Subject: All right, you've sold me.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-02-24 12:41:00 UTC
Darnit, I'm trying to focus on Rose Potter, not this! Now I won't be able to stop thinking about it... Curse you and your endless font of plot bunnies!
This one's a bit short (okay, really short), but here it is: "Zero-Sum Game"
The AU in which Katniss wins and Peeta dies, and the revolution never happens, and the Hunger Games go on, is interesting. What did President Coin do when she never got her Mockingjay? What happened to President Snow, who was dying then, and who's leading Panem now? How is Katniss doing? Prim? But the author seems to have completely ignored the idea of 25 years having passed since then, and completely ignored the existence of both Katniss and District 13.
The premise for the fic--that the tributes for the 100th Hunger Games would be chosen from among the disabled--doesn't stand up so well. The 100th Hunger Games is a big anniversary; a theme of "Rebels against the Capital are helpless" makes sense, but choosing exclusively disabled tributes doesn't. And the idea that disabled people are the opposite of Victors is nonsensical; many of the Victors are disabled people. If you want to make the point that "rebels are helpless", maybe you'd want to reap from nineteen-year-olds who think they're safe. I dunno. But choosing disabled people isn't something the Capital would do--not out of their non-existent compassion, but simply because they wouldn't see it as glamorous enough to make a good show.
Full disclosure: I've only read the first book, and that was quite a while ago, and I didn't much care for it.The following is largely based on stuff you guys have said here, a brief look through the series Wiki for terminology, and an admittedly piecemeal classical education. If it's incompatible with HG canon, feel free to totally ignore it.
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These Tribute chaps, chapesses, and nonbinary people of general chapulicity, are basically gladiators. They've even got a vaguely-defined laurel crown being dangled in front of them like a carrot before a donkey. Indeed, from what I've been able to glean, there's a whole Fall of the Roman Empire thing going on with the series, from the bread theming being an incredibly laboured reference to the concept of "bread and circuses" to the Capital (i.e. Rome) being this kind of decadent hellscape of flamboyance and sybaritic menace... which might say more than Collins is intending to about the aesthetics of camp, but that's for another day. You have, every year, one massive balls-to-the-wall spectacle of ultraviolence wherein a bunch of provincial types beat the tar out of each other in a changing environment. I'd like to remind people that the floor of the Coliseum was occasionally flooded so that gladiators could engage in naval battles.
So far, so Roman. However, there's a smattering of something else in the mix, and that something smells of professional wrestling with considerably less Health and Safety input. It feels artificial and stereotyped to the nines, which I can only assume is the point. So you've got the potential for narrative enhancement in with your gladiators, and if there's one thing people love, it's a heartwarming underdog story.
So you rig it.
See, the first rule of writing believable villains is that they shouldn't think they're the villain. Who does? Therefore, we can assume that the citizens of the Capitol don't believe themselves decadent petit-bourgeois representations-of-LGBT-stereotypes-to-be-got-rid-of-by-the-backwoods-small-town-yokels-of-the-purported-"Real-America" - er, what were we talking about? Villains. Right. The people of the Capitol are just that. People. Not intrinsically evil or anything like that. Just... people trying to have a little entertainment in their lives. So you have the perfect setup for a "heartwarming" tale of triumph in the face of adversity, so you pick a tribute with an obvious physical disability and you give them... perhaps a little more help than they need.
I admit, I'm basing this off the whole Pegleg Peeta discussion that happened elsewhere, but it seems like someone with a missing leg or whatever would be exactly the kind of Tribute people would get behind in a narrative about love and honour and eventual, inevitable tragedy. I don't use the word lightly, either - you can put together a narrative straight out of Greek tragedy by giving our hypothetical Hopalong Cassidy here a bit of extra leeway. Maybe he knows a particular type of terrain from his home district - so you base a few of the earlier rounds off that. Maybe he's a good shot and a patient hunter - so you put in scenarios where fast-moving combat is discouraged. You create this feeling of tension, focusing on our Tribute, ratcheting it up - will it be this week he dies, will it be this time, oh God I can't bear to watch it pass the popcorn Darren. You pick the other Tribute to have the final battle, the one who's also good at this, and you save them for last, and you have the final battle wherein the one-legged Tribute has a definite but not obvious disadvantage to their able-bodied counterpart.
And when Jake The Peg here loses, what happens next?
Well, that's how I'd do it, anyway. Feel free to rip it apart. =]
Apparently my nonexistent agents don’t know all the tiny details.
