Book Thoughts: Rebellion in "The Hunger Games"

CW: Spoilers for the Hunger Games series, discussions of death/war (from the book), brief mention of racism/sundown towns at the end

During quarantine, my friend and I decided to start a sort of Book Club where we read a certain amount of chapters a day from a specific book and discuss as we go. So far we’ve been rereading a lot of books that were incredibly popular when we were kids, and recently we just finished the Hunger Games trilogy. Honestly, it’s a lot better than we all gave it credit for being when it was first popular -- and I say that with full awareness that this series was one of the most popular pieces of media at the time. Suzanne Collins does such a phenomenal job telling this story, and it’s full of critiques of modern America that most of us just brushed past upon our first reading. A lot of things really stood out to me in this rereading, but one of them was the way rebellion was depicted in the story. One of the major themes in the Hunger Games trilogy is the importance of valuing life and humanity. And although it’s undeniably a war story, Katniss Everdeen is a very reluctant hero. Because of this, we’re able to see just how much of a role empathy plays in the story, and how it’s the main thing that influences Katniss’ actions throughout the war.

Although Katniss is not a voluntary rebel, she does have lots of moments where she intentionally defies the Capitol, starting all the way back when Prim’s name is reaped (that’s also deliberately ignoring the fact that she illegally hunted for years before the canon of the books actually began). But if you look at her career as the Mockingjay, we see a pattern of her best moments: almost all of them are Katniss trying to force people to see her for who she is rather than who they want her to be. This is actually an idea presented by Peeta right before the two of them head into their first Hunger Games: he tells Katniss that he knows the Games will change him, but “I keep wishing I could think of a way to … to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games” (Hunger Games 142). This idea becomes a very important part of both Katniss and Peeta’s characters throughout the book, and the actions that come from this thought are some of the most rebellious.

Just look at one of Katniss’ first intentional defiance within the Games. Rue is Katniss’ first ally during the Games, and part of the reason why Katniss teams up with her is because Rue reminds her of Prim. When Rue ends up dying, it really shatters Katniss. She decorates Rue’s body in flowers.

“I want to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force us to do there is a part of every tribute they can’t own. That Rue was more than a piece in their games. And so am I.” (Hunger Games 236-237)

This moment is often overlooked in bigger conversations about the revolution, but this is huge for Katniss. We often point to the incident with the berries as The Spark for the revolution, but I’d almost argue that it was this instead. What we see here is a tribute in the Games going out of her way to humanize one of her fallen competitors -- someone she should be grateful to see dead, given the nature of the Games. Like Katniss herself says, it’s showing the Capitol that both of them are more than what the Games tried to force them to be, which is an incredibly dangerous thing for the Capitol. There’s no room for individualism in a society that is structured on the idea of citizens being pawns for the government.

This is why there’s so much conflict when Katniss and Peeta go to District 11 in Catching Fire. After Katniss gives her speech to Rue and Thresh, “every person in the crowd presses the three middle fingers of their left hand against their lips and extends them to me” (Catching Fire 61). It’s important to remember that this symbol did not start as a symbol of dissent -- it was a gesture of respect in District 12, and that is what turned it into a symbol of the rebellion.

The idea that empathy is a necessary facet of revolution is also evident when Katniss becomes an official spokesperson for District 13. In their first meeting about how to make “The Mockingjay” (as Katniss has been dubbed) a better face for the cause, Haymitch forces everyone to recall times “where she made you feel something real,” and eventually they all agree that Katniss’ best moments all occurred when “no one told her what to do or say” (75). Again: morality is dangerous in Panem. The reason all of Katniss' best moments are labeled as such is not because she's fighting efficiently or leading brilliant military strategy. They're effective because Katniss refuses to let the anyone else decide who she is going to be.

