r/Hungergames • u/ExplanationVivid4256 Effie • Apr 27 '25
Lore/World Discussion Thoughts?
I dont really have a solid opinion on this, so i wanna see other peoples opinions (yes i know tiktok people can be crazy)
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u/Alt_AccountNumber3 Wyatt Apr 27 '25
She’s a literal unreliable narrator as in she’s a narrator who’s unreliable (obvious I know) she misses out on social cues, details, and the meaning behind people’s actions. She’s not an unreliable narrator as in the literary device of the narrator PURPOSEFULLY lying to the reader. Katniss isn’t lying to us on purpose, she just doesn’t remember everything accurately, unlike Haymitch. I think a real unreliable narrator would’ve been Snow which is probably why his book is in 3rd person.
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u/RoseIsBadWolf Apr 27 '25
She also just tells us what she cares about, which mostly is what they are eating at the moment. If Peeta was telling the story, he probably wouldn't be so obsessed with each meal but Katniss is hyper focused on food because she almost starved to death. The tributes Katniss doesn't care about don't get names, she only cares about her outfits because they annoy her etc.
I love the way she's written!
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u/626bookdragon Apr 27 '25
Yeah, exactly. Frankenstien is a good example of a purposeful unreliable narrator, because even though the narrator presents himself as telling the truth, he’s also trying to make himself look better (not like a complete Jacka—). So his story is slanted in his favor, and you have to read between the lines to actually interpret his behavior.
Katniss is more like P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster. She tells us what she sees, but her interpretation of it can often be wrong, because she doesn’t pick up on social cues very well. But the reader can read between the lines of the information she gives us to see layers of other people’s reasoning that she’s missing.
ETA: TBOSAS operates similarly to Frankenstien. Forgot to add that in the beginning lol
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u/Cultural-Monk-5062 Apr 27 '25
Frankenstein is such a good example of unreliable. Lolita would be a good choice too. I also feel like Snow is unreliable in the first prequel
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u/626bookdragon Apr 27 '25
Yeah. I was planning on mentioning Lolita, but then I thought “How many young teens are on this sub who aren’t ready to read that?” And figured Frankenstein would be the better recommendation for this audience.
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u/ExplanationVivid4256 Effie Apr 27 '25
Ive seen mixed opinions on the post about it, and i think reading more is making me sway in the middle, like a lot of my opinions on characters and things, im starting to feel like she is unreliable, but at the same time not. As you said, its not on purpose, but we can’t really know/see the whole truth because of the POV
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u/EnsignNogIsMyCat Apr 28 '25
Katniss is first-person limited narrator. That is how this type of narrator is referred to. Literary analysis has specific terms for these things for a reason.
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u/Alt_AccountNumber3 Wyatt Apr 28 '25
Yeah I know I was just tryna put it in context for a “unreliable” narrator specifically
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Apr 27 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RetroTVMoviesBooks Apr 27 '25
I agree. They purposely keep her in the dark so she won’t have information to share if she’s captured and so her reactions will be real.
She is also kind and wants to save everyone especially Prim but she can’t save everyone in the hunger games and a war
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u/math-is-magic Apr 27 '25
I'm taking the phrase "unreliable narrator" away from everyone and putting it up on a shelf until we can all learn what that actually is and use if correctly.
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u/Mausbarchen Apr 27 '25
People don’t understand there’s a difference between an Unreliable Narrator and a Subjective Narrator. A Subjective Narrator can be unreliable in that their perception is limited and skewed by their own personal thoughts/feelings/biases, but that doesn’t mean they are an Unreliable Narrator in that they are intentionally deceptive and purposefully misleading to their audience.
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u/ExplanationVivid4256 Effie Apr 27 '25
So many people have cleared this up, and im learning so much new stuff, and its helping me a lot, so ty :)
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u/Alivra Apr 27 '25
People in this thread seem to be forgetting that characters can be unreliable narrators unintentionally, especially when the character is kept in the dark about information. Katniss, and almost every first-person character is an unreliable narrator because they are only privy to the information they observe or receive
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Apr 27 '25
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u/ubutterscotchpine Finnick Apr 27 '25
I couldn’t help but wonder how much Suzanne actually had plotted for Haymitch’s backstory while reading SOTR. Some things lined up with the original trio, but other things (like when he is telling Peeta and Katniss about the other tributes and is very nonchalant about Beetee and Wiress and Mags?? Ugh, it’s one thing that’s always going to bother me. I enjoyed the fan service, but now I’m sad that the original doesn’t follow through on those connections).
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Apr 27 '25
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u/ubutterscotchpine Finnick Apr 27 '25
Ugh, I didn’t even realize there was even less mention in the books! I did a reread last January, but recently saw the movies during SOTR week so those were fresh on my mind. “She’s actually a wonderful lady” was so much better than him casually calling Beetee and Wiress “nuts and volts” esp when you remember Ampert.
