Chapter Two: Exodus

We start off the second chapter with our “dahling” narrator.

Oh, the smell! The dreadful smell! Poor Tookie, covered in the wretched decay of other people’s refuse.

OH, POOR TOOKIE! Even though it’s entirely her fault, being so obsessed with a boy who’s already in a relationship that she’ll shove her hands into a garbage can for a button.

How I wish I could hand her a pair of loofah mitts or offer her a scalding bath with the essential oils of eucalyptus, beragmot and ylang-ylang with three boxes of baking soda, a gallon of laundry detergent, twelve capfuls of all-purpose bleach, two squirts of antibacterial hand soap, and a dash of ammonia.

Isn’t mixing bleach and ammonia a bad idea?

I would also like to point your attention to how the list before the “with” doesn’t use an Oxford comma while the list after the with does. It is a small thing, but the inconsistency irks me—it just reeks of lazy editing.

Oh, dahling, I can feel the burn now. But you know what they say…no pain, no removal of funk stain.

I’d also like to point out that Tookie stuck just her hands into the garbage can.

After those three paragraphs, we return to Tookie and some extremely unenthusiastic onomatopoeia.

Screech.

Said screech is from the PA speaker above her. The principal’s words randomly omit the first letter from random words. It does it four times in the first (six-word) sentence; the last two sentences only have three words like this in a total of 35 words. I mean, wouldn’t it be ‘nnoying if I ‘ust ‘andomly removed the ‘irst letters from ‘andom ‘ords? Doesn’t that ‘eem ‘inda ‘ointless?

Anyway, the principal’s announcement is that, because of the misuse of water due to girls looking for SMIZEs (they’re implied to travel through the waterways), all of the water in the school has been shut off.

OH, POOR TOOKIE!

Tookie heads for her locker—well, she passes by a bunch of old, ugly lockers and comes to a dumbwaiter which serves as her “locker”, since all of the real lockers had been taken on the first day of school. OH, POOR TOOKIE!

It’s not all bad, since she happens to have a cooler installed in the dumbwaiter and stocked with all kinds of food (but mostly condiments)! We get a little tale about why Tookie doesn’t care for chocolate: she had eaten so much at a chocolate festival in LaDorno that she ended up getting sick and throwing up in the car because her mother wouldn’t pull over.

For punishment her mother had grounded her. Literally. Tookie had been forced to sit and sleep on the floor for one month solid.

Okay, I laughed a bit at that.

After deciding on strawberry whipped cream, she overhears a girl talking about the mayor’s predictions for the upcoming T-DOD (that’s the Day of Discovery, for you people who don’t memorize abbreviations). Tookie gives an angsty thought as she steps outside.

Now we get to learn about Metopia, where our heroine lives! It’s split into four quadrants: Shivera, which is cold; Pitter-Patter, which is “tempestuous”; LaDorno, the home of the elite and T-DOD; and sweltering Peppertown. These quadrants are right up close to each other, and the way it’s written, it’s like the weather is completely different on opposite sides of Metopia’s borders—that totally makes sense. Because of the vastly different environments and abundant natural resources, Metopia became the center of the fashion and beauty industy, with the majority of its people working in harsh assembly lines.

Also, if you remember back to the prologue, Pitter-Patter was written without the hyphen. This is sloppy editing.

And due to the heat, Tookie’s hair immediately puffs up to massive proportions, accompanied by more energetic onomatopoeia:

Whoosh.

We get another glimpse of Abigail Goode, waving a picket sign with the words “DOWN WITH RAZORS!” Okay, then…

We hear more about Peppertown’s heat: a woman walks out of a toe-ring factory, and before she can put on a sun hat, her skin’s already red. If the sun burns that quickly, I fail to see how any human being can survive in Peppertown. (Maybe they’re not human beings. It would explain a lot.) A newspaper held by a random guy fanning his face makes mention of a baroness who bankrupted other people with poor investments in a “Yonzi scheme”. Now, doesn’t that sound familiar…? Granted, it’s not the same thing, but you think Banks would have come up with a word that’s different by more than just one single letter. There’s also two girls at a spraying fire hydrant (who are presumably burnt to a crisp at this point) who remark that a second SMIZE has been found, and perhaps if they cut a SMIZE in half both would receive a 45.5% increase to their chances of being chosen on T-DOD.

