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thelostmaximoffSo for the past week or so, I have been devouring the entire Hunger Games trilogy and now I think it's time to put all these thoughts about it into a coherent review. If you haven't read this series but want to then you should probably not read this because there will be tons of spoilers.
I fucking love Katniss Everdeen, despite her silly name. I love that the whole series is told from her POV so we can really fall in love with this character. I love that even when she's in a life-or-death situation, she still has time to make snarky comments in her head about how dumb people's names are or how ridiculous they might look. I love that she doesn't take anyone's shit and that she's always herself even when everyone around her keeps trying to mold her into what they want her to be. She's fierce, loyal, courageous, spirited, pretty much everything you could want in a main character. Yet she's also ridiculously vulnerable and I think that's a big part of her overall charm. She's the kind of girl that even when the world is falling down around her and her life is going to absolute hell she just grits her teeth and moves forward, maybe even with a smile if possible. Above all else, she's a survivor.
Other things I like about this series. I like that I can't find a single character in this series that I actively dislike. Sure, there are plenty of them I don't agree with but there're none of them that I can say I hate or that aren't good characters. The thing I might love most is the world that Collins has created for her characters. I love the social commentary that's created by the way the Hunger Games world works. I love the reality show metaphor that's associated with the Games and just the whole idea of such a gruesome spectacle treated as entertainment. As someone who watches too much reality television for his own good, I can say with almost absolute certainty that the metaphor is spot-on. Everything from the way the media eats up every image of the tributes to the way the cameras are always on the tributes to even the wrap-up show the victor goes on once they win is totally in keeping with the reality show theme. It's a brilliant metaphor to highlight the whole theme of reality versus fantasy that runs throughout the entire series. Reality television creates a kind of false reality for the audience, a kind of unreality that the viewer should always question the validity of. The only thing that's actually real in the Games is the death. Even the environment in the Arena is fake, a product of the Gamemakers that can be changed at the wave of a hand, but when the tributes kill one another, that's the only thing captured by the cameras that's real. It's a maddening world for the tributes and the rest of Panem's citizens to live in and we see that even the past victors of the Hunger Games cannot escape the horrible things they did in the Arena. Most of them turn to alcohol like Haymitch or harder drugs to cope with the trauma. Some of them just go insane and even Katniss and Peeta experience constant nightmares after coming out of the Games the first time. Yet the trauma isn't relegated only to the victors or the unlucky tributes who enter the Games. The trauma spreads out throughout the entire population of Panem because they have to watch this cruel form of entertainment year after year. I think it's a fascinating look at a culture with such a scarred psyche that it's completely numb to violence and death.
So now we come to the things I don't like about the series. I only have one real gripe but I think it's a significant one that deserves discussion. For all her fierce independence and self-reliance, Katniss is really just a pawn in someone else's game. Whether she's in the Arena and she's at the mercy of the Capitol or she's "leading" the rest of the rebellion, Katniss is always playing someone else's game and is just as much a puppet of the rebellion as she is of the Capitol. Yet there's a much larger game that she's a part of and it's a game she can't really win. Katniss is something of a victim of the same culture that spawned her and when I say "culture" I don't mean District 12 or even Panem.
Katniss Everdeen is a character that could be considered something of a cultural icon. Even though she fits this role much better than Bella Swan, her spiritual sister of the Twilight series, the ending of the Hunger Games series undermines her image a bit. She's a victim of the culture that created her, a culture that seems to say to girls "Hey, you can do all these kick-ass things that you want to do but eventually you have to get married, settle down, and have kids". I'm not a feminist and I've never claimed to be as such. I just have a problem with a culture that advocates a certain path in life for people. I have a problem with a culture that tells girls, or anyone really, "this is what you're supposed to do with your life". As much as Katniss kicks ass, and she totally does, every warrior woman has to hang up her weapons and settle down at some point or at least that's what we're seemingly told. I hate that this is pretty much the default ending for Katniss's character type. I just think it would've been better for her to defy the stereotypes rather than end up conforming to them just as she defies authority in the books. She probably could've been president of the whole damn country if the ending was written a little differently but I'm not sure I would've bought that ending either. She's clearly not the type to care about political matters but I can't really see her settling back down in District 12 with Peeta either. Happy endings are nice but sometimes not always the best, something I've also been guilty of writing.
So in conclusion, I really did love this series. Yes the third book drags a lot and I'm not completely satisfied with the ending but there's a hell of a lot of good things in this series. You have an awesome main character, interesting themes, great action, everything you could really want from a good story. So if you're part of the target audience for this series or you just enjoy the whole young adult genre, you should read this series. You could do a hell of a lot worse and I'm not sure you could currently do much better.
