10 problems I have with The Hunger Game trilogy

10 problems I have with The Hunger Games trilogy, a rant

I'd read all three books, there're things I like and things I don't like in The Hunger Games trilogy. This time I'll focus on the things I found disappointing in the trilogy.

Let's get down to business and state the problems!

1. Katniss
At first she's okay, in book 1 she's quite a solid and reliable character, she has her flaws but well, no one is perfect and I accepted it. However, as the story goes further she becomes increasingly difficult for me to sympathize with. Instead of growing from a girl who merely wants to survive to something more than just this, from book 1 to book 3 her character growth is, pitiful at best.

It annoys me that she seems to feel no guilt toward Peeta before, during and after she used him in the Games--alright maybe she'd feel guilty for a mere second now and then but hardly acts upon it, not until Catching Fire. In book 2 and 3, I hoped again and again that Katniss would become less selfish, showing more concern to the people OUTSIDE OF HER GROUP OF IMMEDIATE FAMILY AND FRIENDS for once, but sadly it never happens.

Plus she's always quick to judge herself (why on earth must she feel guilty for the death of the old man from District 11!?), Haymitch, District 13 and Gale, but she's really slow in condemning the Capital for the hardship, death and starvation everyone had been put through for years. That really is curious. It looks to me, to a certain degree,  in book 3 Katniss's mentality kind of becomes "If everyone just lay back down and let the Capitol step on us, the war would never happen and no one would end up dead!"

I don't know about you, but Stockholm syndrome annoys me, especially when it's played out like THIS.

Edited: 31/02/2012
Alright, I can excuse Katniss for not stepping up in book 1 and 2, after all she's on her own and the Capitol is watching her every move. But in book 3, people are trying to fight back for freedom and fairer treatment. But instead of joining the fight, for the longest time I saw Katniss hides in a corner, throwing herself pity party while people outside are fighting and dying. And THAT, I can't excuse.


2. Peeta
I have far less problems with Peeta than with Katniss, but the major turn-off about Peeta is the fact that he's too nice, too good to be true. His love for Katniss is those fairy-tale Twilight make-believe love which seriously lacks the sense of realisticity. Simply put, Peeta doesn't interested me. But I did warm up to Peeta when he shares his spoils with Rue's remaining family in Catching Fire.

3. In the end, I became Team-Gale-Deserves-Better-Than-Katniss
I must admit I grew to like Gale after reading book 2. For starter, Gale is the one who takes care of Katniss's family when she's away, also he is very aware of other people's suffering and the constitutional violence which happens around him all the time, and unlike Katniss, Gale wants to do something to change this instead of running away or turning a blind eye. When District 12 turns into an inferno, Gale saves people's lives.  I can't help respecting him for all that.

In book 3 though, Gale does things which are morally questionable and sometime, cruel; but hell, at least he's the one who makes tough decisions and carries those decisions along!

To sum up, Gale is not perfect. He did things which aren't agreeable and morally correct, but in the end, I really think he deserves better than Katniss.

4. Failures in world building
Somehow we're supposed to believe for 70 some years, 24 teenagers got sent to die annually, but no one, no one pair of parents or other relatives, ever tried to do something to stop the Hunger Games!? Not a single soul had ever loved the children deeply enough to just try!? No one had ever been determined, crazy, grief-struck and/or hatred-filled enough to do something? I found it difficult to believe in.

Because I'm a lazy person, here I quote paragraphs from my own Mockingjay's review, which are related to the flaws I found in Miss Collins' world building:


For example, supposedly this story happened in a post-war future Northern America, the country is ran by a totalitarian government, so can anyone tell me more detail about the social and economical systems in this totalitarian country? According to Miss Collins, the social system is like, people from the Capitol take all, while people from the Districts do all the hard labors, the only visible chances of upward mobility is to become a Winner of the Hunger Games or a Peacekeeper. How can that manage to keep a society functioning for so long? Frankly after three books I still know so little about that society. Maybe I had overlooked something but still......

