Is President Snow like Dumbledore?

I was originally going to just tweet this but I realized that 140 characters wouldn't be enough for an explanation behind what I'm about to say:

President Snow is the Dumbledore of The Hunger Games

If you have read The Hunger Games series than you know that president snow is a very cruel character. But what people don't realize and that I understood after watching Donald Sutherland's version of President Snow that Snow is a very diverse character. 

"Hope is the only thing stronger than Fear." is a line that Snow says while talking to Seneca while in his rose garden. When I heard this line I immediately went back to the many line that Dumbledore has said throughout the Harry Potter series. At that moment Snow became a completely different character in my mind. He became a more vulnerable character. A wiser character. I realized that Snow wasn't just this cruel power hungry president. He was a person that like many others in books and in actuality became consumed by power and essentially let it get to his head. But at the same time he is scared. Every year he hosts the hunger games and tells the people of Panem that "we sacrifice your children so we don't have a repeat of the rebellion". He is supposed to be this confident idol that everyone looks up to just as our leaders in reality are. But just like in reality he has hiding something. He's afraid that out of these hunger games might come a child that will have the ability to restart a rebellion and beat him. He admits this to Seneca is the rose garden scene "Have you been to those districts? 11? 12?... I have... you wouldn't root for them either" When Katniss comes out as this strong rebellious character President Snow see's her as a threat. He knows that Districts across Panem are rooting for her to succeed. They view her as a light in their darkness. But Snow views her as the one person who could possibly take him down. 

Even though we view him as this cruel person who sends kids into an arena to die. I can't help but feel sorry for him. If I could I would want to sit down with him and try to understand what's going through his mind during the hunger games and when he visits districts.

Most people wouldn't want to admit the similarities between President Snow and Dumbledore. But both these characters are so diverse that the only things different is that Dumbledore does everything he can for the good of him and his fellow wizards and President Snow does everything out of fear of being taken down by in his words "the underdogs". 

If anyone truly read the books and watched the movies then you will know that Dumbledore was very wise but cryptic. It was almost as if he knew how everything was going to turn out but he refused to give Harry any insite because he knew Harry had to learn to do things on his own. He knew that Harry would give in to Voldemort and it would never end up the way Harry would have hoped. Dumbledore was always worried though. Like President Snow, he was worried that things wouldn't work out as he expected. Dumbledore was constantly worried that Harry would give up hope and give up fighting. Dumbledore knew that Harry would become, just as Katniss did, a light in the dark for the wizarding world. 

There is one thing about Dumbledore that I myself find it hard to admit. That is, like President Snow, he was power hungry. Dumbledore did what he did because he knew he had power over people. He was looked to more than the ministry was. He has influence over the ministry even. He is the President Snow of the Wizarding world. They both have (had) a common goal of peace in their worlds. The difference in their plans were that while President snow had to force children into fighting, Dumbledore had volunteers willing to walk into a battlefield and fight to the death. Dumbledore knew this and he used it to his advantage.

Both these influential men had their wisdom, their power hunger, and their fears to guide them through our favourite books and movies. I hope that after reading this you will view them men in a different light and will see their similarities.

Introverts and Lemons

As an introvert I don't really like meeting new people. Actually, I don't really like people in general. But, regardless, I agree to meet new people with this notion in my head that I'm going to try to not be extremely awkward and shy. Then when I meet the person I'm trying to hard not to be award and shy I end up being obnoxious and loud and people think I'm over the top. So really, there isn't a happy medium here. I'm either shy and awkward or over the top with my personality.

Now my psychologist (yes I go see a psychologist) tells me I have to change my self talk. I'm supposed to not believe that I'm less then what I actually am. I'm supposed to believe that everyone likes me until they don't. I guess it's sort of like the whole "innocent until proven guilty" sort of ordeal. Which, I agree is right. But it's not really that easy. You have to spend all this time thinking and concentrating on how you want to portray yourself and how you don't think this person isn't judging you on your looks (which they probably are - but that's besides the point) and you have less brain capacity to concentrate on the goings on around you. It's kind of like mystic from x-men. She had to concentrate on making herself look like Jennifer Lawrence so she spent less concentrating on her surroundings.

There really is no easy way to go about in life. So I'm going to go out and start throwing lemons at people because they have lives and I don't.

Above is a really safe first try that just didn't work out

"Above" by Leah Bobet is a really good book... in the last 3-4 chapters. But before I get into that let me give you a synopsis of what the book is about.

"Matthew has loved Ariel from the moment he found her in the tunnels, her bee’s wings falling away. They live in Safe, an underground refuge for those fleeing the city Above—like Whisper, who speaks to ghosts, and Jack Flash, who can shoot lightning from his fingers.

But one terrifying night, an old enemy invades Safe with an army of shadows, and only Matthew, Ariel, and a few friends escape Above. As Matthew unravels the mystery of Safe’s history and the shadows’ attack, he realizes he must find a way to remake his home—not just for himself, but for Ariel, who needs him more than ever before."


Thank you goodreads.com for that lovely synopsis. 


When I first started to read this book I was extremely confused as to what is going on. It took me about 3 weeks to read it's 368 pages. Now I have to give Leah Bobet some credit, this is her first book. But it lacks organization and drive to keep the reader pushing further into the book. If I didn't have a drive to never not finish a book I wouldn't have gotten passed chapter 1 simply because I had no idea what what going on. 


As I said earlier the last 3-4 chapters are probably the best out of all 10 chapter + epilogue. Now, I understand that the last few chapters are usually the best in the book regardless. But, the rest of the book leading up to that have to be good and the reader will never get to those last good bits. 

Leah Bobet has the potential to be an excellent writer. If the book had a bit more editing and was organized a bit better it has the potential to be an amazing book. I look forward to reading more of Leah Bobet's books in the future. But if all of her books are this disorganized she won't last long as a known writer. She'll fall into the cracks along with Stephanie Meyer, who is destined for oblivion (all you twilight fans might as well face that fact now). 

What do I rate this book? 3 sets of bee's wings out of 5. I suggest you read it but I would get it second hand or when it's online. Don't bother paying full price for it.