The Real Reason Why This Story Caught On Like Wildfire?- The Hunger Games (Part 2) by Suzanne Collins

This is Part 2 of our Hunger Games dissection-analysis for writers who want to hone their craft:

• Part 1: https://medium.com/be-a-brilliant-writer/how-to-write-a-story-that-sinks-its-teeth-into-readers-refuses-to-let-go-the-hunger-games-part-8517f5d2c060
• Part 3: coming

If you’ve ever wondered what it is about the Hunger Games that makes the story so compelling, this article may be for you.

In it, I deep-dive into the story to see how Collins handled character, dialogue, plot structure, theme and underlying philosophy, and more, and how it all worked together to create an epic story that literally beat Harry Potter in Amazon sales 0.0

Take a look ~

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What happened in Part I: Katniss Everdeen, a girl from the poorest district in the country, volunteers to replace her little sister in the Hunger Games, a fight to the death. Her fellow tribute, a boy named Peeta Mellark, has just confessed his love for her on live television. 

PART II: “THE GAMES”

Chapter 10.

In This Chapter

• The aftermath of Peeta’s surprising public confession of love
• Katniss and Peeta have a private chat on the roof the night before the Games begin

Katniss sees her own surprised expression blown up on all the screens and realizes she’s blushing.

The crowd is roaring at Peeta’s confession, wanting Katniss to come back on stage to talk about it, but rules are rules.

“Every screen is now dominated by a shot of Peeta and me, separated by a few feet that in the viewers’ heads can never be breached. Poor tragic us. // But I know better.”

When Katniss returns to the “dorms” she immediately shoves Peeta into an urn of fake flowers, and he cuts his hands. She yells that he “had no right to go saying those things” about her, as the adults (Effie, Haymitch, Cinna, Portia) rush in.

“‘What’s going on?’ says Effie, a note of hysteria in her voice. ‘Did you fall?’
‘After she shoved me,’ says Peeta as Effie and Cinna help him up.”

Katniss is still railing about how Peeta made a fool of her by “confessing his love for her” in front of the whole country and making her look “weak.”

 Haymitch calls her a fool: “Do you think he hurt you? That boy just gave you something you could never achieve on your own…He made you look desirable! And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department. You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you. Now they all do…The star-crossed lovers from District Twelve!”

(I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but the reality is, romance sells. Literally. Romance novels have always been the best-sellers and probably always will. But where does romance come from? How did it get tied up with love to the point where it replaced it in many areas? Things to research…note to self…)

“We’re not star-crossed lovers!” Katniss protests, and Haymitch pins her against the wall:

“Who cares? It’s all a big show. It’s all how you’re perceived.”

(This book works because even though its premise sounds far-fetched, it touches on some universal themes that are highly relevant to readers. Specifically, in this case, the way the internet makes us all objects of others’ perceptions in a far more intense way than in previous generations. 

(Whether it’s job interviewers, potential dates, or potential friends, EVERYONE is told to check everyone else out on social media before they decide whether or not to give someone a job, a date, a chance. But you can never really know anyone through a screen. It’s really all about how you’re perceived, not the reality.) 

Katniss calms down and apologizes to Peeta, who let’s it go, even though he has to get his hands treated because he’s bleeding badly. Katniss feels guilty about picking a fight with him the day before they enter the arena:

“He has done me a favor and I have answered with an injury. Will I never stop owing him?”

(Another reason why Katniss appeals as a main character is her moral code. She has a sense of honor, of “owing” someone when they do something for her. She doesn’t take kindness for granted, even when it’s being shown by a questionable person under more-than-questionable circumstances.

(This is also an interesting twist on the typical romance arc. We are in Katniss’ head, so we have no idea why Peeta might like her, so her conclusion that he’s doing it as a strategy to win the games makes sense. And yet, he does seem like a “good guy” and he did save her life that one time, so there’s enough doubt that readers think MAYBE he’s not a cold-blooded calculating strategist, and he really is telling the truth, except if it IS true, we need to know the backstory…)

Katniss watches the replay of the interviews with the others, then they all say goodbye. Effie thanks them for being the best tributes she’d ever sponsored, and “then, because it’s Effie and she’s apparently required by law to say something awful, she adds ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I finally get promoted to a decent district next year!’ // Then she kisses us each on the cheek and hurries out, overcome with either the emotional parting or the possible improvement of her fortunes.’”

(Even at this tense stage in the narrative — on the eve of her possible death — Katniss still has the mental wherewithal to have some snarky thoughts, which is very entertaining for the reader. 

(But within the humor is a sad truth — so many people are like Effie. Maybe not exactly as bubble-headed, but just as self-centered, focusing on comparatively mild issues in their own lives rather than truly caring about serious difficulties others are facing.)

Haymitch gives the two some final advice: When the gong sounds, get out of there, don’t get caught in the blood bath, and find water. After that, stay alive.

Katniss tries to sleep, but can’t. After a few hours, she gets up and heads to the roof: “I want to see the sky and the moon on the last night that no one will be hunting me.”

There’s a party going on in the street below, and Peeta is sitting there, watching it. Katniss decides to join him, and Peeta confides that he doesn’t expect to survive the games. His only hope is that he will be able to “die as himself” and not let them change him “into some kind of monster that I’m not.”

This makes Katniss feel “inferior,” blaming herself for thinking about strategy within the arena while Peeta has been pondering how to maintain his purity of self.

(And THIS is what makes PEETA an attractive character and potential love interest for Katniss. He also holds to the moral code as strongly as Katniss does, but unlike her, he shows it more. 

(Peeta knows there are things to value in life more than mere physical survival. Katniss knows it, too, really, but she’s been living hand-to-mouth for so many years, struggling not only to stay alive herself, but to keep Prim alive, that she sometimes pretends even to herself that she’s merely a cold, calculating, survival machine.)

Katniss ends up mildly snapping at Peeta: “No offense, but who cares, Peeta?” and he somewhat sarcastically asks her to “give my mother my best” when she returns, which Katniss promises to do.

Katniss comforts herself by thinking that Peeta probably won’t hold on to his high-falootin’ ideas once he’s facing death. “He’ll probably turn into one of those raging beast tributes,” Katniss thinks, as she recalls a previous tribute who went berserk and turned into a cannibal.

In the morning, Katniss is taken into a hovercraft (and here is where we are introduced to the idea that the hovercraft ladder can freeze people and pull them in, you don’t have to actually climb the ladder, which will be a useful trick later in the books), and then injected with a tracker so that the game makers can know where she is at all times (an element that makes logical sense and also is a minor plot point in a later book, so clever to introduce it early, here)

Katniss forces herself to eat despite her nerves and then she’s taken to the Launch Room (aka Stockyard) underground, below the arena. Cinna helps Katniss dress and gives her back the mockingjay pin, which he’d saved from her outfit on the train.