At that moment, all eyes turn to the top of a mountain, where the fog has parted to reveal a bright eye in the sky for a short time. As we learn from Zarpessa (Theophilus’s actual girlfriend), the revealed eye is just to drum up anticipation for T-DOD. One of Zarpessa’s friends offers to drive her home, but Zarpessa gives a shifty excuse and hurries off.

As Tookie walks home, she sees messages on the street, inquiring as to the whereabouts of a “Ci~L”. Thankfully, the novel tells us how to pronounce the name (“see-el”). We’re told that Ci~L is “the most magnificent 7Seven ever to grace the earth, a Triple7,” which would probably mean more if we had any clue what either of those words meant. Once the face of fashion everywhere, Ci~L’s advertisements suddenly vanished one day and an announcement came out that Ci~L was no longer accepting work, with no explanation.

Tookie passes by several factories, noticing small children in oversized uniforms. These children are referred to as Factory Dependents, children without parents who live as slaves to the factories. Tookie feels sorry for these children, which is nice to see. Then she passes by reflective glass and we’re reminded of how ugly she is. Joy.

Eventually, Tookie comes to an old oak tree with a treehouse. This is the home of her friend, Lizzie; we’re told that the day that they met, “the nervous red-haired girl had been fleeing an invisible assailant and had dragged Tookie up this very tree with her.” As Tookie approaches, she notices a branch moving, and sees Lizzie’s red hair in the tree. Tookie is filled with joy as she and Lizzie reunite.

The girl darted down the makeshift ladder that hung from the tree cottage, grabbed Tookie’s hand, and pulled her upward.

When they reached the top, the girls extended their palms out, pointed to the sky with both hands, sniffed each armpit, and then curtsied. This was their silent expression of their secret greeting, What’s up, Hot Queen?

Erm…okay. At least it’s not abbreviated. (Your assignment: Show how you would pronounce “WuHQ”.)

Lizzie asks if anyone is with Tookie, and Tookie calls herself a Forgetta-Girl. Lizzie dismisses the label, then she looks down at the ground, terror visible in her eyes. After Tookie assures her that no one else is around, Lizzie happily hugs Tookie.

[Tookie] pulled away and stared at her friend. Lizzie’s skin was oddly smooth, nothing like its normal acne-prone, pockmarked, sunburned state, and she wore a blue hospital gown tied at the back and a pair of doctor’s scrub pants that bagged at the ankles. SHIVERA COUNTY HOSPITAL was stitched on the gown. This always happened when Lizzie returned after a long period.

Lizzie asks what’s been going on with Tookie, and Tookie shows her the T O OKE button and how Theophilus spoke to her. Lizzie remarks on how it must be a sign as well, and Tookie mentions of how Zarpessa came along.

“That girl has everything—gorgeousness, money, Theophilus. Every time Zarpessa touches my Theophilus, it digs at my heart.”

Wait, what?! Your Theophilus? Nice to see that Tookie believes that a boy in a relationship with someone else belongs to her. No wonder no one wants to be around her.

Lizzie then leads Tookie to a Dumpster behind a fancy restaurant, and points out a group of people digging for food in the Dumpster, among them a woman wearing a familiar handbag—Zarpessa. Lizzie suggests that they must have lost their fortune. Zarpessa’s family notices the two girls, and they hurry away. Lizzie tells Tooke about how Zarpessa and her fought over a yellow dress that morning, but after she is done talking about Zarpessa:

Suddenly, midsentence, Lizzie’s expression changed, clouding and contorting into a look Tookie knew all too well. Something else had overtaken Lizzie’s mind. Her body twitched. The muscles in her face stretched and contracted. She glared blankly into Tookie’s eyes.

“Tell them to stop,” Lizzie pleaded in a strange, garbled voice. “They always say it won’t hurt, but it does.”

Tookie tries to bring Lizzie back to reality. Lizzie mentions a “Robyn”, but when Tookie asks her who Robyn is, Lizzie rolls up her sleeve to reveal several scars and burns. Lizzie then grabs a sharp rock and cuts her own arm, despite Tookie’s protests. Tookie asks about what drives Lizzie to hurt herself, suspecting the “Melancholia Ward”, rumoured to be an horrible, merciless place.

