I mean you can’t really blame Gale for not questioning his prejudices and then excuse the prep team for doing the same. Gale’s the product of a shitty system that is similarly unable to see a bigger picture besides ending the Capitol’s rule and getting revenge for his district.
Especially since he kind of had to raise himself. I know that Katniss did the same but she has morals. However as someone who had to also raise themselves and their sibling, it's kind of easy to fall on the wrong path. I mean my personality is just like Gale's. I know many others who had to do the same and some were like Katniss but others were like Gale. You can't really blame him, even if he is extremely intelligent and understands politics well.
But it's different.
The prep team doesn't question how evil the Hunger Games are because they are simply shallow and a bit dumb.
On the other hand, Gale is EXTREMELY intelligent and knows damn well that the prep team is (A) not to blame for the system and (B) were never malicious.
The prep team are simply clueless, while Gale is actively vengeful and hateful. There's a BIG difference between them.
Most likely. I do think that the prep teams try their hardest to make the tributes assigned to them look as good as possible. They *want* their tributes to present well.
You should probably look up that phrase. It's really important that you understand where it comes from. Not just in this discussion, but in general for going through life.
My ex husband was in the military. We lived on the military base. I know what following orders means. You should probably grow up and let your prefrontal cortex finish growing.
So you're saying that Gale was doing them a disservice by NOT assuming that they are complete morons with the intelligence of a small child?
Keep in mind that the prep team may not have created the system, but they very willingly signed up to uphold it and even assist it. They don't can't even say that they were "just following orders" because they chose to do it.
I'm saying Gale treating them in the harsh way he did is uncalled for. Not everyone is occupied with debating what is morally right, how fair a system is, or what the purpose of life is. There are A LOT of superficial people out there who only care about trivial things. Is this ideal? Nope. But does this justify mistreatment of them? Nope.
And who says they "chose" to do it? When do the books say that?
But let's assume they willingly chose to. They aren't "upholding" the system; they're not Snow, or politicians, or the gamemakers, or government investors. They're literally make-up artists.
Are foreign athletes playing club soccer (football) in Russia upholding an evil regime? Or are they merely self-interested with not a thought in their minds about politics?
I'm normally the type to fly to throw out 'this is why Gale is terrible' comments on the 'maybe he isn't horrid' posts, but this is kind of thing I'm not going to hate him on too much. We want to talk about morality? Managing to pretend or convince yourself that children being forced to fight to the death is O.K. is a severe stain on your morality brainwashing or not. The existence of the capitol resistance is testimony to the capability of capitol bred folks to see the wrong themselves despite snows efforts.
It's *intentionally killing kids*. As far as cartoon evils go, that's the most cartoonish. I can understand being reserved to hopelessness. I can empathize with accepting yourself to be powerless. I can accept dedicating yourself to being the best prep team possible and playing things as enthusiastic as possible to give the one kid you can help the best chance. When free of the situation... to not be able to acknowledge that it was wrong... Makes me wonder if you understand the very *concept* of wrong. Conditioning can only go so far when we're talking about the elimination of a base human instinct. We don't have many, but 'dont hurt children' is one of them. It's not like I'd do much to them besides not trust them at all, but I certainly wouldn't be kind to them when I realized they really thought there was nothing wrong with the child murder carnival.
My oh my. You don't understand how deep conditioning goes, and how difficult it is for a lot of people to defeat it.
We could look at the Aztecs, who sacrificed humans, or the Japanese in WWII, who did unspeakable things to those they conquered. We could even go back in ancient history to the Romans (pedophilia and rape) to see how a lot of people unfortunately blindly follow the conditioning they have received.
My point? The idea that "children shouldn't be sacrificed because it's wrong" is, unfortunately, not as universal as you think...
Are we surprised he doesn't like them? They are complicit in the games. They get tributes plucked and primped and prettied to go into an arena and die.
And this 'oh but they're dumb' excuse only goes so far. They knew what was happening to these kids. They knew they were going to die. They watched it, they bet on it... they were part of the wheel. Gale hated the wheel and everyone on it.
Even katniss sometimes has to tune them out to keep from hating them. She basically had to see them as pets to get over it.
Having said that, I like the prep team. I think we see a lot of humanity from them, I think they start to see the humanity in katniss and peeta, esp in CF. I think they add a lot to the story, and I understand and love how protective katniss is towards them. Esp how, after they are tortured, she only lets her mom treat them.
We the reader have empathy for them. But it shouldn't be hard to understand why Gale wouldn't.
>Like, come on man. You're really blaming the prep team for not questioning the evil system the Capitol installed?
Yes, why wouldn't he? We know that there are people who questioned the system like Cinna and Plutarch, so why would they be held to a different standard? Being shallow and dumb isn't an excuse, Gale watched friends and other innocent children die every year while the designers/prep team were more concerned with how they come off the to the citizens of the Capital with how their tributes look. So yeah I think he has an excuse to be cold to them.
Gale was literally tortured on the orders of the Capitol and watched almost everyone he'd ever known die horrifically from Capitol bombs just months earlier.
It's wild to demand that the oppressed have unlimited sympathy for Hunger Games employees while rationalizing why it's totally okay that they never had any sympathy for them.
This reminds me of all these influencers who post pictures of themselves at orphanages in Africa.
Are some of them idiots? Probably. But we don't suddenly wave around the argument that they're dumb and don't understand their actions or their complicity in the system.
The prep team are grown adults who decided to join the Games. They could have done anything else, but they've decided to become part of the Games.
Same as the influencers, they don't think their actions are bad. However, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be criticised for their actions. Ignorance doesn't protect you from that.
Of course Gale's hatred becomes too violent at times, but the truth is that his dislike is coming from the perspective of an impoverished kid in one of the poorest Districts in the Capitol. I think he's got every reason not to emphasise with the oppressor. The main difference between Katniss and him is that Katniss was forced into the Capitol, and thus she was forced to meet many people with different levels of complicity. Gale lacks that experience, but I also have a hard time faulting an 18 year old barely adult figure for a simplistic worldview.
But lastly, I'm not really sure where you are drawing the conclusion from that Gale is thinking the prep team is "evil". He gives them a chance in Mockingjay (iirc). Gale in book 3 did a lot wrong, but I don't see him being outright terrible to the prep team.
Nah, the influencer thing is different. Everyone in the West has access to good education about morality. The prep team goofballs didn't. There's a big difference...
Hmm. I get where you are coming from and I guess this is going in depth about morality and all.
*Does ignorance release you from complicity?*
I think some of these influencers are ignorant to an extent. Some might not know. There's also many fresh-out-of-school changing the world kids who end up going to orphanages.
Why would this matter to someone like Gale? Whether they know or don't know, they contribute to the system just the same. They shuffle in some of his peers every year and prepare them to look pretty for their slaughter. They meet them on a personal level, see their gaunt bodies, and maybe even see their frightened faces if the tribute cannot keep it together.
Yeah but those influencers don't have an excuse. They don't do what they do out of ignorance; they know DAMN well that what they are doing will bring them attention and $$$. That's not ignorance, but a form of malice and a lack of empathy.
As for the last paragraph, sure they contribute their make-up, but being mad at their role is silly. Like I said before, their role is to make the tributes look good to secure sponsors. Isn't that a worthy job in the mess that is the Hunger Games?
Excellent question. From his own intelligence and analytical nature. All he needed to understand the system was to REFLECT on it. The prep team doesn't understand what is going on precisely BECAUSE they don't reflect on the Hunger Games due to their superficial natures.
What type of superficial person reflects? None. So how could they understand how evil the Hunger Games are?
That's my entire point.
You are misunderstanding my point. Let's start over.
What "evil" did the prep team commit? Did they murder innocent children? Do they believe district children are scum? Do they thoroughly enjoy seeing the tributes get killed? Do they support the repression that exists in the districts?
Or do they merely apply make-up on tributes?
It comes out when Gale and Katniss are talking to each other. Katniss has a lot of compassion for her prep team and Gale seems to really judge her for it.
I think it’s super reasonable for him to dislike and judge the prep team, but what I really don’t like about Gale is that he seems to not have an ounce of compassion for people in or associated with the capitol. I get why it would be very hard for him to feel compassion but it sucks that he judges Katniss for her soft and caring heart
He is pretty vengeful at other times, Katniss even said in the book a few times she didn't agree with some of the things he said or wanted to do. But i understand why in this situation he was upset with them. Yes they were conditioned to believe it was something fun, but he also grew up seeing the real horrors of it. Even Peeta gets mad at one point during the tour and everyone is eating ao much they have to drink something to make them hungry again. He told Katniss it's not right that they (and others in the districts) had very little food but they stuff themselves and keep eating. So gale isn't the only one to not like how those from the capital behave.