Katniss is (understandably) terrified so Cinna holds her hands to comfort her until it’s time. He reminds her of Haymitch’s advice, and then says he would bet on her if he could. “Good luck, girl on fire.”

Katniss stands on a metal plate that lifts her up through a glass cylinder into the arena, and she hears the announcer say “let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”

(That last line really gives you a sense of spectacle and sports. As if this is the Olympics or the World Cup or something. It serves to disguise the disgusting thing that is really taking place — children about to kill children for people’s entertainment. For the purposes of this story, it works really well. In a chilling kind of way)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: For a moment, the cameras hold on Peeta’s downcast eyes as what he says sinks in.

Closing: “Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• Why Peeta said he liked Katniss. Was it just a strategy or did he mean it?
• And if he meant it, how is that possible, given that they were nearly strangers? What brought it on?
• Will Peeta be able to hold on to his integrity inside the arena?
• Will Peeta die? Katniss has plot armor, but does Peeta?

Complications:

• Katniss shoves Peeta and injures him. Now she owes him another moral debt, and tomorrow they’re going into the arena to fight to the death.

Payoffs:

• An unexpected payoff in the fact that Peeta suddenly confesses his love for Katniss WAY earlier than expected if this was a “normal” strangers-to-lovers romance arc, meaning this is probably some kind of trick. But if it’s not, the author will have her work cut out for her, convincing readers why it actually works.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Collins is fantastic at I remember the first time I read the Hunger Games, after Peeta’s confession in the first part, I HAD to flip the page to see what happened next, and both his confession and Katniss’ reaction were surprising — in a good way.
• As a reader of YA, I was expecting some kind of romance arc, because they ALWAYS have one of those, and our only options right now are Gale and Peeta, and Gale is (probably) not showing up for the rest of the story because he’s back in District 12 and all, so that leaves Peeta. He has to be the “love interest,” by process of elimination. (Not that the process was all that hard, we only had two options)
• But instead of teasing it out, and pretending the trope isn’t there in order to milk it, Collins flips expectations on their head and lays all the cards on the table: Yep, Peeta is the love interest, and he’s not just going to shyly hint at his crush to Katniss, he is going to go full out and announce it to the entire country on live television.
• And Katniss is not going to pretend she didn’t see, or act all confused and shy and avoid him, no. She is going to confront him about it. And not just confront him, but do him physical injury. On accident, but still.  
• It’s kind of hilarious, yet logical. That’s the thing about Collins’ writing here, it’s surprising but not ridiculously so. It makes sense that Katniss would react violently to Peeta’s confession, which she views as a total sham, given her background and history. Whether or not Peeta’s confession makes sense will depend on the rest of the story, but so far, Collins has not led us wrong, so she has the reader’s trust that whatever reason Peeta has for confessing on national television, it’s going to be a good one.

Chapter 11.

In This Chapter

• The Games officially begin with a bloodbath
• Katniss finds out something disturbing about Peeta and his choices in the Games

Katniss has one minute to stand on her metal plate before the “fun and games” REALLY begin. The tributes are all arranged around a metal Cornucopia filled with equipment and tools that could help you survive, and Katniss sees a bow and arrow and is tempted to run for it, even if it means risking possible death at the hands of the others.

But then she sees Peeta, who seems to be shaking his head at her, and while she’s trying to figure out what he’s really doing, the gong sounds, and it’s too late for her to run for the arrows. So she grabs an orange backpack, but notices a boy going for it at the same time.

The boy suddenly dies, spiked in the back by a dagger thrown by the girl from District 2, and Katniss runs for the woods. The girl throws a dagger at her head, Katniss blocks it with her backpack, and thinks “thanks for the knife.”

(Clever how Collins uses every action. Nothing is wasted. Having the dagger-throwing girl kill a boy in front of Katniss and then throw a knife at Katniss’ head reinforces the fact that although these are called Games, they’re playing for life and death. 

(But having it be a knife-thrower who attempts to decapitate Katniss, and Katniss defending herself with a backpack means that now she’s picked up another handy-dandy weapon, very serendipitously.)

Katniss heads into the woods, familiar territory for her who spent so many hours poaching in her own woods back home. She thinks to herself how glad she is for the solitude, “even though it’s an illusion, because I’m probably on-screen right now.” Because everything in the Games is televised.

(Creepy thought. They are even watching the tributes use the bathroom. There’s no privacy at all here, which makes sense, but adds another layer of creepy and awful to the situation)

Late in the afternoon, Katniss starts to hear cannons. This is another element of the Games — when kids die, cannons are sounded for each death. Then the bodies are collected. Katniss counts the cannons and realizes 11 have already died, leaving 12 tributes still alive.

Katniss suddenly thinks of Peeta, wondering if he’s already dead, thinking that might be good for him to die fast rather than suffer long.

Katniss opens her orange backpack to see what’s inside: a sleeping bag, some crackers and dried beef, iodine, matches, wire, sunglasses, and a plastic bottle with no water in it.

(Interesting list of supplies. It seems both useful and random, but the way the list is written out, you don’t realize that one of the most plot-important items for this book — the sunglasses — is smuggled in the middle of the list, after a bunch of stuff that sounds more useful. And another item — the wire — will be important in a later book, although it won’t be this specific wire, it will be a different one.)

As twilight closes in, Katniss continues to search for water and chews on some pine to take the edge off her hunger without wasting her precious store of food. She picks a tree to camp in, climbing up into the branches and belting herself in place.

Night falls, and Katniss sees a projection in the sky, announcing the dead tributes for the day. Within the arena, tributes don’t get to see how the others died, unlike the Capitol and District audiences. They just get to see headshots. Katniss realizes to her relief that Peeta’s headshot hasn’t shown up, meaning he’s not dead.

“I tell myself again that if I get killed, his winning will benefit my mother and Prim the most. This is what I tell myself to explain the conflicting emotions that arise when I think of Peeta.”

(Katniss is finally allowing herself to be a bit more retrospective).

Katniss is also glad to find that the little girl from District 11, Rue, was not in the sky, meaning she’s survived the first day, too.

Katniss awakes when she hears a snapping noise and then sees someone start a fire. She immediately notes this as stupid, and “stupid people are dangerous.” In her anger, Katniss thinks she would have no problem killing this idiot for giving away “their” location.

Katniss hears a pack of tribute hunters show up and kill the girl, crowing “twelve down and eleven to go!”

(Man. Even though they’re hunting in a pack, whoever said that is really something else, even if what’s said is true: “Eleven to go” INCLUDES the others they have allied with — is it really that smart to announce that flat out?)

Katniss takes this moment to explain in the narration that “the strong band together to hunt down the weak” and then afterwards “turn on one another.” She figures the remaining Career tributes who “lunched together” during the training must be the members of this group.