We learn about everything that Lizzie has taught Tookie, among them the location of “the undiscovered Peppertown platinum mine.” If it’s undiscovered, how is it a mine? Is it an old, abandoned mine?

Lizzie tells Tookie to not think about where Lizzie goes off to, but Exodus—their plan to escape Metopia together. (There is an abbreviation of sorts for Exodus: X-O-2, the symbol that Tookie would write on her front door when it was time to go.) They fantasize about the factories they would own, such as a grilled-cheese-dipped-in-strawberry-jelly factory for Lizzie. I guess the novel’s trying to tell us that Lizzie is crazy…?

“And there’d be no sharp objects anywhere near our factories,” Tookie said strongly, forcing Lizzie to look into her eyes. “Right?”

One good thing about this chapter is that we’re seeing that Tookie does have compassion for others. To a degree, at least. That puts her leagues above many other Mary-Sue protagonists.

Tookie asks if Lizzie will tell the truth about what happens to her once they leave, but Lizzie tells her that it would put Tookie’s life in danger. Fearing that “they” are getting close, Lizzie says goodbye to Tookie and hurries off.

[Tookie’s] last view of her troubled friend was of Lizzie stooping to pick something up from the ground. Tookie shut her eyes, devastated, when she realized what it was.

Another sharp rock.

I have said that Modelland is not completely awful, that it has its redeeming qualities. Even after the pitiful first chapter and the first half of this chapter, I still stand by that stance.

Chapter 2 presents us with the first major redeeming quality: Lizzie. Lizzie is a character who evokes genuine interest, genuine sympathy. She’s paranoid and afraid, implied to be a victim of horrible experiments. Her fear comes off very well, and as a bonus we get to see some admirable behaviour from our protagonist. Lizzie makes you want to know what is happening to her, makes you wonder how she ties in to the dark rumours surrounding Modelland.

Lizzie makes you want to hear her story. And in a way, this is a bad thing…because it reminds you just how little you care about Tookie’s story.

Next time, we tackle Chapter 3: Da-tahhhh!

Tagged as:

Comment

  1. Soupnazi on 25 January 2013, 19:15 said:

    (Your assignment: Show how you would pronounce “WuHQ”.)

    “Woo HQ” is my pick. Whoo, headquarters!

  2. lilyWhite on 25 January 2013, 19:23 said:

    As an afternote, I decided to make my girlfriend make a grilled cheese and strawberry jam sandwich.

    I’m going to hate myself for saying this, but it wasn’t half-bad…

  3. Tim on 25 January 2013, 19:24 said:

    “Whuck.” Much like THQ is pronounced “thuck.”

  4. TakuGifian on 25 January 2013, 19:35 said:

    Isn’t mixing bleach and ammonia a bad idea?

    Maybe the narrator is a really sarcastic anti-fan. It would make sense, given the descriptions so far.

    (Your assignment: Show how you would pronounce “WuHQ”.)

    I would go with something like “wouque”, or “wook”.

    You’re right, though. I want to read more about Lizzie.

  5. Lone Wolf on 25 January 2013, 20:09 said:

    Wow, so the setting is actually some kind of dystopia where children are mercilessly exploited in sweatshop cosmetics factories and girls with mental health issues are taken away for horrible experiments? Didn’t expect that at all! Is it a political statement against fashion industry and capitalism in general?

    This actually reminds me of YA tales of the Soviet Union. If Modelland had been such a tale, Tookie would have played an important role in a socialist revolution that will overthrow this dystopian fashion industry regime.

    I wonder, will Tyra Banks have her heroine actually try to change Modelland for the better once she becomes Chosen? Or will these dystopian elements serve only as pointless backdrop?

  6. Tim on 25 January 2013, 21:48 said:

    I’ve never really believed in calling something a dystopia if the society in question has been fixed by the end of it. Surely to be the polar opposite of a utopia you need it to be very clear that this society doesn’t simply exist but that it’s not going anywhere.

    That’s what the classic dystopias like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World do. With most YA “dystopian” fiction it just seems to be “bad guys in charge at that start,” which would mean Eragon counted as a dystopia too.

