Hunger Games

OK, I admit it.  I read the first book, The Hunger Games.  I confess I found it pretty riveting.  I could not put the book down, and when I had to leave it, to cook or help with something around the house, I did those chores with only a very small part of my mind.  Most of my mind was in Panem, in the Arena.

Copyright Lions Gate Films

At first I was amazed as I read the book. No cussing at all, no using the Lord's name in vain.  No sex at all, just some chaste kissing and sharing a cave for warmth.  The main characters seemed to have a moral center -- caring for their family and friends in bleak and terrible circumstances, usually caring for them sacrificially, lovingly.  Though the protagonists, Gale and Katniss, and later Peeta, had a core of anger about their circumstances, they were not cruel to those around them, but directed it toward those responsible, not blindly taking it out on the innocent weaker ones around them, like bullies.  I found myself drawn in to their pain, their pride, their struggles to stay alive.

Of course, there is real violence in Panem.  I know I'm giving nothing away when I tell you that there was a great rebellion many years before, against the Capitol, and when it was finally beat down, District 13 was utterly destroyed and the other 12 districts enslaved and starved by the Capitol.  Each District specialized in something, be it textiles, electronics, fruit orchards, fishing, or coal mining, as was district 12's specialty, but all for the benefit of the Capitol. They live in luxury, while the rest starve.  District 12, the coal mining district, is where Katniss, Gale, the young man who teaches Katniss all she knows of hunting and snares, and Peeta, the baker's son, all live. To remind the Districts of their enslavement to the Capitol, the people are starved and kept captive.  In addition, once a year they  have a lottery, and one girl and one boy between the ages of 12 and 17, called "tributes", have to go into an arena of some large area of a different climate every year, of  unknown hardships and traps. There they must find weapons, somehow survive by overcoming the hardships of the arena's environment, and by killing each other until there is One Survivor.  They called these horrible "games" the Hunger Games -- I forget why.  Maybe because if you win, you and your family get enough food for the rest of your lives, though your family members' names still get put in the pot for future lotteries, as well as any children you might have..  Just not your name.  You are "safe" from the Arena, but not from the heartbreak of seeing your loved ones go through the trauma of waiting to see if their names are picked, or if they must actually go.

I'm taking a long time to explain all this -- sorry! To hurry along,  Katniss' family consists only of her mother and her little sister, an innocent, named Primrose.  Katniss hunts and is as tough as Primrose is gentle, young and protected from the harshness of life by Katniss.  It is Primrose's first year to have a name put in, just one slip of paper, but Katniss has her name in many times, on many slips of paper, having an extra paper in for each time she procured extra food for her family and because of her age.  For each year after the age of 12, they put and extra slip in (one name slip age 12, two name slips age 13, etc), so your chances increase with age, plus the extra slips for extra food.  Prim is nervous, but Katniss tells her how unlikely it is, out of the thousands of names, that Primrose will be chosen, as she only has one paper in those thousands to be picked.

Of course, Primrose's name is picked!  Katniss knows this is a death sentence for Primrose, so she volunteers to take Primrose's place. (I remember Jesus in the Gospel of John:  "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."  John 15:13)  So Katniss takes her sister's place in the Arena, even though she feels it is her own death sentence.  But she takes comfort in knowing that her family will at least get extra food for a month just because she went, even if she doesn't come back a Victor, and Gale promises to look out for them after her death, even as she would have done for him.


I won't share any more, except to say that Peeta is the boy chosen to go, and THAT has it's own set of difficulties for Katniss. She doesn't know him well, but the one time they had contact as children it was when he saved her and her family from starving by giving her some bread, even though he was beaten for it.  She is sorry that someone she knows, and was kind to her, is now someone she will have to kill to survive.


In the Arena, what fascinated me wasn't the hunt, one for another to the death, though it had some interest in her cleverness, but the things Katniss did to survive in her environment -- the ways she found food, kept warm, found water, etc., and yes, the ways she eluded her predators.  Her love for Rue, a fellow tribute, who reminds her so much of her little sister, and her agonizing over the thought she may have to eventually kill her, as well as Peeta, for whom she begins to have feelings.

