The Presidents of Panem

 Two Sides of the Same Coin – The Presidents of Panem

Panem’s #1 Peacekeeper – Coriolanus Snow

Panem is a totalitarian dictatorship modelled on Ancient Rome. We know it is set in the remains of North America after an apocalyptic event. After a failed rebellion led by District 13, the other 12 districts were brought in line by the Treaty of Treason and the Hunger Games.

Coriolanus Snow ended up as an apprentice Gamemaker and he was instrumental in making the Hunger Games the spectacle they are by Katniss’ time. He took the ‘bread and circuses’ very seriously, and we learn a lot of this from the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Snow became President of Panem when still young and he remained so for a long time. He is 82 years old in the first Hunger Games book. He is cruel, manipulative and more than willing to kill those in his way. Even friends. His preferred weapon is poison.

He often drank the poison himself, to avoid suspicion, and this took its toll on him. The antidotes weren’t always perfect so he had to wear a perfumed rose to disguise the smell of blood on his breath from ulcers that would never heal.

We know from the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that he has a particular vendetta against District 12 after his relationship with Lucy Grey. We know from Catching Fire that he killed Haymitch’s family and girlfriend because of his rebelliousness. I won’t spoil Sunrise on the Reaping here so I’m sticking to the little bit we know from the original trilogy.

Snow manipulates people, exploits them, tortures them and kills them to suit his own ends. By his own words, he isn’t wasteful, only killing when he believes it necessary. He has always feared another rebellion and civil war and in his mind, he’s trying to prevent it by dealing with rebellious elements.

He forces Katniss to try and calm the unrest after her Hunger Games suicide pact with Peeta, but she fails. The spark is lit and cannot be controlled. So he goes to great lengths to unhinge her and make her unwilling or unable to stand against him.

It’s pretty likely that he had the card for the Third Quarter Quell changed to ensure she went back into the arena so he could kill her without implicating himself in any way. Of course, he likely didn’t know that some of the Victors were in on a rebel plot, nor that Plutarch Heavensbee, the head gamemaker was in on it. They were collaborating with President Coin of 13.

After the rebels break her out of the arena and set her up as the Mockingjay, the face of the rebellion, he employs what amounts to psychological warfare to disturb and unhinge Katniss. Leaving the rose in her house in 12, dropping the roses after the bombing of 13 and allowing Peeta to be recovered.

He used Peeta for propaganda, and he progressively looks worse with every interview so Katniss can see he’s being tortured. When they go to rescue the Victors, the Capitol let’s them go. Because Peeta has been hijacked and turned into a weapon, conditioned to attack Katniss and try to kill her.

When the rebels take the Capitol, Katniss is utterly distraught at losing Prim in the bombing outside the mansion. She finds her way to Snow to speak to him. He reiterates their promise not to lie to each other, claiming that the bombs that killed her sister were not from the Capitol. It was a rebel plot. Katniss says she doesn’t believe him but it’s enough to plant that seed of doubt.

Katniss and Peeta were used as pawns by both sides, manipulated and put through hell to preserve the status quo. Snow claims he too was being manipulated, because he and Katniss were focused on each other while Coin was waiting in the wings to seize power for herself. Which is true.

Alma Coin

We learn that Coin wanted Peeta, not Katniss, to be a symbol of the rebellion. He was better at speaking and convincing people, but I think she also thought Peeta was more easily manipulated and controlled. Katniss is a rogue element, unwilling to take orders she disagrees with.

Coin was one of the major players behind the second rebellion. She is military, as that was 13’s purpose before the Dark Days, and they survived with careful control and training. The thing about military leaders is they don’t like unruly people who ask too many questions and don’t follow orders.

Coin was resentful of Katniss’ conditions for her becoming the Mockingjay. So she twists it around on her, announcing that the deal will be off if Katniss fails in her task of uniting the Districts against the Capitol.

She only wants to use Katniss as a poster, for propaganda. They try to get her to do this within 13, in a TV studio with a greenscreen, but Katniss is not an actress. She can only create emotional responses in people when it’s real and raw. But Coin doesn’t want her in combat.

Once the districts were united, she had no further need for the Mockingjay. It’s clear from her sending Peeta, who’s been too busy recovering from his torture and hijacking to train as a soldier. Katniss talks to Boggs about this, as she is certain Peeta was sent to kill her. That the Mockingjay was now of more value dead, as a martyr for the cause.

“If your immediate answer isn’t Coin, then you’re a threat.” – Boggs, Mockingjay Chapter 19

Coin sees Katniss as a threat because of her influence on people. She used that influence to her own ends but when Katniss refused to bend the knee, she wanted to eliminate Katniss. When that failed, she sent Prim to the Capitol. Primrose Everdeen was thirteen, not old enough to be a soldier by District 13’s own laws.

So why was she on the front lines? Sure she had a lot of potential as a medic, but she was too young to be sent there. It had to be on purpose, so that when the Rebels used their double bomb trap, Prim would be killed. So Katniss would either lose it completely (which she almost did) or be firmly on Coin’s side by blaming Snow for her sister’s death.

When Katniss confronts Snow, he tells her it wasn’t his doing. It was Coin and the Rebels that killed her sister because killing all those children like that would be ‘a waste’ and he wasn’t wasteful like that. At first, Katniss doesn’t believe him but it was enough to plant the seed of doubt.

When Coin proposed the Hunger Games using the Capitol’s children, instead of mass executions, Katniss said yes. Her purpose here was not to actually endorse a new Hunger Games, simply to gain Coin’s trust.

Haymitch seems to be the only one to understand what Katniss is doing here. Katniss then kills Coin, very publicly instead of Snow. Avenging her sister and intending to end her own life. Peeta stops her, but she’s finally seen the truth.

Coin is as bad as Snow. There is no difference as far as Katniss can see.

“Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now.”

Haymitch’s choice of words is interesting. He says he’s “with the Mockingjay” not that he’s with Katniss. He knows the difference between the Mockingjay and the real Katniss Everdeen. He understands what she sees and what she intends to do. I won’t spoil it but Sunrise on the Reaping really shows the truth about Haymitch Abernathy and gives a lot of context to his character.

Are They As Bad As Each Other?

It certainly seems like it. Coin clearly envisioned herself as the next President. She declares herself ‘interim’ President with the intention of holding an election when things ‘settle down’ but no time-frame is given for this. What’s to say she waits a year, five years, ten years to hold this election? Or just decides she’s not going to do it.

Coin underestimated Katniss, as did Snow. They both made assumptions about her nature and her motivations. They both tried to use her for their own ends with little care about how this would impact Katniss and the people around her.

The thing that the Hunger Games trilogy wants us to learn is how corrupt politicians never change. These powerful rulers that show no care for their people, lie and manipulate, punish and abuse them for the crimes of others. Keeping the people subjugated through brutality, forced poverty and a tiny glimmer of hope, an illusion of hope anyway.

President Snow outright states this in the movie. Hope is more powerful than fear, and a little hope is a good thing but it must be contained. Too much hope is dangerous to his regime. Coin too sold the illusion of hope, seeing herself as the ‘saviour’ of Panem while seizing power for herself.

Katniss eventually saw through her and I believe she was right to assassinate Coin. Her proposal to hold another Hunger Games proved it. Katniss had only wanted to save her loved ones, to protect Prim, Gale and Peeta. Both presidents sought to use her for their own gains and didn’t expect her to resist or push back. They didn’t expect her to get wise to their machinations.

In the end, snow fell and the coin landed heads down. Because Katniss saw the truth and seized her chance to prevent either of these dangerous people from letting more people suffer under an oppressive dictator.

Is it a happy ending? Kind of, but also not really. Katniss gets her life, her and Peeta heal and end up falling in love for real. They have a family, something Katniss only would consider when she knew it was safe and her children would never be in a Reaping. But there are only survivors, no winners, and everyone who survived bore the scars forever. Both physical and mental scars. So it’s a peaceful ending but not entirely sunshine and rainbows.

They put together a book of remembrance, about all the people lost and everything that happened. Because while history doesn’t repeat itself, it very often rhymes. Suzanne Collins is warning us of what can happen if we let it. The rise of far right extreme politics, the ability to justify any atrocity by claiming it’s ‘for the greater good’ when it’s not and the ways in which the media can manipulate us and desensitise us to human suffering. We need to listen. These books and movies are entertaining, but they are also showing us what our world could become if we let it. Remember, you cannot take politics out of books. Politics affect everything in our lives and the act of reading, and writing is inherently political. So make sure you are on the right side of history.

