Survival of the Fittest

"The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins." (18.Collins)

Based on what Panem's figurehead, twelve innocent children could possibly loose their lives because of an uprising that wasn't even caused by them. This is ridiculous and fairly disturbing. I don't think that their only punishing the people for the uprising, but also punishing the adults and parents of the districts. The tributes are obviously forced to put their names in the "raffle", because no one would volunteer for such a game, so the parents must watch and hope that their child won't get picked. And if they did get picked;they have to hope their child to be the winner. I see this as more of a discipline for the parents and adults, because a way to phase the older community is to show that the government is willing to put innocent children on the line to keep the others in line. It seems more like a warning that they are capable of doing anything just to show that they have power and dominance, because there would not be any other reason for this game to exist in the first place. Children are one of the most innocent creatures on this planet, so the fact that a government uses them and take away their innocence with this "game", is outrageous and doesn't improve anything. This obviously shows manipulation and dominance, because people are chosen randomly, without their will to participate in a game where they might die, and they can't have the opportunity to speak up or rebel. The government has full control on what they can and can't do. So even if someone is courages enough to speak up, he would probably be dead or be sent to the arena anyways. Also, the figureheads makes this situation into a game show, hosted on television to keep everyone "posted" or "entertained" is a way for the government to make the killings not as serious or bad as it really is. I don't see this game benefits anyone. I think the government wants out of this is to punish the society for something that happened in the past, and used their children to make the punishment worse. But broadcasting it has no purpose, besides giving a chance for a child's parents to watch him/her getting killed.