Hunger Games (Book 1)

analysis
#21

So @jassnip – how committed are you to the idea that Katniss is changed? What do you think about the idea of the Capital being the IC? Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Does it make sense to pencil Steadfast in provisionally and move forward but keep the option to back up if it doesn’t seem to work?

For character dynamics, I think she is Stop/Do-er/Linear.

Drivers often mess me up. I was thinking Action – e.g. the Action of Prim being chosen forcing Katniss’s decision to volunteer. But I’m not sure. Is it possible that the Reaping is one big Decision driver (i.e. selecting is a decision, even if it’s random?) Other big decisions: the decision to change the rules, the decision to eat the berries (or is that an action?)

Optionlock.

Outcome: I want to hold off on this as I’m not totally sure what the Goal is.

Judgement: Bad

Any thoughts?

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#22

I’m not committed to anything at all.

And I do think the idea of the Capitol being changed is interesting.

Agree with Stop/Doer/Linear.

I think one of the ways to delineate the action vs. decision driver is to think in terms of agency, but also look at the other drivers. It’s not the decision to shoot the apple that make the gamemakers decide give her an eleven, it’s the act of shooting the apple. It’s the act of putting the berries to their mouths that make the gamemakers change their mind and let them both live. So I agree, it’s action driving decisions,

Agree, the judgement is probably bad. Collins spends the entire last chapter crippling anything that might have made the ending good, which is why there is no reunion with her mom and Prim, and Gale, no going to the new house…none of that.

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#23

Great, so should we move on to the throughlines? This is where it gets interesting.

My first thought was that the OS here would be Physics/Obtaining — winning the Hunger Games. But I don’t think that’s correct.

From the perspective of Katniss and the other tributes—who have been chosen at random—winning the games is much more about survival than victory, which even if achieved is hollow (as we see from Hamich). From the perspective of the Capital, the goal is to put on a spectacle that humiliates the districts, reminds them of their defeat and subjugation, and keeps them in their place.

If you took away “winning the games”, would there still be conflict? The answer it undoubtedly yes—the Districts would still be subject to the tyrannical rule of the Capital.

For these reasons, I think the OS is in Universe. A fixed, ongoing, external situation—the tyrannical rule of the Capital—is what’s at root of the conflict in this story.

What do you all think?

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#24

I agree, OS is situation…

I recently watched this video with Mary Robinette Kowal in which she discusses the MICE quotient, apparently the brain child of Orson Scott Card.

But this turns out to be nothing more than the top tier of the Dramatica table.

Milieu = Situation
Inquiry = Manipulation
Character = Fixed Attitude
Event = Activity

Milieu, she says, starts when you enter a place, and ends when you leave, which I thought was an interesting way of looking at an aspect of situation.

Which puts Katniss in Activity which feels good to me.
It puts the Capitol in Manipulation
And the RS in Fixed Attitude.

I think Katniss’s issue is self-interest. With her Unique ability being morality.

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#25

I have that book. (Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card). I’ll have to watch the video though for her take. It’s interesting how it seems to map to Dramatatica’ top level. I thought of it more as a setting/storytelling thing.

Anyway, we’re agreed on the Domains for now!

I can see an argument for Katniss in Self-Interest for sure and the Unique Ability of Morality (self-sacrifice) seems perfect.

However…I’m not sure how well that works for the OS (?). MC Self-Interest gives us either Delay or Preconception as OS Issues. I don’t see Delay at all…Preconception maybe – people have all of these preconceptions about each other.

That gives us an OS Problem of either Help or Hinder. I’m not sure I see either of those as the thing that creates problems for all the characters. I’d be interested to hear what you think though.

My thinking was that the OS Concern is actually Past. The entire point of the Games is to symbolically recreate the Capital’s past victory over the districts and remind them of their subservience and the risks of rebellion.

The Issues under Past also look good, especially … Fate. (“May the odds be ever in your favor!”). The Capital wants to drum in the idea that it controls the fate of every citizen of the districts. The counterpoint of this is Katniss and Peeta showing that they actually can take control of their Destinies.

