Was Haymitch's arena plot worth it? | Sunrise on the Reaping | AITA Book Review Podcast #22 (Part 3)

speaker-0: Kamich Abernath is up to something. He just c
speaker-1: Climbs on down there. Like that's not, you know, terrifying.
speaker-0: Snow is not stupid. Things would be better honestly if he was. Not great, but not as bad as being eaten alive by squirrel nuts. Two raging puck nerds, 14 years of friendship, and one burning question.
speaker-1: If Katniss Everdeen posted on Reddit, would she be the arsehole?
speaker-0: Hello, welcome to Once Upon a Red Flag. This season we're stepping into Pan ⁓ where every tribute tyrant and mentor gets their day in the Amad the Asshole courtroom. And I'm Rachel.
speaker-1: I'm Katie. And join us while we read between the red flags and break down the Hunger Games. One questionable decision at a time. Welcome back everybody to Once Upon a Red Flag. This is episode 22 part 3. And we've spent the last two episodes talking about everything that happens with Hamidge before he enters the arena. But we have ignored everything to do with the arena plot up to this point. And today this is all about to change.
speaker-0: It is. As a quick recap, Hamish is asking if he is the asshole for trying to sabotage the arena. Because by doing so, it basically puts his family at risk, right? Mm-hmm. And if you want to hear all about like Hamich's rebel motivations, the things that have happened, like tip him over the edge with this, check out the last two episodes. Because this guy has been through hell in like, what is it, less than a week? Yeah. Between like reaping or like fake reaping to going into the arena, like you can kinda see how he gets from there. But it's a pretty fast turnaround between him trying to stop Lenore Dove from getting her rebel self in trouble to then wholeheartedly embracing the arena sabotage plot. And in this episode, we're gonna be talking about that plot in in a lot more detail.
speaker-1: But first, I'm gonna detour slightly as I want to talk about Hamid, obviously, and the rest of the District Twelve mentors, since they are kind of involved in this whole thing in multiple ways. So they are painfully aware that they have no alive victors, right? I'm talking about District Twelve. They they know they've had one female victor before, but she's dead. And that's the extent of what they know. They they don't even know her name. But District twelve gets Muggs, my dear Max, the eleventh Hunger Games winner from District Four, a career district, no less, and who would remember Lucy Gray as a winner the year prior to her own win, and Wirus, a very clever voter from District Three, who won the year prior by not dropping a single bit of blood in the mirror arena. I think it is really important that Hamidge, of all people, has Mags and Wirus 'cause we all know from the OG trilogy and our catching fire discussions that Mags and Wyrus obviously end up being reaped or reaped by proxy for the third quarter quell's seventy fifth Hunger Games and help in the rebellion plot that Hamid and Plutar plan that time round as well. So I think it is it is really, really important that point.
speaker-0: Yeah. And I wanna point out here like exactly how screwed up this is. Because it has it has no real consequences, I guess, anyway, to the idea of how much we rate Hamage to be an asshole percentage at the end of all this. But the fact that Mags and Boress get tortured for their involvement in this arena plot twenty five years earlier, to the point where Mags by the third quarter quell barely speaks, does not speak, not all there. Herself, whereas, also not all there, nicknamed nuts to beat his vault. Let's just put into perspective how badly these guys have been tortured after this plot, and then think about the fact that they are then punished again by going into the arena. President Snorr holds that much of a grudge. Like, and I know theoretically, like these guys could have been up to all sorts of stuff that we don't know about.
speaker-1: Uh-huh.
speaker-0: in that time. Stuff that like we can really only speculate they may have done. But we and we all know, we do all know that may have done is good enough for Snow to meet our punishment. But I do question their ability to be like really involved in a rebel plot by the end of this book.
speaker-1: Well we mentioned this briefly before, but I really want to get into it more now. When they're talking round the dinner table later that night after that disastrous chariot parade, Mags talks to them about, you know, what they want from the games, like not just a simple kind of living or like dying and surviving. And Hamish says, knowing that he is being watched and recorded by the cameras in the living quarters, that he wants to make the Capitol own what they are doing to him in the Hunger Games and he wants them to consider maybe 50 years is enough. This is quite a rebellious thing to say, especially when it's on camera, right? Like I think you like they kind of like they go on to discuss if that would even be possible or if there's any situation where that would be possible. Do we think Snow saw this recording directly? Because I do feel like before the reaping, most of these kinds of things were coming out of the Nan dove's mouth and Haymid would kind of like shut her down for it. But now he's been reaped And I don't know if it's because he thinks like he's like fully marked for death anyway, because of his stunt at the chariot parade. Like some of those things are starting now to come out of his mouth, like trying to transgress transgressing from Lenot Hove over to him, without without him fully thinking how it could impact his people back home, but also the people that he's sat with at the dinner table, Mags, Wirus, his other tributes, you know, he's not like he's not thinking far enough ahead. Do you get that impression?
speaker-0: Yeah, and I'm I'm really gonna go into this idea of the impact back home later throughout this episode and the next episode because Hamich kind of does start to realise too late exactly what kind of impact this could have. But at the present moment in time, all he knows and all he really like is taking on board is the fact that he wasn't reaped actually in the official manner, but here he is anyway. So as far as he's concerned. He's played by the rules. He is played by all the rules that the Capitol has set to him. His name was in the reaping and he wasn't chosen at random from that bowl. He did not get reaped. All he did was try to protect the girl he loved, as is his right, to be fair. And he was probably going over there with the intention of not just letting like protecting Lenora Dov and Lana get hit in head with the butt of a gun from the peacekeepers. But he was probably also wanting to talk Lenor Dove down from the same from the scene that she was creating, from the same shit that she does over and over again. So he's probably going over there trying to help, trying to make life easier for the capital. And for his troubles in trying to help them and help his girlfriend out, he finds himself in the arena instead. Same thing with Luella. They played by the rules, they were wearing their costumes, in their chariot. The reason they were late is not their fault. That was Magno's fault. He's capital, he's part of the hugger games. So they are still doing their part, but if the Capitol don't do their part, they didn't train the horses well enough, they don't have crowd control measures in place. Luella was not yet meant to die. She was meant to die in the arena, but she wasn't yet meant to die just in a Capitol parade. And yet she did. ⁓ huh. Hamish is meant to have more time with her trying to protect her. And let's be entirely honest here, Hamich probably would have given up his life to protect the real Luella. Would have done.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And as far as he is concerned, he kept his end of this deal. Did what he was supposed to in this system that he was born into. He isn't the one who screwed up. And when you think about it from that perspective, like he has completely had the rug pulled from under him. He thought he knew the way the world worked and that it doesn't and now he's realized that it doesn't work the way that he thought it did. Now he's completely at the Capitol's mercy, regardless of whatever rules they set him to play by. They can just change them on a w and it also like he knows he's gonna die in the arena. Like Snow directly says to him that his family is safe because he's gonna die. And he also thinks he knows he is going to die. Like there's there's no nuance in that situation as far as Hamich is concerned. Like he has been given a direct threat to be like, You is gonna die, your family's safe, but just because you're gonna die and you are gonna die.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I'm gonna I'm gonna figure out how I want you to die, and you've gotta play by those rules that I'm giving you again to decide how you wanna die. And I mean, if that's not confusing, and probably the most heartbreaking thing about this whole scenario is the fact that he is so convinced he's gonna die. So as far as he is concerned, nothing he does is going to have any impact on any future because he doesn't have a future. So who cares what stunts he pulls on his way to meet the Reaper? Because it is an inevitability as far as he's concerned. That is what's going through his head right now, rightly or wrongly. And he's convinced, probably, not even I don't think he's even taking into into account the stuff that he is saying around Maisley and Wyatt and Magson Res. He's not thinking about any of that. He's thinking, what I do means I get punished and nothing else. Even after he meets Bitay, he's still thinking that way.
