Sunrise on the Reaping Part 2 - Suzanne Collins - Young Adult - Dystopian - Book

Effie Trinket gets a better character arc in ten pages than Haymitch gets in the entire book.

We break down SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins — themes, character arcs, and full spoilers. Part 2 of 3.

Slava, Jonathan, Jules, and Evan roll a die to pick a theme and land on the cost of survival — what Haymitch actually gets for staying alive. It turns into an argument about whether Collins gave him an arc at all, why he reads stronger standing next to Katniss, and how Effie, Maysilee, and Lulu do more character work in a handful of pages. Also: Plutarch's moral ambiguity, the old Battle Royale plagiarism claim, whether flesh-eating squirrels land as dark or funny, and how much the movie will sand off. Part three closes the series on the Hunger Games world itself.
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Creators and Guests

Host

Jonathan

Host

Slava

Digital Strategist. Co-Host. Aspiring writer of stories.

What is The Side Quest Book Club Podcast?

If you’re a reader looking for something deeper or an indie author working on your book, The Side Quest Book Club is for you. We skip the usual book reviews and ratings. Each episode turns fun side quests into real lessons, so you’ll leave not just entertained, but with a better understanding of why storytelling matters.

Did you guys know, I don't know, it's just in this hardcop cover edition, I think, that there's discussion questions at the very last- Wait, where's that at? Okay, at the very last, right after, or before the acknowledgement, after the epilogue, there's like this thing that says bonus content questions. Yeah, mine does not have that. I have the default edition though.

Is that a hardcopy, like a hardcover as well? Yeah. Or like with the slipcover? Okay, okay. Yeah, this is like the fancy, the edged work, whatever.

Yeah, I didn't upgrade the premium. So what's one of the questions? Okay, so I'll go with, there are many ways to be a part of the resistance. Plutarch is playing a long game.

Do you think he's doing the right thing, or does his participation in the games implicate them? That was my favorite question, because the other ones are kind of meh. Do you think that they ask the questions, because in the last episode, Evan told us that you read this in school. Do you think that that's the play here, is to get schools to buy the book? Maybe, or for book clubs.

Like, you know how, like, basically what we're doing, right? But like discussion points for the book clubs, maybe? That's the only other thing I can think of. But the questions are kind of weird. Like the first one is asking about the two quotes from the philosopher quoted at the beginning of the book, which is kind of odd, because it's not talking about the book.

It's talking about the preamble to the book. I don't know. But I didn't know that they did that in books nowadays.

I've never seen this before. The only other book that I've seen bonus content in is Cradle, where he does outtakes as if the book was a movie. Oh, that's funny.

He'll write a scene, and he'll write it wrong. Or he'll be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, you can't do that. That's copywritten.

We can't. So he'll like, lead up to like a Dragon Ball Z moment. Oh, nice.

Wrong IP, we can't do that. Or like a character will, and then they died. Like, but they didn't die.

It's very funny. My bonus content in my book is an ARG for my cyberpunk novel. But spoilers.

Run us through ARG for those who don't know. Oh, Augmented Reality Game. So basically, I have a bunch of cryptography built into the book and puzzles that lead to real websites and things.

And for the puzzle solvers or the people who really like the internet sleuthing stuff, it's built into there explicitly to give you access to additional content that has to do with the world. That's going to be pretty cool. Have you been not writing your book to work on that? Because you're like, I need to make sure I've got these six sites up.

So I had a moment where I squirreled and started building out a hacker terminal for part of the story. And then I was like, I need to stop and actually finish writing the book so that I can incorporate all those. So there is a sense of duality.

And I'll leave it at that. That is included in the ARG, but it's also part of the book. And you can solve things about the book using the ARG.

But it doesn't prevent the story from being complete in the book, if that makes sense. It is complete in its own sense. Those are just like little icing on the cake kind of things like, ooh, I got to learn something special and new, but it's just cool to know.

It's not going to make or break the story. Yeah. So I won't miss anything.

I won't miss anything if I don't do that. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. I've read books where the bonus content was to go to a website and learn more about the backstory and the lore of the world, all that stuff. I find that enjoyable.

So good on you. Thank you. All right.

Back to... Last question. When should we expect your book? No later than 2030. Yeah.

That one won't be for probably two years. I'm finishing my space opera first, and I want that published early 2027. So yes, that's what we're doing.

I am working on them simultaneously. It's just the cyberpunk is very emotionally draining to me. I know we talked about this at the last time I guested with you guys, and it's sometimes very hard to continue because I bring in a lot of traumas.

And so it's hard to continue writing sometimes. You get emotionally exhausted. So it's a tough one.

It's a very good book as far as cathartic for me. I don't know if people will think it's good, but it's good for me to write. And so that part's great, but whether people enjoy it is... My editor is going to help me with that, hopefully.

I was going to say, that's what editors are for. They make sure that it's good for everybody else. Yeah.

Yeah. Now, last question, I promise, and we'll get back to Sunrise on the Reaping. Audiobook, no audiobook? I would love to do an audiobook.

The cost of audiobooks these days is very difficult. So if all things go well with the space opera, you could potentially fund an audiobook. I have done voice work before when I was still in the game industry, but those were test runs for the future voice actors.

So I did a lot of the placeholder stuff. So I could theoretically do it myself, but I don't know if I like the idea of my voice. I don't know.

It's weird. I don't know. I don't know if I'm there yet.

Fair enough. Back to your regularly scheduled Sunrise on the Reaping. Sunrise on the Reaping.

Discussion. Today we're covering themes, character development, and all things included. So let's move into it now that we've gotten our discussion questions out of the way.

Thanks, Professor Morn. That's great. There will be a quiz on it.

I'm going to cheat off Evan. So hopefully we're good there. I'm cheating off Slava.

Oh, we're f***ed. Just change your answers a little bit, guys. It's A, B, C, or D. What am I supposed to do? Pick a different letter? Yeah, there you go.