Both sides of the fight -- the Capitol and District 13 -- have a habit of trying to dress up Katniss in order to serve their respective purposes. For the Capitol, they want her to be a lovesick girl who is so helplessly in love with Peeta that she could never even dream of a rebellion. And District 13 wants her to be a beautiful vision for people to be inspired by for direction in the fight against the Capitol. Neither of these are accurate examples of Katniss, though. As much as I adore Katniss, she’s not a very likable person. That might sound mean, but it’s not incorrect: she’s a 17-year-old who has been through unimaginable trauma and is being forced to lead a revolution that she barely wants to participate in. She’s not helpless and clueless, but she’s also not an inspiration. She’s a kid. She just wants to protect the people she loves. Which is exactly why people in the districts are drawn to her.

In fact, the moments when Katniss does lose herself, where she allows herself to be used by either side, are moments on conflict, such as when she visits District 2. The rebels blow up a mountain that holds many citizens from the district. Eventually they manage to escape, and one ends up aiming a gun at Katniss. He asks her for a reason to not shoot her, and she is unable to name one.

“Logically, the next thing that should happen is the man pulling the trigger. But he’s perplexed, trying to make sense of my words. I experience my own confusion as I realize what I’ve said is entirely true, and the noble impulse that carried me across the square is replaced by despair. ‘I can’t. That’s the problem, isn’t it?’ I lower my bow. ‘We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We’ve got every reason to kill each other. So do it. Make the Capitol happy. I’m done killing their slaves for them.’” (Mockingjay 215)

Katniss’ acknowledgment that the war has just turned everyone into slaves of the Capitol -- the same way as the Games -- saves her life at this moment. The Capitol counts on the fact that the Districts will feel at odds with one another, despite them all being under the oppressive government. If the Games aren’t enough, where children from each district are meant to kill each other for sport before the winner gets paraded around all the districts, the different levels of privilege held by each district pushes them apart further. Even during the revolution, District 13 seems to hold the idea that you’re either with them or you’re just in the way.

Katniss doesn’t care about that, and doesn’t want to be like that. Her recognition (and admission) that the real enemy is the Capitol is a turning point for the war. It’s a technicality, but again, it shows how important it is that Katniss puts compassion at the center of her actions. She doesn’t want to waste innocent life as a sacrifice for a fight that those innocent people aren’t fighting. In the end, I believe this is why she is spared from virtually all consequences upon killing then-President Coin. Coin was pushing for a “final, symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power” (Mockingjay 369) after already killing numerous Capitol children (and, of course, a number of rebel field-doctors that included Prim). It’s this final request that shows Katniss how different she is from the other rebels being led by Coin. Their fight is all about revenge and proving points, but for Katniss, the war is about making the nation a safer place for the people she cares about.

The conflict between people fighting to prove a point versus those fighting to protect innocent people does not only come up in Coin’s last moments. We see this as a constant dilemma for Katniss, and she constantly proves how much more important the latter is. It’s the reason she calls Plutarch a Gamemaker throughout the entire last book, despite him working with the rebels. This is a big part of what drives the plot of Mockingjay forward.

Interestingly, it’s actually President Snow who lays it out for Katniss. And although I really doubt that he was being completely truthful in his conversation with Katniss in the gardens, I don’t think it matters. The point he was making was less about the words he was saying and more about the fact that Katniss knew there was a likely chance he was correct. This is after the war ends, when a bunch of bombs exploded and killed many Capitol children and Rebel Medics (including Prim):

“So wasteful, so unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact, I was just about to issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes.’ His eyes are glued on me, unblinking, so as not to miss a second of my reaction. But what he’s said makes no sense. When they released the parachutes? ‘Well, you really didn’t think I gave the order, did you? Forget the obvious fact that if I’d had a working hovercraft at my disposal, I’d have been using it to make an escape. But that aside, what purpose could it have served? We both know I’m not above killing children, but I’m not wasteful. I take life for very specific reasons. And there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all.’” (Mockingjay 356)

The Hunger Games were a horrible display of power and oppression, and I don’t think anyone wants to argue that. The slaughter of innocent children every year is horrible, but Snow’s right that it did serve a purpose -- it was to remind the districts of who was in charge, and to keep the tension between the districts rather than directed at the Capitol. When Snow tells this to Katniss, it makes her able to see that Coin has that same willingness to abuse her power. District 13 wanted to be the ones in control, whereas Katniss didn’t want anyone to have that kind of control. This is where their fights differed, and is why Katniss ends up killing President Coin at the end of the book -- for her, the fight didn’t end when the war was over, it ended when tyranny was overthrown.

