BioShock Infinite Goes Fourth: The Ending

Spoilers spoilers spoilers.

Spoiler.

We’ve come to the final chapter in our magical journey through BioShock Infinite.  If there are still any die-hard fans I haven’t yet alienated this blog post will probably be where we part ways, which is fine, because I’ll have nothing more to say about Infinite and we’ll be done here.  But please don’t take it personally.  I hope we can still be friends.

I mentioned in part 2 that Infinite left me wanting in the story department—I didn’t feel like the pacing allowed for the necessary emotional beats to be realized, meaning that the story never really seemed to get where it needed to go.  Elizabeth and Booker’s relationship was, sadly, a casualty of this rushed pace, and given the nature of the game that is a tragedy indeed.

The storybook Disney princess aspect of Elizabeth is marvelous and I dug her delight, her dresses, and her wide-eyed earnestness.  I’ve said previously that Songbird, properly used, would’ve played off this perfectly.  If done right, we would’ve questioned who was the more monstrous: Elizabeth’s captor, or the prince who saves her.

Sadly that intellectual venture is lost to us; possibly the writers were aware of it, and felt that to indulge in the at-times blatant Disneyfication would be to plant too many romantic tropes between Elizabeth and Booker.  Nevertheless I still felt those tropes were there, and in abundance—the guitar scene is a prime example.  In any film that scene is where the dude is suddenly struck by the chick’s traditional feminine beauty which, for some reason, he’s never noticed until now.

Was this beauty inside of her along??

The small bit we see of Booker is that he’s maybe mid-30’s, all gruff and sexy and rugged.  Elizabeth is 18 or 19, naïve and good-intentioned with a heaving bosom.  I spent approximately 15% of my game-playing energy willing them to make-out.

When Booker is revealed to be her dad I was disappointed for a number of reasons—which we will get into shortly—but also because it seemed to ignore any of the romantic tension I’d been so strongly picking up between them.  Maybe it was my imagination, of course—but if it was, then it was because several decades’ worth of tropes were conspiring towards it.  Maybe the writers knew that and were playing it up intentionally, or maybe it was a big mistake.  It’s unclear, and not really important, because there are other problems at work here.

The revelation of their relationship didn’t really any new dynamic to the tension between them. It seemed to kind of fizzle out with a toot, never going anywhere; there was no soppy father-daughter relationship or angry you-traded-me-for-money confrontation.  There was, perhaps, a sad resignation—which is a bit tragic in its own regard but I’m not even certain that it even really happened, because Infinite rushed us through the moments before we could be process any feeling.  The end result was that the two just grew less interesting as a team, rather than more so.

And what if the chemistry was intentional?  Perhaps it was their desire to make the player uncomfortable for having picked up on romantic cues.  If so, it didn’t work on me—they didn’t go far enough for me to feel squirmish and I honestly would much rather have the story go all Oldboy on me than watch whatever tension there was between Booker and Elizabeth evaporate into sad-eyed thin air.

INCEST IS BEST. Via tumblr.

But like I said, the Booker = Comstock revelation is disappointing for other reasons, as well.

It’s dumb when the good guy turns out to be the bad guy.  There are exceptions, of course (which I can’t list here because the spoiler warning is for BioShock Infinite only) but in general it tends to come across as clichéd and tired.  These days we generally expect our protagonists to be conflicted and plagued with inner demons, so coming out with a revelational “They could ALSO have been a bad guy!” is a bit redundant—it’s a plot twist best left to Golden Age comics and Disney Saturday Mornings, where our heroes are bright and shining and free.

In this case it’s particularly dangerous, because Booker suffers from white-guy-with-stubble syndrome and has little to offer us other than world-weary one-liners and a sexy jawline.  His only characteristic is “slightly disgruntled”.  Comstock, meanwhile, lacks conviction, insanity, or deviousness—the qualities we hope for and admire in a truly good villain.  The end result is a twist that tells us that one boring, bland character is actually another boring, bland character, seen through a different (also boring) lens.

We deal with Comstock frequently enough that his legions grow tiresome and he never seems to pose a threat—at least, not in the way Songbird does, and we’ve already talked about that.  So revealing that Booker and Comstock are one and the same provokes nothing more than a tired “Oh.  So what?”

That’s not, however, to say that it’s entirely without its merits.  Comstock’s death at Booker’s hands (screaming about abandoning his daughter) is a good moment.  It’s direct, it’s engaging, and we know immediately how to interpret it.  But that moment could have still existed without Booker being Comstock, OR Elizabeth’s father.

If we must include that duality of Booker-Comstock, it would have been far more interesting to pursue an incest route.  It’d be super-dark, of course, but hear me out:

Booker and Elizabeth develop a relationship slowly over the course of the game.  Comstock seems obsessed with his daughter (much more so, anyway), building statues in her honour, plastering her face all over the city.  When the truth is revealed, Booker sees his own romantic interest in her as being just as corrupt and vile as Comstock’s obsession and subjugation of her—and the duality serves better to crush Booker.

It’s a dark place, I don’t deny it.  But damn if it wouldn’t have been compelling.  And, perhaps, if Booker’s sins were greater, Comstock wouldn’t need to be a better villain—Booker would do all the work for him.

I’m not diminishing Booker’s crimes, of course—he participated in grisly massacres and sold his infant daughter—but he’s spent the course of the game redeeming himself for these crimes, via his journey through Columbia’s corrupt bowels and his relationship with Elizabeth.  By the time these infractions are revealed I’ve already forgiven him.  The darkness inside him must find a new way to be unleashed for the villainy to reflect back on Booker.

I am so full of hope for my bright and rosy future.

The other problem with the Booker-Comstock thing is that it makes no sense logistically.  When people move through the tears they absorb the memories of their counterpart in that world—thus the nosebleeds and the conflicting memories.  So why doesn’t Booker just absorb Comstock when he enters his world?  Also, why is Comstock so much older?  Are all the Bookers just pulled from 15-20 years earlier than the present Comstock?  (This may actually have an explanation:  perhaps poor old Booker drinks himself to death before he hits 40 in all non-Comstock dimensions.)

But I’ll often allow a plot hole or five if the rest of the idea is compelling enough; despite what my blog posts might lead you to believe, I am the forgiving sort.  So it’s just unfortunate that the duality displeased me for other reasons.  Alas!

But that aside, what of the ending itself?  The scene where all Bookers are drowned before he can become any Comstocks?

Well.  What indeed.  I’ve mentioned in other posts on this blog how much I believe in an assortment of endings—I think games should have dark endings and beautiful endings and sad endings, and when a happy ending doesn’t seem narratively appropriate, tuck it away somewhere anyway, because you never know when you might want it.

In Mass Effect, for example, I know Shepard has to make her own way and that way is best when it’s heart-breaking, but maybe when I’m replaying the game in a few years I’ll want to give Shep a happy ending, even though I know in my heart it can never be so.   But that’s Mass Effect, a non-linear multi-title epic full of love and friendship and betrayal and challenges. The choices are yours, and the ending should reflect that freedom.

