Redemption in The Hunger Games?

I’m reading James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers again (excellent book) and flipped open to page 104 today: “The writer who understands redemption is on the border of enduring fiction.”

I read this three days after seeing The Hunger Games, a movie that disturbed me greatly—and, truth be told, still does.

I think I’m beginning to understand why the movie so bothers me: No redemption—or is there?

Literary redemption

Redemption Scene from The Shawshank Redemption

I have not read the books. I saw the movie with my wife, a children’s librarian, because I thought it would be an interesting experiment—a movie buff who hasn’t read the book watching the movie with a reader who generally doesn’t appreciate movies. Plus, it was at the bargain theatre.

From Bell’s book: “Flannery O’Connor talked about the need for a story to show ‘grace being offered.’ …  Redemption is bound up in choice. The right choice brings about redemption because the wrong choice will leave the character in a worse moral condition.”

First of all, what do I mean by redemption?

Redemption: The action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.

This includes, but is not limited to, the traditional Christian understanding of redemption: Where Jesus Christ laid down his life to save humans from their sins, and the price of those sins, eternal separation from God.

Lies and more lies

If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book—and you want to—you may want to stop reading.

Katniss and Peeta considering suicide

At the climactic moment, after being lied to by the games’ organizers that both could survive, Katniss (the book’s main character) and Peeta, a young man from her District and also a participant in the game, are faced with a horrific choice: one of them must kill the other to survive and win the game or they both must kill themselves, choosing to go out on their own terms.

There is no redemption—no way to save or be saved from sin, error, or evil. In fact, what Katniss’ gambit (pretending to be star-crossed lovers willing to commit suicide) does is force the game’s organizers (who are clearly evil) to offer a faux redemption and reinstate the rule change that two participants from the same District could win together. There will be repercussions for all involved.

But wait

Earlier in the movie, after finding Peeta injured and dying, and after hearing the lie that there could be two winners if they were from the same District, Katniss risks coming out into the open to retrieve the medicine Peeta needs to survive.

And even earlier, Peeta, seeing Katniss nearly starving to death and being in love with her, contrives a way to get a loaf of bread to her that saves her life. Self-sacrifice! There is redemption, then.

But Katniss doesn’t really love Peeta the way he loves her. She has another young man back in District 12 she’s in love with. But she knows the “star-crossed lovers battling against insurmountable odds to survive” is a powerful myth that will resonate with the television audience watching the game.

So her love is “ends justifies means” love—she will love Peeta if it means they have a better chance at survival.

What does it all mean?

The phrase the end justifies the means refers to the morality of an action and is based solely on the outcome of that action and not on the action itself. Example: Telling a lie that has no negative effect on anyone, and saves someone grief, is good.

But there can be no redemption in a lie. “O how terrible for those who confuse good with evil, right with wrong, light with dark, sweet with bitter.” Isaiah 5:20 (The Voice)

Think about that quote from Bell again: “Redemption is bound up in choice. The right choice brings about redemption because the wrong choice will leave the character in a worse moral condition.”

At the end of the story, all of the characters are in a worse situation than they were before—alive, but morally compromised. I walked out of the theatre, dejected and oppressed rather than encouraged and freed.

At the end of the Harry Potter movies, even the darker ones, good triumphed—often at cost, but it triumphed. That does not happen here.

What do you think? Have I missed something essential by having not read the books?

Michael Ehret loves to play with words and as editor of the ACFW Journal, he is enjoying his playground. He also plays with words as a freelance editor/writer at WritingOnTheFineLine.com, where each Tuesday he takes a writer Into The Edit, pulling back the veil on the editing process. He has edited several nonfiction books, played with words as a corporate communicator, and reported for The Indianapolis Star.

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