The Hunger Games

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I certainly agree that the trilogy is NOT meant for children, unlike, say Harry Potter where “tweens” could read and understand at least the first few books in the series, it is very much Young Adult, and it also depends on how mature the young adult is. Some twelve year olds would certainly be able to digest the material, but some fourteen year olds might not. Especially the last book, which I personally think tackles very heavy and controversial subjects, and I do think that the author may have over-reached a little in terms of tailoring her writing in a way that is accessible to the target audience. Many actual war veterans have stated that the last book is quite realistic in its depiction of the psychological impacts of armed combat, but last I checked they were not the target audience. Also, some readers could find a political message about Vietnam and/or the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict that they wouldn’t personally agree with.

I think that a parent of a 12-14 year old, perhaps even older, would benefit from reading the books (or even using wikipedia as a Cliffs Notes version of them) before deciding if they are appropriate, and may want to discuss certain aspects of the books such as the mercy-killing question. Another theme that is raised multiple times in the books is whether suicide is ever justified, as many of the characters contemplate this option many times and at times seem to glamorize it as a noble death. However, as far I recall no one actually completes suicide in the story, even though they face all sorts of dark, depressing challenges.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
. Many actual war veterans have stated that the last book is quite realistic in its depiction of the psychological impacts of armed combat, but last I checked they were not the target audience. Also, some readers could find a political message about Vietnam and/or the Iraq/Afghanistan conflict that they wouldn’t personally agree with.
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It seems to me that the author isn’t trying to tell war vets how terrible war is, she’s trying to tell young people how terrible war is. And part of it is by showing the psychological damage that comes with war. In fact in the end that’s really what her book is-anti war. She even said in an interview that war might not be something that can realistically be done away with, but at one time slavery wasn’t something that can be done away with. But society evolved, and society can evolve when it comes to war.

The author is trying to point out that war is first of all senseless really war in itself is just a general larger form of the gladiator games when you think about it. And it doesn’t really solve problems, leads to more and more violence.

Think about how much we as a society seem to glamorize war… She said her father use to talk to her about war when she was younger and she feels its a subject kids need to learn about. We need to educate our children about the terribleness of war. And really the fact is real 14 year olds DO go through these type of things in our world-right now.
 
I know that the author is trying to tell young people how horrible war is, I’m just saying that I don’t know if she accomplished that goal, since many young people who read the final book of the series (where the war topic is most obvious and heavy-handed) HATED the book and thought it was poorly written, found that they wound up not caring about what happens to any of the characters, and found the “war is bad” message to be overly condescending. Okay, war is hell, so now what? Does that mean war is so bad, it is never justified? Or is it that war is hell, but sometimes it’s better than the alternative?

I am still not sure what the final message of the series is, because the author seems to say that the status quo of the Hunger Games was horrible, but the bloody revolution that eventually ended them was also horrible. One could easily end the series with the idea that the Hunger Games, not the revolution, was the lesser of two evils. While Collins may have spoken about society evolving beyond war in interviews, she does not seem to offer any realistic peaceful solution to the problem she sets up in her Panem universe. About the only character I can think of who advocates peace within the book does so under obvious coercion and threat.

I can easily see readers come away from the series with the idea that people shouldn’t even bother trying to overcome tyranny and oppression because it’s hopeless, that evil in some form always wins in the end, and that we might as well look the other way and focus on having a good time for ourselves like the Capitol citizens do. Or that the human race might as well just destroy themselves in one massive nihilistic act of suicidal despair. (A concept that several of the characters do contemplate in various ways.)

Another valid reading is that while the rebellion caused many problems and casualties, that it eventually led to a better future for Panem, and that war is indeed worth it at times, although one should never lose sight of the fact that the price to be paid is astronomical, and that war should be a last resort. However, none of these conclusions seem to be quite what Collins’ message is, either. So, what exactly was she trying to say? I’m still not sure.
 
Well I don’t think a Hunger Games like children should be sent. I personally question the logic of war. Where leaders send thousands of young people to fight for the death and apparently whoever is strongest wins. Now in order to get their killing, their are bombs were tons of innocents can get caught in the cross fire, we call them “collatoral damage” I question how bombing isn’t terrorism…

I question how might makes right? And have often wonder if it would be far more logical and less gruesome if people really want to think killing and a fight “solves the argument” to not just have people send one proxy and everyone agrees that one fight to the death is enough.