The Careers check their victim for supplies, and then argue amongst themselves when they don’t hear a cannon fire. Maybe she’s not dead yet? Then one of them speaks up and says: “We’re wasting time! I’ll go finish her and let’s move on!”

Katniss is shocked to recognize the voice — it’s Peeta.

(And this is shocking for readers too. Especially considering what Peeta JUST told Katniss the night before, about wanting to “stay himself” and “not become a monster.” And here he is, on Night #1, joining the brutal Career tributes and “finishing off” another girl. 

(Thus far, we’ve only seen Peeta do “good.” — save Katniss’ life by throwing her burnt bread at the risk of being beaten himself, bathe Haymitch by himself to allow him some dignity, confess his love for Katniss making her “desirable” in the eyes of the Capitol audience…

(Everything PEeta’s done so far has been in support of life and goodness, at least outwardly, and this is the first time we’ve seen him do something vicious. Which shows that maybe we’ve underestimated this guy, if he’s capable of murder. 

(True, everyone in these games has to murder one another in order to survive, but it’s still shocking that between the two District 12 tributes we’ve been following so closely up to now, PEETA is the one to take life first.)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Sixty seconds. That’s how long we’re required to stand on our metal circles.

Closing: I almost fall out of the tree. The voice belongs to Peeta.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• The equipment that Katniss managed to snag in the orange backpack will play a role in how she survives the games. Hopefully a clever role.
• We will find out whether or not Peeta really is a two-faced liar as the cliffhanger from this chapter insinuates.
• We will find out what happens to the little girl from District 11, Rue. She’s been mentioned too often and too pointedly in the narrative not to play an important role later in the story.

Complications:

• Katniss has complicated feelings regarding her main opponent from her own district. Peeta has helped her, he has shown kindness, he has shown integrity. But he’s also been unpredictable and is clearly not an idiot, and now in this chapter, he’s joined the vicious Careers and matter-of-factly killed a person. So is he someone readers should root for, or no?

Payoffs:

• Seeing Katniss navigate the forests with ease, after we readers know how skilled she is at this particular thing is mildly satisfying.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Although in some sense it’s pretty clear from the start who we’re supposed to root for, Collins does a good job of keeping readers guessing, teasing the idea that she might do a hard left and pull the rug out from under our feet.
• Thus far she has set Peeta up as an almost too-good-to-be-realistic type of character, and in this chapter, we, like Katniss, start to wonder if there might be something evil lurking behind that kind mask.
• It’s a great way to keep up the suspense and intrigue so people can’t put the book down.

Chapter 12.

In This Chapter

• Katniss reflects on her accidental discovery of Peeta’s alliances in the previous chapter as she hunts and travels through the arena
• Katniss nearly dies of thirst, and realizes she can somewhat “telepathically communicate” with Haymitch (not really, but sort of)

Katniss starts rethinking her interpretation of Peeta’s possible shaking-of-the-head when she saw him during the beginning of the Games. She’d thought he was warning her to protect himself, but now that he’s apparently teamed up with the Careers, she thinks he’s just a really good liar who is trying to survive.

(Side note, this reminds me of the book Peace Child, the true story of a missionary who went to live with cannibals in a remote village. He learned their language and tried to tell them the story of how Judas betrayed Jesus. And to his surprise, they understood the story, but thought Judas was a hero, rather than a villain, because in their culture, treachery was celebrated. 

(The most admired person was the one who pretended to be someone’s friend and then betrayed them to death. Needless to say, there was quite a lot of deadly fighting going on in that tribe. You’ll have to read the book to find out how they resolved this issue in the end. 

(Also: For all she is a “survivor,” there are still a few things Katniss can’t do. She just isn’t that good at deceiving people. That’s a key part of her character, and that’s why Haymitch had such a hard time molding her during the coaching to prepare for her interview, and why Cinna’s advice to “just be herself” actually worked in the end.

(However, she is not a complete duncebucket, and IS aware that lying and treachery are things other people are capable of, so she kind of suspects and fears that Peeta might be one of these people who are incredibly good at pretending to be good in order to wait for an opportune time to stab you in the back. Literally, in this case) 

Katniss is pissed off at Peeta: “Obviously the noble boy on the rooftop was playing just one more game with me,” she thinks, and decides she’d be happy to see him die after all, if not kill him herself.

She overhears the Careers talking about killing him right now, but one of them argues that he’s handy with the knife. This is news to Katniss, who observes “What a lot of interesting things I’m learning about my friend Peeta today.”

Then she hears that Peeta is their best chance of finding “her,” meaning Katniss herself. They say she sounds simple-minded, but they wonder how she got an 11.

(This was the reason why the scoring system was a plot point earlier. Winning an 11 puts a target on Katniss’ back and makes her an object of mystery to both the other tributes and the audience. 

(If she hadn’t win an 11, the others wouldn’t be interested in taking her down right away, and they wouldn’t have spared Peeta, which would have really screwed up the rest of this story, given how important Peeta’s character is [we know in retrospect])

So Katniss realizes that the Careers expect Peeta to help them find her, but that he hasn’t told them her secret of being a good hunter. She wonders why, and whether that’s all part of his super secret sneaky plan.

Katniss waits until the Careers are gone and the dead girl is taken by hovercraft, and then she hops out of her tree. Knowing that the cameras are watching, and realizing how dramatically interesting all of this is, Katniss decides to pause and smile so the cameras can catch her “knowing expression”: “There! Let them figure out what that means!” she thinks.

She checks her snares and finds a rabbit, which she can’t eat raw because it can give you rabbit fever.

(Nice that the author adds this real fact in her story. It’s a small detail that gives the story even more verisimilitude, making it easier to suspend disbelief and enter into the story.)

Katniss decides to cook her rabbit in the dying coals of the dead girl’s fire and she thinks about how she’s glad the cameras are showing potential sponsors that she is smart and can hunt.

(Another example of the author turning a potentially dangerous event into a win for Katniss. The first was someone throwing a dagger at Katniss, her blocking the blow with her backpack [That’s almost a tongue twister!] and then getting herself a very useful knife to use for the rest of the story.

(The second is this — the first girl makes a fire, and gets murdered, conveniently leaving it for Katniss to use in order to be safe from rabbit fever. The stars align!)

Katniss finishes cooking and camouflaging her backpack, then takes off, keeping her face still because she suspects the cameras must be following her, but she thinks to herself about how the commentators must be having a ball dissecting everything that just happened, and how this all will affect the betting and sponsorships.

