How to Pull Off a Satisfying Sequel to Your Story— Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire (Part 3) by Suzanne Collins

This is Part 1 of our Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Book 2) dissection-analysis for writers who want to hone their craft!

• Part 1 here
• Part 2 here
• 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: 4.3/6 ⭐s (explanation of ratings at the end)

Join our merry band of Brilliant Writers for more book dives like this!

BOOK NOTES

Part III: “The Enemy”

Chapter 19

In This Chapter

• The games begin
• Katniss and Peeta accidentally pick up allies

Katniss feels unhinged, having witnessed Cinna’s brutal beating right before entering the arena. But she tells herself to stay strong for his sake, and for the sake of all the rebels. “My refusal to play the Games on the Capitol’s terms is to be my last act of rebellion.”

It takes her a moment to figure out where she is — on a piece of ground connected to an island with thin strips of land “radiating from the circle like spokes on a wheel.” On the island is the Cornucopia. Between the land is all saltwater.

When the gong sounds, Katniss dives in and swims for the Cornucopia. The supplies are piled by the mouth, and she manages to grab a bow then senses a presence and turns to face Finnick, who is holding his iconic trident.

Finnick is impressed that Katniss can swim, and for a moment both are considering whether to kill the other when Finnick “suddenly grins. ‘Lucky thing we’re allies. Right?’”

Katniss isn’t about to accept that just yet until she notices a gold bangle with flames on his wrist, similar to one Haymitch wore when she began training. She realizes that Haymitch must have given it to Finnick as a signal to trust Finnick, and this pisses her off.

But just then, Finnick tells her to duck, and then throws his trident at someone who was about to attack Katniss from behind.

(And the mind reading between Katniss and Haymitch begins again…although this was a rather BIG risk of Haymitch not to say something to her beforehand. Unless Katniss is making all of this up in her head, and using it as an excuse to trust her gut, which is the actual reason why she chooses not to shoot Finnick)

Katniss and Finnick split up to see what they can find in the Cornucopia, and Katniss fights off a couple more tributes who have swum close. “Do something about that, would you?” Finnick calls to her, and Katniss sees another tribute holding up a belt-like thing as a shield. When she shoots at his liver, he blocks it with his belt and purple liquid spews out.

(This line gives off comedy-action movie vibes. Also, this is an efficient way to introduce the belts and what they really do)

Katniss is looking for Peeta, who’s still stuck on his metal plate. Finnick offers to get him, and Katniss is about to refuse, but Finnick refers to her “condition,” and Katniss thinks, “Oh, right. I’m supposed to be pregnant.”

(Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive…)

Finnick reaches Peeta and tows him over while Mags, the old woman from District 4 starts swimming toward Katniss.

When Peeta reaches Katniss, he says “Hello again…We’ve got allies.”

Katniss reminds him it was what Haymitch wanted, after all.

“Remind me, did we make deals with anyone else?” Peeta asks.

“Only Mags, I think,” I say. I nod toward the old woman doggedly making her way toward us.

“Well, I can’t leave Mags behind,” says Finnick. “She’s one of the few people who actually likes me.”

(Ah, the necessary banter that makes these stories entertaining. Although it’s also a good moment to show how Peeta and Katniss are much closer in this version of the Games rather than they were in the last one. They’re speaking with undertones, now.

(Every word they say has a lot more meaning — Peeta somewhat asking Katniss why they’ve taken on Finnick as an ally when they’d decided not to have any, and Katniss adding that it appears Mags will be joining them as well. Finnick fits in pretty well as a friend-sidekick character, too, he can banter with them as well.)

Peeta says that Katniss wanted Mags from the start, and Finnick praises her “good judgment.” Mags says something about “bob,” and they realize that the belts are flotation devices that will keep you from drowning.

The four of them make their way away from the Cornucopia, with Finnick carrying Mags. They head toward the beach, and behind it is a jungle. The trees are unfamiliar, there are vines and the air is humid.

Peeta takes the lead, cutting a path with a long knife, and Finnick is next because he’s carrying Mags. Katniss notices that the remaining tributes are duking it out at the Cornucopia and feels a bit of disappointment, despite her pragmatism:

“Well, what did I think? That the victors’ chain of locked hands last night would result in some sort of universal truce in the arena? No, I never believed that. But I guess I had hoped people might show some…what? Restraint? Reluctance, at least. Before they jumpred right into massacre mode. And you all knew each other, I think. You acted like friends.”

(An interesting commentary on the nature of friendships, loyalty, and self-preservation. People are complex. They have both self-centered and altruistic impulses, but what is it that causes one or the other to take precedent, ultimately? That’s one of the important universal themes that Hunger Games explores)

Katniss is thinking of killing Finnick, because she doesn’t really trust him, but as she thinks this, she notes that Finnick is smart enough to keep his guard (and his trident) up. Finnick comments on exactly what she was thinking:

“What’s going on down there, Katniss? Have they all joined hands? Taken a vow of nonviolence? Tossed the weapons in the sea in defiance of the Capitol?” Finnick asks.

“No,” I say.

“No,” Finnick repeats. “Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance.” He eyes Peeta for a moment. “Except maybe Peeta.”

(Having “played” in this world much longer than Katniss, Finnick is aware of what’s really going on, and isn’t as surprised as Katniss is by the behavior of the other tributes — although to be fair, she wasn’t surprised either, just a little disappointed. This is also Finnick’s way of saying he’s on to her, he knows she doesn’t trust him, nor does he trust her, but they have to work together for now because their interests align…also, Finnick knows something Katniss doesn’t yet know, which we’ll find out at the end of the book).

Katniss realizes Finnick read Peeta’s character correctly, that he is “truly, deep-down better than the rest of us.” And she thinks about how easy it was for both her and Finnick to take out (or ATTEMPT to take out) the other tributes. Peeta would not have done that, she knows.

(This is one of the things I’ve thought about regarding war. Why do soldiers fight? There are lots of bad reasons, for instance, because their leaders told them to, and perhaps some are sociopathic and actually like destruction.

(But in a more-ideal situation — not the most ideal, because in the most ideal situation, there would be no need for soldiers in the first place — soldiers fight in order to protect something worth protecting. Their families, their country, the innocents. They are willing to give up their lives so that something good, something better than them, something precious, can survive.

(I’ve quoted GK Chesterton before, but this quote is deeply relevant to this story situation: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”)

(Peeta — and what he represents —is one of the aforementioned “good, precious things” that those with the soldier’s mindset — Katniss, Haymitch, Finnick, et al — are fighting to protect. Although Peeta too is placed into a killer’s game, like the others, he is not a killer or a soldier. He’s a protector. This reminds me of Desmond Doss’ attitude during World War II [see Hacksaw Ridge 2016].)

And still, Katniss eyes Finnick and he eyes her back as they mentally calculate who would win if one were to strike the other.

Katniss narrates: “I can feel we’ve about worked it out when Peeta steps deliberately between us.” Peeta distracts them with a question and then tells them to keep moving in order to find water, breaking the tense moment.

(Good ole’ Peeta, putting into action that nobility that Katniss and Finnick were just talking about. Also, while all these thoughts take place over the course of about 2 pages, in reality it probably just took a few seconds. This is the interesting thing about the medium of writing — the ability to slow things down or speed things up depending on how much you lean on telling versus showing.

(That’s one of the decisions writers have to make when writing — where and when do you slow things down versus speed things up.

Katniss decides not to pursue the killing-Finnick idea for the moment, deciding she can revisit it later, if necessary. She can always kill him in his sleep, she thinks.

Then Katniss sees it— a “rippling square hanging like a warped pane of glass in the air” and she realizes it’s a force field. She starts to cry out, but it’s too late. Peeta slashes the force field on accident while trying to clear some vines, and he is blown backwards, unconscious.

