This post was inspired by Zen Scribbles’s recent post Jack Did Not Have To Die!
Today we will be discussing something near and dear to my heart: when authors kill off beloved characters for no good reason.
Now, obviously authors can do whatever they want. If they want to kill off half their characters, that’s their choice. But what I implore authors to do before they start knocking off characters left and right is to consider the audience they’re writing for, and consider what impact these deaths will have on their readers.
Example #1: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Deaths include, amongst others, Hedwig the Owl, Fred Weasley, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks.
Why was it a bad idea to kill these characters? Because the entire series thus far had been about good overcoming evil — the idea that, if you’re true to your principles and willingly help others and try to do the right thing, you will succeed. This was a wonderful message to send to children … at least, until they read book 7 and found half their favourite characters dead.
Sirius Black’s death served a purpose — it was to teach Harry caution, to make him think things through before blindly jumping in. Dumbledore’s death forced Harry to man up and get s**t done. But Fred Weasley’s death served no purpose. Lupin and Tonks didn’t even get a death scene. And what purpose could there possibly be in killing off a fluffy owl?
I know that JKR was trying to impress upon us the horrors of war, but I feel that could have been done in a different way. Perhaps maim them, like she did to George and Bill Weasley. George RR Martin (Game of Thrones) can kill off all the characters he wants because that’s the world his story is set in, that’s the genre he’s writing for. But Harry Potter isn’t a gritty political intrigue — it’s about a boy hero facing down true evil and winning. And I believe that senseless deaths have no place in a series like that.
Example #2: Mockingjay (Book 3 of the Hunger Games)
Deaths include, amongst others (SPOILER ALERT), Finnick Odair and Primrose Everdeen.
Now, Finnick’s death I sort of understand, much as I’d rather not — he was deep within a warzone, after all, so death was a very real possibility. But Primrose’s death? Ridiculous. There was no good reason for her to be in Capitol when those bombs went off. She’s a child, for God’s sake. She should have been safely back in District 13 — by all logic, she would have been. And yet, there she was when President Coin’s ridiculous plan to explode everyone happened.
The point of her death, I assume, was to … um … screw up Katniss even more than she was already? I think Peeta’s alarming mental instability and constant attempts to kill Katniss had already screwed her up sufficiently — killing off her sister was just unnecessary.
Now, Suzanne Collins has more of a leg to stand on than JKR, because she had already established that her series involved killing mass amounts of people. But prior to Mockingjay, people had been killed in a context that actually made sense. Primrose being in Capitol during the final wave of attack made no sense. Not to mention that the assorted people back in District 13 who were Katniss’s friends and confidantes would have been looking out for her sister while she was away doing totally pointless things in the Capitol.
Pro Character-Killing Tip:
You can judge whether or not a character’s death is appropriate by viewing your readers’ reactions.
If they read the death scene in utter shock and scream, “Noooooooooo! [Insert Name of Character Here]! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!!!!”, then you did well. Congratulations. The death scene you wrote was touching and believable within the context of the story.
If they read the scene with an expression of increasing disbelief, followed by them snapping the book shut and saying, “That was just stupid. Why the hell would the author do that? That made no sense!”, then you might want to consider a rewrite.
Thus endeth the rant. Agree? Disagree? Sound off in the comments.
Unrelated images of the day:
Source: http://imgur.com/qJemv
Source: http://i.imgur.com/7QgkP.jpg
Michelle Proulx - Author 
I have to agree. I killed a main character one time and cried like a baby. That unpublished manuscript holds the door to the laundry room open waiting for a rewrite
Like, the manuscript physically functions as a door-stop? If so, awesome!
I recently just killed off a secondary character, but not the main character. He deserved to die though. He is a symbol of the evil masculine energy in this world. Call me a feminist, it felt good, and I think most of my readers would agree.
Oh, definitely. Killing off villains is fine. It’s when you kill off the heroes that I get a little irked. It’s kind of like … why did I invest all this time and emotional energy in reading this if the hero meets a sticky end?
You know I’m in the pro-murder camp; I rarely make a character I wouldn’t like to kill off at some point. In fact, the better I like a character, the more I think about murdering them. (I even kill off one of my main characters in my romance novel. That’s never done!)