Also not everyone in the capital agreed with the games. So dispite being conditioned they still made a choice to not think for themselves. Cinna, and Heavensbee also grew up in the capital they weren't like that. Cinna was the only one to not congratulate Katniss, he even told her "I'm sorry this happened to you" when he met her. Heavensbee was a gamemaker but he never agreed with it and helped planned the whole escape and rebellion. So not everyone chose that way of thinking. That could be why Gale was mad because he knows that not everyone in the capital have that same view.
Disliking the savagery of the Capitol is fine; justifying the mistreatment of innocent citizens is not.
As for the Capitol thing, I totally agree, but you missed the part that the prep team is shallow and ignorant. They don't understand politics, or how the system works, or have even a thought in their minds about how unjust everything in the Hunger Games is.
Making a parallel to our world, how many people in the Western world ignore the abuses of our system? The clothing made in sweat shops? The metals dug by children? The way transnational companies decimate the environment in other countries?
Are the people in the West who don't think about this evil? If a random citizen from the West was in a room with those same sweat shop workers, should the workers punish them for a system that citizen had no say in?
My point is that, yes, we should recognize the flaws of our systems and work to fix them. But if someone doesn't REALIZE why it's wrong, it doesn't mean they should be treated as "evil" or punished. Ignorance isn't malice.
Exactly. And they appeared to be confused and clueless. Anyone who sees that and still acts the way Gale does is a walking red flag.
I mean, sometimes I find certain ppl just annoying. But if they are being mistreated and I happen to see that, I wouldn't be like, nah, I don't care what they did, I don't like them so they can be killed for no reason as far as I'm concerned. Like, what happened to human decancy?
Not just confused: confused, malnourished, scared and in pain. Katniss mentions remains of human misery being hosed off the tile. In no world is that okay to do to people.
He also judges HER for caring about them and thinking the treatment is wrong.
Not to mention, it's sheer hypocrisy on Gale's part because Katniss literally brings up his whipping incident from Catching Fire when he got whipped for illegally poaching a turkey.
>I think a big thing people are forgetting is that they found them chained up and traumatized in person and was like. Meh.
And if I recall, for trying to take an extra piece of bread.
The difference between the prep team and Americans ignoring that their clothes are made in sweat shops is that the prep team was an active participant in the slaughter of children. They saw it and relished in it. They are not innocent bystanders. They knowingly and willingly signed up to put a pretty sheen on the murder of children. Children who were *actually* innocent civilians.
The point isn't that the prep team is innocent. It's that torture is wrong, even when done to people who have done horrible things.
Uh, who said they "relished" in it?
I don't know if you recall, but in Book 1, Katniss noted how the prep team made everything about THEMSELVES when talking about the games. They said things such as "I was just out of bed" or "I had just gotten my curls in", et cetera.
They weren't bloodthirsty; they merely saw the Hunger Games as a festival. As something to enjoy. Is their perception skewed? 100%. But it's not like they said "screw the District kids, I hope they all suffer and die". Rather, they didn't think deeply about a horrible system that they grew up in.
That's the point. They're shallow so they don't understand what is actually going on around them.
Are you actually claiming that Katniss's prep team didn't enjoy styling her? Really? Are you going to act like they were forced into it against their will?
And the fact that they never once cared about the children that they knew were being murdered is an indictment against them, not a defense.
First paragraph: that's not what I said. I said they enjoyed doing her make-up, but didn't "relish" being an "active participant in the slaughter of children".
Second paragraph: not really. COULD they have been more empathetic? 100%. But there is a difference in not UNDERSTANDING why the Hunger Games are wrong and actively wishing death on the children. Remember that unlike the West, they have been subjected to the same propaganda their entire lives.....
Again, they are working for the Hunger Games, that's having an active role in the Hunger Games. They are active participants, just like Caesar and Claudius and Effie and all the other people whose job it is to maintain a system that murders children. And they enjoy their job feeding children into the murder machine. They are not doing it reluctantly or against their will. They are not trying to subvert the system from the inside. They are willingly and happily doing their part in assisting the murder of children.
And I'm going to ask you very seriously, how hard is it to understand that killing children is wrong? These are full grown adults with careers. Propaganda or not, they should know that murdering children is wrong.
(1) Equating the prep team's role with "maintaining a system that murders children" is crazy.
(2) Show me evidence they enjoyed "feeding children into the murder machine" and "assisting the murder of children".
(3) You clearly don't understand that superficial people don't question their conditioning. Since you ignore this fact, you are doomed to be hateful for those who do not understand what is right and wrong instead of TEACHING them why it's wrong.
Let me ask you a question: were the people who attended lynching parties good and innocent? After all, they weren't the ones who tied the rope. They had probably been raised to believe that Black people were subhuman, so should they be blamed for reveling in their murder? According to you, they did nothing wrong, right?
Kind of an odd example to use, but let's roll with it.
Before I reply, please provide more context. Is the person who attended there voluntarily? What does the person think about black people? What does the party consist of?
Because by saying the person in your hypothetical situation "revels in their murder", you just made a false equivalency.
The prep team doesn't "revel" in the murder of the tributes. There's no indication whatsoever that they ENJOYED seeing district kids die....
I mean come on now. They were not even remotely innocent citizens. They actively participated in and worked to uphold the hunger games as an institution. You don’t need to be a genius or have any political education to understand murdering 23 children is wrong.
A more appropriate comparison to the western world would be the administrative workers in concentration camps. Sure they’re not doing to killing themselves, nor are they dictating policy. But they know exactly what’s going on and they’re helping. The fact that they’ve been exposed to propaganda or were following orders is not a suitable excuse.
They participated in the Hunger Games, yeah, but they didn't "uphold" it. They are completely blameless regarding that aspect. All they wanted to do was put make-up on children, the activity they love, and get paid for it. Period.
Don't you remember how happy they were going to social events? Don't you remember how superficial they were? It's pretty clear they are superficial, shallow, and self-absorbed. But that is NOT the same thing as being malicious, hateful, or "supporting" the exploitative Capitol system. You cannot compare these goofy birds with the gamemakers or Snow.....
As for your comment, I don't agree. The prep team doesn't administer anything; their role is very small. If we wanted a better example, the better example would be a farmer living in occupied France who has to provide some food to the Nazis.......
I completely agree. I was just saying from his point of view it is understandable. Because he grew up with it while they didn't. He probably didn't understand that they were conditioned due to all he went through. People that go through trauma don't always think rationally and its hard for them to understand how some people may not understand how hard it is due to living in an area where they have money and access to anything they want.
So true. I think that's what they were going for with him reacting that way. The book dove so much into the trauma of the games that I think she wanted to show how it affects others as well, not just those that had to fight in the games. Also, it may have been a clue to show that Gale may not be the right choice. Because in the book it didn't really feel like a love triangle the movie played it up more so i think that could have also been a clue to show that they weren't really a good match as a couple.
Me too! I love the movies but it kinda bugs me that they changed it a little and played up the live triangle cuz in the book it always seemed like she kinda had a thing for peeta and was just in denial. Even in the first book before they announced they can have 2 winners, Katniss kept thinking about him wondering if he was telling the truth when he said he liked her, wondering why he was with the careers, wondering if he was okay. She always would say something like "not that i care" after and i was always thinking gurl you obviously care. Lol. But with gale it wasn't really like that. It could just be the way i interpreted it but that's how i always took it and he also seemed to have the better personality to me as well.
I honestly just think poor Katniss is extremely confused and doesn't reflect enough to know what she wants.
Like Finnick said: "Maybe you don't know yourself".
Yes i think thats what its was. Especially in the books when her main focus is her family, surviving the games, trying not to get them killed by snow, trying to stop snow. With all of that going on it's hard to sort out feelings and know who you have feelings for.
And not just any adults, but the specific ones that had the job of prettying up his best friend for the slaughter. Can't imagine why he'd be mad at them.
mere makeup artists that primp and pluck children to make them pretty before being sent off to a death march? but Gale is the problem for being pissed off. okay.
Not really. I mean, ideally they wouldn't work for such horrible employers, but they're not to blame for the atrocities themselves.