But if we were to have such proxy, I would think it should be the leaders who VOTE for said war to have to go in fight it. Could you imagine a world where if President Bush knew voting for a war with Iraq would mean that he’d have to go fight Saddam to the death. And Saddam knew him not compromising would put his life on the line… Well do you think that that the Iraq war would have happened. Absolutely NO. But it easy for leaders to send OTHERS to die for what they want…

Perhaps the book is rather questioning the methods the other side uses, and also pointing out to be careful that an enemy of your enemy isn’t necessarily “the right side” Plus too, about being quick to fight back, rather than restorting to other message. Was actually going to war with the Capital, bombing capital children, really the only way to fight the Capital leaders? Was their perhaps not another way. I could argue that Peeta by some of the choices he made, yes telling everyone he was in love with Katniss, and also she’s pregnant. Was actually humanizing them all in the Capital citizen’s eyes, so that capital citizens could scream in horror about the idea of pregnant Katniss fighting the Hunger Games… Just some thoughts…
 
I think the author’s point is the methods used to fight in the war like yes bombing Capital children was absolutely wrong.
 
Perhaps the book is rather questioning the methods the other side uses, and also pointing out to be careful that an enemy of your enemy isn’t necessarily “the right side” Plus too, about being quick to fight back, rather than restorting to other message. Was actually going to war with the Capital, bombing capital children, really the only way to fight the Capital leaders?
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Hmm, you almost makes it sound like going to war with the Capitol, by itself, is morally equivalent with the horrendous act of deliberately bombing Capitol children. I don’t think anyone who reads the books would argue that targeting children for death is ever justified. Yet, peaceful methods are just not presented as a viable option within the Panem universe. Peeta’s actions are ingenious, but they just don’t work, and are fraught with moral ambiguity themselves – is it really better, morally, to use lies and propaganda to achieve your ends versus violence? They’re both sins, technically, aren’t they? And Peeta himself winds up brainwashed into believing ridiculous lies about the woman he once loved.

Also, the person ultimately responsible for atrocities against children winds up meeting a violent death herself in an act of vigilantism, and isn’t even presented as a rebel, really, but almost as a foreign invader who used the Panem civil war as an opportunity to take over and rule Panem herself, likely in as tyrannical a manner as her predecessor. (This is where I see clear parallels to certain conflicts the US have been involved in, and why I mentioned that not everyone might agree with that message, because not everyone does.) So I honestly find it hypocritical, almost, for the author to blather on about the horrors of war and violence in an interview without presenting an alternative within the story itself. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the series overall, but many people didn’t, and I think they have legitimate reasons for doing so.
 
Hmm, you almost makes it sound like going to war with the Capitol, by itself, is morally equivalent with the horrendous act of deliberately bombing Capitol children. I don’t think anyone who reads the books would argue that targeting children for death is ever justified. Yet, peaceful methods are just not presented as a viable option within the Panem universe. Peeta’s actions are ingenious, but they just don’t work, and are fraught with moral ambiguity themselves – is it really better, morally, to use lies and propaganda to achieve your ends versus violence? They’re both sins, technically, aren’t they? And Peeta himself winds up brainwashed into believing ridiculous lies about the woman he once loved.
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I never said going to war with the Capital was the moral equivalent. She thought was questioning their motives. I don’t think the author said so either. Remember the author had Katniss say how she wondered how district 13 can just stand by and watch the Hunger Games etc…But once again Katniss and others immediately joined a side, and didn’t bother to find out what the side’s aims were… Surely before you go to war and fight on a side, you need to know if the side’s aims are honorable. Otherwise you may be promoting more killing/misery.

And I think Peeta’s plans were working. First of all the only real lie Peeta told was Katniss being pregnant. Other things like saying he loved her, that wasn’t a lie… As mentioned the book makes it clear that Capital citizens were starting to see the light…

And as for war/revolution being the only means to get rid of a terrible government. I point out to you the Soviet Union. That while I guess went bankrupt due to wars fought, but there was no great war that ended the Soviet Union. It doesn’t always have to be a bludgen fight to the death. Sometimes absolutely its necessary, but sometimes too societies can evolve. Slavery was ended in plenty of countries outside of the US peacefully. Many dictatorships have ended with minimal bloodshed.