Killing off an unimportant character has no real impact on the reader. In my book, for instance, Isaac was always marked to die; he had to be the catalyst for what came after. But, in the words of Samuel L. Jackson, I didn’t want him to die like a bitch–like someone who didn’t matter. That’s why I invented the back-story between him and Alice. That’s even why I killed off Kalyn’s father first; it gave Isaac a shot at renewing his old love affair with Alice. I think it’s clear from their interaction that, had he survived, they would have ended up together. To marry Alice and raise Kalyn as his daughter would have been his biggest wish come true. (If you want some real tear-jerking, read the ethical will he left behind for Micah: http://www.keripeardon.com/Acceptance/Acceptance%20Apocyrpha/Isaacs%20Ethical%20Will.htm)
I built all of that up and gave the reader hope that everything would balance out, THEN I killed him off. And then, just to rub a little salt on the wound, you have that lovely scene where Micah is covered in his father’s blood, sobbing his heart out, and Anselm holds him and prays.
And Alice’s ghost walk through Isaac’s house… that still makes me tear up.
I’ll warn you now: at least one of my main characters is not going to survive the end of the trilogy. There will be a wrenching death scene, then, for good measure, I will frappe your bleeding heart with a soul-crushing funeral scene.
Why do I like killing off my characters? Why do I like it when other authors kill off their characters?
It’s suspenseful. Too often in books and movies the good guy lives. In fact, in many cases you can safely bet on who will live and who is expendable. Killing off important characters, though, turns all of that on its head. When I got the last Harry Potter book, I had to glance at the last page to see if Harry would survive; I just couldn’t take the suspense. Certainly J. K. Rowling had gotten to the point that I couldn’t trust her to let Harry live.
Not only that, but I think building up characters and then killing them gets the reader emotionally involved in the book. Even if you hate me for killing XYZ off, you’re not likely to forget the book. And you’ll want other people to read it so you can discuss your indignation that XY and Z were killed. If you’re angry, it means I’ve done a good job building up my world and my characters. It means you care for them and believe in them. It means you won’t forget my book.
And, finally, I look at it this way: real life isn’t always fair. Fathers die. Mothers die. Friends are killed. Even lovers can die before their time (look how we love the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet). If I killed off only evil characters or unimportant ones, but let all the great ones live, that wouldn’t be very true to life. Sometimes good people are cut down in their prime. And when you’re in a battle of good versus evil, it’s necessary to show that yes, good people can die. It’s the fact that they’re willing to sacrifice themselves that makes them good people. And you can see their legacy in the people they leave behind. As the ghost of Remus said, he fought and died so that his son could inherit a better world.
I didn’t have a problem with Rowling killing off any of her characters, although I do think she short-changed Remus and Tonks. I would have liked to have seen them go down together in a blaze of glory. If you’re going to kill off good characters, you owe them a good death. You owe them blood and guts everywhere and whispered last words and distraught loved ones throwing themselves on the corpse.
I do agree with you, though, that Primrose’s death was too contrived. I could believe that she was marked for death from the beginning–that everything Katniss was doing was in vain, because she was always going to die–but the way that she was killed was lame. There was surely a better, more believable way to have killed her off.
I like that — good guys should go down in a blaze of glory. I don’t mind when characters are killed off doing something heroic … it’s when, like Tonks and Lupin, they die off-page and people barely seem to notice they’re gone. That’s when I get royally ticked off.
I would also like to compliment you on your extremely long and well thought out post. I can’t possibly hope to top it, so I shall instead gift you with this totally unrelated quote:
“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” – Brian Gerald O’Driscoll
I love it when I kill off a character, especially the lead. But it all has to feel right in the end, like you said. Typically the character has to die for something important, he or she needs to make a big sacrifice.
I still wonder why Prim died though. I thought it was a tad bit silly.
Oh, more than a tad bit silly. I’d love to meet the District 13 person who said, “Hey, let’s send our 14-year-old apprentice medics into the final, devastatingly dangerous battle at Capitol for no good reason”. I’d also like to meet the people who said, “Dude, that’s an awesome idea.” Maybe they were high. That would explain a lot.
Yeah, they were probably puffing on the pipe of inspiration, AKA what makes good stories have questionable events.
I get the impression that book was rushed. I’ve heard that in the YA set, they want books out every 6 months. If Suzanne Collins was like me, she probably spent a lot of time slowly crafting her first book and building up a believable world. And she probably had book two started, and maybe she had a nebulous idea for book three.
Then she published the first one and became really popular, and she had to work really hard to get the second book finished to the deadline. Then had to turn around and write the third book from scratch in 6 months and send it out the door.