I feel like Jules would be an essay professor. I really would. I really would, yeah.

I'd be that one. She would for the first year, and then subsequent years, she'd be like, you know what? I don't want to spend all this time grading. Actually, then I would be like, you know what? Instead of writing essays, you guys will present in live without preparation.

Go. Oh, that's even better. I could do that.

That's actually my— It's a group project, guys. No, absolutely not. I'm busy that day, guys.

I can't show up. Yeah, there you go. So are we tackling theme first? So in terms of themes, we have two ways we can go about this.

I'll read the themes in a second. I can roll a die, and we can pick a theme, or we can just pick a theme as a group. Roll the die.

Yeah, let chaos reign today. What is the deal with the color? I'm very curious. I'm going to ask when Jonathan gets back here, too.

There's a reoccurring color theming in this entire world. Did you notice that, or was that just me? No, I noticed that. I just filed it away, just like I did a lot of the stuff.

But here's my die. Oh, is that metal die cast? Yeah, it's a metal die cast. Yeah, it has blood all over it.

Nice. This was a gift from Jonathan to me. Aw, what a nice gift.

Is it his blood? He's just sitting over there, just dropping little bits of blood on there. Oh, wow, fancy. Nice.

All right. I've got a lot more die than this. Slava and I, did you tell them while I was gone that we were going to try and- I was about to.

I'm getting into it because I'm showing you your gift to me. Oh, nice. Yeah.

Fancy. Today on Sunrise on the Reaping, show us your die collection. So you can tell a story, Slava, or- I can tell a story.

So we were going to do a bit on the show where we would take Cyquest by rolling dies, and then that would kind of weave us through segments. That's a great idea. One of my good close friends created this during the pandemic.

He is the roll for sandwich guy, Jake, where he rolls on multiple tables to determine what he's eating for lunch. And it has made some absolutely terrible sandwiches. He has a cookbook out now from the sandwiches, and he rates them one to 10 of like, are they any good? Are they not good? And then he got approached by a book, a publisher, not a book group.

A publisher, that's what it's called. A book group. Yeah, a book group.

So like a book club? No, like the people who make books. Yeah. So I was like, oh yeah, that's genius.

There's some randomness. You're not sure what you're going to get. It keeps you engaged.

So I was like, we should try and do that. And I was like, but it takes us a week and a half to read a book. So yeah, it doesn't really.

I haven't figured out how it fits yet. So now we're using it. This is an example.

I need a cup or something like that. All right. So there's six, before I roll the die, there's six different themes that I have identified.

So authoritarianism, surveillance and propaganda. It's one theme. Compliance versus resistance.

Second theme. Dehumanization and state-sponsored violence is the third theme. Unity versus individualism.

So like the newcomers alliance and the heart of the games versus Amper, its core argument versus the careers being disproportionately better as the fourth theme. Solidarity and grief, perhaps with some music, with Lenore's dove song that just gets woven in. I really hope it's not that one because I don't want to talk about that one.

So I'm just going to tell you guys that right now. Or the cost of survival, which I could speak about for days. So I'm really hoping for a six.

Yeah, yeah. So six themes, a six-sided die. My camera's really good at this.

Yeah, you could never do makeup podcasting because you just get nothing. You'd never see the product. So here's the dumb thing.

I actually have a DSLR with a $800 camera sitting right there that I'm supposed to set up. And I've had it for nine months. I just haven't done it.

So it's on my list. I see. All right.

What do we think we're getting, guys? Huh? Hoping for a six. We're gonna see about this. No, it is a six.

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna try and put it on a thing to lift up to prove that I did just live roll it.

But picture it didn't happen. Here. I'm gonna put it on an object and unmoved.

Nice. Move to the audience. Unmoved.

Actually a six. All right, great. Perfect.

That's what I wanted. That's what I preferred. Well, that's your favorite.

So you start us off. So the cost of survival. In the series, The Hunger Games, we have this premise, right? And I don't know if you guys ever heard that people accused Suzanne Collins of actually stealing this story from a Japanese manga or novella of high school students who fight to the death.

And I can't remember the name of the series off the top of my head. Yes. It was like a big controversy.

You know how this stuff comes out? Somebody releases a thing. It gets really popular. And they're like, they didn't invent that.

They stole it from so and so. Just because no idea. I mean, fighting to the death is not a novel concept, guys.

The gladiator exists, you know. Running Man. I can't think of anything older than Running Man.

But the Coliseum, I guess. Right, right. Real life.

Yeah, exactly. Real life. The Summer's UFC fight.

Thank you, Slava. That's great. I don't know if the audience will get that.

But you want to explain it to us? There was a UFC fight at the White House during the summer. You can Google it. Why? Because why not, Evan? Why not? Because this is idiocracy.

You guys seen Idiocracy? Yes. Yes. Did you know there's a spike over the summer of that movie being watched? You mean that movie being lived? Yeah.

Electrolytes. Both. That's what plants want.

Evan, have you seen Idiocracy? No. Oh, man. You should watch it.

Yeah, you should watch it. Okay. And then you'll be upset about the state of the world because it's real.

Also, Crocs got big because of Idiocracy. Crocs didn't exist. Crocs did.

That's true. Crocs, yeah. The guy who was doing the art direction was like, I'm going to pick a really dumb shoe for these people to wear in the future.

And then people were like, oh, those shoes are great. I love those. And then they took off.

No joke. Awesome. Bringing us back to the story that was supposedly stolen.

Japanese high school fight to the death Hunger Games. Let me look that up. Kill la Kill, maybe? Battle Royale.

Oh, yeah. Oh, did they make that into live action recently, too? Yeah. 1999 dystopian novel by Kushun Takami.

Subsequent 2000 film adaptation. Totalitarian Japanese government that forces a class of junior high school students onto a deserted island to fight to the death until one survivor remains. I mean, the concept is similar, but the application, I would say, is quite different.

Yeah. We're not in Japan. Well, not Japan, but like Panem is the entirety of the world that we know, at least.

