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Ethical Killing in The Hunger Games

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Ethical Killing in The Hunger Games
Ethical Killing in The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games is a book series ripe with ethical issues. Panem is a post apocalyptic America in which the series takes place. The country is divided into 12 Districts and one Capitol that rules over them. As a response to District 13's rebellion, The Capitol instated The Hunger Games in order to keep the remaining 12 districts at bay. The Games involve a male and female tribute from each district between the ages of 12 and 18 to be taken from their homes and forced to fight to the death in a tournament. The victor will get a years supply of food for their district. Katniss is the District 12 tribute that the series follows in her journey to fight in the Games and overthrow the tyrannical Capitol. Katniss is a hunter and relies on the survival skills she’s acquired from her daily life to survive in the Hunger Games. Katniss’ killing of other tributes is not based on a desire for murder, but instead a need to survive. In the film adaptation of The Hunger Games Gary Ross, the director, had a difficult job to present children murdering and copious amounts of violence in a shocking, but not sensationalistic way. Ross' ethical approach to depicting children killing each other was presented in a manner that condemned the violence instead of hailing it. The camera angles and fast paced editing helped add a dimension of reality to the movie that reinforced Ross' vision of criticizing the Capitol in Panem as well as the violence in the movie industry as a whole.
The book and film address the major ethical dilemma of “When is killing justified?” Katniss is the tribute for the 74th Hunger Games, which means that hundreds of kids have died without attempting to stand up to the Capitol and accepted their fates. Tributes from District 1 and 2 normally enjoy the killing and more often than not win the Hunger Games, Katniss sees them as monsters and reviles them. She actively tries to avoid killing and relying mainly on her survival skills

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