BioShock Infinite is different.  There is one tale, and one tale only—and this isn’t a problem.  I take great pleasure in trusting a master storyteller, and I would love nothing more than a game that can make me feel heartbroken and changed.  So I am absolutely not suggesting Infinite should have a happy ending.  That would be an abomination. 

But in BioShock 2 (a game many condemned but which I feel Infinite pays a lot of debt to, thematically) Eleanor lives.  No matter what, Eleanor lives.

Our dear Elizabeth, however, must die–or rather, never exist in the first place.

There’s something infuriating about being told that all our hard work was for nothing.  That’s why we’ve grown out of deus ex machina storytelling; we want our heroes to earn their success or die trying; magical solutions can go to hell.  Infinite does not, exactly, take away our accomplishments—now there will never be a floating death city waging war from above on the unsuspecting nations of the world—but it does take away Elizabeth, and people find that truly upsetting.

I can’t really weigh in on this. As I’ve mentioned, Infinite alienated and abandoned me at so many places along the way that I couldn’t find myself in the ideal mindset to miss or mourn any of the characters (except for the Luteces, but they’re practically heaven incarnate).  But I can imagine that frustration and I do think it’s a valid point.

Does this mean video game stories are inherently limited? Can they have the freedom of books or movies, or will there always be certain endings that are off-limits because gamers don’t like putting in hard work for seemingly little reward?   While the past few years have introduced some really amazing storytelling in games I still feel like the field is very young, and only time will tell.

I suppose it’s time for some conclusive thoughts.  It has, after all, been a long journey.  In the end, despite everything I’ve said, I would recommend that people get BioShock Infinite because there’s so much going on it’d be sad to let it go inexperienced.  But I also think people need to adjust their criteria; glitz and glam does not a 94% game make; such a game requires foresight and a marriage of gameplay and storytelling that seems heaven-sent, not star-crossed.  Games and game storytelling have to struggle against the tight constraints of deadlines and budget cuts, and in such cases story is usually the first thing to get the shaft.  There’s naught to be done about this except demand better—hold out on giving those perfect reviews.  Someday a game will come along that sweeps us all of our feet, but let’s be romantics and wait until that day.

BioShock the Third, in which game mechanics are discussed

Spoilers continue.  We have back-to-back spoilers from coast-to-coast.   

(To those tuning in late, this is part 3 of a 4-part BioShock Infinite review.  Read part 1 and part 2, if you like!)

I’m not an expert or anything, but I do play a lot of games, and as my fascination with the relationship between gameplay and story can best be described as obsessive.  Let’s assume that this qualifies me to analyze gameplay as thoroughly as it does to dissect story.

I also come from the Net.

Politely, the gameplay in Infinite was, well, boring.  The game had to constantly remind me that  Vigors existed—which suggests that they’d had to put that reminder in precisely because test players were forgetting to use them.  Eventually upgrading Murder of Crows to include the Crows Trap Aid function did provide me with something but once I got a hold of a sniper rifle I never looked back—particularly because the enemies that were the most challenging (Handymen, Patriots) needed guns to be taken down quickly and effectively, not magic powers.  There was no incentive for using Vigors, thus I did not use them, which means that we had a FPS where all there was to do was shoot.

Which is not necessarily bad, of course.  Lots of shooters succeed with naught but a strong backbone of shooter mechanics and an impressive arsenal. Vigors were clearly included only as another spiritual throw-back to the original BioShock, forgetting, perhaps, that Plasmids added something to the story—were, in fact, a huge part of the story.  Vigors are not (which seems odd.  Hyper-religious cultists don’t have a weird relationship with their reserved brand of witchcraft?  Why not?)

They ought not to have been included at all, really. Magic powers are not required to make an FPS function or even breathe—and the world and story of Infinite were so compelling (save the faults mentioned in yesterday’s post) that were it even just a stripped-down point-and-shoot I would have still delighted in playing it.  But we can do better than that—surely, in today’s age, with a budget the size of Infinite’s, we can do slightly better.

And that’s where the tears come in.  The year is 2013 and it’s unfortunate to see a AAA title released with a game design element last seen in Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel for the PS2—which was criticized for its lack of inventiveness and generally considered to be lazy and underdeveloped.  Oops.  Two lazily-inserted elements does not a fleshed-out gameplay make, and rather than an interesting, faceted FPS with loads of killing options open to the player we have guns and guns and guns (well, two guns at any time) and useless stuff.  Alas!

I wanted the arenas to be more inventive.  Maybe in one area I could remove a dam which would unleash a flood of water, or I could bring out a barrel which, upon shooting, would leak gasoline that I could then ignite with a live spark from ANOTHER dimension … you get the idea.  Interesting, unique environments for each major show-down.  As the gameplay was pretty stripped down from the days of the original BioShock, having something a bit more puzzle-based, requiring a bit more foresight and planning and on-your-toes thinking, might have really made the game stand out as being more than just a point-and-pull-the-trigger kind of game.

Ultimately neither of these are the biggest issue, however.  As I mentioned briefly in the last blog post it felt like the setting suffered somewhat from the way the story was pulled forward—I was invited to consider pacifist solutions to encounters but then never actually given an opportunity to go ahead and do so.   There’s wonderful moments early on in the game—exploring the beach and then the slums—that are never really taken to the next level, or even revisited later in the game.  Shooting and killing is the bread and butter of Infinite and any attempt to get me to peacefully explore Columbia seems half-baked and, ultimately, discouraged.

I’ve heard others criticize this element so while I generally feel like the underdog when I disparage BioShock‘s narrative I suspect in this case I am at least on some sort of team.   The problem is that the story of BioShock is just too ambitious for traditional gunpoint narrative, and in parts where the story strains against the leash you can really feel that chafing.  There’s one scene where Booker picks up a guitar and begins to play while Elizabeth pops straight out of a Disney movie to caress the orphans and pluck at our heart strings.   The first-person made this seem decidedly sillier than it would in third, where Booker’s reaction to the scene would ultimately make or break it.  We don’t get Booker’s reaction, so instead I am just acutely aware of my own.

Columbia is such a detailed environment, and unlike Rapture it is actively populated; this means that Booker’s limited interaction with the world around him comes across at the best of times as frustrating (Come on!  Talk to that person!  Dammit, Booker!) and at the worst of times as actively dense. (Booker. Why are you waving your hand around like that.  People will SEE. STOP.)

THAT’S WHAT YOU GET.

This is where my lack of expertise comes in because I can’t say for certain whether this is the fault of the FPS medium or whether the FPS medium was simply used as an excuse to not get more ambitious.  The Uncharted series, although third-person shooters, have a similarly-linear-with-open-combat-arenas style and yet I never feel like Nate has neglected to properly engage with his surroundings.  Is there anything inherently about the first-person perspective that limits Booker from interacting with the world around him?

