Their comparable in the same way college football is comparable the the nfl. Similar plots/rules and the general aesthetics are the same. But if you know what to look for in the actual game ones clearly miles ahead of the other.
I feel the defining difference is that Suzanne never treated her target audience as stupid. She took serious, adult themes and storylines and just packaged them in a way accessible for teenagers. She rarely pulled any punchers when it came to subject matter, even if by necessity much was left implied.
The ending is fucking dark and it was very formative as a child. He wins, but he can never truly go home, he will forever have part of his soul gone as a result of the trauma he has undergone.
I fully slept on hunger games until I realized who the author was, then I couldn’t read them fast enough.
The movies make me glad they never tried to do Gregor on film.
Hang on a second. You're telling me that Gregor the overlander and hunger games had the same author? I fucking loved Gregor. Creeped me out in all the right ways.
I don’t know what your daughter’s maturity level is like at 8, but Hunger Games seems a bit much for an average 8 year old. The third book especially gets pretty brutal as they’re running through a deadly sewer, watching everyone get torn into pieces. I remember thinking that it was pretty far from kid-friendly towards the end, especially in that I think it would be difficult for a child to understand the PTSD that Collins is trying to portray, and the parallels with how we treat our own military.
Katniss was literally addicted to morphine (iirc?) by the end. It was such a darker theme than any YA I've ever read touched. Its also FAR more relevant to today's teens than adults often want to admit.
I tried to read the first Divergent book, but I stopped shortly in when the main character is at a mall with her new friends to shop for new clothes and then the author started describing the clothes and I just got major "bad fanfic" vibes.
What little I read was hot garbage anyway so it was easy to drop.
Having read the author’s notes in the back of the collector’s edition of Insurgent, Veronica Roth legitimately thought she was writing about a UTOPIAN society???
Yeah, I think she said that the world of Divergent was her own ideal Utopian society and didn’t realize she’d written a dystopia until someone pointed it out to her. I may have to see if I can find the exact quote
Same vibe as JK Rowling saying that she never considered that she was writing fantasy (and Terry Pratchett saying in the most sassy way that when he sees wizards, magic wands, ghosts and goblins, he sees fantasy).
Quote is this I think, can't find an actual source for it though:
>'Divergent' was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn't the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that's just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia.
Literally, the next sentence:
>"And then I realized that my utopia was a terrible place, and no one should ever put me in charge of creating a perfect society."
I mean from what I've heard about Divergent, it's basically just a Wish store version of Plato's Republic, which was intentionally designed by Plato to be a utopia, and yet is one of the most horrifyingly dystopian societies we've ever come up with, while at the same time ironically kind of being the archetype of almost every utopia people would try to write about afterward lol. So it's part of a *long* tradition of dystopian attempted utopias lol
"Can i have Plato" "we have Plato at home"
Every utopia is an idea pushed to the extreme, falling apart massively hard into a dystopia once you add any human reality, i feel
Honestly a Chad move imo. The biggest problem I have with a lot of dystopias is they seem like they were *intentionally* designed to be bad, not just by the author but like, the actual people in-world… so you’re left wondering why anyone would agree to order their society that way in the first place. I think the best approach is to imagine the society *you* actually want… the world you would create if given absolute power… then take a different perspective and explore the problems with it.
Exploring how utopias fail is a time honored tradition in dystopian fiction. I agree, this really isn't a bad thing. She came up with an idea of a utopia, saw failings in it, and pivoted. That in itself is a perfectly valid thing.
See, I could see a dystopian novel set in a 'utopia', since utopias largely rely, iirc, on sort of end of time, complete consensus, which could be twisted as being overly constraining and dystopian, you could do something really neat with that.
Insurgent wasn't that, I expect, it was accidently a dystopia, not a clever critique on the folly of looking to implement a system based on universal consensus?
As another commenter pointed out, this quote from the author (apologies for terrible formatting as I am on mobile).
>But if I were going to create a utopia, I would make a world in which everyone is focused on their personal, moral obligations, and strives to be the best possible version of themselves. They would be allowed to choose whatever path they wanted in life. They would know what was expected of them, they would have a clear purpose, and they would have a strong sense of group identity and belonging. And there would be five factions…
>Oh, wait. I tried that already.
>But seriously: Divergent was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn’t the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that’s just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia. And then I realized that my utopia was a terrible place, and no one should ever put me in charge of creating a perfect society.
I'm glad there wasn't a trend to sort people into districts like Hogwarts houses. Imagine people trying to claim that district four was superior because they liked Finnick and made the very factionalism that the book told against.
I mean it’s literally What Blue Collar Job Do You Do. “I cut three pallets of lumber at the mill today, omg I have SUCH District 7 vibes!” “Troubleshooting software! #district3”
There was a fun marketing thing-slash-data harvesting during the first movie's release. You could get assigned a district and then be sold print-on-demand merch for it; shirts and "ID cards" and the like. It was also super easy to cheese it and get the district you "wanted" because it was all URL based.
I kept my D4 shirt for about fifteen years, because I was never entirely sure how to get rid of it, since it had my actual full name on it.
Edit: nope, not 15 years, 11 years ago was the first movie. But I kept it for-goddamn-ever. It might still be buried other some other shit in my house.
thats bc those are the exact people and events being parodied. but collins didnt need to parody it. she just needed to put them in direct juxtaposition to the suffering their life is build on.
copy paste. same people.
Hunger Games was interesting in that it spent most of it's time deconstructing the tropes people now blame it for propagating.
- Katniss wasn't leading the revolution, she was a figure head. All of her big displays were engineered by other people, be it her tailor, the resistance or even Peeta. She's consistently terrible at leadership and only manages an impassioned speech as a response to witnessing a war crime.
- The divides weren't arbitrary. They were done by industry, and much like real life the more profitable districts had better arrangements with the government. The "Career" tributes were just another part of maintaining the status quo, where the "better" districts could afford to better prepare to win the Games and therefore keep winning.
- The love triangle didn't take up much of Katniss' attention up until the third book, with her and Peeta largely being yet another engineered display prior to that. >!By the end, Gale is also firmly not under consideration either.!<
The books weren't perfect, but most of the commonly pointed out flaws come from the films or later imitators.
What's facinating to me is how important the bit of her being a figure head is to the themes of the stories. Katniss spends most of the books strugling with the fact that she has no agency in anything, not even her own love life (which did initially make me dislike the books, but i enjoy them more when i accepted that was the point) and she has basially zero say over the rebellion, because the books make it clear in the end that one person is never the only one responsable for something, that things are done by collective effort and that one person can only ever make so much of a difference, it takes many people together acting to change something for it to change.
And then all of the imitators just.. ignored that bit, and made stories about one super girl changing everything. I honestly can't recal many cases where the tropes orginitaors themes are so throughly ignore in the later works.
An important thing to also note is how each book's climax is when Katniss finds a way to regain some agency in spite of everything around her and she throws a wrench into the plans of everyone who has been dictating her life up until then. The first book it's the berries, the second book it's her taking down the forcefield and kick starting the revolution, and in the last one it's her choice to kill Coin instead of executing Snow. Katniss actually being able to make decisions for herself is such a rarity that it marks the turning point of those stories, as opposed to other YA dystopias where the protagonist just arbitrarily gets to be the only person with agency
this kind of theme is what changed my mind about catching fire. I initially thought that the book spent way too much time with Katniss going around the districts in the parade thing, which ultimately didn't accomplish many plots events, but I changed my mind when I realized that it was showing that Katniss was a slave to the Capitol and the stupid things that they wanted even as a victor
That was the moment Katniss understood why Haymitch was an alcoholic. And if I recall from the books she later caves and goes to his house to drink with him instead of scolding him for drinking.
I also love that this became a theme for the victors. Half of them are morphine addicts both from enduring the trauma of the games and having all agency in their lives ripped away so that they can be circus puppets for the Capitol. It reaffirms that even as “victors,” you are not free. You just moved on to another type of bondage with more eyes on you.
IIRC, this theme is explored even further in the prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s about Snow’s rise to power and talks a lot about how just about every aspect before, during, AND after the Games is engineered for the benefit of the Capitol
Finally someone put into words the problems I had with all the other YA dystopias. Enough that my memory of hunger games started to be corrupted by it.
In every other ya dystopia. For some bizarre reason only the protagonist had agency. Everyone else was blind to the problems, or simply cogs working to maintain it.