Once again even the Catholic Church know questions if War can be just now, primarily because the conditions we have for a Just War, aren’t there. The way innocent civilians cannot be protected at all, is one thing. Its easy for us especially in America to glamorize it because we are shielded from war’s worst aspects. I.e watching a bombing building take down our young children etc.

We here in America are quick to think war is the answer to problems… I felt Iraq especially was rushed.
 
I have to leave the computer soon so we may have to just agree to disagree. I’m not saying that war and violence, in real life, are always the only or even best way to solve problems. I’d say that the vast majority of the time it’s not. What I’m saying is that I don’t think Collins does a good job in selling the idea that a peaceful solution is possible in Panem itself. The alternatives seem to be, either go along with a tyrannical government that gives you no freedom and where your loved ones are one mis-step away from death, (since the Hunger Games is just one aspect of Capitol tyranny), or join a bloody revolution that could result in so much destruction that any victory is a hollow one. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. No one really seems to contemplate a peaceful solution in the books themselves. While some characters try to “keep the peace” in book II, they’re doing so to protect their loved ones, not from any noble motive to save Panem. Gale, I think, is an exception in that he really does want society to change for the better – but he’s abruptly written off at the end as just another warmonger responsible for atrocities, no better than the enemy. I wouldn’t blame a reader for concluding that the message of the books is “loyalty to friends and family is all that counts, because greater society is just irredeemably corrupt, don’t even bother trying to change it”. Katniss loses almost everyone she ever loved in the war, and she never fully recovers from it. I can’t even blame a reader for deciding that she should have just killed Peeta at the end of book one and let the status quo continue, even though that totally contradicts the apparent message of the first book. I guess that’s what annoys me.

To change topics: Was anyone offended or disturbed by the fact that the Peeta-Katniss relationship seems to turn a lot of gender stereotypes on its head? Peeta’s the domesticated baker, Katniss the brave hunter. Peeta spends a lot of time in the “damsel in distress” role, and his talents (lying and manipulating in preference to violence) are those more traditionally associated with a feminine role. He’s the talkative, romantic partner, while Katniss is more cold and practical and has trouble expressing her emotions. I thought the switcheroo was refreshing and never doubted Peeta’s masculinity or Katniss’s femininity, but I wonder what some of the more traditional posters here thought.
 
But I think the author did try to present a third way, quietly. There was Katniss who was saying yes to the war, but lets try to avoid killing innocents. I think Peeta’s statement about maybe the only hope is, the violent folks killing each other off and the decent taking over…

But I think the point is that the people didn’t try a third way. I’m not completely anti war, but I DO think that the point of just because one side is evil, doesn’t make the other side good is an important message. And in the end a better future DID arise from that war. But it came with consquences.

The problem with Gale isn’t that he’s willing to fight. But that he’s willing to fight by any means necessary, and fails to look at his adversaries as human beings. He dehumanizes the people of the Capital as much as they dehumanize him. And that encourages a cycle of violence.

The third way, is to maybe fight yes. But to have limits on how you are willing to fight. And yes to maybe look at the Coins who are willing to perputate the same evil on others that was done to the other members of Patnam as the real people who must be challenged. I.e not to be caught up in a cycle of violence.

I.e the enemy is us if we use the same methods the other side uses to achieve our aims. That’s her point.
 
When the Constitutional Convention was over, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “What kind of government will we have, Mr. Franklin, a republic, or a monarchy?”
He answered, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

Not even the Founding Fathers of the United States knew whether a free country with elected representatives would work.

This is the tragedy in The Hunger Games. The people of Penam would like to get rid of their oppressives, but if they succeeded, they would likely set up a government that was very similar.

Why? Because they know nothing else.
Katniss never says a word about freedom, democracy, justice, mercy, morality, God or anything else that makes our lives good and meaningful. Neither does anybody else seem to know these things. They have been erased from the human race’s memory and very likely it will take a thousand years before the world re-invents the kind of society we enjoy today.

You can only have choices if you know there are choices. Otherwise, you will make the same mistakes with others that they have made against you.

Katniss and the others wage war on each other to survive, but what comes after survival will only be more of the same harsh life. They know nothing else.