I think if she had had more time, some of those plot holes and unbelievable sections could have been worked out. That book really reads like a first draft.
That old Commie hag of District 13–she gave off an air of evil. But she didn’t give it off enough to allow all the pieces at the end to connect up. A rewrite could have set her up better so that I could have believed that she was out to kill Katniss, Peeta, and Prim in order to erase the symbols of the revolution right when she was ready to step up and become the new Snow. Purges of revolutionaries are common after a new government takes over.
As my husband said the other day (after our own discussion of Russian history): Meet the old boss. Same as the new boss.
Oops. That’s “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”
Yes, definitely I can see Coin’s need to remove troublesome rebels who might pose a threat to her new regime. But like you said, it just wasn’t … not believable, but I feel like Coin could have been characterized a lot better. When Katniss had the big reveal of “Coin is evil!”, it took me a few seconds to remember who Coin was because she didn’t really have much of a role up until that point (at least, not that I noticed, apparently).
And yes, I did get the feeling that Mockingjay was rushed. Just based on the sheer number of things that happen … they’re turning the third book into two movies, and I feel like the book could have been similarly split in two and lengthened a bit. Book 3 was very plot-plot-plot-plot-plot-plot, so much so that I felt exhausted after reading it. Which makes sense if it’s something really fast-paced and adrenalin-rushing like the Hunger Games from the first or second books, but many parts of Mockingjay were supposed to be slow, so I guess the tone didn’t really work for me very well.
I have at least 3 deaths of people for Life of Gaia, although arguably the characters aren’t main ones per say….. And I think that their deaths will be good ones, either to heighten the emotionality of the scene or drive the main character forward. Still, I always feel guilty plotting the murder of my characters, and I always get terribly sad when characters die in books that I read. (Except Game of Thrones, but I think I’ve been de-sensitized to deaths in those books–I just don’t get close to any of the characters anymore. xD)
When Sirius died I cried like a baby, I won’t lie. My mom actually came downstairs (it was the middle of the night) and was all alarmed, asking me what was wrong… CAUSE SHE COULD HEAR ME FROM THE FLOOR ABOVE. In fact, I was just suffering from character-death the other day when I watched series finale of BBC’s Merlin.
So, it’s a tough thing to swallow sometimes, and I think that on the writer’s end it should always be done with a lot of thought beforehand. Killing off a character that you’ve built is going to have a reaction, SHOULD have a reaction, but you have to make sure it’s the one you as the writer want, and that they didn’t die in vain. (Well, they can die in vain in the story, but the overall effect shouldn’t be! You know what I mean.)
I totally agree with everything you just said. It’s like you’re in my head -_- Please get out, I do need to live in there.
And oh man, Game of Thrones. You’re right, there’s literally no point in emotionally connecting with a character because they are basically guaranteed to die. My current prediction right now is that Daenarys is the only one who will survive mentally and physically intact — because she’s the destined queen of Westeros, mother of dragons, blah blah blah. Everyone else is screwed.
Never! It’s mine now! *nests* xD But I’m glad we both feel similarly. Always comforting. 🙂
And oh man, Game of Thrones. That series. xD; I’ve never read anything like it, which I guess in this case could be good or bad…? But I still like it. x)
Merlin makes me cry!
Well if you haven’t seen the series finale, be prepared for MAJOR waterworks!!
Totally agree about the Hunger Games. Whole point of entering the flippin’ thing was to protect her sister.
Howevs… *puts HP defender cap on*… while I put the book down and cried for a good 25 seconds when RL and Wonky Tonks died, I think she killed them off because they were part of that generation. In the horrific epilogue, it’s all about the next gen (ala Jean Luc). Also, it shows how another young family were pulled apart by Voldy’s actions. Young Teddy is like a new Harry. Except he doesn’t have a cool lightning scar, fame or fortune.
As for Hedwig, I think that was purely for plot purposes. It would have been difficult to cart her along while they were cruising through the country side. Same reason he loses his broom (he loses his broom, doesn’t he?)
JK killed off pretty much anyone – or anything – that could help Harry, meaning he was left to fend for himself. It’s likely some of the deaths were influenced by the fact her own mother died.
Wow, I really could waffle on about HP till the coos come home 😀
Ah, very interesting point about Hedwig. I hadn’t considered that. And yes, I do believe he loses his broom. I suppose his adventure wouldn’t have been very exciting if he was sending Hedwig around keeping in touch with everyone. Definitely would have taken some of the suspense away.
