The Hunger Games: A 150th Post Extravaganza

That's right! I'm delaying talking about Fantasy Football to finally talk about the Hunger Games! I have no idea how I'm going to broach the subject, but I'll do this the EMPH way: with very little forethought and a great deal of digressions with the illusion of order!

I'm partial to this logo. It's simple, classy and has meaning to the story.

What I Think of the Series as a Whole

I'll start this off with a bold statement: I think The Hunger Games is significantly better than Harry Potter. For starters, Katniss never uses a time machine to solve all her problems and then never mention it again. Secondly, The Hunger Games brilliantly use Latin and classical history and Harry Potter has all the subtlety of a freight train with Latin. Seriously, the main evil family is led by Lucius Malfoy (translated: Satan McBadguy, because Lucius is one step away from Lucifer) and his eldest son, Draco Malfoy (translated: Satan McBadguy Jr., because Draco means dragon and dragons historically are the very incarnation of the Devil). I will talk more about Latin later, because this is really one of the highlights of the book. But back on point, I think The Hunger Games is substantially more relatable than Harry Potter and its story is much more focused and relies less on deus ex machina to resolve the plot. For starters, Katniss's unhappy starting place is a lot more believable and a lot more sad than Harry's. Her family lives in poverty and was pushed to the brink of starvation due to the untimely death of her father in a mining accident, which forces her to assume more responsibility than a teen girl should. Harry's sad place is an evil wizard killed his parents before he ever met them and now he must live with his comically abusive aunt and uncle where they force him to live under the staircase instead of one of the extra rooms they have, because they are jerks and Child Services doesn't exist in this universe and literally no one has ever asked Harry about his well-being. Then one day, Hagrid shows up and tells Harry that he's a wizard and also he's the wizard of destiny and also his parents left him a fortune in wizard gold but lacked the foresight to convert any of their money into wealth their son could use OR consider leaving him in the care of someone who wasn't estranged from the family. Whereas Katniss has to overcome her obstacles by playing things smart and surviving, at least until thefirst half of Mockingjay, Harry overcomes his obstacles through things he had no control over. Boy, it sure is fortunate that it turns out that Harry's very touch kills Voldemort and that Voldemort forgot about this. One good avada cadavra spell from Quirrell and it's a 1 volume story. It's also a good thing that Dumbledore's phoenix can apparently find its way into long hidden and forgotten chambers so that Harry can literally pull a magic sword from a hat. I could do this all day, but I won't.

Reaping Day & Reaper Day

Ranking all 16 Squad Members from Mass Effect really took a lot out of me(the whole shooting match was 9,000 words long and covered 25 pages in MS Word!), but it's rapidly becoming one of the most popular pages on the EMPH. So after a brief recess (read: desperately finishing Mass Effect 2), I've picked up the blogging torch and have decided to keep the Mass Effect fortnight rolling... by taking things casual and talking a bit about what I've been up to this week.

What I've Been Reading (well, technically Listening To if you want to be pedantic)

There's Hunger! There are Games! It lives up to what the title promises.

 As a grad student/tutor, I have a spend a lot of time each week commuting to class, with about a 15 minute ride to the parking lot and a 15 minute hike from the parking lot to the actual classroom. And since I'm a grad student in Economics, that means I find all of today's music strange and terrifying.  I decided to switch things up by trying audiobooks courtesy of Linebaugh's eBook system (which has a small library, a long wait list, and a frustrating interface) and Amazon's Audible.com (which has a free 30 day trial and two free audiobooks, and if you try to quit it, they'll offer your three months at $8 a month). Astute readers may figure out that I already listened to the abridged version of World War Z back in January. Last week, I got another credit and decided to see what all the fuss about the Hunger Games is about.

Now, I have a lot I want to talk about today and don't want to end up with another 4,000 word update, so I'll save a more detailed review for later. In short, I really liked The Hunger Games. I thought the main character was interesting, I thought the names were brilliant (so brilliant that it will require an entire separate article to discuss), and that the pacing was very strong. Furthermore, I understand precisely how the author is manipulating me with each new development, but it's done well and it never distracts you from what's going on. I still had an emotional reaction (read: I actually felt the emotion she was going for) when the sweet innocent character might as well have been wearing a t-shirt that says "I will die a slow and painful death". Also, I found out that there's a federal law which stipulates that any book with a female protagonist must have two and precisely two love interests for her to pick between. But those are just nitpicks. I honestly liked The Hunger Games better than Harry Potter, because Suzanne Collins doesn't make up the ending as she goes along ("Magic cannot be used to bring back the dead, Harry. Except Buckbeak. We'll totally use the Time Twister to save Buckbeak." ~Albus Dumbledore)

What I'm Watching

Contrary to The Hunger Games, we're 7 seasons into this and we've yet to meet your mother. Still good.

 If you aren't watching How I Met Your Mother, you must either be in a place without enough electricity to power a television or a grad student who has work and class every week night. If you're the latter, watch the episodes online! If you're the latter, how are you reading this anyways?! HIMYM is tied with 30 Rock for my favorite comedy on TV right now. But unlike most comedy shows, HIMYM never designates one character to be the butt of every joke (like J.D. in Scrubs). There's not one character who's always right (like Elliot in the later seasons of Scrubs) and there's not one character who always ends up on top (like the Janitor in Scrubs). Basically, I'm saying this show is much better than Scrubs. The characters are outlandish enough to be entertaining but grounded enough that you can still relate to them. The most exaggerated character, Neil Patrick Harris's Barney Stinson, has significant abandonment issues and is struggling to be a better person in recent seasons (which also make for some of the most powerful episodes). But most of the time he is trying to sleep with as many women as possible and concocting elaborate schemes to do so. That said, Barney is totally going after a woman who is all wrong for him. DON'T DO IT BARNEY! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME THROUGH THE BLOGOSPHERE! ROBIN IS THE WOMAN FOR YOU!!!!

Man, that's probably the closest I'll ever experience being on Team "Love Interest's Name".

What I'm Playing

Yeah, bet you never would have guessed that.

So I could talk about Mass Effect 2, but I'm worried we'll have Mass Effect overdose. I've already had one dream this week where I was navigating a starship away from the Reaper Invasion. In a nutshell, I got my final "canon" import ready for Mass Effect 3. I've completed all the quests, saved all the people I wanted to save, blown up all the robot space stations I wanted to blow up, gathered all the guns I want to shoot, and introduced this strange emotion we call "love" to all the attractive alien women I wanted to (Captain Kirk style, awwwwww yeah). Bring it on, Mass Effect 3!