The first in osprey_archer's "How to be a better dictator" seri

[asakiyume]

osprey_archer, who is reading The Hunger Games for the first time, remarked that President Snow wasn't living up to his despotic potential. Based on her knowledge of dictators, particularly Soviet ones, she had some words of advice.


It just so happens that osprey_archer is also be offering fics in return for donations to the ACLU. She agreed to expand on her advice to dictators in exchange for a donation, and now the first entry in the series is live--take a look here!

Comments

[sovay]

She agreed to expand on her advice to dictators in exchange for a donation, and now the first entry in the series is live--take a look here!

I'm so glad she's doing this. The results are great.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad too. We could do with a mordant laugh or two. I haven't had a night without nightmares in weeks.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Hah! Brian and I were basically howling exactly this at the screen all through President Snow's scenes. "Dude! Have all the copies of The Prince been burned in your dystopian future? How did you even make it to this role (as "President" doesn't imply hereditary lineage) when you so clearly Do Not Understand the basic rules of holding on to power? Somehow I don't think Suzanne Collins did her research when it comes to dictatorial politics. :)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

My working theory is that President became a hereditary title in Panem after the first rebellion, or else President Snow got elected when he was a young man and has gotten so complacent in his power that he's forgotten the political skills he used way back when. Certainly his reign seems to be running on inertia more than political skill.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, complacency was definitely my first thought. Although (as I said to my mother when she called in the middle of my reading your post and thus was treated to a firsthand glimpse of my brain's running through varying political scenarios and the most ruthless/efficient ways to hold onto them, something I don't think she quite realized I thought about so extensively), we have fairly recent proof that the skills required to acquire power in a democracy (even an illiberal one) are not necessarily the same skills required to hold on to it. So it's also perfectly possible President Snow was a fantastic campaigner who had little to no idea what to do with the power once he had it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

we have fairly recent proof...

It's part of what makes this series of posts so, so good.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

(Also, point of note that is never addressed in the books: for all that District 12 is supposed to be poor as dirt, presumably the coal is used for something important...like, say, generating electric power?...that the Capitol needs. So if the President drops bombs on 12, where, exactly, does that leave their power generation system? Power trips are all well and good, but probably not going to last once the Capitol's denizens are having to ration their air-conditioning...)

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen The Hunger Games, but it's only too true that it's when people have got nothing left to lose that they can be most threat to a dictatorship.
President Snow does sound out of his depth, poor fellow! And the advice column/book sounds like fun, in a very grim way.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah, judging from the remarks Osprey Archer made that prompted me to suggest she do a series, it's going to be very funny indeed--in a grim way. (I haven't read the Hunger Games either, but two of my kids did, and they talked to me about them at length; plus I've seen one of the movies.)