Right. And it's not isolated to just one group or class. You know, you have the 12, 13 districts that became 12.

There's a little bit more, but also, you know, that's the argument of the chicken or the egg kind of situation. Is any concept really, truly original? But interesting. Good to know.

Yeah. So that was an early, you know, news headline or something like that. But we rolled a six.

So that's the cost of survival, right? So by the end, Haymitch has lost Luella, Ampert, Maiselie, his mother, his brother, Lenore. And he's just kind of, like, concerned that snow will continue to kill people that are close to him. And so what does he do? He drinks and drinks and drinks and becomes an alcoholic.

He isolates himself. And then we have years of, you know, just unknown from him that end up being this black box, per se, where we like we know something happens from when we just read the book to when we see him again in the Hunger Games, which is roughly 25 years. I assume was he 17? How old was he? I can't remember.

Yeah, 17. 17. So because he was on the 50th Hunger Games, the Quarter Quell.

And then the next one that happens when we see it is the 74th. So it's about 25 years. So he's 30.

46. Is that right? Is that how math works? Evan, quick math problem. 17 plus 25.

42. 42. The meaning of life.

I think he played with the idea several times, Haymitch did, of I might as well just die, right? So that the people that I love can live. So why doesn't that ever actually? Is he surviving as a circumstance that Snow is just purposely letting him stay alive? Or is it just luck? I think Snow is purposely letting him survive to mess with him. And then within himself, he's oscillating between I must destroy the capital.

No, I must protect the ones I love at the cost of my life. No, there's greater things at play here. I must attack Snow.

I must undermine him. Even just a slight, slight, you know, against the capital is something worth doing to him. Even if it costs the lives.

Then he oscillates back to no, I love these people. I don't want them to die. And then within that, you know, within that struggle, he's also has to survive poisonous berries, you know, the mutants or the mutated animals.

Bioweapons. Yeah. And everything.

And the other tributes, right? So it's all of it. Yeah. I kind of want to feel like Snow is purposely letting the game makers like leave him alive only because like he obviously is sabotaging the arena.

Like that's not hidden. So he gets, he punishes them by killing Emperor the way that he does and killing, you know, it's one after the other. And like every single time that he sabotages something or attempts to write to find a way around the rules of the game, somebody around him suffers.

So it does feel like Snow is purposely putting him through all this agony and torment as like you can't win. Even if you win, you still don't win. Like I'll show you.

And then he's like, enjoy your homecoming. Like, okay, wow. And then you go and do that.

Like, obviously we know the fire wasn't an accident. Come on. Do you think the game maker was making these decisions or do you think that Snow was making him make these decisions? Because the way that it's personified, maybe personified is not the right word, but the way that it's personalized to Haymitch is like, hey, he's doing these things on purpose.

But we also see later when we get like a behind the scenes of the game maker in the Hunger Games that the game maker makes these decisions. So like in real time. Yeah.

Yeah. Do we think it's Snow puppeteering or is it just that the game maker is a sadistic human? I think it's both. Both.

Yeah, it's both because the game makers, as revealed in the Hunger Games, the actual book, have a lot of autonomy to screw these guys and do whatever they want. But I think with Haymitch specifically, because of the carriage incident or the chariot incident, Snow has it in for Haymitch. So Snow will probably make a call and say, hey, dial it up to 11 today.

Yeah. Evan, you were going to say something. Exactly.

Yeah, I think because that's exactly what happens in Catching Fire, I believe, is all the tributes are like in the cornucopia area and Snow is with the game makers and he tells them like, all right, turn on the thing that makes the whole arena spin. And then the game makers are the ones, it's actually Plutarch who ends up stopping it to save Katniss pretty much. But it's Snow's call.

And I think it's the same in this book. I think they must have, I would imagine they have a pre-setup option for, maybe it's a different moth for each tribute or each moth can target one person. But the way that they straight up say in the book that this, what is it, squirrels, or what eats Ampere again? Yeah.

Squirrels, they like, I think he tries to pull them off and they, Hamish tries to pull them off and they don't attack him at all. They like magnetize to Ampere. And so I feel like that's something Snow is like, all right, have them attack now and have them target him because Hamish just blew up our water basin or whatever.

Yeah. Some of these things to me stand out as comical more than dark. I mean, they're dark, but I laugh at it because all right, Hamish blew up the water thing.

I'm going to screw with him. We need to kill one of his friends. How do we do it? Aha, flesh eating squirrels, not like a tiger, not a bomb, not poisoned berries, which is enough.

It's dark enough. Not another animal, not sending another tribute with an ax or something, but squirrels. Raven is deadly.

Robotic squirrels. The apocalypse will be televised. Yeah.

Dungeon crawling. I agree with Evan and Slava on that. I think the squirrels was comical to me as well.

Not Ambert's death itself, but the choice of device. You're like, I feel like they could have gotten a little more terrifying. It reminded me of Willy Wonka when one of the girls falls into the squirrel den and gets carried away or something.

Oh, yeah. I don't know if you guys remember that. Yeah, the squirrels broke out a song.

That's how to put the book down. I'm like, all right, enough of this for now. Suzanne actually was rereading Willy Wonka before she wrote it.

She's like, you know, not Oompa Loompas, but squirrels. Yeah, that'll do it. That's perfect.

Gosh. Oh my gosh. So was it worth it? Think about it this way.

Haymitch doing everything that he did. Everybody died around him. And then at the end, he didn't get anything out of it, right? Well, it's the Hunger Games, right? They're going to just keep killing people until one person's left.

Correct. So he tried to pull himself away. Hey, I'm not going to be part of your team.

Snow's got it out for me. He didn't tell them that, but he's like, I'm going to go solo. Right.

So to me, this fact that he tried to do a thing, but then they're still killing his friends, but he's taking it personally is like, well, you didn't work, man. You should have just stayed with them to see what happened. And I think that that earlier on, I think that that would have been a sharper contrast against the Hunger Games where everyone was running solo, where it's like, hey, earlier in the 50th, they tried to all team up.

