Stories and their (super)heroines
In the Kevin Feige interview I linked some days ago, he says, among other things, that The Hunger Games is a film (and a franchise) about a female superhero despite not being officially labeled as such.
Now, this actually works out pretty well if you think about it: The Hunger Games as Katniss' origin story, Catching Fire as the inevitable sequel introducing more characters and repeating some of what made the original so successful only with even higher stakes (and being in danger of feeling like a repeat until the game changer at the end which changes what went on before, and Mockingjay as the big controversial finale dividing fandom. You could make a case for Katniss being either a Marvel heroine or a DC one (of the early Alan Moore variety), who constantly questions the narrative she's in. At first I thought Haymitch was genre atypical in that he doesn't die, as is a mentor's lot in 99% of all cases, but then I remembered who in the Marvelverse is a) cynic-with-traumatic-killer-past, b) fond of alcohol, and c) specializes in mentoring teenage girls in both comics and movieverse. Okay, so the first two are true for a great many Marvel characters, but the third one makes that person Wolverine, and clearly Haymitch = Logan so works.
Moving on to other characters, Emma Frost as Johanna or Johanna as Emma works very well, too, though I don't see Katniss as Kitty Pryde in any other regard but the Kitty and Emma relationship. (Kitty is friendly and social by nature; Katniss really isn't, and probably wouldn't be even if she didn't live ina horrible dystopia, being the stoic type.) Katniss' arch nemesis is President Snow (gets introduced in the origin story at a distance, has his personal meeting with Our Heroine complete with threat in the second tale, becomes a main goal in volume 3), of course, though the books do something so interesting and unexpected with how that resolves in Mockingjay that right now (though I'm sure I'm forgetting or overlooking something), I can't think of a comics equivalent to that. Well, Neil Gaiman has made a speciality out of the showdown that doesn't happen, usually but not always because the hero or heroine figure out the game was rigged (he does it in Seasons of Mist where instead of the big Dream vs Lucifer fight the readers and Dream expect Lucifer instead closes shop and changes occupation, and in American Gods when Shadow realises that the old gods versus new gods big battle was the con Odin and Loki were going for) , but that's not exactly the same thing. The twist of the Katniss vesus Snow tale ties directly in the way Mockingjay refusing to cater to the conventional "bad king/monster slain/ all's fine with the realm" while new benevolent ruler takes over narrative. Snow, of course, has to go; but while he's an embodiment of the vile system and personally responsible for a lot of the misery in the novels, he isn't the system itself, and so Katniss' last violent act in her story isn't to kill him. The idea of killing him has kept her going through her losses in this volume, but what makes Katniss a heroine instead of a tragedy is that the core of her is being a protector, and the dislike, the struggle against being used (when both state and rebellion keep doing just that). That's why the scene where Coin suggests one last Hunger Games with the Capitol's children as revenge and half of the surviving Victors agree is so important, and what makes Katniss decide that Snow has been telling her the truth. And so the dragon this particular heroine slays is not the one of the past (who gets literally crushed by the past instead, either by the populace or his own blood; as Katniss says, it doesn't matter which one) but the one threatening to make the future just like the past. There are several comics books narrative busy with deconstructing the genre they're in - notoriously Watchmen - but actually I think what The Hunger Games do, in terms of the superhero narrative, isn't deconstruction (though it's constantly self-reflective of tropes) as much as applying the heroic story in an intelligent way that never loses sight of "just what is it your hero(ine) is really fighting?"