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#26

From the 10,000 foot view of several years since I read the book or watched the movie (so take with grain of salt), I would suggest bottom-right Concerns are worth a look.

  • OS Concern of The Present = Surviving. This is really strong, and works as a potential Goal.
    Plus you’ve got the present situation & circumstances being a huge source of conflict for Katniss’s District (11?) and all the districts.
  • MC Concern of Learning – training, being taught, learning how to win. (and all of those are conflict-driving processes in this story)
  • IC Concern of Conceiving – isn’t the Capitol really concerned about, and faces a lot of conflict from, its people getting the “wrong” ideas in their heads, or getting different ideas about the games? Also influencing Katniss to conceive things differently, to conceive herself differently.
  • RS Concern of Conscious – not 100% sure but gists definitely seem to apply. Brooding, being attentive to the relationship, disregarding the relationship… (thinking of Katniss & Peeta here)
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#27

Interesting @mlucas.

I can see all those there. I like OS Present as a Goal and MC Learning.

I’m having trouble with the OS Present Issues though. This may be because I’m less familiar with them.

Concern of the Present = Work/Attraction/Repulsion/Attempt. Attraction and Repulsion I can find examples of but I don’t know how central they are. Attempt – maybe Katniss promising Prim that she will Attempt to win?

Whereas the Past:

  • Fate: “May the odds be ever in your favor”

  • Prediction: Who will win the hunger games? Can you convince the sponsors that you have a shot?

  • Interdiction: Katniss volunteers to take Prim’s place; everyone is vying to get help from sponsors during the games (which comes in the from of little parachutes that change the course of events); the rules get changed (twice);

  • Destiny: “Following an Inescapable Path” “Resisting Something’s Fortune” (by threatening to the eat the poison berries) . The whole star-crossed lovers idea that keeps getting repeated over and over again.

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#28

Haha that’s funny, I was going to make another post describing how well the Variations under Present fit, but thought I should wait for further conversation. :slight_smile:

  • Attraction - the Games themselves, everyone’s attraction to them; also isn’t there a whole bunch of stuff about making the contestants attractive to the audience? I seem to recall it being important that they attract fans or the favour of judges (gamemakers?) or something, too. EDIT: right, this is what you mentioned about sponsors and parachuted items.
  • Repulsion: all the killing and murder of the Games. In fact, the Games are attractive because they are so repulsive.
  • Attempt: from the contestants point of view the Games are one big Attempt – applying themselves to something that’s definitely not known to be within their ability, esp. for Katniss, Peeta and Rue.
  • Work: aren’t there some contestants known as “careers” who have worked / trained for the Games their whole lives? For them the Games are like a job, and you can see the conflict between Work and Attempt when you compare them vs. Katniss/Peeta/Rue. Also Haymitch has to kind of go to work which sucks for him. And on another level, the Capital is exploiting the contestants by putting them to work in something so heinous.

I can see the Fate/Prediction/Interdiction/Destiny things you mentioned too, but for me they seem more at the surface/story-telling level, not as deep or conflict-causing (except for the Interdiction with Prim, that one is pretty strong). IF I’m right, this might be a case where the extra distance helps. (But I’d like to hear some other opinions too because maybe the distance is clouding things!)

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#29

I shouldn’t be chirping in yet as I’ve only reread the first chapter. But I can’t think of many other interdictions and I’m not sure how this would create conflict for everyone. It seems pretty personal to Katniss. And it causes her conflict insofar as she now has to play in the Hunger Games, I guess, but also is addressing conflict. She can shut up and be thankful she wasnt chosen unless she needs to volunteer to keep her family safe. She can’t do both, so she picks the latter.

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#30

Oh wow! Those are all great examples! (I concede your point about the benefit of having distance!)

I definitely see all of that once they get to the Capital. Can you think of any examples (if you can remember) from when they were still back in District 12?

