When the Hunger Games Failed

[Anonymous No.10291800]

I can pinpoint the exact moment that the Hunger Games books failed and the story became garbage.

I can overlook many amateurish things done in the books. That the first book especially, the second somewhat, treat people who aren't the absolute main characters like they don't even exist, they're just a 'crowd' or 'careers' or 'people' with not even the slightest indication they might be real.

The last book, Mockinjay, finally fixes this and decides to give names to some minors.

I can forgive the glacial plot. Where Dan Simmons could have fix two or maybe all three of the hunger games books into a single action packed novel, and probably added fight scenes on top of it, because he's that good.

I could forgive the blatant female pandering 'Katniss gets to sort of have two dudes, but it's not her fault! She was just trying to save lives, she HAD to pretend to love Peeta in the first book!"

Giving her moral grounds, to basically have more than one dude. Fair enough. A guys book is the same in reverse in a sense. This was a dude-hero book with the dude being a chick. Cool cool.

Story still wasn't bad, was still enjoyable.

I can forgive the endless flashbacks to tell stories in the middle of the actual present day action - something I'm not usually very fond of, but the writing is good enough I can forgive it.

I don't even MIND present tense, or mixed with first person. I actually like present tense. First person, well, is neither here nor there.

I can even forgive the fact that the first person blends so seamlessly with the dialogue that at times I don't know if I'm reading dialogue or Katniss's inner dialogue, until I have to retrace my eyes to see if there are quotations marks to see if she's talking to someone or not. No.

I can forgive ALL of that.

It's all the way around 80-90% towards the end of the third Hunger Games book, Mockingjay, when the books completely destroys itself and any chance it had to be a good story, which up to that point it was.

When Katniss shot an innocent woman in the face after exiting the sewers. I no longer cared about her, or the rest of the story. Period. It was severely out of character, arbitrary, barely touched upon, and was a foreshadowing of how the rest of plot shortly after that right until the words 'the end' were going to utterly ruin everything set up in the book and destroy what would have been an amazing story. I can pinpoint the exact moment that the Hunger Games books failed and the story became garbage.

I can overlook many amateurish things done in the books. That the first book especially, the second somewhat, treat people who aren't the absolute main characters like they don't even exist, they're just a 'crowd' or 'careers' or 'people' with not even the slightest indication they might be real.

(Cont.)

[Anonymous No.10291802]

The last book, Mockinjay, finally fixes this and decides to give names to some minors.

I can forgive the glacial plot. Where Dan Simmons could have fix two or maybe all three of the hunger games books into a single action packed novel, and probably added fight scenes on top of it, because he's that good.

I could forgive the blatant female pandering 'Katniss gets to sort of have two dudes, but it's not her fault! She was just trying to save lives, she HAD to pretend to love Peeta in the first book!"

Giving her moral grounds, to basically have more than one dude. Fair enough. A guys book is the same in reverse in a sense. This was a dude-hero book with the dude being a chick. Cool cool.

Story still wasn't bad, was still enjoyable.

I can forgive the endless flashbacks to tell stories in the middle of the actual present day action - something I'm not usually very fond of, but the writing is good enough I can forgive it.

I don't even MIND present tense, or mixed with first person. I actually like present tense. First person, well, is neither here nor there.

I can forgive that commas are missing in key places, making me have to reread sentences from time to time to catch the meaning because they are long and broken up in the middle, much like the flashbacks break up the currently happening narrative. Slightly inconvenient, but not unbearable.

I can even forgive the fact that the first person blends so seamlessly with the dialogue that at times I don't know if I'm reading dialogue or Katniss's inner dialogue, until I have to retrace my eyes to see if there are quotations marks to see if she's talking to someone or not. No.

I can forgive ALL of that.

When Katniss shot an innocent woman in the face after exiting the sewers is the exact moment that the Hunger Games books failed and the story became garbage.

Katniss has killed out of defending/saving others. She's killed out of saving herself, in self defense. But that scene was arbitrary. The author could have had the house be empty. Could have had them knock the woman out. Whatever. It was something ANY editor would have screamed, "CUT THAT SENTENCE" and slightly rework that single paragraph, because it doesn't belong at all. It's like a whale dancing on the highway. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't belong.

I could even forgive killing Coin as a badguy cause Katniss saw her as 'oh no just another snow!' that would have even been keepable, but there were other aspects of the ending that just flopped and it DEFINITELY began with that death.

Prim's death could still happen! But it wasn't written probably for the right emotional payoff. YOu have to pay off the things you actually SET UP, you can't just go doing whatever you want, or you ruin your own story. Prim could still die and it be a good novel! But the way it happened etc. did not follow everything that was set up to that point.

(Cont)

[Anonymous No.10291810]

Since poetic justice IS a theme in the novels, (Katniss finding ways to defy the capitol and their cruelty etc.) it completely goes against the theme of the book, from beginning to near the end, to suddenly have no poetic justice. So even killing Coin, Katniss would have had to be exhonorated. The decision with Haymitch saying 'I'm with the mockingjay', maybe explained a bit more, not through 'tell' but at least through show, or through prior set up that would make that decision clear after she'd made her final action (killing snow), would reveal his motives in some way shape or form. Tie it all together.