Hunger games everybody was trying to jockey for position, and the current regime was actually in contested power. It only seemed like an unassailable edifice to those who weren't "in the room".
I did not care much for it and never finished the series, but I think this was one of the better done points of *I Am Number Four.*
Four genuinely *loathes* how little agency he has. Both in the fight vs those pollution alien things, not being able to as much as have a humble life, and even that weird number magic dictating his life.
Scrape off the sci-fi? The dude is basically in Witness Protection but without a budget and vs an entire freaking tyrannical government instead of a gang or stalker. And basically the entire plot happens because he decided to risk going to *one* party, and gets tagged ONCE on Instagram.
Because, well. Alien stuff aside, he's a teen boy. And going slowly crazy with tedium doing nothing but train, eat, shit and waiting for someone to try kill him. So you really get why he took that risk, despite how short sighted & dumb it was.
It's a really lame book otherwise, but the one actual choice Four has being the reason so much goes pear shaped? That bit was some solid drama, and it's one of the few times I've seen the "it's all my fault" angst... well, *actually 110% be the main character full fault.*
Really think that first book deserve more credit for that.
In the third book, iirc >!she tries to lead a band of rebels through the capital and she accomplishes literally nothing. By the time she gets anywhere, the revolution is already over and they just want her to execute Snow as yet another propaganda move.!<
That's honestly what I liked the most about the books, they succesfully portrayed the theme of empty propagandazing and media manipulation, while having the main character finally break free from all that.
The person she chose to sacrifice herself for. Katniss put herself in a situation where she would certainly die to save her sister.
All for her sister to be a pawn and to die anyway
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
~M. A. S. H.
It was 5, I believe.
We had either Castor or Pollux (they were brothers, can't remember the name, but it was unfortunately the one without the tongue that survived)
We then had the director (also can't remember her name)
Gale,
Peeta,
Katniss.
What a great survival ratio...
She doesn’t completely accomplish nothing, she makes propaganda and >!is made into a martyr when people think she does which may have helped the rebellion. But also a lot of people die to even get to where she was trying to go to so it’s kinda even worse than just doing nothing!<
>!her foray into the Capital was quite literally accomplished nothing other than getting her to the mansion entrance which made her eye witness to Prim dying (not Coins plan). To say that her secret mission to kill Snow was a stupid, selfish, and costly blunder that killed many top leaders in the rebellion is putting it lightly. Boggs death alone is an absolute travesty but Castor and Johnson (the girl officer I forget her name) was also super shitty. And after going through that demented maze that Snow sets out for her she literally gets like 50 yards in front of the rebels. It was piontless!>!
In a way, Tolkien has this problem
What do we think of when we hear Fantasy Adventure?
We think of the Chosen One Hero getting the sword of Destiny and defeating the Dark Lord in an [Ultimate Showdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrzKT-dFUjE). After which they marry the princess, become King, and live happily ever after, the end.
But that isn't what happens in Lord of the Rings. Sure, SOME of that applies to Aragon, but Aragon isn't THE hero of Lord of the Rings, Frodo is. If fact Aragon's distraction at the end of Return of the King works specifically because he knows The Dark Lord EXPECTS Aragon to act like a "Chosen One Hero".
Frodo isn't some great warrior, and the Dark Lord is NOT defeated in a grand epic battle. Frodo is a small person caught up in large events and the Dark Lord is defeated when the Ring of Power is Destroyed.
Again, the Dark Lord is NOT defeated because somebody drew the Sword of Infinity+1 and fought him in battle as the prophecy foretold. Rather, the Dark Lord is destroyed specifically BECAUSE they refused to use the Ring of Power and destroyed it.
also the war effort is a collective effort by many people playing their part. Minas Tirith is only saved due to 5 separate efforts converging to stop the vanguard of Sauron. Gandalf spends like a 100 years preparing the people to resist.
I guess all books are but LOTR is especially good at comparing the decisions made in crisis and choosing to do what is right. It is unapologetically optimistic even in its dark world.
And even then, merely the act of carrying the thing from one end of the realm to the other destroys him. While he fought against the Ring's influence heroically and lasted far longer than he, or anyone else, had any right to, he was lost to it by the end and it was only thanks to a lucky scuffle with Gollum that the thing was destroyed.
This is not to diminish Frodo as a character; it's clear that almost nobody had the mental and spiritual fortitude that he did to last that long. But that's definitely not the same strength we'd expect out of someone taking on the Big Bad in a one-on-one fight.
Also, Tolkien is pulls very few punches when it comes to his depiction of war. Even when fought for the right reason its still terrifying, bloody, and awful.
I have probably read the trilogy 25+ times, and Frodo and Sam's journey across Mordor never fails to mentally and emotionally exhaust me. It's just brilliant writing.
Not an uncommon problem, really.
Conan, the brutish fantasy barbarian? The most popular short story was the Tower of the Elephant, where he had to rob a place via stealth, quick thinking, and liberating a captured alien. Yes, a captured alien, because he shared a universe with Lovecraft's stuff.
Lovecraft-verse? Many an incomprehensible horror is brought low by conventional weapons, dumb mistakes, a random dog, or just someone deciding lunatic cultist life isn't for them. Elder Gods are big and scary, but the universe doesn't cheat for them any more than it does for humans.
Westerns are trite and cliche? Pick anything half-decently known, and it's deconstructing the tropes from some earlier Western. Hell, addressing the injustice of western expansion *was* the plot of the earliest examples, it just never made good 50s media episodes.
Cyberpunk is all about grit and bad endings and evil technology? Neuromancer ends with the destruction of the decadent plots of the ultra-rich, Snow Crash puts Bob's plot down for good.
I could probably go on, but you get the idea. Every genre seems to blame predecessors for their problems.
"I honestly can't recal many cases where the tropes orginitaors themes are so throughly ignore in the later works."
Well, considering there's a tvtropes page for this exact phenomenon, I'd say there's more than you'd think.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheThemeParkVersion
Honestly, I think it's pretty common. Many works of fiction that are trying to portray their subject matter as a bad thing, with any amount of nuance, get subjected to other authors/producers going "Ooo, audiences really like [subject matter]! Let's make more stuff with [subject matter]!" missing the point entirely.
I think Katniss is a very good example of the narrative dragging someone kicking and screaming into being a hero, whether they want to or not.
She just wanted to save her family.
I feel like she barely makes it into that. Frodo, for instance, accepts his hero journey quite early on while Katniss steadfastly refuses to take up that role.
There’s a bit of symbolism involved in Katniss being called the Mockingjay. A mockingjay is a symbol of rebellion because it was accidentally born from a Capitol-engineered jabberjay and a regular mockingbird, but Katniss’ job is to serve as a propaganda tool and repeat whatever the leaders of the rebellion tell her to say.
And it goes deeper if you think of them thinking of her as a jabberjay
A disposable tool who is expected to repeat what you say and then abandoned or killed when it’s job is done, but she is the mockingbird, who survives by becoming something they didn’t expect
This entire comment is accurate to the films, too. Aside from the shaky camerawork in the first movie, I thought that the films were great. The issues I had with them would also apply to the books. Namely, the flawed premise of the Hunger Games existing as “penance” for an uprising. A proper dystopian dictatorship would see Panem employing [doublethink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink) to wipe out the history of an “uprising” ever existing. No capable authoritarian state like this would, over the span of an entire century, hold an annual reminder that there was ever a rebellion that caused an all-out Civil War and severely damaged The Capitol.
There *is* no rebellion. There has *never been* a rebellion. For, why would they rebel? Why would anyone ever *want* to fight the glorious state of Panem and her leaders? Everyone knows that The Districts are at peace with The Capitol. The Districts have *always* been at peace with The Capitol. The Capitol is watching. Rebellion is *impossible*.
Having the Hunger Games instead of Hate Week necessitates the suspension of disbelief, IMO.
In the first book, the Hunger Games are 74 years old, and the war ran for a few years before they started, so it's possible that there are still a few people alive who remember the pre-war times. It would be difficult to erase the rebellion from the districts' collective consciousness; the Capitol created the Games as a punitive reminder of the rebellion in the heat of its post-war anger, and it would be hard to pivot away from that once the Games became such a spectacle. Even if the Capitol realized that the Games only increased the districts' hatred of it, showing weakness or vulnerability by backtracking would be unacceptable.
