By Cathryn deVries
The Hunger Games endures because Suzanne Collins built a dystopia with real internal logic, not just a cruel backdrop — a lesson that shaped how I approached worldbuilding in my own novel, Son of Osivirius. Here's what makes a dystopian system believable, and why Katniss' choice at the end still matters.
What Makes a Dystopian World Believable?
With Sunrise on the Reaping set to land in cinemas at the end of 2026, it’s timely to reflect on why some dystopian novels work, and some just… don’t.
Here’s the core: A dystopian system needs internal logic.
Suzanne Collins did one thing right that those who tried to copy her didn’t seem to grasp—she created a dystopia that made sense. It was horrible, cruel, oppressive, and those in the Capitol were unbelievably blind to it, but it wasn’t arbitrary. It didn’t appear out of nowhere. It had been created for a very specific reason that worked for those in power.
That’s it, really, in a nutshell. I could stop here, but I’ll explain a bit more what I mean.
Why Does The Hunger Games Dystopia Work?
For any fictional setting to work, it has to have internal logic. This is true for all speculative fiction. No matter what crazy, weird, frightening, awesome, horrendous or divine elements the author wants to incorporate, they cannot be in there simply because they’re cool, or necessary for the plot. There’s got to be some substance behind them, so that, if you poke at them a bit, they’ll hold, not collapse.
This is especially crucial for dystopian, because that messed up ‘system’ is an antagonist in its own right. Let me say that again. The oppressive system is not merely the backdrop. It functions as an antagonist. It is what the protagonist is up against, and it is personified in an individual—in the case of The Hunger Games: President Snow.
But we are still left with the question of why this system works.
The System Has a Historical Reason
Everyone in Panem knows why the Hunger Games exist. They know exactly when they began, and that they are an eternal reminder to the districts that they lost the war, and the Capitol is able to crush them.
The Population Doesn't Truly Consent
The system is perpetuated by fear of something worse happening if the districts rebel. Even sympathisers in the Capitol are controlled by fear of torture and maiming.
The System Allows Just Enough Hope
The Capitol controls the population by setting the one against the many. The games offer just enough hope that ‘it might not be me, or even if it is me, I might survive.’ This makes the idea of mass rebellion less appealing, where the cost to the many will be much higher, and the odds even less in their favour.
The System Evolves Over Time
As we discover in A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the Hunger Games evolved over time. This makes it seem so much more real than a system that has remained static for generations.
The Games Reinforce the System
No one is allowed to forget why the Hunger Games happen, and no one is allowed to opt out of participation. For the districts, this entails being forced to watch on pain of death. For the Capitol residents, it means lavish parties, spectacle, and wagers, turning the games into the highlight of the year.
The Dystopia Reflects Our Own Culture
Lastly, Collins’ ideas were sparked by the grotesque things she noticed in our own contemporary culture. The voyeurism of reality TV shows and the ‘suffering as entertainment’ of war coverage. She was poking at a deep discomfort that many of us share and taking it to its absolute extreme. She wasn’t making spectacle for spectacle’s sake, like many who tried to follow the dystopian trend. She was trying to communicate something profound about injustice.
The Dystopian System is an Antagonist
In dystopian fiction, the antagonist isn't really a single person. Most of the time, the real antagonist is a system—a political, economic, technological or social structure that shapes what characters are allowed to do. President Snow gives the Capitol a face, but the deeper antagonist is the system itself.
So if the system is the antagonist, it needs to be as well developed as any character. It needs a backstory, goals, motivations, conflicts, and as I mentioned above, its own internal logic. The lack of these things is what usually makes a dystopian worldbuilding system fail. If a dystopian society is cruel, the story needs to explain why that system persists. It cannot be arbitrary, or require ‘plot armour’ to survive.
I recently DNF’d a couple of dystopian books that suffered just this shortcoming. In the first, the ordinary population bought into the whacked system even though it gave them no benefit. Stranger still, they were all enthusiastically cheering in unison and persecuting people who didn’t conform, and there were soldiers ready to haul away anyone who didn’t conform. That just didn’t make sense. Either the leader is cruel and everyone is playing along because they’re too scared not to, or these awful practices are perpetuated for some perceived benefit to the community—you can’t have both.
The other used the set-up of one ‘bad’ person being kicked out into the wilds every year. There was abject fear riddling the community, as there didn’t seem to be any real logic behind it. Like, you could be chosen for tying your shoelaces the wrong way, whereas the thief next door got to stay. There was also no logical benefit to the community or even the leadership for this very arbitrary practice, and it wasn’t being imposed by any higher authority. It didn’t seem like the people knew why they were still doing it either.
For me, the test is simple: if I poke at the system, does it hold?
Why do Readers Keep Returning to Dystopian Fiction?
Dystopian fiction resonates because it gives form to a feeling many people already have: something about the way we live isn't working, but we don't necessarily know what an alternative looks like.
In our time, we are living inside a decadent dystopia, something like Brave New World. We are sold the idea that technology will solve all our problems, that the next thing we buy will finally be the thing that makes us happy, that comfort is the ultimate goal in life, and that freedom is the ability to do whatever you like without regard for the cost.
We participate in this system despite disliking it, and constantly experience the tension between apparent abundance and dissatisfaction. Mental health figures are poor, very few people seem truly happy, and the youngest generations seem to be stuck in a malaise of hopelessness.