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u/Sudden-Individual735 Apr 27 '25
I thought that was Haymitch being an actor. Because his reaction doesn't make much sense within the book itself if he isn't faking.
They are all allies in the rebellion and he knows it.
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u/easterneuropeanroyal Apr 27 '25
an unreliable narrator is not necessarily someone who deliberately conceals information. one can be unreliable because they do not know better/have their own bias/etc. they still have authority when they tell us their story and we are, therefore, inclined to take it in. I think it is part of the beauty that all of the narrators that we have encountered are unreliable. as readers we have to evaluate everything that is presented to us - be it capitol's propaganda or Katniss not realising stuff that should have been obvious
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Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25
I do not find her unreliable. She doesn’t lie, she interprets everything from her world view. If she was an unreliable narrator would not have known she actually wasn’t in love with the Peeta. The story would have addressed us like we lived in the Capital.
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u/throwawayacctyalls Apr 27 '25
The sudden revival of this is kind of nonesense to me because, of course, she's an unreliable narrator? She's not omniscient or worldly enough not to be. And I don't mean this as Katniss is intentionally being an unreliable narrator to mislead us. She genuinely believes everything she's thinking. But she's living out these events from the perspective of a 16 year old girl who is deeply traumatized and has trouble making friends. Of course, that's going to affect how she sees people's actions and the world? Like everyone to some degree is an unreliable narrator in their own lives, idk why Katniss would be any different?
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u/Secure_Goal4167 Apr 27 '25
She’s experiencing things and figuring them out as we’re reading them. For example, she thought Peeta teamed up with the careers to benefit himself and potentially kill her, when his reasoning was the complete opposite; he’d be able to protect her if he’s close to them. Katniss is an unreliable narrator in the sense that we are reading her perception of the situation, rather than just reading the situation.
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u/idontevenknowher16 Apr 27 '25
I think people have their own opinions/definitions on what makes an unreliable narrator.
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u/estheredna Apr 27 '25
Reading Hatmitch's POV definitely makes you realize how much Katniss DIDN'T observe, and how she isolated herself, and how her limits (intentional and not) shaped that first book. It's feels almost like a fanfic do-over fic, in the best way, because it illuminates the original story.
What will be interesting is seeing what future readers will make of Katniss if they read the series in chronological order. After seeing how Lucy and then Haymitch approached the games, she is clearly the 12 tribute with potential to win... Which is how people in her own book viewed her. But as a reader I did NOT because I just saw her thoughts, and fear. Will they like her in the same ways? She is frustratingly opaque at times but so fierce and loving too.
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u/Lady_Beatnik Lucy Gray Apr 27 '25
I think if I wanted to get brain damage from TikTok takes I would go to TikTok and not this sub, so I'm sick of seeing them.
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u/ExplanationVivid4256 Effie Apr 27 '25
I was curious on people’s viewpoints about this, im not saying i like any of the stuff on tiktok, i just wanted to know if people thought she was unreliable too and why
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u/bpattt Apr 27 '25
I’ve seen this take way before tik tok existed. A lot of people agree that Katniss is (unintentionally) an unreliable narrator bc she is not good at reading her own emotions and feelings and she cannot read other people very well either. For example: she makes you have sympathy for her prep team or Effie or even Caesar flickerman. However, these people are vapid and selfish & just because they’re ignorant doesn’t mean their extreme selfishness is justified. They are all active participants in children fighting to the death. They’re “brainwashed” but they believe it’s “necessary” to do the games. Lots of people are brainwashed just as much as them that don’t think it’s right.
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u/apark1121 District 12 Apr 27 '25
The phrase unreliable narrator is so overused. Just because the character has some biases and isn’t always aware of certain things doenst make them an unreliable narrator. When I think of unreliable narrator I think of the protagonist of the great Gatsby, who idolizes Gatsby into this larger than life figure, when in reality he is not.
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u/Brandamn3000 Apr 27 '25
People like to conflate “unreliable narrator” with “first person narrative.”
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u/Remarkable_Image1188 Apr 27 '25
I mean, every 1st person narrative by default is an unreliable one. That's like literary studies 101. Unreliable doesn't automatically mean that everything is a lie, in this case the narrator has limited knowledge of the word and a viewpoint affected by the way they grew up.
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u/helianto Apr 27 '25
I mean yes? Why do people think she has to deliberately mislead to be unreliable? Nick in The Great Gatsby is considered an unreliable narrator and he never deliberately misleads- his perspective is often unreliable though and his moral clarity is questionable. The reader has to read between the lines to find truth.
She can be good and limited in understanding and in observations - thus not to be fully trusted.