There’s a limitation in terms of dialogue, of course—as I mentioned in the scene with the guitar sometimes we need our character to react so we can understand the filter through which we are supposed to absorb the events of the game.  If Booker is into Elizabeth’s song then I will be much more open to it, as well.  In gameplay we have a certain tolerance for clue-providing level dialogue (made much more palatable by the presence of a companion to actually talk to) but there’s only so much we can do before the protagonist becomes a blabbering idiot.  With body language and facial reactions, the environment is permitted to come to life—courtesy of Booker and his amazing technicolour dream face.

So whether the FPS format is a limiting factor, to me, remains uncertain, but I do know that the game suffered from its linear storytelling and minimal interactions.  The world of Columbia doesn’t employ the ingenious environmental storytelling of Rapture—we’re force-fed it through stereoscopes and voxophones rather than absorbing it via osmosis.  But unlike Rapture the people of Columbia are still alive to show us how their world works, and yet we’re forced to interact with them minimally, and then not very well—as if on opposite sides of a pane of glass.  Perhaps FPS doesn’t lend itself well to this but it certainly doesn’t render it impossible.

With that aside, we have nothing left to discuss except for BioShock Infinite’s (in)famous ending.  I’ll be posting that on Friday, so stay tuned for the final chapter in my review!

BioShock, the Second: Expectations of Story

The Spoiler Warning continues!  Do not read unless you have either a) finished BioShock Infinite or b) don’t give a damn about me and this town.  Come on!

People like stories that shock or surprise them, so we’re always demanding the unique, the fresh, and the inspired.  But while it may feel counter-intuitive to admit it, there is a pattern to storytelling, a set of rules, essentially, and when someone disobeys these rules it is often for the worst.  Not all “uniqueness” is good.

There is a language of story, and most of us speak it fluently, whether we realize it or not.  In all societies we are raised on it;  it comes naturally to us, and when someone screws it up, it sounds strange and alien to our ears, though we might find it difficult to explain why.

Traditionally this pattern that we’ve come to expect can be visualized as the story arc.  We start with the introduction of our character, engage them with an inciting incident that turns their ordinary world upside-down, then we drag them uphill on a breathless voyage of increasingly higher stakes and drama before BAM, the climax, then the denouement.  The three-act structure is an especially effective for this format though, of course, neither the story arc nor a three-act structure are required for satisfying and engaging story to be achieved.

Though it does help the marketing department.

Sorry, is this sounding too much like school?  I’m getting somewhere, I promise.

Let me tell you a knock-knock joke.  You have to fill in the blanks yourself, of course, but I trust you’re an enthusiastic participant, so away we go:

Knock knock.

(…)

Little Old Lady

(…)

Like I said, story is something that we learn from an early age and whether we’re aware of it or not, we instinctively feel when something is amiss.  Sometimes it’s subtle, like when single word is missing, and we fill in the gaps ourselves.  Sometimes much bigger it is and it takes us a few reads before we’ve figured it out, and sometimes big problem on going with words.

Just like when we’re waiting for the punch line that never comes, when an important step is missing from a story we feel its absence.  Occasionally it means the story doesn’t make any logical sense, and we call these plot holes.  But sometimes it means that we’re missing an important piece of the narrative flow or character arc, where we feel like a shift in tone or theme has not been earned or justified.  This isn’t a mistake that causes any kind of error in the internal logic–nevertheless we’re left hanging, waiting with bated breath for that necessary step, and feeling betrayed when it never arrives. Far from wanting to be surprised, we expect story to behave in a certain way—and when it doesn’t, it’s jarring.

There is good surprise, and there is bad surprise—there is the plot twist that comes as the result of someone who speaks the language of story gloriously and shocks us with their poetry, and there is the surprise that comes from someone who has simply started babbling.  To quote Lemony Snicket:

“It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.”

Snicket was talking about bereavement, but the analogy works just the same here.

I take this very seriously.

With this ramble out of the way I can now properly introduce you to some of the problems with BioShock Infinite, of which, sadly, I feel there are many.  And I say “sadly” because this game was so close to being something truly wonderful and game-changing for me, so I’m taking its failure rather personally.  I’m very disappointed in you, BioShock.  Why don’t you go to your room and think about what you’ve done?

There are three major problems in the story of Infinite: Songbird, Columbia, and what I refer to as the Runaway Train.   This does not, of course, address any DLC, because ideally a game should stand on its own as a strong, full-bodied entity—not something gutted and awaiting completion.  Should the DLC plug any of these holes I have no doubt that it will then be a wonderful moment for all of us, but as it stands the bare game is swiss cheeseesque and, unfortunately, not nearly as delicious.

Songbird

Songbird is amazing.  Songbird is terrifying!  And from the snippets that Elizabeth gives us we’re lead to believe that Songbird has a heart and soul.   There’s enough clues from voxophone entries and the like that we can determine that Songbird is some kind of Handyman, made from technology stolen from Rapture, and those are all wonderful things.  But for some reason there are more voxophones giving the first Handyman a heart (through the recordings of his lovelorn wife) than there are details about Songbird.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not asking to be spoon-fed the life and times of a 60-foot behemoth.  That’s not important.  But I do want to feel fulfilled when Songbird dies at the end, satisfying Elizabeth’s wishes.  I want some hint as to how it (He? She?) might feel about this turn in its life.  I can tell from the language that the scene is supposed to be sad but no one seems to actually feel sad.  Elizabeth has lived with this creature for much of her life, and at times hints that Songbird was as much her playmate as her jailor.  Songbird’s death is treated not without compassion on her part but certainly without sadness, and that seems inappropriate.  There must be so much there.  It must be one of the most complicated relationships Elizabeth has.  Why don’t we feel that?

Considering Songbird plagues Booker throughout the game as a towering monster I think the obvious Beauty & the Beast imagery of Elizabeth and Songbird goes thoroughly unexplored; I don’t mean to get analytically wanky on you but the bird imagery extends to Elizabeth, as well, so the Jungian Animus seeds are clearly there—just unexplored.  Listen, I—I don’t want to get in to that.  Just read the wikipedia article or something and take my word for it that it’s interesting.

The whole thing is really just an unfortunate waste because, let’s face it, Songbird is the greatest villain the game has.  Comstock is no Andrew Ryan.  He’s not even as good as Sofia Lamb.  Far more emphasis is wasted on Elizabeth’s embittered relationship with the figment of Lady Comstock—which is dumb, because they never even met and ultimately Elizabeth wasn’t even her daughter anyway, so her mommy baggage was pointless.  Realistic?  Maybe.  Story-driving?  Not even a little.

Alas, poor Songbird. I barely knew the guy, Horatio.

Columbia

And if Songbird was unexplored, then so indeed was Columbia.  When the game proceeded to escalate through the tears I felt I’d barely touched down at all.   In BioShock we’re introduced to the world of Rapture after its demise has already unfolded, and we have to wade through the wreckage to piece it all together.  Nevertheless I felt that I was more involved, more intimate, and more familiar with Rapture and its residents, past and present, than I ever felt in Columbia.  And in Columbia you are, technically, present for their uprising!  Just not you—you know, the other you.  The more exciting you who starts a revolution.

