A Review of The Hunger Games Series
29 Dec 2011 1 Comment
If there is one word I could use to sum up this series it would be ‘destruction.’ It starts by giving you a cast of characters, good and bad, and then spends the next three books slowly but surely destroying every single one of them.
The main character, Katniss, is a 16-year-old girl from district 12 of the ‘country’ (for lack of a better word) of Panem. This nation has been around for an indefinite amout of time, but we do know that 74 years before Katniss tells her story, a major uprising occured in District 13, and the Capitol, or seat of the emperor of Panem, annihilated it. Now, there are only 12 districts and every year as a punishment for helping District 13 during the uprising and as a way to exercise its power, the Capitol puts on a major reality TV show called the Hunger Games. The contestants in these games are children between the ages of 12 and 18. The 12 districts are helpless to protect them and must stand by each year and watch two of their own, a boy and a girl, be randomly picked out of a hat. The children are then thrown into an arena and forced to fight to the death for the cameras that broadcast the footage live all over the country. Viewing isn’t an option, it’s mandatory.
Katniss’ destruction starts when she is only 11 years old. Her father is taken from her in a tragic mine accident and her already fragile mother never really recovers from the loss. At the age of 11, Katniss becomes the sole provider for herself, her mother, and her little sister, Prim.
The destruction continues when at the age of 12, her little sister is chosen for the Hunger Games and Katniss, not much older at 16, volunteers herself in her sister’s place.
After beating all odds, she ends up saving not only herself, but also the other tribute from district 12. The boy whose name is Peeta, is now on the same course for destructiong that she is. They are stuck in a deadly maze that if not negotiated flawlessly, will entangle and kill not only them, but everyone they know and care about.
Peeta and Katniss, who staged a mad romance during the games, must continue to play out their roles after the games are over to keep the rebellion that is stirring under the surface of many districts at bay. But, should they? Is it not time for Panem to fight back against the Capitol that has kept them enslaved for so long and sacrificed their children on the altar of supremacy? Yes, it is. But we don’t get to this point until the third book, and even then we are still shaky on a few key points. Who is fighting who? What is Katniss’ real role in this war? And, is what is replacing the old empire really better than what came before?
Throughout this whole series there is no standard of what is right and what is wrong. The obvious choice would be to fight for the rebels because they are trying to bring down the oppressive dictatorship. But, when everyone’s choices are based on a gut feeling and not on a divine standard, then who is really right and who is really wrong?
And from here Katniss’ mental stability is called into question by everyone including herself. Who is she when this war is over? A murderer, or an accidental savior? In the end, she cannot reconcile the things she has done even to herself. For the rest of her life, she is plagued with night terrors and a psyche that is shattered beyond repair. Her last notable acts make me hate what she has become even more than the ‘bad capitol people.’ Why? Because at this point she is so completely cruel, uncaring, and doesn’t care that she has become subhuman. But the question remains that in a nihilistic universe, can human nature ever have been established? And if not, then why does it matter what any of the characters do or are if none of them really matter? This is the depth that Katniss and the rest of the characters sink to at the end of the series. Yes, Katniss lives, grows up, marries, and has children, but she is never whole again. And neither is her fractured world, if it ever was to start with.