Emi the Cat Lady 💜

 The Boy With The Bread – Peeta Mellark’s Journey

The Hunger Games trilogy is told to us through Katniss’ perspective, so we don’t get a lot of insight into Peeta’s thoughts other than through what he says and does. It’s all coloured by Katniss’ own thoughts and feelings, which aren’t always reliable. Still, Peeta goes on a long and equally painful journey. There are very mild spoilers for Sunrise on the Reaping, basically just names of parents of the trilogy’s main characters.

First Crush

Peeta notices Katniss very early on when they are starting school at five years old. Otho Mellark, Peeta’s father, points her out to him. He mentions how he wanted to marry Katniss’ mother but she ran off with a coal miner, Burdock Everdeen. He explains to Peeta that when Burdock sang, all the birds stopped to listen to him.

During music class, Katniss sings a song to her class. Peeta noticed that the birds stopped to listen to her voice as well. He develops a crush on her, but never works up the courage to go and speak to her. They don’t even talk until the day of the Reaping when they go into the Games together. It’s a sweet, innocent little moment, that it was her singing that made Peeta take notice of her.

The Bread

This is a key moment for both Katniss and Peeta. After Burdock’s death in the mine explosion, Asterid falls into a deep depression and stops taking care of herself and her daughters. Katniss becomes desperate when the money runs out and ends up in the merchant part of town, searching the rubbish bins for anything she can use to feed her family.

Katniss is chased off by Peeta’s mother. She collapses against an old apple tree in the rain, too weak to keep going. Peeta drops two loaves into the fire, and his mother hits him for his clumsiness and orders him to give the burnt bread to the pig.

Peeta does this, but when his mother goes to help a customer, he throws the bread to Katniss. It is very likely that Peeta burnt the bread on purpose, to be able to give it to Katniss. It’s hearty bread with fruit and nuts in it, which will add calories and nutrients. He risks further abuse from his mother in order to help Katniss: his kindness, compassion and willingness to sacrifice himself is evident here.

The next day at school, their eyes meet but they don’t talk. Katniss drops her gaze and sees the first dandelion of the year. This little yellow flower reminds her of what her father had been teaching her, and she realises she knows how to survive this.

The dandelion is very symbolic of this hopeful moment where Katniss realises all is not lost. It reminds her of her father, and of Peeta’s help. Interesting side note is that Asterid is a clade of plants that include the dandelion. Burdock is also a related plant, and in the UK we have a drink called dandelion and burdock - it's a kind of root beer or sarsaparilla kind of drink. So Katniss’ parents are related to that dandelion, the hope, compassion and love she needs. And Peeta’s now associated with that symbol too.

Peeta might not be aware of how important this moment was to Katniss and her family. But we see his nature demonstrated very well here. He clearly doesn’t have a perfect home life, his mother hit him such that he had a black eye the next day. So she’s clearly abusive, even though his father seems to be very kind and caring too. Mr Mellark visits Katniss to say goodbye and promises her family will not starve if she dies.

The Reaping

Peeta is understandably shocked and scared to be picked in the Reaping. It’s rare for any kid in the merchant class to be reaped because they don’t claim tesserae so have much fewer entries than kids from the Seam. His mother tells him that she thinks 12 will finally have a Victor they can take pride in.

Except, she means Katniss. Not him. Which has to be a horrible thing to hear from your own mother. That she’s expecting him to die and has already written him off. He has very little confidence that he can survive the Games.

Even so, he confronts Haymitch first about giving them proper help and preparation. He also handles the public facing stuff well, waving from the train and everything. He’s got a way with words, he’s charismatic and easy to talk to. Easy to like too.

Haymitch pushes them to show a united front during training, showing that they are friends and will be together in all of this. Katniss tries to keep him at arms length, she struggles to trust him and doesn’t know how much of what he says is genuine. She’s hurt when he asks to be coached alone for the interview with Caesar Flickerman.

We find out why, when he has his interview. As the boy from 12, his is the last interview. He establishes a rapport very easily with the host, making jokes and talking. He confesses his love for Katniss on live TV, shocking her completely. She is angry about this, about finding out like this and she wants to know what game he’s playing. She thinks it’s a strategy, but we can see as time goes on that his feelings for her are genuine. He’s not faking it. But Katniss takes a long time to see the truth.

Their talk on the roof is significant. Katniss apologises for hurting him and they talk about the Games. Peeta expresses a wish, that he wants to die as himself and not let the situation and the Capital change who he really is. His goal is to protect Katniss and help her survive. Even if it means he dies.

The Arena

Once they’re in the arena, Katniss is alone for most of the early days. She’s horrified to find Peeta with the Career Pack. They’re using him to find Katniss, while Peeta’s trying to protect her from them. Katniss obviously doesn’t know that, but he helps her by urging her to run after the tracker jacker nest. He faces off against Cato, buying Katniss time to escape, sustaining a major injury from Cato’s sword.

So again, Peeta is risking himself, taking an injury in order to save Katniss’ life. She comments a few times about how she’ll never stop owing Peeta for saving her life. He doesn’t expect her to repay anything though. He’s not doing it for a reciprocal agreement, he holds nothing over her. He just cares and wants to help her.

When they’re in the cave, they play up the ‘star-crossed lovers’ angle a lot. Katniss assumes its all a strategy. Haymitch is encouraging this as well, via the sponsor gifts he sends and when he sends them. Katniss understands these subtle messages from Haymitch, Peeta is unaware of them as he gets no sponsor gifts until he joins up with Katniss. Haymitch chose her to support, because he also believed Peeta wouldn’t be able to survive the arena.

There is one time where she feels something. After Peeta’s sepsis is treated and Katniss has recovered from her head wound. They kiss and she feels something stirring in her chest, wanting more and starting to feel something for him. That she’s not thinking about the sponsors or what Haymitch would want. Proof that it’s not all about acting, for her. While Peeta doesn’t really need to act, because he knows his feelings and they’re real.

Finale of the Games

During the ending, the battle with Cato after evading the mutts, Peeta exhibits some impressive tactical thinking. He’s clever, and even under duress, when Cato has him in a headlock, he signals to her instead of fighting him off.

He has a serious leg wound which is bleeding so Katniss makes a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and keep him alive. But when they announce that they’ve revoked the rule change about two victors from the same district, he’s quick to ask Katniss to let him die so she can go home. He even removes the bandage to try and bleed out. He wants to save her.

Katniss doesn’t want to kill him or let him die. They argue and Peeta says it’s what he wants. The Games have to have a Victor. Katniss doesn’t fully understand her choice here but she proposes the suicide pact and Peeta doesn’t argue. It seems unlikely either of them are truly thinking of a full scale rebellion, but they are thinking about not letting the Games control them. Which is what Peet said he wanted in the end.

After it’s all over, Katniss gets a heads up that there is unrest in the districts after what she did. She has to be very careful. On the train home, when it stops for fuel, Katniss and Peeta take a walk along the tracks to talk out of earshot. Haymitch mentions they need to keep it up until their homecoming, which alerts Peeta to the fact that she maybe hasn’t been as genuine in her feelings for him as he thought.

Peeta is obviously very hurt and heartbroken to learn that she was executing a strategy. She admits she doesn’t fully know how much of it was real and that she’s growing more confused, the closer they get to home. Katniss wants to tell him he’s being unfair to her, holding her to everything that happened in the games. He obviously feels betrayed by both Katniss and Haymitch in this moment, he’s left in the dark about what’s going on.

Peeta is a good soul, but he’s not perfect, and being strung along like that has to hurt when his feelings are all real. He’s steady and warm, the kind of person that is easy to like. But Katniss doesn’t feel like she can give him the future he would want. Neither of them are great at communicating with each other. Yet, Peeta doesn’t risk anyone finding out the truth, he still plays his part for the public. He knows it could lead to harm for Katniss.

Victory Tour

After they return to 12, they basically avoid each other even though they’re now neighbours in the Victor’s Village. Yet when the Tour begins, Peeta still keeps up appearances for the cameras and the public.