I’m thinking of a) getting the sponsors to intervene (though @mlucas makes a great point about Attraction) and b) forcing the gamemakers to intervene by changing the rules in the middle of the game – especially at the end when they’re about to eat the poison fruit and the announcer has to shout “wait wait! there’s been another rule change!” That said, those could be PSR variations or something.

I have to think about this more. It would great if others had thoughts on this.

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#31

Ah, see, I shouldn’t have chimed in! I forgot all about changing the rules multiple times at the last minute. I’ll back away again until I’ve finished reading.

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#32

If you can remember, can you give any more examples of how Learning creates conflict for her throughout the story? Thinking back on the book, I don’t remember her training being particularly significant (surprisingly) as a personal source of conflict. She does train, but part of the point with her is that she’s already ahead of the game on this.

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#33

LOL. I’m in the camp of OS = The Future.

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#34

@jassnip You made a good case for MC Physics/Obtaining/Self Interest… what Issue do you see for the OS? Delay or Preconception?

Or if the MC Issue is Morality, that leaves Openness and Choice as possibilities.

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#35

My recollections are all pretty vague, big picture things. In my memory she spends a lot of the story as the underdog “new kid” struggling through the process of learning about the districts, the capital and its customs, and the Games themselves and how they work. Everyone is trying to educate her about things, and then once she’s in the Games (is that after the midpoint?) she’s trying to learn how to play them.

Strategy, Analysis, Preconditions, Prerequisites all seem pretty strong there.

Isn’t there some part where (before the Games start) she teaches all the bigwigs a lesson re: how good she is with a bow?

As usual, it is a bit hard to separate all this from the OS.

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#36

Here’s why I’m still not completely sold on an OS Concern of Present.

In this context, Present would presumably mean something like “Being Focused on One’s Current Circumstances” or “Surviving The Day”.

While that might describe the goal(s) of the tributes (at least when they’re in the arena), it doesn’t get at the intention of Snow and the game makers at all. The game makers don’t really care about tribute survival — they want to put on a good show that reinforces the power of the Capital. They would have been fine with Katniss surviving by just putting an arrow in Peeta when they changed the rules again.

The problem with Katniss’s trick with the berries isn’t that allowed her to survive, or even that both she and Peeta survived. It’s that it demonstrated agency on the part of the powerless, and thus destroyed the whole purpose of the games. Dignity, agency, defiance—even in the face of death—is the repeated theme. Peeta mentions this before they go in—something to the effect that even if he’s killed he wants it to be on his own terms (“showing them they don’t own me”). It’s expressed in Katniss’s putting flowers on Rue after she dies, which is interpreted by everyone as an act of defiance.

These moments feel to me much more like Issues of Fate/Destiny/Prediction/Interdiction than Attraction/Repulsion/Work/Attempt.

They also feel much more resonant and thematically central and conflict-causing than the strategic questions of how to make oneself attractive to sponsors in these repellent games (or how to fight the “careers”).

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#37

I think I see what you mean. I do think some of the themes around agency and defiance can come through in an OS Present story – The Counterfeiters for example was about defiance and its cost.

But I don’t want to hold up the analysis, since I really don’t remember it well enough to be sure of anything!

I would be interested to see what you come up with as a Goal of The Past though. I was having trouble thinking of anything that fit. Breaking the yolk of the past, maybe?

One question, is it possible that the Universe OS might be the series storyform? And Book 1 could have an OS in Physics? If Book 1’s OS is Universe, there should be some sense that they are trying to resolve/fix what is out of whack with the universe – that they had a chance of doing so in this book, even if they fail to do so (Outcome Failure). Look at other OS Universe stories like The Fugitive – an innocent man has been found guilty, that gets resolved when he clears his name.

I’m not saying Book 1 can’t have OS Universe, just that we should be able to describe what’s out of whack with the universe that gets addressed in Book 1.

(Note my money is on Outcome Success, esp. if Judgment was Bad. There is some success, a small bit of triumph, when they make the Capitol cave!)

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#38

I think part of my problem with OS Present might be lack of familiarity with the examples …

I was wondering that – it would certainly make things more confusing if there was a series storyform. I’m reading the next two books now – so maybe I’ll have some thoughts on that at some point.