And it was like, it kind of started, but it didn't. They were like, oh, but he needs to be solo. And it's like, he's going to try and kill you anyway.

He is the person in power. He will push a button and then there's dogs. He will push a button and there's exploding butterflies or whatever.

Yeah. But we also know there's only one that's supposed to win. So I agree with that, Jonathan.

I think that him leaving didn't really make sense because everybody's going to die anyway. So what does it matter for you, Haymitch, that if you're staying with them or not? And there was also nobody to feed off his whole, I'm going to write my poster and I'm going to be the rascal, right? Like, how are you going to show that you're the rascal if there's nobody around you? So it felt very... Contrived. Shallow.

It was very shallow. I didn't like it. Yeah.

It just didn't feel true to the world. I mean, it felt true in the sense of like, teenagers are dumb. Yeah.

No offense, Evan, but... I'm not a teenager. Not anymore. But the audience doesn't know.

So we'll cut that out. A lot of people think you're a teenager. Just kidding.

Just kidding. It felt true because teenagers are dumb, but it was also like, as the author, make it make sense differently so that there is a stronger contrast of like, oh, hey, this is why later they wouldn't let people blank, blank, blank. Yeah.

Because there was one time where they did this. Yeah. Agree.

That would have actually made it more believable later on down the road too, with the hunger game, like tying that plot point back is in the quarter 12 for the 50th, there was this massive disparity of alliance versus the careers, right? The newcomers versus the careers. And so it actually would have made the twist of the knife better for the 75th that they reaped the same, like the previous victors, like it would have made that twist so much worse if you read then that back then in the 50th, they actually, that's why they did it that way. Right.

Or as one of the informing pieces that would have felt more like, oh, that's really nefarious. And in this case, it doesn't really land. Yeah.

Well, they should hire us to help Ghostwriter Book next time. What do we know, right? I mean, we're just judging to judge, but yeah, I would have done it differently for sure if it was something that I had to tangle with as a plot point is like, how do we leave it back? But hey, live and learn. Yeah.

So anchoring back to this cost of survival, like, okay, Haymitch survives just so that he can become an alcoholic, right? Like not that that was his goal, but based on everything that took place, that's his choice to rebel and he got squashed, right? Kind of like a bug and snow one until he gets his Phoenix uprising, his resurrection through the Mockingjay and new life, if you will. But he's just an alcoholic up until then. And it's like, I don't know if you guys have ever had a bad habit where you're like, man, I'm kind of just sick of myself with whatever your flavor of bad habit is.

I like to eat. I'm a bit of a chunky boy. That's my bad habit.

So it's just like, maybe I should just be sick of myself by now as I'm putting another pastry or something in my mouth. But do you guys ever just get sick of yourself where you're like, because I'm thinking about Haymitch, like at some point you just got to go, man, either just kill yourself or start to change. Slava, was that jarring for you? No, you've said this before.

Yeah. My reaction has always been the same. Cool, guys.

That's great. Thank you for your responses. Don't kill yourself.

I'm processing. Yeah. So you're not allowed to say that.

I don't think you can say that on TV. I think that it's more of what we were mentioning is he tries so hard to stay alive. But if he knows that his existence, his being alive is what's going to cause all the other pain, what was the point of it if he loses them anyway, right? So that's very, for me, I'm a nihilist.

A lot of the time I have to talk myself out constantly. My isn't necessarily I'm sick of myself. I'm sick of the world.

And so like, what's the point? That's where I go. Not because I want things to be ended. I just want things to be different.

And so to your point, how do you change things? And the effort that if we just take it for the surface book that it is rather than going super deep into how it was written, if we just think about what the motivation could have been of Haymitch, his motivation being, I want my family to be safe. And I don't think that the book delivered on that in the way that it was executed because he rebels, then he pulls back. He rebels and then he pulls back.

And that inconsistency, as Evan had originally pointed out, is what causes all of the inevitable deaths that he could have simply avoided if he had either played nice or went all in on the rebellion, right? Exactly. Because then he would have been punished directly because Snow would have had no choice but to take him out. Right.

Because the alternative would be rebellion. So it was weird. Like, I don't know.

It's like the thought wasn't fully formed and finished to be put into the book, kind of like it was the beginnings and then it kind of fizzled out or something. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Right. And I think, I mean, maybe that indecision in Haymitch's character is the same reason. He's like just a drunk for, what do we say? 25 years.

Maybe like he can't commit to like changing. He can't commit to killing himself or whatever you want to say is the alternative. Like he's just in this limbo of just drinking and thinking about Lenore, the past forever.

That's a good point. The Lenore part, because they do bring up her, he talks about her ghost at the end frequently about, I mean, granted it's like three pages, but that's kind of the focus of it, is Lenore's ghost and his regrets from that. But again, what is the cost of survival? In this case, he lost everything.

So what's the point of him surviving? Right. Right. If he sees no light at the end of the tunnel, he's drinking for 20 years.

That's the back of the cover. When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? Well, the book never answers the question. Yeah.

If that's the question, the book doesn't answer the question. What is there left to fight for? For Haymitch, there's nothing left to fight for. So why is he still there breathing? Right.

Yeah. I mean, he does fight in the Hunger Games sequels, I guess. He's the one who ropes Katniss into the rebellion.

I mean, she starts her belly in her own way, but he ropes her into the big. I mean, he tricks her. He tricks her.

I was going to say, he ropes her, he's generous. He puppeteers her to get back at the Capitol, which makes sense from where he's standing. I get that.

For sure. Yeah. I didn't think about the back matter question, or in your case, the back there.

But yeah, that question never gets resolved in this book now that you brought that up. We're going to ruin it, Evan. Evan ruins everything.

It's our new segment. Oh, man. You have something on your mind, Slava.

I can tell. I agree with everything you and Evan are saying, Jules. And this indecision that he has, or the oscillation between action and inaction.