They eventually talk, after Katniss snaps at Effie and storms off. Peeta goes to her, and they agree to at least try to be friends with each other. They help each other cope with their shared trauma, Peeta starts sleeping beside her because of her nightmares.

It’s only after the old man is executed in District 11 that she reveals what Snow has told her. They have to convince everyone about their love story to pacify the districts. Peeta is angry, because he would have taken a different approach to their speech if he knew. He feels left out, like they don’t trust him to do the right thing. It’s understandable, really. He feels they should be able to trust him to say and do the right things, to avoid making matters worse.

During this tour, they agree that an engagement in public might be the way to go. Peeta proposes during an interview with Caesar Flickerman. He’s not happy with this idea, because it’s not a genuine proposal, it’s all for appearances sake. It’s clearly not how he would want to do things, even though he obviously hoped that marrying Katniss was in his future somewhere.

There's obviously a bit of jealousy around Gale, on both sides. Gale is also making a bid for Katniss, and it puts both of them at odds. Yet, when Gale is whipped for illegal hunting by the new Head Peacekeeper, Peeta is quick to intervene and help care for Gale’s wounds. He helps, because he cares about people. He cares about Katniss and her happiness, even if she was to find it with Gale and not him.

The Third Quarter Quell

After the announcement, of course, everyone knows that Katniss is going in. She’s the only living female Victor from 12. He is determined to be prepared for this Hunger Games. He forces both Haymitch and Katniss to stop drinking alcohol and insists that they start training like the Careers do. So no matter what, they can help Katniss survive.

He volunteers when Haymitch is reaped, because he wants to stay at Katniss’ side and save her. They study the other Victors they’ll be facing so they are as ready as they can be. When it comes to making allies, Peeta is the most approachable. Although he doesn’t seem impressed with Katniss’ choices, because they’re not strong combatants.

Yet, there’s still protesting going on. When Peeta has his private evaluation, he pains Rue with the flowers around her after she died. To hold the Gamemakers accountable for her death. This prompts Katniss to do something similar, by ‘hanging’ Seneca Crane. So they’re still rebelling a little, despite knowing nothing about the plan to get them out.

The Baby

During the final interview, all of the tributes are saying what they can to try and get the Games cancelled. Of course, like the previous year, Peeta is last and blows everything else out of the water. It’s spectacular, when he mentions the baby, the fake pregnancy.

The Capitol audience is outraged to learnt hat Katniss is being sent into the arena while pregnant, and they start calling for it to be cancelled. Interestingly, they don’t seem to care about children fighting to the death but they draw the line at a pregnant woman.

It’s a genius move on Peeta’s part. Again, it’s a move that is largely about saving lives, saving Katniss’ life but could also be interpreted as rebellious. President Snow obviously wants them all dead so the show must go on!

The Clock Arena

Peeta almost dies with the forcefield, and Finnick saves him. Katniss is genuinely distressed, so we know she genuinely cares for him. But she begins to notice that their allies are doing their best to keep her and Peeta alive. She later learns that the rebels knew if Peeta died, Katniss would never stick with an alliance. So they must keep him alive.

All the while, Peeta is only focusing on protecting Katniss. That’s his goal. They share a sweet moment when he find the pearl in the oyster and gives it to her. He also has a locket with photos of her family and Gale in it. He gives it to her, and tells Katniss that nobody needs him. If he died, it wouldn’t matter to anyone.

Katniss tells him she needs him. And she means it. She might not be at the ‘love’ stage, but she knows that Peeta needs to be by her side. A kiss follows this, a genuine one where nobody is playing things up for the cameras.

When they are separated and it all goes to hell, Peeta tries to get back to Katniss. He sees Brutus kill Chaff, and kills Brutus in turn. This is the first time that we know Peeta killed someone directly and intentionally. Still, he’s left behind to the mercy of the Capitol.

Interviews With Caesar

As the rebellion grows, we only see Peeta via broadcasted interviews on television. The first one, he’s adamantly defending both himself and Katniss. They had no idea of the rebel’s plans, they were just trying to survive the arena again. He calls for a ceasefire. At this point, he’s alive and well, and seems like himself according to Katniss.

The next interview, Katniss sees from the hospital with Finnick. Nobody else knows she sees it. Peeta looks thinner and looks unwell. He warns Katniss that the rebels are just using her and she can’t trust them. She’s obviously concerned they are torturing him. Hurting him.

The third interview is with President Snow and Peeta looks even worse. His eyes are ‘angry and unfocused’ and he seems to be fighting some internal battle. He manages to get out a warning that District 13 will be dead by morning. Beetee is fighting for the airwaves so the broadcast is interrupted by the rebels own clips.

They still see Peeta being beaten, his blood splattering the camera lens. Haymitch and Katniss confirm he’s warning them, and this does save lives as 13 has time to respond and go deeper underground to survive the bombing. He’s still trying to save her at this point, but the Capitol are clearly using him to unhinge Katniss, and it’s working.

Hijacking

When Peeta is rescued, he tries to kill Katniss the moment he sees her. He’s unstable, believing Katniss is a threat and will destroy him. They realise he’s been ‘hijacked’, a method of fear conditioning using the Tracker jacker venom to alter his perception of his memories.

He takes a long time to begin to recover from this, with many relapses and difficult moments. He’s been through hell, and struggles to tell what’s true. Katniss struggles with this, and avoids him as much as she can.

There are still occasional flashes of the old Peeta, and he manages to decorate the wedding cake for Finnick and Annie. This helps him, perhaps something familiar and methodical helps him stay calm and remember who he is.

Real or Not Real

When Peeta is sent to join the squad in the Capitol, Katniss believes it is a plot to kill her. It definitely could be a plot from President Coin to kill her. Katniss rejects him, saying he’s not Peeta any more, but a Capitol mutt.

Eventually they devise a game to help Peeta sort out his memories. Finnick starts it, by suggesting Peeta ask if something is true or not, like Annie does. They do their best to answer all his questions, but the ones Katniss needs to answer are complicated and painful.

Peeta still has violent outbursts when stressed, which unfortunately leads to him trying to kill Katniss again. He ends up killing Mitchell, knocking him into one of the pod traps. After this, he begs to be killed or be given a nightlock pill.

The next time, when they are fleeing from the mutts, he breaks down and Katniss kisses him and asks him to hang on and stay with her. This works and he is determined to push on. He lets her go off with Gale, as she intends to assassinate Snow. He manages to survive the taking of the Capitol.

At the meeting with the surviving Victors, Peeta immediately rejects the idea of another Hunger games. He urges Haymitch to say no, when he has the deciding vote. He’s obviously not aware of Katniss’ reason for agreeing, but Haymitch understands her.

After Coin’s death and Katniss’ trial, she is sent back to 12 with Haymitch. A few months later, Peeta is sent home. He had intensive psychological care, and couldn’t come home until he was discharged. Katniss is in a deep depression, having not changed her clothes for weeks or bathed. She finds him planting primroses around her house in honour of her sister.

After this, Katniss begins to take care of herself again. Peeta’s kindness and compassion once again saves her life. This is the difference between him and Gale. Gale is too much like Katniss, all fire and anger. Peeta is steady, representing hope and rebirth for Katniss.

They begin writing a memorial book about their experiences, with Peeta adding drawings of people they don’t have a photograph of. They fall in love for real this time, as Katniss realises this was the only way it could have been. Peeta is the one who is right for her. He helps soothe her nightmares, she helps him with his flashbacks. Finally, he asks her this one question:

“You love me. Real or not real.”

Katniss answers: “Real.”

Epilogue

It takes a long time, but eventually Katniss agrees to have children with Peeta. They will tell their children about their story, show them the book. Haymitch eventually agrees to share his story and everything that happened.

Peeta is inherently a good person. He’s kind and compassionate, despite coming from a difficult home life. His mother was abusive, and they didn’t eat as well as Katniss believed, usually only what was too stale to sell. He clearly takes after his father who shows kindness to Katniss and her family.

He goes through hell, the same as Katniss and all those who participated in the Hunger Games. Even with the hijacking, they don’t manage to squash who he really is. He’s flawed, he can have angry outbursts at times and he can be a bit gullible. His kind nature would be easy to take advantage of.