Katniss runs to him and tries to shake him awake, but he isn’t breathing. And when she puts her head to his chest, she can’t hear his heartbeat.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: “Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games begin!” The voice of Claudius Templesmith, the Hunger Games announcer, hammers my ears.

Closing: I press my ear against his chest, to the spot where I always rest my head, where I know I will hear the strong and steady beat of his heart. // Instead, I find silence.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• It’s going to be tricky for Katniss to remember she’s supposed to be pregnant. This will have to come up again in the story, not necessarily as a major element, but it will have to be referenced again at some point, if only to be explained away when it turns out she’s not, otherwise there would be a gaping plot hole.
• We will find out if

Payoffs:

• Meeting Finnick and conversing with him in the Training has paid off — now Finnick is an actual ally.

Complications:

• Mags has joined them, which will hold them back in several ways.
• And, of course, Peeta gets killed (maybe) by force field.

OTHER COMMENTS

• FINALLY, after going through 2/3 of the book, we at least see Katniss re-entering the arena of her nightmares.
• But this is a good clue that the real story isn’t truly about the games, now, but about something much bigger…

Chapter 20

In This Chapter

• Katniss realizes she cannot kill Finnick after what he does for Peeta
• Katniss and her allies figure out how to get the all-important resource — a spile

Katniss tries to wake Peeta, to no avail, and then Finnick takes over. In her panic, Katniss tries to stop him, but Finnick hits her so hard, she is thrown into a tree.

(Another interesting point about these games — it’s very unfair for girls to be fighting against guys, straight up, physically. Generally speaking, there’s no way they can win, 99 times out of 100 just based on physiology. But then the Games aren’t a pure physical competition, luckily for them)

Katniss is confused at first when she thinks Finnick is kissing Peeta, and then she realizes it’s CPR. She doesn’t call it that, of course. She just recalls her mother trying something similar “once in a blue moon” for people suffering from heart failure. It wasn’t a common practice, however, as “if your heart fails in District 12, it’s unlikely your family could get you to my mother in time, anyway.”

(Also a good point to bring up — that Katniss wouldn’t have had a lot of opportunities to learn about CPR in a coal mining town, whereas it must have been very common for Finnick, growing up as he did in the fishing district.

(Or at least, that’s what Collins probably wants us to think. Still, it’s a bit hard to believe that any society with access to television would not know about CPR at least in theory, even if they haven’t seen it done in real life).

Just when Katniss thinks it’s over, Peeta gives a small cough and wakes back up. She throws herself at him, crying, and takes a moment to collect herself.

“It’s okay. It’s just her hormones,” Finnick explains for her, when Peeta starts to get concerned.

(A bit of an amusing line, but its main function again is to remind readers that Collins hasn’t forgotten her “big lie” that Peeta set up. Also it’s a good way, in-story, to protect Katniss from the opinions of the Capitol sponsors and viewers, who might otherwise find her crying a show of weakness and be less inclined to support her).

Katniss does get a hold of herself eventually, but she’s ticked off at Finnick.

“All I wanted was to keep Peeta alive, and I couldn’t and Finnick could, and I should be nothing but grateful. And I am. But I am also furious because it meanst hat I will never stop owing Finnick Odair. Ever. So how can I kill him in his sleep?”

(This brings up another thought. Whatever goal you have, no matter how noble, most often cannot be achieved by yourself. Success is made more probable — or even possible in the first place — from working together with the right people.

(Because we learn later — spoiler — that although Katniss thinks she couldn’t save Peeta alive, in a roundabout way, it IS because of her that Peeta is alive. It is because of her that Finnick chose to help save Peeta.

(Because Katniss is the mockingjay, the symbol of the revolution. And Finnick and the others who are “in” on the revolution know that the only way to keep Katniss on their side, so to speak, is to keep Peeta around. If it wasn’t for Katniss, Finnick would probably be fine leaving Peeta to die.

(Also, Katniss’ complex emotions here make her a more fascinating character, and the story overall more interesting as well. We saw this happen before once, with Thresh sparing her life for Rue’s sake, and now we see it again. We even have seen it in book 1 with Katniss being reluctant to hurt Peeta before she trusted him because he once saved her life by throwing her bread.

(Complex “wicked” questions like these are the stuff of life, so seeing them addressed in literature is what we read and watch stories for).

Katniss notices that Peeta is wearing a mockingjay necklace — the symbol is stamped on a disk hanging around his neck by a chain. Katniss is glad that the symbol might inspire the rebels, but concerned that this might make the Capitol less likely to overlook Peeta, which will make “the job of keeping Peeta alive” much harder.

(Foreshadowing. This artifact is going to play another role later in the story. Collins is really great about planting clues and foreshadowing early on, and about making story elements and objects have more than one function. A very efficient storyteller)

Katniss offers to take the lead this time, and when Peeta begins to object, Finnick says to let her. He realizes that she knew the force field was there and asks how.

Katniss lies and says that it was her ear, which was fixed after she’d damaged her hearing in the last Games. She blames the Capitol doctors for being too good at their jobs:

“I decide to play this for all it’s worth. ‘That’s weird,’ I say… ‘I can only hear it out of my left ear.’

‘The one the doctor’s reconstructed?’ asks Peeta.

‘Yeah,’ I say, then give a shrug. ‘Maybe they did a better job than they thought. You know, sometimes I do hear funny things on that side…Like insect wings. Or snow hitting the ground.’ Perfect. Now all the attention will turn to the Capitol surgeons who fixed my deaf ear after the Games last year, and they’ll have to explain why I can hear like a bat.”

This means that she won’t have to reveal how she really knows where the force fields are (which could make the Capitol mad), and besides, it’s a valuable piece of information she might need to hold close to her chest for now.

(I love it when story characters are clever =D Katniss immediately deflects suspicion from herself and throws it on the Capitol doctors. Although the doctors helped her, the Capitol as a whole is her enemy, so she’s potentially casting some doubt on them or creating a bit of a divide-and-conquer situation there.

(Also, note how the use of “bat” is a great word choice here. She could have used “dog,” because dogs can also hear things humans can’t, but “dog” doesn’t have the same percussive, fun/funny sound to it that “bat” has.)

To supplement her force-field detection strategy, Katniss picks some nuts from the trees and throws them in front of her as she goes, successfully hitting a few patches that she was previously unaware of.

Katniss notices that Mags has been eating the toasted nuts, and at first is worried that the old woman will be poisoned, but Finnick just laughs it off, and Katniss is left wondering about Finnick “who saved old Mags but will let her eat strange nuts. Who Haymitch has stamped with his seal of approval. Who brought Peeta back from the dead.”

Katniss wonders why Finnick saved Peeta, when she wasn’t even aware he had the ability to, and could not have blamed him for it.

(Good pointing to a clue that Finnick isn’t all that he appears, and get readers to start wondering and predicting why. This is a great way to get readers engaged in a story, when they can’t help but wonder “what’s going to happen next?” and/or “why did character X do what he did?”

(And as you give satisfactory answers along the way, you build up the reader’s trust in your ability to tell a good story and they will stay with you for the whole journey. In this book’s case, Collins isn’t answering many of the biggest questions until very late, near the end of the story.

(But those who are reading this book generally already trust her, having read and liked the first book and been satisfied with how it played out — otherwise they wouldn’t be here reading in the first place.

(Another thing: It’s important for Katniss to wonder about Finnick, to ask the questions the audience is probably wondering about themselves. But note how Collins skillfully has her do it here, in response to Mags eating the nuts, rather than right after he saves Peeta, when Katniss is reasonably too distraught to think carefully like this. Like I said, really efficient storytelling)

The group decides to pause as Katniss scales a tree to see what she can discover. She finds out that the arena is designed to be a circle, with a “perfect wheel in the middle.”

