the hunger games: not the "next" anything

Okay, I've already posted an abridged version of this over on my Tumblr, but I felt the need to go into it a little bit more, so here we are.

I'm writing partially in response to reading this article, entitled "Why The Hunger Games Needs To Be The Next Twilight." You should read it, because it's actually quite insightful and is a good read. Also, I will openly note two things before I get started: 1) I have only read the first Twilight novel in its entirety, but have read snippets of the latter three and 2) I think the Twilight series is complete rubbish and that it has done a lot of really negative things to YA lit and to YA readers, especially young women.

But I'm here less to talk about how I hate Twilight and more to talk about The Hunger Games, which I adore. Except, I feel like I have a little bit of an unpopular opinion when I say that I feel that the so-called "love triangle" in The Hunger Games is blown massively out of proportion by a lot of people.

First things first, I agree with a whole lot of this article. For example, this quote right here:

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss

"These are two characters that I would happily encourage young adults look up to and that is why I do hope that The Hunger Games is the next Twilight Saga. It’s not that girls need to be hardhearted and loveless, but they need Katniss’ strength and survival instincts. They need to love the boy with the bread more than they love Edward Cullen. The young adults out there just flat out need someone better to look up to."

Absolutely. And yet, I find myself disagreeing with the sentiment that "The popularity of The Hunger Games will rest on the shoulders of Katniss and Peeta and the tragedy of the unrequited love of a baker’s boy with a heart of gold."

Because at the end of the day, as a reader, the books are so much about surviving and living with war, revolution, grief and loss, and I'm tired of only hearing about whether people prefer Gale or Peeta. I completely agree that commercially, THG wants to be successful and to springboard off of the popularity of already-existing film series like Harry Potter and Twilight makes sense, but I also feel that the film's marketing really needs to deal with how different THG is from this series - how much more violent and unforgiving it can be. I am very hopeful that the film isn't spun in a way that takes away from the power of the themes in the novel, and that it doesn't become a contest as to who's going to end up together in the end.

That being said, I guess I agree in that if I had to pick a relationship role model for the target audience, maybe I'd pick Katniss for her reasonably healthy relationships (as healthy as they can be given the surroundings) with these two upstanding gentlemen versus Bella's awful and destructive relationship with her doucher vampire beau. Katniss is an admirable character in a lot of ways. But at the same time, the relationships presented are completely different beasts and it feels completely wrong to even try and compare them.

Bella and Edward have no real problems except for the ones they make for themselves - You're a vampire/you're not; I want to marry you/you can't; let's angst forever. And of course, there is a "love triangle" between Bella, Edward, and Jacob - which leads to a lot of vilifying and name calling and sexual tension and weird scenes where they talk about her while she's RIGHT THERE and treat her like property and is generally really squicky and awful. I hate Twilight.

But when you look at Katniss? From the minute we meet her, our girl has Issues. There was never really any tension for me comparing the two men, because the interactions she had with them were so different.

 Katniss and Peeta's relationship is endlessly complicated, of course. When I was first reading The Hunger Games, I didn't respond to the "love triangle," except for being really fascinated with the way Katniss and Peeta's relationship unfolds, especially during Catching Fire - there are so many layers of fiction, deception, and real feelings all tied up in there that it was really spectacular to watch unfold. I am really enthralled by the veil of uncertainty that hovers around whether their fire-forged relationship and affection for one another  is altogether real. They have shared something they can and will never share with anyone else. Peeta is sensitive and Does The Right Thing, but especially in Mockingjay there is a real darkness to him that only Katniss really comes close to understanding, and it scares her. But she understands it nonetheless.

Meanwhile, you have Katniss's relationship with Gale, which is tricky at best - when we meet them, there's no denying things are strange: are they friends? Are they in-crush with each other? We're led to believe yes, there might be something there. But then she goes off to the games and gets all fucked up and Peeta enters her life so when Katniss comes back and Gale still has all these feelings bottled up for her, there's this underlying weirdness, but she is hesitant, always hesitant, to move things forward. Sure, Katniss doesn't think she's in love with Peeta, but I'd argue that she never thinks she's in love with Gale either.

I don't see how we can appropriately define this as a "love triangle", if only because of how deliberately and painstakingly Peeta's character is drawn. Next to Peeta, Gale is just a sketch of a person, the unlucky childhood friend, albeit with an air of ruthlessness dropped in despite the setting. How much of Gale has changed by the end of the trilogy? Whereas when you look at Katniss and Peeta, they are totally different people. Honestly, Peeta's arc is arguably more complete and fulfilled than Katniss's is. & yet even though he is an appealing character, a good role model, I don't think that the popularity of the film can rely on Peeta, nor can it rely on the relationship he has with Katniss.

It needs to rely on Katniss, and Katniss only.

Why? Because at the end of the day, Katniss is NOT a character who is defined by which man she is lusting after, or which man is lusting after her. (Bella Swan, I am looking RIGHT AT YOU.) Katniss is defined by her heroism and her instincts for survival. She is strong-willed, resilient, stubborn and can be kind of bratty and awful at times. But who can blame her? She's a piece in a much bigger game, and one of the faults of these books is that Katniss is a pawn who never sees the full chessboard until it's too late.

In the end, I really don't want to start spinning this it as the "Next" Twilight - or really the "Next" Anything. Fundamentally, I understand that "next" in some senses just means "next big pop culture hit." But we, as fans of the novels, should stand strong and insist that it doesn't need anything to blaze a trail for it. I guess all I'm trying to say is that the popularity of The Hunger Games should rest not on how it can be compared in a tangential way to anything that came before it, but on what it makes us think and feel.

I just have a hard time swallowing that we need to present this to pop culture as a romance without letting it rest on its own two feet. Katniss' development as a human and her interaction with everyone around her - not just Peeta and Gale - is what matters. Her connection to Haymitch. Her passion for her family. Her "adoption" of Rue. The lengths she will go to win these games, and how she becomes a person who can. How, despite being used by EVERYONE who crosses her path, she has her own mind and makes decisions that end in both success and tragedy. That's what I want us to be talking about.

(But if I really have to pick, y'all know I'm going with Peeta every day of the week.)