Lessons from Catching Fire: The Morphlings

There is indeed a lot to consider in these films, and lately I feel like doing character write-ups.

Deep down, we tend to value strength, defined as the capability and willingness to use force. By these standards, the Morphlings are considered cowards. Since our value system is not so much different from Panem's, most of us probably think they're cowards too. That was my initial conclusion even. They hid, and did not engage anyone in battle to win.

Other tributes are not the only dangers on the Hunger Games. Game-masters create adversities, such as extreme cold, computer generated creatures that have actual substance, the poisonous or otherwise dangerous fog, rain, insects, birds, and etc. The Morphlings are bit parts, but so are the all the tributes in the alliance called The Careers, and people seem (perhaps unhealthily?) interested in them.
Both of the Morphlings in Catching Fire won their first times in the Hunger Games by hiding until all the other tributes died.
Remember, these were children that were yanked from their families and friends and sent to battle for no reason. The Morphlings managed to protect themselves and stay hidden, always dodging the game-master's hellish creations, while the others killed each other. Eventually, they must have evaded the last actually-fighting tribute(s) until an element created by the game-masters eliminated them. After surviving the Hunger Games, they both became drug addicts. I wonder if winning by means not really respected by the society they lived in fed in to that? Winning the Hunger Games supposedly  brought "pride to your district." How proud would their district have been of these two, really? The culture of The Hunger Games' Panem ran on violence and subjugation, it was part of life for about everybody.

In this situation, doesn't choosing not to fight equal defiance? How is that not rebellion? In a society that values force, and runs on force, doesn't winning non-violently say something? When you have been thrown into a sort of cage and ordered by the powers that be to fight and kill until only one is left standing, how is not fighting anything other than counter-culture? Katniss did not want to fight anyone either, she only killed in self-defense when she was being attacked, or out of mercy when Cato was dying very painfully.

Are they really cowards? Well, let's see. The female Morphling was hiding in the trees, camouflaged, when the computer-generated killer monkeys cornered Peeta. She jumped out of her hiding place which happened to be behind where Peeta was, and got right in the way of the vicious beasts. She had no weapons, no way to fight back. She was instantly attacked and savagely had her throat torn into by the game-masters' creatures. It is not fully clear from the film alone whether she acted out of supportt for the rebellion or not, but she may have. In a very touching scene that reveals Peeta's gentleness, she is carried out to the safety of the waters to see the sunset, and passes away in comparative peace, mesmerized by the artificial but realistic sunset. Peeta said, "She sacrificed herself for me and I didn't even know her name."

Was this Morphling a coward? I think not.



The Lesson: Again, we think too much like Panem. Too much emphasis on brutality and combat-worthiness-type of stuff. Too much judgment of people.
The Morphlings may have been hiding from their feelings in substances, which was indeed cowardly. However, that doesn't mean that "coward" is all they were, or were capable of. Strength is not only measured in combat ability and such like. It is not even measured in getting your way or "winning" whatever that means. It is measured in the positive impact one makes, and how much one is willing to risk or pay to give all that they have, or to give their very best to the world.

Godspeed.

~ Mother Star.