Please, continue to waffle on about HP until the coos come home. I’m very interested to know what a coo is, for starters. 😀
A coo is a Scottish Highland cow that looks rather like a yak. (Actually, “coo” is just the Scottish way of pronouncing “cow,” so it could technically be any type of cow, but it tends to refer to the Highland variety, simply because that’s where the breed and the accent meet.) http://images.wikia.com/ftl/images/f/fe/Highland_cow.jpg
(Boom! Who says Americans are ignorant!)
A moo-coo!
Cow 😛
While we’re at it, why did the Titanic have to sink at the end of that movie?
Oh, ha ha 😀
I tried.
It gets very difficult when you try to argue whether someone had to die or not in a story. Sometimes you can justify it as an author, but you may or may not ever be able to justify it as a reader. Author’s can be downright cruel at times, but it doesn’t mean we’re always right.
Still, sometimes a character’s death does more than just move the story forward – it moves characters forward. You put it well with the deaths of Sirius and Dumbledore. They move Harry as well as move the story. Let’s face it, if ever a potential father figure of any sort came upon Harry, they were pretty much marked for death. These are the things that happen so they can also affect the character, not just the reader. Not just the plot.
And Keri Peardon says it very well when she said she could no longer trust Rowling not to kill Harry. Rowling had set the stage for that very thing: Uncertainty. My wife and I have had moments when, watching a movie for the first time, we can actually guess exactly what a character is going to say at a pivotal moment. It’s either so cliché we see it coming, or the writers have held our hand so much that we know the story couldn’t go any other direction. On the contrary, uncertainty means everything may still be in the air. If it looked like the good guys were going to win anyway, at any point in that final book, then Rowling wouldn’t have done the story justice. She had to be certain that not only characters begin to think it hopeless, but that the reader can actually pause long enough to consider that possibility. And that they would have to hope along with the characters that it would all turn out in the end.
(Or peek at the end of the story)
That’s an excellent point. I know that, like Keri, I had to flip ahead to the last page to make sure in book 7 that Harry didn’t die. Of course I did the same thing for book 5 with Sirius, which didn’t work out quite as well. I agree with the maintaining uncertainty thing … but why FRED? WHYYYYYY? *sobs*
Because George was the better looking one.
No!!! Fred was totally hotter.
Actually, back when we were little, my cousin and I used to pretend to be the Weasley twins. She was George, and I was Fred (hence my love for Fred, and subsequent rage when he died). We’d make magic wands out of branches and run around casting spells at our family members. Perhaps the best time was when we went to a fish and chips place and ordered Shirley Temples. We pretended they were polyjuice potion, and had great fun pretending to turn into each other and assorted HP characters. Ahhhh. Good times.
I think Fred had to die because there’s nothing more utterly tragic than one twin (esp. identical) dying. George and Fred were two halves of the same whole; it’s inconceivable to think of them apart. It just rams home how tragic the entire thing is.
That, and someone in the Weasley family had to die; they couldn’t come out unscathed when Harry’s lost everyone near and dear to him in the cause–and he tries to even sacrifice himself.
Supposedly Ron’s dad was going to die from the snake, but J.K. liked him too well to kill him, and she didn’t want Ron and Harry to be too much alike in terms of personal loss.
You hit the nail on the proverbial head. Going into book 7, I was confident that either both the twins would die, or neither would. How cruel is it to separate twins? And then when George lost his ear, I was like, “Well, the twins have suffered. They must be safe now.” But they weren’t! Sigh.
Wait…you pretended to turn into each other (as in the real you’s) or as in the pretend you’s? Because it would make no sense for the Weasley twins to use polyjuice to turn into one another. 😀
Well, my brother and my other cousin were also there. My other cousin was Hermione, and my brother was the crazy muggle who snuck into Hogwarts. So we all turned into each other, as well as assorted beloved HP characters 😀 And yes, I do believe Fred and George turned into each other. It was Weasley-ception.
Rowling said that she had originally planned to kill Hagrid, too–when the spiders carry him off into the woods–but she said that was the one character she just couldn’t kill. She said she couldn’t leave Harry without ANY father-figure. And, of all the secondary characters, he was the most popular with her readers and she got letters from children telling her how much they loved him and wished he was their dad, etc. She felt it would be too cruel to take out Hagrid, too.
