Inspired bythis threaddiscussing what might cause a “collapse” of the United States, I was wondering about Stephanie Collins’ The Hunger Games.
Collins spends no time discussing Panem’s relationship with the rest of the world, or what caused the collapse of North American countries and the creation of Panem. While I have enjoyed her stories, I have always wondered what the rest of the world would say if they saw Collins’ Hunger Games actually happening in North America. What would the world say if they learned that Panem was systematically executing (effectively) its young people? Would Panem be economically and diplomatically isolated from the rest of the world? Could this be the cause of some of the deprivations experienced in the Districts?
Suppose the United States exists as we know it, and some other country was conducting a Hunger Games sort of thing. What would we do, if anything?
Exactly. Worse things are going on in any number of countries as we speak without any real action being taken because the cost:benefit ratio for outside actors is too high.
The United Nations has credible reports that “the death toll now often exceeds 100 civilians a day, including women and children,” Lynn Pascoe, a senior U.N. official, told the Security Council. “The total is certainly well over 7,500.”
At least 104 people, including three women and two children, were killed across Syria on Tuesday alone…
Al-Assad’s regime has “subjected residents in several cities to indiscriminate bombardment by tank and rocket fire,”…
World reaction:
There have been widespread statements of condemnation and some sanctions.
It’s *Suzanne *Collins, and she did give a few sentences in the first book about what happened - some global breakdown of the climate, exhaustion of resources, famine, civil war, etc., killing most of the world’s population; Katniss was vague about it. Plus, it’s as far in the future as we are from the Roman Empire and its own slave gladiator games (in case you didn’t get the allusion from all the Roman names in the Capitol). But Collins leaves no reason to be sure there even is a rest of the world anymore, much less that it’s all that different from Panem.
As other posters have pointed out, twelve children a year is nothing compared to the global casualties to war and starvation. The box-office earnings of the first weekend of the first Hunger Games movie could have paid for 645k kids meals for a year at 66 cents a day. In places like Malawi, 74% of inhabitants earn less than $1.25 a day.
The references to real-life atrocities is understood, but doesn’t the Hunger Games’ media presence (in the books) make them a bit different than the ravages of war? I don’t know of any other country that sets up its children in a reality-show-like environment and then televises the ensuing carnage. This, to me, makes the Hunger Games somewhat different.
Oops. Suzanne Collins. I knew that. Thanks, Elvis1ves, for the correction.
Yes, but war and starvation aren’t presented as entertainment. I feel certain that the reaction to a country ordering children to kill each other for entertainment would be pretty negative.
I dunno, I seem to remember a movie about children killing each other for entertainment that did pretty well. I think it’s called Famish Competition, or something.
I’m not sure the taboo you’re describing would be all that hard to break. Indeed it does get broken at times - there are videos on YouTube of people getting killed and they do get watched.
If some Third World country were doing something like this, some Americans would pay top dollar for access to the broadcasts, even if one could go to jail for that. We have dogfights, don’t we?
Actually, as I am reading the Hunger Games trilogy I am having this wierd reaction thinking twenty-three young people between the age of twelve and eighteen a year, isn’t that bad versus the massive deaths that occur in civil wars and international conflicts. If other nations exist in the Panem universe, it occurs to me they may have a similiar reaction.
The capitol has plenty of resources, obviously since their citizens live with so much excess. Of course resources are kept from the districts and divided out sparingly as a way to maintain control and loyalty to suppress the possibility of a credible rebellion.