No Alternative to the Hunger Games

***SPOILER ALERT: The Hunger Games trilogy (novels, not the movie) is discussed below.***

WARNING: Please do not steal my words or thoughts without crediting/citing me. Thank you.

After reading The Hunger Games trilogy and discussing the end of it with a friend, I thought I might attempt to write an alternate ending. This friend was deeply disappointed with the actual ending, feeling that the tone of the trilogy had shifted, causing our strong and heroic Katniss Everdeen to wither into a sobbing, weak, and pathetic not-so-hero. While I felt this ending was fitting to the trilogy, I thought an alternate ending could fix the problem that my friend was having with it. However, I have come to the conclusion that the trilogy ended as it should have, and that it therefore should not be tampered with.

During my young adulthood, I disliked happy endings in fiction, for they rarely reflect reality and render otherwise moving tales stagnant. However, now in my old age (early 30’s), I have found myself craving happy endings, for fiction is an escape from harsh and painful reality. But the fact is, happy endings don’t have the effect of tragic ones; they don’t stay with you – they don’t forever change you as tragic endings can. “They lived happily ever after” is idealistic, optimistic, hopeful, happy, and unattainable. “They died tragically” and “They tragically fell from grace and heroism” can motivate human brains/minds to think, change, grow, and flourish.

The Hunger Games trilogy does not have a purely happy ending, nor does it have a purely tragic one. It is bittersweet – simultaneously deeply and painfully tragic, and deeply and genuinely blissful. Katniss lost so much throughout the books, yet she appeared to be unbreakable. However, with each struggle, she cracked, until the ultimate destruction of her spirit and fire, fueled by the murder of her little sister Prim, Prim was the source of her fire, the source of her Mockingjay wings, and the source of her drive to fight and to live. Without Prim, she could never be the Katniss that she had been – her flame was gone. However, her ability to survive and love remained, kindled by Peeta, "the boy with the bread." The rebellion was successful; because of Katniss, who had the good judgment (because this is fiction) to kill the evil President Coin, the country of Panem could live up to its name and nourish its people with the metaphoric bread of freedom. Katniss, Peeta, and their children could live happily ever after, with her tragically extinguished but happily though more weakly rekindled flame.

President Snow was never able to extinguish Katniss, "the girl that was on fire." When President Coin was introduced, her eyes were described as the color of slush, which led me to believe she was a watered down version of Snow. However, in the end it became clear that she was in fact, the waterlogged version of Snow – Snow made heavier with water, finally able to extinguish the girl that was on fire by extinguishing Prim, the source of Katniss’s flame. Snow attempted to destroy Katniss by hijacking Peeta, her biggest fan, and turning him into a weapon programmed to kill her, but Coin took this concept further. Not only did she (unsuccessfully) attempt to use the hijacked Peeta to kill Katniss once she was no longer useful to Coin, but she used Katniss’s best friend Gale’s idea in her murder of Prim, and she thus used two of the most important people in Katniss’s life as weapons against her. Where Snow’s evil plans failed, Coin’s psychopathically evil plan succeeded to the extent that she destroyed the fiery essence of Katniss. Unfortunately for Coin, however, Katniss remained intact long enough to rightfully kill Coin.