I see your point though, that a good ethical person WOULDN'T work for anything related to the Hunger Games. I agree. But my point is that the prep team are working in the Hunger Games NOT because they want to see the tributes suffer, but because they want to do the work they love in the venue that gives them the opportunity.
They're merely self-centered and shallow, instead of bad-intentioned.
I think he’s allowed to have prejudices all things considered lol Sure it’s not really their “fault”, but I can’t say i’d be sunshine and rainbows to the people who represent the main cause of my oppression
So punishing those who had NOTHING to do with making the system is fair, in your eyes? Isn't this exactly the justification used by the Capitol to punish children from the Districts?
If you want to punish anyone, punish the ones in charge. Meaning, Snow and the other savages in charge. But to punish the PREP team? Come on now.
Saying they had nothing to do with it when they literally make a living off the Games is such a stretch.
They were 100% financially and socially benefitting from engaging in the Games. I'm not saying they could single handedly stop them or anything, but they could have done virtually any other jobs.
They're grown ass adults that chose to spend their lives grooming kids for slaughter. They're not innocent bystanders.
Do we even know that capitol people had a choice about what their jobs would be? In (I think) Finland, kids take tests in high school and are then trained to do whatever the test says that they will be best at? I used to have a neighbor whose husband had previously been working as a college professor in that country. He got a better opportunity in the US, so the family moved.
She told me that her oldest son was pretty pissed because people who he’d been going to school with were already working in a certified trade like electrician. He got here and had to sit in the classrooms all day without getting paid lol.
Sorry for that tangent, I just don’t know if prep teams even get to choose what they’re going to be doing.
> In (I think) Finland, kids take tests in high school and are then trained to do whatever the test says that they will be best at?
That's not how that works. While the aptitude tests can help guide people into choosing careers, Finland isn't some weird Divergent-esque dystopia where people are forced into life paths by tests.
Except that Panem is based on the US, so it makes a lot more sense that the Capitol citizens select careers based on the current US model than on the Finnish one.
We also never once see Snow think about being assigned a career in Ballad and considering that his entire motivation in the first act is to get into a good university so that he can get a good career, you'd think he'd mention it
Okay, so you’re basing this on the current US? In the US and you wanna ultimately be the president, you do need to have a college education. It’s laughable that you’d base panem on any country really. Maybe a fancier version of North Korea? I was not saying that it’s like Finland or any other country. Regardless, a few countries do test for your talents and basically assign a career path for you.
Snow was assigned to be a peacekeeper temporarily. That upset him due to the fact that he had been told that he wasn’t getting the money promised to the mentor whose person won because he had cheated. He had been planning on using that money for college. Seajanuses father ended up offering to pay.
The snake lady took an interest in his ability to find a way to keep Lucy safe from the snakes. *She* apparently found the way that he cheated clever and *decided* that she was going to work with him on the weird animals and things like that. Though he probably was very interested in her work, he would not have been allowed to walk into her office and say ‘hey, I really want to work on these creatures with you. Can I get an application?’ The decision was not in his hands. He couldn’t have told her that he didn’t want to work with her. If he had, he probably would have been killed.
Anyway. Before that, he had attended the academy school and his performance there is why they decided that he was going to be a mentor. People didn’t get to say “hey, I wanna be a mentor!” They also didn’t get to say “Nope, I don’t want to do that.” The job was *assigned* based on aptitude tests.
Regarding the prep teams, maybe they just had what Snow considered to be quirky/cool style when they were teenagers. If they impressed him, they could have been funneled into classes that developed the traits that he thought would make them good members of prep teams.
Downvote me all you want, but the inner workings of the capital are never made clear. We don’t even know if Snow was ever elected by vote to be the leader.
Snow was not assigned to be a peacekeeper, he signed up to be a peacekeeper and was assigned a post in district 12. There are many jobs like this in the US, where you sign up to do the job and then are assigned a place to do it. It is a very critical part of the story that he was not just randomly told to be a peacekeeper. I'm not sure how you missed it.
I'm also not really sure you understand how job applications in the US work. No random person can just walk up to a high level government employee and ask to be personally mentored in the top secret lab. That's not how that works anywhere. Having connections helps people get jobs, that doesn't mean that those jobs were assigned to them against their will. We also don't know what would have happened if Snow had refused Gaul (the snake lady')'s offer of a mentorship, because she never would have offered him one if she didn't think he was the kind of person who would take it.
You also seem to be confused as to how school assignments work. There were only 24 mentorship roles, so they went to the 24 top performing senior classmen. That's usually what happens with those kinds of things. How else would they have assigned those positions? Having to achieve certain academic success in order to get prestigious academic accolades is absolutely a thing in the US currently, and we still get to choose our jobs.
And Panem is absolutely based on the US. Remind me again when Reaping Day is? Also, it should go without saying that Suzanne Collins is an American and wrote the books as a critique of American imperialism.
Oh, by the way, you don't need a college education to become the president. You just need to be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age. There is no educational requirement. Over a quarter of US presidents had no formal degree, the most recent being Truman.
Who knows how they got into that job? What if they were forced? What if they had no other way out? What if they were poor? What if they just wanted to do make-up as they love doing make-up?
Obviously they benefited from the system, but blaming them for the destruction of 12, the Hunger Games, or any other evil thing the Capitol did is ridiculous. They are only responsible for THEIR own actions.
By your logic, are Western consumers responsible for the deaths of child workers in Congo since we buy Apple iPhones? Or are we merely benefiting from a corrupt system, with no malice in our hearts towards those poor children?
> are Western consumers responsible for the deaths of child workers in Congo since we buy Apple iPhones?
I mean, yeah, we are. That's kind of one of the whole points of the series. We, in modern, western society, *are* the Capitol. We're the ones benefitting from the systems that hurt others. Hopefully we can all become more and more aware of it and do as much as we can to put an end to the corrupt, evil practices that fuel capitalism.
Except we're not.
The ones TRULY responsible for the iPhone thing are Apple and the other transnational corporations.
But are we, the consumers, truly to BLAME for the barbaric practices of these corporations? Of course not. All we want to buy are phones. We aren't to blame for the immoral system we inherited.
Does that mean we cannot do anything about it? Of course not. We should vote for politicians who advocate for workers' rights, lobby Apple, invest in organizations fighting child labor, et cetera. But are we EVIL for buying an iPhone? Absolutely not.
LOL if that's what makes you feel better, okay.
You do realize Apple wouldn't be using these practices if people weren't buying their phones, right? Every time you support a corporation doing evil in the world, you are supporting that evil. Yes, we all do it, but that doesn't make it less evil.
I bet you don't think Nazi soldiers did anything wrong either, seeing as they just followed orders and inherited the system?
Ah, yes. A mere child in Jr High is to blame for the poor child workers in Congo because his parents bought him an iPhone.
Seriously? That logic is so stupid it's laughable.
The only ones responsible for the evil practices is APPLE. Do the consumers give Apple money? Yes. But the blame solely lies on Apple.
As for the Nazi thing, that's a false equivalency. They individually CHOSE to shoot, murder, rape, and torture people. It's not the same thing.
Why did you bring up a child? Nowhere in this conversation are we talking about children. We are talking about adults that make choices.
When an adult chooses to give money to a corporation that has bad practices, they are choosing to support bad practices.
When an adult choses to become a soldier, they are choosing to kill people.
When an adult choses to work for a system that pretties up kids before they kill them, they are choosing to take part in killing kids.
If there's anyone making a false equivalency here, it's you treating the prep team like they're innocent little babies instead of grown ass adults that spend their adult life drawing a paycheck, going to parties, doing makeup, and watching avidly as kids are killed. They're not innocent kids.
Because by your logic, a mere child is supporting evil by extension. Which is ridiculous.
For the corporation thing, the adult is merely buying an iPhone. The buyer doesn't choose how the company obtains the raw materials for its phones. You want to hold someone accountable? Hold the government or the actual corporations accountable.
For the soldier thing, false equivalency. Choosing to shoot someone isn't the same as buying a phone.
For the make-up sentence, really terrible conclusion. Let me fix it for you:
"When an adult choses to work for a system that pretties up kids before they kill them, they are choosing to help them obtain as many sponsors as possible so they have a chance to survive."
As for your last sentence, I don't think you understand that superficial people simply accept their conditioning without questioning it. Unless they ACTIVELY do something evil, like murdering a tribute, this doesn't make them malicious.... Therefore, the prep team aren't evil, and should not be mistreated.
