited, but, you know, kind of a bully. But like ultimately, yeah, just your quintessential 15 year old girl. I think like because we've had because Katniss never really had friends and like it was all the kind of the the cast of characters in the original Hunger Games actually in that first book felt a lot smaller for Katniss's games. Like she cared about Peter, she cared about Gale, she cared about Rue and everybody else is quite dim in the distance.

4:19Traci Thomas: Whereas because Sunrise and the Reaping, so much of the plot line is about that this is a games where there are, first of all, more tributes, but also that there is this plan. There's kind of two conspiracies that run through Sunrise and the Reaping. And one of them is that the kind of the non-careers. So for a long time, we've known about there's a career pack in Hunger Games. They're the district two. And I can't remember which numbers they are, but like essentially the richer districts. One, two, four, eight or something. Yeah, something like that. And they often band together to kind of thin their herd in the early parts of the game and then eventually turn on each other.

4:59Traci Thomas: Because there are so many tributes of this one, there's kind of an underdog class called the newcomers who band together. And because these are the kind of smallest and weakest kids, they're the youngest ones and we spend so long with them, with Luella, with Ampert, who's Beatty's son, who is adorable, gets fucking eaten by squirrels. Just tough. You get, and like also Wyatt, Wyatt I really liked, the kind of like, slightly on the spectrum, games maker kid, you know, who knows all the odds. Yeah, they do feel like, yeah, just people who are never going to be adults. you know children exactly who are never going to be adults and it's it's the saddest of all the books for sure because oh my god there are just a lot of characters who you're getting to know far better it's so bleak it's so bleak like this i feel like in the first three books especially she's sort of this is me doing psychology on a woman that i've never met and have never heard do an interview so i just want to be very clear this is just my interpretation but in the early books I think Suzanne Collins was like I had this idea it's kind of crazy it's kind of fun people liked it it became sort of a fun thing to be into and I think that she did not like the way that Hunger Games became fun because she was trying to be like killing kids as bad and it kind of became this like team Gail team PETA which obviously I'm guilty of and I think in this book she was like you're not gonna have a fucking team this isn't cute like this is about fascism this is about propaganda this is about the murder of children and she really was like we're not not it's it's gonna be bleak you're not gonna be able to have fun with this one and I think she did a lot of the like fun stuff through fan service by like giving us like the little bits of backstory but the actual games there was not a lot of fun you're so right oh my god you're so correct i i'm so i really think that theory holds water that she was because i think one of the things about the hunger games is the way as a kind of a franchise series is the way in which the reader becomes complicit um in the same way that the audience of the capital are complicit so it's like you get to a point when you're kind of in every of these books when you're mid games where people just start dying really quickly and you're like oh shit you know luella's dead oh shit lulu's dead oh shit ampert's dead oh shit welly's dead and you're like yeah yeah you're kind of like skipping because you want to get to the part where um you know because you if you're reading from that character's perspective you know they win the games so you're like oh i want to get to the part where afterwards they get all the money and stuff so you're like you're kind of in the same position as if you were right you know right totally um one of the things i didn't like about this book was the hunger games had too much targeted mutt behavior too many mutts sent in to just kill people after haymitch did a bad thing um which i i understand is like supposed to be president snow's like hand in the whole thing yes um but if i were a viewer like if i were if i were somebody who was like watching every season of the hunger games as a fan i would be like i hate this season it's rigged it's so rigged exactly and i think like the point is that it is rigged and at first he wants haymidge to die but then once haymidge starts doing good things he realizes he can punish him more and much worse by letting him live um but i'm just like oh like as soon as he does does the blows up the water tank it's like ampert's dead i'm just like man don't let Give Ampert a moment.

8:50Can Ampert get his, like, can he at least go out where he has a chance? Like, he had no chance. Maisley had no chance. Like, Luella or Lulu had no chance. Like, it's just like nobody, none of Hamish's people had a chance, which, again, I know was on purpose. I just didn't like it.

