In the Hunger Games, President Snow is Really the Good Guy.

Today I will be rebutting my opponent's rebuttals of my rebuttals (sorry, that's really confusing). My opponent tries to show that President Snow loves his family more than Katniss Everdeen, citing examples of when Katniss' sister died and Katniss didn't call her mother, despite that fact that she lived far away. However, if you examine these two situations, you see there was a reason for her actions. When Prim died, Katniss just barely saw her before the bombs went off. Of course, she could have tried to go in and save her, but there was no time and she would have ended up dead anyways. However, she certainly would have tried it if she had known there were going to be more bombs. Remember, these were double exploding bombs, just recently invented that had never seen combat. Katniss had no idea that the bombs were going to go off. And if we must blame Prim's death on someone, why not the person who decided that a 14-year-old should go out on the front lines? And Katniss' mother. It's true Katniss didn't call her mother after the war was over. But again, we can excuse her. She had seen almost everyone she cared about in her life die, or be tortured, or just leave. She certainly had some serious depression going on, not to mention PTSD and grief over the recent loss of her sister. She tried to shut out the world to deal with her problems, and yes, that included her mother. But we do know, as stated in the book, that once she began to recover, she DID call her mother and talk to her, and began to do it more frequently as she got better. I will ask again, where did my opponent get mention of Snow's wife? I have never seen her mentioned in book or movie. My opponent then states that killing children is actually morally acceptable in the districts, and President Snow didn't foster these morals, but actually grew up in them. The first assertion is preposterous. The REASON for the rebellion was that people were tired of the Hunger Games. Most of the districts hated the Hunger Games. My opponent states that a majority of the remaining victors did agree to a final symbolic Hunger Games. And this is true. But, Coin states that the reason for the final Hunger Games is to temper the need for blood with the desire for mercy - they were to prevent more bloodshed. Is this not the core of Pro's argument as to why Snow was justified for starting the Hunger Games? Also, I disagree with Pro's analysis of why Katniss shot Coin. This is widely open to interpretation, I grant you, but my belief is that Katniss saw too much Snow in Coin - someone thirsty for power, with too little sense of humanity. She felt that Panem was just spinning back into the same black hole it had spun out of. As to Snow's role in the lack of morals in the Capitol, I only said it was LIKELY due to him that the morals degraded too fast. We really have no solid information as to what happened in that time period, so we cannot make definite conclusions. My opponent also states that while Snow wanted peace, the rebels wanted power. This is blatantly untrue. Snow called for a cease-fire because he was afraid that if the rebels won, he would lose power. Remember, a cease-fire would have left Snow still in power, as the rebels hadn't gained enough steam to really be able to take any. Snow didn't want peace - he wanted to APPEAR as if he wanted peace. Manipulation. As for the rebels, they just wanted freedom from oppression - oppression that forced them into poverty, to work like slaves for a government that killed their own children. If you argue that they wanted power, you could just as easily argue that the American colonists wanted power when they rebelled against the British. It's true the rebels wanted power, but they wanted it so they could control their own destiny. A famous philosopher named John Locke once stated that if a government doesn't protect your life, liberty, or property, you have the right to overthrow that government. Clearly, Snow wasn't doing these things, so the rebels were completely justified in their rebellion. My opponent then states that the rebels can't really be citizens since they rebel against the government. But the only reason they did rebel was because they weren't being treated fairly as citizens should be treated in the first place! This argument has no solid ground. They then show how overthrowing a government can destroy a country's economy, such as with Russia. But I believe, that if I had to choose between an uncertain future or oppression forever, I'd choose uncertainty. My opponent states that before the Hunger Games, the districts led 'normal lives' but still rebelled. Again, we have no information about that time period and so cannot draw definite conclusions. I will now examine hidden motives of characters: President Snow - The man who wanted power above all else. To get it, he killed children, tortured and killed people who got in his way, and treated a nation so unfairly that they felt they had to rebel. Katniss Everdeen - A girl who only cared about her family at first, but eventually became the leader of an entire rebellion and helped to take down a corrupt government. Thank you for your time.