why you liked Film Lucy Gray better (or not)

Lucy greybear in is inherently easier to grasp and understand solely because of the changes that they made from book to film and I'll bring the news when I've danced off my shoes when my body's closed down when my boats when I've the score I'm a fandom Boomer right like my little neurod diverent brain just can't handle any type of change so when I heard that there was going to be another Hunger Games movie because I heard there was going to be a movie before I knew there was a book bite me I was not stoked about it like I was super not stoked I thought that it was going to be just another here we go like throw it all in the toilet for like a special snowflake prequel cash grab and I had no desire to participate in this new Hunger Games whatsoever and then I saw princess week's video on it and which I became aware of the fact that Violet Davis is in this movie and I will do anything for Violet Davis I will do anything VI Davis asks of me that woman can hit me with her car and I will build her a replacement with my bare teeth like I if she's in it I'm there so I boot like that [ __ ] so fast and uh because they're listening I started getting inundated with Tick Tock and YouTube shorts and YouTube ads just about this movie and people's reactions to this movie and I guess the book too and one of the like really common ones that I kept seeing was this take where people were like I didn't really understand who Lucy gray was in the book because it was all through Cory Lan's perspective and he doesn't see her as a real person but then I saw the movie and now I understand her because Rachel zaggler is so good and Rachel zaggler is so good she's amazing but I don't think that that's why you understand her more because I read the book right I read the book and I was like oh oh I think that Lucy greybeard In The Ballad of song birs and Snakes movie is inherently easier to grasp and understand solely because of the changes that they made from book to film and I have a lot of other thoughts too so uh part one what's a Coro and why did he Len us the ballot of song wordss and snakes is a prequel okay it's a prequel to The Hunger gam series by Suzanne Collins and we're going to call it ballad for the majority of this video because come on Suzanne The Hunger Games takes place in a country called penm which is comprised of 12 districts that are governed by the capital we are told that there was like a big ass Rebellion with a capital R where the districts right because it's the the capital and The Districts The Districts tried to overthrow the capital and it was a very dark and nasty war and as a result when the capital kind of returned to power and took control again they instituted this thing called The Hunger Games in which two children from every District are chosen at random and thrown into an arena to fight to the death it's not as insane as it sounds I most of you have seen it I'm sure that you guys know what I'm talking about but so the original series centers around the 74th Annual Hunger Games right and Katniss everine Volunteers in place of her like baby sister Prim who gets picked and so does PETA malar he also gets picked and the two of them uh fall in love in the Hunger Games that is not up for debate it's not up for debate anyway they pull some Romeo and Juliet [ __ ] at the end and they end up leaving the 74th Annual Hunger Games with two Winners instead of one that's my lipstick from yesterday I think my cat's trying to get in so they end up leaving the 74th Annual Hunger Games with two winners that is Katniss and Peta they both win hi and Katniss sort of accidentally starts another Rebellion with a capital r a a slightly bigger capital r if you can believe it can you not be doing this Bella anyway they do eventually succeed in overthrowing the capital this time and Peta and Katniss live like moderately happily ever after for the rest of time or you know anyway that's the gist right that's the basics now the thing about The Hunger Games is that we don't actually know that much about the original war from that started all of this except for the fact that it was very very bad because Wars are you know generally very very bad and we're at the 74th and then 75th annual Hunger Games that's like a lot of Hunger Games right these are very much a well-oiled machine by the time that we meet them in the original books there is a lot of crazy high Tech stuff happening there's very cool fashion the capital has money flowing like water and it's very clear in the original series like why those people why the people in the capital enjoy the Hunger Games especially like if you live in the United States and you've ever seen a Super Bowl like it's not that hard to imagine why people might love to see young people try to kill each other I mean they're not trying to kill each other in football but like they're doing it anyway what I'm saying is that it's not that far of a leap for us really however there was always this element at least from my perspective of well this could never happen like if someone tomorrow suggested that we throw a bunch of kids in an arena to kill each other with or without the Hunger Game series in our Cannon we would probably not go for it that's why the original rebellion and the original like great dark war is so important to the plot because that is the reason that people agree to this in the first place and the reality is that like the target audience for this book especially at the time like have never seen war on like