The sky above is also “perfect,” and tined a “uniform pink,” but Katniss thinks she sees some of the “wavy squares, chinks in the armor” which show that the sky is also not real, but just a force field. Just to double check, Katniss shoots an arrow into the sky, and she sees “a spurt of light, a flash of real blue sky, and the arrow’s thrown back into the jungle.”

She can’t see any other source of water. They are trapped in a small, symmetrical dome.

(Katniss shooting the force field with her arrow is a major foreshadow for how this story ends. But notice how subtly it’s hidden in here, early in Part 3 of the book)

Katniss and co keep checking for water, but are getting increasingly dehydrated when they decide to camp.

Since Mags hasn’t died, they decide the nuts are edible, and Peeta starts collecting them and roasting them by bouncing them into the force field.

Katniss briefly leaves the others to continue searching for water nearby, and only succeeds in shooting a rodent-like creature who must have been drinking recently because its muzzle is wet.

Peeta comes up with a way to cook the rodent meat by skewering it on a pointed stick and using the force field to fry it.

(It’s good to give Peeta this clever moment. His thematic purpose is to preserve life, while Katniss is the one who defends. The soldier/survivor/killer, if you will. It’s also reminiscent of how Haymitch used the force field to kill his final enemy and win his Game. Peeta turns this on its head: He is also using the force field in the Games, but to preserve human life, not destroy it.)

At night, they watch the skies for the announcement about who’s died. Everyone from Districts 1–4 have made it, but eight others are dead, including Cecelia, mother of three, from District 8, and Seeder from 11.

They sit in silence for a moment until a silver parachute lands. Peeta opens the parachute and they see a hollow metal tube, tapered at one end. No one knows what to do with it — it’s not a weapon nor a fishing accoutrement.

But Katniss knows that since Haymitch must have been involved in sending it, it must be valuable. “I can almost hear him growling at me, Use your brain if you have one. What is it?” Katniss thinks.

Still, no one knows. Katniss thinks of her family and worries about their safety, and then it suddenly strikes her — the metal object is a spile. She remembers this from a time in childhood when her father showed her how to use a spile to collect maple syrup.

(Although Katniss’ father dies long before the start of the story, he is a critical off-screen character in the story. That is something to consider, as a storyteller. Who are your important off-screen characters?)

Everyone realizes the significance of this discovery. They drill a hole into a nearby tree and insert the spile (after Katniss stops Finnick from using the spile by trying to directly hammer it into the trunk), and lo and behold — water comes forth!

(I’m curious how much Collins studied wilderness survival to write these books. Did she have personal experience just in the course of her life, or did she have to read up or consult experts or go out of her way to learn camping and survival?

(There are a lot of details you wouldn’t know that you didn’t know unless you had a certain life background or deliberately went out of your way to do thorough research, like in this scene where Katniss teaches Finnick how to use a spile.)

Mags shows her usefulness when she brings over tightly-woven baskets that she made out of grass, and they use it to capture the water from the trees like bowls. Now they can drink more freely and also wash their faces.

As they settle in to sleep, Finnick takes first watch, and they are interrupted by a tolling bell. No one knows what it means, and then they see a “dazzling bolt of electricity” strike a towering tree, and start a lightning storm.

Since Katniss is awake, she takes the next watch, which means she is the one awake when the rain suddenly stops as if switched off, and then she notices a creeping fog coming toward her.

It doesn’t take her long to realize there’s something’s wrong with the fog. It’s unnaturally uniform, has a sickeningly sweet odor, and as she yells for the others to wake up, she notices that where it touches her skin, she blisters.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: “Peeta!” I scream. I shake him harder, even resort to slapping his face, but it’s no use. His heart has failed. I am slapping emptiness. “Peeta!”

Closing: A sickeningly sweet odor begins to invade my nostrils and I reach for the others, shouting for them to wake up. // In the few seconds it takes to rouse them, I begin to blister.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will learn why Finnick saved Peeta.
• We will see who survives this newest arena horror — the blistering fog.

Payoffs:

• The silver parachutes have come again! And Katniss’ background and cleverness allows her to figure out what the spile is, and how to use it.

Complications:

• Now that Finnick has saved Peeta, Katniss cannot kill him in his sleep.

OTHER COMMENTS

• This is a really dramatic opening to the chapter. Both for Katniss and the reader. If you’re reading this book for the first time, you’re seriously wondering if the author is going to kill of Peeta now. Has he served his purpose as a character? Has his plot armor failed? Will his death give Katniss and the story more fuel to get to whatever ending the author has planned?

Chapter 21

In This Chapter

• Mags sacrifices herself unexpectedly.
• And Mags is not the only one.

Finnick grabs Mags and starts to run, while Katniss tries to help Peeta, who is still suffering from the aftereffects of hitting the force field earlier in the day.

Katniss feels “a terrible impulse to flee, to abandon Peeta and save myself” shooting through her, but she recalls how she did exactly that during the muttation attack at the last Games, running away without thinking about Peeta until she’d reached the Cornucopia.

But she reminds herself that this time, her own survival isn’t the goal — Peeta’s is. She thinks of the people watching her in on the television, and of the Capitol, which “wishes” her to run, and she chooses to hold her ground.

(Just like courage is not the absence of fear but the choice to act in spite of the fear, I think that — at least for us humans — goodness is sometimes not the absence of selfishness, but the choice to ignore selfish impulses to do the right thing)

Finnick has stopped as well, realizing that Katniss and Peeta are struggling. But he can’t help them much beyond shouting encouragement at them.

When Peeta trips, Katniss realizes something even more frightening — the fog isn’t just burning them, it’s deadening their nerves. Half of Peeta’s face is sagging “as if every muscle in it has died.” And Katniss starts to feel spasms run up her own arms.

She realizes Finnick has come back to carry Peeta, and he asks her to take Mags instead. Mags isn’t heavy, but Katniss isn’t big herself, and she’s suffering from the fog. Katniss starts falling and after the third time, can’t get up.

Katniss asks if Finnick can carry them both, but he can’t — his own arms are starting to malfunction from the fog.

Just then, Mags “hauls herself up, plants a kiss on Finnick’s lips, and then hobbles straight into the fog” where she seizes up in wild contortions and dies.

Finnick, carrying Peeta, and Katniss who is crawling at this point, continue their struggle away from the fog, until they collapse on the ground. Thankfully at the same time, the fog has stopped, as if hitting a window, and then it starts rising up “as if being slowly vacuumed into the sky.”

The three manage to make it to the water in the center of the arena, where the salt both hurts and also clears up their wounds and paralysis.

Finnick isn’t able to move, so after cleaning themselves off, Katniss and Peeta ease him into the water to detoxify him.

(Very handy. If the paralysis continued, all three would die — killed by the other players or beasts in the arena, and the story would be over)

As Peeta goes off to find water, Katniss stays with the recovering Finnick, who was hit the worst with the fog’s poison. She wonders why he abandoned Mags to carry Peeta, and why Mags willingly ran into the fog without hesitation.

After a time, Finnick feels better and they join Peeta, only to realize the danger isn’t over. Scores of monkeys are overhead, having arrived while they were preoccupied with the water. Katniss warns Peeta to move toward her slowly, but when he accidentally makes eye contact with a monkey, they explode into a violent rage.

Katniss realizes they’re mutts, and she and Finnick crash forward, taking out as many murderous monkeys as they can. Peeta is hacking them with his knife, all three arranged in a triangle with their backs to each other.

(Well, this is an impressive action scene. You can really see this happening)

But just then, a monkey lunges at Peeta’s chest, just as Katniss has run out of arrows, Peeta’s hands are full, and Finnick is occupied with another monkey. There’s no time to do anything but throw herself in his path, but Katniss is too late to reach him.

However, someone else isn’t.