But I wondered, as I read the first book, how really far we are from the Hunger Games?  I'm sickened, when I flip to on TV, by what I see, and I've taken to mostly watching old movies or nothing at all.  The author, Suzanne Collins, said she wrote The Hunger Games kind of in reaction to Reality Shows, and  I despise most of them myself.  She fears we are becoming more and more hardened to human suffering and we will end up like The Hunger Games, missing the humanity in those around us, without compassion, without love, without pity.  I've wondered about this myself.  The author is concerned that as we, in these reality shows, continually watch people suffer, it becomes unreal, and we become hardened to it, just as the Roman Empire became hardened to the violence of the Colosseum, which is what The Hunger Games' Arena is, of course, modeled after.

I mean, is there no limit to the humiliation we will watch others go through for entertainment?  I absolutely can not bear to see it.  Intervention shows, shows where you get to watch people argue out infidelities, paternity, same-sex travesties, do interventions for their addicted family members, go on dates with a bunch of people while we watch them choose mates, even swap wives for awhile to see how the new wives handle the family -- and more.  There are some family dynamics that were meant to be PRIVATE, and some not to be explored at all!  We become so HARDENED to these things, we have no feelings anymore for what is evil, what is painful, we lose all compassion for each other, it all becomes ONE BIG SHOW.  


As a culture, we are just a step away from the Arena.

In the old movies I watch, the violence is virtually bloodless.  Maybe not realistic, usually bad guy that is shot has a half dollar spot of blood where the bullet went in and a small trickle of blood from the corner of their mouths.  That was it, but you got the idea.  There used to be a rule in the studios that no bad guy could prosper.  Movies today, the violence is slow, bloody, the camera lovingly scanning over the body as the bullet wrecks destruction, the knife mutilation, or whatever.  Teen horror movies are the worst, I can't watch them at all, the Friday the 13th, Final Destinations, and the rest, with each death more horrible than the last.  No brains to the plots, just more and more gore.

When I was in Creative Writing class in High School I don't think I learned much, but one thing my teacher said really stuck in my mind.  He was talking about sex in novels or movies and what constituted pornography.  He said "A love scene takes you to the bedroom door and stops, the rest is imagination. Pornography takes you beyond the bedroom door."  By that definition we have a lot of porn during Prime Time TV.  VERY LITTLE IS LEFT TO THE IMAGINATION!!

What is my point to all of this??  I have a few.


One:  In every generation we are becoming more and more hardened to the sex and violence in our culture, tolerating more and more.  This is no good for us as a culture.  We are speeding ahead to our death:  a death of morality, of conscience, and of people. 


Two:  Christians want to be able to "engage the culture", but at what point do we harm ourselves and our children by letting too much in?  We don't want our kids to be geeky morons that get picked on, but we don't want to lose them for the infinitely more important eternal, either.  It's a fine line.  I spoke to a dear friend once, who has great kids, but one is straying from the Lord.  I asked her, even before he was straying, if she would have done anything different while raising her boys.  She said, "I would have monitored their TV more, things like that.  Been more strict about what I let in to influence them."  Would things be different for her youngest?  Who knows.  You can do everything right, and a child can go away for awhile.  You can only do your best and pray.  But do we want to make it harder for them?  It's a fine line, and I don't have children, so who am I to say???  But I wonder if we are losing our children in the church because we give them too much.  Too much materially, and too much of our sick culture.


Three:  Am I willing to give up the things I enjoy if I think they are harmful to me in subtle ways, or worse, to those around me?  It really is the heart of 1 Corinthians 10:23,24,31-33, I think.

“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. ²⁴ Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others...... ³¹ So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. ³² Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— ³³ even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

There's the rub!  Sometimes I wonder if I really am loving enough to give up something I enjoy for the good of someone else, or even for my own good!  And that's no good for me!  Or my brother.

Did I say that as a culture we are one step away from the Arena?  Maybe I am on the path as well. 


I still think, for the most part, The Hunger Games is a really good read, but I was surprised to find out it was a Youth Novel.  Maybe I'd have to pre-read it before I'd let my 14 year old read it.  And I don't think I'd let my 12 year old near it!