Plus, can anyone tell me what kind of religion the people were supposed to have? Christianity? Buddhism? Or some brand new religion when the old ones failed to survive after the global war? In reality underground churches has kept operating in Soviet Union and China etc, despite of the suppression. And religion is supposed to matter in a society! Religion is what people cling to when their present life is harsh and unbearable, religion is in fact a form of social control which a totalitarian government most likely would choose to exploit. (e.g. In the Mistborn trilogy, the dictator created an entire new religion with himself being the ruling deity) So why we never see the power of religion being put into consideration by the Capitol or the rebels? It's already the third book but the world building is still far from completed!


Many other readers had already mentioned other failures in Miss Collins' world building, so I wouldn't repeat their good points.

5. The so-called moral dilemma of kids killing other kids
The author of HG, Miss Collins tries to sell her books as an anti-cruelty statement, but if it's the case, then why we never get the chance to feel sorry for those other kids, saves perhaps Rue and the boy who's also from District 11 (can't even remember his name), who died inside the Arena? Many of them are being painted as the blood-thirsting 'bad guys' or 'bullies'. None of the kids ever hesitated, broke down or refused to fight, half of them winded up dead even before we can learn anything from them, the surviving teens got killed the same way like video game's characters--cardboard cutouts which you won't miss or feel sorry about. On top of it all, Katniss never was forced into the moral dilemma of having to kill someone else, by her own choice. The author told us, whenever someone died in Katniss's hands, he or she must deserve it because they attacked her first. Oh Goodness! Such an easy way out for Katniss!

Face it, instead of making a statement on cruelty and the horror of teenagers being forced to kill one another, Miss Collins cheapened the whole concept into a gimmick. What a pity.

6.The believability of The Hunger Games being inspired by Greek myth, Lord of the Flies, etc

a. HG being inspired by reality shows and the war of Iraq: the concept of HG being a satire to the reality shows on TV is not that difficult to believe in. I've no problem with it.

b. HG being inspired by the Greek myth Theseus: oh well......since when did the Theseus myth have packaged weapons and/or food, teens being ordered to kill one another, a sealed off arena filled with deadly traps, said arena getting smaller everyday so teens can kill each other off more easily in it!?

c. HG being inspired by Lord of the Flies: Lord of the Flies is a dark, unsettling tale about the dark side of human nature, sanity and madness, power struggle and violence featuring children. I can only say The Hunger Games pales in front of classic such as Lord of the Flies.

7. Haymitch's backstory
In Catching Fire, we learn that in Haymitch's turn of Hunger Games, he failed to save the girl who also came from District 12, so the girl winded up dead before his eyes.Supposedly her death left a huge impact on Haymitch. But I must tell you, when I was reading this part, I just couldn't shrug off the feeling that I'd read very similar plot and setting in Battle Royale. Like Haymitch, Shogo Kawada the former winner of a past episode of Battle Royale becomes the mentor to the main couple (Shuya and Noriko in this case). Kawada also has a similar past like Haymitch: he lost his own girlfriend in his turn of Battle Royale but in his case he was forced to kill her instead of watching her died by someone else's hands. The death of Kawada's girlfriend haunts him and it motivates him to help Shuya and Noriki.

Haymitch's and Kawada's backstory aren't exactly identical, but the similarities between them, and the relationship they have with the 'main couples' of both stories, are just too obvious.

PS: does anyone notice that in both BR and HG, former winners from both stories are also being forced to play for a second time?

8. The theory that The Hunger Games is NOT an rip-off
Well, on the argument of whether or not HG had ripped off Battle Royale, I'm still willing to give Miss Collins the benefit of doubt, even though the similarities between BR and HG are really difficult to overlook. But it still looks fishy that Miss Collins has so far given no credit to other deadly survival theme Western novels/movies like The Running Man and The Lottery, which also have similar themes. IF Miss Collins acknowledges one of  those Western survival themed novels as her inspiration, I along with many other people out there would be far less suspicious, but instead she stated her inspiration came from the Greek myth, which doesn't even look remotely similar with HG. All I can say is, the more I read the books, the less I buy Miss Collins' story.