Out of nowhere, a morphling from District 6 (morphling = someone who has become addicted to the Hunger Games drug, a variation on real-world morphine) appears, getting in between the attacking monkey and Peeta, and the monkey sinks its fangs into her.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Tiny, searing stabs. Wherever the droplets of mist touch my skin.

Closing: The insane morphling from District 6 throws up her skeletal arms as if to embrace the monkey, and it sinks its fangs into her chest.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out why Mags and the morphling sacrificed themselves, both to save Peeta.

Payoffs:

• We see Mags’ purpose in the story, the reason why she was introduced, named, and paired with Finnick by the author.

Complications:

• A virtual stranger has just died for Peeta, but why this bizarre behavior? Katniss needs to figure it out.

OTHER COMMENTS

• From a pure, cold, storytelling perspective. It completely makes sense that Mags is the first of our main character group to be killed off. She’s the weakest and oldest and most relatively innocent (as far as we know because the author doesn’t tell us her story, we’ve only seen her doing noble things so far), so of course there’s no way Katniss or Peeta or Finnick are going to kill her. They can’t even be put in that position.
• Also having Mags go out of the story the same way she came in (by sacrificing herself for someone else) is somewhat poetic. She joined the games by volunteering for Annie (currently unnamed, but if you keep reading you will discover the girl’s name is Annie), and she ends it by dying for Peeta (currently unclear, but the end of the book will reveal that she did it for Peeta, and by extension, for the entire revolution).
• It’s still sad, of course, a heart-squeezing moment to see the kind old woman willingly sacrifice herself to save her partners.
• This, followed by the morphling’s as-yet-unexplained sacrifice (which also makes sense, story-wise and has a poetic ring to it), adds a layer of intensity to the underlying mystery of “why is everyone trying to save Peeta?”

Chapter 22

In This Chapter

• Katniss and Finnick enjoy a friendly bonding moment.
• The alliance expands.

Peeta carries the morphling who saved him, and Finnick and Katniss watch over them. But the monkeys are already gone.

The morphling is still alive, but dying, clutching Katniss’ hand in a vise-like rip. And as the unnamed morphling expires, Peeta speaks to her about painting (the morphling enjoyed painting during the time everyone had at the Training Center).

(This is basically Peeta’s version of Katniss’ Rue-funeral scene.)

Finally, she is gone, and Peeta takes her to the water, where her body is picked up by a hovercraft.

Finnick, who has walked away for this, returns with Katniss’ arrows, which she washes off to reuse.

And then the three realize they have another problem — they’re itching intensely from all the abuse their skin has gone through recently.

Finnick offers to take first watch for the night, and Katniss lets him, realizing he needs some privacy to mourn Mags.

(Except we all know he’s not really going to get much privacy at all, considering there are hidden cameras everywhere recording every move the tributes make, 24/7…but it seems like Katniss has forgotten this for a moment?)

As Katniss lies down, she marvels at how quickly thins change. In one day, she’s gone from planning to kill Finnick in his sleep to now letting him guard her as she sleeps, because he chose to save Peeta instead of Mags, and Katniss still doesn’t know why.

The next morning, Katniss is still itching, and she asks Haymitch for a little help. “It’s almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me,” she says, when one does, and it turns out the parachute contains an ointment to deal with the skin.

(Weird why that is one of the gifts Haymitch sends, because it’s more of a comfort than absolute-survival item.)

Finnick and Katniss banter as they put on the ointment, turning themselves a “ghastly gray-green.”

“Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven’t looked pretty?” I say.

“It must be. The sensation’s completely new. How have you managed it all these years?” he asks.

(Haha, the burn! Of course it isn’t, really, but the fact that they can still joke while in life-or-death situations, is a great characterization moment for both).

Katniss and Finnick decide to scare Peeta awake with their newly-oiled gray-green faces, and have a grand time enjoying Peeta’s shocked reaction. As they calm down, another parachute arrives with fresh bread.

Katniss notes that this must be Haymitch’s way of encouraging her to “be friends with Finnick.”

The three share the bread and shellfish that they collect from the lake, and Katniss assesses their situation. There are still thirteen tributes out there…or twelve, rather, Katniss thinks as she hears a cannon sound somewhere in the arena.

Just then, she’s distracted by a trio of tributes staggering toward them. They are in bad shape. “One is being practically dragged out by a second, and the third wanders in loopy circles, as if deranged.” All three are completely brick-red in color.

(This is actually a pretty funny visual).

Finnick recognizes them first — it’s Johanna Mason, with Beetee and Wiress. Johanna explains that they were caught in a storm of blood, and then Johanna’s partner hit a force field and died, leaving her with Beetee — who was stabbed at the Cornucopia — and Wiress, who appears to have lost her marbles, as she wanders around saying “Tick, tock. Tick, tock.”

(Question, where does the Capitol get all that blood? Even if it’s synthetic, still…)

Johanna shoves Wiress, and Katniss tells Jo to lay off, which pisses Johanna off as she slaps Katniss and hisses: “Who do you think got them out of that bleeding jungle for you?”

(Ha! Bleeding jungle. A pun. Bloody is a common faux-cuss word in certain places…namely Britain, I believe…but in this case, Johanna is talking about a LITERAL bleeding jungle.)

Katniss is confused by Johanna’s statement, and Peeta can’t figure it out either. So they take the three and help them get cleaned and fed up.

(There’s a bit of an inconsistency here. Katniss narrates how they have to strip Beetee naked to help him get clean, and this doesn’t bother her anymore because she’s seen so many naked men on her kitchen table in the last year, thanks to her mom’s role as healer that “you kind of get used to it after a while.”

(And yet, when she first started the training sequence, Peeta pointed out that she was squeamish, which was why Johanna and the others teased her the way they did).

Peeta compliments Katniss on her good work caring for the injured and says: “You’re good with this healing stuff…it’s in your blood.”

Katniss denies it, saying she got her father’s hunting blood instead.

(Here, I think Peeta sees Katniss more clearly than she sees herself. Of course, she wants to identify with her dead father, whom she really looks up to and might even lionize, a bit.

(He’s gone, and Katniss’ mother was completely useless for a long time after his death, so Katniss tends to undervalue/underestimate her mother’s strengths, although she’s better now than before.

(Peeta has no such prejudices about Katniss’ mom and dad, so he just calls it like he sees it, and Katniss really does have some kind of connective-healthy power and it probably does come from her mother’s DNA as well as training and need-induced experience.)

That night, Johanna and Katniss get first watch, and they chat a bit, with Johanna still in a hostile/off-putting mood and revealing to Katniss that Mags was Finnick’s mentor, “half his family.”

(This contexualizes Finnick’s sacrifice for us readers who have never been in his head and have no idea how much he feels for people in his life, besides what we see from Katniss’ perspective)

“So what were you doing with Nuts and Volts?” Katniss asks (Not sure if she is deliberately or accidentally using their somewhat condescending nicknames, here)

And again, Johanna reiterates that she got them for Katniss because “Haymitch said if we were to be allies I had to bring them to you.”

(Interesting hint at what Haymitch has been busy doing behind the scenes all this time. It makes you wonder why he chose Johanna to tell this information to? Perhaps because she’s so good at all this survival stuff instinctively that she could handle two more and be of use to Katniss?)

Wiress says nothing but “tick tock” the whole night and day when she is awake and talking, and the next morning, as Katniss mulls over the arena and realizes what Wiress is trying to tell them all:

The arena is a clock.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Peeta drops the sheath and buries his knife into the monkey’s back, stabbing it again and again until it releases its jaw.

Closing: “Oh,” I say under my breath. “Tick, tock.” My eyes sweep around the full circle of the arena and I know she’s right. “Tick, tock. This is a clock.”

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see how Johanna, Beetee, and Wiress contribute to the alliance. How will they help the story?

Payoffs:

• Now we know why the author introduced Johanna, Beetee, and Wiress by name earlier in the story.

