The Hunger Games Trilogy

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I know I've read a few 1st-person POV stories over the years where the POV character dies, and someone else picks up the story. It's not that common (for the obvious reason).

Also, not knowing whether the protagonist is going to die isn't at all a big deal for me, or, I suspect, for most people. Sometimes it's okay to know that the main character will survive to the end of the story; the story can still be enjoyable.

 

[Sheilawisz]

The problem that I have with first person stories is that I start asking myself this: "How can this character remember everything that happens in the story, and then write it down with such a perfect detail?".

In the case of Twilight, it's like the Vampire Isabella Swan one day decided to sit down, start writing and tell the entire story of how she arrived as a human girl at the town of Forks and then met sparkly Edward Cullen... and with The Hunger Games I feel like Katniss Everdeen did exactly the same, one day deciding to start writing and tell her entire story for the future generations to learn a lesson from the past.

Why these characters seem to have a super memory to recall everything??

Back to The Hunger Games:

Why do you think that the security and law-enforcing are much more severe at District 11 than they are at District 12?

 

[Steerpike]

@Sheila - it is more of a storytelling device. In a third person POV story, was the author or some other narrator really there, invisibly, to faithfully record it all? I don't think we have to make those assumptions. A first-person POV doesn't necessarily indicate that the character is at a later time writing down what happened in detail. The example of this is the story where the first person POV character dies in the story, and thus couldn't possibly have written it down (unless from beyond the grave, which may be the case in some novels but certainly isn't always the case).

 

[Struddles]

Loved book one hated katniss in books 2&3 so I hope the movies are done much better. IMO I hated her much more than I hated Bella in Twilight I found her to be much more annoying and indecisive than anything else and such a strong character from the first book in the hunger games trilogy turned into someone I would have been ok with dying rather than other characters throughout the books.

 

[Claire]

Why do you think that the security and law-enforcing are much more severe at District 11 than they are at District 12?

My feeling was that #1) District 11 is where they produce most of the food, which is such an essential item, they want to be extra sure things go smoothly there and #2) the population of District 11 is far larger than District 12 (Katniss learns this in book 2, I think) and they have to keep things a lot stricter simply because of the size of the population.

 

[Sheilawisz]

@Steerpike: Yeah, I know that it's just a storytelling device... but still, I cannot resist the feeling that the character telling the story has super memory skills and wrote down all of it at some moment in the future- With third person style, I feel that the narrator is simply the writer him or herself, telling the story directly from his/her imagination and I accept it much easier.

@Struddles: That sounds bad for Katniss, I also loved her in the first book and I wish that I will still like her a lot in 2 and 3 =)

@Claire: I think exactly the same!! The District where most of the food for Panem is produced is clearly the most essential place to keep under a strict control, but I had not considered that the population at District 11 is also much larger than District 12 and also likely to be larger than at other Districts.

 

[Claire]

Well, for my part, I didn't hate Katniss in the subsequent books, so you might not . She is fairly different - she's really broken from her first experience, and let's just say, things aren't all shiny and happy in her new life as a Victor. She doesn't see things clearly and really has a skewed perception of how other people see her - true in the first book, but it is even more pronounced in the second and third. I think she's just really messed up in the head and it colors her view of everything - and since it's ALL her POV, that's how the story is told.

All just my opinion, of course. I found Bella a lot more annoying, LOL.

 

[ethgania]

I'm sure that part of the choice to do first person was just because it seems to be a pretty big trend in YA right now. At least from what I've read, it seems like first person is getting pretty popular.

Narrator reliability as far as Katniss is concerned is an interesting topic... We looked at this in a class of mine a couple terms ago that was all about YA lit, and we did a little bit of discussion about how we get this snarky teenager amongst the story-telling...

I just opened my copy to double-check, but it is in first person present. So it's not like Katniss is sitting down and writing it all later, she's telling it to us as it happens. Maybe that's how we're supposed to read it? Like we're following her around in her head somehow? Obviously not any more realistic, but there's some food for thought.

 

[Struddles]

hope that spoiler thingy works

Spoiler: Spoilers

@Sheilawisz & Claire I just had issues with the way Katniss acted in the next couple of books she flipped so much on me that it was a problem. She goes from being strong and confident and has a willpower that appears unmatched and then all of a sudden for like a full chapter she falls apart and I want to beat her over the head and be like wtf is wrong with you just get over it and get through this crap and you'll be fine at the end.

I realize she's probably got severe ptsd and the loss of a lot of people around you can take a massive and extreme toll but for her to flip back and forth is just confusing and seemed senseless to me and made me hate her as a character.

Other characters like Gale and Peeta progressed forward into each of their own story-arches but Katniss felt like the only one that began to progress down her Arch then decides whoa whoa whoa wait a minute I'm developing as a character lets do a 180 and walk back the other direction and maybe the reader will not only keep up but follow the insane internal back and forth that is her mind and thought process.

As for the whole bella thing I was being a bit over the top and just more or less frustrated with how Katniss acted by the end of the series.

 

[Sheilawisz]

The spoiler special box works just fine, thank you Struddles- I quite agree that Gale and Peeta are progressing a lot as characters, and I am curious to see what will happen with them =)

@Ethgania: That's another way of thinking about how the first-person style works, like we were inside the character's head all the time because it's all written in present and not past... Quite an interesting way to view this thing, but still I cannot get to really like first-person and I will always write my stories in third.

@Claire: Yes, definitely Katniss is very messed in the head! XD!! I am liking her a lot in Catching Fire and I am just about to start reading chapter 10 where they talk about the existance of District 13.

 

[ethgania]

@Sheilawisz I agree about writing in third! Maybe it's just because it's more standard for fantasy so I've read more of it, but I haven't really written anything in first (outside of school assignments) since my crappy fanfiction days.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Thank you Ethgania, it's great to find support for my belief that third-person is generally better than first-person style to tell stories =)

Back to The Hunger Games: The more I read about the Capitol, its horrible people and their cruel domination over the Districts, the more I hate them and the more I want to see the Capitol destroyed!!

Can't wait to see what the mysterious District 13 is like...

 

[Lavender]

I've read all three books. The concept of a totalitarian, dystopian society has been done before and has been done very well (e.g. Orwell's 1984) so I it's difficult to make such a concept fresh and original. I thought Suzanne Collins did a wonderful job, however. I liked the storyline and it kept me gripped to the last page but I didn't connect with the characters as well as I have in other novels somehow and found myself not particuarly caring about them that much. I found the same with the Twilight series. Peeta annoyed me, most of the time I found him bland, soppy and one dimensional. Gale intrigued me a lot more - he had the potential to be a very interesting character but he wasn't involved much in the story. Finnick's storyline was good, too and I really wanted things to go well for him despite the arrogant front he put on.
All in all, very enjoyable books and I highly recommend them but personally I feel some of the characters lacked something.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Lavender, I am also of the opinion that Gale Hawthorne is far more intriguing than Peeta... and now, getting closer to half the way into Catching Fire I can't wait to see what is he going to do and what will happen with him in the rebellion that is already blooming in several different Districts!!

Like you said, I am gripped till I finish reading the last page of Mockingjay =)

This is really a very cool series, and the best is that I do not have to read a billion words to finish the story...

 

[TL Rese]

i too was hooked by this series!! i've read all three books and it's certainly one of the most entertaining reads i've had over the past year.

and i'm also on team gale

as for 1st vs. 3rd person narration - personally, i'm also a big fan of 3rd person for writing purposes - it gives you a lot of freedom to move around and jump from character to character without too much difficulty. but 1st person has its uses, especially when you really want to get inside a character's head or make the reader identify more w/ the narrator (i read somewhere that katniss has such an abrasive personality, that if it'd been written in 3rd person, readers would have hated her). plus, the story is written in present tense, so i guess you're supposed to experience everything through katniss' POV while it's all happening.

Yeah, I know that it's just a storytelling device... but still, I cannot resist the feeling that the character telling the story has super memory skills and wrote down all of it at some moment in the future.

it's interesting that you mention this, 'cause usually when i write in 1st person, it's the narrator thinking back on his/her life, although obviously lacking super-memory skills, so i guess i do employ artistic license. =) have you read any of the early epistolary novels, like frankenstein? apparently, with some epistolaries, if the characters had actually written everything down, they wouldn't have had any time to experience what they've written down.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I am reading Mockingjay now, and I cried a lot reading Chapter 7 =(

It's so exciting, this story really touches my heart... I can't wait to finish it and I am reading three and sometimes four chapters every day, go Katniss Everdeen!!

@TL Rese: Sorry, I have never read Frankenstein and other novels like that but I am happy to see that you understand what I was trying to say about first-person style... By the way, please check the Showcase and read my short still-in-progress story called The Starvation Tournament that is obviously a Hunger Games parody =)

 

[fcbkid15]

I think they are well written, and I do agree it was hard to put it down at times. I like the books, the movie was pretty good too. The storyline however is nothing new. I don't want to say it's a ripoff of Battle Royale, but the plot for that movie was kids being taken, put on an island, and forced to fight to the death, but in the end the two kids don't agree and go against the government. And that came out in the 80's. I like the books, but again nothing really new.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Today I have finished reading Chapter 24 of Mockingjay, and I have cried as I read this story... again. I just had to cry, a lot, tears falling on the paper... How is this series going to end??

I know how it ends because I have read all the spoilers on the Wiki, I knew that this was going to happen but when you read it for real it has a powerful effect...

Suzanne Collins is really talented, I love these books =)

 

[Sheilawisz]

I have finished at last reading The Hunger Games trilogy today, July 20 of 2012.

The ending of this story has been heartbreaking, but I love it, it's just the right way that things had to end for everyone... It's exactly my style of ending, the way that my own novels end =)

I am left to think about the meaning of this story, the message that it carries... I have a deep admiration for Katniss, and I believe that everyone should read these books.

 

[Black Dragon]

I was asked to appear on an upcoming panel to discuss The Hunger Games with Harry Potter scholar John Granger (see http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/)

So I read the trilogy over the past few weeks, and watched the movie for the first time this past weekend. Overall, I was very impressed. This story has far more depth and resonance than I had expected.

The one thing that I hated (initially), though, was the love triangle. It seemed like an unnecessary intrusion in an otherwise profound story, put there to draw in teenage girls. Being a 30-something married guy with a kid, having to read through pages of teenage angst over which guy to choose was not pleasant.

However, after finishing Mockingjay, I now see why the love triangle was important to the message of the story. Peeta and Gale represent two very different responses to the evil in Panem. The choice between the two guys was really the choice of which path to take.