I introduce a character in my third book (and, actually, I liked Avi so well, I moved him forward into the second book) and he and Kalyn become very good friends. You wouldn’t believe how many times he has been marked for death, only to be given a reprieve. I just needed a green to red color scale and a silhouette of a nerdy Jewish guy to slide back and forth under the title “Avi’s chance of death today.”
I’ve never had a character that I wanted more to kill and to let live at the same time.
Hahaha that’s awesome. Well, since I’m a big fan of well-loved characters living, I vote that he lives 🙂
As for Hagrid … I don’t know, I guess I was never as big a fan of his as other people. I liked him, for sure, but I wouldn’t have cried if he’d died. And I’d trade him for Sirius in a heartbeat. Poor, tragic Sirius.
Excellent post. I have two characters facing their demises (demisee?) in book 2 of my series. One is more obviously necessary than the other and really hurts but, sadly, must be done. I had toyed with killing one of the main characters, but I don’t think I can. My hesitation leads me to believe it would not be a necessary murder.
You know what, when I was writing the sequel to Imminent Danger (what am I saying, I’m still writing it, who am I kidding), I decided to just kill off the main character. I handed the book to my beta reader, who read the death scene, handed it back to me, and said, “No. That’s stupid. I don’t know if you were watching Game of Thrones or something right before you wrote this, but no.”
By the way, you are now on Amazon Kindle and the book. http://www.amazon.com/Imminent-Danger-And-Straight-into/dp/147596546X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358306072&sr=8-2&keywords=michelle+proulx
I am buying the ereader, but if you send me a signed book (if you purchased them), I would be eternally grateful and promote your book like crazy. 😉 I’ll pay, you just gotta tell me how to convert US dollars to Canadian dollars
I saw! IT’S SO AWESOME!!!
However, I figure the price (21.95 for a soft cover, eek) will go down in price a bit if I wait a week or so, since they haven’t applied any discounts yet and Amazon always has discounts. So I’m waiting to see if the price levels out a bit before I start directing people there. I want my readers to get the best deal!
I will very happily send you a signed, free copy of my book — after all, that’s what you did for me! Just as long as you promise me a review, we should be square 😀 At least, until you publish another book and send it to me, then I’ll have to publish a book and send it to you … good grief. Why have we started this never-ending circle? Ahhhhhh!
I’m okay with this perpetual cycle! Today, my brother and I, are doing research into how to become a small press. Nothing huge. It is actually quite simple, save for some new programs to be bought, but the royalty pay out is so much better. I think this is the new way I will I go. Takes more time, but once we do it once, it will be easier after, and we a have a few friends to the north we’d love to help out.
A small press? That’s awesome! So would you actually be printing the books yourself? I imagine buying a printing press must cost a lot of money …
LOL. No. We would go directly through the distributor and eliminate the middle man (iuniverse). It’s pretty easy, but the formatting is such a pain. I do not plan to have any type of huge lithograph machine in my house, but that sounds cool too
Ahhh yes, that makes more sense. What distributor were you thinking of? A big corporation like Lulu/Createspace, or something smaller and more local?
Oh, and I kill a character in every book I write, or in the case of “Be Still,” I killed three. I’m a mass character murderer.
Your heart is stronger than mine. I can’t handle killing off characters I love. That’s probably why I stick to sci-fi and fantasy. I guess people still die in those, but their deaths are always very epic, which negates the tragedy a little.
I actually had a very hard time killing off Jack Silver. Maybe I’ll reanimate him in the scifi sequel or fan fiction version. I can write my own fan fiction, right?
Um, definitely. Who says there’s a rule against that? Although possibly everything the writer writers about their own story would be considered canon, and therefore not fanfiction after all …?
i’ll use a pen name. Problem solved. 😉
I avoided reading the second example because I have yet to read The Hunger Games. No spoilers for me! But you know how I feel about the deaths in Harry Potter. Fred’s death hit me hardest. 😦
There was one book that did not only make me close the book; it also made me throw it across the room. The author killed the main character at the very last page. How ridiculous is that?!
That’s just stupid. It’s like, we read this whole entire thing and now you’re just going to off them at the very end? I would have thrown the book too.