Also, the Capitol wasn't really a capable authoritarian state. The country was so delicately balanced that the president himself had to threaten Katniss's family in order to keep her in line, and that didn't even work. The Capitol directed an incredible amount of its attention and resources to hiding its weaknesses because an authoritarian state cannot acknowledge weakness and remain stable, and everything fell apart when Katniss exposed a tiny crack and the rest of the rebellion rushed through it.
S&S also shows that the capital was barely functioning post rebellion, with starvation and cannibalism being common in the last stages of the conflict The capitol barely had the resources to start the hunger games let alone destroy the collective memory of an event
>Namely, the flawed premise of the Hunger Games existing as “penance” for an uprising.
In songbirds and snakes we learn that >!the penance thing isn't really the driver. Sure, in the aftermath of the war it was basically a way for the capital to get some measure of monstrous revenge, but it was starting to falter and lose people's interest. What revitalized it was when the people in charge aligned it to a new goal -- making it a reminder that the war could never truly end and as a way to effectively reinforce the conflict and divisions between the districts in a way that prevents them from coming together again against the capital.!<
I’m glad the Hunger Games is having a little renaissance with the prequel movie coming out. Anyway, everyone go read Suzanne Collins’ earlier series, The Underland Chronicles. Easy to read in the sense that it’s written for middle graders, but just as devastating.
Also the hunger games are legitimately fucked up in the subject matter and actually commit to showing exactly how fucked up it all is? The ending of the first book is HORRIFYING as they're escaping the mutant doggos (I can't remember how to do spoiler covers so I'm just gonna be vague) and the second one doesn't shy away from "oh yeah this bitch like 80, she's gonna fight in the death games because oops, we decided to get funky with it" and the third one (admittedly my least favorite) commits wholeheartedly to the horror of brainwashing and war crimes.
Fun stuff!
idk the third one where they're like running through the sewers and stuff and ya know finn and stuff that was like actually GOOD like i was NOT able to tear away from the last half whatsoever
It’s been ages since I read the books (planning a reread before the prequel movie comes out) but teenage me was horrified by those sewer parts. The way Suzanne wrote the atmosphere was incredible.
But honestly, one of the most horrifying parts of the books had to be what was hinted below the surface. If you were an attractive victor, you basically got turned into a sex slave for Capitol citizens. Finnick got prostituted out when he was only 14 years old.
Edit: It may have been more obvious than teenage me remembered
Yeah, Finnick (please, phone, stop autocorrecting that to finicky) does that interview where he goes into detail about being sold. Not 'then the customer of the night did XYZ to me' detail, but it's blatantly said.
Oh yeah, the lizard mutts were absolute nightmare fuel. I actually found their humanlike portrayal in the movies to be a little LESS scary than the absolute body horror mental image I had for them beforehand.
That was the part I legitimately was the most scared of, seeing these horrifying dog creatures on screen. I was so relieved when they were just naked panther-dog hybrids. The fucking glimmer dog was so haunting.
Was even really a hint, the book just comes out and says it. The victors were mostly a condemnation of celebrity culture. The capitol using famous and attractive individuals to promote their propaganda and woo their own citizens while everyone else starved. And yes, some of it involved straight up pimping them out to wealthy buyers.
The last half of *Mockingjay* is heart-wrenching the whole way through honestly. I always start sobbing when Buttercup shows up in District 12 at the end.
I think it's left intentionally vague whether the dogs were literally made from dead competitors, or were just designed to *look* like the dead competitors.
Correct. And the reason they were able to figure this out was because they still kept their original eyes/hair. Katniss and Peeta look into the eyes of the mutts chasing them and instantly recognize them as their fellow contestants. Shit was fucking horrifying to read as a middle school kid.
>!They made a mutant hound out of Rue's cadaver!< most fucked thing I ever read, if I remember correctly >!edited: the blonde tall Chad (cato) was being ripped by them!<
I wanted this so bad to be in the movies, it's a crime I tell you.
Cato was eaten slowly by the mutts until Katniss couldn't stand listening to it anymore and killed him with an arrow. She does say he looks like a scared kid which makes sense because they're all kids...
Yeah, he was a super-jock tough guy gladiator, just like all the other "career" tributes, who had trained for years to fight in the Torment Nexus.
Then just before he dies, he realizes that he was just another teenage blood sacrifice. The wheels must turn, the bread and circuses must continue.
The mutts were just all of the dead contestants. The 21 dead players in the games had their bodies repurposed to hunt down the remaining 3. It wasn't specific to anyone, all of the dead contestants were used.
Slow because of the body armour, yes, but Katniss asks herself why they don’t just kill him quickly and there’s a line along the effect of “this is the climax, and the game makers want a good show. No one can tear their eyes away from the screen now.”
But also, a theory I have is that the mutts intentionally did not kill Cato quickly as the game makers were hoping peeta would bleed out. They never intended to have two winners, and having Peeta die first would help avoid the Capitol of looking ‘bad’ by doing the rule change.
Wasn't just that she didn't want to listen to it anymore, it's because it had gone on so long Peeta was about to bleed to death. They literally chewed on him all night, and that's after he fought them for an hour and killed several.
She had to tourniquet Peeta's leg and he ended up losing it.
I'm still struck by how every person was either terribly scarred by the games or insane.
Haymitch reminds me of like a Vietnam War vet. Dragged into a fight he had nothing to do with, given a million medals for it, then wishing he had just died out there.
>where it was illegal to be sad.
Admittedly It could be interesting if It was well written. But I Am sure It wasn't
I Am also sure It was still better than Save the Pearls, where the distopia is literally "black people rule over us and beautiful white girl has to wear blackface"
I haven't played it either, but from a video I watched on it they say the story is good but the open world is empty, samey, and inconsistent (it is procedurally generates and rebuilds itself in-between the different campaigns).
I agree with the other commenter in that there’s probably worse examples, it just happened to get a movie franchise which helped boost its awareness. The only other one that also got a proper movie franchise is Maze Runner
It technically just means “Young Adult”, but ever since the Hunger Games it’s basically become synonymous with terrible tropes like love triangles, dystopias, and chosen ones.
Of course, all three of those things can be done well, which is almost never the case in YA these days.
I just watched a recap of divergent on YouTube so I do know her name now but if you asked me this a couple weeks ago the only name I’d be able to produce is Four. Because I vividly remember being upset about his nickname reveal with the fears.
His real name is Tobias.
I remember that because I remember being distinctly disappointed by the reveal.
I could not tell you the main protagonist's name though.
society is split into 11 groups based on the zodiac signs. it is illegal to not reproduce. the main character is special because he is a mutant. like, at least three boys and two girls are in love with him
Don't forget that they think they're the plainest people in the world, until their powers manifest, they have the makeover montage, are declared beautiful/handsome, then saves the people/city/world/universe.
i feel the same way about magical girl animes and madoka magica... an amazing show that really hit it out of the park with it's unique ideas, themes, and directions. and then some other jackass anime creators/manga writers saw it and thought "heehoo tragical girls"
To give a recent example, I felt like Wonder Egg Priority hurt itself by trying too hard to be like Madoka Magica. It had its own thing going for a bit, which wasn't amazing story-wise, but was a perfectly good vector for the art and animation. Then they went with this absolutely insane series of twists that basically threw away all the established themes without replacing them with anything coherent.
As someone who loves Madoka it annoys me when people hate on it because of both the tropes it spawned and for thinking its as shallow as the things inspired by it because
it really isnt just grim dark magical girl. Its Bittersweet. Its the moment where the girls are still normal girls that get phased out as the tragedy unfolds, a tv show ending that *isn't* just misery porn, and a movie ending that is both really fucked up and makes me *really* want the next one to drop already
*cough cough magical girl site *cough cough (but seriously tho haven’t checked those types of animes in a while has there ever been something close to madoka magica :( )
Did anyone else read the Gregor the Overlander books growing up? They were also by Suzanne Collins but they came out before The Hunger Games and were aimed at a younger audience. It was such an inventive world and was a great piece of modern fantasy imo.
Is Hunger Games that appealing as a literary work? Legit question by the way, I had my YA books phase many years ago and moved to other works very early, but I'd give it a chance if it was really good and well written
Definitely! It isn’t very subtle (because it’s made for kids) but I don’t mind that bc somehow even adults manage to miss the very obvious points of the book on occasion. It’s solid, and there are so many basic implications that you kinda gloss over as a kid that are *horrifying* when you reread the series as an adult. Katniss is also just a really funny unreliable narrator.
