By: Hannaan Fuad
Edited by Harith Syafiee
The Hunger Games was created as a “punishment” for the district people who rebelled against the Capitol. It is to remind them of the power the Capitol had over them.
Dr Volumnia Gaul, the Gamemaker of the Hunger Games, says that the Hunger Games demonstrate how humanity is when it is stripped naked of all its societal norms and constraints. As soon as the countdown starts, the primal instinct of human beings: to kill before being killed, is pushed through the surface. The survival of the fittest.
Dr Gaul drives this point home by putting Coriolanus Snow in the arena to retrieve his fellow mentor Sejanus Plinth who sneaks inside (read the book or watch the movie to know why). Inside the arena, the tributes hunt them down, triggering the ‘primal instinct’ inside Snow, prompting him to kill one of the tributes with his own hands in self-defence, bludgeoning him to death. It is an understatement to simply say that he killed him. No, even after the tribute’s death, he goes on bashing his head in, as if driven by a force deep inside him to ensure the poor tribute’s death, ‘Die, die, die’.
Coriolanus Snow echoes Dr Gaul’s view at the end of the “Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Where he initially shared the same sentiment with the public that children are the embodiment of innocence, he claims later that this view is invalid in light of the Hunger Games, as the children who were reaped to become the tributes also became violent and killed the other tributes for their survival in the arena. This, for Snow, proves that humans are indeed primal beings who have no problem spilling the blood of others for their own survival.
Thus, according to him, the Hunger Games are essential to enforce control over the district people. If left on their own, humanity would once again descend into chaos hence the importance of controlled chaos: the Hunger Games.
The idea of controlled chaos reminds me of what my lecturer once said about the Greeks and the Romans using theatre and the Colosseum fights to entertain their people. When the people are entertained, they are less likely to notice the things happening around them, namely the bad things, and thus will significantly reduce the likelihood of the people revolting against the rulers.
This tactic of diverting the attention of the people from the real issue is also presented in the Hunger Games series. It is the reason why Snow allows for a victor in the Games in the first place. Some people have asked why it is so since the Games are used as a means to enforce power over the people. The answer is simple. Hope.
Snow: “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained”
Snow wants to ensure that the people are focused on the little thing, which is the hope that the “tribute” from their own districts have a chance to survive the Games, rather than focusing on the bigger picture, which is that if they band together against the Capitol, they will easily win. In other words, his strategy is to ensure that the people’s attention was diverted from the issue of oppression to the small glimmer of hope of survival. It is like saying “See, you still have hope that you could survive if you just follow our plan.” Not only that, but the Capitol also promised a year's worth of necessities for the districts whose tribute won that year. The victors are also given special housing after the Games. Basically, an “upgraded life”. This appeal certainly helps Snow’s case. It is a subtle manipulation tactic that maintains Snow’s control over the people, effectively diverting them away from realizing that the Panem’s system is fragile.
The citizens of the Capitol highly anticipate the event of the Hunger Games every year in the same way we anticipate the event of the Olympic Games every four years. Most of us anyway. The “tributes,” willingly and unwillingly doll up prior to the Game, parade before the whole of Panem (the Capitol people experiencing the events live, and the district people through obligatory viewing through televisions), and bettings are made against who would win. The "tributes" are made to appeal to the audience to increase the chances of them receiving sponsors from the audience. Here's the thing, these sponsors could determine between, not only winning and losing, but ultimately between life and death. Sickening. It's designed so that it would be easy to forget that these "tributes" are human beings who are forced to fight for their life and not mere machines specifically designed to entertain the people when they are made to be served as a spectacle for the audience to gobble up.
One of my favourite lines from the whole series is what Katniss Everdeen says in response to one of the Capitol people holding her at gunpoint and asking her to give him one reason not to kill her (for context, Katniss Everdeen is the mascot of the rebellion against President Snow). To which Katniss replied that that’s the problem as she couldn’t give any.
Katniss: I guess that’s the problem, isn’t it? We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We each have every reason to want to kill each other. So if you wanna kill me, do it. Make Snow happy. I’m tired of killing his slaves for him.
The Capitol guy replies, “I’m not his slave.” To this, Katniss retorts back that she, on the other hand, is indeed Snow’s slave. That’s the reason why she kills Cato in the 74th Hunger Games and why Cato kills Thresh, and Thresh kills Clove and it goes on around and around.
Katniss: …and who wins? Always Snow.
The Capitol citizens enjoy a life of luxury and comfort, utilizing the produce that the districts supply. They also possess certain prejudice towards the people of the districts, believing that they are backwards in their way of life due to their own nature and not due to the discrimination that they face in the first place. On top of it all, the fact that the people of the Capitol anticipate the games annually demonstrates the concept of false consciousness. This phenomenon can also be seen in the way the ‘richer’ districts such as District 1 and District 2, eagerly participate in the Games to the extent that they train the children for it, proving that they were conditioned to subscribe to this false consciousness of doing it all for their own sake.
In today's world, this concept can be seen through people subconsciously submitting to the unfair side of the coin known as capitalism. This phenomenon is demonstrated in the likes of people joining in on trends such as fast fashion, where people, poor or rich, feel the need to buy ‘in-trend’ items for fear of missing out. Unbeknownst to them, their participation in these trends contributes to the oppression of the working class behind the scenes, exploited to produce these items for minimum wage, or even worse, for no payment at all. (Read this)
Thus, in a way, we can say that our world is a never-ending battle against the unfair side of a capitalistic society, where the people who can afford to enjoy the sweetness capitalism has to offer, believe in its benefits, not realizing that the system easily marginalizes those who cannot afford to enjoy its sweet reapings. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. And who wins? Always “Snow.”
Tying back to the earlier points of our primal instinct to trample each other to survive, in a capitalistic society, the idea of individual pursuit of self-interest, competition and survival of the fittest in the economic landscape are prevalent and thus, capitalism, similar to Dr Gaul’s belief of human’s primal instinct, can drive people to do whatever it takes to get what they want, sometimes at the expense of others. However, it’s obvious to see that the corrupt Dr Gaul and Snow’s view of humanity’s nature is flawed. To put it in other words, they’re blind and choose to see only what they want to see.
Their theory was easily proven wrong when Katniss and Foxface run into each other in the arena and choose to not kill each other, when Treech line up the dead bodies of the victims of the arena in the 10th Hunger Games and cover them with the flag of Panem, and the instance that kickstarted the whole rebellion into play, when Katniss prepares a proper resting place for the murdered Rue, honouring her and showing her the respect that a human being deserves. What Treech and Katniss did, is like spitting in Dr Gaul’s and Snow’s faces, showing the real, and beautiful colour of humanity. Despite the cruel situation they’ve been thrust into, they still take the time to show that they are indeed human beings, with lives and stories of their own, who didn’t choose to be in this horrible circumstance, whose story didn’t have to end this tragically. The odds were never in their favour.
Now, I need you to think back on the instances in the real world when humanity makes you smile, when someone, like Katniss, gives you hope that life is not all bad, that sometimes, we can make the odds be in our favour.
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