What did canonically happen when handicapped kids were drawn? Was the Capitol government so considerate to excuse them from the Reaping? In case this was never addressed in the books, we need to determine how evil the Capitol actually was. Depending on the result, "sending handicapped people into the Hunger Games as tributes" may not be a legitimate charge.
The Snowdrop, Head of Department, Uncanonical Department of Inaccuracies
((Sorry, I didn’t see this problem earlier. HG))
If you can send a half-starved eleven-year-old like Rue into the arena against the Careers, you can send a disabled child too.
Disabled people definitely participated in the 75th Hunger Games, because some of the winners were disabled, physically or mentally, by the time they had to participate again:
-Wiress, District 3. Nearly unable to communicate on her own.
-Mags, District 4. Stroke; old age.
-The Morphlings from District 6: Addiction and related brain damage.
-Woof, District 8. Deafness and dementia.
I don't really need to mention the near-universal PTSD.
Would a physically disabled teen get to keep their adaptive equipment? Probably. It would most likely count as the single object they're allowed to take with them to the Arena.
I forgot about the fact that disabled people did show up as tributes. And Peeta's leg as well as noted in a few other replies.
I guess it was the fact that Apple was bound to a wheelchair when she got brought in that led me to charge for that; I've modified the charge to specifically note that there wasn't any preparation that I know of from the content available (i.e. no preemptive medical procedures, though that could be due to the fic being left hanging). An amputee I can understand, but you've gotta work some pretty crazy medical nonsense to bring in somebody who's paralyzed from the waist down.
Well, hmm. Let's think about this. How would it really work out?
First, a few basics:
The Hunger Games are manipulated from behind the scenes. Who goes, as well as who "wins", are both heavily influenced by the people running the games, and their goal is to put on a good show. It's sadistic, deadly reality TV with unwilling participants.
People aren't chosen as tributes unless they make it to the age of eleven. It seems obvious, but it also means that if a person's disability prevents them from surviving to the age of eleven, they wouldn't be chosen as a tribute. You would have to choose a disability that would let that child survive, plausibly, in their home environment. If the child is visibly disabled and others can tell they will not be able to work, their parents (or other friends/family) need to be very much on their side, because this isn't a world that's kind to disabled District kids.
Each district has a different culture, and different things seem to be valued. District 3 may allow a physically disabled but intelligent child to survive because they are good with electronics; District 10 may be a luckier birthplace for a mentally disabled but physically healthy child who can care for livestock.
Some disabilities may be more likely to occur in some areas. People from Districts 9 and 11 may be exposed to pesticides; District 4, mercury from fish. Malnutrition in mothers and children can result in various nutritional deficiency diseases and congenital problems.
Wherever your character was born, you would have to make sure that they had a way to survive there, whether it was because they had family support, could hide their disability, or got lucky and were born somewhere where their skills could persuade overseers that they were useful despite it.
When it comes to actually becoming a tribute, you have to assume that the gamemakers have some level of control over who is chosen and who isn't. Would they deliberately exclude a disabled child--or perhaps deliberately choose them? If this is a disabled child who has survived because they are well-loved and their community has been fighting to keep them safe, why did no one else volunteer?
Then it comes to how this child is presented to the world. With the Capitol as it is, I would expect them to be presented much the way Rue was--as an innocent for the audience to feel sympathy for. Depending on the child's temperament, this could be something that the reader could see as an obvious front, simply because this is a child who is already a survivor who has had to be creative to make a place for themselves. They could even try to evade being put into the Hunger Games somehow--perhaps by escaping when people assumed they couldn't move far enough on their own, or thinking up tricks that others thought they were too stupid to figure out.
This person might have an interesting perspective on the world--might know better than most tributes that the Capitol is the real enemy. Or they might be bitter and see everyone as an enemy, period. Or they might be good at making friends, and rely on social connections to survive. How they try to survive in the arena is going to be closely related to how they survived in their district.
Would the gamemakers accommodate physical and sensory disabilities? Possibly. But they don't miss a chance to be sadistic and to manipulate their tributes. A child who used a wheelchair might be given one to use--but it might be completely inappropriate for the terrain, or it might be rigged to fall apart after a short while. Manipulating the child by tempting them with decent transportation would be easy, and the spectacle of that child trying to jump through those hoops would make for good viewing. For a physically disabled child who can team up with others for protection and transportation, it's highly likely that the gamemakers will manufacture a situation where the child's allies have to decide whether to leave them behind. Maybe they do and the child survives anyway. Maybe they don't. Maybe it leads to drama in the group. It all makes for a good show.