Going back to the Hunger Games-as-comic-book/film idea: what the story, at first glance, doesn't have is a much beloved trope, the villain-redeemed, complete with fangirls complaining on why the heroes can't accept him (in much rarer cases her) already, why is everyone so down on the poor darling, can't they see that everything this person did wrong in the past was just someone else's fault ANYWAY (preferably one of the heroes). (Why yes, I've rolled my eyes at a couple of stories starring Loki in this capacity in recent days.) Then again: you could make a case of several characters being a critical refutation of this archetype. By the time the rebellion is the winning side, we have several minor characters changing sides (so to speak - several were captured first), notably Katniss' old prep team and Effie. There's a scene in which Gale asks why Katniss is defending her prep team, three people who did, after all, year and and year out prepare children for the slaughter to the best of their abilities, were proud of their work and could see nothing wrong with it. Same with Effie later, of course. Katniss compares them to children living in a privileged world without any sense of right or wrong. Which emotionally, they might be, but they are adults, all of them. In the end, they survive and adapt to the post-war world not because they've had an epiphany (they don't) or realise what they were doing was wrong (there's no indication of that), but because Katniss has grown attached to them and is sick of death and the cyle of retribution. On a less minor character scale, we have Plutarch. Who is an undercover resistance fighter rising to the ranks of head gamemaker. Now, in another story Plutarch would be just the type of shady antihero fandom loves. He's forced to do evil things to maintain his cover! He's really working for good! He's smart! He's ruthless! But not in this story. Because to me it feels like Collins wondered what type of person would successfully rise to head game maker (no matter their motivation) and how would they be afterwards; Plutarch is in his way as chilling as Coin or Snow to me. The way he uses Katniss-as-Mockingjay for the rebellion isn't too different from the way he used her on Snow's orders in the games before, the final attack on the Capitol with its fridging not just Prim but a lot of other children for propaganda uses is literally produced by him, and in the new world, he's still busy doing just that, producing. As opposed to characters like Effie or the prep team, who don't have a redemption story because at no point do they clue in that they might have something to redeem themselves for, prefering to see themselves as victims instead, Plutarch is the type of character who glories in "well, someone has to get their hands dirty", aka Jack Bauer, only the narrative he's in doesn't present him as the hero for it. Now don't get me wrong; I love a good redemption story as much as anyone. But I increasingly find myself impatient at the lazy short cuts both fans and original sources often take, substituting the teary angry stare of mostly male characters for actual character growth, so this type of countertale now and then feels very refreshing to me, in a biting way.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/778278.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Now, this actually works out pretty well if you think about it: The Hunger Games as Katniss' origin story, Catching Fire as the inevitable sequel introducing more characters and repeating some of what made the original so successful only with even higher stakes (and being in danger of feeling like a repeat until the game changer at the end which changes what went on before, and Mockingjay as the big controversial finale dividing fandom. You could make a case for Katniss being either a Marvel heroine or a DC one (of the early Alan Moore variety), who constantly questions the narrative she's in. At first I thought Haymitch was genre atypical in that he doesn't die, as is a mentor's lot in 99% of all cases, but then I remembered who in the Marvelverse is a) cynic-with-traumatic-killer-past, b) fond of alcohol, and c) specializes in mentoring teenage girls in both comics and movieverse. Okay, so the first two are true for a great many Marvel characters, but the third one makes that person Wolverine, and clearly Haymitch = Logan so works.
