I was also disappointed in Conan, though not as much as you.  It was entertaining but forgettable.  Conan was not the Conan of the stories or previous movies, though I did enjoy the many references to the adventures penned by Robert E. Howard.  Conan had WAY too much charm and personality -- essentially, it was not Conan at all.  I failed to connect with the characters, whereas Conan the Barbarian with Arnold was compelling drama in its own right.  That's the result of John Milius and Oliver Stone at the helm.  If you watched HBO's Rome, you got another great sense of John Milius at work.

But this installment probably just killed the Conan franchise forever, unfortunately.  I read all the stories in the 80s growing up and hoped for the same kind of dark and gritty tone.  What I got was a fantasy hodgepodge of moving from one set piece to another without any real charm and without the engaging combat of the original.  Even the romance was completely unbelievable.

Arnold's movie brought you in on the romance and death of Valeria, and when he gives his "prayer" to Crom before the big battle, your heart gets pumping.  This movie has one mention of Crom offhand and no emotional connection to Conan -- who also should have been much more buff, by the way.

And yes, this movie was all Hollywood and no Conan.  Shame on them.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:20, Thu 25 Aug 2011.

I guess I'll have to finish the trilogy to have an opinion on the entire trilogy, however, it seems that a rebellion of some magnitude does occur, and I think that the games play a roll in the creation of that rebellion.




The games are first and foremost propaganda.  The source of the entertainment should support the propaganda not the other way around.



The gamemakers easily could have rigged the game.  The simplistt way would have been to told the other players off camera where Katniss was hiding.  The gamemakers only have to maintain the appearance of not interfering. (Although everyone seems to already believe the games are rigged.)

Also, Katniss using a ton of effort, time, and her sponsor money to heal Peeta should have told the gamemakers something strange was going on.



If they had eaten the poison berries then the gamemakers could say that they weren't allowed to interfere at least on such short notice and both would have died with little blame on the government.  Anyway two people surviving is breaking the rules as much as one surviving but contradicts the message of the games.


They could have at least downplayed the victory while plotting to kill the two of them.  I think they could have killed Katniss in the hospital after the games and come up with a rare medical accident that occurred. (Maybe she was allergic to a medicine in the procedure or shock put her into a coma.  They could have come up with something.)  They decided that breaking the most important rule in their game was a great thing, and I don't see how that helped the government at all.

These arguments work if the government was in complete power and nobody could question them but in the books the capital is struggling to maintain order. Some of the major points in the book were that a simple spark could start a rebellion. If they would have tried to do anything rigged or sneaky people would have found out no matter what, secretes get out especially when your government is full of moles. They kept Katniss alive because she was good television and creating good television was the government’s best option in controlling its people. It's the bread and circuses theory, you keep the people entertained and they forget their being oppressed.

P.s. If you have x-box live download the arcade game Bastion from the marketplace...I is SOOOOOOO good SO GOOD!!!!

The games were already rigged but in ineffective ways.  If the government wanted bread and circuses then they would have had more than one gaming event a year.  They were trying to use the games as propaganda which it failed at when Katniss and Peeta both lived.

The games -weren't- rigged. That was the whole point. They were, as Vixcis said, entertainment for the purpose of controlling the public. The Capitol had nothing to do with the richer fiefs training their kids for the Games, and you can't really call the hazards introduced "rigging". That was just part of the games.

If they were rigged, then it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for Peeta or Katniss to win. Period.

The purpose of bread and circuses is to have the audience entertained so that they don't care that they're being oppressed and manipulated.  Having a single event annually that usually doesn't last more than a few days doesn't provide enough entertainment to be considered breads and circuses.  As I've said before the game's primary goal is to impose on the general populace a sense of powerlessness.  They disguise it as entertainment.  If the government wanted bread and circuses then they would have offered gaming events throughout the year as well as other benefits to the impoverished.

The games are inherently rigged to some degree (just like reality shows such as Survivor) by the gamemakers.  They have the ability to launch any obstacle or hazard at a contestant without breaking any rules.  I don't remember very well, but I recall fireballs being shot at Katniss by the gamemakers.  That was ineffective but if one had killed Katniss I don't think that many people would have though it very odd.

