Tags
I’m unreasonably excited for the upcoming Hunger Games movie. Feast your eyes on THIS:
DOESN’T IT LOOK FREAKING AWESOME??
I know, whenever a movie comes out that is based on a book, I get all sniffy and complain about how the movie makers totally missed the point of the story.
There’s a chance that could happen with The Hunger Games, too, but I have hope.
For one thing, The Hunger Games is naturally action-packed. They won’t have to make many changes to the story to keep the action going.
For another thing, The Hunger Games doesn’t have as many points as a complex story like Harry Potter.
I can never quite explain why I like The Hunger Games so much. It’s brutal, thuggish, and the story just gets more and more heartwrenching as you go through the series. By the end of Mockingjay, you begin to realize that nothing is sacred, and that Suzanne Collins doesn’t have any intention of showering you with a fluffy deus-ex-machina ending.
It kind of reminds me of 1984.
More than a little, actually.
I don’t LIKE 1984.
Furthermore, The Hunger Games is written in first person present tense.
I don’t DO present tense. I think it’s stupid and pretentious. The only time I can handle it is when it is journal format, like the Beka Cooper series or Bridget Jones’s Diary. Even then, most sentences are in the past tense because the protagonist is summing up something that happened earlier in the day.
But The Hunger Games is so gripping that I don’t even notice the tense.
That says something.
Maybe it’s not so much that I like The Hunger Games as that I like the reading of it.
The fact is, ultimately, that it is good writing. The story sucks you in, you rarely see the plot twists coming (even once you begin to realize that nothing should be as it seems) and the characters are believable and will stay with you after the series is done.
Katniss is frustrating as a protagonist, sometimes, because she tends to float along on the winds of fate much of the time, afraid to take a real stance on the political issues in which she finds herself entrenched.
That being said, you can’t really blame her, once you understand that her loved ones come first and see what a rat bastard President Snow is.
Peeta is a likeable character, too – he fits the teenage-novel-boy-swain mold well without being sickening or Edward Culleny about it.
The world is believable, too, and despite it’s awfulness, it’s one you sort of want to go back to, because it is just so different from our own…
If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, should you?
If you like a good read, definitely.
It is gripping, intense, and it is political at the same time.
If you like to debate morality, this series will give you lots of fodder.
Is it right to lie to someone to save their life?
Is it right to kill someone who is trying to kill you?
Is it right to kill people in the name of freedom?
How about in the name of peace?
If so – how many people?
Is it right to support an evil regime to save your family?
Is it right to fight an evil regime, knowing that someone you love will be tortured if you do?
Could you die for someone you love?
When you have to choose between two different kinds of evil, which do you choose?
The entire series is a frigging ethical debate that will set your mind spinning until you don’t know WHAT is right, or WHAT you would do in the same situation.
It’s a damn good series.
It’s not a comfortable series.
I think it should be awesome to translate to the screen. Although they may have to tone down the violence a bit.
Especially if they make Mockingjay.
And then, of course, there’s the ultimate question that stems from The Hunger Games:
Are you on Team Gale, or Team Peeta?
If By Yes 
I am Team Peeta, for the same reasons I am Team Edward (and would be Team Jack if they had ever made teams for Lost) – I pick noble over earthy every time.
I love The Hunger Games trilogy and one thing I find fascinating about it is that Katniss and Bella are almost exactly the same person. Perhaps the most notable similarity is their prickliness – they view most people with hostility and they are always stunned when they figure out what most readers consider to be quite obvious – that people (including boys) really like them. Of course, Katniss is in a situation where she must kill or be killed by most of the people in her peer group, so her surliness is a bit more understandable – but Collins makes it clear that she was like this at home as well – she has always seen herself as fundamentally alone, when in actuality she is surrounded by people who really do care about her.
As your Team Gale/Team Peeta reference makes clear, Katniss has the same selfishness Bella has when it comes to stringing along the rivals for her affection. She combines a breathtaking altruism (when it comes to protecting the members of her very small inner circle) with a very real capacity for selfishness. It sounds like I’m being critical of her, but it’s more that I find the combination interesting – I think both Bella and Katniss hold most people at arm’s length precisely because their devotion to those they care about is so limitless. It makes sense, really, that if you’re willing to face death to protect the people you love, you probably shouldn’t love people too haphazardly.
If their fundamental personalities are the same, then certainly the window-dressing is very different – Katniss is an action hero and Bella emphatically is not, and (perhaps equally importantly) Bella is interested in romantic love while Katniss is not. So Katniss gets the feminist thumbs-up while Bella is bewailed as the end of the world as we know it. But their trajectories are opposite: in the end Bella suddenly becomes exponentially more powerful, while Katniss finally embraces sexuality and domesticity.
Excellent points. Katniss is Bella DONE RIGHT – she has some talent (her talent with the bow), she’s not unintelligent, and she expects to stand up for herself. But she does share the qualities you mentioned with Bella.
I love you, dear, but we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I like the first book and that’s it. I have been half composing a post wondering what it is people find so fascinating about it.
But I must admit bias. I read BATTLE ROYALE first and saw that movie before HUNGER GAMES was published. So for me it never lived up to the other book. A lot of it is really different, but I never felt the same excitement.
But I still love you. 🙂
Yes, exactly! I haven’t read Hunger Games and it’s because I read Battle Royale years ago, and every time someone tries to explain HG to me I get confused and say “but that sounds just like this Japanese book I read ages ago!”
And so I’ve just never bothered. I probably will pick them up at some point but right now they aren’t on my radar.
(Incidentally, if anyone out there hasn’t read Battle Royale, it is a fantastic read. And there is only one of it. Single stand-alone novels FTW!)
I feel bad for Suzanne Collins, that she had this idea and wrote it only to discover someone else had already done it :-p She says she had never heard of Battle Royale, and I believe her.
As for the other two books – hey, I’m with you. Mockingjay in particular is too brutal even for PH, and he LIKES 1984.
But the series has merit, and that first book sucks you in so you HAVE to read the next two, nose wrinkled all the time. I think, too, Hannah, that the second and third book help clear it of the Battle Royale taint, since the story becomes much bigger than just a battle between schoolchildren, very quickly.
I really enjoyed the series as well. I just finished it last weekend or two weekends ago and am looking forward to the movies. I love books that make you think about those tough ethical questions.
Unrelated, why is your blog snowing?
Because it’s Christmas!
Have heard so much about this series, and know some people who are seriously fangirling it (their squees over that trailer could be heard for MILES, basically), but haven’t read it. Actually bought a set of the books when we were in Stratford in September, so at least I have them now and will give ’em a read. Just need to decide if I should read them first, or re-read Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” first. :B
Pingback: Happy Hunger Games: And May The Irony Be Ever In Your Favour. « If By Yes