This strikes home with the young people following this series. They at least sense that someday it will be their responsibility to preserve the good things in the world from being lost and forgotten.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
Also, in terms of the romance at the end of Mockingjay, I do think that Susanne Collins means for the relationship between Katniss and Peeta to be “real” by the end of the story, not the twisted mockery of love that it is for most of the story. I think she meant for them to build a real relationship when they have both been pretty much abandoned by the media publicity machine and are back to a semblance of their old lives in District 12 … I personally think that Katniss actively chooses to love him and eventually have children together, and I think the idea of choosing to love is at the core of a realistic, long-lasting relationship, even though it’s not as conventionally romantic as the “love at first sight at age 5” version in the first book.
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I agree with all of this.
 
I do think that Susanne Collins means for the relationship between Katniss and Peeta to be “real” by the end of the story, not the twisted mockery of love that it is for most of the story. I think she meant for them to build a real relationship when they have both been pretty much abandoned by the media publicity machine and are back to a semblance of their old lives in District 12 …
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Katniss has not been dehumanized by her harsh world.
She still exhibits those human characteristics that may yet guide the people of Penam to rebuild a better society.

Suzanne Collins leaves the story open for more developments.
Maybe the people in the story will discover that life wasn’t always like this in North America. It used to be a lot better, and can be made so again.

Maybe one of Katniss’s own children will lead this new revolution towards freedom.

Can we say, “a fourth book”? 😃
 
bekalc said:
But I think the author did try to present a third way, quietly. There was Katniss who was saying yes to the war, but lets try to avoid killing innocents. I think Peeta’s statement about maybe the only hope is, the violent folks killing each other off and the decent taking over…
The problem with Gale isn’t that he’s willing to fight. But that he’s willing to fight by any means necessary, and fails to look at his adversaries as human beings. He dehumanizes the people of the Capital as much as they dehumanize him. And that encourages a cycle of violence.
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It’s interesting how different our takes on the last book are. The message I got is that becoming involved in war at all automatically makes you a monster, that it’s impossible to conduct war without committing atrocities, that the “third way” you speak of is impossible to implement in practice, that given enough exposure to evil everyone will fall into its seductive clutches. Katniss may have started out the war not wanting to kill innocents, but she herself shoots an unarmed civilian in cold blood during her mission to kill Snow. Although Snow’s regime is toppled in the end, it seemed a Pyrrhic victory to me. Much as in many other dystopian works, evil wins in the end. Yes, I know that technically, a new government eventually comes into being, and Plutarch makes a statement implying that it is actually is based on the Constitution of the US that they found in some historical archive. But Collins doesn’t describe post-war Panem in any detail at all, just focuses on the personal costs the war imposes on Katniss, without much of an indication that it was worth it.

Also, many readers of the series wholeheartedly support Gale’s attitude and actions as “what it takes to win a war” and thought Collins did his character a disservice by writing him out of the story at the end. Yes, many readers actually support the idea that almost any kind of atrocity is justifiable in war (like the many who support torturing people if it would provide information in a terrorist attack), and nothing they read in Mockingjay helped to dispel that notion at all. If Collins was just trying to tell an entertaining story and sell books (and movie rights), she certainly succeeded. But really changing people’s minds about war? I don’t think she had much success if that was her goal.

SPOILERS RE END OF MJ as well as Harry Potter Book 7!*

Another flaw in the book is that Collins fails to communicate what is going through Katniss’s mind when President Coin calls a vote of surviving Hunger Games victors as to whether another Hunger Games should be held involving children of Capitol officials. Katniss votes “yes” to this, and I could tell that it was a ploy to make Coin think that Katniss supports her, and so allow her to be Snow’s official executioner, which gives her the opportunity to kill Coin instead. I think that Katniss decides to kill Coin at that point because she realizes that Coin is no better than Snow and will be just as much of a tyrant if she comes into power. (Here, again, she never considers a non-violent alternative to her dilemma. She plans to kill Coin and then kill herself.)

But a large percentage, possibly even a majority, of MJ readers did not get this point at all. They either railed at Collins for making Katniss act out of character and ruining the book, or even worse, wholeheartedly supported the “yes” vote, even urged Collins to write a sequel about this interesting twist on the Games…again, completely missing the point that the Games are evil no matter who’s chosen to play them. You could blame the readers for this, for not understanding, much as you can blame readers for not realizing that, in HP7, when Slughorn comes back with “reinforcements” at the final battle, that Slytherin students are among them – a plot point that JKR discussed in post-book interviews. But you could argue equally that it was poor writing by the author.
 
ToeInTheWater said:
Another flaw in the book is that Collins fails to communicate what is going through Katniss’s mind when President Coin calls a vote of surviving Hunger Games victors as to whether another Hunger Games should be held involving children of Capitol officials. Katniss votes “yes” to this, and I could tell that it was a ploy to make Coin think that Katniss supports her, and so allow her to be Snow’s official executioner, which gives her the opportunity to kill Coin instead … But a large percentage, possibly even a majority, of MJ readers did not get this point at all. They either railed at Collins for making Katniss act out of character and ruining the book, or even worse, wholeheartedly supported the “yes” vote, even urged Collins to write a sequel about this interesting twist on the Games…again, completely missing the point that the Games are evil no matter who’s chosen to play them. You could blame the readers for this, for not understanding … But you could argue equally that it was poor writing by the author.
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No way - that’s 100% the fault of those readers, and not poor writing at all. What is poor writing is when an author has to explain everything because he or she doesn’t write well enough to convey things with nuance. “Show me, don’t tell me” is a good rule by which to judge a book, and I would never have been able to stop rolling my eyes if Collins had condescended to the reader so much as to explain Katniss’ thinking in that moment.

As with you, it was clear to me, once she shot Coin, that she had voted yes simply in order to obtain Coin’s trust long enough to have the opportunity she sought.
 
beehumble said:
This is what passes for fun entertainment nowadays. Not satisfied with portraying adults killing adults, we now entertain ourselves watching kids kill? We truly are the culture of death. I guess this is the logical path for a society that allows the murder of over 50 million children in the womb.

May God help us.
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well, in defense of the story, the point is how a culture can become so sick as to entertain itself by watching other people fight to the death. If you saw the movie, you’ll notice that the entire thing is a TV show – it’s not because the kids want to be there fighting, but because every year the people of Big City want to watch people kill each other. The whole setup is similar to a reality TV show – getting people to vote extra food for the folks they like, contriving events to make the “drama” better (including the fire and the dogs). I think it’s hard more because it’s similar to what we’re actually doing with reality TV.
 
well, in defense of the story, the point is how a culture can become so sick as to entertain itself by watching other people fight to the death. If you saw the movie, you’ll notice that the entire thing is a TV show – it’s not because the kids want to be there fighting, but because every year the people of Big City want to watch people kill each other.
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The people in the Capitol enjoy the Hunger Games, but they don’t have to submit two tributes each year. Only the “districts” do. The people in the districts hate the Games and the Capitol.

We have seen this kind of thing in the real world. Dictators like Saddam Hussein took good care of his military because he depended on them to keep his power. The same thing in North Korea. The people in the capitol city, Pyongyang, live fairly well while the rest of the country starves.

It’s unfair to Suzanne Collins to think she was only thinking about the “reality TV” aspect of the story.
— The people in Penam apparently live hundreds of years after the United States In the book Katniss says the coal mines have been worked for “hundreds of years”. That’s why the miners have to go down so deep. Well, we’ve only been digging the mines for about a hundred years so The Hunger Games take place in the distant future.
— Katniss mentions that in school they taught the history of Penam, mostly about how the people owe so much to the Capitol. Katniss says she suspects there must be a lot more to the history of the region, but the people are taught nothing but the time before Penam.

Collins is saying that all knowledge of democracy, human dignity and all the things that make our lives good and meaningful have been forgotten and the people of Penam know nothing else but the cruel society they live in.

This is a chilling lesson.
We see it in some teenagers who act like animals, committing horrendous murders for trivial reasons. Somehow, they never learned morality. They are animals because they were not taught to be human.
 
Saw the movie twice and am in the middle of Catching Fire. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids under 13 but anyone older should be fine.
 
Seems like this thread should have some pictures. 😃

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Many people have desiged maps of Penam. This one is typical:

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If you’ve read the book, you’ve picked up a few details about Penam.

What do you think of this map?

As you’ve already guessed I don’t like it, but I’ll give my description of Penam later. 😃
 
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