to wonder how you would react if The Hunger Games were a real concept?

[FreyaFridays]

Sometime in the future, post a semi-apocalyptic breakdown of the infrastructure of the UK, London (?) is now the rich Capitol, whereas the surrounding land is broken up into Districts forced to reap two children to participate in The Hunger Games each year. How do you think you personally would react? What kind of person do you reckon you'd be if the UK were Panem?

I ask, because I'm re-reading the novels at the moment, and studying the first one with some of my KS3s at school, therefore it's been playing on my mind a lot. We've also talked in the staff room about how handy it would be to have a school-wide Hunger Games instead of a sports day each year, possibly more planning involved, but a good way to eliminate some of the buggers (joking, promise).

Watch battle royale . That's more what your looking for for your school!

I too was going to say Battle Royale, which is presumably where the concept came from.

Ha ha, yes, someone else at school did suggest Battle Royale, though we figured that, 1. Filling in the risk assessment for such a trip would be quite laborious, and 2. We thought some parents would be unreasonable about paying for this school trip. And the pupil premium would definitely not be enough to subsidise these children, therefore they'd all have to miss out on Battle Royale. Shame.

The concept came from the story of the Minotaur. Athens was required by King Minos to send 14 girls and boys as a tribute to be sent into the Labyrinth and sacrificed to the Minotaur as punishment for the death of his son, Androgeos, who was murdered in Athens. Theseus volunteered to go with the intention of killing the beast and ending the tributes.

Battle Royale is a totally different tale. The only similarity is young people being killed, which isn't an uncommon concept. The idea of publicising deaths in order to create widespread fear isn't uncommon either - in China they televise interviews with prisoners before their executions, in other countries they'll settle for a public hanging.

I don't consider it a massively far-fetched idea. The idea of televising the execution of prisoners is already a reality. It won't be long for some country decides to make it into a game show of sorts. I doubt there will ever be a sanctioned murder of innocents in retribution for someone else's crime, but the glorification of the murder of 'bad' people or prisoners, sure. Could happen.

I haven't read the books, but I also have wondered if, in a world where reality TV is getting more extreme, it's not totally far-fetched. I bet people would watch it. Not me, but a lot of people would.

I think a lot more people would decide to either stop having children altogether or breed like crazy to ensure at least some of your kids survive. Katniss herself says she will never have kids (in one of the books) because she wouldn't be able to face the fear year on year of losing them in such a horrific way. I also wonder if it would change society's perception of children and childhood. I can imagine some people keeping an emotional distance from their kids, and life being completely devalued. How could you love a child you knew might be doomed?

couldn't you run a D&D scenario with everyone actually having a character and you the DM?

You could then kill them off without being arrested.

ApparentlyKillingPeopleIsFrownedOnTiggaxx

"I can imagine some people keeping an emotional distance from their kids, and life being completely devalued. How could you love a child you knew might be doomed?"
Well, it's a pretty recent assumption by parents that all their children will survive into adulthood - just the last couple of generations really. Maybe this is why Victorian parents (and before) had that 'emotional distance'. And large families to ensure some made it to adulthood.

It's already in some ways analogous to developed vs developing world, I think. If you're fortunate to be born in a developed nation, where some of us think nothing of spending £50+ on a haircut, it's easy to forget that in some developing nations, people eke out a subsistence living, watching their daughters starve and worse and their sons trained as soldiers before they've reached puberty. We send in UN peacekeepers to contain situations that are partly a result of the interference of developed nations, while ongoing foreign policy and trade agreements keep the rich, rich, and the poor, poor.

And then we beam it to everyone's TV on round-the-clock news channels.

The Hunger Games mixes Theseus plus "Battle Royale" plus "Series 7: The Contenders".

I think the scenario is artificial and practically there would be revolution if children were randomly offered up to be killed to get meagre rations for good food for your district when it would be quite clear from the technology that beams the TV programmes that there is immense wealth elsewhere in the country being denied 99% of the populace.

I think one thing that would happen is that we would all be making our children have lessons in various kinds of fighting, just in case.
I can imagine the AIBU threads - 'AIBU to not make my dd go to combat classes because she really hates it and it costs a lot of money?' and all the replies, 'Yes, YABVU. You'd never forgive yourself if she got selected and didn't stand a chance because you hadn't been bothered to make her learn some basic fighting skills.'
And then someone else would point out that statistically, more kids were killed every year in training accidents than in the actual games, but no-one would take any notice, because human beings in general are bad at assessing risk.

Dont forget The Running Man which is a similar concept but with Arnie.

As an idea I don't think we're really that far from it - I'm sure the Daily Mail would be open to the idea of sending the children of 'feckless benefit scroungers' into an arena to die for their entertainment.

I am being extremely facetious here, but imagine it for elderly people who have expressed a desire for euthenasia but been denied the choice?

I think I would be on the first boat to France!

Good points NeverFinish...
I don't think it was too far fetched either, that's what made it so gripping almost, was how relevant it is even to our society, right now.

I don't think people's attitudes to their own children would change at all, I just think there would be an element of disengaging from other children apart from family/very close friends. It would be similar to child deaths now - while intellectually you know a small proportion of children will die of abuse/cancer and other illnesses/road traffic, you just hope it won't be your own. I think this is why the book is so powerful - it really isn't a million miles away from our own society.

I read something when the film came out that was similar to what NeverFinishWhatYouStarted says - basically we in the West are the capitol, and thousands of children in the third world districts are dying for our consumerism. It's a sobering thought. That's why I think it's actually quite insulting to say we would love our children less or deliberately have more - I don't think a mother in Ethiopia would be any less upset if her child died than I would.

Incidentally it's also a fallacy to say that historically people were less loving towards their children because they were more likely to die. The Victorian's in particular were VERY into the idea of childhood and basically invented the modern concept of it (if only for middle and upper class children) - they were responsible for drawing up the laws that limited child working hours, made it compulsory to go to school, started the toys/entertainment industry and much more.

Even before then, when you look at the paintings/poems/epitaphs on childrens' gravestones it is obvious that people did love their children and mourn them when they died - maybe not in exactly the same way we do now but not necessarily less.

Sorry if this has turned into a bit of a rant!

Excellent rant, Silvermantella

I think Divergent is better than the Hunger Games, which always struck me as a rip off of various 1980s sci-fi films and is irritatingly repetitive. Or what about Gone by Michael Grant? What would children do if all the adults and over 14s were suddenly removed from society? If you are going for a dystopian teen novel there are better ones...

Really? Divergent is a more interesting idea but it's not half as well written.

And compared to Gone, Divergent is a literary masterpiece.

I have nothing intelligent to add. But marking my place because THIS kind of discussion/debate drew me to Mumsnet.

Also agree that this is an excellent rant, Silvermantella. I intend to use some of what you've written as discussion points for my higher ability pupils.

thank you (bows modestly). I think we should encourage discussion of young adult books that do touch on social issues, rather than sparkly vampires.

I'm sure I read the author of Hunger Games thought of the plot when flicking through TV channels with a talent show on one side and then a documentary on child soldiers on another.

actually, iammrsnesbitt, I've just remembered two fairly recent reality programmes featuring kids/teenagers, one where they go to a hardcore Fat Camp in America to lose weight, and another where really badly behaved teens went to stay with very hardcore disciplinarians (again in US, I think). So maybe not killing them, but still unpleasant in terms of humiliating and punishing children for entertainment.