They were rigged to a certain degree...The game controllers had to walk a thin tight rope of what they could get away with or not. They could certainly launch fireballs at Katniss but they had to give her some way of escaping or else the viewers would have cried foul. So while they could launch fireballs at her, they could not say...suddenly open a pit right under her feet without warning. They had to make it seem like she got killed because of a mistake she made. Like failing to dodge or run from a loud noise.

And the games were not the capitals only form of entertainment, their constant referrals to the changing fashion, people dying their skin color and other crazy such things to continuously keep them entertained. The games were just their biggest attraction. Even when the games weren't going they used the winners after the games were over and paraded them through the capitals and the city as entertainment.

The gamemakers can get away with just about anything it seems.  If they had for instance, continued to shoot fireballs until she died or caused a landslide then the majority of viewers might have called it bad taste but by no means an inhumane act.  They could have pushed her beyond her limits until she died.  They also had several ways that they could have secretly rigged the games such as telling the rich kids where she was off camera.  These gamemakers are supposed to be some of the most creative people in the land and therefore capable of coming up with a few ways to kill her or Peeta.  Worst case scenario is they could kill her and use video editing to make it look like a fireball hit her or something.

The everchanging fashion was a way to keep those who could afford it ignorant, but the games were not bread and circuses. (At least not as its primary objective.)  They were thinly veiled propaganda where people watched children die.  Even the popular ones.  If Katniss or Peeta had died, and even if the gamemakers were sloppy, nobody would have cared enough to cause as much damage to the government's reputation as having multiple winners.

JJoan, your points are interesting "WHAT IF'S", but I think you're missing a key part of the book.

We watch football/baseball/soccer/hockey/etc, have all kinds of silly fashions (like pants with PINK on the butt), and yet ...

People in so-called 3rd world countries are supplying us with grain, rice, coffee, fruit, etc.  If they realized their power, they could rise up and shake off the yoke of domination.

While I hear you digging into the problems of 'the game', it was a very interesting device which was a way for rebellion to foment.  The survivors sparked rebellions throughout their worlds.

Whether games makers could shoot 100 fireballs or electrocute all of them in the water is perhaps true.  I suppose the author could have had any scenarious she wanted to tell her story.

The story is the point of the book, and there's a lot that takes place that explains interpersonal issues in the book.

I'm not a sports person at all, but I found the book very entertaining.  For some reason, the game really bugged you b/c you didn't see how they could win the game?  Correct?
I recall continually in the book the author had some (IMO) awkward sentences explaining how Katniss reads the thinking of the games makers.  Did you disagree with that part as well?  Sounds like her explanations were not enough for you?

Rather than debate or explicate this more, I'm trying to get to JJOAN's core argument.

My core frustration is that the gamemakers didn't force the games to produce a single winner when they had so many chances to.

I understand that the author was going for a dark and frighteningly realistic world, but I found it to be a flawed scenario in a rather average post apocalyptic empire.  The book had several chances to become darker but didn't take them.  It turns into a love conquers all story when both Peeta and Katniss survive and are then treated as celebrities.

My name's jioan by the way.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:59, Mon 29 Aug 2011.

jioan -- apologies on the mistyping of your name.  Gaaah!

As for 'darker world', I think they didn't go there b/c it's a kids book.  I suppose kids could handle 'darker', but then again -- it worked for me.

Technically it's "teen fiction"... which is different from kids books these days.

I don't know about MODERN teenagers, but I read stuff like Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy when I was younger (I actually read it when I found it in the library in seventh grade)... of course, I was also reading Asimov and McCafferey when I was younger (like, in elementary school), but that's besides the point.

I see no reason why teenagers/children should not be able to read "darker" works...

I agree that they should be able to read them ...

Harry Potter was pretty dark.  (snicker)

But I doubt that really heavy issues, really 'dark' stuff (ie ultra gory zombies, vampires who rape & are vile, wolves that jump up and tear your sensitive bits off) are going to be marketed as 'teen fiction'.

Lame. We wrap our kids in so much cotton a bubble wrap these days that it's surprising that they grow up to be functional human beings instead of living in some perfect fantasy world...

... our kids do grow up to be functional human beings, don't they?

What you described aren't so much dark plots as they are vivid mature scenes.  A novel that frequently challenges the morals and values of the reader is what I consider a dark story.

His Dark Materials.

THAT will challenge your morals and values!

