(First of all, you totally sang the title, right?)
I have a colossal amount of anxiety. I often listen to audiobooks at night to help redirect my mind to one thing, instead of 4 quadrillion (I had to look that up to see if it was an actual number 'cuz I don't know maths).
But because my anxiety will not be conquered by a mere mortal, I start to overanalyze the books I'm listening to. My go-to books are all of the Harry Potters, and The Hunger Games series narrated by my wife, Tatiana Maslany. If you don't know who she is, please stop reading this and go watch all the seasons of Orphan Black immediately, and then come back. I'll wait...
I was right, right?
Ok, so anyway, I began to notice (probably 10 years after everyone else noticed) that there are a lot of Christian undertones throughout the book. It started with the bread. The word "panem" is the Latin word for bread - but in this form it is singular. One bread. In book three, Beetee references the phrase "panem et circenses" meaning "bread and games". Coined by the poet Juvenal, it was his denouncement of Romans refusal to mobilize against government control because they were being appeased with food and entertainment.
Side note on gladiators: As in the Hunger Games of the series, some of the gladiators were not slaves (or were they though? 🤔) and separated and unionized themselves (as mirrored by "career" Districts 1 & 2). The women called Amazons and Achillia were also gladiators, but forgotten by history like Mary Magdalene (I'm gonna get to that in a minute).
Also, gladiator games were first played as part of funeral services. Slaves and prisoners would fight to the death as a eulogy to the wealthy, also mirrored by the Hunger Games as a yearly penance to atone for challenging the power of the Capitol.
So, even if you only saw the movies, you'd notice the recurring bread themes. Peeta gave Katniss bread when she was starving (ok, well in the movies they make it look like he didn't give her the bread, but in the book, he burned them on purpose because he knew he'd be made to throw them to the pigs outside and gave them to her instead).
Rue's district sent Katniss bread after her death in book one. Bread was used as a method of communication to the rebels in the arena in book two. When you register for the the tessera (a Latin word for "tally") you are exchanging your name entered in the Hunger Games drawing additional times for a ration of grain and oil.
Bread in Christianity is associated with God's generosity. Biblically, oil is used to anoint or sanctify - especially during ritual sacrifice which we are told the Tributes are.
But in the Hunger Games series, "God" exists in both the cruel Capitol as well as the impoverished Districts themselves. I see the Capitol and Districts as the Old and New Testaments, and the very many sects of Christianity. Each District has its own specific bread that is a reflection of the District and its people themselves. The Capitol reminds me of government using religion to oppress and control.
There are 12 Districts for the 12 apostles -except there were 13 apostles. Mary Magdalene has been long thought to have been Jesus' most beloved apostle written out of the Testaments entirely in most cases - but not completely forgotten as with District 13 in the series.
District 13's story was told by the Capitol as a cautionary tale - that they were razed to ashes when they rose up against the Capitol during the rebellion.
Much in the way Mary Magdalene was reduced to a prostitute and her true story and power was never told. In book two it is hinted that District 13 was left unharmed due to its possession of nuclear weapons. This is confirmed in book 3.
Comparatively, does the truth surrounding Jesus' most loved apostle also threaten the very foundation of Christian theology?
Initially, when I read the books, I assumed that never having Katniss and Peeta do more than kiss for the first book, and having them claim to have gotten married (and sealing the deal with, again, some bread) ahead of faking a pregnancy in the second, was more for the YA audience these books target.
But being that the Divergent series literally has Tris having sex with Four all over Chicago, and the sexual violence of the first of that series as well as in Twilight and Unwind, I kind of feel like this was a morality decision for Suzanne Collins, who is Catholic.
I respect that, Suzanne.
I also respect that she chose to write a strong, female protagonist to rail against patriarchy, despite her Catholic background.
Unlike this mess:
