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The Hunger Games and Multi-Fandom Frigidity
We’ve been lucky enough to be part of the planning for Victory Tour 2013, an upcoming young adult book convention featuring The Hunger Games. We can’t tell you anything about it except that it is going to be EPIC and if you can make it to Charlotte, NC next June, you will not regret it!
For those of you who never learned to share!
Anyhow, working on the convention has taught us something about this fandom: There are A LOT of Hunger Games fans who are very insular. Even though they’re part of this fandom, they generally shun the idea of fandom outside their little safe Hunger Games bubble. We’re super surprised by how many people aren’t enthused by multiple fandoms.
For instance, Victory Tour is exploring some other fandoms that I personally love– Delirium, Divergent, Matched, and The Mortal Instruments. The Hunger Games will still be a major standpoint and featured around every corner, but we would be thrilled to geek out about these other fandoms with you too! So to see people call the whaaaambulance because a few fandoms other than The Hunger Games can also be enjoyed at the same time baffles us.
We are people of multiple fandoms here on Victor’s Village. We love The Hunger Games, but we also love Harry Potter and Star Wars and Downton Abbey and The Avengers and the above mentioned series from the last paragraph, along with many others. Our recommendations page is a good place to get a better idea!
They deserve fandom love too!
So tell us, Hunger Games only crowd– WHY? Yes, The Hunger Games is spectacular. But does it somehow keep you from reading and appreciating other books? Can you not love other characters as well? Do you feel like you’d be betraying THG by loving another book or series? Or are similar genres to The Hunger Games (action, political, dystopian) just not your cup o’ tea? We don’t expect everyone to love everything, of course, but to love only one fandom? That just feels lonely.
We’re inviting everyone to expand their horizons! Suggest your favorite fandoms other than The Hunger Games in the comments and let’s venture into new experiences together, that way it won’t be so scary. Together we can make progress!
Many People Love The Hunger Games, But Nobody Loves A Hunger Games Snob,
The Girl With The Pearl
A NOTE ON VICTORY TOUR: Some people seems to be confused. Victory Tour shifted to include other fandoms because for legal reasons, it cannot be a Hunger Games only convention not because the organizers believe that The Hunger Games doesn’t merit a standalone convention. However, there will be tons of Hunger Games programming! So much that you can do entirely Hunger Games activities throughout the convention. If you’re not interested in participating in the other fandoms, you can still have a full convention experience without doing so!
The Hunger Games “Seal of Approval”
As Hunger Games fans, we feel like there’s always someone trying to convince us. The fandom has proven itself to be full of readers and consumers, so now everyone expects us to… well… CONSUME EVERYTHING.
Except not as cute!
Thusly, every book is getting what we like to call The Hunger Games “Seal of Approval”.
It goes a little something like this:
“If you like The Hunger Games, you’ll love THIS!”
“A great read for fans of The Hunger Games!”
“Readers who love The Hunger Games will be obsessed with THIS!”
“NO SERIOUSLY! IF YOU LIKE THE HUNGER GAMES, YOU HAVE TO LIKE THIS. WE DEMAND IT.“
To us, The Hunger Games Seal of Approval is like poison. If we see it, we almost immediately put the book down and walk away. It’s not because we don’t want to read anything similar to The Hunger Games or have a grudge against teen dystopian fiction.
In fact, we’re not even 100 percent sure WHY we hate it so much, but if we had to guess, we’d assume it has something to do with reviewers suggesting that every other fictional book based in the future will be loved by fans of The Hunger Games, despite many differences between each series. Don’t get us wrong: we’ve read books that have been compared to The Hunger Games and loved them, some of them even ended up on the Victor’s Village Recs Page! But if we had checked out the “Praise For…” section for those books, we probably wouldn’t have bothered, even though they’re among our favorites now. It’s a strange, vicious tick.
It’s what we do best!
Here’s the thing: Every book needs to be judged on its own merits. We don’t want to like a book just because we’re thinking of The Hunger Games. We’re also plagued by the vapid reviewers who act as if all dystopia is the same and The Hunger Games is THE Pioneer. The series is an amazing, beautiful example of dystopia, but it didn’t create the genre, just the craze. A book can be both wonderful and dystopian without being The Hunger Games (though none add up quite the same!)
Also, some of the books that DO get compared to The Hunger Games are actually really, really awful.
So read a book because it looks interesting to you, not because the back cover told you it will make you think of another book!
Of course, I’m reviewing a book for my other site right now, and what’s on the back? A glowing recommendation for Hunger Games fans. I’mnotbotheredI’mnotbotheredI’mnotbothered…
Fans Should Only Be Listening To Our Advice ANYWAY,
The Girl With The Pearl
We’ve Got New Stuff!
Just a quick post to let you all know that Victor’s Village has a brand spankin’ new feature that will pique your interests and keep you entertained on a long day!
We’ve compiled a list of our favorite books and movies that are not related to The Hunger Games so that you can see exactly what we’re addicted to when we’re NOT obsessing over this series. If you’re looking for a new entertainment to sink your teeth into, we’ve got a ton listed!
We’ve also thrown in our favorite Hunger Games items, for good measure!
VICTOR’S VILLAGE RECOMMENDATIONS – THE STUFF WE LOVE
Check out the list and if anything looks interesting, click on the image to get all of the details!
IMPORTANT NOTE: The page sometimes has trouble loading all the awesome, so if the page looks a little scant toward the bottom, HIT REFRESH!
