To Kill a Mockingjay: Things I Dislike About The Hunger Games Trilogy

Controversy, yes.

Bloody? Yes, sadly.

Enjoyable, yes, actually. At times.

But worth precious hours of my time? No.

That I didn’t find out until I had already read the whole trilogy and discovered a) I hadn’t really learned anything at the end of it, b) I felt strangely bereft, as though I was expecting it to end differently (Personally, I was holding out for Gale. I’ve always hated the whole “star-crossed lovers” theme, and besides, what did Peeta ever do for Katniss besides one hunk of burned bread one time? Dang it. I’ve done it. I’ve fallen into the hole. God help me) and c) I no longer trust young adult dystopias.

Well, most of them. There are some……

That’s beside the point. The point is, there are many things wrong with the Hunger Games. At first sight, it seems like a normal dystopian love story (as “normal” as those go, at least) and then we get into the complete diabolical idea of the Hunger Games itself.

The first time I heard the name “The Hunger Games” was back when the first movie came out, and my mother went to go see it with her friend. I had no idea it was a book first, as many movies were, and I naturally assumed if my mother was going to see it, well, maybe I could eventually. It’s a bit difficult to remember in detail what My first presumption of the term “hunger games” was, but as far as I can recall was very much what you would expect a child of about eight to assume. It was about a game, of some sort, that had to do with hunger. Was it a game to see how long you could be hungry? Was it a game, any normal game really, like tag—but played with hungry people? Was it like the Olympics, but with food?

I wish that was all it was. My mind was too innocent to consider what the actual thing was—a complete bloodbath concerning children that had no purpose whatsoever other than entertainment for the air headed elite.

Sure, it’s fiction, the idea was for you to recognize the horror of it, and how different it was from everyday life. But it was written in such detail, it was as if you could actually see, smell, feel everything the protagonist was feeling, and in such awful circumstances, you begin to wonder what on earth Suzanne Collins’ mental state was/is. How did the concept for The Hunger Games even appear in her mind?

Food for thought.

The fact that someone would even think about what it would be like to kill children (and later, in Catching Fire, old people and the mentally insane) is beyond me. I’ll leave to you to deduce why.

Let’s talk about “bad guys” next.

I’m just going to come right out and say I think the bad guys were not primarily Snow, Coin, or even Crane. The bad guys were all those who were willing to hurt others—it didn’t even have to be physically hurt—to get what they wanted, or what they thought was best.

This names pretty much everyone in the book (s) except for Katniss’s prep crew. Actually, maybe not even them. Plucking eyebrows hurt, you can guess. At any rate, the average person’s conception of the blurred line between what was considered “good” and “evil” was, as far as I know, “Katniss and everyone she loves and likes is good, and President Snow and the people who want to kill the good guys is bad”. Oh yeah? What about the supposed “good guys” that killed other “good guys”? Like Peeta and Katniss (although that is bending it since Peeta was under psychotic hypnosis or whatever), Katniss and all the kids in the arena (s) and even Gale and Primrose, although Gale wasn’t the one who set off the bombs. He was still connected, though.

Ms. Collins, from my perspective, was attempting to give you a concept of the “good” and the “bad” in her books, where there was almost no distinction. Everyone loves Katniss and Peeta and Prim, and everyone loves the love story and what sacrifices Katniss made for them, right? This sells to you that you can be a good guy and still hurt others to get what you want. It also tells you that you will win in the end.

Death to the Capitol!

Yeah, right.

Thank goodness I’m not completely indoctrinated, right?

Well, okay, I’ll admit, I did like them while they lasted. It’s not like I have morbid taste, and I’ll recognize and maybe even respond to a reference to them from time to time, but I can—I hope—discern between what the author intends for you to think what is right and what you know to be right. We all have a conscience, right?