(Another one of Katniss’ strengths is that she has a pretty good sense of narrative and drama. She knows what would make good viewing on reality TV…or at least thinks she does…and later we will see that she really kind of does have an instinct for showmanship/storytelling, as does Haymitch. But more on that later)

Katniss starts thinking maybe if she acts like she knew about Peeta’s teaming up with the Careers (by maintaining a sense of amusement for the cameras), people will figure that the two of them planned together ahead of time.

But as the day passes, Katniss realizes she is getting dangerously dehydrated. Her head hurts, her urine is dark brown, and her tongue is dry.

(I had been wondering about the bathroom situation. But of course it’s difficult for authors to include these details because they’re pretty off-putting. Unless it’s part of the story, which it is in this case.)

Katniss spots some unfamiliar berries and is tempted to eat them, but remembers that the plant instructor from the Training Center warned her never to eat any berries she wasn’t 100% sure of being safe.

(Nice throwback to the Training Center choices that Katniss made AS WELL AS a foreshadowing of the climax of this story. See? Collins is really quite a brilliant writer. Everything she does has multiple uses, narratively, and there’s no extra fat or padding.)

Katniss settles into a tree in the night and the next day is weighing her options when she realizes that Haymitch could send her water to save her from dying of thirst.

Angry, Katniss says out loud “water,” but nothing happens. She wonders what’s keeping Haymitch from helping, and trusts that he wouldn’t just let her die from neglect. But then another thought occurs to her — maybe he’s trying to tell her something:

“Haymitch could be withholding water from me. Because he knows I’ve almost found it.”

(This is the first example of Katniss reading Haymitch’s mind from within the Games. And we soon see that her mind-reading was [probably] correct)

Katniss forces herself to walk, and not to look too desperate, to try to spare Primrose any pain since for sure she will be watching updates on the Games at her school.

(That is horrifically cruel, making kids watch other kids dying while at school, including the siblings of the kids who are dying. But it also shows how Katniss is always watching out for Prim. Prim is the ULTIMATE motivation for Katniss in this story, every second).

Just when Katniss thinks she’s misjudged Haymitch and he isn’t coming to her aid at all, she falls and lands in mud…which makes her realize there must be water. She finds a pond and wants to gulp the water, but even at this moment keeps her head and remembers to use her flask and iodine to purify the water.

(Another survival tip that makes this story more real, and another good use of the backpack that she grabbed “randomly.”)

Katniss decides to stay at the pond for a while, recovering, but after she falls asleep, she is rudely awakened by “a wall of fire descending” on her.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Thank goodness, I had the foresight to belt myself in.

Closing: It would be hard to miss the wall of fire descending on me.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We also see what the other tributes think about Peeta’s public confession of crushing on Katniss. The audience thinks he’s telling the truth (so far, we think), the tributes probably figure it’s a survival tactic. The question is, which is it?

Complications:

• Did Peeta or did he not shake his head at Katniss in the beginning of the Games to keep her from getting killed or to save her? Or did Katniss mis-see his actions?

Payoffs:

• We see what Peeta’s fairly high stores during the evaluation did for him — it allowed the Careers to trust him enough to invite him to work with them in this part of the Games.
• We also see that Katniss’ choice of training modules pays off (probably) in protecting her from eating potentially poisonous berries.
• We also see that her grabbing the orange backpack was the perfect thing for her to do. The iodine and flask in the pack are totally necessary for preserving her life at this stage.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Collins does a fantastic job making everything in the book work for the story. Every item that Katniss “accidentally/randomly” picks up, every thought that she has, every dialogue that she (and we) overhear…there’s no padding, and several elements serve more than one function in a really clever way!

Chapter 13.

In This Chapter

• Katniss is chased by unnatural fireballs designed by the Gamemakers and gets treed by the Careers
• She finds herself once again bumping into a particular tribute who caught her eye during the Training Sequence

Katniss runs from the flames, knowing that this isn’t a natural forest fire but a man-made method of torture created by the Game makers to make the games more interesting for the viewers.

(Yet another element in these twisty Games…)

Katniss tries to briefly rest under a rock, but is flushed out by a fireball. The fireballs keep coming and Katniss runs, knowing instinctively that different areas of the arena have different dangers, and she needs to be able to get out of reach of the fireball launchers.

Just when she thinks she’s safe, Katniss gets burned on her leg by a stray fireball. As she deals with the pain, she thinks of the irony of Cinna calling her “The girl who was on fire,” and how the Gamemakers must be laughing to themselves right about now.

But she also knows the Gamemakers don’t want to kill her themselves. They would rather the tributes kill her themselves.

(Interesting, this explanation of the psychology of the Games through Katniss’ thoughts. It’s all interesting and not tell-y, though)

Which means she must be near another tribute.

Katniss discovers she’s near a pool when she stumbles into it. She washes her burns and tries to think about what she should do.

Katniss recalls how in her life in District 12, she’s seen her mother trying to help a badly burned man. Katniss forces herself not to swoon at the sight of her burned leg, still aware of the cameras (probably) watching her, and drinks some water and eats some crackers, and then drowses.

She is awakened by the sound of Careers crashing through the forest and has just enough time to climb into a tree to escape them, and Katniss and the Careers eyeball each other for a moment.

Still aware of the crowd watching her from the Capitol and the districts, Katniss calls down to them “How’s everything with you?”

“Well enough,” says the boy from District 2. “Yourself?”

“It’s been a bit warm for my taste,” I say. I can almost hear the laughter from the Capitol.

(Even at this juncture, Katniss maintains her sense of humor, which is why she’s such a compelling character, to the Capitol audience and to the reading audience)

Katniss invites them to try to climb the tree and catch her, and the boy from District 1, Cato, decides to. The girl from the same district hands him a bow and arrows, but Cato rejects it for his sword.

As Cato goes up, Katniss continues climbing. Her lightness of body allows her to go much higher than the Careers can, and they’re not good shots anyway.

The Careers give up and decide to wait her out, at Peeta’s suggestion. Katniss realizes she’s stuck as well.

But then Katniss sees some eyes looking at her and realizes those are not animal eyes. They belong to Rue. Katniss stares at Rue and Rue stares back, and then she points to something…

(Great ending hook. It’s not explosive, it’s a small nudge, but it is exactly enough to get people to turn ONE more page, and sometimes that one more page is all you need). 

Comments & Analysis

Opening: My first impulse is to scramble from the tree, but I’m belted in.

Closing: For a while we hold each other’s gaze. Then, without even rustling a leaf, her little hand slides into the open and points to something above my head.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see what Rue is pointing at. We will see Katniss and Rue work together.

Complications:

• Katniss is now literally stuck up a tree with deadly killers waiting underneath her.

Payoffs:

• Katniss’ background as a hunter/survivalist in nature is paying off quite well in this arena.

