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).

I think I saw adverts for those progs silvermantella - goes to show we aren't as far off from a real-life Hunger Games as people like to think.

As long as we're not like the society in Unwind....

Tunip Unwind gave me the shivers in a way the Hunger Games never did.

And it would be a fascinating book to study with a top-end ability class of teens. I bet the reactions you'd get from them would be amazing.

The concept is original and brilliant, and well written enough that it really did give me pause.

It stands above both Divergent and The Hunger Games for me, because it avoids the dystopian genre-killer of parental instinct, of a gut 'that's bad - where's the good?'

It's easy to look at your own child and say 'no, never,' but if you look at the numbers of people who neglect/abuse etc, it's not that big a step on.

If it became a societal norm, I can see people going for it. Horrifying thought, but it's couched so cleverly - the religious groups, the marketing, the laws - that it just might work.

'You didn't want that child anyway, Mr & Mrs Bloggs, and they're trouble, you say...? Okay, hand them over. It won't hurt them at all, and thank you for helping a dozen other children to live!' Affecting stuff.

Ginny - yes, exactly.
'It's the best thing for him. After all, it's not like he's going to die - every part of him will still be alive. He's clearly very troubled and unhappy and by having him unwound you'll save him from years of suffering.'

Another good one is Feed by M.T.Andersen, where you have the internet beamed directly into your brain.

I currently have no children of my own, so if this went in tomorrow I wouldn't be immediately at risk of watching my child be picked. I do, however, have a niece and nephew I'm incredibly fond of.

So I would join the inevitable demonstrations, and would probably end up arrested and/or killed.

As far as having children - I would continue trying - but I imagine there would be no fertility clinics for we District dwellers so I'd have to resign myself to my fate. I would like to think I would continue to fight against it, but fear and starvation would surely break even the hardiest of freedom fighters. Especially if a community is punished for the 'wrong-doings' of the individual, as was the case in the book. I don't know if I could watch other people go hungry and know I was partly to blame.

I have now added the Unwound book to my Amazon shopping basket... Sorry bank balance!

I found the Gone books particularly harrowing to read just because, the situation aside, the reactions from the various kids were horribly 'justified' by the things happening to them.

The idea of taking children for sacrifice or tribute was always horrible to consider before I had kids and now its intolerable. My two are under 5 so I would have another 7 and 10 years with them before they reached the age for tributes in the Hunger Games. I don't know what I would do with that time besides count it down and live in terror.

I love Silvermantellas "rant", both for the modern comparisons of we=The Capitol 3rd world countries=the Districts and for the comments about historical love of ones own children. You hear things about child sacrifice by the Aztecs and children of Sparta being left on hillsides to die or survive and prove their worth and you remember it because of the abhorrence of children being treated like this that you can forget that actually parents did love their children throughout the millennia. I'm a history nerd and I forget it!

Yes, Unwind - shivers

Will add 'Feed' to the to-read pile!

TBH, part of my critique of Hunger Games was that the mandatory 1st Person narrative limited the world-build so much. There's so much potential for a real tour-de-force in the olde Victors, and yet we're stuck with Katniss sulking all the damn time.

I'm hoping the films expand, since they've split Mockingjay in two, but that would make an interesting topic for discussion. Background for the older victors and why they (eventually) do what they do.

Haymitch Abernathy must be the most underutilized brilliant character, ever.

Silver - train them.

You'd have to. Train them - and failing that, teach them to jump off the platform at the start of the Games.

What gets me most is the lack of Volunteers. How many would really have seen their younger sister go, and not try?

The lack of Volunteers makes sense to me. It's all very well thinking 'I'd totally volunteer for my little sister', but in the actual moment, having watched people from your District die in hideous gruesome ways, the act of turning intention into action might very well not materialise. Especially if you're not Katniss, and don't have a Gale to provide for your family in your absence. I think a lot of people would freeze on the spot, even if they wanted to volunteer. Well, except the Career Districts - there were more volunteers there, weren't there? Kids who had trained, and thought they had a chance of winning would put themselves forward, whereas kids like Katniss and Gale wouldn't.

I sort of agree and disagree with you ginnybag - Whilst I am semi-desperate to know more about Haymitch and the other victors, I quite like the way the books were Katniss-centred. I enjoyed being caught up in her opinions, her emotions, and her stubborn naivety. It made the book much more personal, for me, but it did leave a lot of gaps where I would have liked to know more. Gaps I only really noticed when I re-read the books and thought/talked about them.

Frettchen - I guess I could be viewing the Volunteer thing from my own perspective. There's a chunky age-gap between me and my siblings that's meant I've always had a slightly parental take on them. In that, Katniss' actions make perfect sense to me.

And, yes, the books were both better and worse on re-read. I just think there must be some fantastic background there with Cinna/Haymitch/Finnick/Johanna etc - and we'll never know it. Such a shame!

Stopping this kind of nightmare is why every adult has a duty to go out and vote at every UK General Election.

WRT volunteering I was surprised when Gale didn't volunteer to go with Katniss.

Gale had to stay behind and look after her family and he trusted her to get through it alive or at least to do her very best. He said in the 3rd book "that's what I had going for me: looking after your family" (paraphrased as I can't fully remember). Like Frettchen said, Katniss could volunteer knowing that Gale was there to provide for her family in her absence.

Oh bloody hell guys, don't you know anything?

Suzanne Collins was watching a Sleb-get-me-out-of-here programme one night & was channel flipping between that & the news, a war zone feature. And the HG idea had its genesis in the blurry lines between violence & entertainment that she was seeing. She wasn't copying any other mythical world. Or maybe she's lying, but that's how she said she got inspired & it rings true.

We've read some of her other books (good imho). She was a children's author long before she thought of the HG.

HG's largely a political treatise, in my mind. Remember that there are huge inequalities between districts, so I can't say how I'd react without knowing which district I was in. If District 13 I don't think I'd be noble for anyone but maybe my children; those conditions were meant to make people selfish.

Gale couldn't volunteer to go with Katniss - he loves her and only one person comes back out of the arena. And he promised to look after her family.

Im very much a Peeta fan though. Hes adorable.

Volunteering for siblings isnt that simple really - look at Rue's siblings who were all too young, and Thresh only had a sister who obviously couldn't replace him.

I always wondered if people could volunteer to replace volunteers - imagine how long reaping would go on for wealthier districts! 'I volunteer', 'no I volunteer' etc. Is there a limit on how many volunteers can put themselves forward?

'She was a children's author long before she thought of the HG.'

Indeed. She was a writer for Clifford The Big Red Dog among other things....

iammrsnesbitt I wondered that as well. Perhaps in disctricts one and two they only put the volunteers name in the lottery, but I like your scenario

With regards to the sibling volunteers: look at the 75th reaping when a brother and sister were both selected to take part.

Random thought, I felt that the film really showcased the older tributes very well. In my head I imagined these adults, but seeing them on screen, especially the wonderfully heart breaking Mags, was great. Really showed how some of them were really intimidating to the teenagers like Brutus and Enobaria, and others were older and more wasted, like the morphling addicts.