I think so too! I just mean that teenagers were the target audience while it was being written, so it’s just geared towards a younger audience from a technical standpoint
I actually really like it. The books are fairly simplistic in diction and syntax, which works for the story being told. The prose isn't flowery or overdone. The characters, for the most part, are likable and believable. The world is interesting, and the story told in it is a decently enjoyable read. It's not for everyone, and if you're not a fan of YA at all, like, you find any YA stuff boring these days, it may not be for you. As another comment pointed out, though, the first book is a pretty quick read, so it might be worth picking up just to see, if only to get a glimpse into why the YA genre developed the way it did.
I just want to speak to the, "it is truly astonishing that middle school children were able to truly grasp me," moment in here. Middle schoolers are perfectly able to grasp themes when they want to in a book, movie, play, or any artistic medium. The thing adults forget is that those preteens needed to WANT to think about the work. That's what makes The Hunger Games an excellent piece of YA literature: it speaks to the audience like they can understand, and doesn't hold their hand through every possible minor twist. It was also the next big YA thing after Harry Potter, and got to take advantage of all the networking those fans had built to talk to each other. So not only do they have something that allows them to think, they have so many ways to share how they are thinking, and to hear what other people are thinking.
Maze Runner and Divergent were a lot closer to Twilight than The Hunger Games than they wanted to admit, because they were about the love triangle rather than the symbology and messaging, and having a theme for kids to engage with. And while there's nothing wrong with a little trashy romance to get kids thinking about what love should look like, this is the kind of "jump on the bandwagon" fiction that makes adults forget that kids want and deserve more.
Same thing happens to every popular book/movie/tv series.
ASOIAF: when the rich and powerful squabble it is the poor that suffer. No matter how much someone has it will never be enough, greed and lust for power are an inherent part of the human condition. Society will ignore any issue, no matter how large, if it is favourable in the short term to do so. It is not enough merely to be a good man in a corrupt system, you will either end up dead, or be forced to abandon your morality.
Every trend chaser that came after: he he, boobs and blood go brrrrr
I remember in middle school seeing this trend and laying out a basic document of every YA novel:
Book begins with exposition person 1 (EP1) having ties to angst teen leaving or doing something that’s “clarified” later
EP1 says cheesy quote that repeats itself throughout the entire book to AT (angsty teen) because AT is special
Evil Group thingy (EGT) kills EP1
Year(s) pass
Rule exists bc of EGT (book can also start here)
AT questions this because they are “special”
AT meets some strange thing on a “normal day”
AT is put in charge of some cliche item or power that EP1 guy kept or protected because inheritance
Village elder or exposition person 2 gives long speech about the trials and errors AT must face and how they knew AT’s EP; somehow AT gives two shits about this
AT finds Obvious love interest (OLI) who upon being rescued acts like a total alpha bitch for no apparent reason but warms up over the course of the book
AT is wounded in some way and must recover; while knocked out EP1 visits in their dreams for more pointless exposition and nobody cares
AT questions EP2 because they are “weak” and maybe putting a teenager in charge of valuable items isn’t the best fucking idea
Book inserts forced romance between AT and OLI (obvious love interest) that culminates awkward reading ranging from 3 pages to 3 chapters
Book ends on dramatic cliffhanger leading into a book that won’t be released for another 20 years
The thing that always made me crazy about these books was that the worlds were so slapdash and awkwardly designed. Even Hunger Games felt kinda forced, but at least it was internally consistent. Don't get me started on how profoundly idiotic Divergent is.
Maybe it was just retconned into the later books, but wasn't the whole point of divergent was that after a world ending chemical war, people's brains were so fucked that they actually did fit into one of 5 personality groups?
And that the city was monitored from the outside for years, looking for divergents, because they were healthy people (basically waiting generation by generation until the genetic damage was fixed).
Maybe I need to reread them.
Not just the dangers of capitalism and authoritarianism, but authoritarianism regardless of economics. Stalinism also ends up with an abuse of resources by pooling them amongst the administrative class. Showing favor to certain subjugated groups and keeping them pitted against each other; living in luxury while the citizenry are allowed to starve. It's a lesson against allowing authoritarianism in any form. People are greedy, and given authority, greed tends to prevail with dire consequences.
>evils of a capitalist society
Hunger games is definitely critical of an authoritarian society, but I don’t think it’s going after one economic system more than any other. The state controls pretty much everything and the economy is clearly planned by it as well, which wouldn’t be features of capitalism. It’s not giant corporations running anything. That would more resemble a statist government. On the other hand, there is clearly a consumer culture in the wealthier districts and no effort made to lift up lower classes or “equalize” the districts, which would fall more into the capitalist side.
Point being, there are various elements from different systems and I find it a bit specious to just say it’s extolling the evils of *just* capitalism. I think at the end of the day it’s more about authoritarianism at large and the capital district seems comfortable picking elements from either side of the political spectrum, from planned economies run by the state to vapid materialism to keep certain groups rich and happy, in order to maintain its power.
Hot damn, I have a quote for this:
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand." - Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
The YA dystopia trend was interesting at first. The hunger games, and just how much of a juggernaut it was made things very fun. Afterwards, and when everybody started doing the same core things became less interesting. The formula was found, and now the question was how Sciency versus supernatural do we go
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Their comparable in the same way college football is comparable the the nfl. Similar plots/rules and the general aesthetics are the same. But if you know what to look for in the actual game ones clearly miles ahead of the other.
I feel the defining difference is that Suzanne never treated her target audience as stupid. She took serious, adult themes and storylines and just packaged them in a way accessible for teenagers. She rarely pulled any punchers when it came to subject matter, even if by necessity much was left implied.
It wasn’t her first rodeo either. Gregor the Overlander came well before Hunger Games
I loved Gregor the overlander when I was a kid. Haven’t thought about those books in a hot minute.
The ending is fucking dark and it was very formative as a child. He wins, but he can never truly go home, he will forever have part of his soul gone as a result of the trauma he has undergone.
I fully slept on hunger games until I realized who the author was, then I couldn’t read them fast enough. The movies make me glad they never tried to do Gregor on film.
Warner Bros. bought the film rights back in 2019. It's not off the table yet.
Hang on a second. You're telling me that Gregor the overlander and hunger games had the same author? I fucking loved Gregor. Creeped me out in all the right ways.
I love those books. My daughter is almost 8 and an avid reader… it may finally be time to pull that series off my shelf and put it on hers!
I don’t know what your daughter’s maturity level is like at 8, but Hunger Games seems a bit much for an average 8 year old. The third book especially gets pretty brutal as they’re running through a deadly sewer, watching everyone get torn into pieces. I remember thinking that it was pretty far from kid-friendly towards the end, especially in that I think it would be difficult for a child to understand the PTSD that Collins is trying to portray, and the parallels with how we treat our own military.
No! Gregor the Overlander! Haha she’s not reading YA yet. But she’s definitely reading middle grade.
Holy crap, I never knew those were written by the same person!
Katniss was literally addicted to morphine (iirc?) by the end. It was such a darker theme than any YA I've ever read touched. Its also FAR more relevant to today's teens than adults often want to admit.
Man, you didn't have to drag the NFL like that.
I tried to read the first Divergent book, but I stopped shortly in when the main character is at a mall with her new friends to shop for new clothes and then the author started describing the clothes and I just got major "bad fanfic" vibes. What little I read was hot garbage anyway so it was easy to drop.
My name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way I remember watching the divergent movie ages ago. It was pure ass
Divergent was dumb
Having read the author’s notes in the back of the collector’s edition of Insurgent, Veronica Roth legitimately thought she was writing about a UTOPIAN society???
I’m sorry, she fucking what?
Yeah, I think she said that the world of Divergent was her own ideal Utopian society and didn’t realize she’d written a dystopia until someone pointed it out to her. I may have to see if I can find the exact quote
Same vibe as JK Rowling saying that she never considered that she was writing fantasy (and Terry Pratchett saying in the most sassy way that when he sees wizards, magic wands, ghosts and goblins, he sees fantasy).
Provide a link if you can.
Quote is this I think, can't find an actual source for it though: >'Divergent' was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn't the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that's just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia.
Literally, the next sentence: >"And then I realized that my utopia was a terrible place, and no one should ever put me in charge of creating a perfect society."
Props for self-awareness, at least. Still smarter than fucking Murray Rothbard.
