The premise is that the overfed, overprotected, over entitled Capitol citizens like their reality TV as real and gruesome as possible. It’s not unprecedented even in real human history. The capitol citizens are so content in fact with their world of excess that “politics” in the traditional since isn’t even necessary since everyone pretty much gets what they want.
If you are asking why someone doesn’t have enough humanity to be against this, there are plenty. We come across such characters throughout the trilogy as they offer help to our protagonists away from a public airing of those views which would have them killed for treason.
Everything the capitol takes for granted of course is produced by the districts, who are kept suppressed by sheer military power from the capitol. Oh and all the districts are unable to communicate with each other so any uprising will be in one district and be put down relatively quickly.The games themselves do serve both as an ever present reminder of Capitol power and just simply entertainment for a culture that craves the extreme. That’s the state of things in the first book. Stuff happens later that changes that dynamic, but no spoilers here.
The whole series keeps my suspension of disbelief pretty well intact actually.
There’s also some backstory about how ruthless the Capitol is about suppressing rebellion. There’s a whole district that is supposed to be uninhabitable because it was nuked during a rebellion, and the Capitol reminds other districts about it on a regular basis in order to keep the masses quiet.
I have a question which may well be better served in it’s own thread, but…what, exactly, makes YA fiction YA? Is it just the age of the protagonist/main characters? Is it dumbed-down words? Is it fast-paced action, rather than introspection? Because I find lots of all of that in adult literature, and find many books that, well, young adults would love <and did love as I was growing up> that are none of the above. So…thoughts?
I think that’s the primary reason, as even I enjoyed the book, despite actively despising reading fiction, due to its tendencies to get bogged down in details and self-analysis.
Hunger Games, at least, moves along at a fair clip and doesn’t dawdle for long.
I suspect it is simply a marketing choice. For example, Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy was marketed as “YA”, though it is indistinguishable in my mind from fantasy aimed at adults.
I borrowed the first book from a friend and finished last night at 3am. I can’t even remember the last time I was so into a book that couldn’t put it down.
The premise is a little weak, but the execution is excellent, and Katniss is wicked smart. It’s one of those books where you’re constantly asking yourself what you would do in that situation.
I admit I was a little surprised by the violence. I knew what the book was about, but since it’s a YA novel I just… didn’t think they’d actually go there. But yeah, it’s literally about children killing the shit out of each other. Can’t wait for the movie.
It’s been a while since I read the books, but I remember Gale as a peripheral character…Katniss’s “I have a boyfriend” dude and someone that was representitive of her pre-Games life. I was suprised to see the character headlined in the movie.
Peeta is an interesting character and I’ve always been hesitant to write him off as a lovesick puppy. When I discuss these books with the young adults in my life ( I sent them all copies of the trilogy the day after I finished it ), one of my questions is “how much of Peeta’s lovesick behavior was really game strategy?”…he didn’t confess his mad love until after the contestants were selected and while it SEEMED real, as strategies go, it was a good one.
See, I had problems with some of the logistics of the situation, too, along the same lines as The Hamster King.
I myself questioned the inexplicable loyalty and morale of The Capitol’s military/police force - named “Peacekeepers” in a rather Orwellian fashion - but I had to get read on to get the full story on them.
I’m trying not to spoil anything here, as I have finished The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, and am most of the way through with Mockingjay. The more you read, the more you learn about how the Hunger Games work, and what a precarious situation the nation of Panem is constantly in.
The citizens of The Capitol are, as CyclopticXander states, “overfed, overprotected,” and “over entitled”. The trials and hardships of the poor proles out in the Districts are, for the most part, beneath their notice. Trouble in a District that results in a temporary product shortage, for example, leads to mild consternation (“I haven’t been able to get any fresh shrimp for three days!”) amongst The Capitol’s citizenry rather the outright alarm you’d think it would generate.
To them, the Hunger Games are the grandest of entertainment. Dangermom is right on target with allusions to Theseus and the Minotaur (Collins herself has said as much) and the Roman “bread and circuses” - the name of the country of Panem, in fact, comes from the Latin panem et circenses. Since the people of the Districts are nothing but poor half-starved rabble to them, that they slaughter each other is enjoyable and exciting instead of revolting.