Coin did not hunger for freedom for all; she only hungered for power, as her monetary name suggests, since money is power. Her decision to have another Hunger Games with Capitol children as revenge demonstrates that she and Snow are two sides of the same coin, and clearly elucidates that she would perpetuate Snow’s tyranny, rendering the revolution utterly pointless since they would undoubtedly revert to their old, oppressive ways. Katniss agreed to this Hunger Games proposal, allegedly for Prim’s sake, but that didn’t make any sense, since Prim would certainly never want such a thing. I’m still somewhat unsure of whether Coin or Snow killed Prim and the Capitol children, but either way, killing more children simply couldn’t improve the situation. This was blind revenge gone too far. Katniss’s obsession with seeking vengeance on Snow had bloomed like Snow's rancid rose into something horrible. Driven by revenge, revenge on the innocent children of what might be the wrong people, Katniss had become her own enemy, the Capitol. She no longer saw who the real enemy was. Katniss came to her senses when she killed Coin, which is of course ironic since she was exonerated via insanity. She killed Coin partially as revenge for Prim’s murder since Coin was the most likely culprit; however since the culprit remains unclear, her true motivation was to defeat the real enemy: the oppressive Capitol that Coin presided over. Katniss realized that it didn’t matter who killed Prim, for revenge on her murderer would not provide a purpose to her death or all the others who died for the rebellion, but ending oppression and allowing for a true revolution would. Coin’s death marked the end of oppression, and the end of the Hunger Games. Obviously, Snow also had to die, even though his death alone would not have ended the oppressive era as Coin’s death did. Regardless of whether Snow killed Prim or not, he oppressed, killed, and pimped so many people for so long. He allowed the Hunger Games to go on. I’m glad he died, but I wish there had been a way for Katniss to do the honors. Come to think of it, perhaps she did cause his death. He died after Katniss killed Coin, either by choking on his bloody laughter or by the ensuing mob, both of which were caused by her assassination of Coin. Therefore, Katniss did kill Snow, albeit indirectly. Woohoo.

Regarding my uncertainty about who killed Prim via the two part exploding silver parachutes deployed from the Capitol hovercraft, I am leaning toward Coin and the rebels. I remain unsure, though, because if it really was Plutarch and Coin, one would think that rebel medics wouldn't go to help the injured children, and Capitol medics would, however, the reverse is true. I imagine Coin could have been willing to sacrifice some medics, particularly since Prim was among them, to make Snow look even more horrible, in case recklessly killing Capitol children wasn’t enough to drive a wedge between the Capitol citizens and Snow, and thus quickly ending the war. Snow claimed that he could not be behind the silver parachute murders because there would be no purpose for him to kill those children, however, if the real target was Katniss the Mockingjay, symbolic leader of the rebellion, there would certainly be sufficient purpose from his evil perspective, because Snow killing Katniss could have quickly ended the rebellion with the Capitol as victor, and he wanted to kill her anyway. Since the compassionate people who went to help the children injured by the first set of explosions were part of the target, and since Katniss and Prim are compassionate, Katniss (or Katniss via Prim) is clearly the intended target of the exploding silver parachutes, and therefore both Snow and Coin could be culpable since they both wanted Katniss dead or destroyed. The fact that the trap utilized the concept that Gale described suggests that it was Coin and the rebels, however, Gale thinks like the enemy to create his traps, which suggests that it could have been Snow. Snow’s amusement at Katniss’s assassination of Coin suggests that he was not the perpetrator, amused by the fair and just assassination of his enemy; however, it could also indicate his joy at successfully manipulating Katniss to wrongly believe that Coin was the culprit. The latter seems more in line with Snow’s character, particularly Snow’s hijacking of Peeta, and if that is the case, then the joke is on Snow, since Katniss killed Coin for the sake of the revolution and not (as much) for revenge. Despite all of my confusion and evidence on both sides, I think the book (or I suppose its author) expects us to believe that Coin killed Prim.

Getting back to the trilogy’s ending, Katniss’s “happily ever after” could only happen with Peeta. I don’t believe she was ever in love with Gale, though she obviously loved him dearly. Throughout the trilogy, she fell in love with Peeta while growing apart from Gale. Perhaps the shared experiences with Peeta and lack thereof with Gale contributed to this, as people sometimes do grow together and apart with shared and unshared life-changing experiences such as three Hunger Games, or three wars, but of which happened, since the Hunger Games are partially controlled wars. Gale’s unintentional hand in killing Prim sealed his separation from Katniss, because aside from the obvious (that Katniss always cared more about Prim than herself), it crystallized the fact that Gale lacks compassion, as demonstrated by his concept that was behind the trap that killed Prim, which takes advantage of human compassion. Peeta, on the other hand, is the essence of compassion. Through two Hunger Games and a revolutionary war, he managed to avoid intentionally killing anyone (unless I’m remembering wrong). Furthermore, Peeta brought Katniss back to life twice: after her father died and after Prim died. He gave her the bread that gave her the hope and therefore the ability to survive and he planted the primrose bushes to give her hope once again, that she could survive. Thus, Gale’s bomb concept killed Prim, whereas Peeta salvaged Prim’s spirit when he planted the primrose bushes for Katniss. Gale still had an essential role in her life, since he salvaged her family’s past and her bow and arrows. Peeta’s primrose bushes and Gale’s bow saving are what revived and rekindled Katniss and returned her to herself, at least to the extent that was possible.

