The Dragon's Name is HONOR
Hello peoples. Welcome to the weirdness that is my tumblr. I just sort of reblog whatever captures my attention and looks cool. Enjoy :D
the naming of hunger games characters is absolutely masterful. each one could have a whole page written about it, and tho i can’t say anything that hasn’t already been pointed out a million times, i do want to highlight one generality. most of the names in the districts are one of two things: common words (altered or not) to become names, often in line with their district’s culture (Gloss, Thresh), or phonetic shifts of contemporary common names (peeta being derived from peter). this suggests, without changing how the characters speak, the idea of linguistic evolution, which in turn is representative of change and of local cultural. the districts are a people in dialogue and evolution with one another. and now compare this with the names of those in the capitol. off the top of my head i think of Plutarch, Coriolanus, Flavius, fucking Caesar. these are, one, roman names, which further serves to reinforce the comparison between the capitol and rome and all that entails, but these roman names, names that have been etched in stone and unchanged for millennia, are a stark contrast with the alive and dynamic names of the districts. it’s just another (not so) subtle way that collins reminds us of the differences and the values of the capitol versus the districts.
I’m sure someone has talked about this before but one thing I absolutely love about tbosas is how Snow’s descent into villainy is never once presented as something that was inevitable
So many villain origin stories portray this idea of a person who tries incredibly hard to be a good person, who takes every opportunity to be kind and to better themselves, but are ultimately doomed to fail by the narrative. Their environment and their circumstances make it impossible for them to be a good person, and while this is effective from a storytelling point of view it’s not exactly accurate to real life
In real life there is always a point where a bad person makes the decision to do something bad, they make the decision to prioritise themselves, their own power, money or desires over someone else. That’s how real life dictators are made, they are presented with every opportunity to be good, and they purposefully choose to not take it
This makes Snow’s storyline so effective because he is given so many opportunities to do the right thing and yet, at every single turn, he chooses to serve himself instead, exactly like how real dictators are made
Snow, unlike most people we see in the capitol, is in a unique position where he could genuinely have the chance to understand and relate to the people from the districts. He, unlike his classmates, is poor and spends most nights going hungry, he witnessed firsthand the cruelty of the capitol when Clemensia was bitten by the snakes for nothing more than lying about doing her homework, when his sister was forced to sell herself on the streets in order to feed the both of them
Throughout his book, the three people he is closest to are Tigris (who dislikes the hunger games, is a rebel, and a victim of the capitol forced to turn to prostitution), Sejanus (who is originally from district 2, dislikes the capitol and knows he will never be accepted there, and also a rebel) and Lucy Gray (who is a victim of the hunger games, from district 12, and is also treated horribly by the capitol). These are all people who gave him an opportunity to realise the cruelty of the system he was in, a chance to directly confront his prejudices and see that people from the districts are just the same as him, and yet he still refuses to take the chance to change
He is given every opportunity, he’s sent away from the capitol to be a peacekeeper in the districts, he forms personal connections with people from the districts, he helps Sejanus perform funeral rites, and yet at every moral crossroads he comes to he makes the wrong decision. He didn’t have to become a villain, and yet he made the choice to do so anyway, despite every chance he was given
I think it’s a really effective portrayal of Snow as a character, and it’s a very effective villain origin story for the type of villain that Snow is. It never once excuses him from his actions because it highlights just how accountable he was for his actions
Look I know it’s annoying that I keep talking about it, but Doctor Who returning with one of their most iconic lgbtq+ characters mere days after Supernatural ends in the worst way possible is just so so so funny to me.
You know the urban legend that vintage Coca-Cola bottles were contoured into the hourglass shape to be reminiscent of a beautiful, curvy woman’s body? Well… I have a bunch of retro Coke *glasses* that I’m kind of obsessed with (long story that has to do with visiting my Nana’s house as a kid) and tonight during dinner I totally lost my shit because…
Vintage Coke *glasses* were totally the original Dorito.
“Shoulda recorded this for Cap. Do they have cameras in here?”
Alternative Ending: After Team Cap’s jailbreak, Tony sends schematics for a new Vibranium-based arm as a peace offering. Because I recognize the council has made the Stan Lee cameo of a Cap movie about Tony Stark, but given that it’s a stupid-ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it. Also, everybody takes turns checking up on Bucky in Wakanda.