Would a child with a disability be "allowed" to win? No. Almost certainly not. The reasoning is simple: The Capital wants to prove their dominance to the districts, and if a child with a disability wins, it means that someone who seems "weak" (even though they may not actually be) can beat the Capital at their own game. That's not a message they want getting out.
If such a child managed to "win", or escape the arena, the Capital would have a lot of mud on its face. It would actually be a rather similar situation to what happened when Katniss and Peeta broke the one-winner-only rule, with the exception that the surviving child would be the only survivor. For that child there would be even less to celebrate than Katniss had, since unlike Katniss they would not have been able to save anyone else.
You've suggested a couple of times that the Reaping is rigged - where did you get that? I don't remember it being implied anywhere.
Whether a wheelchair-bound Tribute would see the Capitol as the enemy... probably depends on where she comes from, and how the Capitol treats her. If she's from a Career District, she might well have access to expensive Capitol equipment, like an electric wheelchair, and so actually appreciate it more (consider what a wheelchair made in 12 would look and handle like... yikes); on the flip side, if she's from a district where her neighbours were wildly intolerant or abusive of her disability, the fact that the people in the Capitol 'like' her might sway her, too.
I think you're right that the Games would be rigged against her, but not by too much. After all, she already has a disadvantage. So give her a wheelchair that works fine - except for the fact that most Games have terrain other than level ground. What would they plan for when she lost the use of it? Perhaps manipulating her in advance to form an alliance with someone who can help her; perhaps teaching her how to make crutches, and maybe even giving her minimal Capitol treatment to give her low functionality of her legs. (They wouldn't cure her properly, of course - not after she was shown being selected in her chair - but they might claim they can 'only do a little'.)
I think, provided she doesn't get herself killed, she has a decent chance of being 'allowed' to reach the late stages of the Game. She's your biggest human interest story, much like Katniss' 'doomed romance' angle. And the Capitol wouldn't want to overtly attack her - that would make them seem cruel, which (the nature of the Hunger Games aside) isn't really what they're aiming for. Dominant, yes. Powerful, yes. But they want the Districts to think that as long as they follow the rules, they won't be arbitrarily attacked - except by the Reaping. In particular, they're aiming their presentation at the Career Districts - the ones who 'enjoy' the Hunger Games.
And if, by some fluke, she won? I don't think the Capitol would be at all happy. The Districts are given the impression that victors live happy lives after the Arena, but the truth is far, far different. Katniss and Peeta were forced to live a lie; Haymitch's family were killed, theoretically because of his embarrassing win; Chaff took to drinking; the Morphlings became drug addicts; Finnnick was made a prostitute; Johanna's family were killed because she refused to become one. The victors are still tools of the Capitol, even after they win: they either do as they are told and in some way submit to the Capitol's power, or they are punished.
So what would happen to our wheelchair-bound victor? Well, any use of her legs she had would be taken away, for starters. Depending on how she won, her family might die in a 'freak accident'; they seem to like that trick. She'd probably be brought back to the Capitol regularly, theoretically as a party guest, but basically as a freak show for the Capitol's citizenry. She would probably escape being sold for sex, at least; they'd be focussing on her 'innocence' rather than her attractiveness (whether she had any or not).
She could probably have a decent life by playing up to the Capitol: turn on the wide eyes, and tell everyone how wonderful it all is. She might even eventually get proper treatment. She could probably grow old in comfort after that.
And then you throw in the twist. Make her name Margaret, make her from District 4, give her a stroke at around age 75, and you can have her volunteer in place of Annie in the Third Quarter Quell. Surprise! It's Mags. :D (Heck, according to the book, Mags even uses a walking stick before the Games...)
hS
It's the reason Katniss is so afraid of having children. She knows that if she did have a child, that child would probably end up in the Games--that the Reaping would be rigged for maximum drama. She notes that the children of victors are in the Arena far too often for it to be chance.
I don't think the Reaping is *always* rigged. They wouldn't usually have a reason to rig it. But when they want to, they do.
(and seriously, that sounds amazing), if she was from District 4, a known Career District, she'd likely be passed over in favor of healthier volunteers. Not to mention, if she was wheelchair-bound, why would she be taught to fight? And, uh, how? I'm fairly sure all fighting styles would rely on some sort of maneuverability, which isn't really possible in a wheelchair.
