This is Part 2 of our Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Book 2) dissection-analysis for writers who want to hone their craft!
You can check out:
- Part 1 here
- Part 3: coming soon
- And you can check out the deep-dive analysis of Book 1 in the series, here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Who this book is for: Fans of action-adventure, dystopian with a dash of romance, fans of Roman culture reconfigured with a modern spin, survival stories (both physical and emotional survival), and anyone interested in learning to be a better storyteller.
Scylighter rating: given at the end of the three parts
Ready to get started?
BOOK NOTES
Part II: “The Quell”
Chapter 10
In This Chapter
- Katniss learns something shocking about her world from two runaway rebels
- Katniss discovers there are people on “her side,” whatever that means (to her)
Part 1 ended with District 12 being increasingly oppressed, and Katniss sneaking away into the woods, where she bumps into a person dressed as peacekeepers. Just before Katniss shoots the stranger, she (the “peacekeeper”) holds out to Katniss a piece of bread with a mockingjay stamped on it.
(I just thought how interesting that Katniss’ mockingjay symbol is baked into bread, of all things, as opposed to, say, embroidered in cloth or branded in leather or carved into wood or metal. Why does it have to be bread?
(Because, first of all, the fact that these two are starving — as we will find out later — you’d think anything edible they would have eaten already. But they keep this, because the symbol is more important than physical sustenance.
(Secondly, just as the mockingjay is Katniss’ symbol, bread is Peeta’s symbol. Just as the mockingjay image that these two hold out would not be visible without being stamped on the bread, Katniss couldn’t be who she is or do what she does without Peeta’s unwavering support and…just, existence.
(This is the case whenever you look at accomplished people of all stripes in history. None of them could have done everything that they did all on their own. For good or ill, both evil and good people alike, all had supporters, often ONE particularly important supporter, who made what they did possible — Walt Disney had his brother Roy, Steve Jobs had Wozniak, Stephen King had his wife and fellow novelist Tabitha, Marx had Lenin, and so on and so forth)
Chapter 10, the first chapter of Part 2, then begins with Katniss trying to make sense of the bizarreness of finding a strange peacekeeper with her mockingjay symbol stamped on bread, wandering around in the middle of the woods.
“What does that mean?” Katniss says.
And then the “peacekeeper’s” true identity is revealed as a second person comes out of hiding and Katniss discovers that these two women are escapees from District Eight (textiles), who stole the peacekeeper uniforms from the factory they worked at when the factory exploded, and are on their way to District Thirteen.
Katniss expresses her unbelief, but is distracted by the two’s malnourished condition. Luckily, she’s brought a huge bag of food from her house, which she has been in the habit of “spreading around” to the hungry people in her district.
(This is another example of winning readers to Katniss’ side. In these stories, she is put into really tough situations, but to minimize the evil and maximize her likability, the author has her do stuff — like automatically share her resources with her neighbors — that makes readers like her.
(Don’t think this is always the easiest thing to do in real life. In genuine times of fear, scarcity, and oppression, people often expose their selfishness en masse, informing on one another, ignoring each others’ needs — it’s why communism is so destructive, for example. Which is why someone — even a fictional someone — who cares about others even when everyone is facing tough circumstances, always sticks out. Especially when they do it instinctively, which means their character, the part of them deep down, isn’t corrupted)
Katniss gives all the food to the women, who are named Bonnie and Twill, and Bonnie’s joy at getting it reminds Katniss of Rue, who died in the last Hunger Games.
(Reminder of Rue and her innocence here to remind people of the stakes — for Katniss and for this world of hers that they are about to fight to save, or redeem)
After they eat, Bonnie and Twill tell Katniss their story — the unrest in Eight started during the Victory Tour, when people had an excuse to be out at night due to the mandatory viewing of the Tour.
At the appointed time, people donned masks and started to riot. But it didn’t work. The Capitol sent thousands of peacekeepers to quell the riots, and there was a week of lockdown, pushing the people to the “brink of starvation” until suddenly came a command to return back to normal.
Bonnie and Twill were on their way to work at the factory when it exploded, probably out of revenge for the rebels planning the revolt there. Bonnie and Twill were only saved because they’d been delayed by bombed streets.
(Masks and lockdowns have taken on a whole new meaning since the 2020s…
(Writing note: This whole section is told, not shown, obviously. The information isn’t even given in dialogue. It’s just Katniss’ narrative voice summarizing what Bonnie and Twill told her. This condenses the text, but runs the risk of becoming boring if it goes on too long)
Next, Bonnie and Twill tell Katniss why they believe District Thirteen (said to have been blown to smithereens by the Capitol) must still exist, because the footage of rubble that the District always displays on the television appears to have a loop of a mockingjay flying by — “the same one every time.”
(Again, we see the mockingjay playing another role in this story — this time as a clue that not all is as it is presented to be.
(Side note: I think one of the reasons for the Hunger Games’ massive success — which far surpasses that of other modern copycat-dystopian attempts — is that it touches on political/social elements that are not so far from reality for us living in the 21st century.
(In some ways and places, people do feel like there are “Capitol-esque” forces trying to oppress the “common people” for their own benefit, the way the Capitol does to the Districts in this dystopian novel.
(Also, we’ve come to trust less and less in the media, and in what we see on video, realizing how easy and common it is for people to manipulate even audiovisual evidence to say whatever they want it to say — just like how the Capitol forces the Districts to watch whatever they want them to watch, and see whatever they want them to see.
(The surface features between Hunger Games world and Real world may be fantastical, but some of the dark underlying concepts feel familiar.)
Twill and Bonnie tell Katniss that they believe District Thirteen has moved underground, and the Capitol leaves them alone because their industry was nuclear development, not graphite mining as people were told.
(This sounds like a lame excuse, to be honest, forgive me if my knowledge of science is not up to snuff, but graphite miners? Really? One whole district doing nuttin’ but mining graphite? Just how important is graphite to the survival of an entire country, anyway?…
(To be honest, I’ve never fully bought into the idea of 12 districts each focusing on one of only twelve industries. This kind of planned economy would have resulted in mass starvations on par with the Chinese Cultural Revolution long before 75 years have passed.
(Also, the book never says because it’s not relevant to Katniss’ story, but — what are the other countries doing all this time? If Panem is supposed to be the vestiges of America, where are its allies and neighbors? Is Canada and Mexico completely annihilated? Are they turning a blind eye to the craziness going on in Panem?
(Even corrupt and evil countries that oppress their people have allies, in fact, they NEED allies…look at North Korea, for example. They couldn’t survive on their own without help, not the way their current system is working)
This makes Katniss angry: “If that’s true, why do they leave us to live like this?” She thinks that this hypothetical thirteenth district is “no better than the Capitol,” sitting by and watching others die.
(Interesting foreshadowing. Also, a good point. Those who don’t speak against evil are complicit in that evil, if they know about it and are positioned to do something about it but choose not to)
Katniss still thinks it’s a pipe dream, but she tries to teach them the basics of hunting using a special weapon she’s managed to grab along with the peacekeeping uniform.
(Does this count as foreshadowing for all the high-tech weaponry Katniss and crew will be using in the third book?)
Finally, Katniss has to leave the two and go home. Along the way, she realizes that “President Snow has been playing me for a fool.” Nothing she did could have stopped the uprising in Eight. So why visit her and ask her to assuage the crowd?
Katniss figures Snow was trying to keep her from doing “anything else inflammatory in the districts.”
Katniss thinks of the mockingjay on the bread that Bonnie and Twill showed her, and how they said “we’re on your side,” and she thinks: “I have people on my side? What side? Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped for rebellion?…If so, my side’s not doing too well.”