9:08Traci Thomas: Yeah, it was just tough. Like, it was hard going. Yeah. And, like, she did try and give you a little bit of, like, like comic relief with some of these um i mean i just love capital celebrities i think they're my favorite genre of literary character are like rando celebs who live in the capital so we have like i can't remember the name of the woman who's there at haymitch's reaping drusilla drusilla love her um and also the snake guy like and they turns out no magno and it turns out they used to be married no they still are married yeah he's like this he's like because what's what's really fun on a fan service level this is the kind of fan service i adore is like in the in the trilogy um catniss is like uh district 12 they always put us in horrible coal miners outfits and then right we have magno being like you ready for your coal miners outfits you know right and like that that's a tradition that's been going on even at haymitch's games it's like oh we're wearing these dirty old things i also okay so here's another sequel that we could get would be effie's story right yes because she would be young enough right she's like she's like in her early 20s so i think you could make it work yes so that's really exciting and the and to go back to your point about gail right the way everybody hates gail because he was you know built the technology that inevitably killed prim it's like what in sunrise on the reaping everybody loves effie and like the fandom loves Effie as well right like that has been a real you see a lot of that around in this fandom and uh Effie in this is like she's this kind of sweet sort of debutante who has like an eye for fashion who gets brought in by some students to sort of help them with outfits and um yeah it's a very cool little she's a very sweet character and she's like oh you know I think you guys are very brave it's sad that you have to do it but you do have to do it but I think you're very brave but like effie trinket is more is like one of the most callous characters in the whole series yeah and i think like you know she and haymitch end up suffering from the same kind of thing by the time we meet them which is like they are responsible for the district that always loses yeah like every time she i think she gets hardened yes in the same similar ways that he does she comes into it and she's like I think you're brave I thought you were like a good person I didn't think you were a district like mutt or whatever yeah in the way that Drusilla thinks of them as like beasts but I think she becomes by the time we meet her in Katniss's game she becomes this sort of like I don't know she's like detached from reality because it's the only way she can like stay positive like you have to say it's like that false positivity speaking of influencer type people where it's like, it's okay.

12:04Like this seven-year-old or this 12-year-old's gonna die. But like put on your best faces, like chin up.

12:11Traci Thomas: Oh God, you're so right. Because she like can't feel. Yeah, yeah. Oh God, you're right. An Effie story would be fucking good. What sort of, what would you do for that, do you think? I don't know. I'm not a writer. I don't know. You'd probably have to do what, Hunger Games 35? like yeah 10 years before we get to or sorry not 35 uh 50 65 like like 10 years before we get to Katniss yeah where she sort of like maybe like has a heartbreaking loss and just like cannot handle it because I do want more from the stylist because we find I mean we didn't speak about this in Ballad but like the we get Tigress in Ballad who is um Coriolanus's cousin and then we obviously get to know her in Mockingjay um because she is like described as this kind of decrepit sort of tattooed woman who look who's kind of looks like a cat or whatever and she helps Katniss and the rebels because she hates Snow and in that storyline it's like she used to be a stylist on the hunger games and then she was like you know retired by snow she hates him so clearly there's a story there because the tigress that we know is this like very sweet wholesome character um so i feel like there's an effie story that contains tigress oh yeah maybe she's like she she reaches out to mentor her or something after her own demise sure yeah even though technically effie is uh escort not the oh you're right so she's eventually is the stylist you're right so she is eventually promoted to escort i guess to drusilla's job yes you're dead right interesting but okay so what do you think of this so there is a theory that um ballad of songbirds and snakes is the kind of b-side to the first hunger games book um because it's a kind of a mirror of it or whatever because it's showing you the origins of this games that sunrise on the reaping is the mirror to catching fire because it's about the quells and all of that and so therefore if we're using that like logic then the third book of the prequels will be some kind of mirror to mockingjay and what would that be i guess it could be a president coin story i'm not sure oh interesting see to me it should be the president snow overthrowing the government in his own way like his rise to power and how he because he clearly we know that he has to like poison a bunch of people and that he rises to power in sort of a hostile way which would be the response to Katniss rising to power or like taking out the Capitol.

15:13It's like another sort of coup, but it's the president, it's president Snow's coup. Interesting. Yes. How does the coup occur?

15:24Traci Thomas: I mean, as America becomes more coup centric, I think that she will write another coup book. I mean, I, to me, the most interesting place to be is the president Snow story. that's the story that has the most space in it yeah because again it can contain all of these characters already right right um and we get more we get to hear from tigris we get to hear from a lot of a lot of you know we get to see president snow's wedding because he marries one of his classmates we find out in the vlog someone that he hates because he knows he'll never be under their spell like he was under lucy graybeard so like i feel like i know i hear what you're saying about it not being YA, but maybe if it starts right after where this book ends, he's still only 18.

