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Mar. 23rd, 2012 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raincitygirlSo, I just finished reading the Hunger Games trilogy. Cutting for spoilers:
I liked Catching Fire a lot, although that could be because I had low expectations. I’d been warned Catching Fire and Mockingjay didn’t live up to the standard of Hunger Games, but I thought Catching Fire held up well. And captured Katniss’s PTSD from the events of the first book beautifully. Mockingjay was very disappointing. I didn’t really mind the mass die-off of supporting characters, although I know others have said that was depressing. There’s a civil war on, I was expecting a bloodbath, and Prim’s death brought Katniss full circle. I didn’t find Mockingjay depressing so much as…incoherent. It could’ve used a good editor to pare it down to the essentials. Underneath all the waffle was a fairly decent (if also fairly improbable) plot.
Mind you, I was spoiled for part of the outcome (my own fault) in that I already knew Peeta survives and ends up with Katniss. I might have found Mockingjay more dramatic if I hadn’t already known his fate and known which choice Katniss would make in that bleeping love triangle. Speaking of which, I know I’m stealing this idea from someone on my f-list, but I wish a troika had been one of the approved list of possible endings. It’s like, “Katniss, you don’t have to choose between Peeta and Gale. They actually quite like each other. You can have BOTH of them.” Love triangles bore me in general, but I minded it less in Hunger Games and Catching Fire than in Mockingjay. Possibly the love triangle wasn’t as foregrounded in the first two books as in the last one, or maybe it’s because of the drop in the quality of the writing.
Don’t get me started on the epilogue. Grrrr. If there was one thing that was consistent about Katniss’s characterization it was that she didn’t want kids of her own. Would it have been too revolutionary for her to simply hold her ground, instead of changing her mind and being all “Twoo Wuv made me want babies after all”? Apparently so. Whatevs.
Weirdly, though, I’m actually shipping a canon pairing. That doesn’t happen for me very often, I think the last time was when I shipped John/Aeryn in Farscape. Mind you, there are certain similarities in the ships. Katniss and Aeryn are both tough as nails, ruthless like whoa with themselves and others, and way better at combat than anything involving people skills. John and Peeta are both kind of naïve and helpless, at least at first, but good at nurturing, definitely more open emotionally than their chosen partner, lots of people skills.
they both keep ending up in the damsel in distress role where they need to be rescued by the kickass, take-no-prisoners woman in their life. Oh, and both John and Peeta want kids, while Aeryn and Katniss are both seriously frelling terrified by the idea (for ENTIRELY VALID reasons that get brushed aside by the creators). Peeta is significantly less crazy than John, at least until the events of Mockingjay, but really, there are lots of similarities. No wonder I ship them. So, is there any decent Katniss/Peeta fic out there? I’m thinking that given how young this fandom skews, and given how popular this pairing is going to be, the signal-to-noise ratio will probably be horrific.
I love that apparently eight gazillion readers think Katniss Everdeen is awesome, because she is totes a great role model for young girls. So much better than that Bella Swan. And Hermione Granger was awesome, but she wasn’t the heroine, she was a supporting character in yet another pop culture phenomenon about a Special Boy. It’s nice to have a pop culture phenomenon about a Special Girl, for a change. And one who’s Special for reasons besides boys falling hopelessly in love with her.
I liked Catching Fire a lot, although that could be because I had low expectations. I’d been warned Catching Fire and Mockingjay didn’t live up to the standard of Hunger Games, but I thought Catching Fire held up well. And captured Katniss’s PTSD from the events of the first book beautifully. Mockingjay was very disappointing. I didn’t really mind the mass die-off of supporting characters, although I know others have said that was depressing. There’s a civil war on, I was expecting a bloodbath, and Prim’s death brought Katniss full circle. I didn’t find Mockingjay depressing so much as…incoherent. It could’ve used a good editor to pare it down to the essentials. Underneath all the waffle was a fairly decent (if also fairly improbable) plot.
Mind you, I was spoiled for part of the outcome (my own fault) in that I already knew Peeta survives and ends up with Katniss. I might have found Mockingjay more dramatic if I hadn’t already known his fate and known which choice Katniss would make in that bleeping love triangle. Speaking of which, I know I’m stealing this idea from someone on my f-list, but I wish a troika had been one of the approved list of possible endings. It’s like, “Katniss, you don’t have to choose between Peeta and Gale. They actually quite like each other. You can have BOTH of them.” Love triangles bore me in general, but I minded it less in Hunger Games and Catching Fire than in Mockingjay. Possibly the love triangle wasn’t as foregrounded in the first two books as in the last one, or maybe it’s because of the drop in the quality of the writing.
Don’t get me started on the epilogue. Grrrr. If there was one thing that was consistent about Katniss’s characterization it was that she didn’t want kids of her own. Would it have been too revolutionary for her to simply hold her ground, instead of changing her mind and being all “Twoo Wuv made me want babies after all”? Apparently so. Whatevs.
Weirdly, though, I’m actually shipping a canon pairing. That doesn’t happen for me very often, I think the last time was when I shipped John/Aeryn in Farscape. Mind you, there are certain similarities in the ships. Katniss and Aeryn are both tough as nails, ruthless like whoa with themselves and others, and way better at combat than anything involving people skills. John and Peeta are both kind of naïve and helpless, at least at first, but good at nurturing, definitely more open emotionally than their chosen partner, lots of people skills.
they both keep ending up in the damsel in distress role where they need to be rescued by the kickass, take-no-prisoners woman in their life. Oh, and both John and Peeta want kids, while Aeryn and Katniss are both seriously frelling terrified by the idea (for ENTIRELY VALID reasons that get brushed aside by the creators). Peeta is significantly less crazy than John, at least until the events of Mockingjay, but really, there are lots of similarities. No wonder I ship them. So, is there any decent Katniss/Peeta fic out there? I’m thinking that given how young this fandom skews, and given how popular this pairing is going to be, the signal-to-noise ratio will probably be horrific.
I love that apparently eight gazillion readers think Katniss Everdeen is awesome, because she is totes a great role model for young girls. So much better than that Bella Swan. And Hermione Granger was awesome, but she wasn’t the heroine, she was a supporting character in yet another pop culture phenomenon about a Special Boy. It’s nice to have a pop culture phenomenon about a Special Girl, for a change. And one who’s Special for reasons besides boys falling hopelessly in love with her.