He’s clever though, and he has the charisma and social skills to navigate all kinds of situations. He understands how to keep up appearances for the public. He maybe doesn’t ever think of himself as a rebel, but he has a little of that in him. His painting of Rue, his determination not to be just a piece in their Games.

He’s motivated by love, and eventually is rewarded for it. He got everything he wanted in the end, but had to go through literal hell to get it. He’s still scarred, mentally and physically, with a prosthetic leg and all. But so is Katniss, and he counters her fire. He keeps her steady.

Peeta is the only District 12 victor who was reaped as normal, and he’s unique among them as he has only made one deliberate kill. Brutus is the one Peeta killed intentionally. The others are different. The female District 8 tribute he checked on, we don’t know if he actually did anything to kill her. Foxface was probably accidental as he didn’t know the nightlock berries were poisonous. Mitchell was an accident while he was out of his mind from the Hijacking. Katniss, Haymitch, Finnick and Johanna have all killed more people on purpose.

 Katniss Everdeen – The Reluctant Rebel

“Nobody decent ever wins the games.”

Katniss Everdeen is the main protagonist of the Hunger Games trilogy, but she doesn’t really see herself as a hero. She’s a rebel, if a reluctant one. She claims she never wanted to be the symbol of a revolution. She goes on quite a journey, and her experiences change her dramatically.

It’s very clear that she started out wanting to protect her sister, then Peeta, then her family and Gale. Eventually she realised that she was being used, exploited and manipulated for someone else’s benefit. The Mockingjay symbol, the idea of the Mockingjay is not who she really is, just who Panem thinks she is.

A Little Bit of a Rebel

Katniss was forced to grow up fast, thrown into an adult role before she reached her teens. Her father died in a coal mine explosion when she was eleven and her mother fell into a deep depression. This meant Katniss had to take charge to feed herself and her family. Eventually she used the skills her father had begun to teach her to find food. Peeta helped by giving her bread, giving her hope and a reminder that she could do something about her situation.

It was illegal to cross the fence, leave the boundaries of District Twelve, hunt game, make and use weapons of any kind and to sell on the black market in the Hob. Of course, she got away with it because a lot of the Peacekeepers and the merchants bought from her. Even the Mayor bought strawberries she collected.

She met Gale in the woods and the eventually traded skills, he taught her about snares and traps while she taught him how to use a bow. They became friends and agreed to take care of the other’s family should one of them be reaped. They shared their hauls and profits equally.

While in the woods, they would talk. Gale was always the more vocal in his dislike for the Capitol and the system keeping them poor. Katniss was wary of saying too much, but it’s clear she somewhat agrees with him. She was worried what would happen to Prim if something happened to her.

She avoided open rebellion but she was more than happy to break the local laws and venture beyond the fence. She was happy to trade in the black market. She knew the consequences, should one of the Peacekeepers take offence or something. But equally, she knew that this was necessary for her family to survive.

I Volunteer!

Katniss is so sure that Prim won’t be reaped in the 74^th Hunger Games, as she only has one entry. Yet it happens, and she barely hesitates to volunteer in Prim’s place. She will fight to protect her loved ones, risk her life to save Prim. It’s a strong motivation and it informs most of her major decisions throughout the story.

During her private evaluations, she is angered by the Gamemakers overlooking her. Her first arrow misses because she’s unused to the bow provided, but afterwards she nails every shot. But the Gamemakers are bored and ignore her efforts.

So she boldly draws attention to herself by shooting the apple out of the roast pig’s mouth, pinning it to the wall and shocking the Gamemakers. This proves she is a contender for the games, capable enough to potentially win.

“Thank you for your consideration.”

I also like the symbolism here. The Capitol people feast lavishly, even using an emetic so they throw up and can go on eating. While the people in the districts are starving, with malnutrition extremely commonplace. So she takes food out of the mouth of a pig. It’s very interesting, and definitely foreshadows the rebellion that happens later.

“I’m more than just a piece in their Games.”

The night before the arena, Peeta says this and Katniss gets angry. She can’t afford to think like that, she can only focus on trying to survive and get back home. She’s in survival mode, as she has been her entire life.

Katniss spends a lot of time trying to figure out Peeta’s angle, assuming everything he says and does is purely sstrategy. Her reaction to him confessing his crush on her on live TV is the same, she is angry. She doesn’t trust him. She doesn’t know what to make of him. Yet, when the first deaths are shown after the bloodbath, she is relieved and conflicted when she realises he’s alive.

The Mockingjay’s First Alliance

Katniss conflates Rue with Prim in a big way. She sees her little sister in Rue, thinking how unfair it is that such a sweet young girl is going into this fight to the death. She ends up forming an alliance with Rue and a plan to destroy the Career Pack’s supplies. This is the second time the Mockingjay motif shows up. First is the pin, given to her by the Mayor’s daughter (in the book) or Greasy Sae (in the film). Rue teaches Katniss how to use a short melody to signal via the Mockingjay birds.

When Rue is fatally injured by Marvel (District One) she kills him immediately without a thought, acting on instinct. She comforts Rue as she dies, then memorialises her with flowers and the farewell gesture used at funerals in Twelve. This three fingered salute later becomes a symbol of defiance. Again, Katniss was only thinking of the little girl, an adopted sister, that she watched die. She wasn’t defying the Capitol, she was mourning the loss of her ally.

Nightlock

After Cato dies to the mutts, the Gamemakers revoke the rule change allowing for two victors from the same district. Katniss is immediately defensive but Peeta refuses to attack her. She then decides if both of them can’t live, then they shouldn’t get a Victor at all. They agree to eat the nightlock berries, a double suicide pact.

They have no choice but to declare them both Victors, but Snow sees this as an act of rebellion. It is, but Katniss isn’t thinking about overthrowing the President and the Capitol. She’s thinking about survival and saving Peeta. She has feelings for Peeta, even though she doesn’t understand exactly what they are.

“Convince me.”

“It must be a fragile system if it can be brought down by just a few berries.”

Snow visits Katniss before their Victory Tour. He is worried about uprisings in the districts and tells her that she must convince all of Panem that she is just so in love that she’s ready to die. To convince Snow himself that her love is real and that’s the only reason she did what she did.

In District Eleven, giving the eulogy for Rue and Peeta’s promise to donate winnings to their families. An elderly man whistles the signal and raises the three fingered salute, and is quickly executed for it, much to Katniss’ horror. As they go through the districts, it’s clear that they’re not slowing down the rebellion.

Even though Peeta proposes, at the party Snow confirms that she has failed to pacify the districts. She and Peeta are both horrified when they learn about the drink that makes you sick so you can eat everything you want. The stark difference between the Capitol and the Districts, that people are suffering and starving while the Capitol residents are indulgent and eating to excess. The unfairness of the system is so clear.

New Head Peacekeeper

When Thread arrives as the new Head Peacekeeper in Twelve, and he is flogging Gale in the square, Katniss intervenes. She throws herself into the situation, risking herself for someone she cares about. She sees that things are changing, the Capitol are pushing back to subdue the districts. She’s still not thinking about any grand cause or revolution, just her loved ones.

Bonnie and Twill

This part only happens in the books. After the Victory Tour, Katniss ends up in the woods and meets two women who are fugitives from District Eight. They tell Katniss that they believe District 13 isn’t as destroyed as people think, and they are going there. They are confident because the footage shown every year is the same, confirmed by a Mockingjay wing in the corner. The Mockingjay is back to foreshadow and represent Katniss’ role in the rebellion.

Katniss teaches them survival skills and returns home, finding the fence electrified and Peacekeepers waiting to question her family when she fails to return home. They are surprised to see her but Peeta and Haymitch help her with a cover. So they’re now bothering to enforce the law about leaving the district territory. Because it gives them an excuse to target Katniss and her family.

The Quarter Quell

The movies basically confirm that the plan for the 75^th Hunger Games was deliberately changed to target her. Because she is the only living female Victor in Twelve, so if they reap from the living Victors, she’s guaranteed to go into the arena again and nobody can volunteer for her. Understandably she’s enraged and distraught about this. She is determined to save Peeta if she can, convincing Haymitch to volunteer for him.

During the run up to the Games, a lot happens that makes the rebellion a bit more overt. From Katniss’ display of Seneca Crane’s death, to the wedding gown transforming into a Mockingjay, to Peeta’s lie about her pregnancy. All of the tributes are angry and express this during their interviews, but nothing stops the games.

