Satoru Was Not One To Put Much Faith Behind The Unknowable. Maybe There Was A God, Or Some Universal

“Sejanus is like Katniss!” “he’s just like peeta!”

What if I said he was like Gale?

Their blind loyalty their districts. Their rash nature, fuelled by their anger at the injustice the people of their home face. Their strong sense of morality, their eagerness to save the people of their district. Their hatred for the games, and their trust in their friend counterparts.

I’ve seen posts comparing Katniss to Snow, and Peeta to Lucy. In this case, Gale representing Sejanus makes so much sense.

Gale is Katniss’ friend from home. Katniss partakes in the games, but Gale doesn’t get the chance to- like how Sejanus’ tribute Marcus died from default. Katniss feels as though she owes Gale her love, and the way Snow treated Sejanus was all from pity. Artificial love, although Snow and Katniss are set so far apart that Katniss still loved Gale, but as a brother.

Something sets all of the characters apart from their counter character. For Katniss, she was forced to become a hunter when Snow was one at heart. For Peeta, he was forced to put his true feelings forward to perform, when it was Lucy Gray’s passion.

For Gale and Sejanus, I think it’s their sense of morality. Gale is who Sejanus would’ve been if he had no room to act out, had no trust fund to protect his outbursts. Gale is Sejanus after years of oppression, the pride and protection for his home becoming almost toxic. Sejanus is Gale with a chance to change the things around him - a boy with hope, refusing to play by the Capitols games.

If Sejanus had lived, he could’ve become a version of Gale, who in war would risk the lives of hundreds of innocent people from the Capitol. Perhaps Sejanus is the version of Gale who would’ve run away with Katniss before her reaping. Hung and punished, before their urge to help people turned fatal for others. Still morally good.

there is something significant that suzanne begins thg with an interaction between gale, katniss, and madge. and in that interaction, gale specifically calls out madge for having only five entries, implying that her chances of going to the capitol are nonexistent (thg, 12). or at least less than him, who has forty-two entries (thg, 13).

suzanne integrates this scene with madge in the novel to show (1) the class division throughout the district that creates animosity. and although gale knows that it is not her fault, that doesn't stop him from digging into her (thg, 13). and it also emphasizes (2) the illusion that some people are safe, or benefit in this system.

yet, you know who had also only five entries? just like madge? peeta. and prim only had one entry. the two people whose names were called that year. so when the reaping happens, it proves just one thing. no one is safe. not a merchant's son. not even a girl with only one slip in the bowl.

and it just goes to emphasize the theme that follows katniss's throughout the novel: who does this system benefit? one that she finally reaches her conclusion at the end: that "it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen" (mj, 321). because no one is safe in a world where people murder children in order to solve their differences. and that means no one. not a capitolite. not a mayor's daughter. and not even a young medic whose sister has done everything in her power to keep her safe.

"Gojo should've gotten to live as a person-" THAT’S THE POINT. That is the ENTIRE point of JJK. Every single character who died was someone who "should've gotten to" do a lot of things. Riko should've gotten to live for herself, Geto should've had the chance to be a teenage boy given support and safety, Junpei should've gotten to live without fear, Nobara should've had the chance to let people in without fear, Nanami, Yuki, Mai, Higurama, EVERYONE.

Here's the thing, Gojo is on this list. Gojo isn't the exception because JJK at its core is a story about how overarching systems destroy people; bullying, capitalism, sexism, etc. And this system does not need people to run it. Which is why killing Kenjaku didn't stop shit because yeah he started this mess but its grown beyond him. Fuck, it was there before him.

This is also why despite Sukuna & Uraume being the only ones who are actual threats, nothing is better. The cast got rid of the higher-ups, jujutsu tech as it is, is no more. The major families are dismantled. This should be a victory. This is what the Sashisu gen pointed out as the problem but things have never looked more bleak.

Why? Because the problem isn't Kenjaku, Sukuna, curses, sorcerers or curse users. It's the existence of Cursed Energy itself. This has been pointed out multiple times by Yuki. Its the system and Gojo has been complicit to the system for a long, long time. He's also it's victim. Gojo says he's the exception a lot, but as everyone has rightfully pointed out, he was nothing more than a weapon to jujutsu society.

JJK has followed a very clear pattern to every character right from Geto to Junpei to Riko; characters are representatives of systems of suppression, and they will not escape it. I can't recall a single character that's escaped unscathed, much less alive.

Is it disrespectful? Yes. Is it demeaning? YES. There has not been a single character death that's been dignified in JJK. It's all on a scale of bearable to absolutely horrifying. It is genuinely wild seeing people resort to threatening the author AGAIN. Calm the fuck down. You are entitled to feeling upset about how Gojo has been treated but Yuta stans are being calm despite Yuta arguably suffering the "he is a weapon" thing WORSE. It's still a fictional character and JJK's narratives never treated Gojo with any exceptions despite the character saying otherwise.

As far as book-to-movie adaptations go, The Hunger Games does a pretty good job. But one thing I will never be able to forgive is how dirty they did Finnick.

If you've read the books and watched the movies, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't know, I'll explain. Remember how the District 13 soldiers infiltrate the Capitol to rescue Peeta (and Johanna)? In order to create a distraction for this operation to take this place, the rebels take this opportunity to hack all the Capitol channels. But they need something with sufficient shock factor to capture the Capitol's attention. This is when Finnick steps up and spills some MAJOR TEA in front of the camera. Now, in the books, Finnick's speech is the main focus with the infiltration happening in the background, but the movie does the OPPOSITE (for reasons I will never understand).

People who've only watched the movies don't even know what Finnick said and how important it is because of how the movie overshadows his part there and let's it become fucking background music for the most part.

