OH, BABY YOU ATE THAT: a hunger games re-read

chapters 1-3, what does panem even look like, and revisiting classics

Hi, okay, so brief little introduction to this, as a concept. I’d usually post this on Tumblr with my gut reactions to each little thing as I read, but I thought it’d be more interesting and concise if I did it like this. I’m going to essentially transcribing, summarizing my notes for each chapter, as well as throw in some supplemental information/references I found through Reddit, Youtube, etc. Um, yeah! That’s it, let’s get into it!

ALSO! There are very obviously going to be spoilers for The Hunger Games series, but this is also a book series that is at least a decade old. I don’t know what to tell you—don’t read this if you don’t want spoilers, I guess?

chapter one: reaping day, introduction to katniss, prim is chosen as tribute

propaganda map of panem as done by illegalsympathy from r/hungergames

• I didn’t have much to write in terms of preliminary notes save for the very basic summary of the plot, but I did write out a little list of the Districts and where they’d be situated if Panem were still North America. I used this really cool map I found on Reddit for reference, and then I found this video on Youtube by Dove Makes, a geographer(which I haven’t watched yet, but will once I have the brain energy to watch an hour-and-change long video). Basically, all you need to know is that the Capitol is Salt Lake City, Utah, which has such delicious, layered Mormon implications. I also have a secondary list of the tributes as I learn about them—it’s only Katniss and Peeta so far.

• So, this first chapter introduces us to Katniss. She’s a 16 year old Indigenous girl living in District 12 (Appalachia, most likely Kentucky) with her mother and younger sister, Prim. She is, essentially, her family’s sole provider since her father was killed in a mining explosion five years prior. Life in the Seam is gross, hard and grody, Katniss having to rely on foraging and “illegal” hunting to keep her family alive. There’s a lot to be said about the devaluation of people of color, the parentification and forced maturity of girls of color, and you bet your ass I will say more later.

  • I did note that Katniss’s mother is written as white, a daughter of the merchant class who married into poverty. She’s definitely not suited or accustomed to hard living, and it’s clear when you see how completely she fell apart after the death of her husband. Which, fair, if your husband is exploded and there’s not enough body to bury, but to put all that stress and the weight of feeding the family on your eleven year old daughter is very brutal as well.

• Even within the first few pages, so much about this world is introduced and explained. It’s a small book but it’s very dense, creating almost immediately an entire universe. We’ve already learned about the Games, the Seam, District 12’s black market, some laws and the soldiers who enforce them, as well as a little of District 12’s class/racial system.

• Meeting Gale is … I know Gale is a very complicated character, and I know there’s a lot of discourse about Collins’s intentions with him being this very angry, violence first person. Is he meant to be portraying more radical revolutionaries? Is he meant to be a dismissal of violence/anger as a solution to state violence? Yadda-yadda, that’s all well in good, but I’m not super fond of him. I think the way he’s making doe-eyes and talking romance to Katniss is annoying, and I wish Collins just let him be her best friend/brother-type.

  • It’s also interesting to me the way his anger is portrayed next to Katniss’s. His snapping at Madge treated with disdain…I don’t know man, it’s really weird.

• Katniss mentioning for the first time her disinterest in having kids…I made a post forever ago saying that Katniss should’ve aborted them kids, and then when I reread the series three years ago, I changed my mind about it. Wonder if I’ll feel the same way on this rereading experience!

• Every system in Panem is designed to punish the poor for their poverty, down to the tessarae system. The more the poor put their names into the running to die, the more food they’re given. And even this amount of food is described as poor quality and meager. It’s some grim shit. Very much the United States going into poor neighborhoods and dangling a car and education in front of kids’ faces to get them to kill. Absolutely disgusting.

“I COULD BE SHOT DAILY FOR HUNTING, BUT THE APPETITES OF THOSE IN CHARGE PROTECT ME.”

• Truly obsessed with the above line because there’s so many layers to it! Obviously, there’s a basic level—the Peacemakers want the food she hunts, she gets to keep hunting—but then on a larger scale, Katniss is kept alive because everything she does, her rebellions and acts of subterfuge are entertainment. I haven’t read the President Snow book or seen the movie, but the few things I’ve seen about it shows that Katniss is a lot like Lucy—kept alive for the benefit of the rich, the powerful, the appetites of those in charge keeping her singing, rebelling. Sen-sational!

• Everyone whose never moved on from middle school talks about how much like this or that random influencer is like Katniss Everdeen, but I think what these people are missing are two essential things. One, Katniss did not ask to become a revolutionary, nor did she want to become a symbol. She is, simply, a young girl forced to have to fight for her life and the lives of others; people in privileged positions at sixteen don’t have to think about where their food is coming from, don’t have to consider death by exposure or starvation or state violence, but Katniss has had to contend with these things since she was very, very young. You cannot crown yourself or any other random white person on the internet a revolutionary—it is an act, not a title, and it is always in progress.

  • Thing two! I feel like when people compare today’s real life horrors to fiction, they forget that the ugliness have to come from somewhere. Ursula K. Le Guin once said that the work of a science fiction author is not to be an oracle but to be a mirror. Same with Octavia E. Butler, who said that she didn’t predict anything, only wrote what would happen if we let the world progress down the path we were on thirty years in the past. If the Hunger Games feels real to you, now, as a white person living in global north, then hi! Welcome to the life of impoverished people of color in South America, the Carribeans, in Africa, in Asia. Even in North America, this is the reality of Indigenous peoples living on reservations, the reality of life for farm workers, for Black people living below the poverty line. Using the poor as entertainment? Not new! Forcing the disenfranchised to slave for the comfort of your average American? Not new! So, instead of going, “Omg, this is just like the Hunger Games", it might be more useful to look around and consider what your privileges have bought you and at whose expense.

• Also related to my previous point, I think it’s interesting how the Capitol poses these games as an even to prove to the Districts how small and ineffectual they are, when in reality a government that needs to show you, constantly, how small you are is a government in fear of you. Keep that in mind. There are more of us than them, and together we are far more dangerous than our goverment.

• Still absolutely gagged that out of all of the names it was Prim’s that was called!

chapter two and three: katniss volunteers as tribute, introducing peeta my love; katniss tells her mom off, onto the train

“I volunteer,” I gasp. “I volunteer as tribute!”

• Literally nothing will ever compare to the feeling of reading this line. This teenager sacrificing herself for her baby sister, the way the entire district stands in solidarity and in awe of her action, silence as condemnation of the government, and of course, Effie’s total misreading of the room and what the general vibe of what’s going on in the districts. I also love Haymitch’s little outburst. Learning that Reaping Day is his birthday and the part he played in his own rebellion years ago, I’m sure he felt immeasurable pride looking at this young girl stand in defiance of the Capitol. Her, I like her! And yes, she’s got a lot of spunk!

• And now we meet Peeta, our king, the moment, the icon, maybe the only male character that’s ever been written. I was really interested in the way Collins described him accepting his reaping— “his blue eyes show the alarm i’ve seen so often in prey. yet he climbs steadily onto the stage and takes his place.” What a perfect microcosm of who Peeta is as a person. Afraid, vulnerable, and yet strong, capable of endurance. Very, very lovely boy.

• One of my favorite parts in the entire book, Katniss retelling the story of how Peeta gave her the bread and essentially saved her life. He comes from the merchant class, his parents run a bakery, and he purposefully burned bread to give to Katniss after seeing her, age eleven, cold and starving, picking through their trash can. Even at the risk of violence (his mother is abusive, she hits him hard enough to bruise his face and blacken his eye), he does the kind and generous thing. He and Katniss have that in common, a compulsion to do the selfless thing, even when punishment is inevitable.

  • I also noted from this bit that the book was really raw and real about the realities of poverty in Appalachia, but the movie dampened a lot of the impact. I don’t expect anything else from a Hollywood production—Hollywood films are, of course, meant to entertain and spit-shine America’s reputation, so why would they get serious about something as grim as poverty? I still think it’s so … so America-core to turn a hard look at the exploitation of the disenfranchished into a pithy tag line and a love triangle. Grim business.

  • Also noted how cruel Peeta’s mother is despite them also living in one of the poorest districts. Of course, we know that some people will cling to any sort of power or proximity to capital. Someone working at a Macy’s or a Burger King will happily condescend to someone who works a rougher job like coal-mining, farming, anything nasty. Just think about how your average person speaks to and about unhoused people. It’s very sad to see but you know, class solidarity is hard for folks.

• Katniss digging into her mother is rough, but I get it. If you’ve had to shoulder the weight of keeping your family alive since you were eleven, you’d be cold too. And I know mental health isn’t talked about, ever, and I don’t think sadness or even allowing herself to feel miserable is a luxury Katniss ever afforded herself. I do like how this ties into Katniss being resistant to showing emotion, not only because she doesn’t want the cameras to see her crying, but because she straight up doesn’t want anyone, family or otherwise, to see her as weak. She thinks she’s me for real.

  • I also love thinking about Katniss’s internalization and suppression versus Peeta’s heart-on-his-sleeve stragegy. Katniss thinks emotions are weakness; Peeta knows his tears are his strength. Also, again, with Katniss being Indigenous (idc, olive skin and straight Black hair, that’s a Cherokee girl) and Peeta being white (blond hair, blue eyes), there’s level to it. Who gets to be emotional? Who gets to weep, and whose tears matter to the camera?

• I love how people in the community are already promising to rally around Prim, and her mother by extension. They’ll do it for Katniss, obviously, because she sacrificed herself but they’ll mostly do it for Prim, because everyone loves her.

• Last thing for this chapter! Effie’s snide little comments about manners and propeity are silly but also very indicative of the way people react to the less fortunate. You’re always supposed to be following rules no one taught you, always expected to behave in ways that are counterintuitive to survival. She sees two kids eating with their hands as “savages”; Katniss and Peeta know those kids have always been hunger and that a feast like the one served on the train was likely a miracle for them. Love Katniss acting “savagely” to spite Effie!

  • Also, Haymitch, our drunken friend Haymitch. I’ll have more to say when I read Sunrise on the Reaping (that’s next!), but there’s a few things about him having to blot out the trauma via alcohol and the way alcohol has been used to neuter/suppress Indigenous communities. I wouldn’t expect Effie to get it nor would I expect the kids to know anything about him other than the fact that he’s a drunk. Love him, though. Drink on, dude.