Complications:

• With more allies, Katniss now has more people she won’t want to kill, but will have to, if it comes down to it.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Finnick, Johanna, Beetee, and Wiress, make interesting allies for Katniss. Finnick is turning out to be a kind of “nice” or at least “not-bad” guy (albeit still dangerous). Johanna clearly hates Katniss, and yet still seems helpful, in some sense. Beetee and Wiress were presented as clever and useful earlier, and they will probably be so again.
• There’s a lot of variety and diversity in this team of misfits, and that makes them interesting to follow.

Chapter 23

In This Chapter

• Katniss realizes the structure of the arena.
• The allies are attacked again.

Katniss realizes that the arena is designed like a clock, where every hour releases a new horror in one section of the circle. She wakes up the others and tells Wiress she was right, which makes Wiress relax, because finally someone understands what she means by “tick tock.”

(This is a fun/satisfying moment for readers, when their viewpoint character, the main character — Katniss — figures out something that the others didn’t realize was even a clue. Part of the fun of reading books is having questions answered, and answering a question first-time readers didn’t even know to ask “what is the structure of the arena? How predictable are the attacks?” is a great idea and works well in this story).

Then Katniss recalls how Plutarch Heavensbee showed her his watch with the mockingjay ages ago, and realizes he was giving her a clue about the arena. But why?

Wiress says “one-thirty,” and Katniss knows what she’s saying:

“Exactly. One-thirty. And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there,” I say, pointing at the nearby jungle.

Seeing that she is understood, Wiress “smiles and stands up obediently,” drinking the water that Katniss gives her and the bread that Finnick hands her.

(Another real-life commentary here, which I’ve seen in real life, and which is accurately portrayed in this story: People who struggle mentally are seriously relieved when they are dealt with patiently and understood. Even people who DON’T struggle mentally are relieved when they are understood. Listening and understanding is a superpower. It also makes Katniss seem more competent, which is one of the three levers of character likeability according to Sanderson writing lectures)

Beetee is also still a bit “out of it,” but has enough presence of mind to ask for his wire, a cylinder of wire that Johanna explains he got from the cornucopia (although at first the others think he’s referring to Wiress).

( — which probably explains why Collins named her that, for this moment. And that only works because all the other characters have semi-odd names, too…)

Johanna thinks the wire is useless, except for garroting someone, but Peeta explains that Beetee won his first Games by creating an electrical trap with wire.

(A nice misdirect here for the actual function of the wire, which Collins spends a few paragraphs talking about so people pay attention, but then has Johanna and Peeta misinterpret the importance of the wire, so the climax of this story and the importance of the wire isn’t given away too easily. Another clever move, if you do it right)

But Katniss is suspicious. “There’s something odd about Johanna not putting this together. Something that doesn’t quite ring true.” And she asks Johanna about it, but Johanna insults her, referring to Katniss “getting Mags killed off” which distracts Katniss into thinking about killing Johanna, who taunts her about that, too, but Finnick calms them down.

They decide to head back to the Cornucopia to check their hypothesis about the clock.

Meanwhile, Katniss is thinking how different her second Games are, now that she’s got five allies whereas last time it was just her and Peeta. “Yes, it’s great to have allies as long as you can ignore the thought that you’ll have to kill them,” she thinks, adding that Beetee and Wiress can “probably find some way to die on their own.” But “what I really need is for someone to take out Finnick for me, since I don’t think I can do it personally. Not after all he’s done for Peeta…”

(Although this way of thinking is super pragmatic and cynical, it’s almost funny, when you depersonalize it. Collins really tugs readers between Katniss being a compassionate, humane character and then being a cold, calculating machine. It’s interesting, keeps the readers a little off-balance with regard to what kind of person she really is, and is true-to-life, especially in such a terrible situation)

This train of thinking disturbs Katniss, so she tries to think about something else, but all that leads to is “fantasizing about killing President Snow,” which doesn’t help, either.

They reach the cornucopia and wait. Johanna throws axes, Wiress begins singing something to herself, and Peeta starts drawing a map on a giant jungle leaf. Katniss goes to see and they talk about which horrors await in which sectors of the clock at which times.

(This is reminiscent of them working together on Katniss’ book of plants. Great throwback)

Just then, Katniss is disturbed by the sudden silence of Wiress and looks up to see Wiress has had her throat slit by Gloss, whom Katniss immediately takes out with an arrow, while Johanna throws an axe at Cashmere, Finnick protects Peeta from a spear thrown by Brutus and gets stabbed in the thigh by Enobaria.

As the group chases after Brutus and Enobaria, who are running away, the Cornucopia starts spinning, threatening to throw Katniss and co into the water.

When the spinning stops, the dead bodies are in the water, and the living are disoriented. Katniss notices Beetee’s spool of wire clutched in Wiress’ dead hands, and she risks her life to jump into the water and fetch it before the hovercraft takes Wiress and the wire away.

(Interesting that Katniss’ gut reaction is to go after Beetee’s weapon of choice, considering he is technically her opponent. But it turns out to be a good instinct, we will see in the climax.)

Now that they don’t know where they are, they randomly choose a path and head into the jungles for water. When Peeta says he will get water, Finnick volunteers instead, and Johanna tells Katniss to watch Finnick’s back because Peeta needs to draw another map.

This confuses Katniss, who realizes that so many of the tributes in the Games this time have been inexplicably protecting Peeta. And then (she thinks) she figures it out:

“I think of it, what Peeta can do so much better than the rest of us. He can use words. He obliterated the rest of the field at both interviews. And maybe it’s because of that underlying goodness that he can move a crowd — no, a country — to his side with the turn of a simple sentence.”

(A fun nod from a writer to the power of words, here)

It’s a bit of a reach, Katniss admits inwardly, but what other reason could they have?

Before she can answer the question, Katniss hears a scream, and recognizes it immediately. It’s her little sister’s voice.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: A clock. I can almost see the hands ticking around the twelve-sectioned face of the arena.

Closing: I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of danger, ripping through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from reaching her. // From reaching my little sister.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see why Beetee selected a cylinder of wire, of all things, from the cornucopia. It must be important because the author spends a few paragraphs on it.
• We also find out why the other tributes are all protecting Peeta.

Payoffs:

• Katniss figures out how the arena is structured, by figuring out a clue from Wiress
• We find out why Plutarch showed Katniss his watch.

Complications:

• They’ve lost another ally, which means they are all one step closer to the end, according to the rules of the Game.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Some of the best stories are mysteries, and even non-mystery stories have to have an element of mystery to keep readers guessing and reading, wanting to find out what happens.
• Hunger Games 2 does this really well with the Peeta subplot — why are the other tributes risking or giving their lives to help him, specifically? As Katniss wonders, we also wonder and that makes us want to read more.

Chapter 24

In This Chapter

• Katniss encounters another horror in the Games.
• Peeta tries to convince Katniss to save herself, not him.

Katniss runs blindly toward the sound, screaming back for Prim, but it’s not Prim — it’s a jabberjay. The Capitol muttation and forerunner of a mockingjay. It’s been replicating Prim’s voice.

(This section would be so much more effective if the screaming of the jabberjays led Katniss into some other physical danger. The psychological torture of the jabberjays alone doesn’t really hit for readers who are removed from the situation. For Katniss, the instant she hears a familiar voice yelling, that would be psychological torture. But for readers, who are only reading about it, it’s hard to imagine in a way that would create the kind of visceral gut reaction that the other tortures of the Hungger Games produced.

(It’s a bit like the author is running out of new and more impressive horrors for the characters to go through — which is great for the characters, if they’re real, but not the readers’ interest levels).

Katniss shoots the jabberjay and then another one starts screaming in another voice, and now it’s Finnick crashing through the jungle toward the sound.

Finnick yells out a name “Annie!” and Katniss can’t get through to him, so she shoots the jabberjay that’s producing the sound. But this doesn’t make Finnick feel better.