And then he finally gives up. And the only thing that drives him past this when he becomes the trainer, train the trainer, train the tribute. Oh, yeah.

The mentor thing. Yeah. The mentor thing is him trying his hardest to make sure they win.

And they don't for 25 years. It's not until PETA and Katniss that he has any success. And it seems from my one read of The Hunger Games, the actual book, is that's what propels him to stop drinking and do better or try harder.

But even then, he's drunk through half of that book, too. So maybe, this is what I was thinking. So maybe what he is fighting for is for the people of his district.

But he's in a drunken stupor half the time, too. So is he really doing that? I'm starting to wonder if Haymitch is just a bad character to write a book about. Because he's just like, his whole thing is he just can't get it figured out.

How do you... Like, he's a tragic character. But how do you write a book that's about someone who just fails all the time? Yeah. Because I've seen this in other movies, actually.

There was a movie. I forgot the name of it. Kevin Bacon was in it.

He was a security guard at a prison or reform school for boys. And he essayed a bunch of the boys. And then, fast forward 20 years later, these boys find him in a diner and kill him.

And then they get a lawyer. And apparently, the lawyer is from their youth, too. But he's a complete drunk.

And through the first half of the trial, you can tell how his alcoholism is working against them. Right? And then, it's more to the plot. But then and then in the movie, they get a good resolution.

I think the abuse is exposed, and they don't get the murder charge. So whatever happens. But that character, the lawyer, I remember him.

This is like 20, 30 years ago. I remember that character from bumbling, drunk, failed lawyer to helping his friends beat a murder rap. Because they killed him.

Not because they are just degenerate murderers. But they saw him. They were triggered.

And they executed him because he essayed them and all four of their friends. So anyway. So you can write a tragic character who's bumbling through a scene or a life or a story.

And give them some sort of redemption. But I'm with Evan. The way Hamish is written, he's just drunk all the time.

And I haven't read the other books. So maybe in two and three, you guys can correct me. There's more of an arc for him.

But in The Sunrise, on the Reaping book, there's no arc. Really. It's a downfall.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what I'm saying.

But it is a prequel. It's a prequel. Exactly.

There's still supposed to be an arc, though. Even when you have downfall character, a well-written downfall, there is an arc. They have a victory before the fall.

And he never really gets that. There's a false victory with the basin. And then it's immediately bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

And it continues bad through the rest of the book. And you're like, we don't know what victory looks like for this guy. Because he never gets even a glimpse of it.

On Slava's point here a second, the future books. Hamish only feels like a more developed character in The Hunger Games because he is next to a character that's well-developed. Right.

And so then when you take him to Evan's point and put him in his own book, because there is not a strong secondary character to help anchor him. Because when you have a strong character, anyone around that character feels strong. Enemies, good guys, bad guys, whatever.

And so this gets into, this is a great segue into the character development that he goes through in the book. Right. So he's our protagonist.

We don't get enough time with him before the reaping to know what he loves, what he cares about. It's just like, oh, hey, here's the three bullet points. He's got a mother, a brother, and a girlfriend.

Oh, plucked you out, put you in the reaping. See ya. But it's not the same where for Katniss, she is, hey, she's taking care of her traumatized mother.

She's taking care of her little sister. She's the only reason that they're surviving, but they're barely surviving. It's like, oh, okay.

We see some motivation here. And then it's like, I'm not going to let my sister go to slaughter. I at least know how to use a bow.

I will go instead. Right. Three chapters.

And so you can't do the same thing with Haymitch, but he starts off weak. And this is my frustration with the book is I feel like he's a stronger character in the Hunger Games because he's put next to Katniss, who is a strong character. And we get her internal motivations.

And then we see moments where he's taking action finally. And so we're like, oh, he's an active character. Nope, not active.

Just kind of like letting life happen to him before he's an alcoholic. You know, do I want to fight? Do I not want to fight? Right. And this is why I shut down some books that I read where it's like, I can't get behind.

Oh, man, here we go. All right. So did anyone ever read Divergent? No, I've seen the movies, though.

They're awful. They're worse than China Mayville. They're the worst.

This girl, I think I wrote a blog about this that got deleted somewhere. So let me just catch you guys up. I f***ing hated these books.

And I went through them and I was like, why do I hate these books? Oh, I hate these books because I hate characters who can't make a goddamn decision. Yeah. I'll punch a baby.

You should parse. You should bleep that. Oh, God.

Bleep baby. Don't bleep baby. No, bleep punch.

Don't bleep punch. Please don't. I'm about to get... Anyway, I hate characters who never make a decision.

They can be like Bilbo Baggins and be drawn to a journey. Sure. And being forced by other active characters.

That's great. That's fine. We love that.

The reluctant hero. But having a character who's like, should I do this? I don't know. Should I do that? I'm not sure.

I don't know. Which one should I do? Should I do this? It's like, well, we're six pages in, so you should just make a decision. I'm not sure.

15 pages later, maybe I should jump. Do something. Kill yourself.

I don't know. Do something. Because the book is boring.

That's the problem here. I'm the reader. I'm supposed to be here entertained.

And all I feel like is like, do something. Dance, monkey. That's why I'm here.

Dance. You know what, though? Who actually has a little tiny character arc that actually stands out for me? Effie Trinket. In this freaking book.

Absolutely. It's not about her. And she has a freaking... You get the, okay, she's a capital kind of gal, right? Immediately.

But she's there to help the tributes. You immediately... I mean, like, it's there. She's like, this guy's failing.

You guys can't go out looking like that nonsense. You need to be presentable. Here you go, right? Problem solution within a matter of a couple of pages.

And then she comes back around again at the very, very end. And she completes her character arc on being the new representative for the Tributes of 12. Full character arc.

And she only shows up, like, what? Like three, four handful of times, basically. And has more character development in those few pages than Hamish does. With Hamish, it's the same thing on repeat the whole time.

It's crazy. And the thing is, is I actually want to know more about Effie. Because her development over the trilogy is really phenomenal.