Columbia, like Rapture, is such a fascinating place I actually want to go there,  bigoted Bible-thumpers be damned.  And the game tantalizes you with this mouth-watering idea that you may be able to interact with its denizens.  One of the early sequences, after you’ve been positively ID’d as No Good Ruffian of the Apocalypse and before you meet up with Elizabeth, you steal a shortcut through a house where you’re implored to think before you act and hold your fire.  I gladly did so—I’m an active pacifist both in real life and in game—only to discover that civilians I so graciously spared just stand there staring at you until Comstock’s men blow down the door and mow them down with John Deere efficiency.

Besides one other location—a side room reachable by skyhook where you can get an elixir from a man who declares himself your friend—there’s virtually no other opportunity to exercise this benevolence, and certainly no reward or consequence for doing so.  There’s a brief period of time when, separated from Elizabeth, you work your way through a shipping yard and combat is not required (but if you want to steal the cash in one of the rooms you do have to start murdering guards, as there is no stealth component to the game that allows you to distract them or do it sneakily.)   I don’t want to go into this in too much detail, as tomorrow I’ll be discussing some of the gameplay merits and weaknesses, but suffice it to say I was not pleased with the oversight.

Columbia is a city rich in detail and colour.  As those two unfortunately under-written interactions show there is a thriving conscience, underneath the thick layer of scum, desperate to be heard.  I want to explore this city—I want to meet its citizens and form alliances.  But rather than get to know the setting, I’m constantly yanked from it, forced into new Columbias before I even got to know the last one.  This leads me to my next point: the unfortunate Runaway Train.

The Runaway Train

From the first five minutes of the game I was left hooked and infatuated.  My thesis work, my deadlines, my social obligations—all were cast aside in favour of playing through Infinite as quickly as possible.  I loved Elizabeth, I both despised and hungered for Columbia, I thought Songbird was bitchin’ and Booker was damn sexy (albeit a a bit of a lava lamp.  Why didn’t he disguise his hand the second he saw the False Prophet poster?)  I was already planning to cosplay as Rosalind Lutece, even though I haven’t cosplayed since I was a teenager and I would need to con some poor sod into coming with me as Robert.  If I could have ground the game up into a fine powder and snorted it I would have done—only to go buy another copy and do it all over again.

Video games are a gateway drug.

So when I lament the story problems I do so with sincere regret and sadness.  This game was so close to being amazing.  But knock knock.  (…) Little old lady (…)

When you first go through the tear you are suddenly and violently introduced to a Columbia at war.  The change isn’t so noticeable at first—you have to walk back through the slums and even though there’s now signs of battle, that area of town didn’t look so good to begin with.  But I was immediately apprehensive.  What had happened?  Was the game much shorter than I’d been led to expect?  Why were dark days suddenly upon us—when Elizabeth dancing on the beach had only happened a blink ago?

It was a jump forward in the narrative arc that I was neither expecting nor ready for, but as the game progressed I thought I figured the lay of it.  I was still anxious, but I saw the way for Infinite to bring us back on course.  “Ah!” I thought. “This game is actually much longer than I’d been led to expect.”  I carefully put my anxieties aside and trusted in the story to get me where I needed to go.

As you make your way through the revolution and learn that in this world, Booker was a martyr, it all seemed pretty clear to me what would have to happen—especially after you talk to Daisy Fitzroy, who claims you couldn’t possibly be “her” Booker.  We were going to see all this.  Elizabeth would make her way back through a tear and we would return to the home universe—only this time, we’d be fully aware of the consequences of our actions.  If we stuck to the course Booker would be a martyr and Daisy Fitzroy would become corrupt—how could we change what had been foreseen?  How could we keep those two things from happening?  That is, after all, the thrust of the Elizabeth-gets-kidnapped plot device later in the game.

It’s one thing, in BioShock, to be thrown into a world after the party and have to figure out who went home with whom.  It’s another entirely to pass out before the guests arrive and wake up to learn that you won the dance contest in your sleep.   Other Booker gets to lead the revolution—Other Booker gets to possibly have a tryst with Fitzroy, who is probably really bad-ass if the game would give her a chance to be.  But this Booker gets none of those things—this Booker gets thrown from interesting Columbia into dismal, third-act Columbia when we haven’t even gotten to the second act yet.

I’ve mentioned the possibility that DLC might fill a gaping wound or two—I suspect a DLC episode will feature Other Booker and his rise to fame under Fitzroy’s leadership.  But Other Booker is just some schmuck—our Booker leads no revolutions, barely speaks to Fitzroy, and instead just gets nosebleeds.

This is the Runaway Train.  It’s a first act that feels like a third act.  It skips the natural progression of a storyline revolving around fate and inevitability—it misses opportunities to question its own themes—and also falls short of the necessary emotional progression required for us to feel satisfied with each step of the story.  What difference does it make that Booker died a martyr in that world?  Booker seems unaffected by the revelation—he brushes it off,  his hard, stubbled jaw unscathed by self-doubt—and learns nothing from the development.

Furthermore the character’s goals feel less like sincere desires and developments and more like phantom carrots dangled half-heartedly at the end of a loose string. They never return to Daisy with the weapons they promised her, which makes that step of the game feel like a fruitless quest; the characters are simply sent aimlessly from one area to the next in pursuit of a goal that neither matters nor seems memorable (Wait, what are we doing?  Oh yeah. Weapons.)  Many people had a similar complaint about the ending (which we will discuss in a couple of days) but I was already feeling it here, relatively early on—dragged on before I was ready.

These are some of the elements that keep me from ever giving Bioshock Infinite anything near the 94% it has on Metacritic.  The story abandoned me, left me waiting for the punchline that never came.  No catharsis can be achieved from a storyline that runs along without you.   You can’t breathe a sigh of relief if you’re too busy panting to keep up.

But as we will discuss, Bioshock Infinite had more than just story problems.  Join me tomorrow as I look at the gameplay, and how Infinite’s attempts to be a spiritual successor caused more harm than good.

PS: I didn’t know you could yodel.

BioShock Infinite, The First: Blood & Gore

I’ve wanted to write a review/analysis/critique (what have you) of BioShock Infinite for approximately a billion years but it was hard to get my thoughts all in a tidy little order.  I have, perhaps unfortunately, a buttload (the abbreviation for one unit of buttload is bd) of things to say on the matter, and it was difficult to find the time to say them until I  thought “Wait a second, this does not need to be one blog post.  In fact, it can be—joy of joys!—many!

BioShock Infinite was released to amazing reviews and relatively minor controversy (Trigger Warning: Face goo).  Developer/dramaturg Ken Levine gave an interview which is worth a listen, but some of the things I’ll be talking about will address the various criticisms levied against Infinite—both good and bad. I have lots of things to say about this game, so in the next few days we can look forward to me talking about the following things: 1) Violence AKA Face goo; 2) the Expectations of Story; 3) Gameplay; and 4) The Ending.

Clearly your days will be rich with wonder.

As the Kotaku article suggests, the violence in BioShock Infinite defines the gameplaying experience for  more than a few players, so let us begin with that. 