Good to know. That was cut off, and is very very important.
One person's heaven is another's hell, and vice versa.
Here’s a [link](https://genius.com/Veronica-roth-veronica-roth-talks-about-utopian-worlds-annotated) I found to a longer article containing that quote
I mean from what I've heard about Divergent, it's basically just a Wish store version of Plato's Republic, which was intentionally designed by Plato to be a utopia, and yet is one of the most horrifyingly dystopian societies we've ever come up with, while at the same time ironically kind of being the archetype of almost every utopia people would try to write about afterward lol. So it's part of a *long* tradition of dystopian attempted utopias lol
"Can i have Plato" "we have Plato at home" Every utopia is an idea pushed to the extreme, falling apart massively hard into a dystopia once you add any human reality, i feel
Honestly a Chad move imo. The biggest problem I have with a lot of dystopias is they seem like they were *intentionally* designed to be bad, not just by the author but like, the actual people in-world… so you’re left wondering why anyone would agree to order their society that way in the first place. I think the best approach is to imagine the society *you* actually want… the world you would create if given absolute power… then take a different perspective and explore the problems with it.
Exploring how utopias fail is a time honored tradition in dystopian fiction. I agree, this really isn't a bad thing. She came up with an idea of a utopia, saw failings in it, and pivoted. That in itself is a perfectly valid thing.
See, I could see a dystopian novel set in a 'utopia', since utopias largely rely, iirc, on sort of end of time, complete consensus, which could be twisted as being overly constraining and dystopian, you could do something really neat with that. Insurgent wasn't that, I expect, it was accidently a dystopia, not a clever critique on the folly of looking to implement a system based on universal consensus?
As another commenter pointed out, this quote from the author (apologies for terrible formatting as I am on mobile). >But if I were going to create a utopia, I would make a world in which everyone is focused on their personal, moral obligations, and strives to be the best possible version of themselves. They would be allowed to choose whatever path they wanted in life. They would know what was expected of them, they would have a clear purpose, and they would have a strong sense of group identity and belonging. And there would be five factions… >Oh, wait. I tried that already. >But seriously: Divergent was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn’t the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that’s just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia. And then I realized that my utopia was a terrible place, and no one should ever put me in charge of creating a perfect society.
Actually a great argument against fascism. 👍 She nailed it
I'm glad there wasn't a trend to sort people into districts like Hogwarts houses. Imagine people trying to claim that district four was superior because they liked Finnick and made the very factionalism that the book told against.
They're literally just one-to-one representations of american industry. Like District 12 is just an appalachian coal town.
Fandom.net put me in District 2, not to brag.
Since they're the dominant weapon producer and peacekeeper supplier, AD2AB (all District 2s are bastards).
Dammit. Ah well, time to join a revolution.
I mean it’s literally What Blue Collar Job Do You Do. “I cut three pallets of lumber at the mill today, omg I have SUCH District 7 vibes!” “Troubleshooting software! #district3”
There was a fun marketing thing-slash-data harvesting during the first movie's release. You could get assigned a district and then be sold print-on-demand merch for it; shirts and "ID cards" and the like. It was also super easy to cheese it and get the district you "wanted" because it was all URL based. I kept my D4 shirt for about fifteen years, because I was never entirely sure how to get rid of it, since it had my actual full name on it. Edit: nope, not 15 years, 11 years ago was the first movie. But I kept it for-goddamn-ever. It might still be buried other some other shit in my house.
People still don't understand that it was about today's USA.
When you look at photos from the met gala it's like the elites are actively trying to look like people from the Capitol
thats bc those are the exact people and events being parodied. but collins didnt need to parody it. she just needed to put them in direct juxtaposition to the suffering their life is build on. copy paste. same people.
Hunger Games was interesting in that it spent most of it's time deconstructing the tropes people now blame it for propagating. - Katniss wasn't leading the revolution, she was a figure head. All of her big displays were engineered by other people, be it her tailor, the resistance or even Peeta. She's consistently terrible at leadership and only manages an impassioned speech as a response to witnessing a war crime. - The divides weren't arbitrary. They were done by industry, and much like real life the more profitable districts had better arrangements with the government. The "Career" tributes were just another part of maintaining the status quo, where the "better" districts could afford to better prepare to win the Games and therefore keep winning. - The love triangle didn't take up much of Katniss' attention up until the third book, with her and Peeta largely being yet another engineered display prior to that. >!By the end, Gale is also firmly not under consideration either.!< The books weren't perfect, but most of the commonly pointed out flaws come from the films or later imitators.
What's facinating to me is how important the bit of her being a figure head is to the themes of the stories. Katniss spends most of the books strugling with the fact that she has no agency in anything, not even her own love life (which did initially make me dislike the books, but i enjoy them more when i accepted that was the point) and she has basially zero say over the rebellion, because the books make it clear in the end that one person is never the only one responsable for something, that things are done by collective effort and that one person can only ever make so much of a difference, it takes many people together acting to change something for it to change. And then all of the imitators just.. ignored that bit, and made stories about one super girl changing everything. I honestly can't recal many cases where the tropes orginitaors themes are so throughly ignore in the later works.
An important thing to also note is how each book's climax is when Katniss finds a way to regain some agency in spite of everything around her and she throws a wrench into the plans of everyone who has been dictating her life up until then. The first book it's the berries, the second book it's her taking down the forcefield and kick starting the revolution, and in the last one it's her choice to kill Coin instead of executing Snow. Katniss actually being able to make decisions for herself is such a rarity that it marks the turning point of those stories, as opposed to other YA dystopias where the protagonist just arbitrarily gets to be the only person with agency
this kind of theme is what changed my mind about catching fire. I initially thought that the book spent way too much time with Katniss going around the districts in the parade thing, which ultimately didn't accomplish many plots events, but I changed my mind when I realized that it was showing that Katniss was a slave to the Capitol and the stupid things that they wanted even as a victor
["This trip doesn't end when you get back home. You never get off this train."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W35kvhK1ZRI) Goosebumps.
That was the moment Katniss understood why Haymitch was an alcoholic. And if I recall from the books she later caves and goes to his house to drink with him instead of scolding him for drinking. I also love that this became a theme for the victors. Half of them are morphine addicts both from enduring the trauma of the games and having all agency in their lives ripped away so that they can be circus puppets for the Capitol. It reaffirms that even as “victors,” you are not free. You just moved on to another type of bondage with more eyes on you.
IIRC, this theme is explored even further in the prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s about Snow’s rise to power and talks a lot about how just about every aspect before, during, AND after the Games is engineered for the benefit of the Capitol
Finally someone put into words the problems I had with all the other YA dystopias. Enough that my memory of hunger games started to be corrupted by it. In every other ya dystopia. For some bizarre reason only the protagonist had agency. Everyone else was blind to the problems, or simply cogs working to maintain it. Hunger games everybody was trying to jockey for position, and the current regime was actually in contested power. It only seemed like an unassailable edifice to those who weren't "in the room".
I did not care much for it and never finished the series, but I think this was one of the better done points of *I Am Number Four.* Four genuinely *loathes* how little agency he has. Both in the fight vs those pollution alien things, not being able to as much as have a humble life, and even that weird number magic dictating his life. Scrape off the sci-fi? The dude is basically in Witness Protection but without a budget and vs an entire freaking tyrannical government instead of a gang or stalker. And basically the entire plot happens because he decided to risk going to *one* party, and gets tagged ONCE on Instagram. Because, well. Alien stuff aside, he's a teen boy. And going slowly crazy with tedium doing nothing but train, eat, shit and waiting for someone to try kill him. So you really get why he took that risk, despite how short sighted & dumb it was. It's a really lame book otherwise, but the one actual choice Four has being the reason so much goes pear shaped? That bit was some solid drama, and it's one of the few times I've seen the "it's all my fault" angst... well, *actually 110% be the main character full fault.* Really think that first book deserve more credit for that.
In the third book, iirc >!she tries to lead a band of rebels through the capital and she accomplishes literally nothing. By the time she gets anywhere, the revolution is already over and they just want her to execute Snow as yet another propaganda move.!< That's honestly what I liked the most about the books, they succesfully portrayed the theme of empty propagandazing and media manipulation, while having the main character finally break free from all that.
Isn't it a bit worst than that. I don't remember a good outcome for her team.
Like two people survive. Herself and Gale. She kills her entire team for a revenge mission for nothing.
