ADLER|Ale

Hi Liz!!! 😊 I have missed you too! Luckily I've been discharged and I'm back!

Ooh I hate that theory! Ok, maybe hate is too aggressive, but it's one of the theories I dislike the most lol I think it makes Katniss's decisions at the end of the saga look like they're not hers and that's something that really bugs me. Why are female characters' decisions always questioned to the point of creating theories?

Anyway, since we are talking about a theory we have to give reasons why it is wrong, so here we go~

The hijacking is a fear conditioning method that basically works like this:

Dissociative State (Venom) -> Conditional Stimulus (Katniss or something related to her) -> Unconditional Aversive Stimulus (Torture) -> Conditional Response (Fear/Aggression)

Since the venom affects the part of the brain that controls fear (the amygdala and the production of adrenaline and cortisol), Katniss relating the image of Peeta to love after being stung is not possible. For this to happen, the venom would have to affect the caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, the hypothalamus, as well as the insula and produce (or provide) doses of oxytocin and dopamine. 

The text says that Katniss reacts to pain with aversion and to fear with flight, so oxytocin and dopamine are not present. Without these two the theory that Katniss was hijacked with the tracker jackers stings in her first games and thus fell in love with Peeta doesn't hold up.

Ay, I am very sorry for taking so long to answer 😭

I think it's a...decent...adaptation. (I'm not sure "decent" is the right word, it feels harsher than I intend)

I have a complicated relationship with all the movies because although they are not bad I don't love them, and the reason for that is that I think the movies are just how Plutarch would tell the story. Focusing on the war but leaving out the human suffering, focusing on the politics but transforming the reasons that justify the rebellion into "cool" scenes, and criticizing the use of children as smoke screens but making the consequences of the war and the wounds of the games "pretty", and amplifying the love triangle. So I don't see them as an adaptation of the book, but as an expensive fanfic that tells the story from the POV of the general population watching the story happen through what the head game-maker lets us know.

I think it definitely became a point of reference. I remember after the release and success of the first movie many stories (movies and books) came out claiming to be "the new Hunger Games", the reasons I guess depend on who you ask, but in my opinion, it was marketing.

I don't think my opinion has changed much. The book from the first time I read it became one of the stories I hold dear and even fondly in my heart and bookshelf. The movie is good. I think what has changed is that they now have a tinge of nostalgia that they didn't have the first time, but that's the only difference.

Thanks for the ask! 😊

Hi, I'm sorry it took me so long to answer 😅

One of my favorite things about the saga is that the role of the mother is not sanctified. Suzanne writes mothers with flaws, virtues, and making mistakes but without forgetting that they are also victims of the system and how it affects them. (Mrs. Everdeen by being a healer who has seen the consequences of violence from authority figures, her depression, and her ability to teach Prim. And Mrs. Mellark with her closed-minded and cruel way of looking at the world).

I think Peeta and Katniss' childhood and their relationships with their moms is a very sad topic but so real that it hurts. They both actively try not to be like them. They despise or try to eliminate the "core" characteristics of their moms that they find in themselves. Katniss by repressing her feelings because she thinks they make her weak, and Peeta with his need to keep an iron grip on his reactions. The tragedy is that when they are at their lowest and most helpless moment, they become mirrors of their mothers. But I think, in some ways, it is because of their mothers that they survive everything the story throws at them.

Katniss survives the district thanks to the knowledge she inherited from her father, but she survives the games and the war because of her ability to do what it takes to protect/save others, which she inherited from her mother. It's something all three Everdeen women share. Peeta often tells her "You're the healer" and Katniss always contradicts him, but the truth is that Katniss also shares that gift. She just doesn't see it because, for her, the image of healing is Prim.

Peeta survives the capitol (in all its forms) due to what he learned from his mother, from reacting under pressure to smiling when he's choking with fear. Something little talked about is that one of the reasons Peeta makes it back from the hijacking is because of his mother: She gave him the experience of what it is like to love someone who causes him fear.

Perhaps my point of view is cliché or simple when analyzing Katniss and Peeta's mothers but I think their depth and humanity lie precisely in how they influenced their children and how "simple" it is for us to understand and empathize with the children early on and then understand and empathize (or not) with their mothers as we grow up.

[When translating this answer I feel I rambled a bit so I apologize for that hehe].

It was a wonderful question! Thank you for sending it 😊