OTHER COMMENTS

• I once read a Malcolm Gladwell book, David and Goliath, whose primary thesis was that far from being a disadvantaged underdog, David may have had the upper hand against the perceived “superior enemy,” Goliath, all along.
• The idea is that David wasn’t just young and strong and brave, having had experience fighting wild animals as a shepherd protecting sheep — and that he knew how to use a slingshot which was literally that era’s equivalent of a gun (stones thrown via slingshot can have the force of a bullet, if you do it right)— but that Goliath’s massive size and possible vision problems made him extra vulnerable to David and his weaponry.
• I don’t know how true that thesis is, but the principle applies to Katniss, here. She’s set up to look like an underdog — underfed, from the worst District in the country, untrained, a girl, etc., etc. But so many of her “disadvantages” actually work out to her advantage here in the arena.
• Her lack of proper nutrition makes her more petite, which allows her to climb higher and faster than the more stocky Careers who are trying to kill her, her poverty forced her to get good at surviving in the forests, her years of practice scrabbling to survive and keep her sister alive helps her to keep her head in deadly situations, and even crack jokes for the benefit of the audience who might be coaxed into sponsoring her…all of these seeming disadvantages are really not-so-hidden advantages, keeping her alive and competitive in the Games.

Chapter 14.

In This Chapter

• Katniss sics a nest of genetically modified, deadly Tracker Jacker wasps on her enemies
• She herself is stung and goes into a hallucination where she sees Peeta covering for her

Katniss follows Rue’s pointing and realizes there’s a wasps’ nest overhead. And these aren’t normal wasps either. Because “these are the Hunger Games, and ordinary isn’t the norm.”

She realizes these are Tracker Jackers, “muttations” that were bed to be especially deadly. Katniss realizes this is her only ticket out, so she decides to saw off the branch of Jackers, ideally without getting stung herself.

(Really good thing she got that knife when the girl threw it at her, isn’t it?)

Katniss takes advantage of the nightly TV show recap with the noise of the Capitol anthem covering the noise of her sawing, using the light from the display to see what she’s doing.

Just then, Katniss sees a silver parachute, her first gift from a sponsor. It’s burn ointment. She realizes the cost of the medicine must have taken multiple sponsors, and it works miraculously well.

The next morning, Katniss sees the Careers and Peeta still sleeping on the ground, and Katniss decides to finish them off — after giving Rue a warning to stay away, because at this point, she would prefer Rue winning the games than Peeta.

Katniss starts sawing the branch with the Tracker Jackers again, and realizees that the Jackers have woken up, meaning she has very little time left before the Jackers turn on her instead.

Katniss manages to cut off the branch, and the Jackers start attacking the people on the ground, who run away, but not before two girls are stung to death. Three of the Jackers have stung her, however, and the poison makes her woozy.

Katniss makes it back to her own little pool to deal with the pain and the hallucinations that are starting up from the posion. But before she does, she grabs the bow and arrows from the corpse of the District 1 girl, Glimmer, before the hovercraft comes and takes both corpse and weapon away.

Katniss hears someone coming and realizes it’s Peeta, who looks shocked to see her. He is also sparkling. He yells at her to run, and she does, just as she sees Cato come back.

(Ha! The sparkling thing reminds me of the Twilight vampires. Which one came first…quick Google search says Twilight. I wonder if it consciously or subconsciously inspired Collins when she was writing this hallucinatory scene?)

Katniss succumbs to the hallucinations and blacks out. But not before she realizes that Peeta had just saved her. Again.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: My eyes follow the line of her finger up into the foliage above me. At first, I have no idea what she’s pointing to, but then, about fifteen feet up, I make out the vague shape in the dimming light.

Closing: Sick and disoriented, I’m able to form only one thought: Peeta Mellark just saved my life. / Then the ants bore into my eyes and I black out.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out whether or not Peeta really was helping Katniss when she was hallucinating from venom.
• We will see Rue again, and she will probably team up with Katniss for the next segment of the story.

Complications:

• Katniss thought Peeta had teamed up with the Careers, betraying her, but when she’s dizzy with Jacker venom, he appears to try to help her. Is she just hallucinating that?

Payoffs:

• We get to see Katniss take down her first enemies through cleverness — by using something within the arena against them.

OTHER COMMENTS

• It seems the amount of stuff that’s happening in these chapters is fewer. It’s more exciting, but there’s less stuff…stuffed into each chapter. The pace is getting quicker, the tension getting higher as the life-and-death games go on in earnest.

Chapter 15.

In This Chapter

• Katniss wakes from her venom-induced nightmares and finds Rue nearby
• Katniss teams up with Rue and they come up with a plan to defeat the Careers

Katniss struggles with the hallucinatory nightmares that the Jacker venom brings on. When the poison has finally worn off, she realizes that she’s lying in a hole covered with dead leaves.

She tries to deal with her horrible breath and gross mouth-feeling by sucking on some honeysuckle, which reminds her of her last afternoon with Gale in the woods, when he proposed running off, and that makes her think of how Peeta saved her life.

Of course, that could have just been a hallucination from the Jacker venom, but Katniss’ instincts tell her that he was for real. Now she’s confused again, has he gone back to the “Lover Boy angle” or was he really trying to help her, and if the latter, why hang out with the Careers?

Katniss briefly wonders what Gale thinks of all this, then consciously shuts that thought down “because for some reason Gale and Peeta do not coexist well together in my thoughts.”

(We readers ALL know the reason, Katniss…)

And Katniss mentally celebrates the acquisition of her new bow and arrows, because now she’s not just a victim, she’s a hunter. She travels a bit and shoots a rabbit, purifies some water and bathes herself, and decides to build a fire at dusk to cook the rabbit, wagering that the smoke will be disguised by the sunset.

Katniss hears a noise and realizes it’s Rue. She calls out to Rue: “You know, they’re not the only ones who can form alliances.”

When Rue asks if Katniss really wants to be allies, Katniss says:

“Why not? You saved me with those tracker jackers. You’re smart enough to still be alive. And I can’t seem to shake you anyway.”

(Ha, those first two reasons are nice compliments, and the third is a bit gruff. But also shows that Katniss does have a certain kind of magnetism to her. It attracts the attention and loyalty of Gale, Peeta, and now Rue. It possibly helped her when she was a kid trying to survive after her dad’s death and mom’s depression, too).

Rue offers to help Katniss with her Tracker Jacker stings, by chewing up some medicinal leaves into a paste to put on the wounds. Katniss remembers that District Eleven specializes in agriculture (mainly for the reader’s benefit, really. These things have to be repeated). 

Then Katniss shares her burn ointment with Rue, and when Rue comments on Katniss’s great sponsors, Katniss tells her she will get her own, soon.

(Sadly ironic in light of what really happens to Rue and the sponsorship from District 12)

“I can almost hear Haymitch groaning as I team up with this wispy child. But I want her. Because she’s a survivor, and I trust her, and why not admit it? She reminds me of Prim.”

