My Hunger Games poster reminds me you can’t judge a book by the movie

polygon.com:

I have a framed Hunger Games poster.

It’s huge. It’s right in my apartment’s entranceway. And at first glance, it’s cheerful: a June Cleaver type, canning preserves with her smiling, pigtailed daughter, who says, “We’ll have plenty to eat thanks to my tesserae, won’t we mother?” At second glance, one might notice the worrying caption, “Don’t let your family starve this winter!” At third, you might recognize the Panem Capitol seal, or actually read the block of bold text beneath that shouts, in unnerving capitals:

BE RESPONSIBLE — FEED YOUR FAMILY — YOUTHS 12-18 MUST ENTER THE LOTTERY FOR THE REAPING — NO EXCEPTIONS — ON PENALTY OF DEATH

Why do I, a 35-year-old not-really-a-Hunger Games-fan-fan, keep a Hunger Games poster in the year of our lord 2023? Because it reminds me that you can’t judge a book by its online discourse or its movie adaptation — there’s more Lord of the Rings in the story of the Hunger Games than there is Harry Potter.

You probably know the broad strokes of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian YA series. In the techno-genetic society of Panem, the hedonistic Capitol maintains its dominance over 12 other districts through military might and a yearly, televised debutante-ball-slash-reality-show-slash-battle-royale featuring 24 children from the lesser districts. These “tributes” are chosen in a ceremony called the Reaping, where their names are put on paper slips and randomly drawn from a globe. Any child age 12 to 18, so long as they reside in the district, could be chosen.

But you might not know the specifics: The Reaping isn’t a totally random lottery. For one thing, it’s weighted toward older kids. A 12-year-old’s name will only be in the globe once, but a 13-year-old will have two slips of paper, a