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Post by Hermes on Aug 22, 2011 14:49:55 GMT -5
Okay, I forgot about them. What do you guys think of the mutant animals such as the tracker jackers and mockingjays? Why would the game makers allow mockingjays into the games anyway? I wonder if they can keep them out. I take it the arena is a piece of natural terrain that has been modified, so it would be quite easy to introduce new life-forms, but harder to get rid of the existing ones. Yes, definitely. I was wondering what the flag of Panem might look like, and I thought 'something with thirteen stars perhaps - oh, wait, hasn't that been done before?'
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Post by Songbird on Aug 22, 2011 18:18:39 GMT -5
I think they could keep out the mockingjays if they really wanted to. Why are the mockingjays so important?
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Post by Lady Whatever on Aug 22, 2011 18:29:49 GMT -5
Perhaps the pin that Katniss was wearing did not go unnoticed, and they decided to see whether or not the birds could add to any entertainment value for the audience should they prove either to be useful or detrimental to Katniss' fortunes in the Games. Since the audience seems to eat up dramatic irony, I'd say that's possible.
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Post by Songbird on Aug 24, 2011 20:01:35 GMT -5
It's pretty clear you guys are mostly done with the book, so lets continue to discuss. We are now going to talk about chapters 19-23
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Post by csc on Aug 24, 2011 21:20:20 GMT -5
I was really sad when Foxface died. Almos as much as I was when Rue died. I really liked her a lot and then she dies for such a stupid mistake. Gosh, Clove and Cato are so vicious. Am I the only one who was a little happy when she died? I would like to know though, how Thresh died. Collins doesn't explain what happened.
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Post by Dante on Aug 27, 2011 15:55:37 GMT -5
I've been away for a while. Let me rush through a few issues.
My concerns about artificiality were more to do with the god-like ability the Gamemakers have to manipulate the environment. Like, suddenly, bullet trees. Or mutants for no reason. And that gives Suzanne Collins free rein to also introduce anything she likes simply because the Gamemakers could.
I think nominatissima's right that there's an extent to which the setting feels like an exercise in world-building, though. But a fun one; I do like it, and I don't think that's a problem.
Yeah, I thought it was odd that Thresh, who was built up as being a significant threat to even a Career, died without explanation - I mean, off-screen is fine, Katniss can't be everywhere, but without explanation? I think it's justifiable, because the Careers and indeed the landscape of the Games are just that deadly, but it felt wrong; it felt like we were missing something interesting.
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Post by csc on Aug 28, 2011 9:22:24 GMT -5
Well some of the things that happen in the arena would be fairly easy to do. The mutts- you just put them there. Fire- set fire to the trees. Rain- it seems that they have some sort of device in the sky, that shows the tributes who died that day. If you'd just fill it with water... Well, this is the worst if my explanations, but I can't come up with anything better.
There's another event later on the book, but I'll talk about it in the sheduled time.
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Post by Lady Whatever on Aug 28, 2011 18:56:54 GMT -5
Having worked at a ski resort in my youth and being in a relationship with an astrophysicist, I can attest to how relatively easy it actually is to control a small portion of the weather in a particular area for your needs if you have the right equipment. I figured that the equipment the Gamekeepers were using was an enhanced form of terraforming technology applied to what is probably an artificial biodome, since they talked about varying environments throughout the years of games. It is almost dubiously convenient, but this is speculative fiction, after all.
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Post by csc on Aug 28, 2011 19:49:33 GMT -5
So I'm officially disappointed. I found out that TGH is a rip-off of a japanese novel called Battle Royale. Maybe you've heard of it, appearantly it's popular. If you haven't here's the story: Japan is out of control, basically. So the government, to scare the population and put them back on track, decides to create Battle Royale- each year, a class of students from a random school is chosen to fight to death in a island. They have 3 days until there's only one left or they all die. Familiar to anybody? I don't know, I haven't read it, maybe it's not that similar or it's just a coincidence. But it's very suspicious.
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Post by Lady Whatever on Aug 28, 2011 20:00:46 GMT -5
I've read Battle Royale. Apart from the fact that a fight between teenagers takes place, there's nothing really remarkably similar to it. For one thing, BR is a lot more gruesome and high charged in its nightmare fuel, and the kids are utterly unaware of what they are getting into. The most striking similarity is the fact that the Games have the same function as the Program, to intimidate the populace and remind them who is really in charge. But the setting of Battle Royale is a brutal military dictatorship more similar to Pol Pot's Cambodia, or the USSR, and the Hunger Games evokes more of an opulent, oligarchic plutocracy, like modern SINO (Socialist in Name Only, hehehe) China, or Columbia and (to an extent) the United States, so their messages inherently differ in the end, without giving away spoilers. If The Hunger Games is to be compared to another novel, the more obvious choice is The Lottery for me, not Battle Royale.
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Post by Dante on Aug 29, 2011 2:35:25 GMT -5
Aye, while I haven't read Battle Royale, I've looked into it, and I think you can overstate the comparisons. While I wouldn't be surprised if Collins had heard of it - especially now, but more importantly before she began her series - then I don't think it's that telling if she did, and nor do I think it qualifies as a rip-off if the trappings are sufficiently different. You have to ask what the two are really about. Are they both simply about offing teenagers on TV in violent ways? Or are they a broader satire on contemporary life? If the latter, they're attacking quite different things, from nominatissima's description. I can think of a few teen fiction works which involve butchering teenage characters in increasingly violent ways, but that's really the main link between all of them. Maybe you should think of it as a kind of genre; is Poirot a rip-off of Holmes, or Harry Potter of Lord of the Rings?
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Post by Hermes on Aug 29, 2011 6:35:48 GMT -5
Having worked at a ski resort in my youth Ah, youth, how swiftly it flies . Yes, controlling the weather isn't difficult. The mutts are probably the hardest, given that they incorporate parts of the dead Tributes. I can think of a few teen fiction works which involve butchering teenage characters in increasingly violent ways, but that's really the main link between all of them. Maybe you should think of it as a kind of genre; is Poirot a rip-off of Holmes, or Harry Potter of Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter isn't, but it's an accusation quite often made about the works of Terry Brooks et al. But I tend to agree; what from far off looks like a rip-off may from close up turn out to be a genre convention. (And after all, the set-up of Sherlock Holmes was itself borrowed from Poe.)
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Post by csc on Aug 29, 2011 11:44:50 GMT -5
I've read Battle Royale. Apart from the fact that a fight between teenagers takes place, there's nothing really remarkably similar to it. For one thing, BR is a lot more gruesome and high charged in its nightmare fuel, and the kids are utterly unaware of what they are getting into. The most striking similarity is the fact that the Games have the same function as the Program, to intimidate the populace and remind them who is really in charge. But the setting of Battle Royale is a brutal military dictatorship more similar to Pol Pot's Cambodia, or the USSR, and the Hunger Games evokes more of an opulent, oligarchic plutocracy, like modern SINO (Socialist in Name Only, hehehe) China, or Columbia and (to an extent) the United States, so their messages inherently differ in the end, without giving away spoilers. If The Hunger Games is to be compared to another novel, the more obvious choice is The Lottery for me, not Battle Royale. I am very glad to hear that. I'll look into this lottery novel later though,I have never heard of it.
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Post by Dante on Aug 29, 2011 14:48:08 GMT -5
The Lottery is a short story, and a little quick Googling reveals it online here (I haven't read it either).
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Post by Songbird on Sept 5, 2011 21:21:16 GMT -5
Okay everyone, sorry for the delay, but between the hurricane and my new job it's been hectic. Let's discuss the end of the book.
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