16:15And so we can follow him into adulthood.

16:18Traci Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I feel like YA, you could be like 20. Totally. I mean, honestly, I would love if she went new adult with the whole thing and we got like snow fucking, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Her audience is old, okay? Her audience has aged up. Like, come on. I cannot imagine my 13-year-old niece reading Sunrise on the Reaping. You know, that's just not happening. Like, you're right. Her audience is old. But let's talk about... I'm going to be 40 next year. Like, hello. Come on. Okay, so while we're on the subject of President Snow, let's talk about his appearance in Sunrise on the Reaping, which is, I thought was brilliant.

17:03Traci Thomas: where so okay so it's um as we know there are four tributes per district there is a kind of chariot parade which we're very familiar with from the original books the chariot parade goes wrong um one of the district 12 tributes luella mccoy who is uh haymitch's sweetheart his like little like she's she's like four or five years younger than haymitch she's a very like gutsy little tomboy it's very sweet she is killed in this chariot accent and hamish is so heartbroken that he decides to dump her body at the foot of president snow which then makes him a target to president snow um he is brought later at some point i can't remember why exactly for a confrontation between plutarch heavensbee who we know from third book played by um wait is plutarch Is Plutarch the third book or the second book?

17:57Who's, isn't, oh, Seneca Crane is the first game maker. And then Plutarch, okay, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:04Traci Thomas: So yeah, Plutarch, yeah, he's the kind of head games maker in book three. But at this point, he's like a TV producer. No, he's, I think he's book two, isn't he? Because isn't he the one that helps them get out at the end of book two? Oh, you're dead right. But then he kind of emerges more as a character in book three. Yes. Seneca gets killed after book one because of how Katniss and Peta game the system. So then Plutarch is finally put in for the quarter quell 75. And he's the game maker for that. And then he is part of the like Dusk Machina at the end of book two. And then he's around for book three.

18:41Traci Thomas: It's so good. Book two is so fucking good. That whole thing where he's like dancing with Katniss and like pointing at his watch, which has a mockingjay on it. And she doesn't really know what that means. and it's like, I'm planning a revolution, bitch. So this bitch 25 years previously is still planning a revolution. I think he is the most fascinating character in these books because he is like a privileged capital freaky little asshole, but he also still wants freedom at any cost. Yes. But also just loves propaganda. He's just such a good example of like a reminder to all of us who are living in times that feel unbearable.

19:21Like the resistance, the tradition of resistance takes time.

19:26Traci Thomas: Yes. I mean, that's what this book is about. Yes. And he knew even if Haymitch blew up the water tank and drowned the system and killed and drowned the machine and it worked fully, that that was not going to be the end. He understands that this whole thing is a long game. It is not a one and done. And I think that's an especially powerful point to young people who want things now. I mean, famously, Martin Luther King Jr., I may not get there with you, but we're going to reach the mountaintop, right? Like that is famous language of resistance and of sort of, you know, Barack Obama's favorite thing to say, the arc of the universe bends towards justice or whatever the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice like he is that voice for us in these books like that he is looking that and to some point which makes haymitch a pawn in his game right yes that haymitch is just a piece he is using what is presented to him to help tell the story he wants to be the true story and that is also sort of a by any means necessary that he's willing to sacrifice these kids that are already being sacrificed in order to do it yes totally it's it's it makes him the most morally gray of all the characters in the universe right because he is like truly for the resistance has been has been for 30 years but will willingly use the kind of the tools of the the tools of the master i guess yeah exactly he's actively participating in the slaughter he's not even like effie who like helps out because like she wants these kids to have nice clothes but like yeah you know she's sort of what he's like no no no you can't be with your family like no no get a smile for me wave i need the shot like he is actively painting these pictures yes totally and it's it's fascinating as well because like when you have him when you because it's said several times and it also comes up in the Battle of Songbirds and Snakes before Plutarch's birth even that like the heavensbees are a one of the wealthiest families in the capital and so we have this character who is swimming in abundance in esteem in social capital and he's because he has this sort of long legacy you know with this family or whatever he's thinking in generations he's not thinking in in one to two year stints He's like, this is the thing I will push forward with my time on this earth.