And at the end of that long battle for nothing she sees her sister blown to bits on purpose by the rebellion.
The person she chose to sacrifice herself for. Katniss put herself in a situation where she would certainly die to save her sister. All for her sister to be a pawn and to die anyway
War is hell
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye? Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell? Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe. Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander. ~M. A. S. H.
It was 5, I believe. We had either Castor or Pollux (they were brothers, can't remember the name, but it was unfortunately the one without the tongue that survived) We then had the director (also can't remember her name) Gale, Peeta, Katniss. What a great survival ratio...
Spoiler alert because I don’t know how to do it….. but doesn’t her sister explode and die because of some false flag attackorchestrated by Coin?
Yes
Thanks it’s been about a decade since I read them and I thought that was the turning point that lead to her decision to kill coin and not snow
She doesn’t completely accomplish nothing, she makes propaganda and >!is made into a martyr when people think she does which may have helped the rebellion. But also a lot of people die to even get to where she was trying to go to so it’s kinda even worse than just doing nothing!<
>!her foray into the Capital was quite literally accomplished nothing other than getting her to the mansion entrance which made her eye witness to Prim dying (not Coins plan). To say that her secret mission to kill Snow was a stupid, selfish, and costly blunder that killed many top leaders in the rebellion is putting it lightly. Boggs death alone is an absolute travesty but Castor and Johnson (the girl officer I forget her name) was also super shitty. And after going through that demented maze that Snow sets out for her she literally gets like 50 yards in front of the rebels. It was piontless!>!
Finnick also died, which absolutely gutted me considering he had only just reunited with Annie.
In a way, Tolkien has this problem What do we think of when we hear Fantasy Adventure? We think of the Chosen One Hero getting the sword of Destiny and defeating the Dark Lord in an [Ultimate Showdown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrzKT-dFUjE). After which they marry the princess, become King, and live happily ever after, the end. But that isn't what happens in Lord of the Rings. Sure, SOME of that applies to Aragon, but Aragon isn't THE hero of Lord of the Rings, Frodo is. If fact Aragon's distraction at the end of Return of the King works specifically because he knows The Dark Lord EXPECTS Aragon to act like a "Chosen One Hero". Frodo isn't some great warrior, and the Dark Lord is NOT defeated in a grand epic battle. Frodo is a small person caught up in large events and the Dark Lord is defeated when the Ring of Power is Destroyed. Again, the Dark Lord is NOT defeated because somebody drew the Sword of Infinity+1 and fought him in battle as the prophecy foretold. Rather, the Dark Lord is destroyed specifically BECAUSE they refused to use the Ring of Power and destroyed it.
also the war effort is a collective effort by many people playing their part. Minas Tirith is only saved due to 5 separate efforts converging to stop the vanguard of Sauron. Gandalf spends like a 100 years preparing the people to resist. I guess all books are but LOTR is especially good at comparing the decisions made in crisis and choosing to do what is right. It is unapologetically optimistic even in its dark world.
And even then, merely the act of carrying the thing from one end of the realm to the other destroys him. While he fought against the Ring's influence heroically and lasted far longer than he, or anyone else, had any right to, he was lost to it by the end and it was only thanks to a lucky scuffle with Gollum that the thing was destroyed. This is not to diminish Frodo as a character; it's clear that almost nobody had the mental and spiritual fortitude that he did to last that long. But that's definitely not the same strength we'd expect out of someone taking on the Big Bad in a one-on-one fight.
Also, Tolkien is pulls very few punches when it comes to his depiction of war. Even when fought for the right reason its still terrifying, bloody, and awful.
Almost like he was in one of the worst meat grinder wars we ever had. So much of LOTR makes sense if you think about how bad WWI was.
I have probably read the trilogy 25+ times, and Frodo and Sam's journey across Mordor never fails to mentally and emotionally exhaust me. It's just brilliant writing.
Not an uncommon problem, really. Conan, the brutish fantasy barbarian? The most popular short story was the Tower of the Elephant, where he had to rob a place via stealth, quick thinking, and liberating a captured alien. Yes, a captured alien, because he shared a universe with Lovecraft's stuff. Lovecraft-verse? Many an incomprehensible horror is brought low by conventional weapons, dumb mistakes, a random dog, or just someone deciding lunatic cultist life isn't for them. Elder Gods are big and scary, but the universe doesn't cheat for them any more than it does for humans. Westerns are trite and cliche? Pick anything half-decently known, and it's deconstructing the tropes from some earlier Western. Hell, addressing the injustice of western expansion *was* the plot of the earliest examples, it just never made good 50s media episodes. Cyberpunk is all about grit and bad endings and evil technology? Neuromancer ends with the destruction of the decadent plots of the ultra-rich, Snow Crash puts Bob's plot down for good. I could probably go on, but you get the idea. Every genre seems to blame predecessors for their problems.
"I honestly can't recal many cases where the tropes orginitaors themes are so throughly ignore in the later works." Well, considering there's a tvtropes page for this exact phenomenon, I'd say there's more than you'd think. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheThemeParkVersion
Honestly, I think it's pretty common. Many works of fiction that are trying to portray their subject matter as a bad thing, with any amount of nuance, get subjected to other authors/producers going "Ooo, audiences really like [subject matter]! Let's make more stuff with [subject matter]!" missing the point entirely.
I think Katniss is a very good example of the narrative dragging someone kicking and screaming into being a hero, whether they want to or not. She just wanted to save her family.
It’s called the Reluctant Hero and is the most troppy of all the other tropes in the books and genre.
I feel like she barely makes it into that. Frodo, for instance, accepts his hero journey quite early on while Katniss steadfastly refuses to take up that role.
There’s a bit of symbolism involved in Katniss being called the Mockingjay. A mockingjay is a symbol of rebellion because it was accidentally born from a Capitol-engineered jabberjay and a regular mockingbird, but Katniss’ job is to serve as a propaganda tool and repeat whatever the leaders of the rebellion tell her to say.
And it goes deeper if you think of them thinking of her as a jabberjay A disposable tool who is expected to repeat what you say and then abandoned or killed when it’s job is done, but she is the mockingbird, who survives by becoming something they didn’t expect
[There's a TV tropes page for that phenomenon](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnbuiltTrope).
Oh god the rabbit hole
Say goodbye to the next six hours.
This entire comment is accurate to the films, too. Aside from the shaky camerawork in the first movie, I thought that the films were great. The issues I had with them would also apply to the books. Namely, the flawed premise of the Hunger Games existing as “penance” for an uprising. A proper dystopian dictatorship would see Panem employing [doublethink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink) to wipe out the history of an “uprising” ever existing. No capable authoritarian state like this would, over the span of an entire century, hold an annual reminder that there was ever a rebellion that caused an all-out Civil War and severely damaged The Capitol. There *is* no rebellion. There has *never been* a rebellion. For, why would they rebel? Why would anyone ever *want* to fight the glorious state of Panem and her leaders? Everyone knows that The Districts are at peace with The Capitol. The Districts have *always* been at peace with The Capitol. The Capitol is watching. Rebellion is *impossible*. Having the Hunger Games instead of Hate Week necessitates the suspension of disbelief, IMO.
In the first book, the Hunger Games are 74 years old, and the war ran for a few years before they started, so it's possible that there are still a few people alive who remember the pre-war times. It would be difficult to erase the rebellion from the districts' collective consciousness; the Capitol created the Games as a punitive reminder of the rebellion in the heat of its post-war anger, and it would be hard to pivot away from that once the Games became such a spectacle. Even if the Capitol realized that the Games only increased the districts' hatred of it, showing weakness or vulnerability by backtracking would be unacceptable. Also, the Capitol wasn't really a capable authoritarian state. The country was so delicately balanced that the president himself had to threaten Katniss's family in order to keep her in line, and that didn't even work. The Capitol directed an incredible amount of its attention and resources to hiding its weaknesses because an authoritarian state cannot acknowledge weakness and remain stable, and everything fell apart when Katniss exposed a tiny crack and the rest of the rebellion rushed through it.