on our own country like or on our own sort of Shores right there's there's never been a war fought like in the United States and so there was always this sort of element of like how like how how did anyone come up with this how did anyone agree to this this is bad [ __ ] which is not a bad thing it doesn't make the story worse by any means they explain that it's punishment for the rebellion and that's like good enough for us to understand what's going on the allegories work with or without like having a real world conception of War okay especially because a big part of the story is the fact that the characters the central characters were not alive during this original Rebellion like Katniss Peta I don't think hach was even alive during the original Rebellion like you know who was alive during the Rebellion though Cory Elena snow president Cory Elena snow is the villain of The Hunger Games he is the old evil little man who like loved the Hunger Games and gives these really like low toned slow speeches about the nature of Hope and fear and rebellion and human it and control and you know villain [ __ ] and he's very scary but weirdly enough like not the most untrustworthy character in the original series I think you can't trust him to do good things but like you can always kind of tell what he's going to do he has reliable courses of action so the ballot of song birds and snakes is his origin story and it is a great one it's so good not only in like laying out his character really well and dare I say like employing the nature of tragedy but both the book and the film really help to flush out the world and help you to understand as like a reader and an audience member how The Hunger Games became what they were in the original trilogy so how did they become what they were in the original trilogy well Corola snow also known as Coro is a capital Citizen and he was around 8 years old when the Rebellion ended when the war was over we find out in the ballot of song birds and snakes that the last two years of the war the capital was under siege so the rebels had kind of surrounded it because the capital is landlocked surrounded by districts and they were sort of starving the capital they were starving the people in it and it was so bad that the capital citizens were like turning to sort of cannibalism to you know feed their families and that sounds campy but it's not it's very real and it's really sad and so Cory lenus has this very traumatic memory of being like 8 years old and watching somebody cut off somebody's leg to take home to eat and so the games themselves we find out were actually dreamed up by Cory elen's father and a guy named High bottom who is the dean of corus's school and they were dreamed of as a joke like they were drunk and working on an assignment that was to you know pick the worst punishment for your enemies so a punishment so bad that they will never be able to forget how they wronged you very much like how the human centipede was tramed up as a punishment fores that's the that's the origin story of The Hunger Games and much like the human centipede the gods were angry and they allowed it to come to fruition so corus's Dad turns it into Dr Gaul who implements it becomes the first game maker and then he like [ __ ] off and dies at some point um I don't know Cory lus is an orphan when we meet him he is like a like a hot orphan he's not a hot Rich orphan though because they have no [ __ ] money I don't know where their money went they used to have money they do not have money anymore anyway so they me they mention in the original trilogy that the first couple Hunger Games were like particularly violent but you don't really get an understanding of what that means until you sort of read ballot of song birds and snakes or even watch the movie and you realize like oh they quite literally were just plucking kids out of their homes throwing them in an abandoned football stadium and telling them to kill each other or starve to death like that it it was a punishment like it was not a spectacle and that is how it started ballad centers around the 10th annual Hunger Games so Coro is an orphan he's Coro is an orphano so corol lenus is 18 years old and he is masquerading as a rich boy pretending that he still has money but he doesn't and this I think is so interesting and important because Corey elanus knows hunger his father was killed by rebels after the Great Rebellion and as a result they have no money and he and his cousin and his family grow up starving St starving and surrounded by people who are not starving he goes to the prestigious Academy still he is surrounded by people who have money still who have you know maybe not excess because it's post-war but who are living a life that he should have had and yet he has this constant reminder in the form of physical hunger pains that things were taken from him so we already have this really interesting character right who grew up not only with memories of the war and The Siege and cannibalism and the horrific lengths that humans will go to during the war and in a fight for survival but he also has to be constantly Vigilant right constantly living this lie because it's the only way to keep his family afloat and together and for him to have any hope of possibly achieving any more and achieving anything greater than he has to you know help his family and he does it all while he's starving and I think that it's a really fascinating way to set up a villain story because when we look at hero origin stories they're sort of the same right they're often Outsider stories they're people who grew up with adversity who grew up living within a status quo but not being able to fit in it if that makes sense I think it's nice to see that those circumstances are not sort of exclusive Ive to Hero those circumstances can create monsters and villains just as much as they can create Heroes and that you know Blank Slate tabularasa if you will which brings us to our first mini philosophy break I actually think it might be the only might be the only mini philosophy break this isn't really a script empiricism sounds a lot like Empire doesn't it so Ballad of song birds and snakes has a lot of philosophy quotes in it and it has a lot of references specifically to John lock one of the sort of thoughts that John Lock put forward was this like tabularasa and basically meaning Blank Slate saying that like all humanity and all human beings were born as blank slates and that we are shaped and colored by the world and our experiences within it this is an extension of empiricism empiricism from the Greek word emperia emperia m m which means experience is the idea that everything we know or or we think we know all sort of Concepts and input into our like being can only stem from experience everything is a posterior right which means what comes after there is no knowledge that we are born knowing nothing that exists independent of our interaction with it we are not going to get into the wh with this because the metaphysics of empiricism are too much for me and they're really not even that relevant to this book at all but the idea of tabasa is because that took on like a life of its own really and we all kind of talk about blank slates all the time in his 1690 essay concerning human understanding John Lock wrote that no man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience right and corus's experience of the world is that the only thing that is keeping him in the capital and keeping his world from falling back into what it was during the war when he was a child is the h games is the capital is the government and he has constant physical hunger and a constant fear of being discovered that is just this constant reminder of how tenuous his hold on Safety and Security is he is hanging by a thread and he knows it he's not evil when he starts but he is very resentful he resents the rebels and the districts for the war he resents his father I think for dying in the war and for giving him such a bad reputation with people like high bottom he resents his friends for having money that he doesn't have he resents the districts even though he's never even been to them but he does know someone from there so his experience with the districts is all sort of secondhand watching The Hunger Games only and sort of what he's taught in school whereas his primary experience with the districts only comes in the form of sanus plinth really who is a friend of his who came from District 2 and his father now makes like a shitload of money in the capital and sanus basically has everything that Cory lanus ever really wanted and he is not grateful sanus hates the capital he hates living in the capital he misses his friends he misses his life and throughout the book he literally becomes like a full-on rebel okay so sanus is for Coro a sign that the lines between the district and the capital are painted in more than just blood right they're painted with money you can cross those lines if you have it which means you can be pushed over them if you do not if money can buy your way into the capital then a lack of it can certainly Force you out so I kept finding this other quote when I was researching about John Lock about um how our incomes are like shoes and if they are too little they G and pinch us and if they are too great they cause us to stumble and trip and it kept being attributed to John lock but I could not for the life of me find like where he wrote that and what the original piece was like what when did he say that why did he say that and then I found it attributed to this guy Charles Colton possibly from a piece called just wages I couldn't find the quote from him in any work by that guy but I did find Charles Colton quoted in an 1893 book called The wage workers of America and the relation of capital to labor by John stes so there you go H bomber guy anyway I mentioned that quote because whoever it's attributed to I think it is an idea that is expressed really well with within corus's story right because he is surrounded by wealth wealth that is so great that it is causing the people around him to stumble and trip right it is causing sanus to not understand the things he could do and things he should do with his money and right not understanding like the gifts that he's been given it causes people like Dr Gul to like love the games right like it's causing the Hunger Games which he does kind of think are a little insane at a couple of points but he himself has you know an income that is so little that it pinches and Galls him and makes his life insanely difficult at one point during the 10th Hunger Game sanus actually goes into the arena because his friend had been raped from District 2 and he goes in to perform the this like tradition that they have from District 2 of spreading I think it's like rice and Grains around the person's body so that they have something to take with them into their you know sort of next step and next place in life and interestingly like Cory elanus does not understand this at all and he doesn't understand it because he understands the districts to be start starving and he is starving and he can't imagine wasting food like that he's not he doesn't think it's ridiculous because it's stupid or a Superstition he kind of does think that but he really is offended by the waste the capital is no stranger to wasting food people around him waste food all the time but he can't he can't waste food and he feels like they should know better you know because he thinks that if I know not to waste food and I'm surrounded by people that do how do these people who are starving not know that that's ridiculous and they shouldn't be wasting it which is a really I think genuine and interesting kind of take for him to have so this is obviously not good right that sanus has gone into the arena the arena full of kids trying to kill each other who have already killed several other Academy students at the time and so they send Cor elanus in to drag him out and he does and he does so by telling him like Hey this is not helping anyone you dying in here is not helping anyone you have money you can do better you can do more for district to out there in the capital than you can getting killed by the tributes let's go because Cory elanus himself is in poverty right he is pinched and G by his income it is a constant constant reminder in the form of this literal hunger that and the need to keep this ruse up sort of the ruse itself as well if he plays the perfect Capital boy long enough he will inevitably just become the perfect Capital boy and like sanus says at one point that he remembers watching coralus watch other people in school he's like I remember seeing you the way you used to stare and and assess everything and decide when to weigh in that's a survival skill for him he watches and takes in all of these sort of empirical evidence and iCal data and then decides the best course of action because he does not have the luxury of floating another thing that John lock says in I think a theory of two governments but again I didn't really study John Lock don't Source me on this he says we are like chameleons we take our Hue and the color of our moral character from those who are around us and over the course of the book and the film we watch Cory elanus slowly interact with all of these different people we see him go into the districts we see him in the literal Hunger Games we see him experience and take in more or less every aspect of life in penm and we see him take all of this data and all of these people that he interacts with and eventually form the world viiew that will one day lead him to being the president presiding over the 74th Annual hunger gam which and and like I think the general idea is supposed to be that like that was his downfall right like in light of this book and film like I kind of don't think that the 75th Hunger Games and the war were like necessarily his downfall like I do kind of like I kind of think he won but I don't know if we're going to unpack that or not so let's just talk about the real reason that we are here in the first place which is the fact that part two book Lucy kills people another thing that I genuinely think gets lost in the discussions of the original Hunger Games films is just how good they actually are right like yes everybody knows that they're good nobody thinks they're bad but considering that they came out of the slow motion ya a book to movie train wreck that brought us the Mortal Instruments Divergent and beastly I think it's very very impressive that these films are as good as they are okay and you can't tell me that it's because the source material is good because the Percy Jackson Source material is phenomenal and those movies were offensive apart from these boots that Katniss wears and a couple other outfits that are so 2012 they give me literal panic attack these are phenomenal movies and they're not just good movies they're good adaptations right I think that c I've said this for a while I think that Catching Fire is one of the best book two movie adaptions that's ever been done the only book to film series adaptation that is better than the Hunger Games is the Twilight Saga but I will not making that video until I hit 100,000 subscribers so you have to wait anyway I say this I'm saying this because I want you to know that changes are fine changes are fine you are allowed to make changes when adapting things from books to movies making changes does not inherently make an adaption bad and it does not inherently make a like the series bad or the film or the book or any for example they cut out Pet's fake leg that was a great choice that saved us so much time I'm so glad we didn't have to watch watch a CGI fake leg on Josh Hutson and it didn't affect the story or anything I also think that like Effie Effie's role was like seriously expanded in the third one if I remember correctly I didn't reread the books for this I just rewatched the movies also like the first movie gave us all of those scenes of like the game makers and snow like the we got all of these scenes with President Snow and what was happening outside of the Arena that we didn't get in the books because we're not privy to that because they're from Katniss's firstperson perspective that was a great choice that was so like that was a really really good element and while we're talking about snow I just want to say the guy who plays young snow like phenomenal there were like several times when I was like getting chills and like freaked out by how good he was and how much like I like if I didn't know better