speaker-1: I know that Max then goes on to ask them how they would want to die. Now this is kind of an intense question, but I guess it's a unique one. And she says like to start with she would just ask the kids how they wanted to survive. But I guess after such a long time of mentoring, she realizes that death is almost inevitable for most of them. And if she can't save them, maybe she can give them a more peaceful peaceful or more fitting death. And which I think is in some ways really poetic. I think Wyra said that she just didn't want to die at night, as it would be more scary. And Hamid says he wants a quick death to spare his family from watching him suffer, which is ironic. And Mazley wants to go out with her head held up high, not begging or pleading, which we will discuss in a in a later episode. And why it wants a fast death and does not want to provide entertainment or help people profit who are betting on him, which we will also discuss later. But I think Mag's asking these questions is so very important because I don't think it is normally expected from a mentor. Like it's showing a more compassionate and caring side, which isn't really expected, and you would expect them to have like hardened over the years. I think it also shows how District 12 mentors are leaning towards having kind of those more rebellious tendencies and will play into kind of how Wirus. helps them with the kind of the break the arena plan, which we know she has like some sort of involvement with. So I think this is kind of one of the first questions where we start to see that they c they they're not that scared about stepping out of line, doing something slightly different. Yeah.
speaker-0: love I love Mags for this comment because it also gives her tributes a goal that they can focus on and one that they can control. Because chances are they obviously are not gonna survive the arena. And it's not just that she doesn't want the tributes to lie to themselves. It kind of also shows that she knows that they are going to die and she's not gonna lie to them either. Lying to themselves is not possible and it will be so easy in this situation. where you either delusional or a career to think that you can win this as the biggest underdog ever. And it's so easy in that situation to just give up and accept the bloodbath at the cornucopia as the quickest way to end the suffering. Like who cares about district pride and how long you last if you're going to die and you're just prolonging your torture of having to like to look over your shoulder the entire time. The adrenaline must be going through your body the entire time you are in the arena. How any of them get to sleep in a tree at night, I will never know. But here, Mags, by just completely disregarding this as an option to be like, let's focus on what we can to control. She's giving them something that they can achieve despite death being this inevitability for them. And I think this conversation just helps build trust with Warez as well, but also with Mags, because they are from a different district. They are from different districts. They aren't 12. And there's this idea of, well, What do they care whether we survive? They're not our mentors. They're not twelve mentors. And Hamich immediately judges Warress off the bat. Immediately. He says, like, she didn't even kill anyone in her arena. She won the game, sure, but she didn't kill anyone, attack anyone, didn't spill a single drop of blood. So who is she to mentor him when he's not as clever as her and he needs fighting advice? And Hamich has such a gross moment when he figures out that not everything is about brute force here. And that he does have more power over his actions than he knows. And that builds this trust with Boress because immediately he was like willing to write her off. And I was like, hey Mitch, dude, you're being a bit of dick there. But seeing how that sort of develops is then so heartwarming and then heartbreaking when you get to the seventy-fifth games. Yeah. Just right in the field with every scene in this book.
speaker-1: Yeah. So we we get to the training center. ⁓ and this is where the plan like really starts to kick off. And it is where that tribute kind of roundup extra episode is coming and is gonna come in and be kind of a lot more helpful. As I now want to talk about the Newcomers Alliance. And we are definitely talking about BT and Amper and the destroying the arena plan later, but right now I just want to talk about the Newcomers Alliance itself. So Amper comes up to Haymage during training. He is tiny, like a tiny 12-year-old boy, which breaks my heart. And he tries to convince 12 to take on like this newcomer's plan. He says that it's unfair how the careers from one, two, and four always win every year. And they always team up every year to pick off everyone else first before descending into their own infighting. And that maybe if the other non-career districts can team up against them, they might have the chance of actually having a non-career victor this year. Now, the first time I heard this, I did also have concerns, which Caesar brings up during the interviews, of like what happens if they wipe out all of their careers and end up having to turn on each other. But thank thankfully like it never comes to that or like sadly it never comes to that. But that was something that I was like, what do you do? It was just all you guys left.
speaker-0: Like it's it's a small flaw in the plans and obviously we know that this doesn't happen, but do you think that it ever could have happened and it could have been the outcome? Because like what are the odds of these guys actually killing all the careers and then having to infight amongst themselves? W what do we think that would have would have caused if that was the case? Do we think I don't think it would ever happen. Don't forget, like I feel like there was like s so few career deaths in the first day and the career deaths that did happen. were down to eating the eating the the supplies in the arena that came from the ground, not from not from packs. And it feels like even though the newcomers were all allied together, the Koreas still managed to wipe off about the same percentage of non Koreas than they would usually in that first blood bla bloodbath. That is a tongue twister somehow in the first bloodbath. So obviously we know that yeah, like it the bandying them together means there's a bigger chance of a newcomer winning, but it's not a bigger chance of newcomers surviving longer, really, in practice. But say it had happened. Do we think they would have split up and then just like waited out for this mutt heavy game maker arena to kill them? Or do we think like Amput would have taken charge and been like, okay, cool. In the same way Mazley and Hamich have the conversation of Welly would be a good victory Do we think that a bandaged together and gone, okay, cool. Well, in terms of what happens after the arena, who wants to suffer anymore? Who wants to go work for the Capitol as a victor? And who just thinks, well, poison potato probably the way to go. ⁓
speaker-1: I don't know. I feel like in the end it probably would have turned sour somehow. And maybe I'm just being like really negatively minded. But you've got to understand these are like still teenagers, they're still kids. I feel like someone would someone in that very large new cur comers alliance probably would have turned. Which is sad to think. But again it's it's this whole thing that we've been talking about with the ballad of some birds and snakes and Doctor Gore where it was like, you know, people inherently don't wanna die and they wanna Protect themselves. There's gonna it's gonna be one, surely. It's gonna be
speaker-0: There's gotta be at least one. But then I think you also go, Okay, well, whoever that one is, ⁓ did they do they have the brute force behind them or do they just have to live behind them?
speaker-1: Doesn't have to have to be brute force. Like if everybody thinks they're getting on, ⁓ you know, let's just have a day where we don't kill anybody and then they're like, ⁓ no, I wanna win and they just like poison everybody.
speaker-0: Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing with the Serena, isn't it? Because with this alliance I mean, yeah, you do open yourself up to that kind of issue with this alliance of okay, so so and so's on cooking duty tonight and look, they've used poisoned river water to boil ass buds in. And they're just they just don't feel like eating anything right now and then everyone else is dead. That'll probably but that would be the that would be the title for the most callous victor in the entire history of the Hunter Games, then. Because Even worse than a Korea.
speaker-1: Do I do think it's an interesting tactic though, because with all of the newcomers districts kind of allied up together, they significantly outnumber the career pack. And even though they're significantly underqualified and under skilled for the Hunger Games task, at least there might be some reward in numbers. Like Hamidge also does end up becoming a key part of this, as he ends up convincing various other districts during training to join who Ampert couldn't seem to commence on his own. Because basically when like the other districts end up getting bullied by Panache, which are we surprised, not really. The boy career from District One, ⁓ he ends up kind of swooping in and basically convincing them that they would be like kind of sitting ducks in the arena if they didn't join this newcomer's alliance. And well, he's not wrong. But ⁓ I think this is why it is shocking to them once Hamidge then decides he's going to break off from the alliance and go off on his own. Because he was such a pivotal part. But as we know, he does this because of the plan to blow up the arena, which we will discuss later. But he says it's because during the skills review, the game makers gave him a one, which like nobody before Haymid has ever gotten a one before. Like I didn't I don't even think like Madge and Wirus like thought it was even possible. So it believes it makes him like a huge target for the careers. And therefore he uses that as this excuse to tell them he won't be with them in the arena, that it might lead to more of them getting killed, which is obviously counterproductive. So this is when Hamid adopts his kind of rascal branding for the interviews. He has this one, he's breaking off from the newcomers alliance, he needs to have something on his side. So Drusella and Plutarch tell him to really own the fact he got a one and play it up in his interviews. Drusella does say there's a very thin line between being a rebel though, like not mentioning the fact that he literally brews white liquor in the forest and a rascal, as you mentioned in the previous episode, like when she's like dying a fountain pink as a shortage of face cream, which is just s ridiculous. So when it comes to the interview before the game start, Hamid really plays into this. He says that the fact he got a one could either be because he is a you know, useless, or it could be because he's so dangerous And he's been given a disadvantage, saying, you know, anybody can get a ten, but you have to be a special type of trouble to get a one, which obviously brings intrigue from the sponsors. And when Caesar asks him about the challenge of having a hundred percent more tributes slash competitors than normal, Haymage replies that they'll still be a hundred percent more stupid as usual, so it doesn't really matter. The odds are still the same, which I just find really funny. Because this attitude makes him seem like he really is a rascal.
speaker-0: Yeah. And he has given that spiel to everyone. Newcomers, like including those from his own district, the capital audience and in turn the game makers. The only people who know any better are Ampert and BT. They know why he's actually like abandoning the alliance when it comes to the arena. And obviously whoever else that BT is working with, I assume also knows that knowledge. We don't know the specifics of who's involved there. But do you think anyone believed that excuse? Because Hamish wasn't thinking about the trouble that he might bring when he joined the newcomers in the first place, having made such a scene already with Luella's body at the opening ceremony parade. He still was happy to risk them at that point. That itself would be cause enough for retaliation. And I I do think I might be coming back to his point later when it comes to the game makers. But do we suppose the newcomers bought this idea? Because he worked so hard to pull them all together to just leave them? Like all of them. Regardless of his presence, they are all going to die in the arena. It's the Hunger Games arena for crying out loud. It's gonna happen. The career's gonna happen for anyway.
speaker-1: Regardless of what they think about Heimridge's true motivations here, they are still on their way to the arena. Like they're still you know put into their pods and being fired up into a giant circle in the center of the arena. Can you imagine being faced with 47 other tributes? Twice the usual number of people to fight against and try and win. Like because because of the amount of tributes and there only being so much space for this like star starting circle. all the tributes who, you know, very soon are gonna have to you know have they're gonna have the right to kill each other and there'd be no consequences are tightly packed together and because of some twisted fates, all the podiums go in like district order in a clock formation, meaning that Hamidge and District twelve are right next to District One, which is sick and twisted. Because do you think they did that on purpose? Get the careers to weed out the weaklings straight away. Put them right next to like District 12, District 11, all those ones. Or did they want to kill Hamidge straight away and we're like, you know what? Put him next to Silka and Panah.
speaker-0: Yeah, so I had this exact thought when I read this scene because I was like, ⁓ what a coincidence. I'm pretty sure they mixed them up in other arenas that we've seen. They did. But I don't think in hindsight it's specifically about Hamich. I mean, like, I think he's right next to Panache, which honestly cannot be a coincidence. But I also think about where Ampert and District Three ends up being in this. Pecking order. Because not only does he have eight careers on one side, spying districts one and two, he then also has four careers from District Four on his other side. And then District Five chose to ally with the careers, not the newcomers. For God only knows what reason, honestly. And that is the worst position to be in in this arena. Because he is sandwiched between 16 careers or You know what I mean? Like sixteen career packs. ⁓
speaker-1: Yeah, I hadn't even thought about where Amput was. That actually makes a full
speaker-0: And I think Yeah. And I think Heimch is just a convenient afterthought. It's okay, well, Hamish is causing trouble. Ampert and BT therefore are the real target here, BT by proxy, because they're going after Ampert to punish BT. So I feel like it was organized for like Ampert to be the priority in that. And then it was just so convenient that Hey Mitch went all the way around. And it must be random or in reaping order for the way that they organize the tributes within their districts. Because Hamich, Hamich's last name, Abernath, if it was organized by surname, he would have been at the start of that pack and he would have been closest to eleven. But he's not. He is bordering on district one again in the circle. So they've put Hamich next to Panash, in my opinion, specifically, but he was never the priority. It's as conveniently lined up there that now twelve's next to one.
speaker-1: Yeah. My God. Sorry guys. I hope you lost The The Arena itself is probably the only reason Hey Mid and Amper survived the cornucopia and the career's like long enough to even carry out their plan. The arena is like this dreamlike, idealistic, beautiful place, which I think throws a lot of them off to start with. It's not what they were expecting. Because I think the last thing that you expect, especially one year after a mirror arena.
speaker-0: You should say it's again.
speaker-1: It's lush green fields, colourful, beautiful flowers, streams, twinkling brooks, and large, snow capped mountains. Like, I just don't think that would be my guess when you're imagining like this this horrible fate. It's like some sort of like fairy tale. And they all s like seem so dazed and stunned and almost drugged. And apparently it smells incredible, still probably like disorientated too. But the careers take longer to snap out of that.
speaker-0: Yeah you dar.
speaker-1: than Hamage does. Hamage is almost immediately suspicious, like a lot of the newcomers are probably. Like they don't have the same I'm gonna win this ego that the couriers are cursed with. But that advantage, as we know, doesn't last long. The initial bloodbath with a tribute pool this size is obviously brutal. Wyatt gets killed stepping in front of Lulu to save her, which I know I'll bring up in his episode, and like some entire districts are wiped off in the first day alone. Like all the kids from District eight and nine, like Hamidge then disappears off as he needs to, you know, get away now because of his plan, grabbing a rucksack on the way, which becomes a very good idea, as we also know. And he discovers in his rucksack that he has a hammock, binoculars, two jugs of water and a number of food supplies and charcoal tablets, which he believes at the time is for curing indigestion, which he thinks are just some sort of sick joke from the game makers, because Why would anyone starving in the arena have indigestion?
speaker-0: Yeah. And he also thinks that the food he finds in his pack is a sick joke as well. Because even though like he has had whole conversations with like Mags, Waress, Beatty about using the supplies they're given and the training that they're given to find clues about what the arena's gonna be like, he still thinks this is a sick joke. He almost ditches the pack because he doesn't see why he's carrying around heavy potatoes. when they are literally found everywhere that he walks. And like I know I've called Lenore Dove impulsive in the past and I've called Lexaganus Impulsive as well. But Hamish clearly also has these tendencies a little bit too. And it's a bloody good job. He does not give in to them. Yeah.
speaker-1: However, when Hamers decides to drink from one of the streams in the arena, he quickly realizes that he has been poisoned and from there quickly realizes everything in the arena must also be poisoned. So he even thinks back to when he came out of the tube. He felt dizzy and woozy, almost like the air itself is drugged and poisonous, which is really wild and probably a step too far, as if everything else wasn't, you know, like absolutely just
speaker-0: So if it's not bad enough to begin with.
speaker-1: Yeah, that's just like a step too far. He he then thankfully remembers how back in District twelve you would use charcoal to treat poisons and quickly realizes that the tablets are actually for and thankfully not too late, but he's pretty wrecked and unwell at this point. So can we talk about the game makers tactic here to make only the food and water from the cornucopia safe to consume? Because I feel like this puts the careers at a major advantage. as they typically would have possession of the cornucopia from like what, after day two? Yeah.
speaker-0: So in in a way that this in the way that this arena was set up, not only do the careers have the highest chance of controlling the food supply, but this poison takes Hamich out of action for hours. But like at least the rest of the first day, he is like gone. Possibly longer. He is seriously, seriously unwell. Not fully in control of his own body. He is that weak and woozy. As evidenced by the fact that then the exact next day when he crawls out of like His little berry bush that he was hiding in, he realizes there's a very obvious trail of damage from where he got sick to where he ended up like hiding out, hunkering down, hoping no one would find him while he was in that state. So any other non-Korea tribute who realized that the food was poisonous after eating it, but before they could die from the effects of the poison, or they were poisoned, but like treated themselves the same way that Hamish did. Well, They'd be sitting ducks just waiting for the Koreas to come and find them because they'd be so easily trapped because of how unwell they were. This is like the world's most deadly game of hide and seek ever. Yeah. It is so bad and it is so geared towards Koreas winning again.
speaker-1: As we know, someone does find Hamidch. He is awoken by someone grabbing his ankles and pulling him out of his hideout bush. And this person is Lulu, who is somehow still alive. And she's just kind of mumbling like, find Hey Mage, find Hamidge. And like covered in dried blood. And it's at this point that I'm kind of happy that this District 11 girl probably isn't like all there. Cause maybe it means she doesn't really understand the full reality. the situation that she's in. But Rachel, it's never made completely clear. But why do we think Lulu has come to find Hamage?
speaker-0: Here is where I come back to that super suspicious and see-through lie that Hey Mitch has been telling about how he is going to break from the newcomer alliance and be a lone wolf in the arena because he got a won after like going through all that effort to set it up. Because Snow is not stupid. Things would be better, honestly, if he was, but he is not stupid. And he has a vested interest in the actions of this boy of Hey Mitch.
speaker-1: Yeah, sadly.
speaker-0: And really, I gotta one in training isn't a good enough excuse to throw everything that you have put together up to this point away. So someone wants to keep tabs on Hamich. Yes, they have cameras and mics and trackers and all of that stuff. But this time, as they have been saying, throughout the entirety of the series, I don't want to be a piece in their games. They literally have a piece in their game. They have Poor Lulu, drugged and controlled, and she is inside the arena with Hamish. And if they suspect Hamish is up to something, they literally have someone who is, to the outside world, Luella. She is practically Hamish's little sister. And she was always meant to be his ally from the start. To the outside world, this makes complete sense because the real Luella would go after Hamish. So Lulu going after Hamich looks perfectly fine on camera. And now the game makers have someone attached to Hamish's side and someone who can be used as a tool to control Hamish. Because Hamich has to be aware that everyone expects her to be Luella, not Lulu, and therefore he has to protect Lulu.
speaker-1: Obviously Lulu's presence does make things harder for Hamid. And he now has to find ways to explain his actions. Like when he's trying to find a rock that will work with his flint striker, he's obviously looking for this stuff so he can create the spark, to bring down the arena, to light the explosives. But he's so happy that Lenore Dove can be a part of this plot because she's the one who gave him the Flintstriker. But now he has to play this whole kind of thing off audibly as like a way to cook food. And Hamish has to convince Lulu to just kind of go along with him looking for the mutt portals hidden in the flower berms. And he has to come up with some like excuse to keep trekking forward away from the other tributes. And while they are looking, Hamish turns his back on Lulu and she finds this berm of pretty flowers. And she leans in to smell them, and she is braided in the face with this like thick yellow substance that essentially suffocates her and poisons her because she starts to bleed out of her eyes and her ears. Presumably, she is melting from the inside, and Hamish just cannot stop it. And it goes it goes on and on. And Hamish says he knows that she has that like sedative pump. And they could just end it for her. But instead they let Lulu, like they actively let Lulu suffer. And he's screaming that she isn't a thing to be played with. And he yanks that pump out of her, realizing that Lee full sedative dose like herself, so like her pain then ends. And then because we all know Lulu has like a two way earpiece that she herself has been muttering into about the how the capital are murderers, which I find so interesting. But Hamish then leads leans down and says the same thing into the earpiece. Surely this is super dangerous. Like I know he thinks he's marked to die, like whatever way, but should he really be trying to expedite that, given the plans he needs, you know, the plans he needs to carry out, like he needs to be alive to do. So we then see the hovercraft come to pick up a fallen tribute's body, Lulu's, which we're used to seeing, obviously from the OG trilogy. But like at the chariot procession, Hamid picks up Lulu's body and runs off with it into the forest, kind of covered bit of the arena, so they can't get a hold of her. And he is thinking that all the people watching must see is like just a rascal running off with his friend and you know, fellow district's body. But for himself, he hates the idea of the capital's hands burying her because he knows they cannot send two dead bodies back to District 12. So he speculates like what will they be doing with her? burn her and sift her like she never existed. Like it is it's really sad to think about because I feel like when he's already in like so much trouble already, this is more of a rebellious act on his behalf. But maybe this is because like he knows that his actions are only going to get like more extreme from here on out. So like does it really matter?
speaker-0: It's it's the hissing threats into Lulu's earpiece and then running off with her body and all of this that makes me think of like Lenore Dove's impulsive rebellion anger and then like Sir Janus' actions, which like we were talking about a lot in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, about how impulsive he is, but also like Hamish is doing this to a l a a lesser extent, I guess, than Sir Janus. 'Cause he he can usually like rein in that impulse and he realizes where it's going on. But Hamich is angry and he's acting out directly against the Capitol here. And when he's gone and hidden in these trees to keep Wulu's body away from the game makers, so the Holocraft can't access them. And obviously, like this he's highlighting a flaw, another design flaw in what the game makers have made. Because the holocrafts should be able to get to every part of the arena and access every part of it as a whole. Because What's to say two tributes didn't duke it out there with some spears and a knife and then they couldn't retrieve that body? He's highlighting this mistake by doing this. And in the Capitol's eyes, he is probably making the Capitol look like idiots. This might like the might of the Capitol cannot retrieve the body of a tribute because of the actions of another tribute. Like it is not a good look. For Hamich to be doing this. But thankfully, like he does. He does realize this and he calms down and realizes that he's not meant to be doing this at all. Snow has told him, behave and you won't suffer too badly when you die. And he is not behaving, so he's gonna suffer badly when he dies. If he keeps doing stuff like this, like like you said, he is going to jeopardize the plan. And the plan is the most important thing right now. And if he keeps giving in to his anger and his impulses, And this is something obviously Adult Heimich learned, but he is 16, he is a child, he is ruled by hormones and rage. And he is screwing this up. Not only could the game makers retaliate with something more than the taser butterflies that they send after him, but like he's shunned all alliances and now he's running off with the body of one of those allies. The messages that he is sending out are conflicting. And that in itself is almost a glaring neon sign over his head. declared that Hamich Abernath is up to something.
speaker-1: This idea of conflicting messages comes up again, not at all that long later, when he spots Amper making his way towards him. And he needs Amper to carry out the plan, since Amper is retrieving the explosives and delivering them to Hamid. And Amper and his suppliers are pretty damn essential. But Hamid starts towards him before thinking about the optics of the situation. Like dude shuns his newcomer alliance, which Once again he helped the bloody build and then runs towards Amper. Like it makes no sense. And the people watching on the TV must be like, ⁓ what the fuck? So he bl he like blatantly like has to kind of like concort this explanation of like him wanting to like know how everybody is doing and then I like after tonight I'll send Amper back to the others and then like it'll be done with it. And Hamid has done his job. He followed the the taser butterflies back to their mutt portal, so he's found a way down into the tunnels beneath the arena. He found a sparkling stone to use with the flint striker, and Ampert retrieved the explosives from the sunflower tokens belonging to the district nine tributes, despite of all of them dying basically immediately in the initial bloodbath. So, you know, in theory, everything's in place. So night falls and Hamid uses a spear to pry open the berm to reveal the mutt portal. And therefore they, you know, access into underbelly of the arena. And he just climbs on down there. Like that's not, you know, terrifying. And every time I read this, I wonder why no peacekeepers or even like anybody working down there realized and came to grab him. Because surely there's cameras everywhere. Like everywhere. They have to know what's happening. Why aren't they doing anything about it?
speaker-0: You make a damn good point. But I guess I kind of read it as it's the crappy back shift, right? Like they've waited for night to form. Probably for this purpose. And it is probably like nighttime will be the least eventful time in any arena, usually, right? Most tributes will be like hunkering down somewhere to sleep. Most capital citizens are probably like also doing the same. It is probably that cliche. Of like the night security guard asleep in his chair snoring while like some robber like breaks in and steals the good jewellery. We've seen like time and time again throughout this book specifically that in summarise on the reaping, even by the 50th Games, all the money is going towards making like a good spectacle on TV. They're cutting the corners behind the scenes in every way possible. Like if it's not actually on TV, things are getting a bit lax around here.
speaker-1: ⁓ huh.
speaker-0: And the Capitol, after all, somehow seems to think that they are invincible and half the Hunger Game staff are useless, let's be honest. It kinda seems rather on brand for them that he just gets to climb on down that doesn't get started.
speaker-1: this plan that like Beatty obviously came up with, the plan that Amper and Hamid are carrying out, like is pretty simple. Like the Hunger Games arenas are pretty reliant on the electricity, which kind of, you know, is very obvious. This stuff is like automated or triggered by pressing buttons in the capital to control the marks being released, etc. But Beatty has, you know, been previously shown some plans of the arena because he's from three, he's a tech genius and they didn't know he was a rebel at this point. Bit awkward. The BT knows there is a giant water tank down there and they want to basically take out the brain behind the arena. So if they destroy the electrical systems by blowing up the water tank, they will destroy the arena entirely, in theory. Like it sh it should in theory no longer function. But obviously, Haymridge's knowledge of rigging explosives comes in here. The school in District Twelve basically tours them around their minds and teaches them the skills they will need when they have to go and work in them. But you know Logically makes sense. Like this is defo the reason why in the OG trilogy, the tributes from twelve don't have those skills anymore and don't go into the mines properly until they p they're past eligible reaping age. So he is going into the underbelly of the arena to like blow up the water tank apart to flood the place. Recognizing that if the plan works, like it would likely kill him in the process. The fuse length is what, like six feet? Which doesn't give him much time to run away from the actual explosion. But then all the water that is released will probably like wash him away if he does manage to survive the explosion. So quick side note. Do we think Hamidge put the explosives too high on the tank? Like, do we think if we have put it if he put it lower, it would have flooded more and they might have actually like done some greater damage? Because obviously the arena's like tech like sputters out and the Sky shifts for a while to the point where Hamidge can like briefly see the real sky, but pretty quickly what he assumes is the arena's like backup generator kicks in and everything kind of starts working again. And like he kind of starts to celebrate a bit early that they've broken the arena. ⁓ So like, what did he actually succeed in breaking? It's a question I can't seem to answer myself.
speaker-0: I think there is no right answer to this question because this was such a dangerous plot to begin with. And not just for Hamish and Ampert and Beatty who are carrying it out and the people that we know about publicly who were involved with this. Let's say that he did put the explosives lower because he puts them at like chest height. And you know, a tank holds water. Yeah. So blowing a hole in it here. is not gonna get all of it. And I think we can put that decision down to panic brain of I have a limited amount of time before I'm caught. Let's get this over with. But if he had put them lower and drained the whole thing, he almost certainly would have died then because he struggled to get back up to the muck and out of the mutt portal into the arena without drowning in the first place. I think the pull of the water would have been stronger, obviously with more water, and he would have been swept away and then died. under the arena, not in the arena. And then if by some miracle he had survived that amount of water, we do not know whether that was the only water tank. Later on, it rains and Hamich and Mazley collect the rainwater and it tastes clean. It's not poisoned. So they aren't reusing the water that's flowing in the poisoned rivers to make that rain. Hamich doesn't know whether they have a reserve tank of water in the first place that is then powering this rain or whether It came from the bottom few feet of that tank that he blew up and survived. So say that was the only tank and it did drain completely, but it didn't take out the arena and the backup generator kicked in anyway, like the plan essentially, like they had the failsafe. And then everything else continues running as normal. That would then have wiped out the only like supply of clean running water in the entire arena that wasn't quite as good. Which would have left all the remaining tributes like with two options. Either drink the poisoned arena water and try and survive it with charcoal tablets or whatever, or fight your way to the cornucopia supplies in the hope that they will find water there. Bearing in mind the cornucopia is probably gonna be career central. Yeah. So neither of those options are good options, really. It's not like the capital will be scram scrambling around to fix that situation either. In fact, they'd probably quite like that twist of fate because Like it's the capital and ⁓ look, here's a twist. We did not have to plan and execute. How interesting will this get? And I know I haven't considered like the world's best scenario here, which like would have been if we destroyed the tank and took out the arena and Heymrut survived, but we don't know what their plan was after they took the tank out and destroyed the arena. Are they just killing all the tributes by destroying the arena and screwing with the Hungarians forever? But sacrificing all 48 lives and the lives of whoever planned the rebellion, who the capital can discover, planned the rebellion. In Catching Fire, District 13 was ready and waiting to rescue whoever they could out of that arena once the arena was destroyed. There was a second part to that arena plan. And I'm not convinced there was one here. This plan to me reeks of Beattie's revenge for Amput and not here we have contact with 13 already. And we've had to wait twenty five years to do it again. It's it's it's it's sort of smacks of let's screw with the game makers because they've hurt
speaker-1: I feel like if he had blown all that water up and the arena hadn't been damaged and ha the same thing happened that did happen and there wasn't any more drinking water, then b b basically a career would have won. Right?
speaker-0: Basically a career would won. Everyone would have poisoned themselves. I'm drinking the water, or they'd have died thirst. And the careers he would have had the supplies and figured it out because they could now overpower people because the careers obviously did figure it out, probably won the most packs from the corner copia. It it would have been pointless, I guess. The the the the game makers would have still had a a victor. It just wouldn't have been a decent victor. It would have been a victor who falls right into the pocket.
speaker-1: As usual. And let let's not forget, as Hamid is working his way back up the ladder into the arena and he is getting attacked by these like bat mutts, which the game makers have now sent after him, as well as trying to like outrun the explosion and the water happening at the same time. And he can kinda he can see Amput at the top. So the idea of just like, you know, make it to the top, and you know, he's then relieved when they leave him alone and don't kill him. But then Amput is no longer there. I'm actually I'm actually about to cry. In fact Inf fuck use his ankles. In fact all he does is he sees say these strips of blue fabric, the uniform from three and it actually can't say Hold on and a tidy little twelve year old skeleton. ⁓ god, hold on. I'm a makeup. No. With squirrel mats gnaw like gnawing into it. And Jesus has gonna be hard to watch in November. ⁓ dear. Hold on. I'm born.
speaker-0: ⁓ god. I'm so thankful that on my end when we record you just look pixelated because otherwise I'd be crying right now as well.
speaker-1: I've like, duh, no. Okay, never mind, we sold her on. And ⁓ and right after this, like they needed apparently to spice things up in the arena again and to distract an audience from this part of the arena. And the game makers need to show them who is really in control. And the mountain on the other side of the arena erupts. Because it turns out the mountain is a volcano. How fun's that? And there there is like Wait, I'm not recovered from that amped thing, yeah.
speaker-0: ⁓ god. Wait, so we get to the end of part four.
speaker-1: ⁓ no. And there's like there's this like liquid gold and this like horrible cloud covers the arena. And thankfully the suit, it turns out, is fireproof that they're kind of dressed in. But Hamish does think that that won't really matter for anybody stuck on that side of the mountain. To the point he starts to wonder if he might actually be like the only person left and he might be the lone winner now. As if it was gonna be that easy. But what I don't get about this, if they have these mutts, which are programmed to specifically target particular tributes, as we saw with that, why did they not release the ones for Hamage then? Why did the bats not just kill him? It would have been so easy and simple to just do it then. Like, what month mutts do we think were meant for him? And why did they not release him? And this is something Hamage asks a lot, like, why is he the one that's still alive? They could have just killed him and they should have done really after he set the things. He's settled exposable.
speaker-0: Yeah, and Hamish just kind of spiral with his failure to destroy the arena and Ampert's death and the volcano eruption. And I will be talking more about Ampert when we discuss Beattie's role in all of this and whether he is the asshole for his actions. But I think in a way, Ampert is not the real threat. Beatty is the real threat. And now Hamish. Ampert at the end of the day. is a delivery slash messenger boy for his father. Ampert isn't punished with his death. Not really. BT is punished for Ampert's death. And the squirrel mutts are so horrific because they attack and eat him alive. Like BT has to live with the fact that he caused his son to die in that manner. But ultimately like it creates psychological fear. Ampert's not the one who carried out this attack. Hamich is. So yes, in what way is Hamish going to be punished? They are, they are keeping him alive for something. Why are they keeping him alive? God, like if he destroyed the water supply, did he condemn everyone who gets caught up in the volcano because that water could have helped him? I also wonder like whether the reason the volcano went off at that exact time can be attributed to Hamich. Like, did the game makers set that volcano off when there were more tributes on the mountain? Like than their initial intention would have been because a lot of tributes die here and it really speeds up the the games because of that. So could that be Hamich's fault because it was triggered before, like as part of the glitch? Or did the game makers feel forced to do it then to distract from Hamage? No matter what you think of all of this and in in what way you answer these questions like from the text of the book or like from your own personal theories. All of that would psychologically torture Hamish, along with When am I going to die then? And in what manner will President Snow decide to end my life? As far as Hamish is concerned, he is now at President Snow's mercy, more so now than ever. And that must screw with him. And he probably wants that, let's be honest. Yeah.