In the arena, she finds herself with a range of allies: Finnick, Mags, Johanna, Wiress and Beetee. All of them were in on the plan to get Katniss out of the arena. During the games, Katniss definitely seems to be falling for Peeta and is determined to make sure he survives. She still doesn’t know that she’s the symbol of the rebellion.

Once she recovers, she prepares to kill Peeta to stop him being tortured, before learning the truth. They want her as the Mockingjay, the face of the revolution to overthrow the Capitol. She learns that District Twelve has been destroyed and all survivors are in Thirteen. This is the point where she decides she’s on-board with the rebellion.

Demands

“My sister gets to keep her cat.”

Katniss agrees to be the Mockingjay but she makes a list of demands from Coin. Immunity for the other Victors, that Prim can keep the cat and most importantly, that Katniss herself gets to be the one to kill President Snow. Coin agrees to this.

Except she twists it on Katniss. If Katniss doesn’t fulfill her obligations as the Mockingjay, she and her loved ones will be killed. Coin doesn’t mention this until her public announcement, so Katniss can’t question it or avoid it. The first hint that Coin is not to be trusted.

Propos

“That is how you end a revolution.”

The plan is to have Katniss film ‘propos’ or propaganda clips for the rebels. Beetee can commandeer the airwaves to push these videos out. It’s clear she won’t be effective when scripted on a stage. The reasons people respect Katniss, love her and want to follow her, are because of her courage, her empathy and her desire to defend those she cares for.

She can’t fake her emotions, her outrage, her courage. She can’t convincingly read a script, which should have been obvious from her Victory Tour. It has to be real, raw and in her own words for it to be effective. Unfortunately, as we see in Distright Eight, that often means someone has to die for Katniss to ‘perform’.

Storming the Capitol

Katniss is supposed to stay back in a ‘safe’ neighbourhood to film more propos of her ‘fighting’ but the traps laid by the Gamemakers puts the team in real danger. She loses several people, inlcuding Boggs and Finnick but she does manage to help Peeta begin to overcome his brainwashing.

Unfortunately, once again Katniss is spurred to act when she loses someone she cares about. The bomb trap with the Capitol children, where a second explosion is triggered once people rush in to help. Primrose Everdeen is one of the medics who run in to help, and she dies.

Snow and Coin

After the battle is over, Katniss visits Snow before his execution. He tells her that the bomb trap was not his doing, it was the Rebels. She doesn’t quite believe him but it’s enough to plant the seed of doubt in her mind. She knows that the trap was suggested by Gale, and even if he wasn’t directly responsible, she knows she will never see her old friend the same way. That romance option is over, because he might have been responsible for her sister’s death.

Coin brings the surviving Victors together to propose a final symbolic Hunger Games using the Capitol’s children. Peeta argues against it, as does Annie and Beetee. Annie is sure Finnick would have also voted no. Johanna and Enobaria say yes, followed by Katniss. This leaves Haymitch with the deciding vote. Haymitch seems to know what Katniss is thinking and takes her side, or the side of the ‘Mockingjay’. He understands her pretty well by this point.

When the time comes for Snow’s execution, Katniss realises the truth behind everything. She changes her aim at the last minute, killing Coin instead. Snow ends up dead among the crowd. She tries to take her nightlock pill but is stopped. She realises that both of these leaders were just using her, using her emotions, her fears and her need to protect people.

They exploited her, manipulated her and used her as a pawn. She suspects that Coin put Prim in the firing line on purpose, that maybe Coin sees Katniss as a threat. If Katniss doesn’t bow to her, like she refused to do so to Snow, then she’s a threat to the new regime as much as the old.

Happily? Ever After

Katniss doesn’t end up with a heroes welcome, going home to District Twelve to thunderous applause with a massive gold statue of her built in the Capitol. Because she’s not a hero, she’s the protagonist. Coin wanted to control her, and didn’t like not being able to control Katniss.

So Katniss goes home with Haymitch and falls into a deep depression. She refuses company and it takes a long time for her to come out of it. She knows that there’s no future with Gale now, but there could be a future with Peeta. She realises this when he returns to Twelve and starts planting primroses around her house.

They work on healing together, able to understand each other due to their shared experiences and PTSD. Because it is PTSD. Haymitch has it too, heavily self-medicated. Basically all of the Victors have PTSD, because it looks different in different people. They are haunted by the past, but a real love develops between them.

Katniss said that she never wanted to be in the Games, to be a symbol, to be the Mockingjay. She wanted to save her sister, protect her family. She didn’t really want to be a rebel, but she also did. She knew that the oppression from the Capitol was unjust, unfair and cruel. The bread and circuses was a distraction, keeping the poor in their place.

Any tyrannical regime that keeps pushing people down will eventually crumble. A line will be crossed and people will finally decide that enough is enough. She resented being used, being manipulated and being something she’s not. She realised that with Coin, it was jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The only people she feels can truly understand her now are Peeta and Haymitch.

She manages to live the rest of her life in relative peace. They put together a book about everything that happened, all the people that were lost. Eventually they have children, and prepare to tell them about their past when the time is right. It’s not perfect, it’s not a happily ever after, it’s an ending.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Emi the Cat Lady 💜

The Hunger Games Analysis: Bread and Circuses

 Bread and Circuses

The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins are dystopian YA novels set in a post-nuclear North America. Part of the land has been submerged by rising sea levels and what is left is called Panem. There is a large metropolis, the Capitol, and thirteen districts. Each district has a specific industry to supply the Capitol with resources.

The society is very much modelled on Ancient Rome and was a totalitarian dictatorship. This means that the citizens are expected to be completely subservient to the state and the government has complete control over their lives. I thought this topic would be especially relevant now, because the new book Sunrise on the Reaping came out recently, and for no other reason. Of course. Ahem.

There is massive inequality within Panem, where people in the poorest districts are left to starve to death and struggle to survive while the Capitol indulge in gourmet foods and ostentatious fashions. Eventually civil war broke out, spearheaded by District 13, who were the main military industrial complex at the time.

The conflict lasted three years before it was ended when the Capitol bombed 13. A secret peace agreement with 13 was made, due to the district acquiring some of the Capitol’s nuclear arsenal, and they disappeared, pretending they didn’t exist and were allowed to remain independent.

The remaining 12 districts were subdued by the Treaty of Treason. The names of these things are very deliberate. This treaty established the Hunger Games, an annual event to remind the citizens of their failed rebellion and continually punish the Districts for their insurrection.

“Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.” – Chapter 1 of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

The above quote is Katniss’ interpretation of the history explained at every Reaping, when the children are chosen for the Hunger Games. Aggressive law enforcement with executions and public floggings were common place. Civil rights were restricted and travel or communication between the districts was banned.

Panem et Circenses

This literally means ‘bread and circuses’ in Latin and is where the name came from. The phrase means using entertainment and food to distract people from other, more important matters or to cover up what the government is really doing.

Each of the twelve districts had to send one boy and one girl aged 12-18 to go into an arena and fight to the death. The Games only end when there is a single survivor, the Victor. The Victor would be showered with money, food, a luxury house and gifts, and their district would get extra food for a year.

The Bread

This does literally mean food in this case. The Reaping was a lottery where each eligible child’s name would be placed on a slip of paper and one chosen at random by hand. Each child’s name went in once for every year they are eligible – so at 12 it would be once, 13 it would be twice, 14 it would be three times and so on. So they’re more likely to be picked as they get older.

Given the poverty that is so prevalent in the districts, especially the ones further away from the Capitol like 11 and 12, it was possible to claim extra food. Children could claim ‘tesserae’ for each member of their family: a years supply of grain and oil. Each tesserae claimed would add their name into the Reaping pool again.

These extra entries are cumulative over the years until the child is reaped and either dies or becomes a victor, or until they reach 18 and are no longer eligible for the games. So by the 74^th Games, Katniss has her name in there 20 times, while Gale, who has more siblings, has his name in there 42 times!

So it means that kids are putting themselves at greater risk just for the sake of keeping their families safe and fed for the year. So the poorest families have the higher chances of losing a child to the games since the odds are not in their favour. It is preying on their desperation because the slim hope that their child might win, thus netting them the benefits of being a Victor, is enough to be worth the risk.