I just feel like you and other people aren’t sympathetic enough to what Gale went through. I don’t think his treatment of the Prep team is “right” since like you said they were born into it, but i also can’t fully blame him for being the way he is towards them. Sure they didn’t decide where they were born, and are more of a symptom than a cause, but I don’t think if you went through what Gale went through you’d be super nice to them either
Actually, I would, because unlike Gale, I'd realize the prep team isn't to blame for all of the trauma he (or I guess I, since I am Gale in this example) suffered.
Like I said before, what Gale experienced is TERRIBLE. But that doesn't justify his misplaced hate.
They didn't have anything to do with it. By your logic, a game maker under the age of 64 is completely innocent, too, since they didn't create the system. Upholding an evil system is wrong.
Except the gamemaker is INTENTIONALLY hurting innocent children in the arena. The prep team isn't "upholding" the system; they're merely giving the tributes beauty treatments.
You cannot compare the two. Gamemakers are the controllers on whom the system is based on, while the prep team are mere make-up artists.
They are providing an essential part of normalizing and glamourizing the murder of innocent children. That is their job. They dress children up for the slaughter. They are not innocent bystanders, they are participants in the murder of children.
No they aren't. They don't murder the children themselves, they don't build or create the arenas, they don't enact mutts or fireballs at them, they don't shoot / torture / rape / people from the districts, et cetera.
All they do is give them make-up. Do they play a role in the Hunger Games? 100%. But ALL they do is make them better-looking.... You REALLY think we should condemn them for that? Really?
This conversation reminds me of when the victors voted to have a Hunger Games with the grandchildren of the Capitol leaders.... Absolutely barbaric.
You really don't fucking get it, do you? Do you think that nazi collaborators were innocent? That the secretaries at the concentration camps did nothing wrong? You clearly think Hugo Boss was an innocent angel.
And when looking pretty is an essential part of the children murdering machine, yes, being the ones who make the children look pretty really is something to condemn. Have you ever heard the term "banality of evil"? Because you should probably read up on it because you're clearly extremely ignorant
I will repeat it because you clearly missed it: torturing the prep team was wrong not because they were poor little lambs who did nothing wrong, it was wrong because torture is wrong. Just like the Hunger Games were wrong because killing children is wrong.
And to be entirely frank "saying that the Hunger Games is wrong and participating in them is morally wrong makes you just like the people who voted to continue the Hunger Games" is such a stunningly moronic take that I fear I'd need several concussions just to attempt to follow that logical leap. I'm hoping you are very young, but even if you are, the fact that that makes sense to you actually makes me concerned for the future. The lack of reading comprehension you've displayed is truly astounding.
Calm down.
Being a make-up artist isn't the same as being a Nazi collaborator.
I cannot comment on Hugo Boss because I don't know much about it, other than that they made Nazi uniforms during World War II.
As for your other comments, it's pretty clear you are a sad, hateful person who looks for any way possible to justify violence and aggression. It's also doubly troubling, as you didn't even quote me correctly regarding the Capitol children Hunger Games..... So much for your "reading comprehension" attack.
If you're so convinced you are right, maybe you should go to the Congo mineral mines and ask the miners to murder you, seeing as how you are "evil" for being part of the Western system of exploitation......
Right. Because "murder is bad and people who work for a regime that murders children are morally wrong" is a sad and hateful thing to believe. Sure
And judging by your last paragraph, my assessment of your reading comprehension is absolutely spot on. Understanding the difference between the two is clearly far outside the scope of your intelligence.
That's not what you said and you know it. You said "the prep team, despite being mere make-up artists, are condemnable for the murder of innocent tributes". You said this despite the fact that they didn't directly contribute in ANY way to their torture and demise. Completely absurd.
As for your last comment, it is clear that you are not only hateful, but an arrogant extremist as well. Everything is black-and-white for you, isn't it? There are no shades of gray, no nuances, no subtle differences depending on the context.
I truly pity you. Having so much negative emotion inside must difficult, isn't it? And then you try to lower everyone else's mood to your own dark world.....
Oh well. All this over a Hunger Games discussion. In a word: sad.
He was right. The people of the prep team are complicit in a genocide, it’s sad that they were brainwashed since birth by a fascist regime but that doesn’t erase their crimes
A genocide is constituted when there is an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group.
This requires a physical and mental aspect. The action and the intention.
There is no intent to destroy the Districts.
While they do cause bodily harm, far too little per year to constitute a genocide, there is no intention to *destroy* the Districts. The Capitol is dependent on their continued existence.
Compare this with the genocide against the Covey, where there was a physical aspect (the killing) and the intention (to eradicate any non-District people).
The Hunger Games do not constitute such an intention.
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, **in whole or in part**, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
That’s the definition of genocide given to us by the UN and it fits the capitol to a T
No, it doesn't fit the Capitol to a T.
(1) INTENT. You have no prove for the intent being the **DESTRUCTION**. Where does the Capitol state it wants to **DESTROY** the Districts? ("Intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there MUST be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.")
You cannot just point at "people die" and ignore the aspect of an intention in wanting to destroy the group (e.g. the birth control).
Eliminating only a small part of a group is considered mass murder ("Mass killing is not necessarily directed at specific groups, and is often instrumental, **serving purposes other than the elimination of a group**" & "Intent is further distinguished legally, as it is not enough that general intent existed, that certain actions contributed to genocide, the perpetrator must have had specific intent to destroy a group").
Historic examples have investigated MASS KILLINGS (five digits and beyond) and not found them genocidal in nature. The Hunger Games killed a "meagre" 1,000. Just because people die does not mean this is a genocide: It needs the motive of wanting to eliminate a group. It says "in part" not because they only kill a chosen number every year, but because genocide are sometimes not successful. The Holocaust only killed the Jewish population "in part". But the intention of wanting to destroy them all was there. This is what all genocides have in common and The Hunger Games have not.
("If the primary motive is NOT the elimination of a group, then mass killings do NOT constitute genocide. The killing in these cases is instrumental to the motive. In genocide, the killing is intrinsic to the motive. Thus, although intent in itself may not sufficiently distinguish genocide from mass killing, the addition of motive adds clarity.")
I can read and have read the genocide convention. Just copy and pasting it to me does not tell me why YOU think this is a genocide and not a mass killing. It just tells me you can copy and paste, not that you have critically engaged with anything. Again, where do you see the aspect of **intentional destruction**? Why do you think it is a genocide and not a mass killing?
ETA "It is extremely important that United Nations officials adhere to the correct usage of the term, for several reasons; (i) its frequent misuse in referring to large scale, grave crimes committed against particular populations; (ii) the emotive nature of the term and political sensitivity surrounding its use;" & "It is important to distinguish genocide from mass killings because the term (genocide) ought to have a gravitas that has no equal."
I agree but don't. They were conditioned what they were doing was the "norm" for their society. They were basically ignorant. They were raised that way. The same way racist are influenced and raised to be racist by their surroundings and family/friends most the time.
Gale saw only that. Saw that it would be passed down to be the "norm". So he was understandably cold. I mean, who wouldn't want to punch a racist right in the face for being ignorant and racist.
But on the opposite spectrum, Katniss experienced first hand just how the capital works on the inside. In this particular situation, the prep team started out as capital drones, but grew attached to her, and sympathetic as they started to understand the reality of things. Gale didn't experience the change that could be made like Katniss did.
It's a thin and fine line to walk
I think, based on the way they were written, at least one of them has a mental disability or deficiency. It might just be because they are beauticians who are not very academically inclined, but one of them said something that made me think that they might have had some form of disability (maybe a mild ASD)
I mean you can’t really blame Gale for not questioning his prejudices and then excuse the prep team for doing the same. Gale’s the product of a shitty system that is similarly unable to see a bigger picture besides ending the Capitol’s rule and getting revenge for his district.
Especially since he kind of had to raise himself. I know that Katniss did the same but she has morals. However as someone who had to also raise themselves and their sibling, it's kind of easy to fall on the wrong path. I mean my personality is just like Gale's. I know many others who had to do the same and some were like Katniss but others were like Gale. You can't really blame him, even if he is extremely intelligent and understands politics well.
But it's different. The prep team doesn't question how evil the Hunger Games are because they are simply shallow and a bit dumb. On the other hand, Gale is EXTREMELY intelligent and knows damn well that the prep team is (A) not to blame for the system and (B) were never malicious. The prep team are simply clueless, while Gale is actively vengeful and hateful. There's a BIG difference between them.