We see this conflict originating from different goals on a more personal level throughout the books, too. The love triangle that Katniss finds herself in with Peeta and Gale is largely driven by this issue. Gale is representative of revolution and aggression. Katniss often goes to him when she has particularly strong anti-Capitol and pro-rebellion feelings. This includes her early childhood when she’s forced to hunt for resources, when she’s angry at the Peacekeepers for their treatment of her district at the beginning of Catching Fire, and after finding out that Peeta has been brainwashed by the Capitol in Mockingjay. Peeta, on the other hand, is the boy with the bread; he represents peace and justice. Katniss is drawn to him in times when she is primarily concerned about self preservation and the safety of those she loves: the entirety of their first Hunger Games, upon finding out Snow wants her dead in Catching Fire, and at the end of the revolution in Mockingjay.

Normally I really hate the love triangle trope, but this series uses it for a very specific purpose. Her relationships with the boys is a direct parallel to how she feels about the revolution throughout the series. And while I’d love to say this is a brilliant moment of analysis from me, Collins does expressly tell us this at the end of the final book.

“On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.” (388)

The reason that Peeta “wins” against Gale by the end of the book is because Peeta’s rebellion is about empathy, whereas Gale’s is about revenge. Gale has constantly talked about all the bad things he wanted to do to the Capitol. And while this energy might have been needed to win the war, it couldn’t be the only driving force. This is also why Katniss (and occasionally Peeta) are used as the faces of the war whereas Gale is just a soldier.

Listen, I don’t want to sit here and try to tell you that the real lesson of the Hunger Games trilogy is that love is the most important thing. This isn’t Harry Potter. But having a bigger regard for humanity and human life than for war itself is an important theme of this book. And the reason it's important to recognize this message is because it's relevant in our world too. Think of any human rights campaign going on right now, and this concept applies. In fact, there was a girl who went semi-viral on TikTok recently for this issue. She’s a leftist who wanted to protest against Bedford, Pennsylvania being a sundown town. According to her, the efforts were stopped when black elders in the town stopped her due to safety concerns. However, when she told this story on TikTok, she spoke with so much disdain about the black community actually in Bedford, and believed they weren’t doing enough. A lot of people, mostly black activists, on TikTok were quick to point out how performative she was being because she didn’t want to actually listen to the people who are in harm's way by living in Bedford -- she just wanted the Good Ally Points for doing the protest.

When it comes to our real world activism, consideration and compassion for the actual marginalized community needs to come first, just like in the Hunger Games. While we should all be outraged and horrified at the existence of sundown towns, it shouldn’t be up to white people -- especially those who can go back home at the end of the day -- to decide what the proper course of action is. For this girl, a protest in Bedford is about proving a point and showing off her moral superiority. But her actions (or the things she wanted to do) could’ve caused real damage to the black community of Bedford because her priority was doing what makes her look best instead of what would actually be the most helpful.

If you hold any sort of privilege, it’s easy for this mentality to slip in. A lot of people on the left (particularly white people) will be more excited about fighting against conservatives than they will be about fighting for marginalized people. And while the fighting energy is useful -- change doesn't happen peacefully -- it becomes a problem when that's all that exists. We see this with Katniss in how her biggest acts of rebellion are those where she maintains her humanity despite what the Capitol does to her, the conflict between her goal of the war compared to District 13’s, and even the way she inevitably chooses Peeta at the end of the story. Fire is absolutely necessary to see change, but it can’t be all there is. Fire pushes us forward, but we need to remember where we’re going and why.