speaker-1: This is not the end of it. Like Hamid is still in the arena. There are still tributes trying to kill each other. And it would almost be better, like, if this was the end of the book, if this was the end of Hamage trying to destroy the arena, and he just received his punishment now, almost for him. Let's just cut it off. Let's not do that let's not do all the other stuff that's gonna make me cry. Let's just let's just finish the book. Yeah. ⁓
speaker-0: Yeah. I think this is the point of no return for Hamich as well. I think here is where Snow makes the conscious choice to see how Hey Mitch plays the rest of the arena to decide if death is too good a punishment for Hamich. But I feel like we've kind of like breezed past the actual arena plot so quickly in a way. Like that moment of him going into the bowels of the arena was over so fast.
speaker-1: That's because it was. Like everything was leading up to this moment throughout the book and that moment was so quickly over. And now he somehow has to just like live in this failure for as long as he can. Like, do we want to check in and assess Hamidge's asshole percentage here? Is that a good idea?
speaker-0: Yeah, probably is. I honestly don't think I can fault him for his anger at the Capitol. But let's circle back around to those questions of what is his fault after the arena survives the flooding. Like I think we can absolve him of the deaths of the other tributes from the volcano because it's the hunger games and there is always a pretty good chance that it was down to game maker sadism. Let's be honest. These guys love to kill these kids off. But I do want to question Ampert.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm.
speaker-0: So Amput's death is particularly brutal as a punishment for this plot in particular, at least as far as I'm concerned. Because Ampett's arena death as a general death was punishment for BT's communication sabotage scheme. But Ampert being ripped apart by squirrel mutts, also I can never see Willow Wonka in the same light ever again. Thanks, Suzanne Collins. If you because if you watch the second
speaker-1: Huh, I well he won't.
speaker-0: Johnny Depp film and read the book. Ruka Salt is not attacked ⁓ or like a bad egg. She is a bad nut and she is dragged into the chute by the squirrels. You need to see it's Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, it's John Adepp version. And I feel like most people have seen it. Yes, it's not the Gene Wilder one, it's the Join Depp version, which is kind of like more what Roll Dahl intended, I think, because it's a bit like ⁓ creepy.
speaker-1: I have not seen this. I guess.
speaker-0: It's a bit creepy. But the squirrels and they they drag Verruka rather than she's not a bad egg, she's a bad nut, and they knock on her head and then they drag her down the incinerator chute. Yeah. And now I'm gonna think about Amper every time I see that scene and Amput being eaten by squirrels. But that brutality that Ampert suffers has to have been for the arena flooding plot, right? Not like his arena death was
speaker-1: Right. Yeah.
speaker-0: For the first communication sabotage, this is for this plot.
speaker-1: Can I just but like he died because of the squirrels and I'm not gonna go into much more cognate cry again. But obviously they were programmed before the game started.
speaker-0: For AP for Do they need do they? Do they need to be programmed for Amput? Because don't forget, was were those flamingo things always planned for Mazalie?
speaker-1: They don't go for anybody else. Like the squirrels don't go for Hamid.
speaker-0: They don't. They don't. But are you telling me they were planned before the arena started? I think so. Because because otherwise that means that you would have wasted the flamingos by programming them for Maisie Lee, even if Maisie Lee never made it to day four or day five.
speaker-1: I think they are programmed beforehand, but I don't think they're programmed for a certain day. I think they're programmed for a certain person and then they can pick when to use them. But I think they were like so for the squirrel maps I think were always programmed for Amput and he was all they were always programmed to killer him that way and they were like just you know, they were waiting to be activated if they wanted to use them and they use them then, basically. That's what I think.
speaker-0: So is it so I always thought of it as we're gonna stick these mutts, these mutts can be programmed on a dime, either through like a a chip or whatever they have invented. And because otherwise, otherwise to me, you would have to have if you're having one mutt concept or like one set of mutts programmed for one tribute, that would be the potential for 48 different mutts.
speaker-1: I just thought there were thirty eight different mutsats.
speaker-0: I was I was like, this seems impractical by money spending things. Would you not just have a couple of mutt sets? I'm thinking about money saving, honestly. I'm thinking about practicals and logistics here. So I've always read it as this particular brutal part of the death was because it was timed obviously like after this. And put theoretically could have been killed by
speaker-1: I'm not thinking of the d Okay.
speaker-0: any career ever and that would have been enough. So I guess even if you believe that these mutts were programmed for Amper previously, there was always the choice of do we release them or do we not? Does he die in a in another way? Does he die in the volcano? Does he die by eating poison stuff? Does he die by getting like speared by a career? Th there was always choices there. And even after this plot, because ultimately Ampert's role here in this plot is quite minimal compared to Haymich's. It is. Like Hey Mitch is the one who blows shit up. Hamich is the one who's found the Mutt Portal. All Ampert had to do was take a fuse and find Hamich. That was that was Ampert's job. He doesn't do any of this. So he has knowledge of it, sure. But then to say that Ampert gets ripped apart by Mutts for knowledge of this plan, as opposed to Hamich who gets left alive, it's still a punishment for BT to watch his son be killed in this brutal way rather than a quick spear death, as I keep coming back to, a spear death. Obviously also not great, but not as bad as being eaten alive by squirrel mats.
speaker-1: Now comparing like the lesser of the evils, essentially.
speaker-0: Lesser of two evils, yeah. This and this is the thing, right? The lesser of two evils is what Snow gave to Hey Mitch as a choice. How you per how you behave from here on out describes how like brutal your death will be. So in in a way, it can be seen as sort of doing that. But would this plot have existed? This this arena plan have existed without Hamish is the question that I come back to. Because if this plan didn't exist without Hamich, would Ampert have died in that manner, or would Amput have just been put in the arena? There'll be something like it'll just gonna be actually like in Beattie's perspective a lot more in depth at a later date. But Hamich is the one who said, The arena's a machine, how do I destroy the arena? Like, how would you take out the machine? And then Beatty comes up to him and approaches him and says, Are you serious about it? And Hamich goes, Yes, let's do it. Because I wonder if Hayamich hadn't gone, I'm in, let me do this, whether this plan would exist at all. Because Ampert could not have carried this out on his own. Not in my opinion. I think he's too small to have managed his feat and the explosives and all this kind of stuff. I think he would have died. So did Hayamich set the wheels in motion for this plan, and therefore is Ampert's death in this manner on Haymich?
speaker-1: So if if we're like visiting the Arsehole scale for the end of this episode, end of part three, where do you think he fits? I
speaker-0: I'm the answer to whether Hayberge set us up is a thing. I don't think it was ever his intention. I think I think I'm still on zero percent, but it also doesn't mean that things aren't his fault or things aren't caused by him. Just because he's not an asshole because he didn't intend to cause all these consequences does not mean that these aren't consequences of his actions. So I think I'm still like zero percent asshole. But with a little caveat of this is kind of like you you you you did you did s screw some stuff up by being impulsive and by maybe not thinking this through. But then also alternatively, like this is BT's plot and we'll go into BT's episode of like, you know, B's the adult here. Should he have stopped it and should the onus be BT and not Hamich? So I think I'm like zero percent, but there's caveats, there's caveats involved.
