Fear this? Mutant, homicidal wasps employed as border guards. Eavesdropping optimized birds spying on civilian activists. Hybrid human/beasts annihilating drafted youths on reality TV. All this DNA mayhem, and more, occurs in the bestsellers by Suzanne Collins, who replays an ancient device utilized in the classic myth of the Minotaur, a bull-man fusion that lurked in the Labyrinth of Crete.
That horror with horns was legendarily spawned by the witch-queen Pasiphae, who copulated with a white bull after zoophilia was instigated in her via a spell from Aphrodite. Annually (according to Virgil) fourteen Athenian youths - seven boys, seven girls - were delivered to Crete in tribute; the victims were sacrificed to the Minotaur, who devoured them with an appetite that must be categorized as 50% cannibalistic. Eventually the terrible taurus was outwitted and slain by handsome Theseus, who utilized thread smuggled to him by love-smitten Ariadne.
This narrative is largely duplicated in The Hunger Games trilogy, with minor changes. Instead of 14 tributes, there’s only 12; instead of a labyrinth, there’s immense artificial “arenas”; instead of a male hero aided by an infatuated girl, we get a heroine, Katniss Everdeen, assisted by Peeta, her loyal paramour.
The Hunger Games trilogy is psychologically sicker than the Minotaur myth, because violence isn’t Monster vs. Children; it’s Kids killing Kids, until the last one remains. On live television they dismember each other with Neolithic weapons, forced into savagery by tyrannic decree from The Capitol - a brutal regime that controls twelve far-flung Districts. Children chopping each other to bits for public amusement isn’t Hellenic, however, it’s throughly Roman - the Tiber urbanites roared their approval as legions of gladiators were spectacularly slaughtered in arenas like the Colosseum. Men, women, children, lions, crocodiles, hippopotami, giraffes, elephants, rhinoceroses, etc., all died in the Roman sadism-sport that endured for 700 years.
Returning to Minotaur/Hunger Games similarities, let’s observe the dual usage of genetic-horror-freaks as agents of civic control. The Cretan Minotaur in the mind-bending maze is a gluttonous diner of Athenian adolescents, a nightmare to insomniac Peloponnesian parents who fear their teens might be masticated in bovine bicuspids. Likewise, in The Hunger Games trilogy, there are myriad genetic evils - termed “mutations” - that are developed by the dictatorial elite to terrorize the plebeians of Panem. Below I describe each of the chromosomal monstrosities:
Tracker Jackers: Huge, golden wasps with horrific venom that instigates frightening hallucinations and frequent death. The sting causes an immediate swelling up to the size of an orange, with a smelly green, oozing infection. The venom targets the brain region that generates fear (amygdala) creating visions that are specifically sadistic to each individual. Tracker Jackers can also hunt down anyone who disturbs their nest. After the first rebellion, the wicked wasps were positioned at the periphery of each district to isolate the inhabitants. In the 74th Games, they’re enclosed in the arena to plague the contestants.
Jabberjays: These black, crested spy-birds were genetically-structured to eavesdrop on enemies of the Capitol. Endowed with mimicking skills to memorize and repeat conversations, they serve as informants reporting on uprising plans. An additional ability they exhibit in the 3rd Quarter Quell is their impersonation of the anguished screams of people deeply loved by the Game contestants. When Katniss enters their forest zone, for example, she hears excruciating impersonations of Prim (her little sister) being tortured.
Wolf-Mutts: Lupine creatures with prodigious jumping ability and four-inch claws, with bipedal ability and human eyes. It’s theorized that they contain DNA from recently-slaughtered tributes, due to similarities in their eyes and athletic abilities. Wolf-mutts are only used in the 74th Hunger Games, as a pack to drive the remaining tributes together.
Monkey-Mutts: Orange monkeys that act in union in the 3rd Quarter Quell of Cathing Fire, attacking with their simian fangs that are deep enough to cause death by internal bleeding.
Lizard-Mutts: Reptilian monsters deployed in Mockingjay to annihilate Katniss and Squad 451. Human-sized, but four-legged, with tight white skin, long tails, sharp talons, and powerful jaws that decapitate hominids in a single bite. They smell like white roses, communicate with hissing noises, and are difficult to exterminate.