Katniss never wanted children because she didn’t want them to fallow in her footsteps in the Hunger Games, but the Hunger Games no longer existed, so her children could play in the meadow of freedom and safety as the lullaby she sang to a dying Rue promised, and that was all Katniss ever wanted. Even this is marred with tragedy, in that the happy meadow lies above the mass grave of the fallen citizens of Katniss’s home, a place where I think a memorial garden might have been a nice gesture. In the end, Katniss is as happy as she could be, amidst the tragic circumstances.

If I were to write an alternate ending, Prim would have to not die, for without Prim, Katniss has to be transformed as she is at the end of the trilogy. But if Prim hadn’t died, Katniss would not have had the fuel to kill Coin, so perhaps in my alternate ending, Katniss could be fueled with the desire to make Prim’s death meaningful beyond Coin’s assassination and the successful end of the rebellion. I had incorrectly predicted while reading the trilogy that Katniss Everdeen, as her last name suggests (Everdeen = ever + dean = always leads), would become the leader of the new, post-rebellion country. (Apparently, I was only correct to the extent that she was the leader of the rebellion as the Mockingjay). Therefore, in my alternate ending that I’m not writing, Katniss would become the democratically elected president of Panem, where she would ensure that oppression would become a thing of the past. Of course, this does happen in the trilogy, except with President Paylor rather than President Everdeen, so my ending would simply maintain Katniss as the still-unbreakable hero.

My alternate ending would still be bittersweet. Even though I would still have Katniss and Peeta together with their kids, Katniss could never be happy as President. Presidents live in the spotlight, they perform for the camera, and some are puppets of other political leaders or movements. Her marriage to Peeta would be in the spotlight too, and even after her time as president ends, for the rest of her life, she and her family would remain highlighted in the public eye, always performing for the cameras. She would never feel that her love or her life were real, because there would always be an element of performance, of fakeness. In the real ending, there are no cameras, and there is no spotlight – there is no reality show. There is only reality. She believes her life is how it would have been if there had been no Hunger Games, and if she were president, she could never have that luxury. And that is why the end cannot be altered. It is perfect, because Katniss is happy, even if relatively flameless, weak, and irreversibly broken. Furthermore, she did give Prim’s death meaning beyond the end of oppression in that she lived a happy and free life; her life is not only free from oppression, but it is free of the puppet strings wielded by people in power.

As I wrote this blog posting, the true meaning of Katniss Everdeen’s last name materialized in my brain. Aside from indicating her role as leader of the rebellion, it also signifies the role her father played throughout her life, since her last name came from her father, as last names often do. Her father, in his life and after his death, has educated and guided her through every struggle she has faced. He would always be with her.

This strengthens my belief that the book ended as it should, given that we make a few assumptions about Katniss’s family’s future. In the end, Katniss states that she does still have her fire, fueled now by the hope that Peeta brings and by the desire to give meaning and purpose to the deaths of Prim and all the others who died for the freedom of Panem. Their is evidence for Katniss's new fire; she returned to her hunting ways and I choose to assume that she is proud of her part in history, though she is plagued by PTSD. I incorrectly predicted sometime during the first book that what we are reading is Katniss telling her children about her experiences long after the successful rebellion. I was correct in my predictions that there would be a rebellion, that it would be successful, and that she would have children since the only reason she insisted that she didn’t want children was because of the Hunger Games. It is still possible that Katniss could tell her children of her experiences and the crucial part she and their father played in the revolution that gave them freedom, since the trilogy ends with the children still rather young. Thus, I choose to believe in a post-epilogue where she will tell her children, and that the books are that history lesson. I also choose to believe that she teaches her children to hunt as well, so her father’s teachings will be passed from generation to generation, forever guiding, forever educating, and forever leading.