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fandom. his examination reveals a twelth principle of paratextual board
games:
Principle 12: Paratextual board games can either allow players to create their own
stories or discourage players from doing so within the larger narrative framework
of the text, depending on the structure of the game's narrative elements.
In the rest of this chapter, I focus irst on the way fans of he Hunger Games
are courted by the two games, and then on how the games themselves develop
as a type of fan text. Although both games invoke he Hunger Games , they each
invoke diferent aspects. In District 12 , each player plays as Katniss Everdeen.
During our board game group's play of the game, there were four Katnisses
running around the board. Linking the game to a protagonist in this way delimits
the narrative, as players know that Katniss will become a Tribute, both from the
ilm version and also because she is the only character on the board (albeit in
multiple iterations). For players invested in the Hunger Games narrative, there is
no character uncertainty. In addition, players may ind it more diicult to identify
with the character, as everyone is Katniss. Simultaneously, a fannish freedom to
articulate players' own versions of characters becomes less emphasized as the
game closes of narrative gaps. he game becomes akin to what obsession_inc,
an inluential fan author, calls an airmational fan—one who interprets the
source text as canonized and embraces producer-centric ways of reading the
text. 6 Airmational fans are more likely to be courted by the media industries as
they read the text as writ. In contrast, Training Days provides a relatively blank
slate for players to create their own stories within he Hunger Games, echoing
a more transformational view of fandom. A transformational engagement with
the source text “aggressively alters and transforms the [material], changing and
manipulating it to the fans' own desires.” 7 Players have more freedom to ally
with diferent individuals and to strategize for diferent skills than what the topic
ofered. Training Days seems to ofer more opportunities for fannish creativity,
allying itself with fan-readings of the text.
Participatory fandom and he Hunger Games
One of the key themes of he Hunger Games , both the novel trilogy and the
ilms, is the power of an individual to enact social change. 8 In many ways, this
theme echoes in contemporary scholarship about new media and fandom.
Indeed, the participatory nature of the Hunger Games diegesis has spawned
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