  7. Master Chief on 25 January 2013, 23:27 said:

    I have modified my helmet so it will pump concentrated hallucinogens on command. I must say, tripping while reading this is quite an exhilarating experience.

  8. Lone Wolf on 26 January 2013, 07:07 said:

    Admittedly, it’s questionable whether a society that isn’t going anywhere is realistic at all. Stalinist SU was the inspiration for 1984 and we all know how it ended in reality.

  9. Tim on 26 January 2013, 10:36 said:

    Yes, but the point of u/dystopia is to be respectively perfectly good and perfectly horrible, and it’s not really horrible if the whole point of the book is that a couple of people working together can make it go away. That tends to just result in a society where it seems the only reason it ever existed to begin with was that nobody could be bothered to overthrow it.

    Also Stalin’s Russia lasted Stalin’s entire life and he was one of the few tyrants to be honoured in death rather than given a suitable display of scorn and derision, so it’s not a good example. Especially when the Soviet Union kept on truckin’ for decades afterward.

  10. Lone Wolf on 26 January 2013, 12:18 said:

    Only a couple of people? Not if you’re dealing with a proper revolutionary tale, that involves the revolting masses.

    And while Stalinism lasted his entire life, it didn’t survive his death in its purest form. Not to mention that recent scholarship is critical of the “totalitarianism” concept in general.

  11. Brendan Rizzo on 26 January 2013, 14:40 said:

    So was this chapter written by a different author? It is so much different in tone from the first two.

    …Factory Dependents. I must say, I did not expect that. What the hell is child slave labor doing in a story about a girl who wants to be a model? I won’t get my hopes up, but is this story actually going to be different from how I expected it?

    Also, I’m confused. Is the setting called Modelland, or Metopia?

  12. lilyWhite on 26 January 2013, 15:06 said:

    Also, I’m confused. Is the setting called Modelland, or Metopia?

    Modelland is the fancy modelling school that everyone wants to go to. Metopia is the city where Tookie lives.

  13. Prince O' Tea on 26 January 2013, 17:07 said:

    Didn’t Orwell say that there was a possibility that either the Proles would eventually rise up to defeat the Party, or the Party would eventually fall one day? After all, the social infrastructure that the Party and the three superpowers rely on to function as a whole is extremely unstable when you think about it. It might last decades or centuries more, but I’m sure eventually something could happen to make the Party topple.

  14. Lone Wolf on 26 January 2013, 17:29 said:

    I wonder what will happen to the whole “corporate exploitation” theme. Take bets!

    1. Nothing will come out of it. Tyra will only occasionally mention all the exploitation sorely for the reason to make her protagonist look speshful for escaping such a fate. Maybe she’ll have her protagonist abolish it all in one sentence on the last page, to avoid the disturbing implications.

    2. Tyra will preach about the evils of corporate exploitation so hard, the most fervent and moralistic communist will get bored.

    3. Tyra will handle it all very gracefully and realistically, avoiding both excessive moralism and “no big deal, it’s just story background” pitfalls.

  15. Tim on 26 January 2013, 17:40 said:

    Didn’t Orwell say that there was a possibility that either the Proles would eventually rise up to defeat the Party, or the Party would eventually fall one day?

    If he did, he certainly didn’t show anything resembling that during the course of the book, which is essentially dedicated to showing that whatever sticks up gets hammered down.

  16. Tim on 26 January 2013, 17:45 said:

    Oops, missed:

    Only a couple of people? Not if you’re dealing with a proper revolutionary tale, that involves the revolting masses.

    Yeah, but the run of crap YA “dystopian” fiction kicked off by The Hunger Games making buckets of money tends to just have a revolting Sue / Stu plus helper do some stuff and then the masses just go “oh yeah, I guess it is kind of mean that they dunk our firstborn children in acid every Friday, wonder why we didn’t think of that before.”

  17. Fireshark on 26 January 2013, 18:27 said:

    If he did, he certainly didn’t show anything resembling that during the course of the book, which is essentially dedicated to showing that whatever sticks up gets hammered down.

    At least some editions contain an appendix that explains a bit about Newspeak. It’s written in the past tense, implying that the Party has fallen by the time it’s being written in-universe.

