The Hunger Games

  I've written about The Hunger Games before (the books, of course; that's just how high-brow I am), but as much to express my anger at the Millenium Trilogy as to gush over Katniss Everdeen. The release of the film version of the first book of the trilogy (given how the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises have been stretched out, I hesitate to say "the first film in a trilogy") has given me occasion to interact with a couple (I think) deliberately censorious reactions from other protestant clergy, so I thought I should post my thoughts for the helpful edification of the entire webernet.

  I looked at Doug Wilson's review of the Hunger Games on his blog; it appears to interact only with the first volume, which is a pity. Unfortunately, it's not Doug Wilson at his best. He's eager to demonstrate he's too clever by half, eager to label and dismiss, and conveniently ignores any evidence which does not fit his thesis.
 

  Now, I can't speak for the film, but the book, contra Wilson, is certainly not a brief for situation ethics. The 3rd-person narrative almost necessary to film may obscure Katniss' motivations, but as the books are in the 1st person, her inner life is much more clear to the reader. The really interesting bits are in the first and third volumes (in my opinion, the second serves primarily to move the plot along and set up the third).

  With her father dead in a mining accident and her mother having become virtually catatonic as a result, Katniss has taken responsibility for providing for her family's welfare; this is pretty much her sole concern throughout the first book. When she volunteers to take her sister's place in the Hunger Games, Katniss assumes she will die: until the very end of the Games themselves, she continues to believe she will not survive. Living as she does under a totalitarian regime, she knows that any refusal to coopearate with the authorities will certainly result in reprisals against her mother and sister. By not mentioning this fact, Wilson conveniently ignores why refusal and flight aren't options for her.

  Moreover, Katniss' willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of others makes her, in literary terms, a Christ figure. This, no doubt, is why her character has been appealing to so many readers: all human beings, whether they know/admit it or not, are looking for the Gospel story. Related to this is that Katniss never buys into the Games' premise: she only kills, in what is essentially self-defense, those who embrace the Games, and hence the value system of the oppressor government. Suzanne Collins,  however, very successfully draws the reader into Katniss' moral dilemma, as the latter repeatedly asks herself whether she will ultimately become a willing participant in the Games. Her character has three dimensions; her choices rarely come easily. While all her reference points and ambitions are entirely personal and immediate, she continually strives to come to terms with the larger issues at play in her society and respond to them responsibly.

  Now, the really interesting bit, in terms of response to totalitarianism, comes at the end of the Games when Katniss and Peeta opt for mutual suicide rather than one killing the other. They both realize suicide is not only the most romantic option, and hence appealing to their audience in Panem, but also would ultimately invalidate the Games and Panem's government. Suicide is their final refusal to accept the circumstance into which they've been thrust. The third volume closes the series with an equally brilliant strategic response to exploitative and cruel regimes, but I don't want to ruin it all for you.

  Now, this is certainly not a Biblical ethic in action; it is much more classically Stoic than Christian. Given that Suzanne Collins is deliberately evoking the Roman Empire in tone, if not in precise detail, stoicism is actually a very appropriate philosophical choice. (Interestingly, there's no religion or rumination on the supernatural at all in the Hunger Games trilogy; while this may be a function of the simplified Young Adult genre, it's also a reason this will only be an entertainment and will not be much read in coming generations.) But Stoicism, for all it lacks as a philosophical system, is not situation ethics.

The best cultural apologists in our tradition have always been able to appreciate what is noble and good amongst the heathen even while demonstrating its uselessness apart from God's revelation of himself in Christ (here I think not only of Francis Schaeffer and Abraham Kuyper, but the Apostle Paul himself).  The Hunger Games is not much more than thrilling entertainment, but has had such runaway success because, despite its heathenishness, it describes much that is noble and good in the human character.