“The Beast”: This mysterious muttation in the 3rd Quarter Quell ripped up a tribute so terribly the victim was unable to be identified.
Ferocious Flamingos: Giant birds, colored candy-pink, with long lethal beaks like raptors. Lethal menaces in the 2nd Quarter Quell.
Snapping Squirrels: Golden and carnivorous, these arboreal atrocities attacked tributes in piranha-like packs, slaughtering and ingesting several in the 2nd Quarter Quell.
VIcious Butterflies: Beautiful and alluring, the fluttering insects stung their unsuspecting adorers in the 2nd Quarter Quell with a poison that caused horrific anguish and occasional death.
Grasshopper/Cricket Creeps: Swarms of these insects inhabit a section of the 3rd Quarter Quell arena. Endowed with large pincers that they continuously click, the bugs are feared by all tributes, who avoid their territory.
The creatures above are horrendous, of course, but they’re FICTIONAL., right? In the real world, would humanity ever genetically-engineer such monstrosities?
Of course! For starters, examine what we’ve already done. Immense war-dogs were employed for aeons by armies - Hammurabi had them bred for the forces of Babylon; Xerxes utilized them for Persia’s invasions; Greeks and Romans maintained the fearsome Fido breeding, as did Holy Roman Emperors and Henry VIII of England. Spanish galleons transported 90-pound killer-canines to the New World to aid in the destruction of Native American civilizations; the conquistador’s wolfhound/deerhound/mastiff mixtures were suited in cotton armor with spiked collars. Cortez and Ponce de Leon used perros to guard positions and hunt enemies; Balboa had his huge canines tear apart live captives.
Pigeons, elephants, and horses have also been drafted for defense purposes, but their value and employment has vanished, replaced by the superiority of machines. Only dogs remain, in a variety of functions, at airports, police stations, and in multiple police and military units, like the Navy SEALS.
Will the future bring us mutant weapons, like The Hunger Games horrors listed above? No - the functions living mutants provide humanity are more efficiently developed with robotics. Non-organic “equipment” also avoids the bulk of sticky ethical issues.
I believe dangerous genetic monsters exist in scifi literature and cinema primarily because they sell books and tickets - they’re visually repulsive and psychically abhorrent, containing a deep taboo factor that tickles the secularist imagination and gnashes the teeth of creationists.
Genetic mutants will certainly be created for medicinal purposes, though, in examples like the living mouse-ear depicted in the image above. (although it seems like it might have the function of the “tattle-tale” jabberjays, that is not it’s intention)
Scientists suggest they could grow “anything” on the back of the little lab rodent, even a liver. This notion might make you feel sick in the stomach, but it certainly won’t kill you - in fact, if you’re an alcoholic like Haymitch, it might save your life.
REFERENCES
The Hunger Games Companion
Wild Animals at the Colosseum
Gladiators
War Dogs of the Spanish Conquistadors
Muttation - The Hunger Games Wiki
IMAGE CREDITS
Image 1 - “Tracker Jacker” http://trippark.blogspot.com/2011/07/tracker-jacker.html
Image 2 - “Squirreagel” http://www.smosh.com/PC/smosh-pit/photos/18-more-bizarre-mutant-animals
(this is not a Hunger Games muttation)
Image 3 - “MouseEar” http://forum.xcitefun.net/mouse-with-human-ear-t34110.html
IEET Blog
After a medical congress, some ten years ago in Italy, I was talking to a rather famous geneticist. I cannot give names or references, for obvious reasons, but he told me that, while he was working abroad (guess where), a couple of generals met him to ask confidentially about the possibility to modify the human structure with grasshopper and beetle genes. The idea was to harden skin, and implement agility of soldiers. He said that, back then, he laughed at the idea, and told them it was simply impossible. But, he added, probably such programs were already active somewhere, and they needed all the help they could get. Obviously I could not verify his sources, so maybe it is only a stupid rumor - but it gave me a couple of dystopic vision of future wars…