22:08Traci Thomas: I live in this big ancient house full of like crests and things. And like, here's what I'm doing with that. It's a really fast, whereas like every other character in these worlds are living hand to mouth, week to week, day to day. Right. And like they're being asked to put themselves in danger. Right. Yes. And he is not. He is like, you know, I don't know what a good analogy is, but it's sort of like the rich people that like back political candidates but have nothing to do. They just like want to get their legislation through that's going to impact millions and millions of people. But they're just like, you know, I feel strongly that there shouldn't be abortion in America.

22:51So I'm going to back this awful person who's going to take away health care and do all of these things. But like it doesn't actually impact me. I'm not ever going to feel this. Like my kid will always be able to get an abortion. Right? Like, and so that's also just, he is a villain and also a hero in a way that feels so spot on. Yes.

23:11Traci Thomas: Yes. To real life. Like how these things truly work. I mean, wouldn't be opposed to a Plutarch novel either, you know? I know, but he, we have to do him as an adult. I would care nothing about his origin story. That's true. You're so right. You're so right. Do you care why he feels this way? Not really. It's just matters that he does. No, because it will be boring. It will just be like, my dad was mean. And so when I, he was mean to me. So maybe injustice can exist elsewhere. My babysitter wasn't from District 12 or something. Yeah, exactly. It would be something stupid. It's so like Elphaba and Wicked.

23:48Traci Thomas: It's like, I have a bare nanny. And I'm green. So therefore. Yeah, therefore. No, but I do find him to be really a compelling character. He does so much work, even though he's barely in the book. Like his existence is hugely important. But he first comes up, I mean, he comes up at the reaping because he's like forcing Hamish to do different like emotional takes for him so he can get like better shots. But also, I mean, his first entrance is like, you know, really complex because even Hamish is like, I hate this guy. He sucks. He's making me perform my grief for my family over and over again. But I am also experiencing more time with my family that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

24:36Traci Thomas: So I feel, I don't know. And then next time we see him, he has President Snow post the killing of Luella. President Snow kind of wants an audience with Hamish and Plutarch is the person who arranges it. And the first time we see Snow, and Snow is already an old man at this point. I would like, so this is like, how many, this is 50 years? He would be, it's 40 years. 40 years. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. He would be 50, 58. And he's a bad 58. You know, he's, he's like, he's puking. It's so disgusting. And the thing being that like he, cause he's already doing his sort of technique of poisoning people and like poisoning his own food mildly as well.

25:20Traci Thomas: And just basically developing a resistance to poisons. that he is suffering and has ulcers and Hamish is sent to get him a glass of milk from the fridge and then he just drinks all of it. Such a weird moment. So loved it. So yucky. Yeah, I mean, he's so gross. And then he's basically like, listen, kid, we got a family motto. It's snow lands on top, babe. So just know, just know you're done. like you're no matter what happens you're it's done for you first he says i'm gonna kill you but then we quickly realize he's like no i'm gonna i'm gonna let you win see how you like that okay here's the thing that i didn't love about this i understand that because again this is a novel and like you know the hunger games they as a tv show as a thing in this universe we understand why they're politically important because they oppress the districts and they are a remarkable tool for control.

26:26Traci Thomas: And I get that. But the idea that like the president of the entire country is like personally involved in the fate of individual tributes at all times. And it's seemingly all he thinks about is like, yes, it's like get a life, dude. But it also feels like it sort of justified from book four because it is his ticket to power is like his ability. He learns that the Hunger Games is what he is good at. So I do feel like it's like he becomes obsessed with it every year makes sense to me. Like this is what, like he's just like a terrible leader. The economy is so bad, but like the games get better and better, you know, like.

