Prompted by having read the prequel novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I recently decided to re-read the Hunger Games novels. First of all, I was curious about the prequel – how can a prequel about the villain of the series tie in? The prequel tells the (love) story of a teenage Coriolanus Snow, who later becomes president (dictator would be the more appropriate term) of Panem. What an odd book to read, because how can you make a novel about an entitled narcissist, who treats people like possessions, possibly compelling? While his rise to patriotism is sometimes interesting, sometimes infuriating, what I found most interesting in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was to see an earlier, much less ‘spectacular’ version of the Hunger Games.

The early incarnation of the games was not the broadcasting sensation that we got to know in the trilogy. During the 10th Hunger Games that we see in the prequel, it was still seen very much as a punishment for the rebellion of the districts against the Capitol, but people despised watching it (if they even could, as most people were too poor to own a TV), for good reasons, because why would anyone want to watch children slaughter each other? Only due to the ideas of a young Snow himself do we slowly see the games evolve into the highly stylized spectacular that we know from the 74th and 75th Hunger Games that Katniss Everdeen has to endure.

Snow learned the power of charisma and how it can benefit a tribute from the young woman he was assigned to mentor in the 10th Hunger Games, and even gains personal stakes in the games as he develops feelings for her (or does he? it’s hard to say if he truly feels anything but his own ego growing). Lucy Gray is certainly a very interesting character, and even more so when re-reading Mockingjay and realizing the implied connections. Up until the very end I was never quite sure if she really loved Snow, or if she played him the entire time. I want to believe the latter.

Reading the prequel made me immediately want to re-read the entire Hunger Games trilogy, because I was curious how the prequel would affect my reading experience. Well, the prequel had actually very little effect on the allover story, as Snow barely appeared in the trilogy. As mentioned before, seeing the evolution of the games was interesting, but allover I have more questions than answers now. How is Katniss related to the Covey? That is heavily implied, since she kinda lives in the same place in District 12, and knows some of their (more specifically Lucy Gray’s) songs. And what the hell happened to Tigris?

Alright, so how was re-reading the trilogy? Since it’s been 12 years since I first read them, it was basically like reading them for the first time. I barely remembered what happened (except for the major plot points). All of these books are incredibly fast and easy to read, at least from a practical perspective. Emotionally, however, they can be a tough nut to crack, and they are full of topics that really make you think about life, the universe and everything.

One of the most obvious themes in the books is propaganda, closely intertwined with populism and polarization. Propaganda means the dissemination of information such as facts, arguments, rumors, half-truths, or lies to influence and shape public opinion, and is very often conveyed through mass media. Children suffering is one of the most commonly used methods to try to evoke empathy for a particular side, as can be seen very often in recent years in various wars. In the Hunger Games, this is evident through the games themselves, which serve as a reminder to the Districts that they’re under full control of the Capitol. They use vastly exaggerated and stylized media broadcasts to get emotional responses, in this case I assume their intent is to incite fear in the citizens to please not start another rebellion. Obviously, the opposite happens, and as we can observe in book 3, the rebellion is in full swing… and not that much better than the Capitol? The rebellion leaders are also avid fans of propaganda, and like to stage Katniss in emotion-invoking situations for their little short films. Sound ridiculous? It’s really not, because it’s basically Instagram. These are all topics that are  present in our own society more than ever, with the curse of social media promising a 24h supply of instant gratification. Just like on Instagram, everyone in this world is competing for the most likes / empathy / support in one way or another, which leads to an increasingly polarizing view of things, and people who fall for this tend to forget that not everything is black and white.

Another aspect I found really fascinating to observe in the books is Katniss’ emotions. We see a pretty vast array of her emotions throughout all of the books, which are unfortunately barely visible in the movies. She deals with trauma, depression, and a lots of complex romantic feelings for the two men in her life, Gale and Peeta. The “love triangle” was perhaps one of the series’ bigger selling points, but having now re-read the books, I have a different approach to this topic. First of all, Katniss doesn’t seem particularly interested in romance throughout most of the trilogy, to the degree that I sometimes found her somewhat asexual and/or aromantic. She clearly has feelings for both Gale and Peeta, but her feelings never seemed particularly sexual to me. I think she struggles a lot with romance and commitment in general. I think losing her father at an early age, and then losing the affection of her mother to her mother’s crippling depression and subsequent constant absence can partially explain this. Not having your emotional needs met by your parents can scar you for life, which is something I recognize in myself from personal experience. It’s so refreshing to have a protagonist like this, because most protagonists that I’ve encountered are not this emotionally complex – they tend to just jump the bones of the hot person.

Katniss, on the other hand, seems stuck in a perpetual struggle with her emotions for both Gale and Peeta, and her little dystopian society no doubt expects her to make a choice for the sake of monogamy. Reading these books from my present point of view, after having spend a couple of years researching (though not practicing) polyamory, it’s just so obvious to me that Katniss is polyamorous. Why decide for one man, if she needs both, as each of them fulfills a different need for her? She very clearly loves both of them in different ways, and is deeply affected by the events that the books throw at them. IMHO a love triangle is just unnecessary here, and I believe that they could have been a wonderful polyamorous family all together. But I don’t think the world is ready for such a thing in mainstream fiction.

Katniss also goes through an array of other, much more severe emotions throughout the series. First and foremost are her trauma of being a tribute in the games, being forced to kill, and witnessing the brutality of the games first hand. Especially the second book deals with her processing her trauma, and it slowly dawns on her how unjust the world that she lives in really is. Then she has to go through all of it again, and it sparks a growing hatred for the Capitol. She keeps defying expectations and social norms in small ways throughout the games and in her role as victor, which eventually leads to her becoming a symbol for the rebellion in the the final book (and the poster girl for the rebellion’s propaganda shots).

The story comes full circle in the finale of the third book, when her sister is killed in a bombing. The sister whose live she saved by volunteering as a tribute in the first book, who was the catalyst for Katniss’ entire story. After she dies, Katniss falls in a very, very deep depression, probably very similar to what her mother went through after Katniss’ father died. Eventually though, Katniss finds some kind of peace in the epilogue with the help Peeta, who had a lot of trauma and abuse to process himself.

Altogether, the Hunger Games trilogy conveys messages of propaganda, populism and politics through the power of media. It was definitely an interesting re-read in our continually polarized world, and gave me a lot more food for thought than I expected.