If you read that article you get a pretty good idea of what quite a few people were saying about the game.  If you don’t want to read it, here’s the gist of it: the game plays like a masterpiece until about an hour in, where it risks alienating players by being too violent and gory.

I’ve never personally been adverse to violence, particularly of the stylized, cartoony variety that Infinite has on offer (and it has a lot).  In fact I’m pretty sure I’m a shining counter to the Video-Games-Cause-Violence pundits as my appetite for fake violence could be described as ravenous, while so much as watching someone get punched in the face is enough to make me sick to my stomach  (the aversion hypnotherapy I recently underwent probably doesn’t help).  So it’s worth noting that while I generally feel Infinite’s violence was perfectly fine, I also think the scene in Hannibal where Lecter feeds Ray Liotta his own brains is pretty much the greatest moment in cinematic history.

Sup

But to flesh out my perspective, let’s actually visit the moment.  I’m an atheist, so I’m inclined towards immediate and intense distrust of religious dogma. Columbia put me more on edge than the Spider Slicer at the beginning of BioShock just by virtue of its candles and hymns and people calling me brother.

Nevertheless Columbia grew on me quickly, even despite the baptism and crazy people praying to statues of the Founding Fathers.  Before long I was mentally how-dee-doing and tipping my hat to its fine citizens.  I liked Lady Comstock’s “Without sin, what grace has forgiveness?” quote and despite my deep dislike of religion I am a sucker for early 20^th-century Evangelical imagery, replete with “Hallelujahs” and “Praise the Lords”.    In fact I was eventually feeling so good about Columbia I even honoured the honour system and paid for the things I bought from a shop—even though it was clear Booker would not do such a thing, and I’m usually loathe to do something against character lest I ruin a carefully-crafted arc.

So the moment when all Hell breaks loose was, to me, an emotional mindjob.  I’m sitting there reveling in the glory of this floating city, the pretty girl with the raffle balls is flirting with me all sweet-like—and then within about thirty seconds everything that I felt was delightful and wonderful is turned completely upside down.  It happens so quickly that I only have time to think “Wait a second, why is it a baseball? Oh God No—” before sure enough an interracial couple is wheeled out for the world’s amusement and then I have to murder a guy by turning his face into anachronistic chop suey.  It’s totally raunchy, and it works amazingly well.

As mentioned I am rarely disturbed by fake violence, and in fact if there was anything that turned my stomach it was the flirting raffle girl, retroactively, as I discover what she was so excited about.  But the entire moment, over before I could even be sure it was really happening, helped to take this city that I was falling in love with and immediately turn it into Hell incarnate.  I’m sure it’s no stretch, given the imagery and themes of the game, to suggest that this is exactly what the writers intended.  So … well done, Irrational.

Would the moment be as effective if the violence were removed?  I suspect that yes, it would—because as I mentioned it wasn’t even the thing I found most disturbing.  But as a friend of mine suggested when we were discussing the game, the violence is important for another reason: it tells us, relatively early on, that Booker DeWitt is the kind of guy who would make confetti out of another man’s face.  Granted it’s in the heat of the moment, but just like Jack in BioShock injecting himself with magical glowy substance without any indication that he should, Booker reacting with lightning speed to murder a man in a particularly grisly fashion tells us something.

FPS character moments are extremely difficult to achieve.  We almost never see Booker’s face and while he has a voice the camera and gameplay constantly suggest that it is our hands at work, and thus our voice behind the hands.  I could empathize with a stickbug it the story is compelling enough so if the game turns on, I am Booker.   So finding ways to give us hints and insights into who these characters are is clever and useful.  The violence is one of those moments—if we took it away, Booker would be a different man.

Maybe this one.

I will leave you on that note for today, because tomorrow’s post is going to be … quite a bit longer.  And grumpier.  Listen, just get ready for it.

 

– Shannon

Shakespeare in Context, for Your Listening Pleasure

I just finished listening to a BBC Radio 4 series that aired over the summer, called Shakespeare’s Restless World. It combines artifacts, interviews, and play excerpts to illustrate the world that Will and his bros lived in and how it informed his work.

It’s twenty episodes of about 14 minutes in length and I highly recommend giving the series a listen. You can listen to them at the above link, or download the podcast here.

(Do I need to put in a disclaimer that I don’t get anything from BBC Radio for this post? Just thought all you booklubbers would in enjoy it as much as I did!)

“We’re All Mad Here”

In a world of madness, the only sane character is the Cheshire Cat. He has a few distinguishing features, one of these being the philosophical and rational manner in which he speaks and interacts with Alice.

The Cat is the only character to speak plainly to Alice and points out how her way of thinking belongs in Wonderland much more than she believed. This is most evident in their conversation over which way to go, showing his awareness of the world around him. He gives Alice directions, which no other character is capable of doing, lost as they are in their own madness.

Though the Cat calls himself mad, it is a sign of insanity to not know when one is mad, so by the tilted logic of Wonderland, the Cat is telling Alice that he is a voice of reason amid the sea of illogical things that surrounds her. When he tells Alice that she is mad for coming there, it is an observation the reader has been waiting for, having experienced her form of logic, innocent and bizarre enough to rival that of Wonderland.

The Cat is unafraid in a world where lives are threatened by a mad monarch, because he has figured out how survive by exploiting the irrational rationality of the Wonderland denizens. This is illustrated by his choice to only have his head appear when in the realm of the Red Queen, knowing her habit of beheading bystanders, and knowing the conundrum a head without a body would present to the simple-minded court.

The only one who observes with honesty is the Cheshire Cat, and he does so unabashedly, for he has nothing to fear. When he meets Alice, he finds one who straddles the line of sanity and madness, and even as he pushes her toward a conclusion of madness, he shows her the simple logic of clear-thinking.

-Al

Stay tuned for an illustrated Grimm tale plus structure analysis! (way cooler than it sounds) 

The Misogyny Thing

This blog post isn’t really about literature.  Just so you know.

I’ve been wanting to write this post and weigh in on this issue for a long time, but it was hard to really find the words.  I was coming from a place of pure anger and rage and, while I am still infuriated (fury is kind of my bread and butter these days), I needed to find the time to sit down and write this clearly.

I haven’t managed to keep up fairly regularly with this blog so this may come as a surprise to some readers, but just let me establish some ground rules: prejudice is not okay.  Racism is not okay.  Religious intolerance is not okay.   Homophobia is not okay.  All of these things are tremendously fucking awful and the fact that they still exist is mind-boggling and indicative of some great poison at work.

But for a while there, it really looked like we had the sexism thing mostly under control.   There was still obviously a lot to be done but we were moving forward.   But then the internet came along and suddenly there are a whole bunch of misogynists coming out of the woodwork, and it’s like we’ve barely accomplished anything at all.

Just to anticipate what you might be about to declare: I am terribly naïve.  I thought the few remaining racists in Canadian and US society were crackpots and that eventually that problem would take care of itself.  I thought that, sure, there were some misogynists, but they were crazy, and of no harm to anyone as long as they were ostracized by society, as they ought to be.