There were many strange nonsequiters in the last book especially the end.

Now I can't blame the author maybe she was having a hard time in life or something. I am not a person who hates on other people. I couldn't write what she wrote, I'm sure, but still, it sucks enough I need to rant.

I can only guess that the author was extremely eager to be done working, or had some distraction in life and couldn't probably tie up her book. My advice to her if she ever does that again, if she hasn't figured it out already, is to take a step back, wait a few months if you have to, or a year, and then make sure you're in better shape or have fresh eyes before finishing whatever part of the book you're having trouble with like that.

Then again, she wasn't rich or famous or anything probably when she wrote the last book, so like, what could she fall back on? I dunno, I'm sure there is a perfectly good and legit human reason for her doing what she did. Even if it's as simple as 'she disagrees with me' and I'm not seeing something or whatever, I don't judge her like I said and pray blessings and good things on the author.

I'm just expressing my own personal feelings after reading this trilogy because I want to.

Of course she'll never read this and neither will you because this is 4chan. And I just NEEDED to say these things to feel better after investing ALL that time to finally read the books. I only watched the movies once and forget nearly everything in them so it was like hearing most of the story for the first time. So yah, sorry if I'm late to the party. I had to say these things to get them off my chest.

Let's not also forget before I go that the love triangel between peeta, and gale could have ended ANY number of ways, one dying, neither dying but her choosing neither, choosing her sister, them reconciling their feelings with her, one of them finding another love, even some weird arrangement where they stay together all three as friends and the love is never resolved? I dunno, almost anything seems better than how it was actually resolved, with the exception of maybe my last suggestion.

Emotional closure to the set up would be what we're looking for, regardless of what actually
happened plot wise.

ANYhoo, I'm done.

[Anonymous No.10291816]

Even an inner monologue like, "I guess Gale was there for me all my life but.. the things I went through with Peeta, only he could understand, it's sad, but I choose Peeta because only he can understand and everything we went through, we became different people.

Or Gale sacrificing himself or whatever. SOMETHING. Peeta even, sacrificing himself. almost anything would have been more satisfying than this major background question

"what about Gale' being completely unsatisfied with just 'oh he went and worked in district 2. The end.'

Some satisfying emoitonal THING should have happened.

Even an emotional parting between them, where they come to a mutual understanding,

"Yah I guess Katniss, that we never were for each other.. " or WHATEVER, from one of them.

But no, he just 'floats' out of the plot at the very end. Unresolved.

K. Truly done now.

[Anonymous No.10292307]

>>10291800
>because he's that good.
is this pasta?

[Anonymous No.10293062]

>>10292307
It is not. I accidentally doubled the beginning because I started writing in here, then realized it would take more than one post. So I copied it over to wordpad to finish it, and when I broke it up into multiple posts I accidentally kept the beginning, so it shows up twice or I pasted the beginning of it twice by accident.

So, the first page of what I wrote repeats a bit, and is technically copy p, but not on purpose and it's not copying an article or anything, it's copying my own post.

So the beginning of the post 'I can pinpoint the extact' starts repeating at the end of the second paragraph, post one, 'I can pinpoint...' but after that nothing is accidentally copied twice, and the thing continues like it was meant to in the first place.

[Anonymous No.10293069]

>>10291800
Are you ok OP? I'm a little worried about you.

[Anonymous No.10293078]

>>10291800
<a href="http://www.thehungergames.co.uk/">Link</a>

[Anonymous No.10293302]

I agree OP Hunger Games had potential but due to the fans demanding books be released right away, the author gave in to make as much money as possible. And this is why you should never whore yourself out to publishers if you're sitting on success. It will make your work medicore

[Anonymous No.10293336]

>>10293062
>starts repeating at the end of the second *LAST paragraph in post 1. But then after that continues normally.

>>10293069
Nah I'm cool. I just binge read all three books and had to get that all off my chest. But whether real or a joke, I appreciate your concern and heart-lightening memepic.

[Anonymous No.10293340]

>>10293302
Thanks for point.
>>10293078
Thanks for link

Thanks everyone for replying ~ tt

[Anonymous No.10293379]

She didn't give enough attention to the fact that the careers were basically being raised for slaughter. I supposed she gave Cato that one line, but Katniss never really internalized this fact.

On another note I unironically believe that the Catching Fire movie adaption was one of the greatest films of all time. I could rave for hours about how that film gave attention to just the right things which the books neglected.

[Anonymous No.10293390]

>>10291800
>MC lives in a fucking dystopia where she worries about dying of starvation.
>Greatest concern the presentability of her and her sister.

[Anonymous No.10293926]

>>10291800
The story became garbage the first few pages when it presented itself as a typical "dystopian" YA fiction book.

[Anonymous No.10293940]

>>10291800
>I can pinpoint the exact moment that the Hunger Games books failed and the story became garbage.


Let me guess, is it when they drifted away from the actual hunger games (which was the only fucking interesting thing about the mediocre fucking books), and became some half asses political thriller?

Tldr to actually find out.

[Anonymous No.10294108]

Amazing. Truly amazing op.

[Anonymous No.10294765]

>>10291800
Include me in the screenshot!!!1!