Finnick talks about how, as a victor, the Capitol sold him (his body that is) to the elite. Basically, they sex trafficked their victors. Keep in mind that Finnick won the games when he was 14. All the victors were minors when they won. And in order to assuage their guilt, to pretend like this was somehow not a really fucking messed up transaction, his "buyers" would offer him gifts- money, jewels, clothes etc. But Finnick figured out a much more valuable thing to exchange. He asked them to tell him their secrets. And because he was dealing the Capitol powerful elite, he learned just how rotten the Capitol was at its core. And the best secret he learned was of how Snow came to power- by poisoning his enemies. And it was from that poison (he also probably had to consume it to prevent his enemies from suspecting something) that he had bleeding sores in his mouth that he tried to disguise with the scent of roses.

Apart from exposing Snow's corruption, Finnick's confession exposes another truth - that the games are never truly over. The victors may leave the arena, but they remain the Capitol's pawns. And if not pawns, they become examples. Johanna and Haymitch were the latter. Johanna was also expected to do what Finnick did. But she basically told the Capitol to go fuck itself and so they killed her whole family. Haymitch had played smart in the arena by using the Capitol's own force field to win. And so they had already killed his whole family (and girlfriend) for that. So they had no one to blackmail him with.

Now think back to what Finnick said to Katniss when they first met. He tells her, "You could have made out like a bandit, jewels, money, whatever you wanted." Katniss ribs at his popularity in the Capitol by talking bout people,"paying for the pleasure of his company, " not realizing just how true that statement was. (He replies "secrets" is you recall). Finnick was alluding to a fate Katniss would have also had to face like other victors if she hadn't been reaped again.

The games were never fucking over. The victors would always be the Capitol's pawns for as long as it suited the Capitol. And I will never be over the fact that the movies quite literally drowned out Finnick's story like that.

The first real conversation Katniss has with Peeta is when he tells her that he wants to die as himself, that he doesn't want the games to change him into something he's not, and that he wants to keep his identity and prove he's more than just a piece in their games because that's the only thing he has left to care about.

The first time we see Lucy Gray she sings a song that basically says that nothing they could take from her was worth keeping. "Can't take my past. Can't take my history... You can't take my charm. You can't take my health."

The capitol has taken everything from them both, but at the same time, they could never take away who they are.

They are both likeable charismatic and funny, with the kindest hearts, and incredibly loyal to the people they care about.

At the same time, everything they do before the games, and during is calculated. Lucy Gray singing a love song and winning the hearts of the capitol. Peeta confesses he's in love with his district partner, therefore cementing her identity as desirable. Both of them know how to sway people with words, how to charm people, and how to manipulate crowds. Neither of them has any problem doing so to keep themselves, and the people they love safe.

Lucy Gray's song The Old Therebefore, about learning how to love and live her life to the fullest before death, a final and calculated stroke in a last-ditch effort to save herself from the arena. This evokes enough emotion in the watchers to get them to rise to their feet and plead for her life alongside Snow.

Snow, watching the 74th and preparing for the 75th Hunger Games sees Lucy Gray in Katniss. A young girl, from the 12th district. Unafraid at the reaping. Selling a false love story, manipulating a boy who loves her in order to get out and supporting the revolution with the mockingjay as her symbol.

He threatens her family to get her to sell that she and Peeta are in love, to prevent the revolution, because obviously, she's pretending. He's had experience with a girl just like her before. He has no doubt that she has the acting ability to sell this story because clearly, she manipulated the first Hunger Games in her favor, the same way Lucy Gray manipulated him.

Watching the interviews for the 75th Hunger Games he realizes-

Katniss is just an impulsive girl, in a Mockingjay dress she didn't know about, made by someone who supports the revolution.

Peeta is a boy who has the ability to move people with just his words. He made Katniss desirable, he was the one who sold the love story, and he was the one to make their romance seem real. Katniss only started the revolution because she would rather risk dying with him than live without him. A concept President Snow was completely unfamiliar with. And it is with all these realizations crashing around him Peeta drops the baby bomb. He knows the baby's not real, and so does Snow. But it evokes enough emotion in the watchers to get them to rise to their feet and plead for the lives of the tributes.

Is it Lucy Gray or Peeta?

By the time Snow realizes he's made a mistake, it's too late.

Peeta is still charming and manipulating the capitol. Katniss is in love.

He goes up against a kindhearted boy expecting to beat Sejanus again, only to find out that it's Lucy Gray he's fighting; knowing he will never be able to escape their ghosts.

-from a conversation i had with @grandtyphoonpoetry breaking down every character in the hunger games.

I know the story of Icarus is supposed to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of getting ahead of yourself...

But has anyone thought about whether Icarus intended to fall? What if when he flew high above, out of the awful labyrinth that had entrapped him and his father all this time, he finally felt free in the endless sky with the ocean under him? What if he looked beyond and saw a city on the horizon and while his father flying beside him shouts that it is safe haven, that they have found a place to land, all Icarus could see was another maze, with its walls and paths and crossroads. Only this one seemed to have more people caught in it. What if he looked at it all and refused to be one of them, refused to live the rest of his life in another labyrinth after just escaping one. What if the sun wasn't his doom but the bright burning possibility of freedom.

You must understand, I'm not saying he definitely wanted to fall. But maybe he never wanted to stop flying. Maybe he never wanted to be parted from the sky and sea. Maybe he just wanted to be free.

Grover being all sweet innocent cinnamon roll reasurring Percy and Annabeth that he'll be okay staying behind with Ares like he isn't planning 5D chess psychological warfare on the god of war be like

Am I the only one who just figured out that Disney's Lion King is basically a kiddie version of Shakespeare's Hamlet? How late am I to the party?

"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious