and now let's play the wildly popular RPG ADVANCED HUNGER & GAMES 2.0: CATCHING FIRE EDITION
Our Players
Katniss
HIT POINTS: 25
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good
SYMBOL: Middle Finger
STRENGTH: 15
INTELLIGENCE: 10
WISDOM: 5
DEXTERITY: 20
CONSTITUTION: 15
CHARISMA: 25
FIGHTER: 10th Level Archer
ASSASSIN: 9th Level Assassin
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Resentful Attitude
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Defensive Attitude
SUMMARY OF PLAYER SKILLS:
despite the inherent restrictions of living in a YA novel, Katniss is a remarkably well-developed and complex character. although she's drawn from the familiar tough girl/outsider/square peg template, Collins resists softening her - her temper, her understandable but often misdirected suspiciousness, her frequent inability to empathize with others are never underplayed. her appearance at the end, where she appears to be slipping into depressive, semi-crazy, unreasoning mulishness, is very well-done and psychologically astute.
i also love how her strengths are so nonchalantly illustrated - she is something special, but never a superwoman. her character's changes and growth and weaknesses and skills are carefully gradual and feel real - the reader is made to truly understand her, all of her. two sequences in Catching Fire particularly impressed me. the first one comes almost mid-way: Katniss' slow, painful revelation about the nature of oppression and the need for revolution, at one point moving from fear for her sister's safety and potential death if revolution occurs to understanding of her sister's life as a kind of living death already, if revolution does not occur. a great example of realistic character development that highlights Collins' sophisticated yet pleasingly transparent and straightforward writing style.
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Gale
HIT POINTS: 15
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good
SYMBOL: Pouty Scowl
STRENGTH: 20
INTELLIGENCE: 15
WISDOM: 5
DEXTERITY: 15
CONSTITUTION: 10
CHARISMA: 20
FIGHTER: 9th Level Ranger
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Che Guevera Eyes
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Come Hither Eyes
SUMMARY OF GAME STRUCTURE:
i love how Gale’s appearances bookend the first two novels. it is an elegant way to illustrate this character’s importance to both Katniss and the narrative itself – Gale sees two different kinds of Katniss in each novel; his reactions to her are different as well, and despite his own somewhat static characterization, it is through Gale that the reader is able to truly mark Katniss’ changes in status and mind and spirit. even better, by saving him for the beginning and end, he gets put out of the way for the duration of most of each novel’s action. although Katniss wastes a rather inordinate amount of time obsessing over him for a good portion of both novels, once she’s in the arena, time spent mooning over her backwoods boyfriend is happily curtailed. i really like how Collins divides the time Katniss spends on each of her love interests; the romantic elements of the novel are as sharply structured as the novel itself, with its neat division into (1) the tour of districts and the burgeoning of revolution, (2) back home in District 12 and accepting the need for action (or, perhaps, flight), and (3) the game itself.
just a few words for the game itself: AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME. the game that takes up much of the final third of the novel is my other favorite thing in Catching Fire. the tension and danger, the pacing, the confusion of who should trust who and what did that person mean when they said that, the puzzle of what is happening in each deadly and differentiated section, the clock-like structure of the arena, and the immense difference between this game and the game depicted in Hunger Games... awesome! almost as awesome: the interview with the contestants, Katniss & Peeta's new look, Cinna's rebellion. really, i could go on and on.
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Peeta
HIT POINTS: 15
ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good
SYMBOL: Big Spoon
STRENGTH: 15
INTELLIGENCE: 20
WISDOM: 15
DEXTERITY: 5
CONSTITUTION: 10
CHARISMA: 20
FIGHTER: 9th Level Bread Baker
BARD: 10th Level Public Speaker
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Debilitating Guilt-Trip
SPECIAL DEFENSES: He Actually Loves You
SUMMARY OF GAME PLATFORM:
i don't know how popular the character of Peeta is, probably because i am far from being a young adult - but i think his characterization is another wonderful achievement. it is not such an easy task to make A Good Person and Voice of Your Conscience without turning that character into a two-dimensional Marty Stu. Collins is able to accomplish this with ease (and this is a character whose every other line is practically I Love You Katniss), in scenes where mawkish sentimentality and eye-rolling cliché are conspicuously, happily absent. her handling of Peeta's character is a hallmark of Collins' overall success. she writes of a dire world, one full of death and despair and undying love and family tragedy and trials & tribulations both romantic and violent. and she does it in way that is clean, polished, graceful, direct, and terrifically moving.