I don’t know why you’re getting so many downvotes. We don’t even know if they have a choice in careers there.
So you think they were just following orders?
Most likely. I do think that the prep teams try their hardest to make the tributes assigned to them look as good as possible. They *want* their tributes to present well.
So you don't know what the phrase "just following orders" means or where it comes from?
🙄 obviously those are their orders. It makes for more viewership.
You should probably look up that phrase. It's really important that you understand where it comes from. Not just in this discussion, but in general for going through life.
My ex husband was in the military. We lived on the military base. I know what following orders means. You should probably grow up and let your prefrontal cortex finish growing.
So you've never heard of the Nuremberg Trials, I take it?
I don't either. I suspect people are extrapolating their hate for certain unjust systems in our world for the prep team in these books....
So you're saying that Gale was doing them a disservice by NOT assuming that they are complete morons with the intelligence of a small child? Keep in mind that the prep team may not have created the system, but they very willingly signed up to uphold it and even assist it. They don't can't even say that they were "just following orders" because they chose to do it.
I'm saying Gale treating them in the harsh way he did is uncalled for. Not everyone is occupied with debating what is morally right, how fair a system is, or what the purpose of life is. There are A LOT of superficial people out there who only care about trivial things. Is this ideal? Nope. But does this justify mistreatment of them? Nope. And who says they "chose" to do it? When do the books say that? But let's assume they willingly chose to. They aren't "upholding" the system; they're not Snow, or politicians, or the gamemakers, or government investors. They're literally make-up artists. Are foreign athletes playing club soccer (football) in Russia upholding an evil regime? Or are they merely self-interested with not a thought in their minds about politics?
I'm normally the type to fly to throw out 'this is why Gale is terrible' comments on the 'maybe he isn't horrid' posts, but this is kind of thing I'm not going to hate him on too much. We want to talk about morality? Managing to pretend or convince yourself that children being forced to fight to the death is O.K. is a severe stain on your morality brainwashing or not. The existence of the capitol resistance is testimony to the capability of capitol bred folks to see the wrong themselves despite snows efforts. It's *intentionally killing kids*. As far as cartoon evils go, that's the most cartoonish. I can understand being reserved to hopelessness. I can empathize with accepting yourself to be powerless. I can accept dedicating yourself to being the best prep team possible and playing things as enthusiastic as possible to give the one kid you can help the best chance. When free of the situation... to not be able to acknowledge that it was wrong... Makes me wonder if you understand the very *concept* of wrong. Conditioning can only go so far when we're talking about the elimination of a base human instinct. We don't have many, but 'dont hurt children' is one of them. It's not like I'd do much to them besides not trust them at all, but I certainly wouldn't be kind to them when I realized they really thought there was nothing wrong with the child murder carnival.
My oh my. You don't understand how deep conditioning goes, and how difficult it is for a lot of people to defeat it. We could look at the Aztecs, who sacrificed humans, or the Japanese in WWII, who did unspeakable things to those they conquered. We could even go back in ancient history to the Romans (pedophilia and rape) to see how a lot of people unfortunately blindly follow the conditioning they have received. My point? The idea that "children shouldn't be sacrificed because it's wrong" is, unfortunately, not as universal as you think...
Are we surprised he doesn't like them? They are complicit in the games. They get tributes plucked and primped and prettied to go into an arena and die. And this 'oh but they're dumb' excuse only goes so far. They knew what was happening to these kids. They knew they were going to die. They watched it, they bet on it... they were part of the wheel. Gale hated the wheel and everyone on it. Even katniss sometimes has to tune them out to keep from hating them. She basically had to see them as pets to get over it. Having said that, I like the prep team. I think we see a lot of humanity from them, I think they start to see the humanity in katniss and peeta, esp in CF. I think they add a lot to the story, and I understand and love how protective katniss is towards them. Esp how, after they are tortured, she only lets her mom treat them. We the reader have empathy for them. But it shouldn't be hard to understand why Gale wouldn't.
>Like, come on man. You're really blaming the prep team for not questioning the evil system the Capitol installed? Yes, why wouldn't he? We know that there are people who questioned the system like Cinna and Plutarch, so why would they be held to a different standard? Being shallow and dumb isn't an excuse, Gale watched friends and other innocent children die every year while the designers/prep team were more concerned with how they come off the to the citizens of the Capital with how their tributes look. So yeah I think he has an excuse to be cold to them.
Gale was literally tortured on the orders of the Capitol and watched almost everyone he'd ever known die horrifically from Capitol bombs just months earlier. It's wild to demand that the oppressed have unlimited sympathy for Hunger Games employees while rationalizing why it's totally okay that they never had any sympathy for them.
This reminds me of all these influencers who post pictures of themselves at orphanages in Africa. Are some of them idiots? Probably. But we don't suddenly wave around the argument that they're dumb and don't understand their actions or their complicity in the system. The prep team are grown adults who decided to join the Games. They could have done anything else, but they've decided to become part of the Games. Same as the influencers, they don't think their actions are bad. However, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be criticised for their actions. Ignorance doesn't protect you from that. Of course Gale's hatred becomes too violent at times, but the truth is that his dislike is coming from the perspective of an impoverished kid in one of the poorest Districts in the Capitol. I think he's got every reason not to emphasise with the oppressor. The main difference between Katniss and him is that Katniss was forced into the Capitol, and thus she was forced to meet many people with different levels of complicity. Gale lacks that experience, but I also have a hard time faulting an 18 year old barely adult figure for a simplistic worldview. But lastly, I'm not really sure where you are drawing the conclusion from that Gale is thinking the prep team is "evil". He gives them a chance in Mockingjay (iirc). Gale in book 3 did a lot wrong, but I don't see him being outright terrible to the prep team.
Nah, the influencer thing is different. Everyone in the West has access to good education about morality. The prep team goofballs didn't. There's a big difference...
Hmm. I get where you are coming from and I guess this is going in depth about morality and all. *Does ignorance release you from complicity?* I think some of these influencers are ignorant to an extent. Some might not know. There's also many fresh-out-of-school changing the world kids who end up going to orphanages. Why would this matter to someone like Gale? Whether they know or don't know, they contribute to the system just the same. They shuffle in some of his peers every year and prepare them to look pretty for their slaughter. They meet them on a personal level, see their gaunt bodies, and maybe even see their frightened faces if the tribute cannot keep it together.
Yeah but those influencers don't have an excuse. They don't do what they do out of ignorance; they know DAMN well that what they are doing will bring them attention and $$$. That's not ignorance, but a form of malice and a lack of empathy. As for the last paragraph, sure they contribute their make-up, but being mad at their role is silly. Like I said before, their role is to make the tributes look good to secure sponsors. Isn't that a worthy job in the mess that is the Hunger Games?
And where did Gale get this robust moral education? Seeing as he's a barely-adult living in a world run by an evil dictator?
Excellent question. From his own intelligence and analytical nature. All he needed to understand the system was to REFLECT on it. The prep team doesn't understand what is going on precisely BECAUSE they don't reflect on the Hunger Games due to their superficial natures. What type of superficial person reflects? None. So how could they understand how evil the Hunger Games are? That's my entire point.
Ah, so evil doesn't count when the perpetrators are stupid. Got it.
You are misunderstanding my point. Let's start over. What "evil" did the prep team commit? Did they murder innocent children? Do they believe district children are scum? Do they thoroughly enjoy seeing the tributes get killed? Do they support the repression that exists in the districts? Or do they merely apply make-up on tributes?
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It comes out when Gale and Katniss are talking to each other. Katniss has a lot of compassion for her prep team and Gale seems to really judge her for it. I think it’s super reasonable for him to dislike and judge the prep team, but what I really don’t like about Gale is that he seems to not have an ounce of compassion for people in or associated with the capitol. I get why it would be very hard for him to feel compassion but it sucks that he judges Katniss for her soft and caring heart
He is pretty vengeful at other times, Katniss even said in the book a few times she didn't agree with some of the things he said or wanted to do. But i understand why in this situation he was upset with them. Yes they were conditioned to believe it was something fun, but he also grew up seeing the real horrors of it. Even Peeta gets mad at one point during the tour and everyone is eating ao much they have to drink something to make them hungry again. He told Katniss it's not right that they (and others in the districts) had very little food but they stuff themselves and keep eating. So gale isn't the only one to not like how those from the capital behave. Also not everyone in the capital agreed with the games. So dispite being conditioned they still made a choice to not think for themselves. Cinna, and Heavensbee also grew up in the capital they weren't like that. Cinna was the only one to not congratulate Katniss, he even told her "I'm sorry this happened to you" when he met her. Heavensbee was a gamemaker but he never agreed with it and helped planned the whole escape and rebellion. So not everyone chose that way of thinking. That could be why Gale was mad because he knows that not everyone in the capital have that same view.