I know now that there are so many people who still live a life fueled by hate—so many people it makes me breathless to think about it.  I know now that I was the crazy one.  But really?  I’m the crazy one?  How the fuck does that work?

There have been a lot of bloggers who have thrown their hand into this and I’m going to say right now that there’s nothing I can say that they haven’t said better. Helen Lewis put my exact thoughts quite simply and elegantly, and Anita Sarkeesian is amazingly effective at expressing herself in as level-headed a way as possible.  I am completely incapable of saying anything without blood and bile building up in every word, so there’s no way I could actually add something new to this conversation.

But it doesn’t matter, because it has to be said.   And that’s what this blog post is about.

What’s Happening

Just to back-track a little and give people some background information.  If you’re not aware, misogyny has made a comeback.  In the past couple of years there has been a huge surge—mostly on the internet, but sometimes in real life, as well—of men (and women!) hating on women, for no reason other than that, well, they’re women.

A few months ago Capcom held a Street Fighter gaming tournament wherein a team leader frequently attacked a female player with lewd and sexual comments.  When asked about his behaviour, he defended it as “part of the community.”  That’s right, folks—this guy said that sexual harassment was part of the community.  It was almost like he was implying that it was an enriching part of tournament culture?  Or something?  But don’t take my word for it—please feel free to read up on it here.

And believe it or not the guy has defenders.  There are actually people who agree with him that sexual harassment is a good thing.  Are we even living in the same universe?  Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Following that (and perhaps even in response to it), Anita Sarkeesian started a Kickstarter to fund a web documentary series looking into the roles of women in video games.  Anita is perhaps known to you already for being an excellent spokesperson for the Bechdel test and so, while I found her pitch video to be surprisingly impartial, you can see how a lot of misogynists would already be dead-set against her.  After all, Anita is everything they hate: educated, well-spoken, authoritative … and female.

I won’t go into this in too much detail—you can read all the sordid details on her Kickstarter page, and a simple Google search will be … unfortunately revealing.  But suffice it to say that Anita was attacked viciously, pointlessly, and without remorse.  She was issued death threats, rape threats, torture threats—because she wants to make a fucking video series about video games.

Really?  Really.

Recently feminist writer Steph Guthrie posted her own blog post where she takes one of Anita’s critics to task and she, too, was met with similar treatment—forcing her to go so far as to file a report with the police.

And it’s not just the video game industry.  This blog post was brought to my attention this morning, and it has nothing to do with video games.

I get that comedians are often an incendiary crew.  We laugh because we find something shocking, and it can often be tricky to find the stuff that shocks in the right way.  But if Tosh’s set  had been something along the lines of “Lynching is always funny.  Isn’t lynching funny?  Don’t you think lynching is hilarious?” and a black man had shouted from the audience “Um, no it isn’t”—how do you think Tosh would have responded?  “Wouldn’t it be funny if five white guys just got up and lynched him right now?  Wouldn’t  that be hilarious?”  I don’t fucking think so.  Why?  Because that’s disgusting.

So why the shit is this kind of behaviour towards women suddenly allowed?  Why is this Tosh guy trying to suggest that it should be?  And why the fuck would an audience give him permission to make it so?

The Defenders

It’s not the fact that death threats are issued or that misogynists exist that make this horrifying.  There will always be trolls spouting insults in order to provoke a reaction, and there will always be crazy people who will latch onto any person of notoriety.  What’s shocking about this is the sheer volume of threats these women receive.

And there are some people who argue that this is normal; that this is how everyone is treated.   It’s not.  When a man plays a competitive gaming tournament he’s going to encounter a lot of things—and a lot of them will be about his rape (a product of homophobia in the competitive gaming ‘community’, which is also a major problem).  But a man playing a gaming tournament is not asked to undress.  He’s not asked whether his penis tastes good, or whether it can be touched.   Lewd talk is used in order to make him feel embarrassed and demeaned in front of his peers, yes, but he’s not whittled down to being nothing more than a collection of constituent parts.  He’s not equated to a fleshlight.

If a man issues his opinion on Youtube or a blog or Twitter, he can expect trolls and naysayers.  He can expect people to insult his integrity and his morals, and do so in the crudest way possible.  But he doesn’t expect to get rape threats for his opinions, or told that his opinions are invalid simply because of his gender.  No one says “What the fuck do you know, anyway?  You’re a man.  Get back in the garage where you belong.”

So what?  I’ve basically just clarified that men and women will BOTH be insulted—why are women complaining?

Because it’s the nature of the insults.  Exponential volume aside, the nature of insults against men is to demean them, questioning their value as a person.  The nature of insults against women is to imply that they are not people.  That they are objects to be possessed, dismantled, or thrown away—and thus their opinion is invalid.  And this is symptomatic of a larger issue: that women aren’t as respected and acknowledged as men.  Some people—some police officers!—still blame the victim’s behaviour for triggering a rape, despite all evidence to the contrary.  Some of the men attacking women like Anita and Steph say that it is, in fact, men who are oppressed, and that they are simply retaliating.  What the fuck.

Where You (And I) Fit In

This isn’t okay.  This can’t happen.  It’s important that this doesn’t happen to anyone—for their sexuality, religion, race, or gender.  I didn’t write this blog post because I had anything new to say on the matter; I wrote it because I need to add my voice to the outrage.  To deny someone the freedom to express themselves—to prevent them from doing so with fear and intolerance—is absolutely unacceptable.  The fact that we even have to have this discussion is mind-blowing, but it’s happening, and here we are.

It doesn’t matter who you are.   You can’t be “on the fence” about an issue like this.  If you think it’s wrong, then you have to stand up and let yourself be heard.  I was once naïve because I thought most people were good and the people who weren’t  were a grotesque minority.  Everyday someone strives to prove me wrong.

Don’t let them.  Stand against intolerance.  Be vocal.   I don’t know what the end result will be—but you are not allowed to do nothing.  Your silence is not a virtue.

 

– Shan

The Hunger Games Again.

I know, I know. Another Hunger Games post? This will be the last one unless I illustrate the notes i took of the first seven chapters. PROMISE.

So I’ve become a little obsessed with them because on paper, I should like them: dystopia; rebellion; warrior girl lead; sweet and non-controlling (for the most part), non-macho love interest; ARCHERY—I should really like the series. Part of why I don’t, I’m sure, is because its popularity is exploding now and I can just see all the teenage girls picking up archery because now it’s COOL. Ugh. Anyway, back to the story.

Last night I saw the movie and it changed everything. It was well done (if somewhat distastefully directed in the overuse of shaky-cam and extreme close-ups—but it also gave space and silence when it needed to, so that was good), and it fixed the things in the book that were my biggest annoyances.

