My Take on The Hunger Games.

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 Yes, I've read them. Really, I don't know many people who haven't. I personally liked them, and the message they promoted. Have I seen the movie? No. My parents don't think I should watch it because of the violence. Don't take this the wrong way, because I really am not upset with them at all for saying this, and not seeing it really doesn't bother me as much as I thought it might. I've just kind of accepted the fact. I respect their opinion. I believe the reason they don't approve of the movie is because they don't fully understand what it's really about, that Katniss doesn't really promote the violence but rather fights against it, that she's not a killing machine but a scared teenager who made a promise to her sister, the only person she "knows with any certainty that [she] loves." I believe that many people overlook this side of the story when making the Hunger Games decision.

**spoiler alert**

 From the beginning it's obvious that everyone in Panem save the naive citizens of the captiol and perhaps Districts 1 and 2 are repulsed by the Hunger Games and all they represent. They participate not by choice but because they are forced. Every year they watch their children die, and though they want this to stop, they don't know how. Hope comes in the form of a girl on fire. She catches everyone's attention and becomes just what the rebels need to reveal themselves and fight for their cause. The girl on fire turned Mockingjay is torn apart by the wars within and without. Victory comes, not seamlessly and unfathomably easy, but rather fraught with hardships and setbacks and the deaths of people who have given everything to fight for a cause that they feel passionately for, passionately enough to die for.

This is all brought together in the end when Katniss says, “What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.” She chooses Peeta over Gale, just as the society has finally chosen peace over Hunger Games. This is the true message of the Hunger Games, not that teenagers killing each other for sport is amusing but rather that this is what society will come to if people don't actively work to change things. I just feel like these are things people should consider before saying for once and for all whether they approve of The Hunger Games or not.
♥♥Kristin