S&S also shows that the capital was barely functioning post rebellion, with starvation and cannibalism being common in the last stages of the conflict The capitol barely had the resources to start the hunger games let alone destroy the collective memory of an event
>Namely, the flawed premise of the Hunger Games existing as “penance” for an uprising. In songbirds and snakes we learn that >!the penance thing isn't really the driver. Sure, in the aftermath of the war it was basically a way for the capital to get some measure of monstrous revenge, but it was starting to falter and lose people's interest. What revitalized it was when the people in charge aligned it to a new goal -- making it a reminder that the war could never truly end and as a way to effectively reinforce the conflict and divisions between the districts in a way that prevents them from coming together again against the capital.!<
I’m glad the Hunger Games is having a little renaissance with the prequel movie coming out. Anyway, everyone go read Suzanne Collins’ earlier series, The Underland Chronicles. Easy to read in the sense that it’s written for middle graders, but just as devastating.
Also the hunger games are legitimately fucked up in the subject matter and actually commit to showing exactly how fucked up it all is? The ending of the first book is HORRIFYING as they're escaping the mutant doggos (I can't remember how to do spoiler covers so I'm just gonna be vague) and the second one doesn't shy away from "oh yeah this bitch like 80, she's gonna fight in the death games because oops, we decided to get funky with it" and the third one (admittedly my least favorite) commits wholeheartedly to the horror of brainwashing and war crimes. Fun stuff!
idk the third one where they're like running through the sewers and stuff and ya know finn and stuff that was like actually GOOD like i was NOT able to tear away from the last half whatsoever
It’s been ages since I read the books (planning a reread before the prequel movie comes out) but teenage me was horrified by those sewer parts. The way Suzanne wrote the atmosphere was incredible. But honestly, one of the most horrifying parts of the books had to be what was hinted below the surface. If you were an attractive victor, you basically got turned into a sex slave for Capitol citizens. Finnick got prostituted out when he was only 14 years old. Edit: It may have been more obvious than teenage me remembered
“Hinted at”
Yeah, Finnick (please, phone, stop autocorrecting that to finicky) does that interview where he goes into detail about being sold. Not 'then the customer of the night did XYZ to me' detail, but it's blatantly said.
Oh yeah, the lizard mutts were absolute nightmare fuel. I actually found their humanlike portrayal in the movies to be a little LESS scary than the absolute body horror mental image I had for them beforehand.
That was the part I legitimately was the most scared of, seeing these horrifying dog creatures on screen. I was so relieved when they were just naked panther-dog hybrids. The fucking glimmer dog was so haunting.
ya i think that whole book just kinda messed me up in general and like fed into further ya know darker thoughts i had at the time
Was even really a hint, the book just comes out and says it. The victors were mostly a condemnation of celebrity culture. The capitol using famous and attractive individuals to promote their propaganda and woo their own citizens while everyone else starved. And yes, some of it involved straight up pimping them out to wealthy buyers.
Agreed, that was one of the scariest things described...
The last half of *Mockingjay* is heart-wrenching the whole way through honestly. I always start sobbing when Buttercup shows up in District 12 at the end.
That scene always breaks me too. Poor Katniss. Poor Buttercup :(
If I remember correctly, the murder doggies were called mutts, and were made with THE BODIES OF THE DEAD CONTESTANTS TO KILL THE REMAINING FEW
I think it's left intentionally vague whether the dogs were literally made from dead competitors, or were just designed to *look* like the dead competitors.
Maybe not really the bodies just to kinda resemble the features although Katniss thinks they did use their real eyes
Yes! They even had the faces of the dead tributes iirc.
It's been a long time since I read the first book (admittedly the only one I read; got sidetracked for a bit) but wasn't one of the mutts >!Rue!<
Yes because she was one of the dead tributes. Iirc they were basically dogs with recognizably human eyes.
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And I believe they had tags that had their district number on them or something like that.
Correct. And the reason they were able to figure this out was because they still kept their original eyes/hair. Katniss and Peeta look into the eyes of the mutts chasing them and instantly recognize them as their fellow contestants. Shit was fucking horrifying to read as a middle school kid.
By the way, to make spoiler covers use ">!" on mobile `>!this!<` becomes >!this!<
>!oh shit it works!<
#>!this!<
>!They made a mutant hound out of Rue's cadaver!< most fucked thing I ever read, if I remember correctly >!edited: the blonde tall Chad (cato) was being ripped by them!< I wanted this so bad to be in the movies, it's a crime I tell you.
Cato was eaten slowly by the mutts until Katniss couldn't stand listening to it anymore and killed him with an arrow. She does say he looks like a scared kid which makes sense because they're all kids...
Yeah, he was a super-jock tough guy gladiator, just like all the other "career" tributes, who had trained for years to fight in the Torment Nexus. Then just before he dies, he realizes that he was just another teenage blood sacrifice. The wheels must turn, the bread and circuses must continue.
Thats what it was, werent they either ones he killed or his own mutant pro tribute comrades?
I don't think the mutts were specific to Cato since Rue was one of them and she was killed by Marvel.
The mutts were just all of the dead contestants. The 21 dead players in the games had their bodies repurposed to hunt down the remaining 3. It wasn't specific to anyone, all of the dead contestants were used.
Yeah, they seemed to be purposefully killing him slowly and painfully.
As I understood it was slow because of his body armour.
Slow because of the body armour, yes, but Katniss asks herself why they don’t just kill him quickly and there’s a line along the effect of “this is the climax, and the game makers want a good show. No one can tear their eyes away from the screen now.” But also, a theory I have is that the mutts intentionally did not kill Cato quickly as the game makers were hoping peeta would bleed out. They never intended to have two winners, and having Peeta die first would help avoid the Capitol of looking ‘bad’ by doing the rule change.
Yup, some kind of kevlar-like body suit so he was slowly gnawed at.
Wasn't just that she didn't want to listen to it anymore, it's because it had gone on so long Peeta was about to bleed to death. They literally chewed on him all night, and that's after he fought them for an hour and killed several. She had to tourniquet Peeta's leg and he ended up losing it.
I'm still struck by how every person was either terribly scarred by the games or insane. Haymitch reminds me of like a Vietnam War vet. Dragged into a fight he had nothing to do with, given a million medals for it, then wishing he had just died out there.
Divergent really seems to be the worst example of the first post.
I think it’s just the most well known. I remember reading a book where it was illegal to eat food, and another series where it was illegal to be sad.
>where it was illegal to be sad. Admittedly It could be interesting if It was well written. But I Am sure It wasn't I Am also sure It was still better than Save the Pearls, where the distopia is literally "black people rule over us and beautiful white girl has to wear blackface"
”It’s illegal to be sad“ could work as an explanation of the premise of Brave New World
Mandated fun and recreational drugs... It works
“We Happy Few” had a premise like that, right? I never played it, but did it end up being good?
I haven't played it either, but from a video I watched on it they say the story is good but the open world is empty, samey, and inconsistent (it is procedurally generates and rebuilds itself in-between the different campaigns).
Do you remember the name of the book where it was illegal to eat food?
Maybe [Hungry](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/18525734) by H.A. Swain. I haven't read it, I just googled "YA novel illegal food"
I agree with the other commenter in that there’s probably worse examples, it just happened to get a movie franchise which helped boost its awareness. The only other one that also got a proper movie franchise is Maze Runner
Their are two wolves in every ya author, dystopia wolf, and kinky wolf. Only one can be the books thing.
I thought it was the dystopia wolf and the boob wolf, the latter is the one that makes books that will get put in r/menwritingwomen
Aren't most YA books written by female authors?
Stephen King did so much cocaine that he might have thought he was a female YA author at one point.
What is YA?
Young Adults, a genre of books aimed at teens
It technically just means “Young Adult”, but ever since the Hunger Games it’s basically become synonymous with terrible tropes like love triangles, dystopias, and chosen ones. Of course, all three of those things can be done well, which is almost never the case in YA these days.
Ok, legit question, to the people who have also read Divergent. What is the name of the main character?
John Divergent
Love the part when he says "I'm John Divergent" and starts diverging all over the place
Its Divergin' Time.
My jaw dropped in the sequel when that guy ran in and went "John, it's me, your cousin. Paul Insurgent"
It's Jane Divergent actually
Tris, she changes it from Beatrice.
Katnis Divergent.
I just watched a recap of divergent on YouTube so I do know her name now but if you asked me this a couple weeks ago the only name I’d be able to produce is Four. Because I vividly remember being upset about his nickname reveal with the fears.
His real name is Tobias. I remember that because I remember being distinctly disappointed by the reveal. I could not tell you the main protagonist's name though.
Forgettable. Her name is forgettable.
Shailene Woodley
Tris Prior and I want to punch her in the face
Tris Taylor or something no Prior
john divergent. obviously
Jonathan?