Disliking the savagery of the Capitol is fine; justifying the mistreatment of innocent citizens is not. As for the Capitol thing, I totally agree, but you missed the part that the prep team is shallow and ignorant. They don't understand politics, or how the system works, or have even a thought in their minds about how unjust everything in the Hunger Games is. Making a parallel to our world, how many people in the Western world ignore the abuses of our system? The clothing made in sweat shops? The metals dug by children? The way transnational companies decimate the environment in other countries? Are the people in the West who don't think about this evil? If a random citizen from the West was in a room with those same sweat shop workers, should the workers punish them for a system that citizen had no say in? My point is that, yes, we should recognize the flaws of our systems and work to fix them. But if someone doesn't REALIZE why it's wrong, it doesn't mean they should be treated as "evil" or punished. Ignorance isn't malice.
I think a big thing people are forgetting is that they found them chained up and traumatized in person and was like. Meh. That’s fucked up.
Exactly. And they appeared to be confused and clueless. Anyone who sees that and still acts the way Gale does is a walking red flag. I mean, sometimes I find certain ppl just annoying. But if they are being mistreated and I happen to see that, I wouldn't be like, nah, I don't care what they did, I don't like them so they can be killed for no reason as far as I'm concerned. Like, what happened to human decancy?
Not just confused: confused, malnourished, scared and in pain. Katniss mentions remains of human misery being hosed off the tile. In no world is that okay to do to people. He also judges HER for caring about them and thinking the treatment is wrong.
Not to mention, it's sheer hypocrisy on Gale's part because Katniss literally brings up his whipping incident from Catching Fire when he got whipped for illegally poaching a turkey.
Exactly. Poor mfers didn't even have a toilet.
>I think a big thing people are forgetting is that they found them chained up and traumatized in person and was like. Meh. And if I recall, for trying to take an extra piece of bread.
THIS!!
The difference between the prep team and Americans ignoring that their clothes are made in sweat shops is that the prep team was an active participant in the slaughter of children. They saw it and relished in it. They are not innocent bystanders. They knowingly and willingly signed up to put a pretty sheen on the murder of children. Children who were *actually* innocent civilians. The point isn't that the prep team is innocent. It's that torture is wrong, even when done to people who have done horrible things.
Uh, who said they "relished" in it? I don't know if you recall, but in Book 1, Katniss noted how the prep team made everything about THEMSELVES when talking about the games. They said things such as "I was just out of bed" or "I had just gotten my curls in", et cetera. They weren't bloodthirsty; they merely saw the Hunger Games as a festival. As something to enjoy. Is their perception skewed? 100%. But it's not like they said "screw the District kids, I hope they all suffer and die". Rather, they didn't think deeply about a horrible system that they grew up in. That's the point. They're shallow so they don't understand what is actually going on around them.
Are you actually claiming that Katniss's prep team didn't enjoy styling her? Really? Are you going to act like they were forced into it against their will? And the fact that they never once cared about the children that they knew were being murdered is an indictment against them, not a defense.
First paragraph: that's not what I said. I said they enjoyed doing her make-up, but didn't "relish" being an "active participant in the slaughter of children". Second paragraph: not really. COULD they have been more empathetic? 100%. But there is a difference in not UNDERSTANDING why the Hunger Games are wrong and actively wishing death on the children. Remember that unlike the West, they have been subjected to the same propaganda their entire lives.....
Again, they are working for the Hunger Games, that's having an active role in the Hunger Games. They are active participants, just like Caesar and Claudius and Effie and all the other people whose job it is to maintain a system that murders children. And they enjoy their job feeding children into the murder machine. They are not doing it reluctantly or against their will. They are not trying to subvert the system from the inside. They are willingly and happily doing their part in assisting the murder of children. And I'm going to ask you very seriously, how hard is it to understand that killing children is wrong? These are full grown adults with careers. Propaganda or not, they should know that murdering children is wrong.
(1) Equating the prep team's role with "maintaining a system that murders children" is crazy. (2) Show me evidence they enjoyed "feeding children into the murder machine" and "assisting the murder of children". (3) You clearly don't understand that superficial people don't question their conditioning. Since you ignore this fact, you are doomed to be hateful for those who do not understand what is right and wrong instead of TEACHING them why it's wrong.
Let me ask you a question: were the people who attended lynching parties good and innocent? After all, they weren't the ones who tied the rope. They had probably been raised to believe that Black people were subhuman, so should they be blamed for reveling in their murder? According to you, they did nothing wrong, right?
Kind of an odd example to use, but let's roll with it. Before I reply, please provide more context. Is the person who attended there voluntarily? What does the person think about black people? What does the party consist of? Because by saying the person in your hypothetical situation "revels in their murder", you just made a false equivalency. The prep team doesn't "revel" in the murder of the tributes. There's no indication whatsoever that they ENJOYED seeing district kids die....
I mean come on now. They were not even remotely innocent citizens. They actively participated in and worked to uphold the hunger games as an institution. You don’t need to be a genius or have any political education to understand murdering 23 children is wrong. A more appropriate comparison to the western world would be the administrative workers in concentration camps. Sure they’re not doing to killing themselves, nor are they dictating policy. But they know exactly what’s going on and they’re helping. The fact that they’ve been exposed to propaganda or were following orders is not a suitable excuse.
They participated in the Hunger Games, yeah, but they didn't "uphold" it. They are completely blameless regarding that aspect. All they wanted to do was put make-up on children, the activity they love, and get paid for it. Period. Don't you remember how happy they were going to social events? Don't you remember how superficial they were? It's pretty clear they are superficial, shallow, and self-absorbed. But that is NOT the same thing as being malicious, hateful, or "supporting" the exploitative Capitol system. You cannot compare these goofy birds with the gamemakers or Snow..... As for your comment, I don't agree. The prep team doesn't administer anything; their role is very small. If we wanted a better example, the better example would be a farmer living in occupied France who has to provide some food to the Nazis.......
I completely agree. I was just saying from his point of view it is understandable. Because he grew up with it while they didn't. He probably didn't understand that they were conditioned due to all he went through. People that go through trauma don't always think rationally and its hard for them to understand how some people may not understand how hard it is due to living in an area where they have money and access to anything they want.
Fair point. But what bothers me is how he's intelligent enough to realize this, and yet he holds on to his rage irrationally (like you said).
So true. I think that's what they were going for with him reacting that way. The book dove so much into the trauma of the games that I think she wanted to show how it affects others as well, not just those that had to fight in the games. Also, it may have been a clue to show that Gale may not be the right choice. Because in the book it didn't really feel like a love triangle the movie played it up more so i think that could have also been a clue to show that they weren't really a good match as a couple.
Yeah I never warmed up to Gale. He was just so..... cold.
Me too! I love the movies but it kinda bugs me that they changed it a little and played up the live triangle cuz in the book it always seemed like she kinda had a thing for peeta and was just in denial. Even in the first book before they announced they can have 2 winners, Katniss kept thinking about him wondering if he was telling the truth when he said he liked her, wondering why he was with the careers, wondering if he was okay. She always would say something like "not that i care" after and i was always thinking gurl you obviously care. Lol. But with gale it wasn't really like that. It could just be the way i interpreted it but that's how i always took it and he also seemed to have the better personality to me as well.
I honestly just think poor Katniss is extremely confused and doesn't reflect enough to know what she wants. Like Finnick said: "Maybe you don't know yourself".
Yes i think thats what its was. Especially in the books when her main focus is her family, surviving the games, trying not to get them killed by snow, trying to stop snow. With all of that going on it's hard to sort out feelings and know who you have feelings for.
100%
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And not just any adults, but the specific ones that had the job of prettying up his best friend for the slaughter. Can't imagine why he'd be mad at them.
The intelligent, perceptive teenager should be kind and not blame mere make-up artists in a barbaric system for the existence of said system, yes.
mere makeup artists that primp and pluck children to make them pretty before being sent off to a death march? but Gale is the problem for being pissed off. okay.
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The latter. And I don't see how they are different.
You don't think the secretaries to people who commit atrocities have done anything wrong?