I hope we all understand how horrific this is. For people who’ve seen the movies but not read the books, this isn’t well explained. Eligible children can volunteer in someone else's place but this is rare outside the ‘career districts.’ Districts 1, 2 and 4 are more affluent and shown preferential treatment by the Capitol and see participation in the games as an honour. While training for the Games isn’t technically allowed, these districts do it and are allowed to do it, so they do tend to produce more Victors than the poorer districts like 11 and 12. Of course being better fed and generally healthier would also aid their survivability.

The Circus

The Hunger Games is a huge national event with a lot of pomp and circumstance. The Tributes are fed well on the train, with rich and fancy foods they aren’t used to. Katniss finds her stomach unsettled because of the rich food.

They go through intense cosmetic preparation and are dressed up in extravagant costumes and outfits for the Tribute parade. They even use horse-drawn chariots to show them off and help attract sponsors. Highlighting the connection with Ancient Rome.

The tributes get three days of training before an individual assessment by the game makers to be rated for their skills. This impacts sponsorship too, as well as the odds offered on each tribute’s chances of winning. Because of course the Capitol residents can bet on the outcome of the games. It’s only money, right?

So the tributes get a taste of the luxurious and extravagant lifestyle enjoyed by the Capitol’s citizens. Their bizarre fashions set them so far apart from the districts, to the point where from Katniss’ point of view, they’re like aliens. A different species entirely.

The tributes are interviewed on TV and again there’s a lot of ceremony around it all. They want to appeal to sponsors, because a rich sponsor can send gifts to their chosen tribute in the arena. They could send food, water, medicine or even a weapon, such as the burn ointment sent to Katniss after the fireballs.

The game makers control the arena and can manipulate it in basically any way they like. Such as the fireballs, adding creatures or setting up a feast at the Cornucopia to force the tributes together to instigate a fight. It’s all recorded and broadcast like reality TV and everyone is expected to watch it. Every evening the death toll is broadcast, both on TV to the citizens and within the arena for the Tributes.

It’s very much like the gladiatorial combat of Ancient Rome, which was entertainment for people. Glorifying the violence and making it a big deal so nobody stops to consider the ethics of forcing children to fight to the death in punishment for what their ancestors did.

Every 25 years they have a Quarter Quell, which is a special edition (like having celebrities on a reality show like Big Brother) and has new, unique rules to set it apart. ‘Quell’ is a deliberate and specific word as it means ending a rebellion by force.

What is this story warning us about?

This dystopia is highlighting the issues with such extreme wealth disparity and keeping the poor under control by ensuring they can never elevate their socioeconomic status. Unless they are prepared to risk their life for it and kill for it. The Victor is showered in riches to remind the people of the Capitol’s ‘generosity and forgiveness’ which is a bold lie.

Even then, Victors are set apart from their communities with the Victor’s Village, much larger and nicer houses, extra money and food. So they’re no longer struggling like the rest of their neighbours and friends. There’s little care for any mental health issues suffered by the Victors. Most of them show signs of PTSD, unsurprisingly. Katniss has nightmares and flashbacks, Haymitch is an alcoholic (self medication) and there are other addicts among the tributes from Catching Fire.

The Capitol citizens are living a luxury lifestyle where they want for nothing. Peeta and Katniss see how far this goes at the feast at Snow’s Mansion during their Victory Tour. They are offered a drink that induces vomiting so that they can eat more and taste everything. While people in District 12 are literally starving to death.

The people in the districts are supposed to accept what the Capitol gives them and be thankful. They are supposed to be grateful for the pittance they are afforded, and told it’s their own fault and it’s for their own good. No complaints, no questions. Anything that seems rebellious is squashed harshly by the Capitol.

The word choices are very deliberate and imply this too. 'Tribute’ means a gift to show gratitude, respect or admiration. Historically it was also used to describe a levy, tax or tariff for protection. Two children are sacrificed as gratitude for the Capitol allowing them to exist. That they should be thankful for being allowed to live, continually punished for a rebellion that most people alive did not have any part in. You’ll take what you get and be happy about it.

This story, like many dystopian stories, is warning us of what happens when people are pushed to their limits and become desperate. Katniss wanted to save her sister, at the start. But she eventually realised that she had to save more than just one person from this corrupt, unfair system. That people who are desperate enough for survival will eventually be pushed to revolt and change things. That they’ll be willing to risk their lives and sacrifice everything to stop the abuse of power. Dictators and tyrants will always end up falling to revolution, just like we’ve seen throughout history. Some food for thought, no?

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Emi the Cat Lady 💜

His Dark Materials: Dust, Sentience and Sapience

 Dust: Sentience and Sapience

Dust is central to the His Dark Materials story as it is ultimately what the protagonists have to protect and save. To fully understand it, we need to discuss two concepts that set people apart from other animals. I meant to say people, because in the context of the books, it's not just humans. 

Sentience

Sentience is defined as the ability to experience feelings and sensations, i.e. possessing a nervous system. This does not always imply higher cognitive functions like awareness, reason or complex thoughts. It is sometimes used interchangeably with 'sapience' but there is a difference in definition. 

There is ongoing  debate about animal sentience but we know they can suffer pain and distress, they can learn and solve problems and even pass on their knowledge to offspring and peers. It is generally accepted that all vertebrates are recognised as sentient beings, as well as fish, lobsters and octopus. The sentience of AI is beyond the scope of this analysis. 

Sapience

Also defined as wisdom, this means the ability to apply one's knowledge, experiences and judgement to decision making and encounters in our life. It means we use insight, ethics and discernment when we make decisions and take actions. 

Wisdom requires more than just intelligence, we need to have an understanding of human nature, morality and the long term impact of words and actions in order to apply wisdom to a situation. Wisdom is also connected to traits like humility, patience, compassion, empathy and morality. 

Being wise, or sapient, means reflecting, thinking and being willing to learn and continue to develop yourself. It also means recognising the limitations of your own knowledge and perspective. 

Both of these concepts are as much about philosophy as science, but the bottom line is that we base our actions and decisions on our experiences and knowledge. This understanding of nature and the world around us is what allows us to be creative, innovate and invent and to share our insights and skills with other people. 

Dust

Dust goes by many names: Rusakov particles in Lyra's world. Shadows, shadow-particles or dark matter in Will's world and sraf in the world of the mulefa. It is an elementary particle that is responsible for consciousness.

Dust is attracted to sentient species, especially adults, as well as things made by sentient people. It is produced by engaging in creative or introspective activities, created when matter begins to understand itself. Dust was lost through the wounds in the world created by the Subtle Knife, which is why the windows had to be closed. 

Dust got its name from the Bible, when God was cursing Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Magisterium took Dust to be evidence of this original sin, as we discussed before. 

"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Dust is more attracted to adults than children and this is because it is a metaphor for the shift from childhood innocence to adult wisdom. The process of growing up and gaining experience in the world, learning and establishing who we are. 

Dust has an influence on us whether we are aware of its existence or not. It is clearly important for us to function, and this is shown through the Spectres of Cittàgazze. The Spectres were created by the knife every time a window was opened and they fed on dust, the ability to create dust and the soul, or daemon. Children were immune until they reached puberty. Victims of the Spectres did not die, but were apathetic and unresponsive to their surroundings. 

The mulefa could see dust because of the oil from the wheel tree seeds. Mary used this and a lacquer to create the Amber Spyglass to see it. She also used the Cave computer and the I-Ching to communicate with Dust, suggesting other divination methods could also communicate with Dust. 

In Lyra's world, someone used a special emulsion to develop photographs that showed Dust and how it was attracted to adults more than children. The Alethiometer too was a method of communicating with Dust. Angels are beings that are consolidations of dust, made of it. 

This implies that our consciousness is what created angels, including the Authority and Metatron, who was once a man. So we created God, because we needed something to believe in to explain our world. Interesting thought. 

The Final Battle

The ending of the story culminates in a battle which is ultimately about protecting dust and retaining it in all the worlds. Lyra and Will promise to produce enough Dust to keep the window from the world of the dead open. This is why they separate despite it breaking both of their hearts to live apart. 