In the movie, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) emotes. There is no reader to lie to and the intensity of her bottled emotions shines through, and just how overwhelmed she is with all of what she’s been thrust into. In the book, the unreliable narrator is fun and refreshing at first, but it gets taken so far that it becomes frustrating. The only way we get a glimpse of Katniss’s true emotions are by the physical descriptors she gives (heart beating faster when she kisses Peeta, for example). We can’t trust what she speaks aloud, nor her actions, because once she’s in the arena, she must exercise extreme control, lest she betray herself. Her human moments, when she lets her guard down, are when we connect to her: when she sings to Rue, when she panics and searches for Peeta after the cannon for Foxface, and of course when she volunteers to protect her sister. All of the rest of the time, she has walls up between herself and the reader. It’s the first of a series, maybe she stops hiding herself from us by the end of the third book, to that I can’t speak to yet (yeah, I’ll read the other two eventually, the movie convinced me).

The Haymitch/Katniss interactions were much improved in the movie. The notes that went with the gifts made it more overt that Katniss must play at romance, and less of the Crazy Conspiracy Katniss interpretations that we get in the text. What was interesting, was that without Katniss telling the reader that she’s only pretending at liking Peeta, she comes across as genuinely falling for him, which I think is what happens in the book, she just doesn’t let herself admit it.

The “girly moments”: in the movie it is way more clear that Katniss is in control of herself the whole time at the interview, that the twirl is calculated and while she may have fun with it, it is strategic. In the book, she just seems to get into the whole cute dress thing, which does not feel true to the character.

Rue was amazing in the movie, completely loved her and she was exactly as I imagined her. I kept waiting for the bread from District 11 to come, but it never did. Instead, there was a riot, which may foreshadow the what comes next in the series, but on its own didn’t contribute much to the story in the movie, which is contained for the last half to the arena. It also took away from Rue’s death; the bread is a gesture of love, the riot an act of violence. The arena is Katniss’s whole world for the duration of the Games and showing us a riot takes us out of that intensity. It was bound to happen, though, because they had to show the game master and the president, Haymitch getting sponsors, and Gale being moody.

The creepy genetically modified dog-people. Now they’re just really big attack dogs without traces of the other tributes in them. So happy about that. Seriously. That was the weirdest moment in the book. Massive WTF moment at a climax that should’ve been intense in other ways. Sure, this way Katniss mercy-kills Cato rather than murdering him, but that’s just a cop-out on what could’ve been an incredible character moment. But that’s just me, I’m all about characters facing the consequences of actions and ego and as a result maturing and changing (see: the entirety of The Wizard of Earthsea). But Katniss doesn’t have an internal struggle like Ged, so I should end this digression before it goes much further. Back to movie/book discussion…

Being a first person narrator, Katniss doesn’t give us a lot of visuals of District 12. It’s a mining town, it’s poor, okay. The set design brought District 12 to life in a way that Katniss’s words didn’t. So I was impressed with the movie from the start, which may have lent to my loving the rest of it.

One last thing: Foxface was amazing.

-Al

An Alternate Perspective on Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games [Guest Blog]

[This is a reply to this post. Here at Booklubbers we strive to present all points of view, because the one thing we all have in common is that we freaking love books and want to create informed readers.]

My good friend Allison recently wrote an essay about The Hunger Games and its take on feminism. While Allison and I agree on many things, and are both outspoken supporters of feminism and lovers of books, it seems on this point that we are divided.

While I’m not a screeching fan, and the trilogy is not in my top ten, I still really enjoyed The Hunger Games. The writing style left much to be desired, but I found the story to be refreshing in its moral ambiguity and presentation of both societal and political issues, one of them being feminism. Now, I’m no stranger to this issue, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a flat and one dimensional female lead (*cough*Bella*cough*), but I just don’t think Katniss fits that bill. Let’s jump right into why, shall we?

Usually, when I get into these types of debates, I hear the following: “main female character x is not a ‘strong woman’ because of y. Ergo, book z is antifeminist.” I am awfully sick of this argument for two reasons.

1. Female characters are just that – characters. A well rounded, multidimensional character is going to display a variety of personality traits, some of which are going to be negative and some of which are going to be weak. They also make mistakes, do shitty things, and get deceived. Sometimes they’re evil, sometimes they’re good, sometimes they manipulate, and sometimes they are self-sacrificing. A strong female character does not need to be perfect, and an imperfect character is not weak.
2. What, exactly, do people mean when they say ‘a strong female character’? It’s such an incredibly vague term. Let me give you my litmus test for whether a character can be considered strong. Generally, she must be capable, she must be proactive, and she must be willing to fight for what she believes in. Notice that I didn’t mention anything about gendered behavior. That’s because I firmly believe a strong female character can also be stereotypically feminine. She can twirl in a dress and giggle and still be strong. It is the actions and choices a character makes that define them, not whether they like pink nail polish.

So, given that, let’s take a look at Katniss and the other female characters of The Hunger Games trilogy.

Is Katniss capable?: Absolutely. She single handedly takes care of her family prior to the Quell, is deadly with her weapon of choice, and resourceful enough to survive the Games as well as the Capitol. Yes, she receives guidance. Gale teaches her how to snare animals, a particular talent of his, and in return Katniss teaches Gale how to shoot a bow, a particular talent of hers. They share skills and benefit from one another’s strengths. In the Capitol, Katniss has both male and female teachers in the art of gaining the Capitol’s affections and becoming a popular tribute. She is a poor girl from a rural district that she has never been outside of before. To expect her how know how to behave in the Capitol without any guidance is unrealistic. In the arena, Katniss proves her capability time and time again – the escape from the Cornucopia, the allegiance with Rue, dealing with the Career’s stockpile, saving Peeta – etc., etc. She is a very capable young lady.

Other female characters that are portrayed as capable: Rue, Glimmer, Primrose (later books), Coin, Johanna, Effie Trinket, Maysilee, Mags, Foxface, Gloss.

Is Katniss proactive: Generally, yes. My definition for proactive would be: when presented with a crisis, do they allow others to solve it or do they take an active part in the solution. There are times, especially after the second book, when she becomes reactive, but given a major and catastrophic plot point and that fact that Katniss is suffering from a head injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, I think this temporary passivity can be excused. I know, I know: “What about the time in the Capitol! All of her decisions are being made for her! She sure is being reactive there, isn’t she, Alyssa?” Sure, you could look at it that way. However, had I been in Katniss’ shoes, I would have done pretty much the same thing – listened to the advice of those who had been through the Games before and tried to manipulate the Capitol enough for a decent chance at survival, even if that meant twirling in a dress and giggling. And there is, of course, the scene during the pre-game private session, though in my mind that was less a conscious action than a rash flare of temper that benefited her in the end.

Other female characters that are portrayed as proactive: Rue, Glimmer, Primrose (later books), Coin, Johanna, Effie Trinket, Maysilee, Foxface, Mags

Does Katniss fight for what she believes in?: Without question. What Katniss believes in most is the preservation of those she loves. She fights for her sister, she fights for her and Peeta’s survival, and she fights to keep her family alive in later books. Yes, later on she also begins to care about overthrowing the Capitol, but that never overtakes her belief in keeping her loved ones alive, and that is what she fights for time and time again.

Other female characters that fight for what they believe in: Primrose (later books), Coin, Johanna, Mags, Effie Trinket, Rue (bit of a stretch, but I think it’s backed up by info in later books).