I love that character. Because she realizes from all the propaganda that she has been fed her entire life, she comes to realize how wrong it is without anybody forcing it down her throat. And she actually is like, no, you are my... Like, we're a family.

This is us. We're going to do no matter what, no matter what it takes. Here is your token.

And like, we're in this together. Like, she's like that little, that spark of hope. Even though she's the one who's been propagandized by the Capitol her entire life.

It's like crazy to me. But anyway, so character arc wise, Trinket is a yes for me on this one. But this is the power of writing, right? Like, you can have these side characters who get their own little arc.

Yeah. And we're like, oh man, this is great. I love that person.

I saw where they started. We had a struggle. And then they resolved.

Cool. And what? She got maybe 10 pages max? Yeah. Yeah.

So it can happen. And so then we have like the main character where we're just like, cool, take me to the hanging tree because I'm like over this. Yeah.

You know, to quote the things in the book. It's just like, why is that so hard? Now, you know, I've said this on other shows. Look, I absolutely respect you're published.

You're popular. Good job on your career. But in terms of like standalone.

Yeah. It's just not there. Yeah.

Did you guys have other thoughts, Slava? I do. I do. Before I move to the next minor character arc? Yeah, I do.

When you were comparing Hamish and Katniss, this is what I mean by copying Pei's job. The previous episode, maybe this was when we weren't recording, is mother and brother, mother and daughter. Father blew up in the mines.

Father blew up in the mines. Got into their reaping on a technicality. Got into their reaping on a technicality.

But again, Katniss, what she does with those situations, much more captivating of a story. And this is me still saying, I enjoy the stupid book. I don't hate it as much as you guys, but I do see the problems with it.

And those do stick out. I made notes of that. And again, processing being alone, processing their romantic interests or lack thereof.

It's the same thing. Only genders are switched. And the female character, her arc is stronger.

Her character is stronger. Herself as a person in world is much more stronger and more prepared. Yeah.

And some of those things are incidental to the plot, right? That's what Collins decided. So I'm not making any objective claims of that. But the fact that they were so mirrored kind of threw me off, because as I was reading The Hunger Games, I'm like, oh, this is the same shit that Hamish went through.

But Katniss has some balls and she's kicking it, right? Kicking ass. Yeah. So that's where I was.

That's true. That's my only addition. I agree with that.

Nothing, Evan? All right. It's fine. I don't have anything for this, really.

There is one other character I do want to talk about at some point, though. Is it Lulu? No. Oh, all right.

Well, we can talk about yours then. Okay. I thought Maisley was interesting.

I didn't expect it, because first it's like Lenore is all Hamish talks about. And then Luella is all he talks about. But in the background the entire time is Maisley.

And she's this total archetype at first. Like Regina George, just a mean girl or whatever. And then.

Is that her? Did she do that to you? You can yell at her. Evan, yeah. Is Regina there? He's saying no for help.

Is Pazuzu there? Maisley's in the background the whole time. And then you think she's this kind of static character, because that's what Hamish thinks. And then maybe it's cliche, but she gets more fleshed out.

And I think she becomes pretty interesting. She ends up being Hamish's best ally. And then just shows a lot of character traits and development that you just wouldn't really expect from her.

From the picture that Hamish paints of her. I agree. I thought she was very intriguing.

You also brought up something very important. Maisley's arc points out Hamish's flaw right before she dies. She literally is like, you froze up, right? He's in front of the game makers at that scene.

And she's like, dude, like, are you kidding me? And even though she's not part of the rebellion plot, she has more balls to do something than he did. And he just stands there like an idiot. So, agree.

Agree. Maybe this is all the point. Maybe Suzanne has duped us.

And that was the whole point. Hey, I need a new character that you know about. It's Hamish.

He's not great. But he's what you guys are going to get anyway. And so she's just actually putting us in the seat of Katniss and Peeta.

And she's like, it wasn't better back in the day. Welcome to the ride. The minor character I wanted to bring up is Lulu.

I mentioned this last time. This is just sad, right? Like they took this person who's the shell of herself, if we can even call it that, right? This nameless girl, likely the child of a traitor, right? Which is discussed in the book a little bit. Who's drugged and surgically altered and forced to impersonate a dead girl for capital spectacle.

Yeah. She's like the symbol of this system and it's dehumanization of people, right? It's like that's how far they're willing to go. Which honestly, that feels worse than some of the stuff they do in The Hunger Games.

That's like, oh, who signed off on that? Because I bet you Snow's hands are clean in that regard. And it's like, I kind of feel like it's a game maker decision. Or like someone who, you know how the person at the top doesn't always get their hands dirty.

They're like, oh, well, I didn't do that, right? It's always someone who's nearby as the executor of said things. Well, there's also rules and those kind of hierarchies and those kind of systems. You know, if you're working for Snow, that Snow can't be embarrassed.

Whether you're a true believer or you're there because you're afraid. But you know that he can't be embarrassed. So whether he told them, we need another Luella and cut the footage of her mangled corpse in front of my balcony, we need another Luella.

We need a stand-in. And without even giving them any orders, I'm sure some of the game makers are like, hey, guys, we can't have mangled bodies in front of Snow's feet. So, you know, where's there's a stand-in? Like, where's there a replacement? Do we have any other kids that look like Luella that we can just throw in there? Because these people are dumb.

They're not going to know. It's fast cuts and loud music and propaganda and, you know, all the stuff that comes with a culture that's saturated with media. Especially corrupt, you know, well, the media is not corrupt, but the people who are running the media are corrupt.

There it is. It's almost like I imagine almost like the system that people like Snow helped to create has like taken off to the point where it surpassed the people who created it. Like, this is kind of unrelated, but there's a quote in the or like a scene in the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie where like the guy who invented the games is like, I regretted it and I wanted to like get rid of them.

But what you just did, Snow, like has cemented them that they're going to last forever and they'll like keep evolving. And I feel like that's kind of what that is, where it's like I could imagine it's like what Slava said, like Snow is like, we need a replacement for this girl. And then he just like sees what happened.