I’m going to get a bit nerdy here, but have you heard of the Star Wars extended universe? It’s about Luke, Han, and Leia and their kids, like 20 years in the future after Return of the Jedi. There’s a whole series about these aliens invading from another galaxy. Anyway, Leia’s youngest son, Anakin, is just awesome – he was by far the coolest character in the entire series. And then … I don’t know. I guess the writer got tired of him? Because the writer sent Anakin on an ill-fated, totally avoidable suicide mission that ended with Anakin nobly sacrificing himself to save his friends. The reason it really irritated me is because for the first like 10 books of the series, they were setting Anakin up to be the big hero who saves the day. And then BOOM he’s dead. Too bad, so sad. I felt cheated by the writers because they’d misled me. They probably wanted us to be impressed by the drastic plot twist, but I just felt betrayed. Okay, betrayed is a little strong, but you know what I mean 😀
Star Wars is one territory I’ve yet to step into, but that sounds frustrating! I know I would feel cheated too if I were in your place.
I think I’m generally with Keri Peardon. Killing characters in surprising, entertaining ways can be fun. Sometimes they just have to go – although deaths should have a purpose other than just to annoy readers.
However, I’m horrified that in your list of Harry Potter deaths you left out the most tragic one: Dobby.
Shame on you! 😉
Oh God, you’re right! I’m so sorry! I shall clean my house in honour of Dobby’s memory, just for that. And I’ll wear socks. I mean, I usually wear socks, but today I’ll REALLY wear socks.
I should think so too!
But, seriously, at least you accepted the error of your ways. I’m sure the spirit of Dobby will forgive you.
HP #7. Tend not to agree. Hogwarts was a war zone at that point. You had students/teachers vs death-eaters & Voldemort. They were closely matched. There were bound to be a large number of deaths on both sides. To not kill main characters would have seemed over-contrived.
Mockingjay – I do agree. I had to go back and re-read that part where Primrose was killed to make sure I read it right. I was thinking WTF? I also missed the reasoning behind Katniss killing Coin instead of Snow, if I remember correctly. My daughter also didn’t get that bit.
Fair enough about HP – we’re all entitled to our opinion 😀
As for Mockingjay … I *believe* that Katniss killed Coin because she wanted both Coin and Snow dead, but Katniss realized that everyone else thought Coin was a hero. Snow was screwed anyway — that was supposed to be his execution, after all, so it’s not like they couldn’t just have another one. But Coin was the saviour of Panem, and that was probably the only opportunity Katniss would get to kill her. So I think she took her chance, and hoped that someone would kill Snow for her later.
But Katniss so desperately wanted to kill Snow! I wanted to see her do it! 😉 But what you say about Coin actually makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up. 🙂
Oh yeah, I reallllly wanted to see Katniss kill Snow, considering the hell he put her through. But I suspect that saving the new government from their insane new dictator was probably pretty high up on her priority list 😀
Hello,
I’ve nominated you for The Versatile Blogger Award.
Check it out http://thejennymacbookblog.wordpress.com/
Thanks!!!
You’re welcome
I agree completely. I was never so disappointed in a book series as the Hunger Games. It started off okay and went down hill from there. The end was ridiculous. It just goes to show what great marketing can do for you.
My brother’s main issue with Hunger Games (he stopped reading around Catching Fire) is that he thinks the world doesn’t make sense. I didn’t think about it until he brought it up, but he’s kind of right. Totalitarian government with outlying districts that are basically slaves — sure. But … how does their economy work? What the heck do the Capitol citizens do? The book makes them all out to be lazy morons with no particular skills. Do they literally just sit in Capitol and do nothing all the time? Then who keeps the city running? Is it the avoxes? In that case, there must be tens of thousands of avoxes running around the city, which is crazy. Other logic things — they have hovercrafts, but they don’t have planes? What about satellites? If there was some catastrophe that screwed over the world, why did they lose some technologies, but jump ahead hugely in other technologies? And what about the rest of the world? Did everything except North America get destroyed? Because that seems a little unlikely. In that case, are there other thriving nations around the world who treat Panem as North Korea — as in, they frown on its practices but don’t have the political clout to do anything about the appalling living conditions of the poor Panem citizens?
Phew. Sorry, I got a bit worked up. Obviously most dystopian novels are going to have logical flaws. But my point — which got a little buried there, I suspect — is that Mockingjay was definitely inferior to Hunger Games, and I think they should have spent a little more time hammering out the details before the book went to print.
Michelle, thank you for stopping and liking a recent post. It sounds like you are having a lot of fun with your posts and unrelated images. I look forward to following the fun-filled blog.
Take care,
Ivon
And thank you for stopping by my blog! I do indeed have fun – isn’t that what blogging is about? 🙂
It is.
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