Can we give it up for Suzanne Collins for fucking off into oblivion with her money after Hunger Games fucking destroyed the YA market for like 6 years

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Title:	Can we give it up for Suzanne Collins for fucking off into oblivion with her money after Hunger Games fucking destroyed the YA market for like 6 years
Creator:	benepla (deactivated)
Date(s):	Jan 2019
Medium:	tumblr post
Fandom:	The Hunger Games
Topic:
External Links:	original post is deleted reblogged post by shenko
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Can we give it up for Suzanne Collins for fucking off into oblivion with her money after Hunger Games fucking destroyed the YA market for like 6 years, is an untitled Tumblr post by user benepla (which is now deactivated). As of March 2022 it has over 189000 notes.

Topics discussed

• The absence of news about Suzanne Collins or the lack of her presence on social networks since she published The Hunger Games.
• The way the love triangle featured in the trilogy shaped subsequent Young Adult novels, repeating the formula ad nauseam.
• The different social issues that the Hunger Games books deal with.
• How the trilogy is a complex book and deeper than it seems, but the first thing that comes to people's minds is the love story.
• How the "Panem et Circenses" theme that the book talks about is applied to the book itself in real life.

The Post

can we give it up for Suzanne Collins for fucking off into oblivion with her money after hunger games fucking destroyed the YA market for like 6 years. everything YA was dystopian “EVERYONES IN A DIFFERENT QUADRANT” shit from 2010 to 2016 and we didnt hear a peep from her. true fucking power.

– benepla

Some Responses

2019

[ruby-white-rabbit]

And she hasn’t said a word since. Rowling could take some pointers

[whatisthisplaceidonteven]

The Hunger Games was baby’s first intro to social justice for a lot of kids back in the early 2010s. They were brilliant books that introduced a lot of complicated concepts in a way teens could understand and enjoy - plus, addictive, well-plotted adventure stories with A+ characterization and worldbuilding. But all the general public seems to remember about them is the love triangle, and I will always be salty about that.

[galaxiepresdechezvous]

Yeah but in Collins defense, her book was really good. She perfectly showed PTSD, Katnis trauma from when her mom mentally "abandoned" her when her dad died and the parallel with Katnis depression at the end of the series, perfectly depicted the society and its inherent problems, Finick's back story, socio-economic disparities based on skin colour, Rue and the 11th district, President Coin and how she was as bad as Snow but in an other angle, distrinct 13 and the capitol trying to use her image for the war even though she did want to, and way more stuff I can't think of right now.

I mean the following Y/A distopian books were mostly bad knock off who thought that the reason the HG had such success was because of the love triangle, but in reality Collins created such a complexe yet very realistic world that makes a parallel to our society of entretainment and war

[princecaviar]

The irony of the Hunger Games is that the media in the book and the media in the real world both chose to focus on the love story instead of the rebellion.

[just-fic-me-up]

Also let’s never forget how they took the Hanging Tree song and made a pop remix out of it

[corisanna]

One of my favorite aspects of the book series was the way it dissected the art/science of propaganda/media and the often stark differences in popular figures’ public and private personas. The movies also got that frighteningly correct. Propaganda to oppress and propaganda to uplift were laid side-by-side and used as foils to show how the techniques work to achieve the desired purpose. The direct invocation of “panem et circenses” (”bread and circuses,” keeping a population docile by controlling/bestowing distractions regarding food and entertainment) made the point all the clearer. “Look. This is what is being done to distract you.”

Having Katniss– the symbol of The Common Person at the bottom of the societal hierarchy who most heavily bears the brunt of oppression– be stiff and awful at scripted propos but a fucking goddess at unscripted, passionately angry speeches and stoking reflection and resistance and rebellion was very deliberate. It is a call to be genuine, to question media narratives and seek facts, to take a long, hard, honest look beyond the sparkling lights and glamor projected by the media to really see and take the downtrodden seriously before their collective patience wears thin enough to snap and they bring out the bombs. Or guillotines, if you want to look at IRL history.

One of my favorite scenes in the series is in Catching Fire: the interviews with the Victors being forced to take part in the Quarter Quell. Especially with the visuals of the movie. The entire thing builds up to when Peeta “drops the baby bomb” and the audience breaks into dismayed/horrified pandemonium and there are calls by the privileged to stop the injustice; it is an escalating series of oppressed, re-victimized individuals turning their glamorized re-victimization into a platform to scream their humanity at the citizens of the Capitol until it seems to finally start seeping in. Stanley Tucci play’s Caesar Flickerman’s growing discomfort perfectly; IIRC, his calling for the lights and cameras to be cut when the Victors show unity is to use the gesture of slitting a throat. It’s a common gesture, but in this case it has a greater weight: “Cut this, kill it, don’t let people see it, these people we’ve set up to hate each other joining hands in united defiance is dangerous.”

That also veers off into an extended lesson in “the powers that be seek to divide you and turn you against each other to keep you weak.” In modern terms, you can see it in such things as “wow why should burger-flippers get raises to earn more than the legit heroes who fight crime and save lives and defend our country?” to turn those groups against each other on the basis of accepted social hierarchy instead of talking together and coming to a consensus of, “You know, we’re ALL getting screwed and should ALL make more money; let’s work together to achieve that.”

It is highly relevant to this period of civilization. It resonates with the masses. That resonance is amorphous; allowing it to gel into something more solid could erode media/propagandist influence. Thus, whether conscious or just the nature of the beast, “LOOK AT THE LOVE TRIANGLE! ROMANCE! FOCUS ON THE ROMANCE! ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?! THINKING ABOUT THE DEEPER STUFF IS UNCOMFORTABLE, SO LOOK AT THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN AND HANDSOME MEN AND CHOOSE A SIDE AND FIGHT FOR IT! R-O-M-A-N-C-E-!”

In other words, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

In other words, “Let’s play up the circus part of panem et circenses.”

It’s like a social ourobouros. I observe it with a sort of morbid fascination.

[zarohk]

Just FYI, Suzanne Collins was pressured by her editor to make a love triangle, and decided to make President Snow be the one pushing the Peeta romance to show that it was forced.

[nomtheburritos]

The irony of the Hunger Games is that the media in the book and the media in the real world both chose to focus on the love story instead of the rebellion.

[oddteapot]

Just FYI, Suzanne Collins was pressured by her editor to make a love triangle, and decided to make President Snow be the one pushing the Peeta romance to show that it was forced.

2022

[supercomplicatedperson]

The Hunger Games series works because it's an actual dystopian novel with real criticisms on the society it was written for. All the others failed because they where riding in its coattails and copying what they thought made it work without anything to say.

[therainbownerdsstuff]

And now she has released a perfect prequel that takes the themes of the first books and beats you EVEN HARDER with them. She really said “you missed the point of the first ones for spectacle and a love triangle, so this time you get NO spectacle, NO love triangle and even MORE suffering”.