Far too often do we see main characters evading death by an unlikely chance. So frequently, too, do we see the protagonists score a most impossible victory, or happen to make what unbelievably turns out to be the right choice. It’s been written into the status quo by now: villainous guns are set up to miss the leading man by a thousand shots, the one critical weapon flies into the hands of the pre-teen hero in the nick of time, the underdog unexpectedly escapes their demise and plays the most crucial role before the end. These are mere plot shields, helmets, breastplates. But Suzanne Collins shows us that plot armor can come in the offensive.

 

The Hunger Games are designed by the oppressive Capitol to remind the Districts of Panem that they are thoroughly under its control. The Rules ensure that only one of the twenty four tributes can survive. Forced to participate in the Games, Katniss Everdeen finds herself embroiled in a fighting arena with two dozen bloodthirsty, underaged murderers. In particular, the Careers, who are children from the wealthier Districts, are identified by their monstrous desire for glory, to be sated even at the expense of the lives of other children. Cato is “the brutish boy from District 2.” Clove, a girl who is also from District 2, is a “predator who might kill [Katniss] in seconds”. As a whole, they are “overly vicious, arrogant”, and “universally, solidly hated”.

 

But we quickly find that the Careers aren’t the only ones who are capable of such cruelty and violence; indeed, there is ample evidence of Katniss’ brutality throughout the novel. Certainly it is gruesome of Cato to kill the boy from District 3 when his explosives fail. But Katniss herself reflects that “stupid people are dangerous”, and is ready to kill the female tribute who had been thoughtless enough to kindle a fire at night. Luckily for Katniss, the Careers get to her first. Katniss never has to kill someone for making an innocent mistake, and we as readers are not forced to reconsider our support for her.

 

One could argue that there is a major moral difference between Katniss and the Careers, because unlike them, she finds no enjoyment in killing. But this is not true either. For, while Clove relishes the thought of meting a painful death to Katniss, and Cato plots to kill her “in [his] own way”, Katniss, too, anticipates murdering Cato “with pleasure”, eagerly waits to assassinate Peeta for teaming up with the Careers, and muses that she could “kill them, every one of them, if those silver weapons were in my hands.” She is not reluctant; she finds a joy in the killing, a joy that is in direct proportion to her hatred for the Careers. And so by virtue of necessity, if the Careers are villains, so is Katniss. And this, perhaps, is Collins’ own way of telling us that, when reduced to mere survival, there is virtually no difference between the protagonists and the antagonists. The Careers are to almost every degree a victim like Katniss, pawns in a game that is bigger than any of their hopes for autonomy: even their twisted notions of honor were implanted in them, forced upon them, by the evil seat of power in the Capitol. 

 

There is, however, a major difference between Katniss and the Careers: Katniss is the female lead, and the Careers are not. She is protected from the start by heavy, heavy plot armor – put in place not only to keep her from dying, but also from killing. She is spared from doing the injustice of killing anyone who doesn’t deserve it. 

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Of the 24 tributes, only one can survive: this rule applies to all in the arena. Katniss wants to live just as much as anyone else, and this is contingent on the death of all the others. She knows this, and we have insight into her feelings on the matter: she reflects that it may be good for Peeta to have died, so that she will not “end up with the unpleasant task of killing him”, and she knows the alliance she makes with Rue “can only be temporary”. But she never comes to the decision of whether or not to spare them at her own expense: Rue dies at the hands of someone else; Foxface accidentally ingests the poisonous berries; Thresh is killed by Cato.

 

As these events unfold, you have to ask: does Katniss feel even a slight amount of relief that the task of killing these innocents, which is key to her own survival, doesn’t fall to her? Here, a lack of control is administered differently to Katniss and the Careers: The Careers, on one hand, have been manipulated by the wicked Capitol to entertain such conceptions of glory, and are forced into making the decision between murder or suicide. Their lack of autonomy plays to their disadvantage, justifying Katniss’s hatred of – and our apathy – towards them. On the other hand, Collins strategically strips Katniss of her agency, so that she never has to be faced with a similar choice. The story may well have played out differently if, for instance, she and Rue were the sole remaining survivors of the Games, putting our opinion of her at great risk. Moral disposition plays no role in this distinction. It is a matter of very deliberate plot making, engineered to protect Katniss and her moral superiority, and to enshrine her as the perfect lead character.

This is not to say that Katniss leaves the arena with clean hands. But even the murders she does commit – of the boy from District 1, Glimmer, and Cato – are done out of justice, and sanctioned by us as readers. The first is killed to avenge the death of poor, innocent, helpless Rue; the second and third out of self defense. But even the final shot that Katniss makes on Cato is to put him from the misery of a slow death, and done out of pity.

 

Yes, Katniss never dies; but what is more potent is that her moral high ground remains unscathed. People root for her – both her fictional audience at the Capitol, and the readers of the book. Katniss Everdeen was afforded a most unique and advantageous opportunity to keep both her life and her integrity, instead of having to choose one over the other, which is more than what the other tributes could say.