Battling Hunger Games Elitism

Fighting the illness together!

It’s natural to be really protective of your fandom. If it’s something you love, you don’t want other people to hate on it. Simple, right?

Not so much. See, there’s a certain point at which fans put the Hunger Games books and/or film above everything else and instead of just defending The Hunger Games, they start nitpicking and randomly calling out things that they think aren’t as good.

We call this disease Hunger Games Elitism. Today, we’re here to help you recognize the signs. Step one is admitting that you have a problem, after all.

Symptoms of Hunger Games Elitism:

Everything from the movie that wasn’t straight out of the books was AWFUL.

There’s no better example of a Hunger Games book snob than someone truly outraged that small changes were made between the book and the film. And HEAVEN FORBID that the movie add in things that weren’t in the books, especially when the script was written by someone who knows nothing about The Hunger Games! …Oh, wait…

Every dystopian novel is copying The Hunger Games.

If it takes place in the future, features a dictatorship or otherwise defunct government, and has a teen narrator, it MUST BE The Hunger Games! Because no other series in history has ever had those things. 
We spotted a giant rant in the comments Matched section of TheFandom.net about how the Matched trilogy was CLEARLY a rip-off of THG. Huh?! We can name about a bazillion differences between the two series (that’s just a ballpark figure, of course!) including the plot, the setting, and the main themes. But you know, they both feature girls trying to make their way through a dangerous futuristic society– Somebody file a lawsuit!

Not. Even. Close. (P.S. READ THIS BOOK!)

Every book cover design is copying The Hunger Games.
Another gem via the interwebz was a recent comment that the cover of Divergent by Veronica Roth looked “an awful lot like the Mockingjay pin on fire.” If you’ve never seen it, the cover features a circle of fire with one larger, more distinct flame in the middle (photo evidence to your right). It’s a major symbol through the book, which was published in MAY OF 2011. Yup, before we got a single bit of material filmed for the movie, let alone a flaming Mockingjay interactive teaser poster. The Hunger Games, while very original, was not the creator of symbolism or even round things on fire. Shocking, we know!

Your real life is exactly like The Hunger Games.
Except where it’s not. We don’t care if you have a best friend like Gale, a sister like Prim, or a cat like Buttercup. We don’t even care if your name is Katniss Everdeen. Do you live on the brink of starvation in a totalitarian dictatorship where you are forced to fight to the death? WE THINK NOT. Pointing out cute little similarities is fine, but your life is not straight out of The Hunger Games. You should thank your lucky stars for that every day, too!

Other books are “not The Hunger Games”.
Nothing breaks our hearts more than when a not-so-avid reader devours The Hunger Games (or Harry Potter, where this disease is also seen often), then refuses to enjoy any other books because “they don’t match up” to the series they loved first. It’s a tragedy and one of the worst forms of Hunger Games Elitism because it completely stifles your ability to enjoy so much more great literature due to narrow-mindedness.

A PhD in spewing pseudo-intellectual garbage regarding The Hunger Games.
Here’s the part where we admit to it: We’re kind of Hunger Games snobs too. We can talk up this series like it’s nobody’s business. Unnecessary levels of character analysis? Yup! Comparisons between Panem and the current day US? You betcha! However, we like to think we walk the fine line because we do this with very little pretentiousness. We’re just that obsessed. Other people do it because they think they’re more qualified than real fans. We’re not okay with them.

Have you encountered any particularly soul-crushing forms of Hunger Games elitism that we missed on this list? Be sure to share in the comments!

We Can Get Past This Together,
The Girl With The Pearl