The Hunger Games and Realism - Part2

At the end of the last post about the Hunger Games, I have mentioned that they were in an arena with lots of weapons that they could use on each other. However, these weapons are not enough by themselves for tributes to survive. After this “choosing weapons” stage of the games, they go to the woods and attack others to be the dominant part or defend themselves to deactivate others. At this point, whether they use their weapons to kill someone just for pleasure or as a defense in case of an attack is completely their decision actually.

After an attack by a group, the movie’s main character, Katniss, realizes that she is not able to fight them alone and needs an alliance. So, we see that in order to survive better in an anarchical system, others may create groups, and we may need alliances, as well to protect ourselves and our own interests. In the movie, when they create these alliances they also look at which district the other person came from. This is because some districts have a common history and some kind of an unwritten alliance pack between them for a long time in the history of the games. This also reflects the significant effect of common historical background during the creation process of these groups in the arena. I think it is safe to say that from the beginning of civilizations, all humankind has lived based on their history with others. They have settled in a place that historically served them well or they have moved from a place when their relationships with locals have gone bad. Most importantly, they fight world wars in alliances based on this commonality principle. Thus it can be said that the above-mentioned survival idea in the games is the exact replica of what we see in the relationships of national states in the realist ideology.

Then, Katniss makes a plan to bomb others’ resources with her alliance. When they decide to bomb the resources, they don’t care about the possibility of other groups' death directly by the bomb or from hunger. They think that their own interest, meaning their own survival, is the only thing that matters, and it depends on this action. There is no place for morality or ethics in their actions. We know that in realism, reason comes before ethics when it comes to the issue of self-interest. This is the kind of thinking that defends the idea that all actions in the anarchical structure are there for survival. So, survival is the main aim both in the movies and in the real world.  

Of course, some tributes are taller, stronger, or run faster than others. These are all-natural advantages. This is just like some states being rich from all those natural resources within their borders. The realist system is not fair, and again since the games are also not fair, the tributes should be able to provide self-help to themselves and find a way to equalize their situation. 

Towards the end of the movie, Katniss and a boy are left as the last two parties alive. She doesn’t want to kill him and decides to kill both of them. She thinks that the game maker won’t let both of them survive but right before they poison themselves, the game maker changes his attitude and lets them live because he knows that tributes are the main characters and every game has to have at least a winner. So, in realism states are also the main actors, maybe not the only ones but the most important and effective ones and this scene from the movie could be a near reflection of this idea. 

So, what do we have? We have the arena as the hierarchical structure and the tributes as states that act for their survival and dominance over others. Plus, we can see realist international society perspectives in some specific scenes.

Picture Resources:

1 / 2 / 3