27:05Traci Thomas: But also there must be so much money. There's so much money flowing through the games. Yeah. Well, they said in the Snow book that the betting is what ends up funding the games. yes remember that's like part of the so it's like taxpayers are not to pay for this like in their taxes they pay for it by betting on the games and so it's like very it's got to be super lucrative totally it's very the olympics right it's like yeah you know oh the amount of you know tourism it brings to the city the amount of people who come to the capital every year to see the game you can see it all these people are displaced by the stadiums they build it's like actually a nightmare but yeah it's so much fun and i i do i i simone biles was so great last time oh my god so funny like i would love to get sort of like a pov shot of being like yeah you know we'd love to end the games but they're really important for the economy like thousands of people would lose their jobs yeah oh totally oh it's definitely think of all the people who would lose their jobs exactly for sure totally um uh yeah okay so i again we it's it's it's getting late here um that he says snow has this conversation with haymidge which is about i'm gonna kill you um and or i'm definitely gonna kill you for sure um but your behavior in the games will sort of like depend on how violently and terribly i kill you um and oh and then he starts nagging him about his girlfriend oh yeah and he's like oh yeah a covey girl her plans don't include you yeah he's like i've been burned totally i know i'm living through a 16 year old boy's love life it's so funny it's so creepy he's such a creep but yeah no he's i feel like once he realizes that it's like a cubby girl then he's like no i'm gonna punish all of them all of them and in district 12 as well he's like pissed but then the scene the scene which was already quite disturbing and yucky and like full of milk and poison and blood and like weird chat um it caps off being and becomes the most disturbing scene in the i think all of the hunger games franchise which is they bring in Luella McCoy back into the room who died several days previously.

29:33Traci Thomas: Only that's not Luella McCoy. It's a girl they've given surgery to, to look exactly like her. And, and they call Lulu for short and she just becomes a new character. That's fucked me up. That really scared me. That was pretty dark. That was very dark. And she has like a chip in her ear. That's like telling her what to say sort of, and it's like bleeding. yes like oh yeah that's that was really dark i mean well okay the thing that i think was the most fucked up in the book yeah is that bt's son is in and bt is the mentor ampert that no that to me i was like dark so dark bt is a fascinating character because it's the whole of like he's kind of openly rebellious of the regime, but everyone is like, his brain is too valuable and we need to keep him around, so we'll just kill his kids.

30:31Traci Thomas: That would be one that I would do. I would do BT's games. I mean, at this point, it's a really like a test to her characterization that there are so many characters, I would see their POV. I would do anybody's games. Honestly, if she was like Hunger Games 17, I'd be like, great, great. Any games you want to give me, like I'm sure you could make it work. Oh my God. Give me Mags's games. Give me. Mags. Fucking. Okay. Why? Wiris. We have to talk about Wiris and Mags. I love them so much. They had such queer mom energy in this. I loved them. Wait, we didn't say this, but Sejanus is definitely gay, right?

31:13Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure.

31:17Traci Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like he had a thing. That's all. He for sure had a thing going with Billy Tope in District 12. And it was like one of those super toxic gay dynamics where like Billy Tope isn't out, but he's like, I'll let you suck me off. Yeah. So Jane is just definitely, I was like, oh, I don't know. He just read as gay to me. I don't know why. I can't say exactly why, but I felt that in my bones. Was it because he was gentle and believed in human rights? it was also because like his dad hated him yes he just like i and like his like like obsession with like being friends i don't know there was just so much about him where i was like oh i could see this but it wasn't anything like actual there was i don't know he just in the same way that like some of the characters i'm like oh you're black like i was just like oh you're gay like she didn't say it but i just like felt it that was interesting because our last podcast together we had a big gay audit of um of Katniss so I think yeah oh right that she she does she she does kind of she very much takes the Dumbledore approach to gay characters in these books and that she's recognizing that gayness exists but they're always like off-screen characters it'll be like one of the cubby girls being like oh yeah my friend's got a girlfriend anyway well isn't Clark Clam, isn't he gay?

32:39One of the uncles is gay. One of them is, right? One of the uncles is gay. Maybe it's Tam Amblin. Yeah.

32:48Traci Thomas: Amber Tamblin. Tam Amblin's gay. We all feel fine about it. But I feel like one of the uncles is like, I'm protective of you, but I just want you to be happy and find love because I know what it's like to not have love or something. and has like a secret boyfriend. Did I make that up? I'm pretty sure that's on the test. No, that is definitely a thing. But it's also like, why would anyone care in this world if anyone's gay? It's like, it feels like, like, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of social values that have particularly carried over from our present worldview in terms of like, sexual dynamics aren't talked about that much.