So, is she a strong female character? Yes, by my estimation, she is. That doesn’t mean that I think Katniss is a morally sound character. She acts selfishly and manipulates those around her, but I can empathize with her motivation – the love of family. I’m also not arguing that Katniss will be likable to everyone. She frustrated me, and several times I just wanted to pound her head against a wall, but, ultimately, I found her sympathetic. Many people hate her guts, though, and while I don’t agree, I can understand why.

Finally, I just want to address some other issues raised by my esteemed friend:

But it does want you to not be true to yourself and play to the games of others…I think a message of being strong and independent was lost in the need to play to the wills of others.

I think that manipulation, lying, and wearing masks is a prevalent theme in this book. However, I disagree with Allison in that I don’t think it is encouraged or seen as a positive trait. Katniss is praised for this behavior, but it’s never described as a good thing, it’s never fun, and Katniss never enjoys it. In the end of The Hunger Games, it is Katniss’ pushing back against these forces and standing her ground that allows her and Peeta to survive – and brings her grief and trouble in the next book.

It’s a reflection of the world we live in, because like it or not, every adult has experienced this pressure from society. The only difference is that in Panem, not playing this game will get you killed. I think it’s realistic to have Katniss push and struggle, yet still be swept along by the machinations and wills of others. The message we should take away isn’t that she didn’t always succeed, but instead that she kept moving forward and standing for what she believed in, even when others just wanted to reduce her to a puppet.

Disclaimer here: I’ve only read the first of the series. I don’t plan on reading the other two, though, because a) the first ended dropping the heavy gauntlet of a y/a love triangle (shoot me now).

Like you said, love triangles sell books. However, this one is far from the example Twilight sets. For Katniss, her family is her first priority, and she generally has more important things to worry about than which boy she is going to choose. She does focus on this a bit in the second book because she wants to stop manipulating Peeta, but the books hardly center on it the way they do in most YA fiction.

Katniss does make a choice in the end, though, and it’s for a far more compelling reason than the ‘we’re meant for each other’ that is often used. I agree that YA should move away from this trope.

And apparently there are no women in positions of power in this fictional world.

Actually, a major political figure and source of the rebellion is a woman.

The aspect that I disliked the most was that whenever Katniss was suddenly “girly”–like twirling around in a dress or giggling. She kept getting praise for that and it seemed to overshadow everything else, like her strength and cunning. While she does display a great deal of these traits, they seem to get lost in her need to “play the game,” to fabricate emotions for Peeta just so she can get some much-needed supplies from the outside world.

I’ve already said that I don’t think displaying femininity makes a character weak, but Katniss is rewarded several times for her strength, cunning, and non-gendered behavior. She receives a score of 11 for the arrow stunt, she is rewarded with bread by District 11 for her compassion and strength, Haymitch compliments her on her fight when she and Peeta confront him in the train. Again, just because she is praised for being manipulative and playing the game, does not mean that it is presented as a good thing to the reader. A necessary thing, maybe, but it is not positive – Katniss hates it, and in the end, makes a stand for what she wants, rather than going along with the Capitol in order to ensure her own survival.

I don’t want readers to take away from this response that I think Katniss is a heroine for the ages. She’s not. She is, however, not a weak character and should not be put into the antifeminist cesspool of literature where the likes of Twilight and that book by Snooki hang out.

For anyone who wants to discuss this further, you can reply below or contact me at whirlable@gmail.com . I hope I provided a valuable, if different, insight into these books, and if not, well, there’s five minutes you’ll never get back.

Why Katniss Isn’t a Great Role Model (but is better than some)

But it does want you to not be true to yourself and play to the games of others. I’d like to think that this a statement on the part of the author to bring this issue to light. I’ve always been uncomfortable with people putting forward false faces and lying just to get ahead, and to find this behaviour in a book for kids was fairly disturbing. There were times when I could relate to Katniss–she’s a tough chick, self-sufficient–but so many times I wanted to shake her by the shoulders for some really idiotic moves that she makes. Sure, this is common in literature, but I think a message of being strong and independent was lost in the need to play to the wills of others.

But I didn’t hate the book. I read most of it in a single day, because I just couldn’t put it down. That’s part of good writing, but it’s isn’t all of it. I’d rather read a book that I HAVE to put down periodically, due to it being a story with tough concepts and emotionally-taxing moments. That said, The Hunger Games was well-paced, the characters were generally sympathetic, and it kept me turning the pages. Even though I was rooting for Peeta, Rue, and Thresh the whole time.

Disclaimer here: I’ve only read the first of the series. I don’t plan on reading the other two, though, because a) the first ended dropping the heavy gauntlet of a y/a love triangle (shoot me now), and b) a friend in child education told me about the anti-feminist red flags that pervade the sequels. Basically, she pointed out that Katniss may have won the Games, but in her world she’s still a girl and needs to be protected, can’t do anything herself, is merely a figurehead. And apparently there are no women in positions of power in this fictional world. I can’t attest to the accuracy of that, as I haven’t read the sequels. The aspect that I disliked the most was that whenever Katniss was suddenly “girly”–like twirling around in a dress or giggling. She kept getting praise for that and it seemed to overshadow everything else, like her strength and cunning. While she does display a great deal of these traits, they seem to get lost in her need to “play the game,” to fabricate emotions for Peeta just so she can get some much-needed supplies from the outside world.

I will give Suzanne Collins the benefit of the doubt on one thing: maybe she made Katniss only the figurehead of the rebellion to show her frustration at not being able to come into her true power, of being held back by The Man. If that were the case, then I’d like to see her break free from that and shine.

That’s what I’m hoping is the case, but I’m not going to read them to find out. I love dystopia books, rebellions, and all that good stuff, but I can’t overlook how Collins cripples feminism. I might’ve given them a chance—just for the sake of the story—if it weren’t for the use of the y/a love triangle trope all over again. We’ve been over this too many times before: girl meets guy, then meets another guy, suddenly love for both of them, and both are requited, but who to choose? Why not choose yourself, Katniss. I want to see young adult fiction evolve away from this. I get that the love triangle angle sells to young teens these days, but we need to give them an alternative and show them that it’s okay to not have men chasing them, that they can be independent and strong on their own.

Just like I’m still waiting to come across a good Steampunk book written in the last two decades, I’m waiting for a modern series with a kick-ass lady lead to take mainstream readers by storm. Katniss is a step in the right direction, but the nature of her flaws undercut her strength as a character. Kick-ass women should not be so rare, and we should not have to feel grateful for whatever we get in this genre. That kind of thinking will keep readers from being discerning, from demanding more and better from writers.

What’s your favourite young adult series with a strong female lead? We’ve got Hermoine—who else is out there? Tell us in the comments.

For Shan’s take on Katniss, check out her post on Non-Characters.

If you disagree with our take on Katniss or the Hunger Games, send us an email at booklubbers at gmail and we might just have you write a guest post for us expressing your view on the matter.
-Al

This post has been edited for clarity. 3/23/12

EDIT: 3/16/12: A Reply, because our ultimate goal is to create informed readers.