Remember, Mags is 80 by the time of the 75th Hunger Games; the wiki suggests she participated somewhere in the 10th-13th. That's probably a long time before the Career concept emerged - heck, at that point, her parents were probably members of the losing army! The early Hunger Games would have been brutal and ferocious: an explicit show of the Capitol's power.
But it's been a quarter of a decade. There are children in the Reaping who weren't born at the time of the war. The system is in the middle of changing: the Capitol is starting to view the victors as novelties, not enemies. In District 2, the rising generation actually likes the Hunger Games, making them the first Career District - and the Capitol has made a big deal of the fact that last year's victor in 2 has just volunteered to become a Peacekeeper. Where the previous Games were basically fenced-off areas of the wilderness, this year has seen the appointment of the first Gamemaker, and the Capitol's networks are vying for the right to air the footage - not as a war memorial or act of gloating, but as entertainment. They've even gotten permission to interview the Tributes in advance of the Games...
As to fighting... well, again, this is an era when the Capitol's hold on the Districts' minds is still precarious. I suspect alliances were a lot more popular in those days, particularly since the arenas were much more lethal. So she probably gets carried a lot. ;) That also ties in with what we know of Mags, since she doesn't do any fighting - but she can make a fish-hook out of anything. So the other Tributes kept her around for food - and didn't realise that letting her make large numbers of easily-concealed sharp objects designed to stick in your flesh isn't all that good an idea...
Obviously this is all off-the-cuff, but I'm pretty sure you could work it. Remaining questions include: would there be a Cornucopia? Would there be a bloodbath, or would people still have the mindset of helping each other against the Capitol? Maybe most of them could be like that, but the District 2 Tributes grab weapons and start slaughtering the rest... or perhaps, since piling everything into one Games would be overkill, that's Margaret's reflection on what happened three years ago.
hS
Did the books really say that the Careers like the Hunger Games and that "Careers" is not a derogatory term created by the poorer districts? Even then, Katniss may not be a reliable narrator.
I got the impression that the wealthier districts had a code of honor. All kids were trained for the Hunger Games. Every year, the boy and the girl who were best in training volunteered to maximize the chance that one tribute from this district survived. Since somebody had to be the male and female tribute anyway, this doesn’t necessarily say that they liked it. On the other hand, boys and girls who weren’t prepared to sacrifice themselves for the weaker kids could easily avoid this by just not training too hard, so that nobody would expect them to volunteer. That’s the reason why I could never hate Cato and the other Careers. They were still victims, and probably not the worst people to be found in their districts.
HG
The Reaping in the Career Districts always took a long time because there was a long process of volunteering. I think it's safe to say the kids were eager to be picked.
Darnit, I'm trying to focus on Rose Potter, not this! Now I won't be able to stop thinking about it... Curse you and your endless font of plot bunnies!
How do you even type with bunnies? Do you use graphics or something? I don't think real live bunnies can be used to form letters, that would be inhumane...
Anyway, what I'm most fascinated by in this discussion (I'm not sure if I could pull off an HG AU in which Peeta dies) is the prospect of a Hunger Games in which the tributes are all physically disabled (as opposed to mentally disabled as seen in canon). It would be interesting to see whether the people running the games (I think there was a term for those, but I don't remember what) would have everyone compete in their disabled state or have them all fixed up before putting them in the arena. Either way, everyone would have to fight on an equal level, but having them kill each other while still handicapped would be unnecessarily barbaric. I mean, it was suggested that the Capitol folk would throw an epic collective spit-fit if Prim - a 13-year-old girl - was tortured just to give the jabberjays something to torment Katniss with.
Also: I wonder what Hunger Games minis would be? Mini-muttations or some kind of variant on mockingjays?
Especially the hound-kind, since they'd have the creepy human eyes of the misspelled character in question.
(Also, wrong font. Font as in "font of wisdom" refers to a water basin or a fountain. But maybe you know that and I'm ruining the joke. >.> )
~Neshomeh
They're more monstrous, and less of a key part of the setting. (They're also not dogs, which is my main objection to Nesh's idea - there's already heaps of canine minis.) I can't come up with an alliteration, though, and they couldn't exactly be mini.
Though if you want to be really horrifying: Typographic Tracker Jackers. [Shudders]
hS
See here:
http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Muttation
A muttation is basically a custom-made animal, genetically modified and often times a combination of multiple species.
A Mini-mutt wouldn't need to be canine; in fact, most wouldn't be. You could base it on the character whose name was misspelled, or on the misspelling itself. For example, if someone misspelled it as "Catniss", it would probably be a mutant cat.
