[ SECRET POST #1970 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1970 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.
[Majin Tantei Nōgami Neuro]


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________













[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]










10. [SPOILERS for ASOIAF, Game of Thrones]



__________________________________________________



11. [SPOILERS for Dangan Ronpa]



__________________________________________________



12. [SPOILERS for Hunger Games]



__________________________________________________













[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]










13. [TRIGGER WARNING for gore/body horror]



__________________________________________________



14. [TRIGGER WARNING for self-harm]



__________________________________________________



15. [TRIGGER WARNING for misogyny, rape, racism]



__________________________________________________







Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #281.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

I think she was really different. In the beginning, she's scrappy and a survivor, providing for her family. Stepping in when her mom can't deal. Even trying to drown the cat is in a way a tough thing, though not a nice one: what maximizes survival? She's not squeamish. But yet after book 1 she falls apart so fast and so much. Someone who's as used to hardship as she was -- and who it's made a point of doesn't fall into depression when her mom did -- should be tough.

I get that she has PTSD -- so do I. And I'm sure her PTSD would be far worse than mine is, too. But as someone who does have PTSD herself, I found what happened to Katniss off-putting -- it's like she isn't even who she was at all any more. Although PTSD sucks, especially when it first hits you, that suddenly becoming really... I want to type "fearful" but it's not even that, it's this bizarre loss of identity that doesn't feel like dissociation to me so it doesn't really resonate with me.

OP, you're not alone in thinking the last two books massively derailed everything and pretty much sucked. They had interesting bits in them, but most of the ideas got recycled and really didn't work the second time around. And Katniss went from a flawed but likeable heroine to a 2-dimensional mouthpiece the sole purpose of which was to convince us war is hell. A point already made more subtly and interestingly in Book 1 anyway, as the arena is pretty clearly meant to symbolically represent war/the draft anyway.

[zuppi.livejournal.com]

I found the depiction of her PTSD very much mirrored my own. I see her as probably having more chronic PTSD, rather than it stemming only from the Hunger Games. She struggled so hard since her father died, facing death at only 11 and scrambling since then to survive. To me the Hunger Games are the straw that broke the camel's back.

Which is how I feel about my own chronic PTSD. I managed to keep it mostly at bay for years (though looking back now, it's obvious thing weren't normal) but then there's just that one thing that breaks you. It might not even be as bad as everything else but it just gets too much to bear on top of everything else and things begin to fall apart.

Perhaps I'm identifying too much with Katniss (I was hardly fighting for my life in the same fashion, I was very ill) but I spent months sitting in a room, literally unable to do anything. Looking back, it seems like that was somebody else's life and I don't understand how it even happened but I, personally, do see her PTSD as very like my own and therefore incredibly believable.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

That makes a lot of sense, actually. Especially what you say about repeated trauma. I had traumatic experiences as a child, and I do think I probably already had PTSD of some kind then, but it was when something else happened to me as a teen that I really found myself with an obvious mental health issue rather than "something feels off most of the time, I don't know, I'm just angry."

I can definitely see how losing her dad and caring for Prim and herself and battling starvation could put her on precarious ground even if she is tougher than her mother.

I don't like it particularly, personally, because I felt kind of like it made Katniss less of a character and more "a person with PTSD" -- I didn't feel her personality in it. I think that's the problem I had with the other victors, also. I liked them, and I liked their flaws, and I liked that they're sad and tired and not epic heroes. But I felt that there's a fine balance between showing that and making the characters less likeable/unlikeable, and I don't really feel Suzanne pulled it off well.

[(Anonymous)]

To zupi and fierceawakening: I would be very careful trying to equate your experiences of having severe illnesses and sporadic traumatic experiences, with something like deaths of parents, poverty, and threat of constant death. Your experiences may not have sparked the same kinds of personality shifts that other triggers may incite.

For some kinds of experiences, it feels like there literally is nothing left inside of you but that experience. Everything you were is gone, and nothing else can ever be added. So yeah, some experiences do kind of make you feel like you're without personality.

[zuppi.livejournal.com]

So yeah, some experiences do kind of make you feel like you're without personality.

Unfortunately, I do know what that's like. I never in any way implied that some experiences could not trigger such a loss of identity. I really don't know what in my comment could have conveyed that I thought that way. If so, I apologise.

[meadowphoenix]

Could you explain why you think you're experience of PTSD is everyone's? I get why you might not find her sympathetic anymore, but I find it interesting that you're are devaluing her mental experience considering you also went through one other people would devalue.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

Hm. I can't tell whether you're being snide or not when you say that I think my experience is everyone's (and I think the response I just posted to the commenter above may cause you to rethink whether I do think that.) But on the off chance that you want me to restate what I said, rather than are snarking or attacking:

It's not so much that I think "PTSD could never do that" or something. I think in some ways mine's unusual, actually (and have always said as much.) It's more that I feel devalued sometimes when I see portrayals of PTSD that I feel make people who have it not more than their illness. It's like "you don't have a personality, you have a Trauma." It feels dehumanizing.

That is how I felt reading those books, so that is why I felt uneasy and kind of disgusted by the way Katniss was portrayed. It's not that I don't think the actions she's depicted as taking are unrealistic, it's that I felt that wasn't balanced out with a character I still found human and vibrant. That bothered me.

I get that it didn't bother everyone, but it makes me uncomfortable and is a big part of why I not only disliked Book 2 (which I mostly thought was poorly written) but Book 3 (which I thought was much better written, but had aspects of it ruined for me because I felt uncomfortable with some of the changes in Katniss.)

[meadowphoenix]

No, that makes a lot of sense actually and yes, I understand what you're saying about why that would be uncomfortable. I felt like Collins was making a point about Katniss' reaction to her mother actually. She spent a lot of her childhood resenting her mother for being ineffectual, but once she loses people she is just as devoted too, she does the same thing. She's also drugged for a lot for what seem like one-off freak-outs. They really over-medicate her.

Can I ask what incidents you felt uncomfortable about and how they were different from Katniss' book 1 personality? I didn't get that feeling so I would love to know how other people see it.

[zuppi.livejournal.com]

I felt like Collins was making a point about Katniss' reaction to her mother actually.

I completely agree. That's absolutely how I saw it. I found the book very interesting when a friend of mine comment on how she hated Katniss' mother in the first book for being 'useless'. Said friend can be intolerant of her sister's mental illness. By the time she finished Mockingjay she has a completely different outlook on the situation.

Personally, as someone who know for being constantly cheerful and perky, I know people often cannot understand when I tell them how I struggled with crippling PTSD. I went through some massive personality changes along the way. I don't feel like the same person any more. Not in a necessarily in a bad way, but I know I'll never be the same as before my breakdown.