It is with a certain amount of enjoyment that I see The Hunger Games movies have somewhat reentered the pop culture conversation as they began trending on Netflix recently, especially as we enter Holy Week, and even more fitting as we come upon Holy Thursday. While certainly not the sensation they were when first released, The Hunger Games (THG) have continued to stick around enough to not only stay relevant themselves, but lay the foundation for the acclaimed prequel novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, released in May 2020, which is also being adapted into a much anticipated feature film to be released in Fall 2023. I am fine admitting that what made the books and movies SO popular was most likely the combination of young people, violence and love-triangularity, as this is a tried-and-true recipe for selling a lot of books and movie tickets (as a certain vampires/werewolves phenomenon whose popularity preceded The Hunger Games will show, though I will never compare them to or even speak its name). However, one cannot help but notice too many important details in the series, written by an author whom the internet at least says is Catholic, that create a Eucharistic figure in the person of Peeta Mellark.
Those who have already considered this possible connection have emphasized either the Christological dimension of Peeta, which certainly has Eucharistic undertones, or the Eucharistic imagery in THG as a whole, but what if Peeta was meant to also have a more specific Eucharistic function befitting his character and actions? You knew this was coming, so let’s get past this one right away, there is the name: Peeta sounds like pita, as in bread. Yes, it is not the most profound of connections but it is still significant. Consider the setting in which THG is taking place. The premise is that this is a dystopian future whose landscape eerily resembles the United States, which means that this culture is taking place in the remains of the one we inhabit now. There would have been leftover words from a time gone by that would have lingered in the people’s lexicon and the words important to certain groups, Peeta’s came from a family of bakers that perhaps stretched back generations, would have remained especially through the naming of children. This confusing but resembling name should remind you of another bread-like substance from Christian history in the manna of the desert, which means “what is it?”. The Eucharist is still inspiring that same question in the greatest minds the Church can produce because there is so much more there than what the surface provides.
As previously mentioned, Peeta came from a family of bakers, so his life was bread. In fact, we see him share that “life” with Katniss in a memory of hers in the first book of the THG series. While this may point to Peeta as a Christological figure, it points more specifically to this Christological connection being Eucharistic. Not only because it is bread he shares, which is natural to the situation and his character, but in that scene he is beaten for having done so. Again, there are practical reasons in the story why this happens, but this is the scandal of the Eucharist, which still is a cause of division to those who have not “discerned” it properly as St. Paul exhorts in 1 Corinthians 11:29. It is mentioned in THG that this bread was burnt and unsellable, so Peeta’s disposal of it should have been no issue, yet he was beaten. Katniss even wonders if he burned it on purpose so that he could give it to her, which some have speculated was a calculated move by Peeta to jump start a relationship with her. This would speak to the scandalous humility of the Eucharist, which not only reduces the omnipotent, eternal, Creator to a rational created human nature of Jesus, but now to an inanimate object that must be torn in order to be shared, and for what, deeper relationship in the way that we, like the starving Katniss and Prim in the rain, need it.
Peeta too, is a sacrifice like Katniss, which again speaks to the underlying Christology to both of these main characters, though he is seen as a less active tribute than her. She is the one who volunteered where he was drafted. It is her thoughts we hear and the character’s whose POV we see whereas he is often acted upon at least from Katniss’s perspective. This is the humble submission of the bread to the altar as it “will become for us the bread of life” through the words of consecration. He is also the one who is, prior to and even early in the games, overlooked and dismissed by the other competitors, even Katniss herself. We find out that this was a strategic hiding of strengths on his part, which was done partially to align himself with those who would target Katniss so that he could better protect her. In fact, it is Peeta’s ability to hide himself and change his physical appearance that allows him to escape death later in the first Hunger Games. Was not the Resurrected Jesus hidden in appearance until the “breaking of the bread” in Luke 24? This is the self-emptying that Catholics are meant to recognize, despite the unexpected appearance, first in God the Son taking on human nature in the Incarnation of Jesus, but extended further when Jesus takes on the appearance of bread and wine in the Eucharist. If Jesus is truly no less God, and so no less all-powerful, when he has become the Host, then it is a great self-emptying to remain in that appearance even to the point of abuse and desecration as so many Hosts have endured.
It is Peeta’s willingness to empty himself, to hide his power, and remain faithful to Katniss that allows him to not only survive to the end of the first Hunger Games with Katniss, but to alongside her upend the entire structure of the Games precisely because he inspires in her a capacity for a qualitatively different type of courage that she didn’t realize she had. It was his subtle work on her, on the crowds and games-makers that made everyone not want there to be a winner in the conventional sense of the story. If only Katniss had lived and won the 74th games, there would have been no rest of the series (trying to avoid spoilers, but c’mon, it’s been over ten years). It is because of Peeta’s unique, “real presence” that Katniss is able to be the Christological figure she would later become as the Mockingjay.
Mike Schramm teaches theology and philosophy at the high school and college level in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He earned his MA in theology from St. Joseph's College in Maine and an MA in philosophy from Holy Apostles College. He co-hosts the Voyage Podcast with Jacob Klatte.