He's like, dang, I didn't even think of that. That's crazy. What were you about to say, Jules? Oh, I don't remember.

Oh, wait. It was another character thing. Plutarch.

So for a while, especially when I watched the Hunger Games and they introduced Plutarch to us, I had tremendous suspicions. I was like, man, this guy is super sneaky. The way that they portrayed him, I don't know if that was on purpose or if it was just like the way it was.

But I was like straight up like, there's no way I'm trusting this guy. So I appreciate that in Sunrise on the Reaping, we get the same kind of heebie-jeebie, like he's bringing Hamish to his manor and like all this stuff. And now he's telling him this secret.

And you're like, what is going on? How far back? Like, so the Heavensbees, which is Plutarch's family line, I'm trying to remember, maybe Evan, do you remember? Aren't the Heavensbees also represented in Ballad at some point? One of the, I feel like one of the kids. I think that's, is it the rich? The kid who, is it like Snow's best friend who he's always seen as rich? I think so, right? The Heavensbees. And I think that that creates this like really strange relationship between Plutarch and the Capitol, like as a whole, right? Like the representation, because he's still benefiting from being that high up in the Capitol, right? Like he benefits from those things and that natural entitlement that he gets there.

And then he's represented as the game maker, right? In Catching Fire. So my, just thinking kind of now in the moment, I hadn't thought about it before, but thinking in the moment about Plutarch and him being a side character, but ultimately is the reason why Hamish becomes an alcoholic, if you want to like follow the line. Yeah, Plutarch starts immediately, right? Right after the technicality of the reaping of, well, why do you comply? And that whole entire, the whole entire story then hinges on Hamish's inability to reconcile that question of why do I comply? And then leads him to become an alcoholic.

It's just, so Plutarch is like, he's like a chaos gremlin. I mean, I don't, I don't know. He's like the Joker.

He just wants to see the world burn. But he wants it to like, yeah, with freedom. And then he does the same thing to Katniss.

During the mansion scene, right? He creates, like he leaves his little nuggets, these seeds, he plants them. And then, but, but Katniss is very true. She's like, all I want to do is protect Peeta, right? I protected my sister, successfully protected that.

Then Snow came and threatened me because he doesn't believe the story. And I just need to protect Peeta because he's the one at risk, right? So like, then everything that happens there. And then on top of it all, Hamish and Plutarch still betray Katniss by saving her instead of Peeta, right? And like, we have all those things that happen.

So like Plutarch seems to be the center constantly of the rebellion and the Heaven's Bees in general, apparently are, this is their, their whole thing, whole thing, I guess. I don't know. But it's just, as you mentioned it, I mean, with all that is kind of came to mind.

I caught on to Plutarch's shenanigans early on too, Jules. I was like, is he a part of the rebellion? Is he making Hamish think he's part of the rebellion to screw with him? Something was off. Yeah.

And then fine, he's part of the rebellion. But there's like, it's a 50-50 shot. Either he's a conniving, you know, asshole, or he's a conniving part of the rebellion asshole.

Yeah. But he has to have some kind of moral ambiguity to be where he is at in the Capitol. Like, there's no way his hands are clean.

And on top of that, he relishes Katniss' arrow at the end. He's like, I'm going to protect this girl and get her out. Because I agree.

Because that president wouldn't have been any better than Snow, right? And so like, he is like this agent of chaos. And he's like, I wouldn't say he's chaotic good, if we were putting him on the alignment chart. Chaotic neutral.

Chaotic neutral, for sure. He's like, by whatever means necessary, right? For his own means, but not necessarily evil. Right, exactly.

Yeah. So Plutarch's a very interesting character. It's like the cost of survival.

Again, I feel like it's like each character has their own thing. Like, you have Snow do whatever it takes, does not care what he has to destroy to stay on top. There's Haymitch, who can't seem to make up his mind.

And so he can't break the game. He can't keep anyone alive. And then there's like Plutarch, who like, is willing to kind of screw with other people so that he can achieve his end the game of taking down the Capitol without he himself really suffering any consequences.

Yeah, I agree with that, Evan. And Jules, when you were talking about moral ambiguity, perfect word, or words, because that phrase jumped out at me when he was with Haymitch and Snow and the milk scene. Just the way he played that scene, I'm like, this guy has to survive.

So I know what he's doing. But his hands are dirty. He did some things, probably because he had to.

And then he did them because they were necessary. And I think that I'm trying to make a distinction. And hopefully I don't sound pedantic with using those words.

But he did it because maybe he was scared or he was trying to survive. And I need to do this horrible thing. So I'm doing it.

And then, well, this is necessary for the greater good. So I will do it. And there's like a dulling of that response over time with Plutarch.

Yeah. The way I read it. I mean, if you think of him, if he is as capable as they make him out to be, he's just waiting for the right opportunity to light the spark.

It feels very much like he's biding his time. He's a very patient man, clearly, because he waits another 25 years for the right person to start. Because he's like, maybe Haymitch is the guy, right? I can see there's a little fire in him, right? Yes.

And he tries and he fails. And then he's like, but Katniss, she volunteered. This is the one.

This is it. Yeah, exactly. He's like our man in Washington, right? Or our man in whatever.

Yeah. He's that guy that's in the inside crowd or inside the citadel that helps the rebellion by using some of the people they send up as fodder. And hopefully, the next guy will do it.

Hopefully, the next guy would do it. But I'm here. President Snow, I'm good.

Yeah. Yeah. Just like fueling the flames till someone succeeds.

I mean, yeah, because he never pulls punches either on the games. Like, yeah, he technically saves Katniss because of the clock thing. But like, he doesn't pull any punches.

He pushes everything. And then he fuels Snow's fire too. He never pulls the punches there.

And like, yeah, I know he's playing the game. But he's not making it easier for the tributes either. Like, he's not making it better.