(So much for his paramours in the Capitol. Now everyone knows Finnick doesn’t care about any of them).

It’s not Annie, he admits, but the voice is hers, meaning the jabberjays must have learned it…from her.

Another voice starts screaming, and Katniss recognizes this one too, it’s Gale. Finnick has to drag Katniss away from the sound, but when they reach the tree line they realize that they’re blocked from the beach by an invisible wall. Katniss and Finnick are trapped for the full hour, and she can’t even hear the others on the other side of the wall.

Katniss tries shooting the birds, at first, but then ends up curled into a ball trying to block out the sounds of all of her friends and family screaming. Not just Prim and Gale but her mother, her friend Madge, and Gale’s siblings Rory, Vick, and baby Posy.

At the end of the hour, she feels Peeta lifting her off the ground, soothing her, and she tells him her fear that the Capitol tortured her loved ones to get those sounds. But Peeta says: “No, that’s what they want you to think…that wasn’t Prim’s voice. Or if it was, they took it from an interview or something and distorted the sound.”

(Hmm…not sure that would work, really. Also, to be honest, I’m not sure how recognizable someone’s voice is when they’re screaming…unless they’re also saying your name.)

Katniss is terrified Prim is “probably dead,” but Peeta reassures her that they are almost down to the final eight, which is when they do the interviews with family and friends of the survivors, and they can’t do that if they’ve killed said family and friends, now, can they?

She and Finnick look to Beetee for confirmation that what Peeta’s saying is true, that the sounds they heard were artificial, digitally manipulated. Beetee does confirm it and Johanna adds “Of course Peeta’s right. The whole country adores Katniss’s little sister. If they really killed her like this, they’d probably have an uprisin on their hands.” And then she uses that opportunity to yell: “Don’t want that, do they? Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn’t want anything like that!”

Johanna goes to get water, and Katniss instinctively pulls her back, warning her away. Johanna shakes her off: “They can’t hurt me. I’m not like the rest of you. There’s no one left I love.”

(Which instantly makes Johanna an even more interesting character. You wonder who she lost, and why she’s still fighting, and whether or not she is going to turn out to be “good or evil” so to speak, because right now she’s an antagonistic ally)

Katniss stays curled up in Peeta’s arms for comfort, and Peeta asks her who they used to get Peeta. Katniss says Annie, and Peeta recognizes the name — it’s Annie Cresta, the victor that Mags volunteered herself for. Annie had won her games by swimming and surviving after the others had drowned, and she’d lost her mind afterwards.

Peeta draws a new map, Finnick weaves a basket and fishing net, and that night they see that eight more have died, making 16 dead total. A parachute shows up with 24 rolls of District 3 bread.

(In book one, Peeta teaches Katniss that different districts have different breads. This turns out to be setup for book 2, when the breads play a more important role. Way to foreshadow way early in the series!)

They split the bread, and then Katniss and Peeta volunteer for first watch while the others sleep.

“Katniss,” Peeta says once they’re alone. “It’s not use pretending we don’t know what the other one is trying to do.”

“No, I guess there isn’t, but it’s no fun discussing it, either. Well, not for us, anyway. The Capitol viewers will be glued to their sets so they don’t miss one wretched word,” Katniss observes in her narrative voice.

(Even at this glum moment, Katniss’ instinctive situational awareness — of being on camera and watched by the world , which has been a huge asset to her in both games— and her somewhat snarky humor still shines through. Especially in that use of the word “wretched.” Ha!)

Peeta points out to Katniss that Haymitch made him promises too, meaning Haymitch is lying to one of them, and only Haymitch knows to whom he’s lied. This catches Katniss’ attention, because for some reason, she hasn’t realized this before.

(Which is a bit of a lapse on her part, it should be obvious this is the situation)

Peeta then goes on to tell Katniss that if she dies and he lives, “there’s no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You’re my whole life. I would never be happy again.”

(Erm…maybe it’s my inner cynic coming out a little here, but that is laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think? Is Peeta being 100% honest here, or is he saying this for the benefit of the audience and to encourage Katniss to do what he thinks is the right thing — fight to live so she can go back to [and for] her family, who arguably DO need her more than Peeta’s family needs him?

(I think the author probably wants us to believe Peeta when he says this. For some reason, he genuinely loves Katniss completely and at a fundamental/deep level, despite barely knowing her except for that one year they had to go through the trauma of the Games together. It’s not just a crush for him.

(And to be fair, Katniss is not the worst choice Peeta could make. There are admirable things about her, the biggest one being her love for her sister, her instinctive willingness to sacrifice herself to protect Prim. And her loyalty to Gale and his family, her Seam-learned honor code, etc. Even her decision to protect Peeta, not herself, this time. She’s a survivor, but that doesn’t mean she’s really all that selfish.

(Which is clever, because considering the target demographic — young women, teens, mainly — this is really a major fantasy of theirs, an itch being scratched by the story. I’m talking about the fantasy-idea of being unconditionally loved by a good man. Just think, this story wouldn’t have worked half as well if the roles were reversed, if Peeta was our tough-as-nails survivor POV character, and Katniss was the gentle bread-baking one who was in love with him while he was ambivalent about her.

(I mean, there’s a reason why romance novels are the best-selling genre — always has been, and probably always will be.)

Peeta now takes off his necklace-chain with the gold disk and opens it to reveal Katniss’ family’s pictures inside — on one side, her mother and Prim. On the other side, Gale.

“My family. My mother. My sister. And my pretend cousin Gale. But Peeta’s intention is clear. That Gale really is my family, or will be one day, if I live. That I’ll marry him. So Peeta’s giving me his life and Gale at the same time…That’s what Peeta wants me to take from him.”

Katniss waits to see if Peeta brings up the fake “baby,” but he doesn’t, which tells her that he is being absolutely serious.

(And there we have our answer about what the author intends for us to think regarding whether or not Peeta is playing for the television audience. He’s not)

“No one really needs me,” Peeta says, in a factual non-self-pitying way. Katniss realizes he’s right. His family and Haymitch can get on (Haymitch “with the help of a lot of white liquor.”

And Katniss realizes “only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.”

When Peeta looks as if he’s going to protest, Katniss silences him with a kiss, and Peeta gives up trying to talk back.

(Nice, another step forward in the romance subplot — although it’s not exactly a SUB plot since it’s kind of a major element in the whole story, the reason why both are alive and so on)

They are interrupted by a lightning strike and Finnick wakes up and decides to help Peeta keep watch. Peeta gives Katniss his chain and signals the end of their conversation by saying “you’re going to be a great mother, you know.”

Katniss thinks to herself that if he was trying to remind her that she could be a mother one day, maybe with Gale, “it was a mistake. Because for one thing, that’s never been part of my plan. And for another, if only one of us can be a parent, anyone can see it should be Peeta.”

(Have to agree with her there. But all in all, this has been a good break from death and despair etc for a more slow-paced emotional moment. Interesting to see the way Collins changes the pacing throughout the book to keep readers invested without wearing them out with too much action and suspense and danger and death.)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Where is she? What are they doing to her? “Prim!” I cry out. “Prim!”

Closing: As I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta’s child could be safe.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see Katniss succeed in brining that safer world with no Games to fruition. Not in this book, but the next one.
• Also, note the irony of that last sentence! Especially once the whole series has been printed and we find out Peeta’s child will be Katniss’ child.

Payoffs:

• Readers get to see yet another Hunger Games horror, after knowing that the other wedges of the clock include everything from blood rain to manic monkeys to paralyzing fog.
• We see what District 3 bread looks like, so Peeta teaching Katniss bread types in book 1 turns out to be useful knowledge for book 2.
• We also see what the gold disk Peeta was wearing REALLY is. It’s not just a token or symbol. It’s a locket with meaningful pictures inside. Peeta’s “weapon” so to speak, to convince Katniss to save herself instead of him.