  18. goldedge on 26 January 2013, 18:55 said:

    Reading this spork right now. That tells me a few things.

    1. That no one beta read this book.

    2. That who ever edited this book didn’t do a good job of it.

    3. No one questioned certan elements if the book.

    Lizzie makes you want to hear her story. And in a way, this is a bad thing…because it reminds you just how little you care about Tookie’s story.

    @lilyWhite I don’t wan’t to hear Lizzie’s story because, Tyra would screw it up as well.

  19. Brendan Rizzo on 26 January 2013, 20:32 said:

    Well LoneWolf, this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I bet on the first option. Maybe not as literally as you say, but it does seem the most likely of the three.

    Yeah, but the run of crap YA “dystopian” fiction kicked off by The Hunger Games making buckets of money tends to just have a revolting Sue / Stu plus helper do some stuff and then the masses just go “oh yeah, I guess it is kind of mean that they dunk our firstborn children in acid every Friday, wonder why we didn’t think of that before.”

    Now you’ve made me want to write a parody of the genre.

    …Though I’m pretty sure this sort of straw dystopia existed in Young Adult fiction before The Hunger Games.

    At least some editions contain an appendix that explains a bit about Newspeak. It’s written in the past tense, implying that the Party has fallen by the time it’s being written in-universe

    However, Orwell also said that that appendix doesn’t mean anything. It’s all deliberately contradictory, just like the rest of the book.

    That being said, the only reason that a society as oppressive as North Korea has managed to exist for so long is because it has outside help.

  20. Prince O' Tea on 26 January 2013, 23:31 said:

    Which Oceania doesn’t have, unless you buy into the theory that the three superpowers actually work together, because their mutual antagonism is beneficial to the three of them. The reason I think the Party will eventually fall is because it’s extremely inflexible, and for the most part is only concerned with fairly short-term goals as a society: to make sure the Party looks good no matter what. All of their resources and energies are consumed this way, so that if a disaster of some sort comes along, the Party probably wouldn’t be able to cope. There is nothing that suggests that the Party would be able to survive and maintain their grip on the population in unexpected circumstances or if some sort of crisis arose. But that’s due to the nature of the book the individual has no real hope the way protaganists in YA dystopias do: Katniss wouldn’t last long if she tried to clash with the Party the way she does with the Capitol. She’d probably be screaming “DO IT TO PRIMROSE! I DON’T CARE, JUST DO IT TO PRIM!” before the end of the first book and that would be that.

  21. Tim on 27 January 2013, 11:06 said:

    The main issue is that while it’s possible for IngSoc and the others to fall, there’s no way given for it to happen in the narrative: indeed, a major plot point is that whole thing where IngSoc is systematically kneecapping the language so that it won’t even be possible to articulate thoughts which the Party does not approve of, let alone actually overthrow it. I found that aspect hard to swallow (it strikes me that “ungood” would just acquire all the connotations of “bad” even if it says “good”) but it’s treated as factual by the book, so obviously it’s supposed to work there.

    In general a book where the villains are in power isn’t a dystopia if there’s no hint that people have internalised the rules of society: the lack of this can been seen in things like everyone hating Galbatorix in Eragon or the ludicrous resentment of the Capitol in Hunger Games. Any functional society needs at least the illusion that if you keep your head down and follow the rules you’ll be alright. Indeed, a major reason Stalin and Hitler lasted longer than Pol Pot is both men were significantly more predictable: all the attempts on Hitler’s life were mostly because he was losing the war rather than because he was an evil asshole.

  22. Prince O' Tea on 27 January 2013, 11:32 said:

    Then again, just because the Party believes it so, doesn’t mean Orwell did. The Party believe they are in infallible but there are hints to suggest that they wouldn’t be able to cope with a disaster or crisis of some sort. The Party could probably carry on for centuries or maybe even millenia, but it would be out of luck rather then their own efforts. I can’t remember if it was ever concerned as such, but they seem to be stagnating as a society: I don’t remember anything in the book that suggested that they Party were doing anything besides trying to keep their people pliant and passive. They seem to be more concerned with abolishing the orgasm then trying to forward technology in any way. Sure you could argue that increased comfort might undermine their efforts in keeping the population docile, but not trying to invest in the future is going to bite them in the ass one day.

