Games (Hunger)

The movie, The Hunger Games, is currently rampaging through the theaters. Based on the first book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, it is a post-apocalyptic coming-of-age tale rife with social commentary and teen angst.  It has been hyped almost as extensively as the Twilight series, and although it lacks the devoted following of the Harry Potter Universe, it does have a steadfast stream of readers and admirers.

After ages of encouragement from various individuals, Herself grudgingly picked up the Hunger Games book.  She plowed through it diligently, and found it to be a mildly entertaining, if somewhat made-for-movie, story.  There was one aspect to the plot, though, that annoyed her greatly, almost to the point where she was unwilling to finish reading the book. 

**SPOILER ALERT:  Though there's nothing revealed in the below discussion that one could not easily guess from the previews of the movie or any most basic conversation regarding the book, if you would like the book or movie to be as much of a surprise as possible, you should stop reading here.**

Are you still there?  Onwards.

A brief synopsis for context:  heroine of the book Katniss Everdeen is a sixteen-year-old girl whose best friend is Gale, a strapping young lad a couple of years older than she, with whom she has learned to hunt and has built a mutual strategy for survival of their respective families.  She leaves him behind in her hometown when she volunteers as one of two 'tributes' from her district for the Hunger Games -- a nationwide televised spectacle in which male and female tributes from each district compete to the death for a single winner.  The second tribute from her district is Peeta, another comely youth the same age as Katniss. 

Early on in the story, Peeta reveals publicly that he has long harbored a crush on Katniss, who (under the duress of the Hunger Games) uses this information to her advantage, pretending to be enamored of Peeta in order to ensure her survival. The book describes Katniss's ambivalence toward Peeta as well as her deliberate actions to depict a budding love affair with him for the television audience.  Ultimately (and after a few fairly predictable plot twists and turns), both Katniss and Peeta survive and return to their district, where Katniss must come to terms both with her deceit towards Peeta as well as her confused feelings towards Gale. 

Curtain, DOWN, for The Hunger Games: the next book in the trilogy will presumably address such matters, among other things.

Argh.

What is it that disturbs Herself so? 

It is the purposeful deception of Peeta by Katniss.

Intellectually, Herself can understand that the character of Katniss was solely doing what needed to be done to survive under extreme circumstances.  Emotionally, though, she has tremendous difficulty with this scenario.  It is so very wrong to mislead another in such a manner.

Would it have been less wrong somehow if Katniss's deception of Peeta was private - a quiet, desperate manipulation?  Perhaps; but only a hair less wrong.  The public nature of her deliberate, and untruthful, demonstrations of affection towards him does make her behavior all the more painful to observe.  Either way, it's cruel to Peeta.  It is wrong. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Herself knows it's "just a book."  And she knows, too (in a vague, philosophical way) that she's lucky she would never find herself in circumstances that might warrant employing such behavior. It's not worth overthinking.  All things considered, though, she found this plot point so intolerable that she could barely finish reading the book. 

She's not sure she can get through the other two books in the series. Or whether she even wants to try to do so.  We shall see.