When Suzanne Collins announced her newest book, Sunrise on the Reaping, which would cover the 50th Hunger Games, I was thrilled. The Hunger Games is one of my favorite book series of all time, and her other prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, exceeded all my expectations. 

I certainly wasn’t alone in my excitement, and fan speculation about the book surged online. Many theories about the book, ranging from the narrator not being Haymitch to there being time skips from Haymitch’s games to the original trilogy began circulating online. Alongside these fan theories, speculation about the other 71 games fans haven’t had books about began to circulate online, and some people began wondering if Collins would continue writing installments to fill in these gaps in our Hunger Games knowledge.

I enjoyed those fan theories too. After all, Collins is a phenomenal writer and the Hunger Games universe is one almost all book readers know and love. And we don’t know much about the games of dearly beloved characters like Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason, aside from brief descriptions given in the book. Especially now, in the post-Sunrise on the Reaping world, fans are eager for these books since much of what we thought we knew about Haymitch’s games was either false or heavily simplified. It’s hard for fans to tell what information they can and can’t trust about previous games.

However, some fans online were upset by those asking for and speculating about the release of more installments. These fans claim asking for more books, especially books about the games of victors who are never mentioned in the series, makes fans almost like those in Panem’s Capitol, who watched games for years solely for entertainment.

At first, I was inclined to agree with these critical fans. Most of the books would likely have little to no relevance to the plot of the original trilogy, unlike the most recent additions to the series. Even books about victors like Mags Flanagan, who won the 11th games, just after Lucy Gray won hers in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, won’t provide any significant new insights into the actions behind different characters in the original series, despite its proximity to the first prequel. Sunrise on the Reaping gave us the deeper reason Mags was willing to sacrifice herself for Finnick, when she told Haymitch the most important thing to her going into her games was protecting her district-mate. Since Mags was unharmed at the beginning of Sunrise on the Reaping, it’s unlikely anything rebellious happened, since President Snow has proved to readers time and time again there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do to silence rebels. 

Yet, I understand the desire many fans have to read more about their favorite characters. There’s still so much we don’t know about many of the central characters. What their life was like before the games, who their friends were, what they thought going into their games, and, of course, the tragedies that eventually led to their victories. There’s so much left of the Hunger Games world left to explore, and a gigantic fanbase would certainly support the release of more content. It’s also important to remember these characters aren’t real, and reading and enjoying these books doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s arguably more ethical than violent video games where the player themselves is behind an impersonal violence. In The Hunger Games, the violence is purposeful and the emotional connections fans develop for the characters means fans will never become indifferent to deaths or violence in The Hunger Games series.

Ultimately, I don’t see much wrong with fans wanting more content, particularly for existing characters. The curiosity about them is natural, and could give us at least some answers about their histories. If Collins is bothered by fans asking for more books, she can always ask them to stop or simply ignore the requests. But instead of pleading with Collins for more books, it’s probably more productive and satisfactory for fans to just keep speculating online with other fans who have the same questions. Fans could probably spend the rest of their lives combing through various fan theories and fan-made content and not get through it all, so whether or not Collins releases more books, fans can rest easy knowing there will always be more Hunger Games content out there for them.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Katie Maurer at [email protected].