  23. Prince O' Tea on 27 January 2013, 11:50 said:

    But on the otherhand, as unprepared as the Party seem to be, they are a lot more stable then Panem seems to be. I think the problem with the Hunger Games is that the Capitol seems to be almost a pantomime villain at times, since everything they seem to be do is For The Evulz. I can’t imagine how the Hunger Games would create anything other then hatred and resentment. Pleasure is a far more effective means of control then making your citizen’s lives worse then death and making them incredibly aware of it. For one thing, I would have had tributes from the Capitol rather then just the Districts: it would give the oppressed citizens the illusion of being able to compete on equal terms with their oppressors.

  24. Tim on 27 January 2013, 13:44 said:

    Well yeah, the main point is that IngSoc’s goal is complete societal stasis with change being both undesirable and impossible and the Party’s position secured forever. Since the book is purely focused on how this is set up, it never really goes into what might break it.

    Panem is just messy, especially with the subdivision of districts so each only does one thing, which would make the Capitol’s position untenable since it can’t really afford to be without any of them. It’s like the brain asserting authority by threatening to hack off disobediant organs and limbs: only really sucks if you happen to be a tonsil or appendix and the heart and lungs are going to notice how stupid its position is pretty quickly.

  25. Prince O' Tea on 27 January 2013, 14:36 said:

    But the thing is, the Party’s position is only secured if they can adapt to change or unforeseen circumstances, which they don’t seem to be able to, considering all their resources go into brainwashing their populace. Still the fact that a large-scale natural disaster of some sort is probably the most optimistic outcome is quite depressing.

    Exactly, the Capitol goes out of its way to antagonise its subordinate citizens, even though it relies upon all of them. Religion was instrumental in the dark ages, since it was one of the main factors that kept the peasants from revolting against their masters, but the Capitol only has fear to keep its citizens in line. However the Capitol gleefully trolls the Districts mercilessly, despite being dependant upon all of them for goods, food, power and so on. The Capitol has little industry, and the little industry it seems to have seems to be fashionable clothing and luxury furniture, good for culture but nothing that’s going to keep the city functioning if the other districts suddenly refuse to send over food and power. A society that unstable wouldn’t last very long. You can’t really keep someone in fear for their lives when their lives are a joyless, miserable struggle to stay alive and watch their children be taken away to be slaughtered. The only way I could see the Hunger Games working is if Capitol children were co-erced into competing as well, and they didn’t always win. It’s actually beneficial to let champions from the poorer districts win every now and then.

  26. Betty Cross on 27 January 2013, 20:48 said:

    I enjoyed at least the first two Hunger Games books. They drew me in despite world-building issues because they raise the issue of class, something nearly taboo in American political discourse.

    One thing real totalitarian regimes do is, they work hard to create at least the illusion that the government is serving the average citizen’s interest. And they survive because some ordinary people support the government for various reasons despite having their freedom taken away. This is largely absent in THG. Although there are presumably many people in District 12 who think it’s impossible to resist the Capitol, there doesn’t seem to be anyone outside the Peacemakers and the Justice Building bureaucracy who supports the government.

    I think the real purpose of the Hunger Games (event, not the book) is to create the illusion that there isn’t enough to go around, and therefore District people need to make sure their guy or girl wins the game so at least their District gets to eat good next year. Well, considering the luxurious way the Capitol people live, there obviously is enough. Having the Districts fight each other — with their “tribute” boys and girls as proxies — keeps them divided and weak.

    Even so, I suspect such a brutal “sport” would end by provoking more revolts rather than keeping opposition divided.

  27. Betty Cross on 27 January 2013, 20:58 said:

    George Orwell rewrites the ending to The Hunger Games.

    “I spit the nightlock berries out of my mouth. Just as I’ve intended to do all along. I look down at Peeta rolling in agony on the ground. With poison circulating through his veins. Stupid Peeta! He actually expected me to commit suicide with him. He doesn’t matter. And the rednecks of District 12? They don’t matter either. I’ve suffered third-degree burns. A knife wound on the forehead. And damage to my hearing. Those things also don’t matter. It’s all right. Everything is all right. The struggle’s over. I have won the Hunger Games. I enjoy the approval of my true father. I love President Snow.”

