The Hunger Games: Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil
I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not.
Peeta, The Hunger Games, 141.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146.
In spiritual terms, the Capitol in The Hunger Games is symbolic of the satanic mechanism. Here’s why – the satanic mechanism is based on violence, but it’s a violence that leads to a feeling of peace. As I discussed in part 3 of this series, the Capitol desires peace, and achieves a semblance of peace through the violence of the Hunger Games. The citizens of the Capitol unite in their shared desire for the Games, as they happily watch 24 teenagers fight to a bloody death (The Hunger Games, pg 141). Of course, the 24 tributes want to survive the Games, but survival cannot be shared – the Capitol sees to it that only one tribute can survive – so they must compete to the death. It is indeed a satanic, evil, monstrous event.
And, of course, we should fight against such satanic, evil, monstrous events in our world. But fighting evil can be very dangerous because when use the same violent methods as our enemy we risk becoming just like them. The Hunger Games is explicit about this danger to our identity.
Peeta struggles most profoundly with the dangers of fighting the evil of the Hunger Games. Peeta tells Katniss that he wants to fight back against the Capitol, but he also wants to maintain his identity (142). He worries that fighting against the Capitol might change him into a monster. Katniss then asks the key question, “Do you mean you won’t kill anyone?” (142) Peeta responds
No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to … to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.
Katniss responds very practically by telling Peeta to not worry about his identity and just worry “[a]bout staying alive” (142).
This question of identity, violence, and survival is the critical issue of The Hunger Games, and the reason the series is so powerful is that it is the critical issue facing humanity. Like the characters in these novels, we have a fear of death, and we would rather put someone else in the place of death than go through it ourselves. But I think Peeta is on to something very important. In using violent methods to subvert evil, do we become evil ourselves? Just like everyone else who the Capitol throws into the Games, Peeta kills (162) and Katniss kills. Katniss explicitly attempts to subvert the Capitol through revenge (48, 236-7). Which brings up a question – in all of this violence and revenge, do Katniss and Peeta become, as Nietzsche warned, the very monsters they try to defeat?
Near the end of the first book, we discover that the Gamemakers have resurrected the 21 murdered tributes and turned them into “mutations” (333). They are wolf-like monsters that have the human quality of each of the 21 tributes. These human-monsters have one satanic desire that unites them, and that is to kill the remaining tributes.
Now, you may claim that Katniss and Peeta avoided becoming monsters. And, if you want to be very literal about it, you’d be right. But Cato, the other surviving tribute, didn’t literally become a monster, but throughout the book he is portrayed in violently monstrous ways. He’s the one who wanted to find Katniss and kill her in his own way without anyone interfering (217).
In the end of the first book, Katniss and Peeta are the last remaining tributes. It is true that they find a way to avoid killing each other. But their strategy for survival is based on death. They subvert the Capitol’s violence through their own violence, their potential double suicide.
Do Peeta and Katniss avoid becoming monsters? If monsters use violence to achieve their goal, then they have indeed become monsters. They have become the monstrous double of the Capitol. This monstrous doubling of two adversaries through violence is a major theme of The Hunger Games series, and we will explore more as we move into the next two books.
But before we do that, we have one more topic to explore in this first book. It is the possibility of an alternative way of subverting evil. In fact, it’s the only way to subvert evil and avoid the apocalyptic future of The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games Blog - Table of Contents
The Hunger Games Part 1: The Hope for a Better World
The Hunger Games Part 2: The Desire for a Better World
The Hunger Games Part 3: The Desire for Peace
The Hunger Games Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil
The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love
The Hunger Games Part 6: The Fear of Death and the Hope for Life: Katniss and Perpetua
The Casey Anthony Verdict: Is the Devil Dancing?
Emotions have been running high since last week’s acquittal of Casey Anthony in the murder trial of her two year old daughter Caylee Anthony. Many have lived with this case since Caylee’s murder three years ago. The case has been a media sensation for many reasons, one being that Casey Anthony has made for a very good villain. She is portrayed as monster of a human being – a mother who would rather party and hook up with men than care for her daughter. She lied to police and investigators at the beginning of their investigation into Caylee’s whereabouts. Public opinion turned against her as she was seen partying just hours after her daughter went missing.
As the father of a boy who just turned three and another boy soon to turn 5, I understand the extreme emotions felt by many throughout the country when Casey Anthony was acquitted of the murder. But, the facts remain that, for one reason or another, the case against Casey was weak. As John Cloud of Time Magazine states, “Casey Anthony is guilty of many things. She is an enthusiastic liar. She was an indifferent mother. She mooched off her overindulgent parents for years. Even after her daughter went missing, Anthony partied and got a tattoo. But the state of Florida did not make a good case that Anthony murdered her daughter. In acquitting Anthony, the jury made the right call.”
The jury not only made the right call, but it was also a very brave call. They knew the high emotions of the American public riding on this trial. We wanted a guilty verdict so that we could know justice had been done. So, an acquittal meant that, for many of us, justice failed. One prominent television talk show host on a major new network put it like this: “there's something wrong with that. Because Caylee — is dead. And her body decomposed, 15 houses away from where the Anthonys put their head on the pillow every night, every day searching, searching for this little girl. Now I know, I know it is our duty as American citizens to respect the jury system. And I do, believe me I do ... But I know one thing. As the defense sits by and has their champagne toast after that not guilty verdict? Somewhere out there, the devil is dancing tonight.”
I think this commentator is right - the devil is dancing, but for reasons the speaker is blind to. The devil is not so much a red mythological figure personified with horns and a pitchfork. No. The devil is so much more dangerous than that. The devil is symbolic of a way of life that paradoxically leads to chaos and to order. As Mark Heim writes in his book Saved from Sacrifice, “Satan is the sower of discord and also the bringer of order. The devil delights in nothing so much as in instigating conflict among humans” (148).
The devil continues to dance because the seeds of conflict continue to be sown, and those of us on the side of “justice” are not innocent. We sow those seeds. For many of us, justice means retribution, which is a nice word for revenge. The satanically mimetic pull of uniting against a common enemy is in motion. We are thus well ordered in uniting against Anthony for a crime that can’t be proven. We have already begun to unite against a jury which made an honest and brave decision based on the lack of evidence put forward by the state of Florida. They made that decision with great risk, as jurors have even been threatened with murder, one by her co-workers!
We hate Casey and we hate the jury with a mimetically shared and uniting hatred. That hatred blinds us to our own corrupt desires for revenge and violence that we validate in the name of “justice.” And, indeed, that hatred, and that form of justice, is the song that causes the devil to dance.
Job: God, Satan, and the Victim
Adam discusses Job of the Bible. Job challenges much of the wisdom in the Bible that claims good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. For example, see Deuteronomy 6:18, Psalm 1, and Proverbs 3. For a book similar to Job, see Ecclesiastes. Job claims his innocence, while his friends unite in accusation against him. In the end, God sides with Job, the victim. Here we see the evolution in the human understanding of God. God is not with the crowd that unites in accusation against a common enemy; rather, God is on the side of the victim. This is seen ultimately in life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
For more, see Rene Girard's book, "Job: The Victim of His People."