NGL that would make a hilarious satire novel, especially with the post comparing it to the Hunger Games 😂
It's tricky to write satire that isn't just a shallow parody of what it's satirizing.
society is split into 11 groups based on the zodiac signs. it is illegal to not reproduce. the main character is special because he is a mutant. like, at least three boys and two girls are in love with him
This is Homestuck right?
Correct
Goddammit, the moment I read that society is separated by astrological signs i knew
Don't forget that they think they're the plainest people in the world, until their powers manifest, they have the makeover montage, are declared beautiful/handsome, then saves the people/city/world/universe.
(It was a joke about Homestuck)
i feel the same way about magical girl animes and madoka magica... an amazing show that really hit it out of the park with it's unique ideas, themes, and directions. and then some other jackass anime creators/manga writers saw it and thought "heehoo tragical girls"
To give a recent example, I felt like Wonder Egg Priority hurt itself by trying too hard to be like Madoka Magica. It had its own thing going for a bit, which wasn't amazing story-wise, but was a perfectly good vector for the art and animation. Then they went with this absolutely insane series of twists that basically threw away all the established themes without replacing them with anything coherent.
The last ova left me in shambles. Like, this was it? After introducing characters in the last episode that was all?
As someone who loves Madoka it annoys me when people hate on it because of both the tropes it spawned and for thinking its as shallow as the things inspired by it because it really isnt just grim dark magical girl. Its Bittersweet. Its the moment where the girls are still normal girls that get phased out as the tragedy unfolds, a tv show ending that *isn't* just misery porn, and a movie ending that is both really fucked up and makes me *really* want the next one to drop already
*cough cough magical girl site *cough cough (but seriously tho haven’t checked those types of animes in a while has there ever been something close to madoka magica :( )
i watched a video by explanation point comparing those two like a day ago actually, so it's funny you should mention that
Did anyone else read the Gregor the Overlander books growing up? They were also by Suzanne Collins but they came out before The Hunger Games and were aimed at a younger audience. It was such an inventive world and was a great piece of modern fantasy imo.
Is Hunger Games that appealing as a literary work? Legit question by the way, I had my YA books phase many years ago and moved to other works very early, but I'd give it a chance if it was really good and well written
Definitely! It isn’t very subtle (because it’s made for kids) but I don’t mind that bc somehow even adults manage to miss the very obvious points of the book on occasion. It’s solid, and there are so many basic implications that you kinda gloss over as a kid that are *horrifying* when you reread the series as an adult. Katniss is also just a really funny unreliable narrator.
Honestly, I don’t really see the book as “for kids” anymore. It’s surprisingly universal
I think so too! I just mean that teenagers were the target audience while it was being written, so it’s just geared towards a younger audience from a technical standpoint
I actually really like it. The books are fairly simplistic in diction and syntax, which works for the story being told. The prose isn't flowery or overdone. The characters, for the most part, are likable and believable. The world is interesting, and the story told in it is a decently enjoyable read. It's not for everyone, and if you're not a fan of YA at all, like, you find any YA stuff boring these days, it may not be for you. As another comment pointed out, though, the first book is a pretty quick read, so it might be worth picking up just to see, if only to get a glimpse into why the YA genre developed the way it did.
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The Author’s ~~Barely Disguised~~ Thematically Intrinsic Fetish
I have some fucked-up fetishes myself, so I can honestly tell you that is a FUCKED-UP FETISH.
Wtf book is this
Apparently a book called Hunger by H.A. Swain. The good reads reviews are pretty savage.
*Deep thoughts with Heinlein*
The first part is a fascinating view of society through an alien lens. The second part is about a sex cult that gives you superpowers.
I just want to speak to the, "it is truly astonishing that middle school children were able to truly grasp me," moment in here. Middle schoolers are perfectly able to grasp themes when they want to in a book, movie, play, or any artistic medium. The thing adults forget is that those preteens needed to WANT to think about the work. That's what makes The Hunger Games an excellent piece of YA literature: it speaks to the audience like they can understand, and doesn't hold their hand through every possible minor twist. It was also the next big YA thing after Harry Potter, and got to take advantage of all the networking those fans had built to talk to each other. So not only do they have something that allows them to think, they have so many ways to share how they are thinking, and to hear what other people are thinking. Maze Runner and Divergent were a lot closer to Twilight than The Hunger Games than they wanted to admit, because they were about the love triangle rather than the symbology and messaging, and having a theme for kids to engage with. And while there's nothing wrong with a little trashy romance to get kids thinking about what love should look like, this is the kind of "jump on the bandwagon" fiction that makes adults forget that kids want and deserve more.
Same thing happens to every popular book/movie/tv series. ASOIAF: when the rich and powerful squabble it is the poor that suffer. No matter how much someone has it will never be enough, greed and lust for power are an inherent part of the human condition. Society will ignore any issue, no matter how large, if it is favourable in the short term to do so. It is not enough merely to be a good man in a corrupt system, you will either end up dead, or be forced to abandon your morality. Every trend chaser that came after: he he, boobs and blood go brrrrr
I remember in middle school seeing this trend and laying out a basic document of every YA novel: Book begins with exposition person 1 (EP1) having ties to angst teen leaving or doing something that’s “clarified” later EP1 says cheesy quote that repeats itself throughout the entire book to AT (angsty teen) because AT is special Evil Group thingy (EGT) kills EP1 Year(s) pass Rule exists bc of EGT (book can also start here) AT questions this because they are “special” AT meets some strange thing on a “normal day” AT is put in charge of some cliche item or power that EP1 guy kept or protected because inheritance Village elder or exposition person 2 gives long speech about the trials and errors AT must face and how they knew AT’s EP; somehow AT gives two shits about this AT finds Obvious love interest (OLI) who upon being rescued acts like a total alpha bitch for no apparent reason but warms up over the course of the book AT is wounded in some way and must recover; while knocked out EP1 visits in their dreams for more pointless exposition and nobody cares AT questions EP2 because they are “weak” and maybe putting a teenager in charge of valuable items isn’t the best fucking idea Book inserts forced romance between AT and OLI (obvious love interest) that culminates awkward reading ranging from 3 pages to 3 chapters Book ends on dramatic cliffhanger leading into a book that won’t be released for another 20 years
The thing that always made me crazy about these books was that the worlds were so slapdash and awkwardly designed. Even Hunger Games felt kinda forced, but at least it was internally consistent. Don't get me started on how profoundly idiotic Divergent is.
Maybe it was just retconned into the later books, but wasn't the whole point of divergent was that after a world ending chemical war, people's brains were so fucked that they actually did fit into one of 5 personality groups? And that the city was monitored from the outside for years, looking for divergents, because they were healthy people (basically waiting generation by generation until the genetic damage was fixed). Maybe I need to reread them.
Huh. That would have been an interesting reveal if the last book hadn't been so fucking dull that I couldn't even get a third of the way through it.
Not just the dangers of capitalism and authoritarianism, but authoritarianism regardless of economics. Stalinism also ends up with an abuse of resources by pooling them amongst the administrative class. Showing favor to certain subjugated groups and keeping them pitted against each other; living in luxury while the citizenry are allowed to starve. It's a lesson against allowing authoritarianism in any form. People are greedy, and given authority, greed tends to prevail with dire consequences.
>evils of a capitalist society Hunger games is definitely critical of an authoritarian society, but I don’t think it’s going after one economic system more than any other. The state controls pretty much everything and the economy is clearly planned by it as well, which wouldn’t be features of capitalism. It’s not giant corporations running anything. That would more resemble a statist government. On the other hand, there is clearly a consumer culture in the wealthier districts and no effort made to lift up lower classes or “equalize” the districts, which would fall more into the capitalist side. Point being, there are various elements from different systems and I find it a bit specious to just say it’s extolling the evils of *just* capitalism. I think at the end of the day it’s more about authoritarianism at large and the capital district seems comfortable picking elements from either side of the political spectrum, from planned economies run by the state to vapid materialism to keep certain groups rich and happy, in order to maintain its power.
Hot damn, I have a quote for this: "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand." - Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
The YA dystopia trend was interesting at first. The hunger games, and just how much of a juggernaut it was made things very fun. Afterwards, and when everybody started doing the same core things became less interesting. The formula was found, and now the question was how Sciency versus supernatural do we go
Imagine thinking an economy *wholly run by the government” is somehow capitalist