The Hunger Games (novel)/Fridge: Difference between revisions

 

== Fridge Logic ==

* Why are all the Careers portrayed as amoral psychopaths? If they could choose to become Careers then it makes a bit more sense, but they can't -- the novel explicitly states that they're ''raised from birth'', meaning that there should be zero correlation with personality. Furthermore, even though districts 1, 2, and 4 are a bit better off than the others, raising someone like a Career requires a huge investment from the community, and what they're doing could actually be considered noble, in a way -- if they're not volunteering for the sake of killing people, then they're either doing it to try and supply their district with food, or to save some poor kid who doesn't stand a chance.

** Not necessarily. Finnick and Annie (and Mags, too) were Careers and were shown to be sympathetic characters. And by "raised from birth" they probably meant [[Conditioned to Accept Horror]].

**** ^They're not trained specifically to ''kill'' but to put on a show for the cameras.^ This would make sense if it was the Capitol training them, since they don't care who wins as long as its entertaining, but it's the districts doing the training. The career districts want to win the Games for the fame and the food, so you would think that they are training their tributes to kill. Of course, with the way the Games work, there is quite a bit of overlap between winning and entertaining...

** 1) Because we see them through Katniss's eyes. 2) It's also an image thing. They wouldn't want to be seen having a weak moment while on camera or while one of their opponents was watching. Doubtless they go back to behaving like somewhat rational human beings once the Games are over.

* Ranged weapons are [[Game Breaker|Game Breakers]]. Why are none of the Careers trained in them other than Clove and Glimmer? They're clearly well-trained in close combat, which is pointless because the Hunger Games aren't one-on-one combat -- survival is more important than brute strength, and close combat is much more dangerous, wears you down, etc. All the Careers need to be trained in are ranged weapons, stealth, and survival skills. So why do almost all the ones we see only use one, at most?

** Considering that the arenas can contain almost any environment on earth, imagining training exclusively with a bow and arrow, only to be dumped in a place like a jungle or a swamp where visibility is zero to none. True, stealth and survival skills are still important, but a few days spent training with a particular weapon could easily prove to be wasted time if the wrong arena pops up.

*** That doesn't really seem to be the case. We don't really know what was going on in districts 1 and 2 which is where the careers came from. In 3 they did electronics. 4 they used tridents (for some stupid reason) and spears to fish.

***** District 1 is luxury goods, so there's not going to be a whole lot of physical activity involved in jeweling or lace making, and ''ostensibly'', District 2 is the stone/masonry District, but it's also where Peacekeepers are trained and recruited and Panem's military and weapons hub after the Dark Days, so the children from District 2, aside from most of them probably being relatively strong and fit, would have at least some weapons training.

** In the movie, Cato, who's mainly a sword user, uses Glimmer's bow without any issues. I would think that all the Careers can use a variety of weapons, but chose their favorite/best weapon from the supplies after the bloodbath was over.

** A very bow-centric Hunger Games would be much less entertaining than one that centers on hand to hand combat. So while the Capitol would look the other way when Careers trained with swords, spears, throwing knives, and so forth, they would disallow extensive training with bows and other very long ranged weapons, to prevent the games from becoming a shooting match.

*** My apologies, reverse media consumption error *ie, I saw the movie before reading the book).

 

* Mags volunteered for Annie because she was up in her years anyway, and Finnick's protection over Katniss' pregnancy would be from all those capitol lovers, right?

** {{spoiler|Until Mockingjay mentions they had a son. Given in Mockingjay Annie came back merely 7 weeks after she last saw Finnick, that easily puts her in the 9-15 week stage of pregnancy. }}

*** To expand on this, notice that in ''Catching Fire,'' the Victors go out of their way in the pre-Games interviews to humanize themselves to the audiences and make it as difficult as possible for them to be seen as fictional characters as opposed to real people.

*** Well, if you think about it, the symbolism in the books is quite clear. We are from the capitol. What do you think the US or Europe looks like to people from poor country's? Sure, they have rich people everywhere (winners). But where is the place where half of the food gets thrown away? [[[Humans Are Bastards]] right...]

* In Katniss and Gale's first scene together, Gale shows up with a loaf of bread (symbolizing Peeta) that has an arrow (symbolizing Katniss) stuck to it. Make of that what you will.

** Don't forget all the times that fire and bread are alluded to in one scene. The bread scene when Katniss was eleven and the wedding rites of District 12 are two significant ones.

**** I'd say that Peeta and Cinna manipulated everyone else to view Katniss as something she wasn't. It was all about what people wanted to see in Katniss, instead of who she actually was. Point still stands.