I’d like to touch on a few points, in no particular order:
[ul]
[li]Another reason they might be called The Hunger Game is that any family running short on food can get more from the government - but the price for that is that a child from that family will have their name entered an additional time into the lottery. Of course the more entries a child has the more likely their name will be called. The default is each child starts getting entered when they turn (I think) 11 years old and you get an additional entry each year until they turn 18. Then add on additional entries that are the price of purchasing food or heating fuel for your family. [/li]
[li]I honestly don’t know why this book is YA. I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot make a judgement on a book if it is YA - it can have just as much violence, social commentary and moral ambiguity as any other book. So for anyone who shies away from YA books thinking they’ll be too simplistic for an adult, I’d say give it a go.[/li]
[li]Here’s an interesting article [with spoilers!] on how the last book might look when it hits the big screen. I personally hope they’ll go with option #2, the tactical re-write. I was a little disappointed with how it went down in the last book so I’d be ok with a few little tweaks here and there.[/li][/ul]
I would go far beyond a “few tweaks” since in my opinion, Mockingjay was a rushed, incoherent mess, desperately in need of unstupidification. It could be greatly more developed and elaborated on to no ill effect, or strategically trimmed, but by no means would it make any kind of movie as is.
As C. S. Lewis once said, “Any children’s book which isn’t worth reading as an adult isn’t worth reading as a child, either”. I have absolutely no problem with reading young adult fiction as a full grown-up-- If it’s a good book, it’s a good book.
And being able to put your name in multiple times for extra supplies doesn’t really jibe economically-- What would happen if every family entered each of their children a dozen times, or a hundred?
For something like that to work you’d have to get everyone to agree to do it… or are you saying to do that to overload the system rather than to even out the playing field? Either way, I suppose we don’t hear about this because we’re following Katniss and her story - if this was a revolution planned out by adults (or if we saw more of their plotting in the story) strategy like that might come into play.
It only needs to be economically viable if you still intend to honour it if it gets to that point. More likely, it would be recognised as a sign that the populace is collaborating, which tells you you need to kick up the suppression of the populace to keep them in check.
Yeah, it’s going to be interesting how they do it. I hope for the tactical rewrite as well, as I hated hated hated the ending of the third book. Hated it. Actually, I disliked the 3rd book all around.
IIRC there is a limit to how many extra times you can add you name. It may also be tied to your age and the number of family members. It’s been a while so the details are fuzzy.
That wouldn’t be allowed under the system as described in the book.
IIRC, every child from the Districts (not the Capital), has their name entered starting at age 12. IIRC, each year your name is entered additional times, and the number of entries is cumulative. So for the drawing each year, every 12 year old is entered once, every 13 year old is entered three times (1+2), every 14 year old is entered 6 times (1+2+3). And so on. So every 18 year old is entered 28 times.
So each child from the Districts has an increasing chance of being drawn from the lottery each year. And it applies to all children, regardless of their relative social status in their district (e.g. the mayor’s kid, or a coal miner’s kid, or a starving orphan).
However, on top of the basic number of times your name is entered based on your age, kids can take out tesserae - basically a year’s worth of extremely basic subsistence rations for one person. Each year a child can take out a number of tesserae for the number of people in their family. So the mayor’s kid who turns 12 is entered once, but a kid from a starving family with three younger siblings might get entered 7 times (1 for their age, plus 6 for each member of the family).
The government wouldn’t let one kid to take on 10 or 100 or 1000 tesserae to feed all their friends or community or to sell on the black market. Remember, the government has set up the system to try to punish the maximum number of people. Letting some kid become a volunteer at take on 8,000 tessearae to feed all of District 12 for a year wouldn’t be allowed.
I was unaware of all of the furor about this, either. One of my undergrads mentioned it to me last fall, but that’s it. I tried to read some positive reviews and synopses, but I can’t get past the fact that it looks like pretty standard-issue allegory with an undigested and heavily stereotyped Greco-Roman veneer. I’m sure it’s exciting and full of juicy violence, but so is a lot of genre fiction that doesn’t assault the reader with overdrawn allegory.
I haven’t even read the book, so surely someone can tell me how I am wrong. Is it not transparently a Theseus/Spartacus story with teenagers, Roman names, and reality TV?
Yes and no. It also explores the ideas of “us and them”, the effect of personal tragedy and situation on the ability to form emotional bonds, and the unglamorous side of heroism and fame. It also presents a bottom up version of the story. Katniss may be in a situation similar to Spartacus and Theseus, but she is neither. Her goals and actions would not fit in their framework.
Not really. Katniss is not a Spartacus figure. She’s mostly just trying to survive, and her role in the revolution is more a fluke than anything. The revolution isn’t very interesting anyway. What makes the books worth reading (particularly the first one) are the characters.