I fucking love Katniss Everdeen, despite her silly name. I love that the whole series is told from her POV so we can really fall in love with this character. I love that even when she's in a life-or-death situation, she still has time to make snarky comments in her head about how dumb people's names are or how ridiculous they might look. I love that she doesn't take anyone's shit and that she's always herself even when everyone around her keeps trying to mold her into what they want her to be. She's fierce, loyal, courageous, spirited, pretty much everything you could want in a main character. Yet she's also ridiculously vulnerable and I think that's a big part of her overall charm. She's the kind of girl that even when the world is falling down around her and her life is going to absolute hell she just grits her teeth and moves forward, maybe even with a smile if possible. Above all else, she's a survivor.
Other things I like about this series. I like that I can't find a single character in this series that I actively dislike. Sure, there are plenty of them I don't agree with but there're none of them that I can say I hate or that aren't good characters. The thing I might love most is the world that Collins has created for her characters. I love the social commentary that's created by the way the Hunger Games world works. I love the reality show metaphor that's associated with the Games and just the whole idea of such a gruesome spectacle treated as entertainment. As someone who watches too much reality television for his own good, I can say with almost absolute certainty that the metaphor is spot-on. Everything from the way the media eats up every image of the tributes to the way the cameras are always on the tributes to even the wrap-up show the victor goes on once they win is totally in keeping with the reality show theme. It's a brilliant metaphor to highlight the whole theme of reality versus fantasy that runs throughout the entire series. Reality television creates a kind of false reality for the audience, a kind of unreality that the viewer should always question the validity of. The only thing that's actually real in the Games is the death. Even the environment in the Arena is fake, a product of the Gamemakers that can be changed at the wave of a hand, but when the tributes kill one another, that's the only thing captured by the cameras that's real. It's a maddening world for the tributes and the rest of Panem's citizens to live in and we see that even the past victors of the Hunger Games cannot escape the horrible things they did in the Arena. Most of them turn to alcohol like Haymitch or harder drugs to cope with the trauma. Some of them just go insane and even Katniss and Peeta experience constant nightmares after coming out of the Games the first time. Yet the trauma isn't relegated only to the victors or the unlucky tributes who enter the Games. The trauma spreads out throughout the entire population of Panem because they have to watch this cruel form of entertainment year after year. I think it's a fascinating look at a culture with such a scarred psyche that it's completely numb to violence and death.
So now we come to the things I don't like about the series. I only have one real gripe but I think it's a significant one that deserves discussion. For all her fierce independence and self-reliance, Katniss is really just a pawn in someone else's game. Whether she's in the Arena and she's at the mercy of the Capitol or she's "leading" the rest of the rebellion, Katniss is always playing someone else's game and is just as much a puppet of the rebellion as she is of the Capitol. Yet there's a much larger game that she's a part of and it's a game she can't really win. Katniss is something of a victim of the same culture that spawned her and when I say "culture" I don't mean District 12 or even Panem.
Katniss Everdeen is a character that could be considered something of a cultural icon. Even though she fits this role much better than Bella Swan, her spiritual sister of the Twilight series, the ending of the Hunger Games series undermines her image a bit. She's a victim of the culture that created her, a culture that seems to say to girls "Hey, you can do all these kick-ass things that you want to do but eventually you have to get married, settle down, and have kids". I'm not a feminist and I've never claimed to be as such. I just have a problem with a culture that advocates a certain path in life for people. I have a problem with a culture that tells girls, or anyone really, "this is what you're supposed to do with your life". As much as Katniss kicks ass, and she totally does, every warrior woman has to hang up her weapons and settle down at some point or at least that's what we're seemingly told. I hate that this is pretty much the default ending for Katniss's character type. I just think it would've been better for her to defy the stereotypes rather than end up conforming to them just as she defies authority in the books. She probably could've been president of the whole damn country if the ending was written a little differently but I'm not sure I would've bought that ending either. She's clearly not the type to care about political matters but I can't really see her settling back down in District 12 with Peeta either. Happy endings are nice but sometimes not always the best, something I've also been guilty of writing.
So in conclusion, I really did love this series. Yes the third book drags a lot and I'm not completely satisfied with the ending but there's a hell of a lot of good things in this series. You have an awesome main character, interesting themes, great action, everything you could really want from a good story. So if you're part of the target audience for this series or you just enjoy the whole young adult genre, you should read this series. You could do a hell of a lot worse and I'm not sure you could currently do much better.
