Pedantry: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Trigger Warnings: Starvation
(Also, am new to the trigger warning system, so sorry if I've left out anything. Do tell me in the comments.)

I'm segregating the really pointlessly pedantic remarks of the book in their own posts so the main ones don't get even more rambly than they are already. So here it is:



I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots. Supple leather that has moulded to my feet. I put on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid into a cap, and grab my forage bag. (p.4)

I'm really having trouble getting over this: she slides into her boots before putting on her trousers (p. 4). I find this simply mind boggling. I'm not sure I'm being that literal about the above passage when I walk away with this impression. I just don't understand why.

I am aware that it is physically possible (if usually awkward) and there exist trousers that facilitate this.
But I'm afraid this threw me completely. I found it very difficult to take Collins seriously at that sentence and it threw me so much that I put down the book for a good half a day before I could resume reading. And still, as I type this, this detail just strains my faith in the narrative as a construct.


But it crossed my mind that there might be something in the rubbish bins, and those were fair game. Perhaps a bone at the butcher's or rotted vegetables at the grocer's, something no one but my family was desperate enough to eat. (p.35)

Again, I found the description of what she hopes to find in the bins very jarring. One can put it down to a flawed narrator and argue that she sees the possibility of bones and rotten vegetables because of having grown up in comparatively more fortunate circumstances in which she had meat to eat. Still, it still takes away from the feeling that the District 12 is particularly destitute, which the rest of the chapter is trying to convince one of with tight government controls, a lack of resources and the black market.

There isn't great detail about the butchers, obviously, but I can't help but feel it's a mark of Western Prosperity to describe an impoverished neighbourhood where the butcher just throws away bones, as opposed to selling them for the basis of soup or stock. Likewise with the grocer's. The setting is characterised by profound scarcity, and it just makes little sense that vegetables would be allowed to rot and be thrown away in the first place.

I suppose part of what I'm lamenting is that the bins are simply empty and we can't have Katniss go through them and realise the extent of scarcity in the District and how no one can afford to throw food away (or at least not merchants who serve the wealthier townspeople, the latter can probably afford it but there is probably an existing hierarchy of scavengers, who they themselves may operate businesses to sell their found scraps to those beneath).


Suddenly a voice was screaming at me and I looked up to see the baker's wife, telling me to move on and did I want her to call the Peacekeepers... (p.35)

I found it rather irritating that she is described as the baker's wife (p.35), though there seems to be no clear distinction between the two in the running of the bakery as described. Perhaps this is to reflect the archaic gender ideals of the setting, but it doesn't stop rubbing me the wrong way and again, given how starkly black and white the book has been so far, I'm not sure it'll have time to tackle sexism what with the more overt Capitol to overthrow.

Even more pedantically, I noticed that Katniss' mother whilst described as running an apothecary, is never said to be an apothecary. I know the distinction is almost entirely semantic, but with the mayor being the mayor and Madge being the mayor's daughter, with Peeta being the baker's song... it just sits poorly with me.


The reaping system is unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve. That year, your name is entered once. At thirteen, twice. And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen, the final day of eligibility, when your name goes into the pool seven times. That's true of every citizen in all the twelve districts in the entire country of Panem.
But here's the catch. Say you are poor and starving, as we were. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meagre year's supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each of your family members as well. So, at the age of tweleve, I had my name entered four times. Once because I had to, and three times for tesserae for grain and oil for myself, Prim and my mother. In fact, every year I have needed to do this. (p.15)

Sorry for the long quote, I'm just not sure I can explain that more succinctly.

Finally, why are they called The Hunger Games?

I sounds good (and nicely threatening), I suppose, but the propaganda from the state is that they are the equivalent of extreme Olympics. They are treated as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the other (p.22) for glory and a life of fame and leisure. Thus it makes very little sense why they would chose such an ominous name.

The game itself has little to do with hunger. It's in the text that they competition isn't about why starves to death (because it's dull) and they are meant to fight with the provided (or improvised) weapons.
Now, I'm forming a vague theory that it's related to the fact that you get a stippend of grain and oil if you enter your name more times, but it still doesn't quite sound right since I'm assuming the state would try to spin that as benevolence as opposed to injustice.

It's certainly not a game of hunger, but one argue they're playing to stop hunger?

The mystery of the name is distracting me from the book itself, but there's a reason why this is going on the pedantry page....