like I really would think that it was the same person like however many years apart like it like it it was uncanny it was is like he they he he's good he did a great job did a great job there are a couple of changes that they make in Ballad from you know book to screen that are fine right the the fact that like clemencia is never really seen again after she gets bit by the snakes in The Ballad of song birds and snakes movie but in the book she comes back and it's like so annoying so I was fine to see her go I think they pull out Lucy's name first in the reaping in the book but in the film she's second there's like a tribute who kills her Mentor with like a bottle instead of a knife or a knife instead of a bottle or something those changes don't have impact on the story other changes however other changes do like number one the plinth prize so at this point in the series The Hunger Games like canonically are kind of cringe a lot of the people who were adults during the war are still alive and still want their Revenge but like it's been 10 years and young people in the capital don't really care they don't really get get it because they don't see the districts as people anyway so they're just animals being put in this Arena and who cares about a dog fight if you don't have a dog in it but Dr Gaul Violet Davis my queen is a head game maker evidently she really likes her job she loves her job Dr Gul definitely just likes killing children which is you know fine for her I guess so she really needs to make sure that people start watching these [ __ ] games because otherwise the president's not going to let her spend all this money to like haul all these kids here and kill all these kids if like no one gives a [ __ ] so Dr ga's big plan to engage the youths in the blood sport that she has decided to put on for her country is to engage the high school seniors in The Hunger Games by assigning them a tribute AKA a child AKA a peer to Mentor in the games we know that eventually the like Mentor role will be given to previous Victors which is why like hitch is the uh whatever but the first time they do it they try it with other children so coriolanus if you remember we said that corus's father helped implement the Hunger Games by stealing Dean High Bottom's ideas so Dean High bottom does not like corilanus and so somehow corilanus ends up with the District 12 girl as his little tribute which is like a notoriously bad tribute because she's a girl and she's starving from 12 so not not great not looking great now in the film they introduced this thing called the plinth prize which is basically a massive scholarship given by S janus's father and it is set up in the film as like an annual thing that occurs every year that Cory lanus already has his eyes on that he already basically needs in order to go to university to make all of his dreams come true and he thinks he's a shoe in pretty much like he's been working really hard he's pretty sure he's going to get it and then then he walks into school and they're like actually change of plans only one tribute can win The Hunger Games oh sorry only in order to get the plinth prize you have to Mentor a tribute very well however in the book The plinth prize is not introduced until like well into the book like I can't even give you a number but it's not it's not on the table until like at least halfway through until the games have started I think I'm pretty sure it comes up after Coro pulls San out of the games but don't hold me to that so in the book Cory elanus does not need Lucy gray to win in order to like succeed in life he wants her to do well and he thinks that if she is impressive and he can make the crowd like her then he it will give him points and hopefully he can still like get into school or whatever the plinth prize in the book raises the stakes absolutely but only after after he and Lucy gray have bonded to an extent and he has already given her his mother's compact which we'll also talk about later and like he's already like kissed her he's already genuinely like fallen in love with this girl by the time that the plinth prize is put on the table once the plinth prize is introduced he becomes even more determined to help Lucy gay win because now he could have everything now he could have the prize money go to university get the girl have everything within reach and he eventually does right he does help her win everything backfires so horribly and he is disillusioned by everything and just sort of Shattered by everything that loving this girl has cost him he helps her win and he thinks he's going to get this prize and then he goes to get the prize and actually only one tribute can win The Hunger Games does this remind you of anything does this remind you of maybe two people who are 95% sure that one of them is going to die in The Hunger Games only to find out like around the 75% Mark that actually that doesn't need to be the case they can have everything and they can win The Hunger Games and go home to their lives right and they have all of that additional hope then ripped away from them right when it's in reach hurt people hurt people hurt people hurt people and so the plinth prize being on the table from the beginning Mak makes it almost completely necessary that Lucy gray win these games in order for him to accomplish his goals at all it makes her Victory something that he needs whether he likes her or not and this I think just makes it a lot easier to see Lucy gray as a sort of victim of coro's selfishness and as like a toy that he is