33:33Traci Thomas: Like, there aren't, again, not that much about um individual ethnicity stuff kind of there's not that much gender um roles really going on like there you never get a sense from these worlds that like girls do this and boys do this you get a sense that everyone's capable so i don't really understand why there would be homophobia in these worlds it seems like there would be other kinds of phobias but not like why there's none of those why is there this one yeah interesting sure yeah no i don't know but it definitely is like a line. It's a pretty throwaway line. So who knows? Yeah. It feels like a real Suzanne Collins get off my back line kind of thing.

34:09Traci Thomas: It's her being like, look, there are gay people. I just don't really care about them for this. Okay. Like, I'm not really doing gay race. I'm not, I'm just doing war. You guys, I'm just doing fucking war. Can I just do war? Can you just let Suzanne do war? Because the thing is, Suzanne doesn't care about romance at all. So why would she care about gay romance? Yeah. She's just like, I have you guys, are you guys paying attention? I just want to do war philosophy. That's it. That's what my dad and I talked about. That's what I want to do. Leave me alone. Me and my dad didn't talk about gay sex.

34:43So there's no gay sex in this book. She's like, fuck who you want. Don't make me write about it.

34:48Traci Thomas: Thank you. So fair, actually. Do you know what? So fair. I get it. Just because the books are popular with a lot of people doesn't mean that she has to write about every damn thing, you know? Exactly. um yeah no i back to what we were saying i would spend i would i i loved mags and wyrus i loved them as the um the mentors i thought that was like such a nice yeah touch i i mean we all who didn't love mags in book three so two and three two yeah totally and like again it's just i i in in my head canon they are a couple um and this kind of and they just felt like a very gentle united but very strong front and this this very moving thing of like you know we you know in when we first started doing this it's very like when we first started fostering as a couple kind of you know we we made the mistake of not asking people what they wanted and you know we can't guarantee your survival but we can help you try and achieve things such as dying with grace or whatever you know or like making your individual families proud of you you know and it's very moving and then it comes up with Haymitch's sort of slogan I mean his version of snow lands on top is that they won't use me to paint their posters um which is less catchy but I get it yeah yeah I that did not have the Suzanne Collins ring to it it's definitely not may the odds be ever in your favor or whatever it was not does not catch um but I did I I did love that bit of like we can help you to like exit with dignity essentially yeah um and I I just and I loved virus's little like chant like uh first avoid the slaughter then go find water like get some food answer this make friends or maybe don't like i thought that was so cute make friends or maybe don't i don't know i lost the plot i know the first part was like first avoid first avoid the slaughter then go and find water or something i mean yeah not bad not bad rules for life in general games yeah yeah um i'm conscious that we're doing a greatest hits for this but again we've been talking about this book throughout so i i don't think anyone will be mad at us um i loved that it was like a beautiful poison arena as a kind of like a this is this is like in my head as well that like because I needed to explain to myself why President Snow was so obsessed with these games to me they were like his oor games they're like these are my special ones I've been doing this for x number of years I don't do it so much anymore but this is like my dream arena it's full of poison i love poison right right the poison arena um and i think like the other part of this book that i don't think we've talked about nearly enough considering how big it is in the book is the propaganda of it all that we see this whole story from haymitch's point of view and then he finally wins and then he gets out and he sees the like roundup of what the capital saw and it's just literally he's a fucking asshole he doesn't help anybody he doesn't do anything revolutionary he's not there when ampert dies he's not there when maizley dies he's not there when lulu dies like he is he is he is a selfish rascal which is what he wanted to be and also that in the arena he doesn't help mazel lee and like just like that that the whole his whole experience is just not what anyone will ever see or understand and that he'll never be able to like redeem himself because even if the bad things were shown of him in the arena like him not helping to kill the game makers or helping to fight against whatever nobody saw any of it so there's nothing for him to even argue against like they've taken away all of his ability to like have a redemption art and I thought that that was like so fascinating and like devastating for that character you're so right I hadn't thought about that in the same way but you're so right because it also speaks to the kind of um of celebrity in general that like the way in which because the whole thing with the Hunger Games is that like if you win you get to be a celebrity and you get to be rich and famous and be in this enviable position and the way in which we still think of celebrities as these people people in positions of power when very often they aren't very often being notable and being known is not an exchangeable thing with or even equitable with being a person of power you know and so and so frequently you get these i think about this as well with kind of like because she's having such a moment right now with too much lena dunham's career and about how she spent so much of her career trying to explain herself and then kind of gave up and sort of disappeared for five or six years about like how even if you have the tools to explain yourself the ways in which our culture picks and choose why it will show and how it will manipulate it means you actually you may think you have a mouthpiece to totally explain what you want to say but actually you don't because of how the information is disseminated right and like in this case