And yes... but having PPC writers invent their own uncanonical species as minis, such as mutant cats (which I'm pretty sure were never mentioned) kinda rubs me the wrong way.
hS
There are many types of mutts, so what if we left it up to the person who found the mini to pick which type it is?
Yes, yes I did.
Peeta is, of course, an amputee in the 75th hunger games, and walks with a cane at least initially to help keep his balance with his prosthetic leg. His disability slows him down and Finnick carries him sometimes--but I did notice they let him keep the prosthesis. I'm not sure now whether or not it was attached permanently.
Though I haven't seen the movies, it seems after some research that Peeta's leg was also forgotten by the producers of the movie, who decided to reduce the severity of the infection so that Peeta never lost his leg at all.
I've only read the book like five times, but I can't believe I forgot about that.
http://www.quora.com/Why-did-they-change-the-ending-in-regard-to-Peetas-leg-in-The-Hunger-Games-movie
You might want to read the answer by Cristina Hartmann, who makes some very good points about disability as a theme in the books versus the movie.
We know the Capitol has high-enough bioengineering to fix pretty much any problems, assuming I remember Book 3 well enough. And I don't recall any handicaps of any kind in the Districts. I, uh, kind of wonder whether the government practiced euthanasia on that score. And, for that matter, on people with serious injuries...
I also don't recall any working-age men being housebound in District Twelve, which... well, it's a coal mine. There ought to be a massive population suffering from things like miner's lung, unable to physically go into the mines no matter how much they're flogged. Yet I can't remember it being there. Again: high-end wild nanotech, heavy genetic engineering, or euthanasia?
hS
Mostly since (in District 12, at least), people were forced to rely on local healers like Katniss' mother for their medical needs... then again, it's possible those people just flat-out died on their own, no interference needed. Also, it's entirely possible Collins just didn't think about miner's lung.
I'd be willing to bet the people in the 'Career Tribute Districts' got better medical attention.
First of all: Movie adaptations are problematic. Movie producers don't really think about the prevalence of disability in real life, nor do they hire enough disabled actors, even in crowd scenes. The fact that the people in the movies are practically all non-disabled is an artifact of Hollywood.
There are, however, disabled people in the books. Katniss's mother is the most notable one I can think of, with her severe depression. Using that as an example, I conclude that in the poorer districts, disabled people are cared for and supported by family--and, if they don't have family, become homeless and quickly die because they cannot work.
Another thing you guys might be forgetting: The Reaping is often rigged. Would they choose a disabled child, or would they fudge it? That depends on which option made for good drama.
I only detected one error:
derailing the canon due said killing
I believe that you meant "due to said killing"?
I had originally planned to ask you if you've received the email I sent you yesterday, but it seems that you'll be busy for quite a while. Good luck with your dissertation defense. (BTW, what is a dissertation defense?!
Basically, a dissertation - also called "thesis" - is this really big paper you write when you near the end of a degree (Master's for sure; not sure if you do it for BA). Part of it is defending your claims before a committee. The details differ between places, disciplines, etc.
A thesis is meant for a Master's degree, and a dissertation is for a doctorate. But Des is right - both of these DO require a presentation/claim defense in order for you to get the degree.
I'm a Master of Chemistry, but didn't have to defend my final project.
... is what I was about to say. Then I remembered that actually, there was a presentation in there somewhere. But it either wasn't a big deal, or I'm forgetting it in self-defence. So okay, it was there... apparently 'yes necessarily'.
(I had seriously forgotten that presentation until right then. I'm still not entirely sure it was in my final year at all, though... maybe I'm misremembering)
hS waffles
Overall, good job. Letting most of the the characters get assimilated back into canon was a nice idea, especially considering they didn't really do much. I must say, I'm impressed the fic recognized that albinos have vision problems. But, blunde hair? Bwzuh?
A few nitpicks:
1) “You don’t see me that much after all, don’t you?” The second "don't" should be "do".
2) “Geez, at least this author’s admitting that they’re a moron.” Straying into bashing territory here.
3) A young man with ashy blonde hair That should be "blond", not "blonde".
4) If it weren’t for the state of him, I’d be getting a bulge in my pants right now,” he whispered. And then a moment later he's embarrassed by E.V.L. asking if he likes Peeta. Um, consistency? Also... well, maybe there's a more tactful way to phrase that? Unless Rayner really doesn't care about making references like that, but it just struck me as unnecessarily crass.