UK’s Telegraph Blames ‘The Hunger Games’ for Completely Unrelated Crime
I suppose one of the ways you know your favorite books have truly made it is when it gets blamed for something completely ridiculous. The UK’s Telegraph is reporting that two crazy men in Utah made a “Hunger Games style” booby trap to harm hikers.
A booby trap on a popular trail in Utah has been discovered, likened to a “real life Hunger Games”, rigged with a trip wire and set up to send a nine-kilo spiked boulder swinging into an unsuspecting hiker, authorities said.
Another trap was designed to trip a passer-by into a bed of sharpened wooden stakes, authorities said.
Two men arrested over the weekend on suspicion of misdemeanor reckless endangerment told authorities the traps were intended for wildlife, but investigators didn’t believe the story.The suspects built a dead-wood shelter as a possible lure for hikers who could step inside only through the two booby-trapped entrances, Utah County sheriff’s Sgt Spencer Cannon said.
Look, I know The Hunger Games is popular right now, but there’s nothing like this in the books. There aren’t any wooden spike booby traps in the movie either. And as for “style”, do you really need to put a “Hunger Games style” on ways to kill people? Original news sources made no mention of The Hunger Games.
Its’ the Telegraph, what do we expect, lol?
Ah yeah you’re right, the mines! I forgot about that. But still, this specific one just didn’t say Hunger Games to me.
Yech! Sounds more like Cabin in the Woods. But there really were human snares in HG (Rue was caught in one) and Kaniss reviews human snare-making at the tribute training center in Catching Fire. And who can forget BeeTee and Gale’s experiments in Mockingjay. I’m not saying this actually was the crazy guys’ inspiration, but theoretically it could have been.
It said in the books that the replacement of the landmines was a booby trap but it seemed more like a “protection circle”. Of course, if you were in the hunger games with a pile of safe food and equipment, you would try to protect it, right?
Especially when you don’t know what you can and can’t eat in the woods.
I would more like compare this to Skyrim….There’s booby traps everywhere in the caves..
WOW!!!!! That was COMPLEATLY unrelated!!!!!!!!
It’s ridiculous. I went on an article maybe a week after the movie was released and it was about this girl gang made up of preteens. One of the gang members beat up another and recorded it. And do you want to know what nearly all of the comments said? “Probably due to The Hunger Games. That stupid movie should be banned, or better yet, should have never been made. It’s just corrupting our youth.” Ummmm, first of all, incidents like this have been happening for years and years and years. Second of all, no one seemed to make a big deal about it before the movie. No comments like that. It just goes to show that peoploe think that it’s cool to hate something popular.
Also– before the movie came out and back when The Hunger Games wasn’t as popular (and I really do miss those days), everyone I knew that had read the books had loved them. Not a single person I knew hated them. And the same could almost be said for the Internet– most people loved them, but of course, there were a few that weren’t on board. But, that was just a tiny, tiny percentage. But now that the movie has been released, I can’t go on an article about The Hunger Games without someone saying that they absolutely hate the books. It’s ridiculous. Errrrr!!!
Ahhhh, rage over.
Wait, one more completely unrelated rage: I have been waiting and waiting and begging my teacher to let my class read The Hunger Games. And finally, now that the movie has been released, she is considering. But, there is just this one girl with an extremely large mouth that just screams, “Nooo! Don’t do it! Don’t give in! I HATE that book!” And the this is my problem: she hasn’t even read the books! She admitted to a friend that she had just seen the movie. So, just one girl is ruining everything I had been waiting for for, ehhh, about two years.
^ Sorry, but if I didn’t let that out, I would have let it out in class– and it would not have been pretty.
Uhh … this is going to be a hell of a first post on any fansite.
But umm … guise …
There’s a booby trap just like that in the movie. In the Training scenes when Katniss is watching Cato do a deminstration with a sword cutting up dummy’s you see her working on it.
Then, later when Katniss is spending her first day in the areana you see her make it, between filling her canteen and eating what she caught.
So yeah … that was in the movie.
That’s a snare to catch animals to eat.
I think the people that are blaming HG are just mad that and holding a grudge because Twilight has been replaced.
I kind of agree with @Crystal. It never showed this type of trap being used on humans. The movie never even touched on the topic of using traps like this for humans. Right after it showed Katniss making that trap in the arena, it showed her cooking a wild animal to eat. And in the Training Center, you’d have to really look at it closely to see what she was doing.
Ehh, I can see where someone might get the idea (MIGHT), but to blame The Hunger Games for this incident? It makes no sense. The movie/book did not tell you to go out and kill someone. Quite the opposite, actually. So, I just don’t understand where these claims are coming from.