I read it when I was younger and while I knew it was dark I instead paid more attention to the animal spirit companions, the polar bears fighting, and the overall shallower parts.  It wasn't until the movie came out and there was some unearthed controversy that I reread it and understood most of what the author was trying to say.

I agree.  Quite dark.

I really love those books. I also mostly focused on the lighter bits when I first read them, but then in subsequent readings I focused more on what Pullman's message was. Messages. Were. Whatever.

I admit though, I'm hard-pressed to come up with many more young-adult or teen series that manage to do the same thing. Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, maybe, or some of the stuff by Diana Wynne Jones and Tamora Pierce. Oh, and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. Which were intentionally dark because everything else wasn't. And recently the Witch & Wizard series, although that one's sort of along the lines of the Hunger Games.

Beyond that... I dunno... I never really read kids books as a kid. I read adult books as a kid, and then I've been slowly going back and finding worthwhile teen fiction now that I'm an adult (although the Jones and Pierce books I did read in middle school). Unfortunately it's been really hard to find anything good in a bookstore these days... all they stock is "popular" teen fiction, which, naturally, has moved to focus on sexy vampires and werewolves in the style of Twilight (generally minus the glitter though, I think) and romance, rather than anything truly worthwhile...

Here are some children's books I remember being dark but I haven't read most of them recently so I'm not sure if they are dark for adults.

Bartimaeus Trilogy
Fall of a Kingdom
Ender's Game
Abhorsen Trilogy
Wizard of Earthsea
Homeland (The only dark Drizzt book I remember.)
The Secret Garden
Chronicles of Narnia

See, I wouldn't call Ender's Game or Wizard of Earthsea "children's books". They were written for adults (although I know at least Ender's Game is now classified in the Teen fiction section of the bookstore). I remember attempting to read Wizard of Earthsea when I was in elementary school (at which point I was already routinely reading books from my dad's rather extensive collection of science fiction), but it just wasn't interesting to me... of course, most of that was because I disliked LeGuin's writing style, but that's besides the point. :D I think I made it about three quarters of the way through before I just stopped reading it.

Also, I wouldn't particularly call the Chronicles of Narnia dark. Chronicles of Narnia were about religion, magic, and the triumph of good over evil. There was very little moral/emotional conflict (I don't count Edmund's flirtation with the Dark Side in LWW as moral/emotional conflict, it was just a middle child acting out because he didn't feel like he was getting the attention he deserved, likewise his cousin's behavior in VDT was just a spoiled only child acting out for the same reason).

The Secret Garden, and for that matter, The Little Princess, both had dark elements, especially The Little Princess. However those both reflect the kinds of values for young girls from the era in which they were originally published... the early 1900s. They're both about little girls who, for some reason, find themselves in an adverse situation, but make the best of it using Victorian values, staying out of the way of their oppressive antagonist and creating their own worlds. And, of course, by being proper young ladies, they manage to reach a happy ending. They're more like novelized "moral stories" than anything. Not so much dark as maybe a little overcast...

I realize that Chronicles of Narina isn't very dark but when I was younger I didn't see the religious allegory.  The death of Aslan and betrayal of Edmond(something I see now as especially frightening because it displays the ignorance and gullibility of children showing how easy they are to manipulate.) were both dark to me.

The reason I listed it is because of The Final Battle which contains both an antichrist figure and an apocalypse where everyone dies and many are lost forever.  Not to mention Susan might not make it to heaven with everyone else.  I was very frustrated with the book when I first finished it because I wanted Aslan to come and set everything straight but instead Narnia was destroyed.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:15, Wed 31 Aug 2011.

See, even though I also didn't see the religious allegory when I was younger, Edmund's betrayal and Aslan's death both just seemed like the normal things that HAPPEN in books to me. Especially since Edmund was redeemed, and Aslan came back.

I don't remember the Final Battle that well, since I only read it once, so I can't converse properly on that one.

I never realized they were religious until the movie came out...They were always amazing to me, now I feel less amazed and more dissapointed. I liked them for thier story not hidden messeges. It's like reading animal farm and over analyzing it.

Unless being forced to interpret symbolism for a class you can really just read over it.  Well, in most books.  In Amber Spyglass that's almost impossible for the last portion of it at least.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:30, Thu 01 Sept 2011.

I hate it when you’re reading a book and you have this sneaking suspicion that it's trying to teach you morals...It makes me all suspicious and I have to read with squinty cynical eyes.