He'll get caught if he does that. Yeah. So he has to be like, all right, I'm willing to put these people through absolute hell.

So that we can make it to the end. And you know, what's interesting to me, though, is he mirrors Katniss almost directly. He starts on one side and Katniss starts on the other.

But they both are willing to do pretty much whatever is necessary, right? They're sacrificing themselves and their souls or whatever, whatever their morality is, in order for somebody else to make it past. So like, Plutarch, in his own way, yes, he has to do what he has to to survive. But only because the end goal is the rebellion.

Right. And then who knows? Because he seems to disappear, right? At the end of the Hunger Games, like the whole thing. He disappears, too.

He's like, all right, I did what I had to do. We dismantled Snow. We dismantled this whole thing.

And now this is in the hands of that rebel leader. I can't remember her name now. Oh, the Toyin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. From one of the other districts. She's in charge.

And I think that's a good choice. He kind of is like, I'm good with this as the solution. And then he just is like, go on.

That's it. Whatever. No big deal.

Doing whatever he does. I don't know what he's doing now. He's like, I don't want to be remembered.

I did my job. It was awful. And it's oftentimes, history is built by those who conquer.

Hard stop. And those who want to change things also have to get their hands bloody. Hard stop.

And so he's like, I want no credit. I just like, we did it. We know that it's for the good.

These people are going to die anyway. So I might as well use them as tools. Sure.

Which sucks to say. But that's just the case. Well, as we wind down here, we got more movie questions.

How dark do you think they're going to go in the movie? First question. Second part. What piece of the movie from the narrative here do you think is going to be the darkest? I don't think they're going to go dark at all.

Way to ruin my question, Slava. Dark at all. Let me rephrase that, because what does that mean? That's subjective.

It's not going to be gritty. It's going to be more fun, action-filled, young adult, mass, not mass produced, but mass. Commercialized.

Mass commercialized. Thank you. Movie, it might have some dark themes or elements or some scenes, but it's not going to be like a dark movie like, well, the deer hunter from the 70s.

It was about the Vietnam War and the slow paced. And you see kind of like what war does to people. And the fallout of these three friends who went to the Vietnam War.

That's a dark movie throughout. There's no like comic relief or anything. And one of the main characters dies at the end of the movie.

I don't think it's going to be that dark. I think it'll probably mirror what Hunger Games was. And again, I haven't seen it.

I've only seen clips and extended clips of it online, but I think it's going to mirror that. I think the darkest thing is probably the death of Lenore and maybe his fall into alcoholism, because how they're going to interject that into the story, because it's a movie, right? How are they going to introduce that earlier? I think they will introduce that earlier than the epilogue. I think that would be like the darker side of things, because you will see a character fall apart or at his lowest, kind of hit rock bottom and stay there.

What we know as readers of the book, he stays there for a long time. But the gore, the death scenes, squirrels eating people, that's... They'll do some CGI and it'll be fine. Yeah, I'm kind of torn.

I don't think it'll be dark the same way that you're saying. I think it'll be very heavily commercialized. Like we're not looking at it like a cult classic, like horror movie style, right? I think the hardest scenes for people will be, especially if they didn't read the book, would be him coming home and that whole homecoming sequence.

That will be heart-wrenching for many people. His family, Lenore. Lenore is like the ultimate screw into it.

It is the ultimate twist of the knife. But if their intention is to sell Snow's inability to have compassion, that has to happen the way that it does in the book. I hope they don't deviate from that.

So, but I don't think it'll be dark in the same sense that you're saying. It's not going to be set up as like a gritty movie. It's going to match the action pack of the other Hunger Games movies.

I agree. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think I could really see it being kind of what you're saying, where it's like commercialized.

Like they want to hit the biggest audience possible. Now that Hunger Games is like a known, like a family name or whatever you call it, a known franchise. But there's also parts where I don't really know how to get around it, really.

I mean, I guess Ampert getting surrounded by squirrels and then coming back as a skeleton could be pretty cartoony. Like not to, you know, see anything actually happen. But I think Lulu's, honestly, entire character and death might be disturbing because she's like this innocent girl.

Like, I mean, everything Jonathan said, like it's messed up. And then her death, like she literally smells flowers and just dies. That's pretty messed up.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that Maisley's death is going to be probably one of the darker things.

But I also think that they will Disney-fy it where it'll start and then they'll cut away to his reaction, probably. Well, what about Welly then? That's the worst one. I mean, like as far as like humanity goes.

I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Really? The tribute did that? Come on. Like I could see a decapitation from something in the environment or whatever.

But a human doing that? Why? Like to what degree? Yeah, that was extreme. That caught me off guard. Yeah, agree.

They'll probably Disney-fy that too. Yeah, probably. It'll probably just show like the thumping or the clunking or whatever off-screen version of that will be.

It'll be, you know, an apple hitting the ground and rolling just before the cut happens where you then make the connection. So, all right. Well, this has been phenomenal talking to you guys about themes and character arcs.

Really excited to go watch the movie and hate on that as well for myself. I feel like I would actually like the movie more. Oh, I'm probably gonna enjoy the movie because it's gonna be entertaining and that's like, it'll do its job.

Yeah. Right? Because the filmmakers understand that there's a place for the action and the moments and like, we're gonna get way more in the movie than we're gonna get in what we got here. Which is usually the opposite.

Right. And that's kind of my complaint with this thing. So, anyway, stay tuned next time, folks, as we wind up where we talk about Hunger Games, the world, and how Suzanne has pieced things together.

We've already planted some seeds and how she's done strict, or not strict, but like great foreshadowing of like Plutarch and Effie. And like, she's woven these things together. So next time we're gonna talk about the Hunger Games world.

And I will also be bringing the questions of like, what parts of the Hunger Games world do we not see that we would like to see? Right? So be sure to tune in for that on the next and final episode for Sunrise on the Reaping. And then come back, make sure you subscribe, because we will be doing a quick chat in our reactions to the movie when it comes out. Until next time.