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How do you corrupt somebody?
Some might say manipulation or vicious punishment. Despite how strong mankind can be, everybody has a breaking point. The toughness we exude ends somewhere. If a person is brainwashed enough, or pressured enough, or in some cases tortured enough, they will crumble. Dictators tend to poison the minds of their subjects with tasteless violence and propaganda. President Snow fell under this category. His mantra echoed off every mountain and valley in Panem: my enemies will die screaming for mercy. But the kind of corruption that Plume found most interesting was through environmental manipulation. Here's what she means:
Say you've been born and raised in the Capitol. You are given adequate food, water, and shelter to last you a lifetime. You don't have to worry about being reaped or watching your family starve to death in the streets. You've been taught that the districts are full of barbarians, and you believe this fact because the brutality displayed in the Hunger Games is proof enough of their savagery. The environment around you helped mold you into the person you become. No matter how hard you can try to reverse your patterns, you will forevermore hold those biases in your mind. You've never heard of any injustice against the districts. They rebelled, after all, and this is their punishment. And in the safety of your warm mansion and silk tapestries, you turn a blind eye toward the fractured infrastructure. You are the cause of your environment. Sometimes you can't change that.
That sort of corruption tends to be the most dangerous. Violence can linger like a bruise, but psychological doctoring is a phantom limb. Something that will never fade over time. Your consciousness will follow you to your grave.
Plume knew that she shouldn't blame Zirconia Topaz for her childhood. Nobody gets to choose their family, after all. But you know what Plume could blame Zirconia for? Plume could despise every molecule of support for the Capitol that Zirconia had displayed. Zirconia was a grown woman, and yet she still chose to support a Capitol that slaughtered hundreds of innocent people per month. Plume had no sympathy for Zirconia as she strutted onto the train, brandishing a clean handkerchief over her painted lips. At long last, the waterworks began to flow, but only when Zirconia herself was affected. How typical.
Plume sat cross-legged at the dining room table, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. As soon as she entered the train, she had ripped the ribbons out of her hair and tied it into a loose bun at the back of her head. Her green eyes were trained on the window outside. Beyond the glass, trees and wide plains blurred together. Plume's heart stuttered with longing. She wanted to be at home.
"I'm so sorry," Zirconia apologized to nobody in particular. She blotted her handkerchief under her eyes. God forbid her mascara ran. "This is terribly inappropriate. I just can't believe how many victors we're going to lose this year!"
