Hyperfixation Post: The Hunger Games Part I
The Original Trilogy
Hello and welcome to a post on my most recent hyperfixation and hopefully lasting obsession! Since this overall blog is part of my exploring and establishing my identity as an autistic writer, I figure I’ll continue to write posts based on whatever I’ve been obsessively binging. Today’s post is about The Hunger Games series.
I’ve recently gotten into the habit of reading an entire book whenever I get extremely anxious on Sundays, which is a recurrent problem. Sometimes I need something that works as a thorough distraction, and reading is the main activity I can engage in that does that. I also, having finished my first semester of my master’s program in library science, felt a strong pull towards many classic dystopian novels. This resulted in me going to the bookstore and buying five books, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Animal Farm amongst them, because I felt like it was time to do my homework. And while I stared at them for hours trying to decide which book to read first, I decided to go with a book I already owned, The Hunger Games.
I have never previously read this series, and in fact only watched the second Mockingjay movie in theaters because my friends in high school wanted to. So I started this series knowing how it would generally end and whatever else I gleaned from social media over the last decade. Oh my GOD does everything make so much more sense now.
So, because I have many, many thoughts, here are my amateur reviews of each book that I finished in the last three weeks. I do not rate them because putting a quantifying rating on qualitative things has never made sense to me.
The Hunger Games:
As I was reading this I understood immediately how this has quickly become compared to the dystopian novels that were often assigned in high school. In fact, I think this book is a fantastic story to have middle school students read.
The Capitol’s tactics of controlling Panem are clear and impressive in their efficiency given how obvious it is to someone outside of the novel. Pitting its citizens against each other, in this way literally, so that they wouldn’t focus on the central evil, relentless use and combination of propaganda and advertisement, dehumanization of dissenters, and marketing a love story over the real issue of the situation at hand are all amazing pieces of strategy. It’s funny to me that Suzanne Collins uses that last tactic herself to get young, impressionable readers to attach themselves to her very poignant book.
It is no mistake that The Hunger Games was marketed as a YA book with a not-insignificant romance plot. When you have young minds, especially young girls who might read for that reason, further absorbing the overall messaging, then you’re educating an entire generation. The Katniss-and-Peeta romance plot is Suzanne Collin’s Trojan Horse for the rest of her message and she knows that.
Suzanne Collins is a genius and I would like to kiss her brain.
Catching Fire:
The further development of the previous characters’ and their relationship dynamics as well as the addition of other victors makes this book my favorite of the original series. I am someone who prioritizes characters and ideals over plot and I can overlook a lot of bad writing as long as I have characters to love.
The unity of previous victors and their commitment to one another due to their shared traumas is very compelling, and so is the lack of unity from certain other victors. The career victors who don’t stand with Katniss and the rebels do not understand that success is more likely as a unit, because they haven’t suffered enough to even see that aspect, so it makes sense that after the night of the interviews, any full-group alliance would be dropped. But, Katniss does not understand that.
Katniss Everdeen loves people so much. She has such a limited and traumatized understanding of love so she isn’t capable of understanding her own feelings towards others, but she loves people so much and cherishes everyone for who they are. She picks the most unlikely allies because she sees them for how good they are. Other people existing as they are is what gives her hope for a better future (which is a direct contrast to Coriolanus Snow).
The arena itself is impressively horrific. Designed to function like the world’s worst clock, I remember it because it feels like something I would dream up for a horror story. I love patterns like that, and the use of jabberjays in this arena is an idea I would have.
Mockingjay:
Mockingjay is an absolutely devastating portrayal of life during wartime: the ups and downs, the people who promise to come home, the severe mental health issues that result, and the incomplete endings that never allow for full closure, all of it made me ugly cry.
And let me be clear, Mockingjay Part II is the only one of the movies I saw. I knew what happened to Finnick Odair before I read the books, and I was attached to him even in the movie. I loved him. I loved him even more having read all of his character leading up to his death, which is more upsetting in the book. I wasn’t just crying, I was also sweating profusely. Finnick Odair is my love.
The distinct parallel of President Snow and President Coin is hard to miss. Also, the suffocating presence of snow as a weather element in the books as well as the stingy nature of Alma Coin, is not to be missed either. They are the same people representing different sides, but they are the same character. Katniss is the kind of person who is able to understand that. She is removed enough from surface-level social contracts to observe this and see it for what it is. Being able to see that Snow has accepted defeat and has poisoned himself allows Katniss to actually end the war by killing Coin.
Primrose Everdeen and her feral cat Buttercup are also extremely important. When Katniss introduces Buttercup earlier in the series, the symbolism of Katniss being a feral cat is clear. Disappearing all day to hunt and coming home to Prim is not a hard connection to make. Katniss also doesn’t understand why Prim loves such a messed up creature, which makes sense. Katniss doesn’t understand how anyone could love her this much to the point that she gets angry when they explain to her why they do. Primrose is the hope Katniss has for the future, so when Peeta holds her flower at the end of the book, of course that’s the end of the romance debate, the end of the story.
Katniss is truly underestimated by only herself.
I will post my rants on the prequel books in a separate post. I wrote about 2000 words in just an hour and a half tonight and I think separating them would be okay for my poor readers.