Our micro-dystopias are symptomatic of a larger dystopia, and so, as humans, we try to make sense of that through fiction. Because we are ultimately meaning-making creatures.
Scarcity, Abundance, and the Search for Hope
Collins provided commentary on where to find hope whilst living under an oppressive system in The Hunger Games, and that’s one of the reasons I think it resonates despite the dark subject matter. It’s not dark for the sake of sensationalism. It’s dark so that the light shines more brightly.
I’ve also created a hopeful dystopia, but I wanted to explore the tension between material abundance and deeper dissatisfaction. Unlike our forebears, and unlike the people in the districts, we have everything, but it still doesn't satisfy—so where is the hope in that situation? How can we get off this technology/consumerism treadmill?
Son of Osivirius approaches the question through a society shaped by scarcity, exploitation and inequality, while the Masu and rebel community offer an entirely different paradigm of contentment and abundance. I wanted to explore the true cost of comfort, and imagine a new and healthy way to combine the knowledge of the present with the wisdom of the past. But you’ll have to read the book to discover more!
Why Katniss’ Choice Matters
Back to The Hunger Games. Katniss is not a traditional revolutionary hero. This was one of the greatest decisions that Suzanne Collins made. She is a reluctant figurehead who eventually kills the revolutionary leader because she could see Coin was about to usher in a new dystopia.
Because she refused to compliantly play Coin’s game, Katniss was able to stay slightly removed from the revolution and remain more objective and therefore critical of it—even as she was fighting for those she loved and the chance to escape the oppressive system all the districts had been broken under since the end of the war. She was on the edge of the inside—the place of every prophet.
Peeta, Gale, and Two Different Responses to Oppression
One of the things that fascinates me about The Hunger Games is the way the romantic relationships became expressions of deeper moral choices. Peeta and Gale weren't simply two possible romantic partners; they represented radically different responses to violence, power and survival. This is a huge reason the love triangle worked so effectively.
Gale was right in the centre of the revolution, actively pushing it, and was ultimately responsible for the winning tactic that both killed Prim—the very person Katniss got involved in the first place to save—and forced the surrender of the Capitol.
Peeta, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He was even more opposed to violence than Katniss, willing to sacrifice his life rather than take another’s, and determined to remain true to himself—to not let the Games change him. That’s why his capture and torture by the Capitol was so devastating, because we almost lost what made him uniquely him.
In many ways, the choice between Peeta and Gale mirrored the choice Katniss needed to make at the end—save herself and perpetuate the dystopia, or sacrifice and stand for something true. Anyone who thinks she should have chosen Gale missed something very important in the story—the whole point of it in fact.
Her choice was not about romantic preference, but worldview.
What The Hunger Games Taught Me About Writing Speculative Fiction
The Hunger Games has an important place in the lexicon of speculative fiction that continues to influence and shape my own writing. From a purely technical perspective, it served as my guide when learning to write first person perspective. That was important in the execution of Son of Osivirius, as my natural mode is third person.
It was also a great study in symbolism, pacing and forcing characters into a situation they would never choose. Collins handled theme very well, and never softened her message to make it more palatable. I think this is extremely important in speculative fiction as the genre is uniquely positioned to explore extremes.
What Makes Good Dystopian Fiction?
For me, good dystopian fiction needs three things: a believable system, characters whose choices matter within that system, and a question worth asking about the world beyond the story.
The Hunger Games succeeds because it doesn't simply ask, "How do we overthrow an oppressive government?" It asks what kind of people we become when we participate in systems built on fear, violence and control—and whether freedom is possible without simply replacing one form of domination with another.
What should I read if I liked The Hunger Games?
The Hunger Games will always remain the seminal work of modern dystopian fiction, and if you want more dystopian fiction where characters must navigate oppressive systems while wrestling with questions of freedom, identity, loyalty and hope, you may enjoy Son of Osivirius, my clean romantic science fantasy novella. It uses dual first person POV to introduce two unlikely lovers separated by worldview.
Jayden is a colony pilot from the lower echelons of society who is trying to win his family a better life by taking on a dangerous mission. Nettle is one of two rebels living in harmony with the native telepathic flying cats who find him after he crash lands. What follows is a story about two people who've each built their lives around half-truths, and a colony system as rigid and fear-driven as anything in Panem — except this time, the "district" that seems most oppressed turns out to be the one that's actually free.
Like The Hunger Games, Son of Osivirius asks what it costs to see through the system you were raised inside, and whether choosing a different life is even possible once you have. Fans of Avatar's ecological wonder, Outlander's slow-burn tension, and Ender's Game's moral complexity will find familiar ground here — but with giant telepathic flying cats, and a romance built on shared grief rather than survival.
Son of Osivirius is a multi-award-winning, clean romantic science fantasy novella — a quick, immersive read for anyone who wants their next dystopia to end in something more hopeful than a scorched arena. Read more or get your copy.
About the Author
Cathryn deVries writes the kind of stories she wants to disappear into — clean romantic fantasy and science fiction, with just enough dystopia to make the hope mean something. Her novella Son of Osivirius follows two unlikely lovers on opposite sides of a broken colony system, told through dual first-person POV, with a cast of telepathic flying cats she's a little too fond of. She's currently deep in drafting a romantic fantasy trilogy. You can find her (and her books) at eclectaperennial.com