The Hunger Games is too similar to Battle Royale

Unless you yourself read it and feel that that is one of the problems with the books. Which AHR does. Her opinion is valid and true if only in relation to herself.

L Mage: But...it's not realistic! At all! A basic knowledge of Starving Psych 101 would be more than enough to show problems with the characterization of half the people in this book! And that's not even getting into base characterizations or whether-katniss-is-a-sociopath or not.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:25:32 AM by MrAHR

@AHR

It's more then just starvation, it everything else, the oppressive goverment, the poverty, the PTSD from having to murder children for the entertainment of the Capitol...

I am giving a basic example of how one facet of Katniss is easily disproven. I am not saying it's "only starvation" but "even basic facts that can be shown in reality are completely disregarded, so at the very least, there are definitely some inaccuracies in how Katniss is portrayed"

@AHR

I disagree, the whole point is that Katniss is the product of the environment, all of it's elements not just a singular one, and relative to all her parts she is portrayed not only constantly but realistically. She shows the scars and damage that occur over time, she grows from her experiences not necessarily in a good way become who she is by the end of the novel and broken depressed woman trying to move past all the death and horror in her life with the aid of the boy who loves her.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:33:34 AM by LMage

...asdg.

You can't just disagree that something is blatantly wrong?

Do you know what happens to people who suffer from starvation, and go into situations that can alleviate that?

• They hoarde food

• They are constantly eating

• They binge on eating, when they are presented with food.

Those are some common possibilities. Similar to how people who grew up in the great depression still instinctively penny pinch. This is basic psych. But none of this happens in the Hunger Games. For example, when that pig was presented pre-hunger games, KATNISS should have been the one drooling all over it, instead of the people who had been fed well for their entire lives.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:37:57 AM by MrAHR

@AHR

Except for the part where it wasn't just her, she was looking out for Prim and her Mother and was putting their needs before her own.

And she DOES binge eat in the days leading up to the first Hunger Games, after which she has a whole host of other problems to deal with. She doesn't droll over food because she has the much bigger problem of impending death to worry about, that kind of trumps hunger.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:41:29 AM by LMage

Yes, and yet none of them show any traits of actually being starving. People don't put safety over food. No one acts like they should in that town. Realistically speaking, there would be WAY more people risking their lives for a bite to eat. None of them act like they're actually starving!

And human psychology doesn't work logically. It doesn't matter if she has "bigger problems to deal with"

A person with depression is not going to go "well, I'm going to get killed, so I might as well stop thinking about how pointless life is"

They don't just magically LOSE their mental problems in a pinch.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:43:24 AM by MrAHR

The only reason that things where as bad as they where for the Everdean family was because they had no bread winner, their mother was suffering from crippling depression, Prim was to young and Katniss was trying and failing.

Most people have SOMETHING to eat on a regular basis, even if it's far to little, the ones that don't die, they only became the way they where because of the father's death.

If I remember correctly, it was portrayed as bad for MANY families. Gale's, Hazelle's, Peeta's (despite owning a pig, for some god forsaken reason) etc. etc. And there is an orphanage, and there is constant mentionings to starving. It's not just Katniss' family, District 12 is always depicted as being in poverty, but few actually seem to follow through on that, as if it's in some sort of sterile stasis where only the main characters do anything.

re: Metal issues

I'm not saying it works that way, what I'm saying is that starvation is only one small faced of Katniss's character, there is much more to her that results in her mentality, her father's death and mother's depression leaving her with responsibility and duty, her relationship with her late father making her a hunter and giving her a sense of right and wrong, her friendship with Gale influencing her sense of empathy and helping her to dehumanize the people of the Capitol, she is the product of many different events in her life and you are trying to reduce her to one singular aspect so you can criticize the author, that's the Straw Man Argument.

And any psychologist will tell you that every case of mental disorder is different, you can't put into a uniform set.

Peeta was noted as one of the well-to-do of 12 because they owned a shop, Gale like Katniss was the primary breadwinner of his family, and the others in troubled either buy from Kat's and Gale's surplus or find other, criminal, ways to survive, those that don't die.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:56:25 AM by LMage

I am giving a basic example of how one facet of Katniss is easily disproven. I am not saying it's "only starvation" but "even basic facts that can be shown in reality are completely disregarded, so at the very least, there are definitely some inaccuracies in how Katniss is portrayed"

I don't like repeating myself, but there you go. It's the little things that matter. If you can't portray the small facts accurately, why should I believe the large ones with Suspension of Disbelief.

It's like the fact that you can have a mosquito family living in a house and dressed in human clothes, but what kills it is when the male mosquito mentions having to suck blood all day.

edited 24th Mar '12 10:57:57 AM by MrAHR

Only their not "facts" it's never "facts" with psychology, her other hardships and developments are bound to influence the other parts of her life, and not all people who suffer starvation have those symptoms you mentioned, and certainly not all to the same degree.

Psychology is never hard, true, but it's not completely ignorable. So what if her starvation is inaccurate? How does that affect your personal enjoyment of the book?

Yeah, I didn't worry about any of this and just enjoyed the books as they are.

@AHR

All I'm trying to say is that I view Katniss's character development as very realistic and showing a great deal of effort on the part of the author and I am just defending that opinion, especially since I consider it one of the book's strong suits that helps overcome it's other crippling weak points.

I viewed her development as fine too, until someone pointed it out several problems. I didn't come to these conclusions all on my own, someone else did the research and basically presented to me. I would have never noticed on my own.

Same. I came off of A Dance With Dragons to this. I chose it specifically because I wanted something I didn't have to think too hard about.

Um, I know this is a few pages old already but I didn't see anyone mention it. The cat hates her because she tried to drown him... I mean, you could get into all sorts of psychology things regarding cats and how they do or don't react to things or whatever (I wouldn't know), but it's not like there isn't a reason at all.

Wow, okay. A lot of people have been recommending The Hunger Games to me, but from reading this thread, I don't think I want to try them. What's so amazing about these books?

It was a pretty good and easy read, I thought. Especially if you like reading dystopias.

They're very readable and not all that bad unless you pause to think. And even then... well, I hate the narrative, I hate the characters, but I, for the life of me, can't stop reading. So they must be doing something right.

If your friends think you'll like it, read it. It's very much a page turner, and an extremely fast read. Don't look at it from a critical perspective - just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Unfortunately some of us can't turn off the critical side :P

@94 They're decent YA books that have an interesting concept and is readable, and slightly less shallow than a lot of YA stuff. It's no Battle Royale, but it's still good.

They have an adequate amount of substance to them for Young Adult books and work as a narrative.

Only problem might be biting off more than they can chew with political commentary (some people have the kind of brain that automatically makes these connections), whether or not that's what they actually wanted to achieve. Oh yeah, and that the characters aren't very likeable.

But hey, there are certain other books directed primarily at teenaged girls which I've found an impenetrable, so since this doesn't fall in to that category I'd consider them okay as novels. A step in the right direction at least.

In any case the film looks faithful enough to the books that you could just watch that. But then maybe it's too faithful to the books, so there's a possibility it's rather boring.