    The preceding was something I whipped up for a panel on YA Dystopias at ConCarolinas last summer. It got a good laugh.

  28. swenson on 28 January 2013, 01:19 said:

    This book is just… annoying at this point. Everything seems really shallow and it’s all… abbreviated. shudder

    @Lone Wolf – 1. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1. Also, 1.

  29. Tim on 28 January 2013, 06:15 said:

    But the thing is, the Party’s position is only secured if they can adapt to change or unforeseen circumstances, which they don’t seem to be able to, considering all their resources go into brainwashing their populace. Still the fact that a large-scale natural disaster of some sort is probably the most optimistic outcome is quite depressing.

    On the other hand you could take their lack of worry about it as evidence that they’ve solved it; though the book obviously makes no mention of factors like weather control or similar. Then again, that’s getting into blaming the book for not mentioning things it isn’t really about.

    Religion was instrumental in the dark ages, since it was one of the main factors that kept the peasants from revolting against their masters, but the Capitol only has fear to keep its citizens in line.

    In the end it’s all about the Prisoner’s Dilemma, that thought experiment where you have two prisoners who are offered the chance to reduce their one-year sentence by testifying against the other. If one testifies, the other gets three years and the accuser goes free, but if both testify then they both get an additional year. If both refuse, they simply play out their one-year sentence and go free.

    Left to their own devices, most people will take the option with the greatest possible reward rather than the one that’s most beneficial to everyone, which results in a position where everyone loses. Societies tend to revolve around making sure people aren’t left to their own devices regarding things that matter. Religion which includes divine judgement in an afterlife, viewed purely as a social control mechanism, is about changing the odds so that testifying has a much greater perceived punishment and not doing so has a much greater perceived reward.

    The Capitol is all stick and no carrot, which wouldn’t work. People don’t like the feeling that they’re not in control of what happens to them, which is exactly what random, mandatory sacrifices to the Capitol would create; you only accept being at someone else’s mercy if there’s at least the fiction of there being mercy.

    Really the games would work better if the lottery was optional, but when everyone’s at risk you just unite people against you rather than having most people tutting and saying it’s their own stupid fault for putting their name down.

    I enjoyed at least the first two Hunger Games books. They drew me in despite world-building issues because they raise the issue of class, something nearly taboo in American political discourse.

    Eh, that might be why they didn’t do much for me, it’s pretty rare for British political discourse to be about anything other than class.

    I think the real purpose of the Hunger Games (event, not the book) is to create the illusion that there isn’t enough to go around, and therefore District people need to make sure their guy or girl wins the game so at least their District gets to eat good next year.

    Yeah, but that’s hardly going to work well when every district can simply look at its own output and divide by thirteen, and see that the amount it gets back implies that someone is being enormously wasteful or that everyone is getting more than you.

    One of my favourite dystopian works is an animated short by Katsuhiro Otomo called Cannon Fodder, concerning a day in the life of a city whose entire purpose is firing cannons at an unseen enemy. It covers a real issue taken to its logical extreme (the fading distinction between civilians and the military, taken to the point of a city being a gun battery that people happen to live in), it trusts the viewer to realise the issues in the society rather than spelling them out (nobody ever questions why they fire the guns or if the enemy actually exists), and it shows people accepting the rules of the society and getting on with their lives rather than talking like they’ve never lived in it.

  30. Tim on 28 January 2013, 06:34 said:

    the fading distinction between civilians and the military

    By which, to be more specific, I mean the changes from pre-20th century where there was a very solid distinction, through the World Wars where aircraft made military industry in the home country became part of the front lines, to the Cold War situation where a country’s ability to produce and launch ICBMs was paramount and any major war would be fought by technicians who never even saw their enemies.

  31. Fair on 28 January 2013, 13:29 said:

    @Betty
    That ending is brilliant! I’m still laughing.

  32. Prince O' Tea on 30 January 2013, 15:57 said:

    Even though Rarity is my best pony, the narrator makes me want to bash my head in. There’s only so much of that archetype I can take.

  33. lilyWhite on 31 January 2013, 00:26 said:

    As the fourth installment of the Modelland spork shall be submitted somewhat late compared to previous installments, I’ll let it slip that the next installment shall be a double feature!