playing with like a chess piece especially when he gives her that compact full of poison number two the compact in the film and in the book Cory lanus gives Lucy gray his Dead Mother's Compact and it's you know very emotional or whatever the difference between the two is that in the books he gives it to Lucy gray and it's empty and he tells her that she might want to fill it with her own powder knowing that she is sort of smart enough to to put together what he's talking about and that she will fill it with the rat poison that is in the zoo that is being kept in and the rest of the scene with the compact in the book really is them sort of like bonding and saying goodbye and being all stupid and lovey and whatever and the real point of that scene at least when I read it was the fact that he says it's alone and you have to bring it back to me and she says that's good that's helpful that will help me think that I might actually be able to win this because I have to I have to win this so I can give this back to you and it's very sweet and they're in love whereas in the film in the film he gives it to her and it is already full of poison and then he explains to her exactly what the poison is and how to use it this is not that big of a deal okay I get it technically he does put the idea in her head in the book he might as well be putting the powder in her hands but not only does it kind of take away like a little bit of the faith that we know that corus has in Lucy gray to maybe win these games as far as like in the book like he knows that she'll know and like he says at one point like I see it in her eyes that she could see in my eyes what I was talking about but even though he did put the idea in her head in the book it's not until we really see her use that rat poison that book Coro is like oh thank God there is this other running theme that really was left out of the film where Lucy gray just like drives Cory lanus crazy like she mystifies him he says all the time she like is an enigma she you know she never does what he thinks she's going to do so when when she does use the poison the way that he was hoping that she understood it's confirmation of not only is she like smart badass successful and possibly going to win this thing but like I was right like I knew I knew that she knew and I was correct because in the book there was a chance there was always a chance that it didn't work until the moment we see her use it so there was suspense in the film we know we know that she goes into those games the whole time we know that she has this poison in her pocket the whole time and corus also knows that she has this poison in her pocket the whole time by having him give it to her fully prepped and ready to go we lose a bit of that mystery because we know exactly what she is armed with the whole time that we see her in the games in the beginning also talking about the rat poison um in the film she uses the rat poison twice and they are her only two kills some of the other tributes like get water sent to them and they aren't really looking or paying attention so she fills one of them with like a bit of the rat poison and then like smashes all the other ones so that they have to drink the poison one but instead of her like big bad enemies drinking it it's like this poor sad little sick girl and it's really it's really sad and Rachel Ziggler is so good in this scene and and it's so heartbreaking and this is very similar to in the book right she also poisons the water thinking that the big bad scary evil kids will drink it they do not the poor sad sick girl does it's all very sad the second time that she uses it in the films is when she is being chased and she is crawling through the air ducts and she sprinkles it down over the vents on one of the he breathes it in and dies in the book the second time she uses it is just also in like a puddle of water but it's the same it's the same thing even though they're slightly different they don't impact I think our understanding of the story or Lucy gradell however the third person that she kills in the books is actually Reaper who is like a big scary tribute this kill that I think being left out of the film is what makes Lucy gray easier to understand in the film what makes her seem more more cohesive as a character and less mystifying because the way that she kills Reaper in the books is [ __ ] sick three evil snakes so in both the book and the movie we get introduced to Dr ga's creepy evil snakes really early and we're kind of explained that they won't bite you if they're used to your scent and if they're not used to your scent then they'll kill you that's the gist and in the film what happens is there was a bombing and one of the Academy Kids gets killed by a rebel bomb and when he does get killed by a rebel Bomb Dr Gaul is so angry that she plans to drop all the snakes in the arena and kill all of the tributes and and the reason that they don't kill Lucy gray is because Cory lenus snuck a handkerchief with her scent into their tank so that they wouldn't kill her because he loves her in the book The Snakes just kind of get put in like for funsies like on the fourth day or something like that they don't kill Lucy gray she gets to sing like covered in Snak snakes and it's very cool and then it rains and like most of them die and then there's like a bunch of tributes still left over but because the snakes like her because they don't kill her she can like keep one in her pocket and she tricks Reaper into like attacking her so she can shove it