The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games trilogy highlights many important aspects of tyranny and rebellion, the most important of which is that pursuing your values requires freedom.

The purpose of this Substack is to reflect on the ways fiction authors express their philosophical ideas in their works. Where possible, I will integrate those themes with other ideas and evaluate them. Though I may occasionally comment on various aspects of the writing, these articles are not reviews. For those who are unfamiliar with the works discussed, I will include the relevant details from the story in the “context” section, so if you are familiar with the work, I recommend you skip that section. I will try to avoid the most important spoilers, but there will be some, as it is often impossible to properly analyze the meaning of a story without accounting for how it ends.

Context 

The trilogy is set in Panem, a fictional North American nation divided into twelve districts and the Capitol. Most of the industrial and agricultural production takes place in the districts, whereas the Capitol is populated by the rich and powerful. District 13, which was supposedly destroyed in the civil war between the Capitol and the districts, was actually just pushed underground, and now serves as a base for the rebellion.

The Capitol, now under the leadership of the dictatorial President Snow, devised a twisted plan to intimidate the districts into staying in line: annual Hunger Games wherein two “tributes” (children) from each district fight until only one is left alive. The event is televised and has become a gladiator-like spectacle in the Capitol, with citizens able to bet on their favorites and even help them by paying to send gifts (usually food or medicine) into the arena. Victors are rewarded with houses and riches, but are expected to mentor future tributes from their districts. Many become well-known in the Capitol.

Most districts see the Games as a tragedy to be endured. However, in Districts 1 and 2, which are the closest to the Capitol and best-fed (District 1 produces luxury items, District 2 provides weapons and soldiers), many see them as an opportunity to win glory and riches. As such, some of their children train for years to compete in the Games. Thus, the tributes from these districts are usually the most dangerous, and are referred to collectively as the Careers. 

The trilogy is narrated from the perspective of Katniss Everdeen, a teenager from District 12. In the first book (The Hunger Games), Katniss’s sister, Prim, is chosen as a tribute, and Katniss volunteers to take her place. She is accompanied into the arena by Peeta, a baker’s son, who has been in love with her for years. At the end of the Games, with only the two of them left, they opt to kill themselves together rather than kill each other, and both are declared victors. In the second book (Catching Fire), Katniss finds herself back in the arena, desperate to defend Peeta, whom Snow has pushed her into being engaged with. In Mockingjay, Katniss becomes the face of open rebellion against the Capitol.

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Major Ideas:

• Tyranny can affect every aspect of your life

• Minds are powerful

• The enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend

• Under tyrannical regimes, pursuing your values is an act of rebellion

Tyranny can affect every aspect of your life

Suzanne Collins paints a vivid picture of the misery that tyranny brings. The obvious example is the chronic poverty in the districts, which leads to not only shortages of food, electricity, and essentials, but also leaves people vulnerable to unscrupulous figures such as the head Peacekeeper in District 12, Cray (who, despite prostitution being illegal, is happy to pay poor women to sleep with him). But it also has a chilling effect on a person’s life plans. Direct violence and repression of citizens can create huge safety risks, meaning that one either can’t plan ahead, or keeps his or her plans small so that they’re safe. Early on, Katniss decides that she doesn’t want to have children because she couldn’t bear to risk them in the Games (The Hunger Games, 311). Would you want to have children in Nazi Germany, where they would be recruited to Hitler Youth? Or in Soviet Russia, knowing that, if they stepped out of line, they could be condemned to die in a Siberian gulag?

As Katniss learns, it’s sometimes possible to slip under the radar in rural places, but with more attention comes more pressure on a person’s life. All the Games’ victors are either coerced into behaviors that benefit Snow, such as being prostitutes to influential Capitol citizens like Finnick (a victor from District 4), or intimidated into toeing the line, like Haymitch (Katniss and Peeta’s mentor in the Games). Katniss is cornered into either running away or having her wedding (including the groom) planned by those in the Capitol. Status doesn’t protect you when freedom is limited—it puts a target on your back.

Minds are powerful

Collins also highlights, through both positive examples and contrasts, the importance of using one’s mind. Katniss is not particularly strong or fast; she wins her first Games largely through strategy. She takes out enemies by bringing tracker jackers (Capitol-bred wasps that can cause hallucinations or kill) down on their heads, blows up the Careers’ food supply by triggering the mines they’d placed to protect it, and, even when injured, keeps her wits enough to know she mustn’t leave a blood trail for others to follow. In Catching Fire, she’s the second to figure out the arena is a clock—vital to being able to predict (and thus avoid) the deadly threats that come to different segments each hour. Katniss is good with a bow and arrow, but her real edge comes from her intelligence and quick thinking. 

But Snow knows this, and uses it to his advantage. He and the Gamemakers prepare psychological horrors for the second Games, and he torments Katniss by torturing Peeta in the third book. He also destroys Peeta’s mind; changing Peeta’s view of the world is a much more powerful way to cause havoc than physical torture. And though all the victors are physically repaired to perfection after their Games (even their scars are healed), all suffer from PTSD to some degree, if not outright insanity. The mind matters, and the trilogy is more profound and interesting for using that fact than focusing on action alone.

The enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend

In Mockingjay, Katniss has many doubts and concerns about the rebels she’s living with, as well as their strict leader, President Coin. Aspects that particularly bother her include the rigid control over daily life in District 13, harsh punishments for small infractions such as stealing food, and Coin’s intolerance of dissent. She comes to realize that, as evil as the Capitol undoubtedly is, opposing them doesn’t automatically mean that Coin and her ilk are better. It’s easy, in a world dominated by two-party systems and “polarization,” to conclude that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” But the truth is often more nuanced, because people often have views that don’t necessarily cohere with a particular party or ideology, and debates more than two sides. Katniss navigates the issue by observing everything around her and thinking for herself; for example, when she sees people from the Capitol being imprisoned and tortured for stealing food, she intervenes on their behalf, judging the punishment too harsh for their crime. This kind of observation and independent thinking is what we all must do if we want to form rational ideas and fight for our values the way she does. 

Under tyrannical regimes, pursuing your values is an act of rebellion

Katniss never intended to rebel against the Capitol. She saw the injustice of the Games, but looked at herself as a survivor who does what it takes to get by and protect her family and close friends. In each of the three novels in the series, she takes her most pivotal actions with the intent of protecting herself and her loved ones, but in each case the repercussions among the oppressed population of Panem are huge.

In The Hunger Games, her refusal to kill Peeta is motivated fundamentally by a desire to protect the boy who’d saved her life more than once. If she’d let him die, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. In the Capitol, this is seen as an act of love, but in the districts, it’s seen as a refusal to do what the Capitol told them to do. “All I was doing was trying to keep Peeta and myself alive. Any act of rebellion was purely coincidental,” she explains (Catching Fire, 5). Similarly, she honors her fallen ally, Rue, which the people of Rue’s district take as a defiance of the enmity the Capitol was trying to build between them: “It was not intentional—I only meant to express my thanks—but I have elicited something dangerous. An act of dissent from the people of District 11” (Catching Fire, 18).

In Catching Fire, the Capitol wants to pit victors against one another. But Katniss goes into the Games with her own plan: “My decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol’s rules” (Catching Fire, 69). The Capitol is determined to turn her into a killer, but Katniss sets her own priorities based on what matters to her—whom and what she values.

In Mockingjay, she is at first the unwilling face of the rebellion. But she finds her reason to fight when she remembers what she had grasped before her second Hunger Games: 

I can’t let the Capitol hurt Prim. And then it hits me. They already have. They have killed her father in those wretched mines. They have sat by as she almost starved to death. They have chosen her as a tribute, then made her watch her sister fight to the death in the Games. . . . Prim . . . Rue . . . aren’t they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated? - Catching Fire (35-36). 

When she joins the rebellion, she does so on her terms, refusing to blindly follow President Coin and insisting on certain conditions before she’ll let them film her as the face of the rebellion: the Mockingjay. All the way through, she’s working to maintain her integrity and protect the people she cares about, and she only wants to bring down the dictatorship as a means to that end.

My Evaluation

Liberty means the freedom to build the life you want and to go after the things you care about (as long as you don’t hurt others in the process). Katniss is a powerful fictional freedom fighter that many relate to because she’s motivated by her care for the people she values. We, as readers, hope we’d go as far, risk as much, to defend the things and people that really matter to us, and in that sense, she’s an inspirational hero. The trilogy overall shows the value of freedom to an individual: it means the ability to spend time with and pursue the things that matter. For that reason, this is an extremely valuable story.

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Side Notes

1. There is also a prequel novel to this trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is essentially a villain origin story for President Snow. It brilliantly depicts Snow as a Hobbesian powerluster who believes that human beings would destroy one another if not controlled. I have not included it in my discussion of the original trilogy because it has different main characters and a different storyline, but I did discuss it in my review of the movie.

2. The movie adaptation of the trilogy was well-done in many respects, but glosses over certain points that blunt the messages I’ve drawn out here. For example, it isn’t as clear to the viewer of the movie that Katniss is playing along with the romance with Peeta; it seems like she’s actually falling in love with him from the first Games. It also tones down the violence and psychological horror to some extent (though part of that may have been to keep its PG13 rating for the young audiences it was aimed at). For instance, at the end of the first Games, the Capitol brings in giant wolf-like mutts. In the book, these had the eyes and hair of the dead tributes, to remind the survivors of those they’d killed or seen killed. In the movie, the mutts were all identical, with nothing unusual about their eyes. One notable exception to this overall trend is how well the movies show that Katniss is very intelligent, and that intelligence is crucial to her success.

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In Conclusion

The Hunger Games trilogy highlights many important aspects of tyranny, the most important of which is that pursuing your values requires freedom and is an act of rebellion against those who think they can, or should, control you. Katniss is an inspiring hero who uses her mind, thinks independently, and sets her own priorities, despite authorities who try to use her “like a piece in their Games,” and we can all learn from her example.