Prelude [or Ramblings on Mockingjay Part I]

A part of me believes that Mr. Burns from The Simpsons can easily portray President Snow in my version of The Hunger Games trilogy. He's despotic, he gets what he wants, and he has this sinister air about him, which makes him perfect. And he owns the nuclear plant, which supplies power in the town of Springfield. I remember telling my friend Anj about Mr. Burns one time, after dinner, when our conversation lapsed into actors fit for the roles available in the film version of Suzanne Collins' books. I couldn't even remember Mr. Burns' name and her husband Jan supplied it for me. I didn't get the response I wanted; then again he's a cartoon and she was talking about real actors.


I still firmly believe that Mr. Burns is the perfect President Snow. Maybe my brain is wired to play a cartoonized, rather Simpsonized version of the trilogy with Lisa Simpson playing Katniss, out to save Maggie from the tribute. It's a weird thought. Lisa cannot be Katniss but she can play the part because she's smart, brave and stubborn. However, Lisa isn't passive.

Which is my main concern with Mockingjay, the final book in the trilogy. I finished it early this year and let it stew in my brain until now. The lingering memory still is my belief that Mr. Burns should play President Snow in the film version. Hahaha.

It's pointless to read this post if you haven't read the trilogy, unless you're one of my three constant readers. If that's the case, welcome back. I'll start with this: there's a certain agony involved in waiting for the final book. Those of us who read it waiting for the final installment probably had a lot of scenarios in mind for Mockingjay: death, destruction, rescue, revolution. And the waiting can drive you crazy, if you're that serious a fan. That or if you're one of those simply waiting for the resolution of the apparent triangle: Peeta or Gale, which I think is a far crazier reason for reading the trilogy, scenarios of reunion or rejection. Personally, if all you are after is who would Katniss choose in the end, I think it's better if you buy yourself a love story and get your satisfaction from there.

I actually have no qualms about the love angle in the books. If you've read my two previous posts about it and my final thoughts prior to Mockingjay's release, you'll see that the choice, if she should decide, is actually obvious. I do have qualms about her choosing anyone, really. She's young. If she survives the last book, she should live her life and choose whoever she wants, even outside of Peeta and Gale. But we live in a world where opinions of readers about love angles get a life of its own. I've qualms about the magnification of the Team Peeta versus Team Gale by those who prioritize the love angle over and above the themes of the books. Seriously people, a dystopian community where kids kill each other and all that's important to you is Katniss should pick either Peeta or Gale? The way I see it, it's an obvious projection of personal choices of future partners; the proverbial questions: someone who loves you or someone you love, the boy you just met or the boy whose been there all along, the one who treats you as a princess or the one who treats you as an equal. Choices, choices. Oh of course, there's that revolution in the making, could we at least set aside love options and deal with the problem at hand?

Yes, I got tired of banners proclaiming Team Peeta or Team Gale on pages I saw online. So tired that in reading the first few pages of Mockingjay the week it was released and seeing Gale there while Katniss pines for the captured Peeta, I just had to stop and put the book down lest I write about it and eventually read blog posts about how she decided in the end. I know that the book isn't about the love angle, but if I read it at that time, I knew I'd encounter posts about the resolution of the love angle more than the resolution of the story. I encountered that scenario before: I've read the Twilight books after all.

So?

Back to the agony. The waiting part.

Reading an ongoing series is always a challenge. It's good if you pick it up somewhere in the middle, where there are a handful of books already published and you end up practically devouring one book after another. That's what happened to me with the Harry Potter books. I picked it up when the first three books were out. But waiting for the succeeding installment after was pure torture, though it helped that Rowling ended each book with a sense of closure; the kind where you wait for the next term at Hogwarts, the kind where you try to enjoy a summer break, just like Harry and the rest of the gang. Waiting is better if the series is short, like Hunger Games. I picked it up a couple of months before the release of Catching Fire. Except that when I got to the second book, Collins deemed it fit to have a cliffhanger of an ending. Oh well.

In Katniss's case, the cliffhanger was a deadly one. With Peeta captured by the forces of President Snow, Katniss is left broken and I waited with bated breath as to how the rest of the story would conclude. Obviously with a handful of thoughts in my head as to how it would probably end.

And just like that I'll leave this post hanging, too.