down his shirt just like she did the girl at the reaping and it bites him and he dies and Lucy grey Barett is the victor of the 10th annual Hunger Games which is just [ __ ] sick and it's just not it's not in the movie because in the movie number four the Victor the last big change that I think really affects the way we understand Lucy gray as a character in the film is the fact is that is that last kill is the fact that in the film Dr Gaul is willing to essentially end the games with no Victor right she is releasing the snakes as punishments to the tributes for the death of the Academy students that have happened over the like course of the weeks because they have killed like so many of the Academy students it's really funny and like an overall message to the rebels who you know bombed the arena or whatever and she calls it like a finale right her intention is to kill all of the tributes with a rainbow of Destruction and leave the games without a Victor so in the we see the snakes get released everybody dies right and they all come after Lucy gray and everyone is under the impression including her that the reason none of the snakes are killing her is because she's singing we know that that's not why they're not killing her but that's what they think is going on and so they're all like she can't sing forever and Cory lanus is like she won let her out she's The Last One Alive let her out right and all of the mentors start sort of chanting let her out let her out let her out and Dr Gaul is sort of under pressure to let her out but she's not an idiot she's very sus of the fact that the snakes are not killing Lucy gray cuz the snakes are supposed to be killing Lucy gray so she's not jumping on the chance to let her out and Cor is the one who has to be like you can't leave the games without a Victor no one's going to watch the games if there's no Victor everybody starts screaming let her out let her out and doctor called does and while this moment is sick right this is very cool moment and it's very powerful and I think it actually says a lot of really interesting things about the fact that snow in The Hunger Games is very much willing to let there not be a Victor and very much willing to let ctis and Peta kill themselves so much so that when senica crane lets them out he locks senica Crane in a room full of berries and makes him kill himself I think that this sets that moment up very well especially because we do get a sort of visual parallel in the films as well of young snow walking into a room thinking he's going to get his prize and seeing the Compact and the hankerchief like on a table and then being informed that his life is over and you know I love you know know hope and music conquer all we we survive through color and song and hope and blah blah blah blah blah I got chills and I loved it however this whole ending does mean that the only reason that Lucy gray survived those games is because Cory Elena snow put that handkerchief in the snake tank had he not done that there was no chance that she would have survived there was no chance anyone would have survived but in the books because the snakes you know die out after a day Reaper got lucky right until she came at him with the snake she could have gotten Lucky in the books it's her it is her cleverness with the stakes and the fact that corolina has put that handkerchief in there that help her win the games she is at the end of the day willing to kill someone with her bare hands or her bare snake and she sings these pretty songs and speaks in this dreamy mystifying way and she's you know an enigma or whatever so what I think is really happening when people are saying that they are having a better grasp on Lucy gray as a character in the films is is that she is more consistent right she does not like to kill people she's very passive she's strong right like she's a very strong character she survives a lot she's very brave but she makes a lot of sense she you know is like the power of love and all that right all of her actions make more sense together she doesn't really deviate she doesn't throw any curveballs and this does not make her bad or worse I actually really like that moment with the snakes and I think Rachel zler is amazing I just think that the fact that she wouldn't have survived the film games at all without Cory elanus makes her easier to understand as a as a character that the fact that she is less willing to kill people despite being in the Hunger Games makes her a more comprehensive a more palatable character uh part three part four 64 years later another thing that gets left out of the film mostly because it's like very much in corus's inner monologue is the fact that like Cory lus is very fixated on the fact that Lucy gray is cvy because she comes from like a family of traveling musicians who got like locked into 12 when like the war happened and now they can't leave but they they don't consider themselves District 12 like that's not her home she's they cuby they're different he finds it weird but he he becomes very fixated on the fact that she is not District she is different she is this other thing she's not Capital she's certainly not Capital but he is super like obsessed with this this idea and we know as readers that like there is nothing special about Lucy gray compared to these other kids and tributes not because she's not special but because that's the point right the point is that like they are all human these are all children there's nothing inherently different about the capital kids like at