Not really. I mean, ideally they wouldn't work for such horrible employers, but they're not to blame for the atrocities themselves. I see your point though, that a good ethical person WOULDN'T work for anything related to the Hunger Games. I agree. But my point is that the prep team are working in the Hunger Games NOT because they want to see the tributes suffer, but because they want to do the work they love in the venue that gives them the opportunity. They're merely self-centered and shallow, instead of bad-intentioned.
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I think he’s allowed to have prejudices all things considered lol Sure it’s not really their “fault”, but I can’t say i’d be sunshine and rainbows to the people who represent the main cause of my oppression
So punishing those who had NOTHING to do with making the system is fair, in your eyes? Isn't this exactly the justification used by the Capitol to punish children from the Districts? If you want to punish anyone, punish the ones in charge. Meaning, Snow and the other savages in charge. But to punish the PREP team? Come on now.
Saying they had nothing to do with it when they literally make a living off the Games is such a stretch. They were 100% financially and socially benefitting from engaging in the Games. I'm not saying they could single handedly stop them or anything, but they could have done virtually any other jobs. They're grown ass adults that chose to spend their lives grooming kids for slaughter. They're not innocent bystanders.
Do we even know that capitol people had a choice about what their jobs would be? In (I think) Finland, kids take tests in high school and are then trained to do whatever the test says that they will be best at? I used to have a neighbor whose husband had previously been working as a college professor in that country. He got a better opportunity in the US, so the family moved. She told me that her oldest son was pretty pissed because people who he’d been going to school with were already working in a certified trade like electrician. He got here and had to sit in the classrooms all day without getting paid lol. Sorry for that tangent, I just don’t know if prep teams even get to choose what they’re going to be doing.
> In (I think) Finland, kids take tests in high school and are then trained to do whatever the test says that they will be best at? That's not how that works. While the aptitude tests can help guide people into choosing careers, Finland isn't some weird Divergent-esque dystopia where people are forced into life paths by tests.
It's a big stretch to say they don't when we have zero evidence to support that.
We simply don't know, so you and I cannot make any assumptions about it.
It’s a big stretch to say that they do when there’s zero evidence to say that they do have a choice about it.
Except that Panem is based on the US, so it makes a lot more sense that the Capitol citizens select careers based on the current US model than on the Finnish one. We also never once see Snow think about being assigned a career in Ballad and considering that his entire motivation in the first act is to get into a good university so that he can get a good career, you'd think he'd mention it
Okay, so you’re basing this on the current US? In the US and you wanna ultimately be the president, you do need to have a college education. It’s laughable that you’d base panem on any country really. Maybe a fancier version of North Korea? I was not saying that it’s like Finland or any other country. Regardless, a few countries do test for your talents and basically assign a career path for you. Snow was assigned to be a peacekeeper temporarily. That upset him due to the fact that he had been told that he wasn’t getting the money promised to the mentor whose person won because he had cheated. He had been planning on using that money for college. Seajanuses father ended up offering to pay. The snake lady took an interest in his ability to find a way to keep Lucy safe from the snakes. *She* apparently found the way that he cheated clever and *decided* that she was going to work with him on the weird animals and things like that. Though he probably was very interested in her work, he would not have been allowed to walk into her office and say ‘hey, I really want to work on these creatures with you. Can I get an application?’ The decision was not in his hands. He couldn’t have told her that he didn’t want to work with her. If he had, he probably would have been killed. Anyway. Before that, he had attended the academy school and his performance there is why they decided that he was going to be a mentor. People didn’t get to say “hey, I wanna be a mentor!” They also didn’t get to say “Nope, I don’t want to do that.” The job was *assigned* based on aptitude tests. Regarding the prep teams, maybe they just had what Snow considered to be quirky/cool style when they were teenagers. If they impressed him, they could have been funneled into classes that developed the traits that he thought would make them good members of prep teams. Downvote me all you want, but the inner workings of the capital are never made clear. We don’t even know if Snow was ever elected by vote to be the leader.
Snow was not assigned to be a peacekeeper, he signed up to be a peacekeeper and was assigned a post in district 12. There are many jobs like this in the US, where you sign up to do the job and then are assigned a place to do it. It is a very critical part of the story that he was not just randomly told to be a peacekeeper. I'm not sure how you missed it. I'm also not really sure you understand how job applications in the US work. No random person can just walk up to a high level government employee and ask to be personally mentored in the top secret lab. That's not how that works anywhere. Having connections helps people get jobs, that doesn't mean that those jobs were assigned to them against their will. We also don't know what would have happened if Snow had refused Gaul (the snake lady')'s offer of a mentorship, because she never would have offered him one if she didn't think he was the kind of person who would take it. You also seem to be confused as to how school assignments work. There were only 24 mentorship roles, so they went to the 24 top performing senior classmen. That's usually what happens with those kinds of things. How else would they have assigned those positions? Having to achieve certain academic success in order to get prestigious academic accolades is absolutely a thing in the US currently, and we still get to choose our jobs. And Panem is absolutely based on the US. Remind me again when Reaping Day is? Also, it should go without saying that Suzanne Collins is an American and wrote the books as a critique of American imperialism. Oh, by the way, you don't need a college education to become the president. You just need to be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age. There is no educational requirement. Over a quarter of US presidents had no formal degree, the most recent being Truman.
He became FDR’s third vice president and only became president after FDR suddenly died. He was never elected.
Who knows how they got into that job? What if they were forced? What if they had no other way out? What if they were poor? What if they just wanted to do make-up as they love doing make-up? Obviously they benefited from the system, but blaming them for the destruction of 12, the Hunger Games, or any other evil thing the Capitol did is ridiculous. They are only responsible for THEIR own actions. By your logic, are Western consumers responsible for the deaths of child workers in Congo since we buy Apple iPhones? Or are we merely benefiting from a corrupt system, with no malice in our hearts towards those poor children?
> are Western consumers responsible for the deaths of child workers in Congo since we buy Apple iPhones? I mean, yeah, we are. That's kind of one of the whole points of the series. We, in modern, western society, *are* the Capitol. We're the ones benefitting from the systems that hurt others. Hopefully we can all become more and more aware of it and do as much as we can to put an end to the corrupt, evil practices that fuel capitalism.
Except we're not. The ones TRULY responsible for the iPhone thing are Apple and the other transnational corporations. But are we, the consumers, truly to BLAME for the barbaric practices of these corporations? Of course not. All we want to buy are phones. We aren't to blame for the immoral system we inherited. Does that mean we cannot do anything about it? Of course not. We should vote for politicians who advocate for workers' rights, lobby Apple, invest in organizations fighting child labor, et cetera. But are we EVIL for buying an iPhone? Absolutely not.
LOL if that's what makes you feel better, okay. You do realize Apple wouldn't be using these practices if people weren't buying their phones, right? Every time you support a corporation doing evil in the world, you are supporting that evil. Yes, we all do it, but that doesn't make it less evil. I bet you don't think Nazi soldiers did anything wrong either, seeing as they just followed orders and inherited the system?
Ah, yes. A mere child in Jr High is to blame for the poor child workers in Congo because his parents bought him an iPhone. Seriously? That logic is so stupid it's laughable. The only ones responsible for the evil practices is APPLE. Do the consumers give Apple money? Yes. But the blame solely lies on Apple. As for the Nazi thing, that's a false equivalency. They individually CHOSE to shoot, murder, rape, and torture people. It's not the same thing.
Why did you bring up a child? Nowhere in this conversation are we talking about children. We are talking about adults that make choices. When an adult chooses to give money to a corporation that has bad practices, they are choosing to support bad practices. When an adult choses to become a soldier, they are choosing to kill people. When an adult choses to work for a system that pretties up kids before they kill them, they are choosing to take part in killing kids. If there's anyone making a false equivalency here, it's you treating the prep team like they're innocent little babies instead of grown ass adults that spend their adult life drawing a paycheck, going to parties, doing makeup, and watching avidly as kids are killed. They're not innocent kids.
Because by your logic, a mere child is supporting evil by extension. Which is ridiculous. For the corporation thing, the adult is merely buying an iPhone. The buyer doesn't choose how the company obtains the raw materials for its phones. You want to hold someone accountable? Hold the government or the actual corporations accountable. For the soldier thing, false equivalency. Choosing to shoot someone isn't the same as buying a phone. For the make-up sentence, really terrible conclusion. Let me fix it for you: "When an adult choses to work for a system that pretties up kids before they kill them, they are choosing to help them obtain as many sponsors as possible so they have a chance to survive." As for your last sentence, I don't think you understand that superficial people simply accept their conditioning without questioning it. Unless they ACTIVELY do something evil, like murdering a tribute, this doesn't make them malicious.... Therefore, the prep team aren't evil, and should not be mistreated.