Edited in 24/03/2012

9. Characters' death
I had already told you why I dislike the death which took place inside of the Arena, in book 3 as more and more characters meet their untimely demise, the worse things goes. Far too many people ended up dying off-scene or dying in vain. Miss Collins disposed of her characters like killing flies in a very wasteful manner.

For how many time we readers are simply told this or that characters are dead, off-scene in book 3? The mute girl servant in the Capitol, Cinna, Bonnie and her friend, Madge, the entire District 12; the list goes on. What bothers me isn't the death itself, but the way Katniss just mentioned the death of her friends for once like it's just a mere footnote, then put it behind her once and for all.

And I feel so sad for those new characters who got thrown into the story just to be killed off soon afterward.

Okay, sudden, unexplained death happens in reality, and authors are particularly free to do whatever the fxxk they please to their characters. But like what my netfriend had said, and here I quote: " novel isn't reality, reality doesn't have to make sense but novel must work within the inner logic and boundary of its world". You don't just give your characters names, introducing them to your readers and then tell your readers  later on: "Oh, this or that character is dead, off-scene! You won't see him or her again!" like it is just an after thought.  When characters' death is treated like this, I feel pretty much cheated.

I mean, even in real-events-based books/movie like The Pianist (which takes place in World War II), countless of people died in the book/movie, but you feel every single death, every loss of human life hits you right in the face even though you don't get to see on-screen death every time. Sadly this never happens in The Hunger Games trilogy.

10. Mockingjay
To tell the truth, I enjoyed the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy and was okay with them for most part, of course The Hunger Games and Catching Fire have flaws, but I know no book is perfect.

But on the other hand, the third book Mockingjay to me, is simply all hell broke loose.

I guess the main problem with Mockingjay is, Miss Collins tried too hard to make a statement in book 3, to make her final book looks 'epic' and 'meaningful', that's when the book went downhill.

I felt like I was force-fed Miss Collins' anti-war idea in the third book and I HATE it. Although it's okay to express your belief in your books--many authors do this all the time, but twisting your plots and characters to fit your agenda is just...WRONG! Plus if I want to learn war is bad, I'd just read newspaper or watch the news. I wouldn't bother to read a YA novel  to learn that everything is hopeless. I'd already had enough hopelessness in reality. Thank you very much.

There are more problems in the trilogy than just 10, but I don't feel like repeating what I'd already written in my four parts Hunger Games' book reviews, so this rant ends here. Bye bye.

Aftermath: Hunger Games the movie

As many of you might notice, The Hunger Games movie is now in cinemas, but I've yet decided whether I should watch it. You might think that I won't get the movie a chance because I'd sounded pretty negative in the rant above, but the truth is, if the movie seems to be promising then I'd still give it a try. Plus I very much want to see Woody Harrelson in the movie. I'm certain he'll be great.

Therefore, I checked the movie's posters, photos and reviews out and here's my little observation:

Firstly, if I were the boss of the film company, I'd fired the idiots who made those awful Hunger Games movie posters. When I saw Jennifer Lawrence in the posters, I thought:" At best that chick looks like a well-fed girl playing with arrows and bow, instead of a struggling, half starving teen whose entire family depends on her..."

Okay, I have no problem trusting Miss Lawrence to play her part as a caring sister, an independent young girl, but I can't agree that she fits the bill as a seasoned hunter girl who knows suffering and starvation at young age, Simply because she looks too healthy and fit for the part.

So, how can I put my faith on a movie when the very main character fails to be convincing?

And judging from those movie's photos I'd seen, I'm not sure if Miss Lawrence ever, ever tried to experience starvation first-hand for a day or, a few days to understand how it really feels to have no food in your stomach.

What a total failure.

Finally , from what I'd read in the HG books and film's reviews, at best HG the movie looks like an excuse for selling teens-kill-teens gimmick to the PG-13 market (the movie doesn't even mention there're Careers who were well-trained and willing to play the Games, how come!?). So right now I'm still struggling bitterly to decide whether or not I should use my hard-earned money to see a movie that mostly like won't meet my expectation.

Edited: 29/03/2012
A helpful reader  informed me that Careers are mentioned in the movie. Sorry, my mistake.