Dystopian Futures From A Mythical Past: The Hunger Games - Another Greek Myth Culturally Appropriated By Feminists

Computing Forever

Angelos Agathangelou: The hunger games is a reinterpretation of a story in Greek mythology where the people of Athens were at one point compelled by King Minos of Crete to choose 14 young noble citizens, seven young men and seven maidens, to be offered as sacrificial victims to the half-human, half-taurine monster Minotaur to be killed in retribution for the death of Minos' son Androgeos.

The victims were drawn by lots, were required to go unarmed, and would end up either being consumed by the Minotaur or lost and perishing in the Labyrinth, the maze-like structure where the Minotaur was kept. This lasted until Theseus volunteered to join the third group of the would-be victims, killed the monster, and led his companions safely out of the Labyrinth. So The Hunger Games story was rewritten to cast a female to replace yet another male hero, Theseus.

Theseus of Athens

'Plutarch' [also a character in the hunger games that is a big giveaway as to the Greek foundation story of these films] in his Life of Theseus cites a rationalised version of this myth, referring to Philochorus who in his turn claimed to be following a local Cretan tradition. According to it, the young people were not actually killed but given as prizes to winners of the funeral games of Androgeos. The Labyrinth was an ordinary dungeon where they were temporarily kept. The winner who received them as a prize was Taurus, the most powerful general of Minos; he mistreated the young people, gaining the reputation of a monster.