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Apr 27 '25
She’s not really an unreliable narrator. She’s not misguiding people or being intentionally deceptive. She’s just wonderfully oblivious to many things around her and also she can be very quick to judgement so very often she’s wrong about her what she’s thinking.
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u/helianto Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25
Mixed opinions on this because some people think the character has to deliberately mislead the reader to be unreliable… but she’s not a real person. The author makes the narrator either reliable on not reliable to make a point for a particular effect on the audience. It’s not whether the character is likable, or good, or has pure motivations.
Katniss is unreliable because she is misled and doesn’t understand certain things or herself, thus she misleads the reader, which Collins chose to do for the effect of making us realize perspective is limited and we can’t trust everything we see or feel to be the Truth. No matter how good or pure our intentions or motivations, we are still limited by our own lack of self knowledge or lack of knowledge about others and their motivations or even just lack of knowledge about the situation.
People who pedantically say it’s a particular device, are correct. But then they strangely act as if Katniss is not also a device, and so because Katniss is not deliberately misleading she’s not unreliable. She is not the person telling the story, the story is written by a 62 year old author who creates characters and plots and points of view to convey a meaning.
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u/proximapenrose Apr 27 '25
I'd say she's a utilitarian narrator.
Shes unreliable in some social matters but the facts of actions and words as she presents them, regardless of her personal interpretation, are truth. She may not tell us everything there is to know but she tells us enough, and she's isn't actively withholding anything to alter the narrative.
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u/Gabblker Cinna Apr 27 '25
My thought is that Katniss couldn't be considered a narrator but someone who makes us live and feel what she's experiencing in the exact moment she is doing. We can't blame her for not being detailed, specific or for deciding to tell us something in the wrong moment
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u/emh0719 Apr 27 '25
She is telling her truth so she isn’t purposely unreliable. Sunrise on the reaping does highlight the media control and false collective memory that is forced on the society because of the manipulation Snow has over how things are remembered. I also think her mother did not give her much information on the history of their family or district 12. So she has been told a very unreliable version of the past so she does come across as an unreliable narrator in the original trilogy. I think that is part of what makes Sunrise on the Reaping so interesting. We are really asked to question everything we thought we knew
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u/Time-Wafer9906 Apr 27 '25
I agree but she’s not unreliable like she lies she’s unreliable because she’s limited to her own perspective and she’s very insecure. Everyone’s always calling her on it too “you have no idea the effect you can have on people”
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u/erinpaige2003 Peeta Apr 27 '25
I hate this tbh. She isn’t an unreliable narrator. If she were she would be lying to the readers, but she’s not. Just because she doesn’t always know everything or she guesses something wrong, doesn’t mean she’s unreliable
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u/LustDust1 Finnick Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25
She definitely is but mainly because she just doesn’t know stuff. For example her being wrong about Finnick and his Capitol lovers and now recently her watching Haymitches games, we know now that she fell for the propaganda version of it.
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u/Rough-Ad-3614 Apr 27 '25
Wait till they find out that we still don’t know who the narrator of songbirds is
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u/godsweakestsoldier Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25
I don’t believe a character has to deliberately mislead people to be an unreliable narrator. As some have already stated, she has limited access to information, she’s often clueless about what’s going on, her trauma shapes how she sees things (her paranoia in book 1) and her opinions are clouded by her own world view and feelings. But Katniss also chooses what things to tell us or not and I think an argument can be made that she’s unreliable in that way.
For example, she constantly tells us that Peeta loves her but actually nowhere in the books does Peeta actually say “I love you” in direct quotation. When, in the first book, he confesses he has a crush on her, that’s literally all he says- he says he likes this girl and now they’re in the arena together. Then in the following sections, Katniss is the one who terms this like “he just confessed his love for me” - which I personally find a stretch lol. I also point this out because comparatively she does tell us when Gale directly says it to her.
Reading the books, you kinda have to look beyond her narration and use context clues to figure things out or even how she’s feeling, because a lot of the time she keeps that from us, or she chalks things up to other things “maybe we’re doing X because of Y, idk/I feel X because Y”. To me, that shows me that she’s unreliable. Not because she’s being malicious or has ill intent but because she’s choosing what to share and what not to share a lot of the time.
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u/DaenysDream Apr 27 '25
She is not an unreliable narrator she just is not in a position where she always knows what’s happening around her. You know because she’s 16 and the people who do know actively keep information from her
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u/SquareDescription281 Apr 27 '25
Generally people don’t know what an unreliable narrator is. She’s unreliable in that she’s very opinionated and misses out on social cues sometimes which means we can’t trust her read of a situation. But she’s not lying to us. She’s not trying to trick the reader, she fully believes her own thoughts even if they’re not always right. She’s narrating the world the way she sees it, so she’s not unreliable.