So this battle is therefore fighting for the right to keep our knowledge, curiosity, creativity, free will and freedom of thought. Everything that makes us people, makes us sentient and conscious, that makes us sapient. An important thing to preserve, in my opinion and a major theme of the books. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

Emi the Cat Lady 💜

His Dark Materials Analysis: An End to Death and Destiny

 His Dark Materials: Putting an End to Death

Death is inevitable for all of us. Most of us fear death and do everything we can to evade its arrival. People also wonder where we go after we die. Beliefs on this subject vary massively depending on culture and religious beliefs among other things.

In His Dark Materials, the witches have a prophecy about Lyra playing the role of Eve and ‘falling’. As discussed, this means her growing up, leaving behind her childhood and her innocence and attracting dust. The prophecy states that she will bring about the ‘end of destiny’ and must do so of her own accord without knowing in advance what she must do.

Death

Death is the end of life, whether it happens due to injury, illness or just old age. We will all have to face death at some point. We are mortal. It’s a fact of life, and it will happen. It’s normal to fear it, and to feel angry or upset when a loved one dies. Especially if it is sudden and unexpected.

So what happens when we die? Physically it is very clear. The heart stops beating, breathing stops, brain activity shuts down and the body’s physiological systems stop functioning. Eventually the body will decompose. This sounds harsh but it’s the natural order of things, and this process provides nutrients in the soil to feed plants. The circle of life, as told by Mufasa in the Lion King.

The metaphysical sense is different. Whether you call it the mind, the soul, the spirit or something else, the essence that makes up an individual person. What happens to that part of us after death? Does our essence go somewhere, and does it depend on how you behaved in life?

Heaven/Nirvana/Peace

Many religions speak of or promise a peaceful afterlife where you are happy and comforted. This may be something you have to earn by behaving in line with the teachings of your deities. You’ll be familiar with the concept of ‘heaven’ or ‘paradise’ from the Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism. Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism speak of Nirvana – a place of rest and peace earned through good karma.

Hell/Punishment

Some religions also speak of a place of eternal punishment for sinners or those who go against God. This is particularly notable in Christianity and Islam. Judaism has Sheol which is a place of darkness but not necessarily of torment.

In the eastern religions of Busshism, Jainism and Hinduism, there is a place called Naraka which is a temporary place where you suffer and earn good karma, or are purified. Sikhism has no belief in any kind of hell.

Purgatory

Fairly unique to the Roman Catholic sect of Christianity, purgatory is a temporary place of purification before you can be admitted to heaven.

Other Options

Some people believe that when we die, nothing happens and we are simply gone. Or that ghosts stick around, intangible and perhaps looking for unfinished business.

The Witches

In Lyra’s world, the witches have their own Goddess of Death, Yambe-Akka. She welcomes dying witches with open arms and a smile, a peaceful and welcoming event for them.

Fear of Mortality

People fear death, for themselves and their loved ones. We fear the unknown because we cannot possibly confirm for certain what happens after death. It’s natural to have this fear. Things are less scary when we understand them, and death is something we don’t understand.

I think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5, when Buffy’s mother dies. It’s a heart-breaking point of the series and the way each of the characters reacts to the news is different. But it is Anya’s reaction that I find particularly gut-wrenching.

She doesn’t understand why it happened. She lived for over a thousand years as an immortal vengeance demon, and didn’t much care for the lives and deaths of humans. Now human again, Anya has to face up to the reality of mortality. That someone she knows and cares about is dead and there’s nothing to be done to bring her back.

The Land of the Dead

In The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and Will travel to the land of the dead. They leave their demons behind when on the ferry. They discover that the afterlife is nothing but a quiet empty place full of ghosts. The ghosts slowly lose their memories and fall into despair, with the harpies taunting them by reminding them of every little thing they did wrong in their lifetime.

The harpies were charged with watching over the land of the dead by the Authority, and to feed on the misery of their charges. It’s a bleak, sad, empty place where everyone is treated the same. The boatman especially highlights this, pointing out he’s had rich people try to bribe him, people try to threaten him. Everyone ends up going to the same place regardless of who they were in life.

There is no judgement, no heaven, no hell. Whatever sins or righteous deeds you did in life, no matter how much penance you do, you still end up in this place which is nothing. You are forced to accept you are dead and now you have nothing left.

In order to cross the water to the land of the dead, Lyra must meet her Death. A being created for every person at their birth. Your Death follows you throughout your life, ducking out of sight for most people but never leaving your side.

There is at least one world where people know about their Deaths and see them, finding their presence comforting and reassuring. When your time is up, your Death takes you by the hand and leads you to the ferry.

Lyra and Will seek their loved ones and plan to escape the land of the dead. They also look for closure from the people they have lost, to assuage their guilt and say a final goodbye. How many of us wish we could have this chance to talk to a loved one, just one more time, after they have passed away?

The Harpies

The harpies were tasked with watching over the ghosts and keeping them miserable. Lyra begins to tell a story, with her usual lies, and the harpies know she is lying and attack her. Later, she tells another story, this time a true one and the harpies listened and were nourished by it.

They agree to lead Lyra and Will to a place high enough for them to cut through into another world using the Subtle Knife. In exchange for true stories, the harpies agree to lead the dead to this window. They make exceptions for very young people who did not live long enough to have stories.

This is the ‘end of destiny’ prophesised. An end to death. The ghosts are able to re-join the universe, their atoms becoming part of everything. A peaceful ending, returning to the world and remaining part of it forever instead of misery and eternal emptiness.

When they learn the windows must be closed, they decide to keep living full lives to create enough Dust to allow the window for the dead to remain open forever. To ensure that death remains a peaceful and joyful thing instead of something to fear. The ghosts splitting apart as they re-join the world is described like bubbles of happiness.

What does it all mean?

The lesson to be learned here is to live our lives and treasure our experiences and relationships over superficial and material gains. To live more for the now and ensure we have good, true stories to tell at the end of our lives.

Our deaths may come at any time, sudden and unexpected or after a long battle with cancer. We cannot evade death forever, but perhaps we can believe in a peaceful end and embrace it as we did life. We’ll never truly know what happens after we die, but perhaps we need not fear it so much.

This part of the story does also highlight a lot of the hypocrisy of organised religion that is a major theme of the books. People are not judged for their sins and virtues and separated into the good and the evil. Everyone ends up in the same place.

Father Gomez will have ended up here, after being killed by an angel. So all of his pre-emptive penance would be for nothing as he would not be judged by anyone. And if he spent his entire life doing nothing but penance for a future sin, he probably doesn’t have a great story to tell the harpies.

So what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts about this. As mentioned, I am an atheist, and I’m not sure what I believe awaits us after we die. But I always embrace the idea that your own faith and beliefs are important to you and you have the right to express them.

Thanks for reading!

Emi the Cat Lady 💜

 His Dark Materials: The Corruption and Hypocrisy of Organised Religion

In Lyra’s world, the Holy Church has absolute power over almost all aspects of people’s lives. In particular, the Magisterium holds power over science, research and discoveries. Discoveries that do not align with the Holy Churches doctrines are censored and suppressed, declared as heretical.

Scholars could risk excommunication, even death by pursuing what the Magisterium deems heretical research. In that world, physics is called ‘experimental theology’ highlighting a close connection between the church and the study of what makes up the world and universe.

The Golden Compass movie had a lot of issues, but one of the most glaring for me was removing pretty much all of the religious aspects of the story. In the television show, they removed anything that referred to Christianity for the same sort of reason. But the books are a clear critique of organised religion and how corrupt and hypocritical it can become. So let’s talk about it.

For clarity, I am an atheist but I was raised as a Christian and thus I am pretty familiar with a lot of the teachings and how it all works. I was involved in religious organisations like the Girl Guides growing up. I don’t believe in the Christian God in any way, but I am not suggesting that people who do believe are wrong to hold such beliefs. I understand how important faith is to some people and do not disparage that. I do despise those ‘Christians’ who cherry pick and deliberately misinterpret the Bible to push their own agenda.

That out of the way, let’s get into it.

The Holy Church

The Holy Church in Lyra’s world is based on Christianity and enforced very strictly. Unsurprisingly, for this reason it is almost entirely men who hold positions of power within the organisation. Marissa Coulter is a woman who managed to climb to a leadership role despite her gender.