Complications:

• Katniss realizes that when Haymitch told her he would protect Peeta this time, Haymitch may have been lying to her.
• Peeta tries to convince Katniss to live on, without him.

OTHER COMMENTS

• To be brutally honest, this is where the tortures of the Hunger Games starts really jumping the shark for me. Actually, it really started with the muttations in book one, but now that they’re back in the arena, the tortured-screams-of-loved ones…doesn’t work so well. I think it’s because reading is an essentially silent endeavor, even when readers try to imagine what Katniss is hearing, there’s too much of a distance, and it trips you out of suspension-of-disbelief.
• In real life, psychological torture is arguably worse than physical, especially the psychological torture of witnessing the suffering of a loved one. But in a book, this is near-impossible to portray effectively. Or at least, having the mockingjays mimic the sound, and then to have Katniss narrate this effect to us, makes it fall flat.
• Especially when 1) the cries aren’t some kind of sadistic bait to trick Katniss & co into an even worse bodily harm of some type, and 2) we later find out that the sounds were definitely manipulated and not actually wrung out of torture victims.
• Not that I want the characters to be tortured, but it makes this “torture” in an arena where people are expected to be shooting and hacking and disembowling and beheading each other seem pretty “meh” in comparison. Like it barely registers as “bad” when we’ve seen so much worse already.
• Also, while Prim was a great motivator for Katniss in the first book, she’s getting a mite overused in this second book, serving the same function, almost.
• But for a story/series that depends on endless horrors, where else can you go?
• Also, on Peeta: He really is a total-good character. Like Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings. His speech to Katniss where he not only offers her his life, but also his blessing to be with Gale (his biggest rival for her heart), is not only a picture of unconditional love, but also the thing that ultimately draws Katniss to him. Gale has never showed half the amount of magnanimity toward Peeta as Peeta has shown him.
• Which means that Peeta’s heart is devoted to Katniss and her ultimate well-being, while Gale’s heart is divided. He cares about Katniss, but he also cares about himself, about the Revolution, about his anger and desire for revenge.
• And despite his selflessness, Peeta doesn’t come off as a “Gary Stu.” Which is part of the brilliance of this book. Because we do have a few places where we see Peeta get genuinely angry, get tough, get hurt (physically and emotionally)…and yet never for selfish reasons.
• That makes Peeta feels human, not plastic…Although he’s definitely more on the angelic side of the humanity scale, akin to the real-life quiet heroes like Corrie Ten Boom — people who were willing to give everything they had in order to protect and save others.
• Come to think of it, despite her more obvious flaws, a part of Katniss is like this too, which is probably what Peeta saw and liked in her. They are fundamentally similar in that both know how to love others self-sacrificially. So on the surface, they may seem like an illustration of “opposites attract” (Katniss: hunter, tough, somewhat-cynical. Peeta: baker, gentle, hopeful-compassionate. Etc), but deep down they’re actually very similar / compatible. And perhaps Peeta recognizes this first. Which is why he chooses her.

Chapter 25

In This Chapter

• The allies come up with a plan to destroy their remaining enemies.

Katniss awakens feeling incongruously happy, and goes down to the beach to see that another parachute has come, 24 rolls from District 3, like before. They split the bread and Katniss realizes their alliance is about to come to an end.

Katniss offers to teach Peeta to swim, and while they’re in the water, proposes that they take off. Peeta agrees, but proposes sticking around until after Brutus and Enobaria are dead, since Beetee appears to be designing some kind of trap for them.

(Here’s the ticking clock that stories need to have to introduce a little bit of tension and something for readers to follow. Otherwise the story might feel like it drags out too much)

Katniss reluctantly agrees, because it would be easier to deal with those two with the help of their allies, and also if they left, Beetee will probably be killed by Johanna…although Katniss realizes then that she can’t ultimately protect Beetee and Peeta. Still, she agrees to stay “until the Careers are dead.”

Beetee proposes a plan to kill Brutus and Enobaria by electrocuting them. The idea is to hook the wire to the giant tree in the arena which is always hit by lightning at twelve o clock.

Using Beetee’s wire, they could connect the tree to the salt water of the central lake, and E & B — who must be close to the water as well, in order to spy on the allies and to get food — will probably be killed by the electricity being conducted through the water and the wet part of the beach.

(It’s kind of crazy to think how Collins has gotten readers to basically commiserate with murderers — at best, killers. Granted, they are killers killing other killers, but still, it’s a bit loopy to think that you’re hoping the allies’ plans to kill Brutus and Enobaria will work, so that B & E won’t kill them back…

(Also, this plan seems a bit flawed…what if B & E are NOT hanging out near the beach as they predict? Or they see the allies doing something with the wire, get suspicious, and leave?)

The others agree to Beetees’ plan and head to the lightning tree.

(Trees are also important symbolically in these books. Katniss has a song she sins called the Hanging Tree — I forget if that’s mentioned in this book or the next — , and here we have a Lightning Tree…)

Beetee does his work, and they wait for midnight to come. They eat ll the seafood they can hold, because it’s all about to be electrocuted to death, and Peeta finds a pearl, which he gives to Katniss. This reminds Katniss of a silly remark Effie made last year about pearls coming from coal.

She accepts the gift and “look[s] coolly into the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.”

Peeta looks back somberly, understanding that she has not been swayed by his words from the previous night.

As they prepare to eat, a parachute arrives with a pot of spicy red sauce and 24 more rolls from district 3. They split the bread and eat the food.

There’s nothing left to do but wait for midnight.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: When I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta.

Closing: Surely my mother and Prim will know to return it to Peeta before they bury my body.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see if Beetees’ weapon works (we suspect it won’t be that easy)

Payoffs:

• Choosing Beetee as an ally proves to be a good choice, or so it seems here.

Complications:

• Both Katniss and Peeta are stubbornly insistent that the other must survive at the expense of themselves. This makes them, in a sense, bizarrely, enemies.

OTHER COMMENTS

• This is one of the strongest chapters with the most memorable scene in the book. This scene, of Peeta trying to convince Katniss to forget him and live, is a major reveal of the depths of Peeta’s character. We already knew, like the characters in the book, that Peeta is a fundamentally good person. But here we see it more viscerally, when he gives Katniss a locket with Gale’s picture in it, to try to convince her to live on.
• Of course, this backfires, because this is exactly the biggest reason why Katniss wants to save Peeta. Because he is a good, noble person, more so than herself, more so than anyone she knows, and the world would be much poorer without him in it. Then there’s the fact that Katniss also does not want to owe the moral debt of letting Peeta die in order that she might live a (relatively) normal life afterwards. It’s part of her Seam honor code.

Chapter 26

In This Chapter

• The allies try to execute their plan, but everything goes wrong.

Katniss notes that since no one died in the last day, the audience will be “thirsting for blood,” but the Gamemakers haven’t sent in any other attacks perhaps because Beetee’s trap seems promising.

Beetee starts weaving his wire around the tree, and then asks Katniss and Johanna to take the coil through the jungle and drop the remainder of the witer in the water, then run for the jungle.

Peeta wants to go with them, but Beetee argues that he’s too slow and needs him to stand guard.

Katniss doesn’t like the idea of leaving Peeta behind, either (“how can I protect him at a distance?”) but she knows Beetee is right.

She and Johanna start off well, but suddenly the wire goes slack. Someone has cut the wire. Katniss is about to grab her arrows when Johanna suddenly smashes her on her head, sits on her and stabs her arm, digging in deep.

Then she smears Katniss’ face with blood and hisses at her to stay down. In a daze, Katniss hear Brutus and Enobaria talking to each other, and Katniss figures that Johanna must have started to kill her, and then got scared off by the arrival of B & E.