(Yep, gotta put the MC in a hole and make her fight her way out otherwise the story’s no fun. People like underdogs, as they say, although as with many of these stories, what looks like an underdog isn’t as much of an underdog as you might think.
(Katniss may be poor and young and so on but her background has made her scrappy and smart, she knows how to hunt, she has a powerful motivator — Prim, she’s got several powerful allies, and she has a natural instinct for understanding human nature, media management, and winning friends…although she is a bit obtuse to her own feelings, not because she’s dumb but because she hasn’t had time to think about that yet.
(In other words, in most underdog-wins-the-day stories, you’ll find the underdog is only a “surface”-underdog. Underneath the surface, they’ve got everything they need to win the day, if they use it right)
As Katniss reaches the old gate, she realizes with a start that the old, broken-down fence has been re-electrified.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: It makes no sense. My bird baked into bread.
Closing: But what makes me jerk back my hand is the sound, like the buzz of a tree full of tracker jacker nests, indicating the fence is alive with electricity.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will find out that District Thirteen IS still around, or at least that Bonnie and Twill’s suspicions are not completely unfounded.
- We will see Katniss use some clever method to get around the newly re-electrified fence, and find out WHY the fence has been re-electrified in the first place.
Payoffs:
- Bonnie and Twill’s reaction to Katniss’ gift of food reminds her of Rue. This is an unexpected payoff, or more like a throwback to the first Hunger Games, to Rue, a favorite character who died.
- The mockingjay symbol is growing.
Complications:
- Apparently, District Thirteen is now a very real potential ally or problem in the coming conflict.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Katniss’ surprise that Bonnie and Twill say they are on “her side” is interesting. She doesn’t consider herself to have “a side.” She’s become the accidental figurehead of a rising movement, and is as much a pawn of the movement as its “leader.”
- It reminds me of the Shakespeare quote: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Katniss is definitely in Category Three, with shades of One and Two mixed in for good measure.
Chapter 11
In This Chapter
- Katniss narrowly escapes a suspicious peacekeeper’s visit, thanks to “live theater” and her quick-witted family
- Katniss and Peeta actually get to do a “normal activity,” together, for once.
Katniss knows that any contact with the wire means instant electrocution, and she can’t burrow under without being detected, plus the ground is frozen. So her only option is to jump.
She finds a climbable maple tree, then jumps from there to a tree closer to the fence. She’s some 20–25 feet in the air when she makes the final leap into a snowbank.
(Great use of specific detail, the number of feet and also the types of trees she’s climbing. Also lucky there’s a snowbank.)
The jump leaves her injured, but she manages to limp home.
But when she arrives, she has another shock. Two peacekeepers are waiting inside.
My mother appears behind them, but keeps her distance. “Here she is, just in time for dinner,” she says a little too brightly. I’m very late for dinner.
(I love the contrast between what is said and Katniss’ contradictory narration. It’s skillfully done)
The peacekeepers mention they have a message for her, but Katniss knows the peacekeepers are there to try to confirm that she’s “either been electrocuted…or trapped in the woods” so they have a reason to take her family in for questioning.
But Katniss and her family (including Haymitch and Peeta, who are also present) instinctively and immediately launch into an act about how Katniss was trying to find a mate for Prim’s goat.
They get into a long drawn-out argument about where Prim told Katniss to go, and as they talk back and forth, Katniss thinks to herself: “This is why they’ve made it this far, Haymitch and Peeta. Nothing throws them.”
Finally, the peacekeepers “deliver their message,” which is that the fence around District Twelve is going to be electrified 24/7. Wasn’t it already electrified? Katniss asks innocently, and they ask her in a surly way to “pass this information on to your cousin.”
After the peacekeepers leave, Katniss finally reveals her injured foot, still hesitant to say exactly how she injured herself for fear of their conversation being bugged.
Katniss has dinner and then sits with Prim and asks her about school. Peeta carries her to bed because of her injured foot, and because of the sleep syrup her mom gave her, Katniss feels less inhibited so she asks Peeta to stay until she falls asleep.
Katniss’ mother gives her a week of bed rest, which she spends “pondering how on earth this will all turn out.”
(The pacing is significantly slower in the first part of the book, and the first section of the second part as well. It’s still interesting, but not as heart-palpitation-inducing as the first part)
Peeta shows up every day to bring cheese buns (which Katniss earlier said were her favorites), and the two start working on an old book in Katniss’ family, started by a maternal herbalist ancestor of hers, in which they have been recording edible plants.
The book helped keep Katniss and her family alive after her father’s death, and she wanted to add what she learned to the book. She couldn’t without artistic skill, though…except now Peeta can help with drawing the plants.
(Foreshadowing a healing activity that they end up doing at the end of the third book. Smart planting it early on, here. Side note, I’m curious if books still exist in this world, because they’re basically not mentioned. Not the kind we have anyway. This book that Katniss refers to is handmade. Are all the bookstores and publishing companies dead? All news depends purely on television alone? That would be one way to control the masses, certainly…but I highly doubt that people would let all print communication die entirely)
Katniss observes Peeta as he works:
“His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him. I’ve seen flashes of this before: in the arena, or when he speaks to a crowd, or that time he shoved the Peacekeepers’ guns away from me in District 11.”
(This description is a little reminiscent of Katniss’ description of her mother when she is healing. It’s interesting, how she underestimates both of these people — her mother for being weak, Peeta, also in a way for being “soft,” but when she pays attention she realizes they have strengths, skills, and hidden selves that she doesn’t appreciate enough…until now.
(Also: I take back what I said before when I said that Peeta and Katniss are a bit gender-swapped. They are only on the surface. Underneath, Peeta is the model of healthy masculinity — note that Katniss observes how his “true self” comes out when he is protecting her. And Katniss, despite her hunting and attempted stoicism demonstrates healthy femininity when she protects children, namely her sister and Rue.
(That’s really her biggest beef with her mom, actually, is that as a mother, her mother didn’t put aside her own grief and problems to save her own children from starvation, leaving that job to Katniss. Katniss understands what ought to be)
Peeta observes that this is the first time they’ve “done anything normal together” and Katniss agrees that it’s “nice for a change.”
Each afternoon, Peeta carries her downstairs so she can have a change of scenery. Katniss turns on the TV, looking for the mockingjay that Bonnie and Twill told her about, and eventually finds evidence that the two escapees from Eight are right.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: My feet back up automatically and I blend into the trees.
Closing: The reporter has simply been incorporated into the old footage. She’s not in District 13 at all. Which begs the question, What is?
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will find out what is actually in District 13.
Payoffs:
- Bonnie and Twill are partly-vindicated in Katniss’ eyes, the info they gave her is potentially HUGE.
Complications:
- Katniss is starting to genuinely befriend Peeta, outside of all the acting she had to do for the cameras, which we readers know is a dangerous thing since we’ve all read the blurb and can guess (a little?) what’s coming.
OTHER COMMENTS
- This is a pretty slow-paced chapter. Katniss has to recover from her wound, and it’s interesting that instead of summing up “time passed, Katniss healed,” the author makes the readers slow down and experience the wait (a little bit), ourselves. It’s realistic without being annoying.
- Random side note: I sometimes wonder if reading or watching Hunger Games might be giving young readers (especially young teen girls) an unrealistic idea of an “ideal boyfriend” like Peeta? He’s a bit too-good-to-be-true, in a way that works for the story, but might be a tad dangerous if you’re looking for such a person in real life. I think they do exist, but few and far between.
- Granted, with the kind of fantasy thinking that youngsters can get into, better to have a fictional role model who is a little bit “too unrealistically good & noble” than one who encourages people to give in to their baser natures.
Chapter 12
In This Chapter
- Katniss uses a clever method to deduce that uprisings are taking place throughout the country.
- Katniss has to try out her wedding dresses.
- Haymitch disabuses Katniss of her unrealistic fantasies about District 13, in order to focus on what she can control or influence
By the time Katniss’ foot is better, it’s almost spring. Katniss is surprised by the arrival of her prep team — Venia, Octavia, and Flavius. Katniss notes that after her face was injured, Haymitch delayed their visit for a few months but they have come at last for the bridal dress shoot.
As the prep team works on Katniss, they chat amongst themselves an something catches Katniss’ attention — something about not being able to get shrimp for a party.
Katniss asks why, and finds out there’s been “bad weather,” which she astutely interprets as District Four starting some kind of uprising. Katniss starts “casually questioning” the team to find out what other shortages they’ve been experiencing, and figures out that Districts 3, 4, and 8 are probably all rebelling, which leaves her “quivering with fear and excitement.”
(I like how Collins weaves in crucial plot points with the more “everyday action” of the prep team making up Katniss.)
Before Katniss can ask any more questions, Cinna arrives and it’s time to try out the six wedding gowns, complete with accessories. Katniss describes each of the gowns in detail…
(Good idea to do that. There will be some readers who are really into fashion and it adds to the luxurious/sensuousness of the Capitol culture, which helps with worldbuilding and sinking readers even more deeply into the story).
Prim and their mother seem “overly happy about the photo shoot” Katniss observes, realizing that it’s because “they think it means I’m safe.”
(Major irony! …Considering what is about to happen very soon in this book)
The next day, Katniss heads over to Haymitch’s and they go on a walk to discuss what she’s inadvertently learned from her prep team. Haymitch is still not hopeful about a successful uprising in Twelve. They’re too small and weak.
They also discuss District Thirteen, which Haymitch isn’t convinced exists, contrary to Bonnie and Twill’s hopes. He explains the repeated mockingjay in the footage as perhaps the Capitol being too lazy to fly a team out to the actual District Thirteen for fresh footage.
That afternoon when Prim comes home from school, they watch TV together and it turns out that the Capitol citizens were given the chance to vote for their favorite Katniss wedding dress.
Before the show ends, Caesar Flickerman reminds watchers that this year is the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games, meaning that it is the third Quarter Quell.
Here, narrator-Katniss takes a few paragraphs to explain what a Quarter Quell is — every 25 years, the Hunger Games get extra fancy, above and beyond the usual proceedings.
For the First Quarter Quell, tributes were not chosen at random but elected by their own neighbors. For the Second, instead of one boy and girl being chosen, it was two boys and two girls.
As the television announcer recounts this history, Katniss’ mother comments quietly that a friend of hers went in that year — Maysilee Donner.
(Donner is an interesting last name. Reminds one of the doomed Donner party, the ones who tried to go West and got stuck in the mountains in the winter, and almost everyone died, and there were rumors that survivors turned to cannibalism to make it. Horrifying, and also thematically on point for the Hunger Games)
And now, for the Third Quarter Quell, the president does a dramatic pulling of an envelope and then reads what it says:
“On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.”
In other words, Katniss must play the Hunger Games again.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Staying quietly in bed is harder after that. I want to be doing something, finding out more about District 13 or helping in the cause to bring down the Capitol. Instead I sit around stuffing myself with cheese buns and watching Peeta sketch.
Closing: Then I get it, what it means. At least, for me. District 12 only has three existing victors to choose from. Two male. One female… // I am going back into the arena.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will get to see Katniss “run the gauntlet” again, but this time with raised stakes.
Payoffs:
- Katniss has gotten the news that she has to go back into the Games.
Complications:
- District 12 never used to be oppressed this badly. But if they are to survive anything like an uprising, it would have to be ALL of them participating. No one can stand back. (And this scenario isn’t very realistic to begin with).
OTHER COMMENTS
- Here we go! The inciting incident has finally happened, almost halfway through the book. Not that the first half of this book was boring, but much slower.
- The irony of the chapter starting with Prim’s mom and sister thinking that she’s safe…only to have her be chosen to go back into the Games (rather than just arrested or killed outright), is quite sad. And dramatic. Good work, Collins ~
Chapter 13
In This Chapter
- Katniss makes a deal with Haymitch
- Katniss gets drunk and Peeta turns into a trainer, of sorts…
Katniss instinctively runs out the door and ends up in one of the empty houses in Victor’s Village.
She stuffs her shirt in her mouth and screams until her voice is almost gone.
(Seeing Katniss losing it is helpful for readers not to write her off as a stoic, gladiator-type character. She’s only a 17-year-old girl in a horrible situation, and it’s good to remind us of that)
Katniss lays on the ground thinking about this out-of-left-field blow. And then she is struck by a thought — she will be in the arena with either Peeta or Haymitch, and “there’s no situation in which I would ever kill Peeta or Haymitch.”
Katniss realizes that if Haymitch is chosen, Peeta will volunteer to go in to protect her. She finds her way out of the house and heads to Haymitch’s.
“Ah, there she is…Finally did the math, did you, sweetheart?” Haymitch slurs in his drunkenness. “And now you’re here to ask me…what?”
Katniss doesn’t answer right away, and Haymitch reveals that Peeta was there, earlier “before I could snap the seal on a bottle.” He’d gone to Haymitch to beg him to let him (Peeta) go into the arena to protect Katniss. (Just as she predicted. She knows him well)
Haymitch sarcastically asks if Katniss is here to ask him to sacrifice himself for Peeta, and this makes Katniss bite her lip.
“I bite my lip because once he’s said it, I’m afraid that’s what I do want. For Peeta to live, even if it means Haymitch’s death. No, I don’t. He’s dreadful, of course, but Haymitch is my family now. What did I come for? I think.”
(It’s interesting how this plays out in Katniss’ head…she has a moment of you could say “weakness” when she thinks that she might want to sacrifice Haymitch for Peeta, but then she realizes that is unthinkable. It’s a moral conundrum)
Katniss asks for a drink, to Haymitch’s surprise, and then she and Haymitch discuss their options — on the one hand, Katniss points out, Haymitch hates life. On the other, Peeta told Haymitch that Haymitch owes him for not trying to save him the first time and what he wants is Katniss to be saved this time around again.
Katniss thinks to herself:
“I knew it. In this way, Peeta’s not hard to predict. While I was wallowing around on the floor of that cellar, thinking only of myself, he was here, thinking only of me. Shame isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel.”
(To be fair, Katniss wasn’t completely thinking of herself. But fear and despair definitely drives one to self-centeredness quite effectively. Also, Collins is kind of genius in how she makes Peeta really a kind of too-good-to-be-true character, and yet he doesn’t quite cross the line into unbelievability…well, I suppose it depends on each individual reader, but to me, she lays it on pretty thick without turning him into a caricature, which is pretty skillful)
Finally, Katniss figures out what to ask for: This time, the two of them will focus on saving Peeta instead. Katniss argues that it’s Peeta’s turn, no matter what he says, and besides, the Capitol hates her so much she really doesn’t have a chance — but Peeta does.
Haymitch agrees, and Katniss staggers home. Gale is waiting for her on the threshold, apologizing for deciding to stay: “We should have gone when you said,” he whispers.
But the tables have turned, as Katniss says “No.”
(In the last book, Katniss toyed with the idea of running away, and then ended up thankful that she didn’t, in order to save Prim. This time, it’s in order to save Peeta).
Katniss faints as the bottle of liquor she grabbed from Haymitch’s place shatters on the floor. When Katniss wakes up, she pukes out the strong alcohol, and then showers and prepares herself to see her mom and sister. She tries to steel herself to be calm and reassuring as she was last year, but instead, she breaks down as her mother and Prim hold her until she cries herself out.
(I like seeing Katniss’ breakdown here, from a writing craft perspective. It’s more realistic than her being stoic, for sure. And it makes readers feel for her…even though of course we know she’s got enough plot armor to survive, she doesn’t know that, and she now has a taste of how horrific the games really are, where last time there was an element of ignorance — seeing something on screen is not the same as experiencing and acting yourself.)
Katniss sleeps some more and when she wakes, she notes that Prim has grown and matured too fast over the year, from the Games and the political oppression, etc.
Katniss grabs some broth to bring to Haymitch and they sit peacefully sipping their broth and watching the sunset when Katniss hears someone coming down the stairs. It’s not Hazelle (Haymitch’s housekeeper), but Peeta, who announces he’s poured all the alcohol out, and threatened Haymitch’s supplier not to sell to him anymore.
Both Haymitch and Katniss are indignant, but Peeta insists that “two of us are going to be in the arena again with the other as mentor. We can’t afford any drunkards on this team. Especially not you, Katniss.”
(Love Peeta’s take-charge attitude, here. Despite his kindness and artistic soul and devotion to Katniss and baking of bread, this is one tough cookie underneath. Also, the dig at Katniss is really funny)
Katniss is shocked: “I don’t know what I expected from my first meeting with Peeta after the announcement. A few hugs and kisses. A little comfort maybe. Not this.”
(Similarly, audiences weren’t sure what to expect, but not this, either. The resonance is perfect)
When Katniss assures Haymitch she’ll help him get more alcohol, Peeta says he’ll turn them both in “Let you sober up in the stocks.”
(This is another hilarious bit of dialogue, it’s like two parents bickering over their kid’s bad habit)
Peeta has an entire plan laid out: “two of us are coming home from the Capitol. One mentor and one victor. Effie’s sending me recordings of all the living victors. We’re going to watch their Games and learn everything we can about how they fight. We’re going to put on weight and get strong. And one of us is going to be victor again whether you two like it or not!” and he sweeps out after making that announcement.
“I don’t like self-righteous people,” Katniss says.
“What’s to like?” Haymitch grumbles back as he snuffles through his empty wine bottles.
“You and me. That’s who he plans on coming home,” I say.
“Well, then the joke’s on him,” says Haymitch.
(Aaah! This scene is so chef’s kiss. You can just see these characters playing out this scene in your mind’s eye, although it’s just dialogue).
Of course, Peeta gets his way in the end, and the three of them start training physically and watching “game tape” like athletes. Katniss finds that having something to do besides accept defeat is good for her. Her mom and sister also pitch in, putting them on special diets and treating their sore muscles. Madge sneaks Katniss newspapers and even Gale steps in to teach them everything he knows about snares.
Of course Katniss finds it weird being in between them, and even Gale admits “It’d be better if he were easier to hate.”
“Tell me about it,” Katniss replies. “If I could’ve just hated him in the arena…He’d be dead, and I’d be a happy little victor all by myself.”
Gale takes this opportunity to ask “and where would we be?” which Katniss chooses to misinterpret: “Hunting. Like every Sunday.”
She’s afraid that “any kind of emotional scene with Gale might cause him to do something drastic.”
(Yet another reason why Peeta is a better choice of partner for Katniss— in life and in war — compared to Gale. Because while Katniss constantly has to watch herself around Gale, being careful not to trigger him, she can be fully herself — and even a worse version of herself — around Peeta, knowing that he has the strength to bear with anything she throws at him. In other words, Katniss has to take care of Gale. But Peeta takes care of Katniss)
And finally it’s time for the reaping. There’s only one name in the girls’ glass bowl, of course, and when she chooses Haymitch’s name out of the boys’ glass bowl, Haymitch “barely has time to shoot [Katniss] an unhappy look before Peeta has volunteered to take his place.”
(Another good move by Collins here. Since readers all know what is going to happen, she doesn’t linger and draw out this scene. Instead, it’s more told than shown, and the clipped, almost-clinical, matter-of-fact way that the whole thing goes down actually makes the reader feel it more deeply than if the author dragged it out and hyper-floralized it).
This time around, though, Katniss doesn’t have time to say goodbye to her family and Gale before being whipped off to the train station. “New procedure,” says Head Peacekeeper Thread.
(This scene in the book is much better than the movie-fied version. Also, we see now that although the format is familiar, there are slight tweaks to the Hunger Games process from the first book that will keep things interesting…)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: My body reacts before my mind does and I’m running out the door, across the lawns of the Victor’s Villages, into the dark beyond.
Closing: And I’m left staring out the window, watching District 12 disappear, with all my good-byes still hanging on my lips.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We’re about to go through the whole Hunger Games rigamarole again, only this time it will be (if possible) ramped up, emotionally.
Payoffs:
- After waiting for the “Hunger Games” part of the Hunger Games in book 2 for a whole section and a part, it’s finally here.
Complications:
- From the reader’s perspective, we know Katniss has to survive. But from Katniss’ perspective, she and Haymitch have made a pact to keep Peeta alive.
OTHER COMMENTS
- In every book, there is one or a few scene(s) or chapter(s) or section(s) that contains the heart of the book, the scene that is particularly poignant for readers. This one is it for Catching Fire.
Chapter 14
In This Chapter
- Katniss and Peeta see how Haymitch won his games
Peeta reassures Katniss that they can write their goodbyes to their families instead, although Katniss knows she can’t bring herself to write letters. They aren’t the kind of thing she can do, like the time she tried to write a speech to honor Rue and Thresh. It wouldn’t feel quite right.
Katniss goes to her room and mentally lets her loved ones go, saying goodbye to them inside her head.
Dinner is subdued, with only Effie and Peeta trying to make conversation, and then they go to watch the recap of the reapings to see who their competition will be.
In District 4, a hysterical young woman is called, only to be replaced by an 80-year-old woman who volunteers.
(This is another good reminder that nobility exists in more than one place. Katniss volunteered to save Prim, and that is powerful viewing for everyone — one older child giving her life to save a younger one. But what this old woman — who we will discover is named Mags — did for the young “hysterical woman,” Annie, is just as noble, perhaps more so because they are unrelated. But it’s not as interesting for the media or for readers of this story because Annie and Mags are not the main character.
(This reminds me of how a lot of times quietly faithful people are never promoted or publicized, and yet they exist…)
Katniss also notes Johanna Mason from District 7, and a young mother from 8 named Cecelia, plus Chaff, one of Haymitch’s particular friends from District 11.
(Johanna will turn out to be important in this story, and also Mags, but Cecelia and Chaff are here just to accentuate the tragedy of the Games, as we will see)
When it gets to District 12’s reaping:
“One of the announcers actually gets teary because it seems the odds will never be in our favor, we star-crossed lovers of District 12. Then she pulls herself together to say she best that “these will be the best Games ever!”
(Another example of the callousness of these people in this story — that they can be shedding tears one second and then excited about the entertainment of people killing each other the next really makes readers despise these “Capitol people,” and wiser readers self-reflect…We really do often treat people in entertainment, or influencers online, as if they’re not quite human. Maybe superhuman, in some respects, subhuman in others. It’s as if they’re not quite real, and their lives and feelings only have value in how well they entertain us. Para-social relationships, cancel culture, gossip magazines, fashion trends…it’s all very Hunger Games).
Afterwards, Peeta stays up to go over his notes and tells Katniss to go to bed, which she does, but she’s soon up again from a screaming nightmare.
Peeta is still up, watching tapes and Katniss orders warm milk and joins him.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Peeta asks, and when he opens his arms, Katniss goes to him without hesitation. She observes:
“It’s the first time since they announced the Quarter Quell that he’s offered me any sort of affection. He’s been more like a very demanding trainer, always pushing, always insisting Haymitch and I run faster, eat more, know our enemy better…I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something.”
(And that’s how you know it’s true love. Because unlike what modern propaganda has convinced a generation to believe, that “love is love,” real love actually can be tough, sometimes, if it’s for the good of the beloved. Love shouldn’t always be soft and comforting and empathetic and understanding, not when that means letting the person self-destruct. Collins has really nailed Peeta’s character, here.
(Also, note re: “pushups” — Another small dose of humor to keep this emotional moment from geetting too intense).
Katniss notes that she doesn’t have to hold back from hugging Peeta anymore. She doesn’t plan on returning alive, and even if Gale sees anything on screen, he’ll just think she’s acting for the cameras.
The milk arrives, with some added honey and spices from the sympathetic attendant, and Katniss and Peeta decide to watch Haymitch’s games, the Second Quarter Quell, which they hadn’t reviewed before, out of sensitivity toward Haymitch.
Katniss realizes this is also the Games when Maysilee Donner, her mother’s friend, was selected as well. And both Katniss and Peeta realize that Maysilee was Madge’s mom’s sister. This recasts the way Katniss thinks of Madge’s mother, who is constantly in bed in pain. And it makes her see her mockingjay pin in a different light.
(This reminds me of the Faulkner quote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”)
Katniss is shocked to see Haymitch being called up. He’s young, handsome, (very different from now) and cocky as always. In the Games, Haymitch and Maysilee team up as allies, and near the end split up just before Maysilee gets killed.
Haymitch also almost dies, but he figures out how to use the force field around the arena by getting out the way of an axe-throwing opponent, who is killed by her own axe when it boomerangs out from a canyon after hitting the force field.
(Major foreshadowing — using the arena itself as a weapon. Also, Collins half tells, half shows — just snippets of dialogue between Haymitch and Maysilee — with Katniss narrating. There’s also something kind of absurd and bizarre about the way the people die, with Maysilee getting skewered by “candy pink birds” and another combatant being “eaten by a pack of…fluffy squirrels”)
“That’s why I don’t remember seeing it on television. It’s almost as bad as us and the berries!” Katniss cries out, delighted at how Haymitch found out how to turn the force field into a weapon.
“Almost, but not quite,” comes a voice from behind, and of course it’s Haymitch, who’s drinking again.
But Katniss isn’t upset. She’s feeling a new kind of confidence, seeing how resourceful Haymitch was in his round of the Games, because now she knows — there’s a really good chance the two of them can save Peeta.
(Nice that she’s putting Peeta first for a change, rather than always the other way around. And also good strategy, writing-wise, to make Peeta the goal. Because he doesn’t have as much plot armor as Katniss. There IS a possibility that the author could kill him off and still have a book three).
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I remain at the window long after the woods have swallowed up the last glimpse of my home. This time I don’t have even the slightest hope of return.
Closing: Now a new kind of confidence is lighting up inside of me, because I think I finally know who Haymitch is. And I’m beginning to know who I am. And surely, two people who have caused the Capitol so much trouble can think of a way to get Peeta home alive.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will see what happened to the tributes that Katniss mentions by name.
Payoffs:
- We finally get to see how Haymitch won his games and became a mentor.
Complications:
- Turns out Haymitch’s winning of his games is as subversive as Katniss and Peeta’s method, in a way. So it’s a rebel leading the rebels.
OTHER COMMENTS
- In terms of coming up with something that makes Haymitch subversive (defiant) enough to be a thorn in the Capitols’ side, but make it subtle enough not to draw their murderous ire entirely — using their own arena against them is fairly clever.
- And it’s good foreshadowing for how (spoiler!) Katniss and co are going to win the games this time around, too, so it hits two birds with one stone. For me, it’s not quite on the level of the cleverness of how Ender won his games in the eponymous Ender’s Game, but it will do.
Chapter 15
In This Chapter
- Katniss meets Finnick, the extra-handsome victor from a decade ago.
- Katniss and Peeta “win” the opening ceremonies, again, thanks to their stylists.
- Katniss gets an unpleasant reminder from her past.
As Katniss’ prep team gets her ready, they weep buckets of tears, not just because they’ve grown attached to her, “and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them,” but combined with the idea that if she dies, “they’ll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events…and the whole thing becomes unbearable.”
As “the idea of being strong for someone else” has “never entered their heads,” Katniss has to comfort them instead of the other way around. And she observes: “Since I’m the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.”
(Katniss’ narrative voice is…chef’s kiss)
When Cinna arrives, Katniss grumpily tells him that if he cries on her, she’ll kill him “here and now.”
Cinna reassures her that he channels his emotions into his work. “That way I don’t hurt anyone but myself.”
Cinna also promises to talk to the prep team so they won’t drown Katniss in tears again. Then Katniss has lunch (which is described in detail), and then Cinna dresses Katniss in a breathtaking outfit that makes her look like a glowing ember, an “unearthly being who looks like she might make her home in [a] volcano.”
(Nice nod there to the volcano because we all know that in Roman history, a famous volcano — Mt Vesuvius — destroyed an entire city and buried thousands in ash. More variations on Katniss’ fire theme)
“I think your days of pink lipstick and ribbons are behind you,” Cinna observes. Then he advises Katniss that when she’s on the chariot, to look straight ahead “as if the entire audience is beneath your notice.”
“Finally something I’ll be good at,” Katniss quips, and then it’s almost time to go. This time, Katniss notes that the victors are all being very social, having known each other for years. Katniss herself knows no one, but that’s quickly changed when District 4’s Finnick Odair arrives, crunching on sugar cubes.
“Hello, Katniss,” he says, as if we’ve known each other for years, when in fact we’ve never met.
Katniss returns his greeting in like manner, uncomfortable at his closeness, since his costume exposes so much skin. Finnick offers her a sugar cube, which he stole from the horses, and Katniss observes in her narration for the reader’s sake that Finnick is a “living legend,” having won his Games when he was 14, and also having “extraordinary beauty” which made him highly favored among sponsors, and later among many citizens of the Capitol.
(The only thing that bothers me here is the idea that Finnick’s weapon of choice is a trident. Why not a harpoon? Or one of those daggers that fishermen use to hack off fish’s heads? Sure, tridents sound more showy, but also unwieldy and impractical.)
Finnick reveals that he hasn’t “dealt in anything as common as money for years” and that people pay “for the pleasure of his company” in secrets, instead. Then he asks Katniss if she has any secrets to share, but Katniss says “Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself.”
“Unfortunately, I think that’s true,” Finnick observes, then saunters off as Peeta arrives.
(Another reminder that Katniss is an open book — anyone decently clever and also informed about the real state of things, can tell what she’s thinking, what she knows, what she cares about. Which is why President Snow knows her, as does Haymitch and Finnick. Only Peeta took a while to catch on to her “acting” because in part he wanted it to be true, and also because she probably wasn’t entirely acting, at least at times)
Peeta and Katniss get ready for the procession, turning on their costumes so they begin to glow and knowing they will be “the talk of the opening ceremonies” again.
“I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly and remember how, just a year ago, I was prepared to kill him. Convinced he was trying to kill me. Now everything is reversed.”
They hold hands as they roll out onto the concourse and Katniss and Peeta both remain above it all, ignoring the screaming crowds. “I love it. Getting to be myself at last,” Katniss thinks.
Katniss notes that some of the other designers have tried to copycat Cinna and Portia:
“The electric-light-studded outfits from District 3, where they make electronics, at least makes sense. But what are the livestock keepers from District 10, who are dressed as cows, doing with flaming belts? Broiling themselves? Pathetic.”
(So funny, and so true. This always happens in every industry. Once someone comes up with a good idea, the copycats ALWAYS come out of the woodwork, and most of the time they’re not better than the original. But this brings up an interesting point — how does an author outdo her previous descriptions of things, particularly since the audience has been through this opening ceremony once before, when Cinna and Portia pulled off an impressive feat by lighting Katniss and Peeta on fake-fire?)
After the parade, Katniss sees Haymitch chatting with his friend Chaff from District 11. The female tribute, Seeder, gives Katniss a hug, and Katniss has the chance to ask “the families?” about Thresh and Rue. Seeder reassures Katniss that they are still alive, and then Chaff comes over and gives Katniss a big kiss, which shocks her as the others laugh.
Then as they wait for the elevators, Peeta and Katniss are joined by Johanna Mason from District 7, who had won her games by pretending to be weak and helpless so she’d be ignored. And “then she demonstrated a wicked ability to murder.”
Johanna immediately strips off her costume until she’s naked except for her “forest green slippers” and when she leaves, Peeta starts laughing. Katniss is irritated as she says “What?”
And Peeta says that all of the other tributes — Finnick, Chaff, and now Johanna — are teasing Katniss for being “so pure.”
(Ironic, coming from Peeta. But also a bit head-scratching. I don’t understand why Collins put this element in here, though, it’s not really that funny or clever.)
Katniss is annoyed by Peeta’s comment, thinking he and the others are just laughing at her (“I’m seriously rethinking the question of who should get out of these Games alive”) but is distracted when Haymitch and Effie arrive, and then they turn to see that there’s a new Avox in addition to the redheaded girl Katniss met last year.
“Looks like they’ve got you a matched set” Effie says brightly, and Katniss realizes this is because the new Avox is also a redhead — it’s their old peacekeeper Darius.
(Interesting to think that this scene was setup from early in book one. Redheads are relatively rare in real life — though relatively common in fiction, think Harry Potter, for example — and that makes it easier for the “matched set” comment to work here)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Having been through prep with Flavius, Venia, and Octavia numerous times, it should just be an old routine to survive.
Closing: Then a chill runs through me. Because I know him, too. Not from the Capitol but from years of having easy conversations int he Hob, joking over Greasy Sae’s soup, and that last day watching him lie unconscious in the square while the life bled out of Gale. // Our new Avox is Darius.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We’ll see Finnick and Johanna again in the Games, and they will probably play important secondary roles and not be killed off right away. Maybe Chaff, too (or maybe not)
Payoffs:
- We see what happened to Darius, and also see why the Avox girl was made a redhead.
Complications:
- The Games are going to be different played by experienced killers who all know and at least partly like one another.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Punchy outtro with the reveal of Darius as the new Avox. Just when you get distracted by the fun and games of the opening ceremony parade and the tributes having a bit of fun at Katniss’ expense, you’re whammed in the face with the capitol’s cruelty toward old Darius (note that it’s Darius and not Cray — who we never find out what happened—because Cray had a craven, disgusting side to him, while Darius feels more innocent…or at least we know no evil of him)
Chapter 16
In This Chapter
- Katniss is told to make some allies outside of just Peeta, and Katniss makes…interesting choices.
- Katniss shows off her shooting skills.
Katniss recognizes that President Snow has placed Darius here on purpose to unsettle them both.
During dinner, Darius and the redheaded girl (Sad, she never gets a name) serve everyone, and at one point, Katniss purposefully knocks over a dish of peas so that she can communicate with Darius as they both bend to pick it up. But there’s nothing to say. All she can do is squeeze his hand before Effie is nagging at her that it’s not her job.
After dinner, they watch the opening ceremony recap and Katniss refuses to sit next to Peeta because she’s still irritated that he laughed at her, and because “This awfulness with Darius belongs to me and Gale and maybe even Haymitch, but not to Peeta” because Peeta wasn’t “Hob” and didn’t know Darius the way they did.
The next day at training, Haymitch gives Katniss and Peeta two rules:
- Stay in love
- Make some friends
Katniss refuses right off the bat, untrusting of everyone, but Haymitch insists it won’t be enough because they’re working against people who have known each other for years and will likely target them right off the bat.
Haymitch reminds them: “Remember, you’re not in a ring full of trembling children anymore. These people are all experienced killers, no matter what shape they appear to be in.”
Katniss heads to the knot-tying station and is soon joined by Finnick Odair. Katniss moves on to fire building and runs into the two tributes from District 3, Wiress and Beetee. Katniss finds them good company, they are both intelligent and don’t pry.
They point out that there’s a force field where the gamemakers sit, watching them, alerting Katniss to the slight rippling in the air at the edge of the space.
During lunch, Katniss and Peeta talk and Katniss says she likes the victors from District Three. Peeta reveals that the others call them “Nuts and Volts” and treat them as a bit of a joke. But Katniss insists that Wiress and Beetee are smart inventors and if they have to have allies, she chooses them.
Peeta notes Katniss’ continued prickliness and correctly deduces the reasons why, from being teased on being “pure” to seeing Darius to being forced to team up with strangers. Peeta agrees to let Katniss have final say on their allies.
Katniss forces herself to be a bit more sociable, getting to know the different tributes.
Katniss also meets Mags, who teaches her to make hooks. “Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn’t be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. and I decide I want her on my team.”
(Who you admire says something about your character. Katniss is made likable by those she likes. She was likable already, of course, despite her surliness, but her gut leaning toward the misfits and the woman who sacrificed herself to save another is a point in her favor)
Finally, Katniss goes to the shooting range and starts hitting the moving targets and she gets into a kind of flow, shooting up to five birds in one round when she realizes she’s being watched. By the majority of the other victors. Whose faces show a range of emotions from envy to hatred to admiration.
At lunchtime, Haymitch announces that half the victors have asked for her as an ally. “I know it can’t be your sunny personality,” he says.
“They saw her shoot,” says Peeta with a smile. “Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I’m about to put in a formal request myself.”
(Cute. But actually)
Even Haymitch is surprised at this, not having seen Katniss shoot apparently, and Katniss says she wants Mags and District Three, and Haymitch sighs: “Of course you do.”
After that, Katniss no longer feels like she’s “being mocked” but has been “somehow…initiated into the victors’ circle.”
(It may be Katniss is imagining their mockery a little, but if she’s not, they might have thought that she only survived based on Peeta’s protection of her, considering she never really killed anyone except out of instinctual self defence or as a mercy killing)
Katniss gets to know the other victors and realizes that this is awful, because for the most part, she likes some of them and “doesn’t hate” the rest. “And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them. But all of them must die if I’m to save Peeta.”
And then of course comes the evaluation private sessions with the game makers. Katniss doesn’t know what she can do to top what she did before, (and neither do we, the readers, though we’re eager to find out) since everyone knows her skill now.
But as she and Peeta wait for their turn, neither can come up with anything. Katniss wonders aloud, “How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?” and he replies, “I don’t know.”
Peeta’s turn drags on for long past his allotted fifteen minutes and realizes that something is amiss. The floor is covered and the Gamemakers are pissed. Katniss is worried that Peeta drew unfavorable attention toward himself and has to think of something to do to “break through the smug veneer of those who use their brains to find amusing ways to kill us.”
(Interesting, the way she phrases that. Because until recently, it would have been hard for me to acknowledge such people exist. But it turns out, they do. Those who use their natural gifts of intelligence, charisma, leadership, etc., to benefit themselves at others’ expense is one thing, but using those abilities deliberately to herd others toward death…those people exist, too)
And then Katniss hits on what to do. She grabs paint and a target dummy and uses her new knot-tying skills to make a noose.
When she’s done, she’s made a hanging effigy of Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker who was killed last year for sparing her and Peeta’s lives.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Haymitch grips my wrist as if anticipating my next move, but I am as speechless as the Capitol’s torturers have rendered Darius.
Closing: Then I step away quickly to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers’ faces as they read the name on the dummy. // Seneca Crane.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- Katniss is going to end up getting the allies that Katniss wants — and her instincts will probably turn out to be right, too.
Payoffs:
- Peeta gets to see Katniss’ greatest skill, which is nice, because Katniss has seen his plenty in the past but he hasn’t really had the opportunity in reverse.
Complications:
- The allies that Katniss want do not look good on paper. They are not the powerful, Career-types who have the best odds of winning the Games or helping her to do so.
- Katniss realizes that “getting to know” the other victors makes this Games worse — she will have to kill competitors that she has actually learned to see as people. They aren’t merely names and faces anymore.
OTHER COMMENTS
- It’s interesting to see how Katniss only trusts the one person she HAS to trust (Peeta). She’s the kind of person who doesn’t trust easily, but when she does, she does it with her whole heart (love is a different story, slightly, but her trust works this way).
- When she does look into allies, her instinct is to choose the old woman who sacrificed herself by volunteering for a younger woman (just like Katniss herself did), and the
- Also: The scene where Katniss accidentally impresses everyone with her shooting prowess (including even Peeta), is a satisfying one for the reader. As a reader, you get absorbed by the story, and put yourself in her shoes, and being the underestimated underdog who stuns everyone with your secret abilities is a fun position to be in.
Chapter 17
In This Chapter
- Katniss and Peeta relate how they did the unexpected during their private sessions
- Katniss and Peeta have one final “normal-ish” day
- Katniss stuns everyone (on accident) during her interview
The response is just as Katniss wants. Some Gamemakers shriek, others shatter wineglasses, “two seem to be considering fainting. The look of shock is unanimous.”
Katniss is dismissed and she knows she’ll pay for it later, but “for the moment, I feel something close to elation and I let myself savor it.”
She decides to take a shower and reflects on what she did.
“The question that should now always be my guide is ‘Will this help Peeta stay alive?’
(This is like the “will it make the boat go faster?” question. A helpful rule of thumb for making decisions in life is if you have one overarching goal and can align literally everything you do to that ONE north star.)
Katniss isn’t sure her prank is going to help Peeta but “still…I can’t say I’m sorry I did it.”
When she gets togethe rwith the others at dinner, Haymitch asks about their private sessions. Peeta confesses that he’d painted Rue, covered in flowers, because he “wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment…For killing that little girl.”
Effie starts crying at that sort of forbidden thinking, and Haymitch has to agree. Katniss, however, thinks what Peeta did is amazing.
“I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane’s name on it,” she adds.
Peeta “gives just the hint of a smile” as he says “You’d have thought we planned it.”
(Good ole’ Peeta, recognizing, probably, not just how similarly their minds worked in that moment, but also that this is a sign Katniss is genuinely warming up to him, so to speak)
And Peeta tells Haymitch they have no wish for any allies in the arena.
“Then I won’t be responsible for you killing off any of my friends with your stupidity,” Haymitch retorts.
“That’s just what we were thinking,” Katniss answers.
After dinner, they go to the television to get the scores, and Katniss asks if anyone’s ever gotten a zero.
“No, but there’s a first time for everything,” Cinna replies. And Katniss and Peeta prove him right, by both getting twelves.
Haymitch isn’t impressed. It’s so that the others will “have no choice but to target you,” he interprets. And then sends them both to bed.
Before they turn in, Katniss hugs Peeta and he asks her why she did it, anyway.
“I don’t know. To show them that I’m more than just a piece in their Games?” Katniss replies, echoing what he’d told her last year, the night before their first Games.
“I hadn’t understood what he meant” Katniss reflects. “Now I do.”
The two of them admit to each other that both are aware President Snow has probably ordered both of their demises within the arena, but Katniss privately continues to hold onto hope that Peeta will survive, since he wasn’t the one who pulled out the berries.
Either way, though, “everyone will know we’ve gone out fighting, right?” Peeta says, and Katniss agrees, thinking that if she can defy the Capitol “right up to the end,” then the Capitol will have killed her, but not her spirit, and that spirit may give hope to the rebels.
Katniss also reflects that her decision to keep Peeta alive is in itself a defiance of the Capitol, a refusal to play the Games by their rules. “My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one…I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr…But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.”
Of course, Katniss doesn’t tell Peeta this, knowing he would “lose it” if he knew what she was thinking (ya think? Seriously, her mind is still just a little twisted here. She realizes Peeta is a good person, much better than her, and most other people, but at times still thinks as if he’s some kind of pawn rather than a man with feelings, going on about him using his “tragic” air to influence the revolution rather than considering from his perspective how hurt he would be if things played out like this)
What should we do with our last days? Katniss asks, and Peeta says: “I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you.”
(Swoon line for the teen girl fans out there. Not being a teen girl myself, I’m not sure I want to hear this line said, for real, in real life, unless the speaker and hearer are in a life-or-death situation like K&P…in other words, I hope never to witness such an exchange in the real world >.<)
Katniss and Peeta curl up together again and have no nightmares for one night. And then it’s time for the televised interviews, and they get the good news that Effie and Haymitch have canceled coaching sessions, given that Katniss and Peeta have had enough experience to not need them.
So they decide to picnic on the roof.
They eat and Peeta sketches, and they play catch with apples and the force field.
“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,” Peeta comments.
(Swoon line #2 for Teenage Girl Fans)
Warm and relaxed and “beyond worrying about a future I’ll never have,” Katniss simply replies, “Okay.”
They spend the rest of the day unbothered by other people and fall asleep together again.
Katniss’ prep team awakens them the next day, and one of them — Octavia — bursts into tears at the sight of them, and has to be sent out to collect herself. After a few hours, another — Flavius — also starts silently crying and is silently sent out by Venia, who finishes the job with “rigid determination.”
(This account of the prep team falling one by one from the pathos and the tears of the moment is kind of funny, kind of bittersweet. Are they actually learning to truly care for others and not just in a roundabout-selfish way? Hmm…)
Cinna dresses Katniss in a wedding gown, the one that the people voted for, at the order of President Snow. Katniss tries to figure out what he must be thinking, herself thinking that his act of turning her wedding gown into her shroud is “so barbaric…that the blow strikes home, leaving me with a dull ache inside.”
(At this point, though, I think the barbarism and cruelty of the Capitol is such that nothing really surprises the reader anymore. Not unless they throw in some graphic X-rated stuff or something, which of course the author is NOT going to do. Thank goodness…even then, it would be more shocking than sad/cruel, really.
(To be honest, this particular dress code affront — if we may call it that — doesn’t really strike any emotional chord in me as a reader. It reads more as an opportunity for more fashion show-off-ing, which is par-for-the-course in this series.)
Katniss meets up with the others and see Peeta is in an elegant tuxedo, the kind grooms in the Capitol wear. This makes her reflect on how much simpler weddings are back home in District 12. She mentions in particular a little ceremony involving making a fire together and toasting a bit of bread to share.
“Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but no one really feels married in District 12 until after the toasting.”
(Bread, again, and fire, too ~ can the symbols be any more obvious??)
The other victors are agog when Katniss shows up in a wedding dress. Katniss defends Cinna’s honor by saying President Snow made him do it. And Johanna says “Make him pay for it, okay?”
(Great line)
During the interviews, the victors talk about how the Capitol audience will be losing so much to be losing so many victors in one blow. Finnick “recites a poem he wrote to his one true love in the Capitol, and about a hundred people faint because they’re sure he means them” (haha!) and Johanna and Seeder and Chaff muse out loud about the legality of the Games and the Quell.
“By the time I’m introduced, the audience is an absolute wreck,” Katniss observes, and her wedding gown “practically causes a riot. No more me, no more star-crossed lovers living happily ever after, no more wedding.”
(Okay, technically, “star-crossed lovers living happily ever after” is an oxymoron. That’s the whole definition of “star-crossed” — that the stars have decided the lovers CANNOT live happily ever after. So if Peeta and Katniss are genuinely “star-crossed lovers” they AREN’T supposed to end up together and they ARE supposed to die. Like Romeo and Juliet. Sorry, had to put that in there ;D)
Caesar compliments Katniss on the dress, and Katniss twirls in it, as Cinna told her to earlier, and she suddenly realizes that the dress is burning off her. When she’s done, she’s wearing a dress “the color of coal and made of tiny feathers” with long, flowing sleeves patched with white.
She’s a mockingjay.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The effect on the Gamemakers is immediate and satisfying. Several let out small shrieks. Others lose their grips on their wineglasses, which shatter musically against the ground.
Closing: Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that’s when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the whit epatches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings. // Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjoy.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- The peaceful day Katniss and Peeta have just experienced is about to be succeeded by very unpeaceful, violent days and nights in the arena
Payoffs:
- Peeta and Katniss both paint defiant symbols to unnerve the Gamemakers, instinctively without conferring about it first.
Complications:
- Defying the Gamemakers may paint an even bigger target on their backs.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Okay, to be honest the bread and fire, fire and bread symbols for Katniss and Peeta are getting a teensy bit repetitive at this point. Not that subtle. Granted, this isn’t Les Miserables, it’s written for a different (younger and more distracted) audience, but still…
- Katniss and Peeta are really bonding in this chapter. Not only do they find comfort and calm in each other’s company (hey, alliteration!) on their final day, but also they were mentally in sync enough to do basically the same thing during their private sessions (attack the Gamemakers symbolically, using visuals) — although in their own characteristic ways (Peeta reminds the Gamemakers of their guilt in murdering the innocent, Katniss reminds the Gamemakers that they are not so far away from an untimely death themselves).
Chapter 18
In This Chapter
- Peeta tops Katniss’ interview “surprise” (and even his own performance last year) with a surprise announcement of his own.
- Cinna is attacked right before Katniss enters the arena.
Caesar has Cinna take a bow, and Katniss feels afraid for him. This is an act of rebellion and she recalls what he said earlier about channeling his emotions into his work so that he won’t “hurt anyone but myself.”
Katniss wonders if he has “hurt himself beyond repair” as President Snow isn’t going to miss the obvious message of the dress.
And finally, it’s Peeta’s turn to be interviewed.
He “admits” on camera that he and Katniss have secretly already married, not officially but by doing the “toasting” ceremony. (Which Katniss as narrator just related in perfect timing in the last chapter)
Not only that, but, Peeta says, he isn’t glad that they did the wedding early, because now there’s going to be a baby.
“There. He’s done it again. Dropped a bomb that wipes out the efforts of every tribute who camebefore him…[or] lit the fuse on a bomb that the victors themselves have been building.”
(Again, the timing of the private session evaluation and then the way it’s flipped for the TV interviews is chef’s kiss here. Collins really knows how to save the biggest punch for last)
The audience erupts into “accusations of injustice and barbarism and cruelty.”
(You know, it’s a little ironic that it’s the talk of an unborn baby that sets off the callous Capitol folk, because here in the real world, a LOT of unborn babies are not typically afforded the same compassion that born folks are given, if you know what I mean…)
Peeta returns to his seat as the audience continues to scream, beyond Caesar’s reach or control. He grabs Katniss’ hand, and she instinctively grabs Chaff’s, and all of a sudden, all the victors are linking up and as the anthem plays, all twenty-four of them are standing “in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days.”
(Took ’em long enough)
The screens start popping out, but it’s too late, everyone has seen.
The victor-tributes stumble back to the Training Center in the darkness, and Peeta asks Katniss if there’s anything he needs to apologize for. “Nothing,” Katniss says.
(Another nice nod to the last book, because the last time Peeta dropped a bombshell like this, Katniss decked him. This time, things are much different)
Haymitch shows up and tells them it’s “madness out there,” but despite the audience’s indignation, the Games couldn’t possibly be canceled.
“Any last words of advice?” Peeta asks.
“Stay alive,” Haymitch says, like he did the year before. But just before they go to bed, he adds one more thing for Katniss:
“When you’re in the arena…You just remember who the enemy is. That’s all.”
(This is a key line, not just in the story, but in real life. I even wrote a full article about it once)
The next day, Cinna and Portia arrive and Peeta and Katniss separate to enter the arena.
Cinna waits with Katniss in the Launch Room and Katniss steps into the glass cylinder that will take her into the arena. But there’s a delay. And then, Peacekeepers burst into the room and beat Cinna bloody in front of Katniss, who is screaming but unable to reach him through the glass.
They drag a limp Cinna from the room, leaving bloodstains on the floor
(This part makes me wonder if Collins studied the Chinese cultural revolution or other Communist revolutions from recent history — or war practices from ancient history — to get ideas for how to torture her characters. What a way to unsettle — to say the least — a Game tribute right before the Game starts. Extra brutality points to Snow)
Katniss doesn’t have time to collect herself when she finds herself rising and entering the arena, where “the ground is too bright and shiny and keeps undulating.”
She is the girl on fire, in an arena surrounded by water.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I’m still smoldering a little, so it’s with a tentative hand that Caesar reaches out to touch my headpiece.
Closing: Slowly I raise my eyes and take in the water spreading out in every direction. // I can only form one clear thought. // This is no place for a girl on fire.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- Cinna will unfortunately not meet a nice end. (He might be dead already, to be fair)
Payoffs:
- We get our first glimpse of this year’s arena.
- Peeta manages to top his surprise announcement from last year.
- The victors make an unexpected show of unity for the first time, inspired by Katniss and Peeta, the final interviewees.
Complications:
- The arena appears to have been symbolically designed to quench Katniss’ fire.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Killing or at least beating Cinna before Katniss’ eyes is a powerful psychological attack on Katniss, and a shock for readers.
- Also, after this year’s interviews and the way they panned out, there’s basically nothing that can top that. Katniss and Peeta are definitely not coming back for Round Three of the Hunger Games after this (just from a storytelling perspective). Either the Hunger Games themselves are going to die, or the characters are, somehow.
Writing Tips & Practical Application
Because learning doesn’t happen until you change something you do…
- Intensify things: Take a story you’re working on, review all of the conflicts and challenges you are making your characters go through, and try to ramp it up to 10. What would make this more difficult for them, emotionally (primarily), and physically? If you don’t have a story you’re currently working on, pick a story you like or find compelling and do this for that story.
Want More Detailed Book Notes?
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