It’s a (cheap) trick to get more attention for their article – and it’s working.
Really people…..Have the suspects even read the books? or seen the movie…..even if they had…….you’d have to be pretty out there to be inspired to do something like this…
so everything remotely snare/outdoorsy-related (and we could stretch that to any sort of violent behavior) is going to be connected to the hunger games now? i’ve read all three books and seen the movie about ten times, yet i can’t survive in the forest for more than five minutes, let alone set up a snare if i needed it to save my life.
it’s not like suzanne collins invented snares and traps. if these people really wanted to hurt hikers, all they had to do was look it up on wikipedia. it’s not that hard, and it’s a lot cheaper than going to the theater. come on, this isn’t the 80′s. you’d think we’d be past this “blaming deviant behavior on subliminal messages in rock music” type of thinking by now.
those two did what they did because they have serious issues; there’s no basis to blame THG for it, not when 26+ million people have read the books (and even more have watched the movie) and they aren’t out there hurting others. this is ridiculous.
This is really stupid. It makes NO sense that this could possibly be based off the hg. They could have gotten the idea anywhere.
THEY JUST WANTED ATTENTION!!!!! AND ATTENTION THEY GOT!!!!! GRRRRRR!!!! I REALLY DONT LIKE THWM!!!!
Oh Goodness Gracious…..
I was in church & the priest asked all of us teens that were there if we had seen/read THG and I was the only one 2 raise my hand (the others were too scared) and he was like “Why would you read something with so much violence, especially involving teens!?!” and I was all like “Obviously YOU haven’t read the books since later on in the trilogy they fight AGANIST the teen violence.” and so he was like, “Yea well I’ve just seen the commercials and stuff so….”
DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER!
Now that is ridiculous.
@ Katniss Potter I KNOW RIGHT???!!! some people who havent’t even read the books are like “ugh teens killing teens that is jusst sick how could you read that?” and stuff like that and they haven’t even read the books
it is so annoying!that’s not even the point of THG! SOME people should read the books before they start criticizing THG
Gah! Ridiculousness. Even if the trap was based off thg, which I’m sure it wasn’t, that doesn’t make thg fans violent. That makes two idiots who had the brilliant idea to make a snare to capture people. That’s like calling mcdonalds responsible for bullying due to obesity. It makes no sense, and frankly, it’s a big waste of time and energy.
Emily414, you are SO right!!!! It is totally unrelated and unfair…..
The last thing poor Suzanne would want to do is be the reason for killing ACTUAL PEOPLE!!!!! Think of how she feels right now!!!!! MISERABLE!!!!!!!!!!! LIKE IF U AGREE…….
Unfortunately theirs always gonna be a few people out there that take a movie or book waaaaaay too seriously. Or at least pervert the movies plot to match their delusions. It’s scary but true.
I think they added the Hunger Games comment for more views, personally. This trap was completely unrelated, and even if it was, you can’t blame a popular series for what some stupid people do. You could ban Harry Potter, because someone might go around killing people, like Voldemort did. There’s no point raging over it.
How stupid can you get!!!!?
If they start like this, they could blame EVERY SINGEL MOVIE IN THE WORLD to make some idiots tick like that!!!!!
Just as the others mentioned abouve, this traps are neither in our beloved books nor in the movie!!! And just because people are hurting other people its the Hunger Games????
This happened looong time befor THG and will ever happen in future!!!
Thats so ridiculous!!!!!!
… I’m calmer now…
Criminal sociopaths often take inspiration from sources that most of us can read or watch safely — and even gain deep inspiration from. Think of people who use the Koran or the Bible, Heaven forbid, as inspiration for killing. The phenomenon of copy cat killers or copy cat suicides that can follow a sensational case is well documented. Hunger Games has become a media sensation. It is quite possible that a couple of sick individuals fixated on the books or the movies and decided to act out their own disturbed games. It doesn’t make the books or the movies bad. However, the news story gives no details of the crime, only sensationalized visuals, and publishing this kind of thing can itself lead to copy catting. Mockingjay: I love you guys but it might be better not to post these sorts of stories.
So revealing! Btw, bank robbery, also fault of the hunger games. Also nuclear bombing, and don’t forget jack the ripper, also the hunger games! Seriously people! This is so dumb! If this is a publicity stunt!!
Way to go. Blame the hunger games for the psycho. It’s not like he forced his children to fight to the death or anything. I’m sure crazy stuff has happened like this before. Someone just decided to blame it on this.
It’s like when My Chemical Romance and their fans got called a suicide cult when one of their die hards killed herself. People are stupid.
this is madness