(Again, the “survivor” thing, which is one of Katniss’ primary characteristics. Also her instinct for choosing the option that on the surface seems the worst, but underneath is the wisest choice. As for why Rue trusts Katniss? Probably is related to Prim as well — everyone saw Katniss sacrifice herself for her little sister, so they all know she has fiercely protective big sister instincts and would be a good person to have on your side, if you’re a little sister type.)

They start sharing food and Rue tells Katniss that their district is far more strict than district 12. Katniss realizes “maybe being the least prestigious, poorest, most ridiculed district in the country has its advantages.”

Katniss notes that it’s unusual for her to learn so much about district 12 for the first time and that the Capitol is probably blocking out their conversation to keep the people in the districts from knowing about each other.

As they talk, Katniss asks Rue about some berries, and Rue confirms that they are safe.

(Reading this in retrospect, you see how many times the berry thing comes back, over and over. Subtle but effective foreshadowing)

Rue also informs Katniss that the sunglasses in her orange backpack are not sunglasses. They’re seeing-in-the-dark glasses.

Rue mentions that a simple-minded boy from her district once tried to keep a pair of those glasses and got killed for it, which makes Katniss again reflect on how good she herself has it in District 12.

(No matter how awful you think your life is, there’s always someone who has it worse…)

Katniss asks Rue about Peeta, and Rue confirms that Peeta is not with the Careers anymore. “Maybe he did save you and had to run,” Rue says, which makes Katniss feel like she is “in his debt again. And this can’t be paid back.”

Katniss tells Rue it was just “part of his act” and Rue says, thoughtfully: “Oh, I didn’t think that was an act.”

(Strengthening up the love story arc through the innocent words of a likable child + why is Katniss saying this aloud, knowing the cameras are on her? She assumes that the Capitol is censoring her conversation with Rue, perhaps that’s why she’s speaking so freely about this “lovesick act” because otherwise it’s not wise to let on that she thinks it’s an act. 

(That’s the whole point to get sponsors interested in her. But it seems the author wanted to make the dialogue go a certain way so that Rue could tell us readers that Peeta really isn’t faking it, no matter what Katniss thinks…)

Then Rue tells Katniss that the Careers have a bunch of supplies stored by the lake, so they don’t have to worry about hunger as they hunt down the other kids.

And that allows Katniss to hatch a devious plan.

(Of course, the author doesn’t reveal here what her idea is, so readers will want to keep flipping pages)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: I enter a nightmare from which I wake repeatedly only to find a greater terror awaiting me.

Closing: I have a plan. A plan that isn’t motivated by the need for flight and evasion. An offensive plan. “I think we’re going to have to fix that, Rue.” [“That” referring to the fact that their enemies are not hungry]

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out how Katniss and Rue work together to take down the Careers

Complications:

• Now that Katniss is allies with Rue, things are going to get gnarly if they both survive to the last round of the games. No way Katniss can kill Rue herself, so most likely Rue needs to die at the hands of another tribute. That will be sad. Necessary for the story, but sad.

Payoffs:

• We finally see Katniss and Rue team up, something we’ve been waiting for since we first heard about Rue in the Training Sequence.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Rue is basically the in-Game version of Prim. She’s sweet, innocent, loveable, and both Katniss and readers take to her right away.
• She also (will) serve the same story purpose that Prim served — Prim was the one who got Katniss into the games (I mean, the motivation to protect Prim was how Katniss got involved), but that’s not quite enough to carry her through the entire thing.
• So enter Rue, the second little-sister motivational figure who will provide the impetus and fuel to carry Katniss narratively through the latter half of the Games, and the book.
• It’s super fitting, then, that Rue is the same age as Prim, has similar qualities, and also is from District 11, the second-most disadvantaged district in the country (although, as Katniss finds out, in some ways those living in District 11 have it worse than those in 12, so is it only the second-worst district?)

Chapter 16.

In This Chapter

• Katniss spies on the Career’s supplies and realizes it’s booby-trapped
• Katniss figures out a clever way to destroy the supplies without killing herself in the process

Katniss has decided to destroy the Careers’ food source. But how? She and Rue curl up to sleep, and are rudely awakened by a cannon announcing another death.

Katniss and Rue do a bit of hunting, as they plan how to take down the Careers’ resources. Rue tells Katniss all she knows, and Katniss also learns a bit about Rue’s life, her family, and her favorite thing in the world — music.

(Music IS the ultimate real-world magic, after all. All the stories say so… ;D)

This leads to some conversation about mockingjays, and how they’re excellent mimics. Katniss tries to give her mockingjay pin to Rue, but Rue refuses, saying that pin is how she decided to trust Katniss.

They decide to use a four-note signal with the mockingjay to communicate with each other, as Katniss heads down to the lake to enact the plan. She worries about Rue, thinking that at least Prim has her mother and Gale and a baker to watch out for her, while Rue only has her.

Katniss reaches the lake and sees a “scrawny, ashen-skinned boy” from District 3 guarding the food. He makes no impression on her and she wonders why he was allowed to live and left to guard the food.

The Careers who are nearby see smoke rising in the distance, from the signal fire that Rue had created as HER part of the plan, and Katniss overhears them arguing about whether or not to take the District 3 boy with them. She also overhears that Peeta is still alive, but “it’s a miracle he hasn’t bled to death yet” because Cato “cut him” somewhere.

Katniss considers her options on how to sabotage the food. As she’s about to get in closer, she notices a girl, Foxface, sneaking into the area to grab some food. She dances gingerly over the ground and Katniss realizes the place must have live mines buried underneath, which explains why District 3 boy was allowed to stay alive — because District 3 is the district that specializes in factories, apparently.

(Great foreshadowing of how Foxface plays a role in the climax of the book…or rather, what happens to her gives Katniss ideas. Also, dancing through a minefield is a good metaphor for what all the District people have to do in order to live.

(One other thing: I get that having one product per district is simple and neat and easy to remember, but sometimes that does take me out of the story. It’s a bit too simplistic, and coincidental that the boy from the factory district knows how to do a highly skilled thing like disarm and rearm mines…mines that he probably did not get to see before getting into the arena. What are the chances that he just happens to have this particular skill?)

Katniss reconsiders what she should do, and then figures out the answer. With three arrows, she shoots at a bag of apples, creating a cascade of fruit that land on the mines and blows everything up.

(Way to end with a bang! …literally)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Rue has decided to trust me wholeheartedly. I know this because as soon as the anthem finishes she snuggles up against me and falls asleep.

Closing: Then the apples spill to the ground and I’m blown backward into the air.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see how the loss of supplies affects the Careers, going forward.