speaker-1: Yeah. So as we get to the end of this episode, ⁓ which is part three of the Hamage episode, we're kinda saying it's a zero percent R toll, but in brackets could have done better. Yes.
speaker-0: I'm thinking to be like, hmm, zero percent asshole, but you made some questionable choices with this. Maybe could have planned this out a little more
speaker-1: Okay. Interesting. Okay. But
speaker-0: After all that, after all the tears and after you crying over Amper, shall we just like cleanse the air a little bit? Shall we just like light some sage and talk about some nice things? ⁓ If you're watching the video, you may have noticed behind me that the bookcase has changed and I'm in a chair off the floor again. Hallelujah. But I now have a smaller bookcase in my living room. And that is now like my immediate TBR bookcase.
speaker-1: ⁓ huh.
speaker-0: Like it is obviously not my complete TBR because half these books behind me I have not read. But it's always a small bookcase in there. And I have a huge number of them read books. And those are the ones that I'm excited to read soon. So like I don't have to come like out of my living room to grab a fresh book. But it led me to wonder when I was sort of going through that process of how people organize their books and how they pick what's on their like immediate TBR. Like 'cause there's so many books back there, right? And I'm realizing like a lot of what I find to be good or great reads depends on me being in the mood for that particular book. But I've got a friend who picks books off her shelves like almost randomly. She mainly reads the same genres. It's either romance or romantic, let's be honest. Less so like general fantasy and more romanticy and romance. But she grabs them off a shelf almost randomly because she won't even read the blurb again. She won't pick up the book and read the back of it and decide because she thinks she's she read the blurb when she bought the book, decided it would be good. So obviously she'd like it. And now she's wanting to read the blurb again. She wants to go blind. But I found that interesting because I know I can't do that because I want to read certain tropes or vibes or something. And if I'm not in the mood for that vibe or that, I'm just gonna DNF it. And I have multiple books I have paused, not DNF because I know they're gonna be good books. But I have paused them because I'm not in the mood for that right now. And I'm like, what do you do, Katie? How do you pick?
speaker-1: been you usually when I'm on podcasts I'm like, ⁓ I've barely been able to read anything 'cause I'm too busy and I'm st I'm still too busy, but I've actually been actually been reading a lot. Like I think I read like six books in May, which is like cra crazy for me. Yeah. Yeah, I know. And basically how I was just kind of it's honestly it's just vibes. And it's like ⁓ how am I feeling of my fancy reading? It it kind of goes from like a dystopian
speaker-0: Really good for you.
speaker-1: to a romance, to a fantasy, to romanticy, to a a cowboy book, to ⁓ I'm currently reading, ⁓ I y read yesteryear, which was like really not usually what I would read, but ⁓ my God, so good, really enjoyed it. I was really going off of like what I felt and I was like, ⁓ that book's calling to me. I'll read that one. It I don't have any sort of like organization system and neither does my bookshelf. So it's just kind of like hmm what what's like what books calling to me next? Which probably sounds really airy fairy, but that's honestly the way that I do it. So
speaker-0: Fair, like part of that is the same with me. So all my bookshelves were previously organized by genre. So if I felt like romantic, I'd go to perception. If I felt like litvic, because I do occasionally feel like litvic, not very often, but I do feel like litvic. And so I was like, okay, I can navigate to this particular shelf. But recently, based off pure vibes, I had a bit of a like cheeky Google to find a book that fit the vibe of a dream I had.
speaker-1: That's so raja.
speaker-0: I had this dream. I had this dream of like a muscly, tattooed, like shadow daddy character. And I was like, I need to get back into that dream. That was like like the vibes were on point. And I was like, I need to find this character. So I was Googling to find like a book that fit those vibes. And even though the writing was not. tremendous, even though it did feel what paddy. I really enjoyed the first book and then I kind of enjoyed the second book as well. I enjoyed the third book, surprisingly. This was Rhapsodic by Laura Thalas.
speaker-1: Be you'd be you'd be talking about it, yeah.
speaker-0: To the point where I realized that I needed to finish this entire series, this four book series. And the fourth book, I was kind of by the fourth book, I was I was getting a bit annoyed with the main character. ⁓ Just a little bit. And then she finally came into her own. And I was getting like a little bit like whiny weak MMC FMC vibes. And and I was like, there's no reason for you to be whiny and weak. You are magical. Shut up. If you've got another method listening to the pod. If you're on video or you're on YouTube, pop it in the comment below because honestly, sometimes you don't know what the vibes are. And I've had this a few times where I'm like, I don't know what I want to read. I can't tell you what I want to read. So I am open to more methods of picking books.
speaker-1: Tell us how you figure out what you're gonna read next. I'm interested to see what these comments are gonna be like. But thanks so much for listening, guys. Whether you're watching us on YouTube or you're listening, or I know a lot of you listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. ⁓ we're just really happy to have you here and we're really happy that we found other bookish lovers and other people that also are interested as much as we are in the Hunger Games. And ⁓ yeah, don't I'm gonna do that horrible thing right now where I'm gonna say like, comment, subscribe, follow. We can't do it without you. And
speaker-0: I saw someone on YouTube basically say ⁓ it was Charlotte Dobray who has an Am I the Asshole actual account herself. She's a heck of a lot bigger than we are. But apparently someone was saying to her like they don't subscribe because they think it costs something. And so she started something like, subscribe, it's free. And I'm like, it is free. Let's just let's just dismiss any ideas that people have around subscriptions.
speaker-1: It is free.
speaker-0: Because it is the word, isn't it? It's subscribe. It's join. It it feels like it costs money. Subscribe. It's free. And we get little notifications when we post. So if you like us, you never forget that our new videos come out. So you know. Subscribe. It's free. It's free.
speaker-1: It's And we'll we'll see you next week for our final episode of Hamid Part 4 for summarise on the reaping and I've got Ryan again. Okay. Yeah. Bye guys. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to our podcast. And don't forget to let us know your thoughts on all of our potential asshole.
speaker-0: She slept. No matter what platform you're listening to us on, make sure you like, comment, subscribe, upvote and all that stuff.
speaker-1: If you like what we do and want to find out more, all of our platforms are listed in the description or show notes. We're a two-person team so any support or feedback is always greatly received.
speaker-0: Check in next time to Once Upon a Red Flag. 'Cause like what are the odds of these guys actually killing all the careers and then having to infight amongst
speaker-1: His actions are only going to get like more extreme from here on out.
speaker-0: Okay.