Moving on to other characters, Emma Frost as Johanna or Johanna as Emma works very well, too, though I don't see Katniss as Kitty Pryde in any other regard but the Kitty and Emma relationship. (Kitty is friendly and social by nature; Katniss really isn't, and probably wouldn't be even if she didn't live ina horrible dystopia, being the stoic type.) Katniss' arch nemesis is President Snow (gets introduced in the origin story at a distance, has his personal meeting with Our Heroine complete with threat in the second tale, becomes a main goal in volume 3), of course, though the books do something so interesting and unexpected with how that resolves in Mockingjay that right now (though I'm sure I'm forgetting or overlooking something), I can't think of a comics equivalent to that. Well, Neil Gaiman has made a speciality out of the showdown that doesn't happen, usually but not always because the hero or heroine figure out the game was rigged (he does it in Seasons of Mist where instead of the big Dream vs Lucifer fight the readers and Dream expect Lucifer instead closes shop and changes occupation, and in American Gods when Shadow realises that the old gods versus new gods big battle was the con Odin and Loki were going for) , but that's not exactly the same thing. The twist of the Katniss vesus Snow tale ties directly in the way Mockingjay refusing to cater to the conventional "bad king/monster slain/ all's fine with the realm" while new benevolent ruler takes over narrative. Snow, of course, has to go; but while he's an embodiment of the vile system and personally responsible for a lot of the misery in the novels, he isn't the system itself, and so Katniss' last violent act in her story isn't to kill him. The idea of killing him has kept her going through her losses in this volume, but what makes Katniss a heroine instead of a tragedy is that the core of her is being a protector, and the dislike, the struggle against being used (when both state and rebellion keep doing just that). That's why the scene where Coin suggests one last Hunger Games with the Capitol's children as revenge and half of the surviving Victors agree is so important, and what makes Katniss decide that Snow has been telling her the truth. And so the dragon this particular heroine slays is not the one of the past (who gets literally crushed by the past instead, either by the populace or his own blood; as Katniss says, it doesn't matter which one) but the one threatening to make the future just like the past. There are several comics books narrative busy with deconstructing the genre they're in - notoriously Watchmen - but actually I think what The Hunger Games do, in terms of the superhero narrative, isn't deconstruction (though it's constantly self-reflective of tropes) as much as applying the heroic story in an intelligent way that never loses sight of "just what is it your hero(ine) is really fighting?"
Going back to the Hunger Games-as-comic-book/film idea: what the story, at first glance, doesn't have is a much beloved trope, the villain-redeemed, complete with fangirls complaining on why the heroes can't accept him (in much rarer cases her) already, why is everyone so down on the poor darling, can't they see that everything this person did wrong in the past was just someone else's fault ANYWAY (preferably one of the heroes). (Why yes, I've rolled my eyes at a couple of stories starring Loki in this capacity in recent days.) Then again: you could make a case of several characters being a critical refutation of this archetype. By the time the rebellion is the winning side, we have several minor characters changing sides (so to speak - several were captured first), notably Katniss' old prep team and Effie. There's a scene in which Gale asks why Katniss is defending her prep team, three people who did, after all, year and and year out prepare children for the slaughter to the best of their abilities, were proud of their work and could see nothing wrong with it. Same with Effie later, of course. Katniss compares them to children living in a privileged world without any sense of right or wrong. Which emotionally, they might be, but they are adults, all of them. In the end, they survive and adapt to the post-war world not because they've had an epiphany (they don't) or realise what they were doing was wrong (there's no indication of that), but because Katniss has grown attached to them and is sick of death and the cyle of retribution. On a less minor character scale, we have Plutarch. Who is an undercover resistance fighter rising to the ranks of head gamemaker. Now, in another story Plutarch would be just the type of shady antihero fandom loves. He's forced to do evil things to maintain his cover! He's really working for good! He's smart! He's ruthless! But not in this story. Because to me it feels like Collins wondered what type of person would successfully rise to head game maker (no matter their motivation) and how would they be afterwards; Plutarch is in his way as chilling as Coin or Snow to me. The way he uses Katniss-as-Mockingjay for the rebellion isn't too different from the way he used her on Snow's orders in the games before, the final attack on the Capitol with its fridging not just Prim but a lot of other children for propaganda uses is literally produced by him, and in the new world, he's still busy doing just that, producing. As opposed to characters like Effie or the prep team, who don't have a redemption story because at no point do they clue in that they might have something to redeem themselves for, prefering to see themselves as victims instead, Plutarch is the type of character who glories in "well, someone has to get their hands dirty", aka Jack Bauer, only the narrative he's in doesn't present him as the hero for it. Now don't get me wrong; I love a good redemption story as much as anyone. But I increasingly find myself impatient at the lazy short cuts both fans and original sources often take, substituting the teary angry stare of mostly male characters for actual character growth, so this type of countertale now and then feels very refreshing to me, in a biting way.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/778278.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.