Complications:

• Now that Katniss has destroyed their supplies the Careers will be even more murderously angry and dangerous…not that they weren’t before

Payoffs:

• We get to see Katniss use both her intelligence and her skill with the bow and arrow to win a victory over the Careers

OTHER COMMENTS

• Katniss shooting the bag of apples is one of the other reasons why Hunger Games is so much fun to read as a story.
• It’s like the Ender’s Game scene where Ender plays against the unfair system that the school teachers have set up for him, by having his taller “soldiers” kneel and freeze themselves into human shields behind which the smaller boys can hide and “shoot at” the enemy (long story, a bit too complicated to explain here, read the book if you haven’t yet and want to know what I’m talking about.)
• When I read that, I thought it was a GENIUS move, akin to finding an awesome twist in a mystery novel or seeing someone particularly clever solving a riddle. The vicarious pleasure of watching a character pull a fast one on another character, or solve a problem in a super creative way is one of the ways books delight readers.
• So Hunger Games has this too, with Katniss figuring out, again, how to use her wits plus her skill with bow and arrow plus the environment itself to turn the tables on the Careers. It’s very satisfying.

Chapter 17.

In This Chapter

• Katniss recovers from the booby traps’ explosions and heads back just in time…
• …to see Rue die.

Katniss is dizzy, disoriented, and deafened by the force of the explosion. She manages to crawl to safety just before the Careers return and Cato kills the District 3 boy with his bare hands (for having “done his job too well”).

(I like how Collins is good about giving Katniss some gnarly wounds without hurting her plot armor exactly, being realistic about how she goes half-deaf from the explosion, with blood flowing from her silenced ear).

That night when the dead tributes are announced, the Careers figure out that the real saboteur is still alive. They put on their night-vision glasses and go on the hunt. But Katniss is in no condition to leave her hiding place. She’s “about as safe as…can be, here at the crime scene.”

Once they’ve gone, Katniss puts on her night-vision glasses and continues to stay put instead of hurrying back into the forest to rendezvous with Rue (ha! like that?) because she’s still dizzy and deaf.

Katniss thinks about how the betting in the Capitol must be getting really hot, now that they’re down to less than ten players. They’re also likely interviewing the remaining survivors’ friends and family for “special features,” Katniss thinks.

(Boy, they have really thought of everything — or at least, Suzanne Collins has. This is reality TV to a tee)

Katniss falls asleep for the night under some bushes, and wakes to see Foxface laughing among the rubble. Katniss notes that the sly girl is very resourceful but too backstab-y to trust.

She decides to head back upstream, still half deaf in her left ear. Rue is not where Katniss expects her to be, so she decides to go looking for her, and discovers that the third signal fire hasn’t been lit, meaning something’s gone wrong. Katniss thinks:

“Something is keeping her up a tree. // I think I’ll go hunt it down.”

Katniss hears the mockingjays mimicking Rue’s all-clear, and is relieved that Rue must have been singing to them recently.

But just as she starts to sing back to the birds, she hears Rue scream. Katniss plunges through the forest, yelling to distract the hunters from Rue.

But she is too late. Just as Katniss finds Rue, tangled in a net, Rue is speared.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: The impact with the hard-packed earth of the plain knocks the wind out of me.

Closing: She just has time to reach her hand through the mesh and say my name before the spear enters her body.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• Katniss will be spurred on by Rue’s death to do even “greater things” within the Games.

Complications:

• Now Rue is dead, Katniss is ally-less in the arena and all on her own again.
• But one complication is removed — the fact that Katniss would have had to kill Rue herself if the two of them were the last two standing.

Payoffs:

• We get to see Katniss use the night-vision glasses that she serendipitously picked up at the start of the games.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Of course, we were expecting Rue to die at the hands of someone other than Katniss, but it did come rather suddenly, or so it feels.
• Rue’s death really kicks off the second half of the Games. It’s added more fuel to Katniss’ fire.

Chapter 18.

In This Chapter

• Katniss kills Rue’s killer, then sings Rue to “sleep” and buries her in flowers
• Katniss receives a sponsor gift from District 11, and reflects on Rue’s death, and her own first real kill in the arena
• Katniss hears that the rules have changed — for the first time, two tributes from the same district can win this year

Katniss immediately shoots the boy from District 1 who speared Rue, and then rushes to Rue, realizing that the spear in her stomach is fatal.

Katniss sits by Rue as she dies, and sings at Rue’s request.

“My throat is tight with tears, hoarse from smoke and fatigue. But if this is Prim’s, I mean, Rue’s last request, I have to at least try.”

(Ugh. This is a heart-wrenching moment, because we all know by now just how much Katniss loves her little sister Prim, and how Rue has become a surrogate Prim to her, which makes her death that much more tragic.

(At the same time, this had to happen because no way Katniss would have voluntarily killed Rue herself, if they ended up both surviving to the last round.)

The mockingjays take up Katniss’s song as she cries over Rue’s dead body. And then she remembers what Gale said to her in the past, when he ranted about the injustice of Capitol rule.

“Gale’s voice is in my head. His ravings against the Capitol no longer pointless, no longer to be ignored. Rue’s death has forced me to confront my own fury against the cruelty, the injustice they inflict upon us.”

(Interesting that Gale is brought up here. He’s also a fiery guy, more idealistic than Katniss, who tends to be pretty practical-minded. She’s taking on some of his type of fire, now).

 Then she remembers what Peeta told her on the roof about showing the Capitol “they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.”

(Even at this early stage in the story and the love triangle, you can already see where the author is pointing — to put it plainly, who is the better one of these two boys. Gale is driven by fury, a sense of injustice, and desire for revenge. Those are motivations that give people a lot of energy to get things done, but it’s also a destructive energy. Fire can be used to cook and keep people warm, but it can also be used to burn people to death. It’s all in how it’s used, how it’s controlled, where it’s pointed.

(Peeta, on the other hand, is not impotently angry at the Capitol that keeps him enslaved. He is more focused on keeping his integrity and humanity in the light of such hopeless circumstances. His North Star, his values, and his goal are different than Gale’s. And Katniss, it seems, is the character who has to choose between these two ways of being, ultimately. 

(But even in this first book, we can already see what the right answer is, because…)

Peeta’s words inspire Katniss to do something to “shame [the Capitol], to show [them] that whatever they do or force us to do there is a part of every tribute they can’t own. That Rue was more than a piece in their Games. And so am I.”

So Katniss finds a bed of wildflowers and decorates Rue’s body in flowers, weaving them into her hair and surrounding her with them. Finally, Katniss kisses her fingers and salutes Rue in the traditional District 12 manner, holding her hand out to the little girl before she walks away.

As the hovercraft comes to pick up Rue’s body, a mockingjay starts to sing Rue’s all-clear signal, and Katniss tells it that Rue is “good and safe…we don’t have to worry about her now.”