That said, the General Oblation Board she led was a semi-private institution hidden away in the North, near Svalbard. This gave the Church plausible deniability, they could claim her work was unsanctioned if need be. Particularly important when they were kidnapping children for their experiments.

The research at Bolvangar was into the nature of Dust and how it changed at puberty, the onset of adulthood and the point at which one’s daemon settled. The Church declared Dust to be evidence of the ‘Original Sin.’ Evidence of the sin all humanity is saddled with at birth because of what happened with Eve in the Garden of Eden.

The very fact that the Church holds so much power in this world is a criticism of the way organised religion can prescribe people’s behaviour and set rules and laws based on their interpretation of the Bible. That they allow research and evidence they approve of, and censor what they don’t approve of.

So they are cherry picking what evidence suits them and condemning anything that sounds like free-thinking or any proof of anything outside of the Churches purview. It is not about criticising having beliefs or practicing your faith. It is about using your beliefs to control what other people think, say or do. If something is against your religion, that does not mean that I can’t do it.

It is also a criticism of restricting scientific discovery and research based on one interpretation or perspective. A real world example being the Creation vs Evolution debate. Evolution is a scientific theory – this means it is objectively proven with evidence. People don’t seem to know the definition of a scientific theory, it is not an unproven idea, but a proven one. Hypothesis is for the unproven ones. It is different from the definition of ‘theory’ most people seem to know.

Creation is, of course, the story in the Bible of how God made everything. We have definitive proof that evolution is true. People may want to believe in creation and intelligent design, and they are more than welcome to do so. But nobody seems to consider the possibility that evolution is the intelligent design plan God laid down. Evidence for evolution is all around us, even in your own body right now. You can ignore the evidence if you choose to, but that doesn’t make it go away.

Pre-Emptive Penance

The Consistorial Court of Discipline is one of the most powerful parts of the Magisterium. It was established by the last Pope – John Calvin, and it is based in Geneva. Their function is to deal with heresy and non-believers. Enforcing the Churches will and laws, in essence.

Father Luis Gomez was the youngest of the twelve members of the CCD and he was sent to assassinate Lyra before she could play the role of Eve. He failed and was killed by the angel Balthamos, ironically. The angel used the last of his strength to eliminate this man.

Father Gomez found himself in the world of the mulefa and saw the tualapi. The large bird-like creatures who attacked the mulefa. He used fear to control the creatures. This fits with this version of the Church, and even some real world sects. Controlling people through fear, fear of hell, fear of purgatory, fear of the rapture. Fear of God’s wrath. You know what I mean.

Father Gomez, before leaving on his assassination mission, took part in a new concept conceived by the CCD. Pre-emptive penance. This involves doing intense penance in advance for a sin not yet committed instead of after sinning and asking for forgiveness.

The idea that one could build up enough ‘credit’ to be able to commit a sin and already be absolved of it. Thus freeing the sinner of any guilt. In this case, murder. Which is one of the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

This whole concept is wild. The whole point of confession and penance is that you should be trying not to sin and making up for falling into temptation. It is claimed that Rasputin believed that one had to sin in order to attain divine grace for confessing, so sinning more would allow him to attain more divine grace. This isn’t confirmed but it might just have been a way to justify sinning as much as he wanted to.

So by the logic of ‘pre-emptive penance’ you could just build up enough penance, do enough self-flagellation to do whatever the hell you wanted, no matter how evil. Apologising before you’ve done anything wrong and then when you do the thing, you’ve already apologised so it’s somehow fine.

If the assassination is justified, then it’s justified and would not be considered a sin so why would you need penance? You would only need to atone for something that would be considered wrong. So it follows then that they know killing Lyra is morally reprehensible and a sin. If it was what their God wanted, to prevent another ‘Fall’ then surely there would be no need to ask for God to forgive it either before or after the fact.

This really highlights the hypocrisy that we see in certain religious groups in the real world. People who do what they condemn others for doing. Religious extremism is prevalent in the modern world, and it’s not just one religion either. As much as some people believe it to be. The scandal with sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church in the last forty years says a lot.

Original Sin

This refers to the sin all children are supposedly born with because of what happened in the Garden of Eden and the sins committed against God. This is, of course, usually blamed on Eve giving into temptation by the Serpent and eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. She then tempted Adam to do the same. According to the scripture in Lyra’s world, the first human’s daemons settled and brought sin to the world.

In the main story of His Dark Materials, Lyra is prophesised to play the role of Eve and ‘fall’ again. What was this oh-so-terrible sin? Falling in love and growing up. Mary Malone played the ‘serpent’ by telling Lyra and Will stories of her first love. The sharing of fruit before the two young people share their first kiss echoes the story of Adam and Eve as well.

So what’s the issue? It’s often women who are blamed, called temptresses and causing men to sin or think about sinning. Original sin means that everyone is born with this sin marring our souls, shouldering the burden of another’s actions. We are expected to apologise and atone for what the first humans supposedly did. Which was to know the difference between good and evil.

Shouldn’t we have that knowledge? If we don’t know the difference between good and evil, our actions have no context for us to decide the morality of them. So it would be left up to God to know and decide this. So what eating from this tree did was give the knowledge of moral context to us. Thus giving us the ability to make a choice between doing something good and something evil. Giving us free will to choose and do what we want. Kind of a problem for an organisation that wants to control our lives in all aspects.

Through what happens with Lyra and Will and with Mary, the author is telling us he disagrees with this. That we should not feel guilty or be condemned for natural and normal human experiences. That we should not carry guilt for the sins of others. That we should be free to think, learn, experience and create without such restrictions. That we can choose to question things.

Lyra’s ‘fall’ is about her choosing love, choosing compassion and choosing to dedicate her life to growing up and learning. Understanding the true nature of Dust, which she sets out to do at the end of the first book, means understanding what it means to be ‘sapient’ or human. The mulefa have a wonderful relationship with dust and with the world they live in. Their symbiosis with the trees they make their wheels from that allows them to create more Dust.

In the end, Lyra chooses the selfless path, even though it means losing the one she loves. Even her parents, who have done some really reprehensible things, make the right choice in the end, sacrificing their lives to oblivion to bring down Metatron and protect Lyra. The important thing is that Lyra was free to make that choice for herself. They remember and observe a small ritual to honour and cherish their love for each other but they agree to go on and live full lives. Even permitting each other to find love again if they can. All for the sake of removing death’s hold on people and keeping the way out of the land of the dead open.

This is what the Magisterium and the Consistorial Court wanted to prevent. This goes against what they want because they do not want people thinking freely, questioning their teachings or seeking to understand more about the world. Because people might see that the Churches teachings are not in people’s best interests.

People should be free to form their own beliefs and decide how they want to practice their faith. People should also be free to make their own choices. Of course, with that freedom is the freedom to be wrong. Believing something alone, does not make it true. But learning and questioning is a natural thing that makes us human. Children are full of curiosity about the world, and this is why ‘because I said so’ doesn’t make sense to them. Answering their questions honestly, obviously in an age-appropriate way, helps them understand the world.

As I said, this isn’t a condemnation of all relgions and religious beliefs but it is a criticism of the hypocrisy present in some parts of religious organisation. Such as claiming that the Bible condemns homosexuality while priests are molesting young boys.

Or telling a woman she can’t get a necessary abortion because the foetus implanted in her fallopion tube has more rights to bodily autonomy than the living person who will die if the pregnancy isn’t terminated. Because it is against your beliefs. You don’t get to use your religion to tell other people what to do.

People are very quick to jump on the First Amendment rights of the US Constitution, preserving freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. The USA was basically founded on the freedom of religious expression, with many of the early immigrants traveling to avoid religious persecution at home.

It’s a wee bit more complicated in the UK due to some rules around the monarchy and the established Church of England. The reigning monarch cannot be Roman Catholic and until 2013 could not marry a Catholic. You can thank Henry VIII for that one.

It’s obviously a complex and sometimes emotive issue. Personally, I feel that you are welcome to act in accordance with your own beliefs and I am welcome to act in accordance with mine. But you do not get to tell me that I have to act according to your beliefs if I don’t share them. Sounds reasonable, yeah? I think so.

Thanks for reading. I hope you found this interesting. I welcome all comments and discussions as long as they are kept respectful. 

Emi the Cat Lady 💜