So here’s my thesis. Early on the book, Katniss (1st person narrator) explains what the Hunger Games is:

Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. “Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.

So I think that the Capitol (and Snow, the gamemakers, etc.) are the structural Protagonists of the story and the Goal is something like “reminding the districts that they are at our mercy.” (Pursuing the games in order to make the districts Consider their weakness).

Anyway, this puts Katniss (mainly, but also Peeta) in the position of Avoid/Prevent and Reconsider – which actually sounds more like what she’s trying to do for most of the book. This does make the story technically a Failure, which is a little weird, but the bad feelings are so strong at the end of the book that I buy it. There’s no respite for Katniss, and the celebrations are all superficial and tinged with fear.

I haven’t run it through Subtext, but I am thinking of a narrative argument something like:

“Keep focusing on disrupting the status quo and everyone suffers the tragic consequences of failing to properly memorialize history.”

(MC Crucial: Chaos) | (OS Consequence: Memory)

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#39

Hey @Lakis (and others) I just finished watching the movie and am all in on this analysis now.

I’m thinking the movie has the same storyform as the book, which I think @Lakis mentioned earlier, except possibly for Judgment. The Judgment in the film isn’t completely clear but I would have to go with Good; there’s really no indication of anything else and there’s a lot of cheering and smiling and holding hands at the end.

But I definitely defer to you @Lakis and @jassnip on your familiarity with the book, if you believe the Judgment is Bad there.

For now I’ll proceed assuming the rest of the film’s storyform is the same as the book, let me know if anything else seems off.

Okay now in terms of Domains, @Lakis I must apologize for doubting OS Universe/Past!! Sorry if I led things astray. I think both are very clear, and yes the Destiny/Fate/Prediction/Interdiction quad is quite strong, especially Interdiction.

Now I know you were looking at some weird formations (with Katniss as Antagonist) but I think it’s a more simple structure. I would peg the Goal as something like “breaking the Capitol’s tradition” – and actually I think it was a Success, because of how they forced the Capitol to declare two victors. (So Success/Good with high Cost for the movie; Success/Bad for the book.)

I like Activity/Understanding for Katniss, these are fantastic actually, as she faces so much conflict from understanding how everything works.

In the movie at least, Peeta is definitely the Influence Character or at least partly. Everything he does influences Katniss in terms of Psychology:

  • In the pre-games interview he declares his crush on her – but this seems like it’s probably a deceit in order to gain favour for both of them
  • During the games he seemingly betrays her, working with the Careers to hunt her down, but this turns out to be a cunning manipulation on his part
  • Once they ally and trust each other, now there’s all this need to use Peeta and her relationship with him to manipulate the audience & sponsors. But how much of each kiss is manipulation and how much is real? etc.

Based on the above, I agree with some of the aspects of the Capitol / games being part of the influence (it’s the audience & sponsors that Katniss and Peeta need to manipulate). However, I don’t think it goes so far as the Capitol being a Change character.

I think it’s clear that Katniss is the Change character because she definitely adopts the alternate Domain of Psychology (and Do-er to Be-er). The whole berries thing is a manipulation on her part, for example, but there’s all the stuff before that too, kissing Peeta to try and get medicine, tricking Peeta into thinking she’s going to stay and sleep rather than go to get his medicine, etc. And at the end (denouement of film) she continues holding hands and acting like they’re in love, even though she tells him privately that she’s not sure how things will go once they get home.

Okay, that’s a lot to digest so I’ll leave it there for now and see what you think. :slight_smile:

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#40

Well, where Jim thinks everything is about Accurate/Non-accurate. I think everything is about control/uncontrolled.

That being said, I really think the OS falls into the realm of the future. Everything in the Capital is built on keeping people from thinking about the future. And the entire point of the “Hunger Games” is that we can take away your future (by taking and killing your children) I know that someone might say that the decadence is focused on the now (the present), but that’s not right it’s purpose is to keep people pacified and numb to prevent them from doing anything about their futures.