(Narratively, that is true too. We don’t have to worry about Katniss having to face Rue down in a fight to the death0

Katniss wanders about in a daze for some time after, and as she prepares to make camp, she gets a silver parachute unexpectedly. She opens it and realizes, thanks to her previous conversations with Peeta, that she’s received bread from District 11.

Clearly they had planned to send the bread to Rue, but when Rue died, they authorized Haymitch to transfer the gift to Katniss instead.

(Agh. This scene always makes me want to cry a bit. Just like the scene in The Count of Monte Cristo, where Edmund Dantes comes to the rescue of his one benefactor, saving him from bankruptcy and death at the last moment.

(There are a few emotionally poignant moments in the Hunger Games series. It starts with Katniss sacrificing herself for Prim, and this one, where District 11 honors the girl who honored their girl, is another one.

(Another side note — clever how Collins has an earlier factor in the story play an important part here. When you first read the Training Center sequence where Peeta and Katniss make small talk about the different kinds of bread from different districts, and then when Peeta jokes with Caesar Flickerman also about bread, you figure those details are just there to flesh out the story and make the world seem more real…

(…Until you hit this part of the story and realize there was also a practical reason why Collins introduced the concept of different breads from different districts earlier in the story, so that it would resonate better here.

(Also, Katniss’ earlier off-handed remark to Rue about how she would be getting gifts from her [Rue’s] sponsors soon, now looks tragically prophetic in retrospect. Rue’s people were planning to send her a gift, but they got there too late.)

Katniss wonders at the gift, knowing that “this is a first,” for a district to send a gift to a tribute not their own. Katniss thanks them by speaking to the sky, knowing the cameras will pick it up, and then she gets herself settled in a tree and thinks about how there are only six tributes left in the games.

When Katniss awakes, she feels lethargic, but the thought of Prim watching her kicks her into action. She gives herself simple commands to sit up, drink water, sort the packs, etc. She now has not only her own orange backpack, but Rue’s things and some of the Career’s stuff as well.

(In the games, Katniss doesn’t have time to grieve, but Collins does a fair job of showing how Katniss gets through the loss of Rue in a condensed fashion.

(Also, it’s very useful how Katniss keeps getting the tools and equipment she needs at the right time, through “serendipitous” events, from people trying to kill her to losing her one ally, Rue)

As Katniss travels and hunts, she remembers Peeta and finds herself “wishing I could tell Peeta about the flowers I put on Rue. That I now understand what he was trying to say on the roof.”

Katniss is more determined than ever to win the games and avenge Rue, to “make her loss unforgettable,” and her promise to Rue to win is even more important now than her vow to Prim.

Katniss starts a fire, trying to draw the Careers to her, but no one comes, and then she has a delayed realization that the boy who killed Rue, the boy she killed, was her first kill, not including dumping the Trackers on Glimmer and the other Career girl.

And this makes Katniss remember Gale’s words on killing animals versus killing humans: “How different can it be, really?”

Katniss realizes: “Amazingly similar in execution…Entirely different in the aftermath.” She thinks of the dead boy’s friends and family, and realizes they will be grieving and they will want vengeance on her.

(Again, a nice contrast between Peeta and Gale. Through her experiences, Katniss is starting to understand the main messages she received from these two: Peeta’s desire to maintain his humanity and keep the overlords from stripping his interior self from him even if they can take away everything external. Gale’s grim desire to destroy those who have tortured them for all their lives. 

(Both of these viewpoints are presented back to back for Katniss and the viewer. But Katniss instinctively realizes that Gale isn’t right. That killing a human is not the same as killing an animal, because humans have an intrinsic value, and relationships that animals aren’t capable of, which is why it’s just hunting to kill animals, and it’s murder to kill innocent humans.

(Also: Katniss may outwardly present as a cold, survival-minded tough girl, but what makes her a character people can admire and care about is that she has a healthy moral code underneath it all. She’s hurt, and she’s angry, but she’s not a hopeless, cynical, nihilistic monster. And that makes us want to root for her)

Katniss is kicked out of her reverie by the sound of trumpets. She explains to the reader (without breaking the fourth wall, of course) that trumpets sometimes announce new developments in the Games, typically calls to a “feast.”

(Again, Collins gives information just when the reader needs it. Hold on to the idea of Feasts, because that will be a major plot point coming up)

But the announcer is announcing a rule change instead: This year, both tributes from one district can win if they are the last survivors.

As the news sinks in, Katniss instinctively calls Peeta’s name.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: The boy from District 1 dies before he can pull out the spear.

Closing: Before I can stop myself, I call out Peeta’s name.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out more about “feasts” and perhaps see one happen.
• We will see how Katniss and Peeta team up for the rest of the games.

Complications:

• The rules have changed! Now that Katniss doesn’t HAVE to kill Peeta, in fact, would be better off if they teamed up, how will their relationship dynamic work itself out?

Payoffs:

• We get to see the aftermath of Katniss losing Rue and also killing the boy who speared Rue. Both deaths are tragedies but have different effects on Katniss.
• We also see Katniss start to wizen up to Peeta and Gale and what both stand for as she wrestles with her own worldview.
• We see Katniss’ care for Rue honored by the gift from District 11.

OTHER COMMENTS

• The power of The Hunger Games is that it deals with real-life questions albeit in entertainment/story form. During times of extreme suffering, like, say, the Great Leap Forward in China, people were not only starved and tortured to death, they were manipulated to turn on each other — students murdered teachers, children turned their own parents over to be executed, neighbors told on one another and sent each other to prison, and so on.
• If half of those people had had the attitude that Peeta shows Katniss — the attitude of holding on to one’s integrity, of refusing to allow the state to have the one thing they can’t take from you (even though they can take everything else — your property, your family, your life, even), things would never have gotten that bad in China.
• Nor in other countries, like Hitler’s Germany, or the Rwandan Genocide, or any historical atrocity you can think of.
• These are real issues, not mere fodder for novels and movies, and I think that’s part of the reason why the Hunger Games resonated so well with people that it spread…well, like wildfire.

Writing Tips & Practical Application

Because learning doesn’t happen until you change something you do…

• Make a list of poignant things: Think about your own life and the books you’ve read and the stories you’ve heard and when something particularly touched you and write it all down in the same place. Now and then, add to and review your list and see if you can take any ideas from there to add to your own stories and writing.
• Make a list of clever things: Do the same thing as the above, but with “clever” stuff. Stories and events that surprised and delighted you or made you feel vicariously smart.
• Consider your theme: Hunger Games works so well not just because it’s intriguing and twisty, but also because it addresses real-life complex questions like “When you are being oppressed, how do you fight back?” Gale chooses rage and vengeance, Peeta chooses preserving his personal integrity. So what real-world thematic question do YOU want to explore in your work?