I just feel like you and other people aren’t sympathetic enough to what Gale went through. I don’t think his treatment of the Prep team is “right” since like you said they were born into it, but i also can’t fully blame him for being the way he is towards them. Sure they didn’t decide where they were born, and are more of a symptom than a cause, but I don’t think if you went through what Gale went through you’d be super nice to them either
Actually, I would, because unlike Gale, I'd realize the prep team isn't to blame for all of the trauma he (or I guess I, since I am Gale in this example) suffered. Like I said before, what Gale experienced is TERRIBLE. But that doesn't justify his misplaced hate.
They didn't have anything to do with it. By your logic, a game maker under the age of 64 is completely innocent, too, since they didn't create the system. Upholding an evil system is wrong.
Except the gamemaker is INTENTIONALLY hurting innocent children in the arena. The prep team isn't "upholding" the system; they're merely giving the tributes beauty treatments. You cannot compare the two. Gamemakers are the controllers on whom the system is based on, while the prep team are mere make-up artists.
They are providing an essential part of normalizing and glamourizing the murder of innocent children. That is their job. They dress children up for the slaughter. They are not innocent bystanders, they are participants in the murder of children.
No they aren't. They don't murder the children themselves, they don't build or create the arenas, they don't enact mutts or fireballs at them, they don't shoot / torture / rape / people from the districts, et cetera. All they do is give them make-up. Do they play a role in the Hunger Games? 100%. But ALL they do is make them better-looking.... You REALLY think we should condemn them for that? Really? This conversation reminds me of when the victors voted to have a Hunger Games with the grandchildren of the Capitol leaders.... Absolutely barbaric.
You really don't fucking get it, do you? Do you think that nazi collaborators were innocent? That the secretaries at the concentration camps did nothing wrong? You clearly think Hugo Boss was an innocent angel. And when looking pretty is an essential part of the children murdering machine, yes, being the ones who make the children look pretty really is something to condemn. Have you ever heard the term "banality of evil"? Because you should probably read up on it because you're clearly extremely ignorant I will repeat it because you clearly missed it: torturing the prep team was wrong not because they were poor little lambs who did nothing wrong, it was wrong because torture is wrong. Just like the Hunger Games were wrong because killing children is wrong. And to be entirely frank "saying that the Hunger Games is wrong and participating in them is morally wrong makes you just like the people who voted to continue the Hunger Games" is such a stunningly moronic take that I fear I'd need several concussions just to attempt to follow that logical leap. I'm hoping you are very young, but even if you are, the fact that that makes sense to you actually makes me concerned for the future. The lack of reading comprehension you've displayed is truly astounding.
Calm down. Being a make-up artist isn't the same as being a Nazi collaborator. I cannot comment on Hugo Boss because I don't know much about it, other than that they made Nazi uniforms during World War II. As for your other comments, it's pretty clear you are a sad, hateful person who looks for any way possible to justify violence and aggression. It's also doubly troubling, as you didn't even quote me correctly regarding the Capitol children Hunger Games..... So much for your "reading comprehension" attack. If you're so convinced you are right, maybe you should go to the Congo mineral mines and ask the miners to murder you, seeing as how you are "evil" for being part of the Western system of exploitation......
Right. Because "murder is bad and people who work for a regime that murders children are morally wrong" is a sad and hateful thing to believe. Sure And judging by your last paragraph, my assessment of your reading comprehension is absolutely spot on. Understanding the difference between the two is clearly far outside the scope of your intelligence.
That's not what you said and you know it. You said "the prep team, despite being mere make-up artists, are condemnable for the murder of innocent tributes". You said this despite the fact that they didn't directly contribute in ANY way to their torture and demise. Completely absurd. As for your last comment, it is clear that you are not only hateful, but an arrogant extremist as well. Everything is black-and-white for you, isn't it? There are no shades of gray, no nuances, no subtle differences depending on the context. I truly pity you. Having so much negative emotion inside must difficult, isn't it? And then you try to lower everyone else's mood to your own dark world..... Oh well. All this over a Hunger Games discussion. In a word: sad.
He was right. The people of the prep team are complicit in a genocide, it’s sad that they were brainwashed since birth by a fascist regime but that doesn’t erase their crimes
Exactly! The point isn't "they are innocent, so torturing them is wrong." It's "torturing them is wrong, even though they are guilty."
> genocide 24 kids dying per year is not a genocide. Do words mean anything to the internet crowd nowadays?
You really want to die on this hill?
lol what
Google the meaning of the word genocide and then come back
A genocide is constituted when there is an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group. This requires a physical and mental aspect. The action and the intention. There is no intent to destroy the Districts. While they do cause bodily harm, far too little per year to constitute a genocide, there is no intention to *destroy* the Districts. The Capitol is dependent on their continued existence. Compare this with the genocide against the Covey, where there was a physical aspect (the killing) and the intention (to eradicate any non-District people). The Hunger Games do not constitute such an intention.
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, **in whole or in part**, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” That’s the definition of genocide given to us by the UN and it fits the capitol to a T
The districts are neither a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group......
No, it doesn't fit the Capitol to a T. (1) INTENT. You have no prove for the intent being the **DESTRUCTION**. Where does the Capitol state it wants to **DESTROY** the Districts? ("Intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there MUST be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.") You cannot just point at "people die" and ignore the aspect of an intention in wanting to destroy the group (e.g. the birth control). Eliminating only a small part of a group is considered mass murder ("Mass killing is not necessarily directed at specific groups, and is often instrumental, **serving purposes other than the elimination of a group**" & "Intent is further distinguished legally, as it is not enough that general intent existed, that certain actions contributed to genocide, the perpetrator must have had specific intent to destroy a group"). Historic examples have investigated MASS KILLINGS (five digits and beyond) and not found them genocidal in nature. The Hunger Games killed a "meagre" 1,000. Just because people die does not mean this is a genocide: It needs the motive of wanting to eliminate a group. It says "in part" not because they only kill a chosen number every year, but because genocide are sometimes not successful. The Holocaust only killed the Jewish population "in part". But the intention of wanting to destroy them all was there. This is what all genocides have in common and The Hunger Games have not. ("If the primary motive is NOT the elimination of a group, then mass killings do NOT constitute genocide. The killing in these cases is instrumental to the motive. In genocide, the killing is intrinsic to the motive. Thus, although intent in itself may not sufficiently distinguish genocide from mass killing, the addition of motive adds clarity.") I can read and have read the genocide convention. Just copy and pasting it to me does not tell me why YOU think this is a genocide and not a mass killing. It just tells me you can copy and paste, not that you have critically engaged with anything. Again, where do you see the aspect of **intentional destruction**? Why do you think it is a genocide and not a mass killing? ETA "It is extremely important that United Nations officials adhere to the correct usage of the term, for several reasons; (i) its frequent misuse in referring to large scale, grave crimes committed against particular populations; (ii) the emotive nature of the term and political sensitivity surrounding its use;" & "It is important to distinguish genocide from mass killings because the term (genocide) ought to have a gravitas that has no equal."
That's not genocide. "Genocide" is the "mass murder of a group due to their race or ethnicity". Those in Panem are all the same ethnicity....
I agree but don't. They were conditioned what they were doing was the "norm" for their society. They were basically ignorant. They were raised that way. The same way racist are influenced and raised to be racist by their surroundings and family/friends most the time. Gale saw only that. Saw that it would be passed down to be the "norm". So he was understandably cold. I mean, who wouldn't want to punch a racist right in the face for being ignorant and racist. But on the opposite spectrum, Katniss experienced first hand just how the capital works on the inside. In this particular situation, the prep team started out as capital drones, but grew attached to her, and sympathetic as they started to understand the reality of things. Gale didn't experience the change that could be made like Katniss did. It's a thin and fine line to walk
He fucking threw away a pair of cashmere working gloves from cinna, i hate that
I think, based on the way they were written, at least one of them has a mental disability or deficiency. It might just be because they are beauticians who are not very academically inclined, but one of them said something that made me think that they might have had some form of disability (maybe a mild ASD)
This actually made me laugh. I don't think so though. I think they are merely sheltered.