their spirit and their core what's different is how much money they have and the fact that they are not reaped in The Hunger Games there's nothing like inherently different about who they are and how they function we know that uh corilanus does not coralus does not know that he thinks that there must be something different about these District kids these District people otherwise why would we have to throw them in the arena every year why would sanus go into the arena like that why would they be wasting food and grain and rituals but as cor elanus starts to kind of fall for Lucy gray and starts to imagine a world where she wins and a world where like maybe like they could be together this becomes very important to him this idea that she's not District she's not she's cvy my camera died but the point here is he doesn't really care about the fact that she's cvy or what cvy means to her like what those traits mean to her he's only really concerned with the fact that her being cvy means means that she is not District which justifies his sort of falling for her and means that maybe he could convince the capital to accept her more than they would accept anyone else but it also calls to attention the fact that Cory elanus sees Lucy gray as having skills and traits and behaviors that he only Associates with capital kids because he has only ever really met Capital Kids apart from sanus who has a lot of traits he does not like and those those skills and traits that that he considers capital and not District are mean ones like they're they're Savvy they're sophisticated they are capable of playing a crowd right him and Lucy gray are both very good at playing a crowd she's smart and she's slick and she's capable of throwing a snake down someone's back and when he says she's not District what he means and what we hear is she's capital and this is sort of his undoing this is the problem because she is District they're all district they're all just [ __ ] kids they're all the same like there's nothing inherent about her value as a person that is dependent on whether she is cvy or District or Capital she is not a capital girl who was forced into the districts she is not this like shiny rainbow in the gray of District 12 she is District 12 in a rainbow dress she is Scrappy she has raised her siblings by herself she is friends with snakes and will sing a song she wrote about you directly to your face and truthfully like I don't think she ever trusted Cory elanus as far as she could throw him and it's just another part of this sort of perfect storm that creates the corilanus snow that we meet in the 74th Hunger Games because if Lucy gray really was District in his mind if if he saw her the way that he sees other District kids then he might have to face the fact fact that all of those District kids are just like him right that they are all the same and if the district kids are just like him then he is just like the district kids and again he could lose his lifestyle in the way that he lives it would be a cognitive dissonance for him to have to accept that so he clings to this idea that she's not District as justification for his falling for her it gives him permission to care about her because if she's not District then maybe like he can take her back to the capital and they can be king or queen or whatever he thinks is going to happen and then when she betrays him air quotes because Cory L has killed his friend from his perspective she betrays him her not being District No is no longer a good thing it makes her wild whereas before it made her this sort of blank slate that if she wasn't District he could make her Capital now she is wild now she is other now she is dangerous she is uncontrollable right unnat natural like the mocking JS that he hates so much because they're just running around unchecked because if we go back to that like John Lock philosophy of government and stuff John Lock saw all of like unclaimed land and nature as just like waiting to be taken and controlled which played a huge part in justifying colonialism corilanus saw Lucy gay as unclaimed nature and that he wanted and then when he got bit by a snake it became the enemy right and that is sort of what clears up his cognitive dissonance really Cory Ana snow literally cannot see what life would be like out in the forest because if there is no law there is no Freedom Lucy gray betraying him makes everything incredibly clear for him because it shows him exactly why control and power are necessary because Lucy gray hurts his feelings he got his feelings hurt he put up a fence and he realized that you know a a little bit of Freedom a little bit of rebellion is good but too much of it and you know you're shooting bullets at your girlfriend in the woods like I don't know I just was very inspired by this book and I had a lot of thoughts um thank you for coming to my pillow talk and I'll catch you up when cup when I've worn out my friends when I've burned out both ends when I've cried all my tears when I've conquered my fears right here in the old there when nothing is left anymore

Channel: biz

Views: 40,138

Keywords: the hunger games, Lucy gray Baird, ballad of songbirds and snakes, the ballad of songbirds and snakes movie, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blythe, Suzanne Collins, book vs movie, ballad of songbirds and snakes book, biz barclay, biz, video essay, philosophy, vibes, character analysis, Lucy snow

Id: 3AtDQ1GIbPA

Length: 48min 21sec (2901 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2024