40:21some of that falls at the feet of plutarch yes yeah who i guess ultimately don't know how much

40:30Traci Thomas: yeah at the end of the day he's just saving his own ass i guess maybe yeah but yeah like that he doesn't even get to he didn't he thought he was like making all of these posters and it turns out like nobody ever saw them god that and that is actually a book that is unbearably bleak that is the bleakest thing of all he thought he was making all these statements all these fuck yous to the capital and not a person saw them unless they were watching live and like and even if they were watching live the way in which the edit is shown and reshown changes the fact of what happened right but like even people who were at the parade like didn't know that luella had died because they like they don't pay enough attention to these kids like just that i mean the whole oh it's just so like so bleak it's so bleak and so yeah he wins he kind of almost dies his like guts get dragged out and then they sort of repair him there's this very kind of dreamy bit where he's like recovering but there's videos of lucy gray baird for some reason yeah i didn't understand what that was no but that also is sort of reminiscent of like both katniss and pita getting like patched up but like way better like they like take off all her scars and like yes yeah it's like maybe like an early stage of that i don't know but i don't know why lucy was there i mean uh yeah or was it lucy was it lenore or lucy on the videos no it was it was tapes of lucy i think oh i thought anyway you're right no you're right i don't know sometimes when stuff happens that's like weird in books i just sort of block it out i'm like oh that wasn't helpful i gotta go there's quite a few of those in this book um which like like like for example especially the fucking raven poem oh what the what was that about okay but here's my question Do you know that Edgar Allan Poe married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 27 years old?

42:35Because that part of the story of Edgar Allan Poe is very fucking troubling to me. And it was a weird choice. I'm like, what is she saying? Because she's got to know that information.

42:45Traci Thomas: Okay, I'll be totally honest with you. Edgar Allan Poe is not as big over here as he is in the US. I feel like I know about Edgar Allan Poe because I know a little bit about poetry and because he always comes up in American TV shows as the great American poet. But I feel like I'm like, I know about the Raven and nothing else. The only reason I know this about Edgar Allan Poe is because we read Lolita for my podcast's book club. And I listened to the Lolita podcast that Jamie Loftus does. And she talked about how I believe Edgar Allan Poe comes up in Lolita and like a reference to him and his young wife.

43:25And so she explained that piece. of information but like the fact that he was a child pedophile whatever i don't think that that is something we're taught i just remember learning about the raven that's nuts i don't get like so

43:37Traci Thomas: does does lenore dove as a thing come up in the raven is that what it is lenore is a name and that's where she gets her name lenore right okay so the whole thing with covey from like a ballad and a color with a name in it yeah yeah sure i get it um yeah but i didn't need the whole transcription of the poem suzanne i got it quote the raven nevermore rhymes with lenore we're there we're done we get it scary yeah i know it's scary um so yeah so he goes back to district 12 he his friend he's he's again he's very good friends with um or he was with katniss's father burdock who or burdock i feel like i'm not saying it right burdock burdock and the he very quickly after he gets back his entire family are killed and also um lenore dove is killed through poisoned bonbons or something um gumdrops gumdrops yes and then he realizes like oh this is there's no coming back from this for me and also if i befriend anybody else they'll be murdered as well so now i will simply disappear behind a veil of alcoholism for 20 years until katniss comes along it's so fucking grim it's so bleak i hate that yeah and like again he's 16 yeah like it's just like what his whole family is killed and like it's not shortly after he arrives it's like he arrives and the fire breaks out and by the time he gets to the house everyone's dead everyone's dead like it's like the timing is just and then they have the scene where there's like the funeral with all these coffins of all these people who have died like in this short period of time and also his birthday is reaping day he's july 4th birthday which is the reaping day uh for those of you overseas not familiar july 4th in america is our independence day ever heard of it um it's just like so i mean i think the whole games only took like five or six days so this is like within a week or two of his birthday all this is happening uh-huh yep just so but like what was interesting to me in this is that like i think we know from catching fire that um the to to win the games is low-key the worst thing that can happen to you it's almost worse and death because you become this pawn of the games for the rest of your life and you have to like there's the Finnick O'Dare thing where you kind of use a sort of like a sex worker and it's it's traveling that way or they just kill your family to control you or whatever um right and that is even Drusilla in the earlier parts of Sunrise even says to Mesa Lee I hope you do win because it will be the greatest misery of your life so it's like an open secret in the capital that it's the worst thing that can happen to you.

