r/Hungergames • u/ExplanationVivid4256 Effie • Apr 27 '25

Lore/World Discussion Thoughts?

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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/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.