I think the Hunger Games series sits in a similar literary position to The Lord of the Rings, as a piece of literature (by a Catholic author) that sparked a whole new subgenre and then gets blamed for flaws that exist in the copycat books and aren’t actually part of the original.
Like, despite what parodies might say, Katniss is nowhere near the stereotypical “unqualified teenager chosen to lead a rebellion for no good reason”. The entire point is that she’s not leading the rebellion. She’s a traumatized teenager who has emotional reactions to the horrors in her society, and is constantly being reined in by more experienced adults who have to tell her, “No, this is not how you fight the government, you are going to get people killed.” She’s not the upstart teenager showing the brainless adults what to do–she’s a teenager being manipulated by smarter and more experienced adults.
She has no power in the rebellion except as a useful piece of propaganda, and the entire trilogy is her straining against that role.
It’s much more realistic and far more nuanced than anyone who dismisses it as “stereotypical YA dystopian” gives it credit for.
And the misconceptions don’t end there. The Hunger Games has no “stereotypical YA love triangle”–yes, there are two potential love interests, but the romance is so not the point. There’s a war going on! Katniss has more important things to worry about than boys! The romance was never about her choosing between two hot boys–it’s about choosing between two diametrically opposed worldviews. Will she choose anger and war, or compassion and peace? Of course a trilogy filled with the horrors of war ends with her marriage to the peace-loving Peeta. Unlike some of the YA dystopian copycats, the romance here is part of the message, not just something to pacify readers who expect “hot love triangles” in their YA.
The worldbuilding in the Hunger Games trilogy is simplistic and not realistic, but unlike some of her imitators, Collins does this because she has something to say, not because she’s cobbling together a grim and gritty dystopia that’s “similar to the Hunger Games”.
The worldbuilding has an allegorical function, kept simple so we
can see beyond it to what Collins is really saying–and it’s nothing so
comforting as “we need to fight the evil people who are ruining
society”.
The Capitol’s not just the powerful, greedy bad guys–the Capitol is us, First World America, living in luxury while we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, and thinking of other nations largely in terms of what resources we can get from them. This simplistic world is a sparsely set stage that lets us explore the larger themes about exploitation and war and the horrors people will commit for the sake of their bread and circuses, meant to make us think deeper about what separates a hero from a villain.
There’s a reason these books became a literary phenomenon. There’s a reason that dozens upon dozens of authors attempted to imitate them. But these imitators can’t capture that same genius, largely because they’re trying to imitate the trappings of another book, and failing to capture the larger and more meaningful message underneath. Make a copy of a copy of a copy, and you’ll wind up with something far removed from the original masterpiece. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of blaming those flaws on the original work.
Other examples of “blamed for things their copycats did” include Watchmen (blamed for the gritty antihero comics of the 90s) and Madoka Magica (blamed for excessively edgy and grimdark magical girl shows).
Four years on, and I think you might be the first person to add this type of comment to this post. After receiving so many comments that are like “THG is nowhere near on the level of LotR” or “THG didn’t invent YA dystopia”, it’s so refreshing to see someone understand exactly what I meant by framing THG as “a work blamed for its copycats”, and expand on it with examples that I didn’t know about.
It’s so rare to get an original comment on this post. Thank you so much.
and very, very often, self care is not plants and ice rollers and fluffy blankets of peace.
it’s standing over your kitchen sink and crying while doing the dishes because you just want to go back to bed but the dishes need done. and you don’t know why you’re crying but you’re trusting you need it. and you aren’t listening to the music that pulls you into a spiral; you’re listening to some cheerful shit your friend sent you. it’s getting up and staring at your fridge and closing your eyes and then cooking yourself food even though you hate it and it’s miserable. because you know that you’d cook for your friend, and you are trying to befriend yourself. it’s dragging yourself into the shower because you know you’ll feel better afterwards. it’s doing mundane tasks with patience, cursing under your breath, trying desperately to give yourself grace. grace is the beginning of care. care is the beginning of love.
we think it’s supposed to be peace and yet the most powerful self care moments are when we hate everything but especially ourselves. and life does not feel worth the loving. to look into that pain and yet choose to care for yourself in however many pieces you are — that is care. love. grace. trust. belief. it hurts because it’s love where there was no love before. it heals because it believes there will be love, one day, soon.
one thing visitors comment on is how much Belphie groans in his sleep. like we’ll all be sitting in the living room, and they’ll say “what in the world is that loud ominous groaning,” and then they’ll follow the noise to a heating vent where Belphie is upside down on a sheepskin rug, groaning like a christmas ghoul
For anyone keeping up with the Stranger Things “secret good finale” conspiracy (yes, it is just the Sherlock “secret good episode” thing with a new show.) the current theory is that tomorrow, in place of SNL, the actual finale of Stranger Things will air. They are presenting this as something plausible, and not something that Lorne Michaels would have beaten the Duffer Brothers to death over if they even suggested it.
The stranger things finale is going to drop on Martin Luther King Jr Day because Stranger Things embodies the values of MLK
Shaggy Rogers is a young adult human man that eats dog treats and his friends don’t even care. They act like it’s normal. Not only do they know he loves eating dog treats, but they know he’ll do scary dangerous shit just to eat dog treats, and they use that to their advantage. “Oh you don’t wanna get asbestos poisoning in the scary abandoned building? What if we fed you a dog treat?” And he says yes and he does it and eats it and they act like that’s a normal thing for a human guy to do. But then again, he also eats 10 feet tall sandwiches in one bite, so maybe he’s not even human. Still fucked up that they manipulate him like that though. But whatever. Forget I said anything.
my dad (Maori) works on a ship with all Maori/Tongan/Samoan fisherman- and one Aussie guy called Jake.
And that wasn’t done on purpose just sort of how it ended up, but Jake recently got an injury so they put him on a Different boat just for a little bit (a sit in the wheelhouse and scout type of boat, instead of the main fishing one) and he only got back to my dad’s ship today and he was apparently like Shaking. He was Traumatised.
Dad said Jake kept pulling him aside and going “They were all yelling on there, but in a MEAN way” “They didn’t clean… Like at ALL”
Jake experienced what a boat full of old school Aussie fisherman is like. That is the norm Jake. You just happened to be on the all Island boy boat on your first go out. “It was time for dinner and they had FROZEN nuggets” Jake that’s what they have on ships that are out at sea for months at a time.
On my dad’s boat they are eating fresh fish and coconut milk Ceviche. They’re grilling steaks on an open bbq on the deck that probably is not regulation. All the guys have their own special knives to prepare sashimi every couple days. Everyone is happily doing their own work so they can clock out early and set up a movie on the deck. Jake did you genuinely believe that’s what every boat was doing.
Local Australian man is fed fresh juices and smoked fish for first time- refuses to go back to beef jerky boat life
jake that first night when they served a freezer tray tv dinner and not an overflowing plate of fish that’s probably going for conservatively like $40-$80 bucks a kilo but the guys decided Eh we’ll catch more let’s just fry it up:
i want to ensure that noone ever calls me a liar on the internet and want to confirm that island boy dinner is very real and it’s waiting for you
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