46:39Traci Thomas: That it's like this is the worst thing that could ever happen. But here's my argument. Why would you kill all of them at once if you want to control Hamish for the rest of his life? Surely kill Hanor for sure. And then, yeah. I just thought in this case it was like, you tried to come for my games. Like, I'm taking everything you've ever loved. It's not even about controlling him. It's about breaking him in this case. I think with Finnick it was about control and that's why they kept his girlfriend alive so that he would do what they wanted. In this case, I think it was just like, you want to destroy me?

47:14Nah, I'm going to destroy you. I'm going to make sure you live so that you can never be... Because what does he say? Hamish says to him, I guess Snow lands on top. And then he says that President Snow, he merely smiles and says, enjoy your homecoming. It's just the threat of all threats.

47:36Traci Thomas: So good. These are great books. It's so good. I love them. They're great books. I know, even the ones that I didn't love, I think that I thought Sunrise on the Reaping was my least favorite. And even that I thought was great. Like, I think, like, up against other books, it's fantastic. Up against Suzanne Collins herself, it's not her best. But, like, that's, like, the Beyonce rule, right? It's, like, Beyonce's worst album is the best album that's ever been written by anybody not named Beyonce, you know? like I'm just like oh okay cool like you didn't like Cowboy Carter that much great fine fair but like is there any album that's even close to Cowboy Carter written by anybody else alive right now like no not at all um and so that's like my judgment of these books is like no no this is still probably one of the best books I read this year it just wasn't the Hunger Games original that's so true and I think like taking all you know as where we really do have to wrap up because we've been speaking for over two hours which is more than you know we barely know each other at all I've spoken to you more this week than I have to my mom um but like I feel like the achievement of these five books when taken as a whole and I think there probably will be a sixth um is that it creates not just a world but a continuum and the most effective thing it shows when brought all together is it shows how like the slippage of an entire society and I think what Suzanne is writing about right now is slippage I think she's looking at slippage of like she's watching standards fall around her she's watching violence become more every day she's watching rights being taken away from people more and more she's watching all this slipping of civilization and she's like I will show you a continuum of slippage I will show you how people get poor how people get more desperate and more violent and that is the story of these five books I think you're so that's that's perfect you're so correct totally thanks thanks man I can't I can't bury the thought that this is the last time I speak to you we have to talk about something I'm sort of obsessed with you it's very weird that it's like we just it's like this is the power of the hunger games i'm like my new best friend caroline we talk about one thing we don't know anything about each other you know what i mean like i can never know no any information about you besides like what is available online and then whatever you think about these books like that's it like if you get a dog i don't want to know like maybe you already have a dog i don't want to know i got a dog i have no interest in your dog like you have these tattoos on your arms I don't want to see them fully.

50:17Like, I don't want to know. I just, it's just you and me, Panem, Suzanne Collins, locked in forever.

50:26Traci Thomas: Oh my God, this is so nice. Okay. I am suggesting that we do a movie club when, when sunrise comes out, maybe, which will be next year. And then eventually she'll do another book and we'll do that too. And we'll just only meet up to talk about this. Oh my God. It's like a blood pact. um no I I love it I just I just had the darkest flash forward to my own funeral and like my grandparents my grandkids being like you know there was this American girl called Tracy there's like oh that was grandma's Hunger Games friend it's like I'm gonna like walk into the funeral they're gonna be like who's that like who's that woman and I'm just gonna be like I knew you I knew your grandmam in so many intimate ways that you'll never understand her love of violence and political thought.

51:16Like it's going to be some weird thing.

51:17Traci Thomas: I love this so much. I mean, we simply have to leave it there. I got to go to bed. It's like midnight where you are. Is it later than midnight? It's like 10, but it's okay. That's past my bedtime. So I thank you for staying up and doing this with me. This was a blast. This is awesome. I've loved it. I'll see you for the next one.

51:44Thank you.