(Okay. This is probably Katniss’ wooziness speaking, but it’s quite clear that Johanna was NOT trying to kill her. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even the most uncareful readers can tell that. If Johanna wanted to kill her, she wouldn’t have knocked her out, stabbed her arm, then smeared her face with blood…)

Katniss tries to get up to get back to Peeta, but she vomits from the nausea, and realizes her arm is spraying blood, which makes her even more woozy.

She hears someone coming, and hides. It’s Finnick, but when he calls for her and Johanna, she stays quiet.

Katniss hears a cannon, and realizes someone has died. But who?

When Katniss reaches the tree, she sees that Beetee is on the ground, holding a knife around which is wrapped his special wire. Katniss wonders what he was trying to do — knife the force field?

Peeta calls out to Katniss, and she yells back, hoping to draw attention to herself instead of him. Sure enough, Enobaria and Finnick arrive. Doing quick mental calculations, Katniss figures that she can take out one of them, the other will probably die from being electrocuted when the lightning strikes at midnight. Beetee is dying, Katniss knows she herself will soon die (of blood loss or electrocution probably), and two of the last three — Brutus, Johanna, and Chaff — has also died, as signaled by the earlier cannons.

“That will leave Peeta with only one tribute to kill. And that is the very best I can do. One enemy.”

But the word “enemy” triggers a memory for Katniss. Haymitch’s last words to her: “When you’re in the arena…you just remember who the enemy is.”

That shakes her into the realization that Enobaria isn’t her real enemy. Katniss grabs Beetee’s knife and ties it to an arrow, pointing it at the “chink in the armor,” a wavering square in the force field.

(A very good thing that Beetee and Wiress had taught Katniss back in those training days about the “chink in the armor” to look out for. It’s paying off now)

Just then, lightning hits the tree, lighting up the wire and exploding the dome. Katniss is thrown backwards, paralyzed.

(Unbeknownst to first time readers, this explosion is foreshadowing for an even more critical explosion to come in book three…)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: The anthem begins, but there are no faces in the sky tonight. The audience will be restless, thirsting for blood.

Closing: Right before the explosions begin, I find a star.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see whether Katniss’ instinctive blowin up of the dome was the right decision. What will be the fallout?

Payoffs:

• The conversation that Katniss had with Beetee about the force fields comes to its ultimate payoff when she realizes what the now-incapacitated Beetee was trying to do, and finishes his work for him.

Complications:

• Shooting the force field also rendered Katniss completely numb, so whatever happens next, she doesn’t have the physical agency to do much about it.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Nice contrast between “star” and “explosions” in that last sentence. Symbolically, the two things are opposites. One represents hope and beauty, the other represents death and destruction. But in scientifically reality, a star is an astronomical body that is constantly “exploding” (think solar flares) or at least on fire, rather 😉
• Also, this is one of the strongest twists/theme moments in this book, akin to the big one in the third book. And Collins is a genius for putting them together, so that the twist IS the core message (moral, worldview) that she is trying to convey: it isn’t the individual tributes in the arena who are Katniss’ biggest enemies. It’s the powers behind them, forcing them to fight.
• And in real life, this really is often the case, as well. I actually wrote an article about that, once.

Chapter 27

In This Chapter

• Katniss discovers the real game-behind-the-game that has been going on all this time…

Everything starts exploding around Katniss, and then a hovercraft appears above her and picks her up. Katniss is unable to move, despite her desire to fight, to run — she is sure that the government has picked her up to torture her to death in public.

And that fear is confirmed when the first person she sees inside the overcraft is Plutarch Heavensbee. But instead of striking her, Heavensbee slides her eyes shut as she sinks into unconsciousness.

When Katniss awakens, she finds herself on a padded table, being kept alive but she is still not really able to move. A second time, she wakes up in restraints and sees Beetee across from her. When she finally really wakes up, she’s still in a room with Beetee and decides that she will mercy-kill Peeta with a syringe, if she can, to spare him the certain upcoming torture that the Capitol is preserving them for.

She creeps down a hallway and hears voices inside a room. One of the speakers is Heavensbee. Another is Finnick. And the third is Haymitch.

Katniss bursts into the room, and Haymitch isn’t particularly surprised. He makes her drop her syringe, and Plutarch offers her some food, and Haymitch makes Katniss sit and listen without asking questions until he’s done.

And then Haymitch tells Katniss (Katniss narrates this to the reader in prose, rather than dialogue) that there was a plan to break the tributes out of the arena since the announcement of the Quell. Victors from half of the districts had varying degrees of knowledge about the plan, and Heavensbee was an undercover agent in the Capitol working to overthrow it.

Beetee’s job was to blow a hole in the force field, the regular deliveries of bread that they kept getting in the arena was code for the time of rescue — the district of the bread sent referred to the day, the number of rolls referred to the hour. The hovercraft they are sitting in is from District 13, which does exist after all, and most of the districts in Panem “are in full-scale rebellion.”

(Handy that there are only 12 — known — districts, matches the clock “quite well…”).

Katniss is dazed by the information: “It’s an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which I was a piece…used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with.”

(I like how Collins has expanded the idea of Hunger Games in the second book even more expansive. In the first book, the “Games” referred to the actual games. In the second book, we get ostensibly more of the same, but the REAL “Games” going on here is the secret game-behind-the-game. The rebel conspiracy).

And that is when Finnick confesses the truth that the rest of the tributes HAD indeed been doing their best to help Katniss and Peeta — to the point where “the rest of us agreed to die to keep you alive,” says Finnick. Even Johanna’s attack was done in order to dig the tracker out of Katniss’ arm.

And it’s all because of Katniss’ significance as the Mockingjay, the symbol of the revolution.

(Wondering why they didn’t just let Katniss get the tracker surgically removed later, in the hovercraft. Why did Johanna decide that bush-surgery was necessary? Story-wise, it’s a nice little red herring…a very little one, because it doesn’t REALLY throw readers too much off the scent, but within-world, )

Katniss recalls Haymitch being dismissive at her ideas of starting her own uprising in District 12 when all this time he’s been sitting on an even more explosive secret, and she realizes that Haymitch is a consummate liar. That leads her to realize Haymitch has been lying to her about something else, as well — Peeta.

(A really natural, clever, well-done way to transition from one truth-bomb to another equally or more-important truth bomb here)

Haymitch confirms that the others kept Peeta alive in order to keep Katniss in the alliance, and to keep her protected. And that Peeta has been captured by the Capitol, along with Johanna and Enobaria.

Katniss lunges at Haymitch, scratching him with her fingernails, and Finnick and the others eventually grab her and sedate her. Finnick tries to comfort her by saying that they will keep Peeta alive as long as they think they can use him against her, but this is cold comfort.

Katniss realizes that she will never get him back. “So then dead is best.” Defeated, Katniss decides to “die of spite” to punish Haymitch, “who, of all the people in this rotting world, has turned Peeta and me into pieces in his Games…he has betrayed me.”

(The problem is, this might be coming on a little too strong. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t been in a similar situation to this, but from the objective audience perspective, you can see why Haymitch did what he did, and so Katniss’ rage against him doesn’t really resonate that deeply).

Katniss ignores all the people who come by and try to talk to her, until one day she sees a familiar face — Gale. He’s injured, his face partly burnt, his arm in a sling.

“It’s not so much a question of forgetting Peeta as remembering the others. All it takes is one look at Gale and they come surging into the present, demanding to be acknowledged.”

Katniss asks about Prim (of course, it’s Prim first!) and Gale confirms that both Prim and her mother are safe because he’d “got them out in time.” Apparently, after Katniss destroyed the arena, the Capitol sent in planes with firebombs, and destroyed all of District Twelve.

And that is how this book ends.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Everything seems to erupt at once.

Closing: But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. “Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out if Katniss ever DOES “get Peeta back” in the next book.

Payoffs:

• We finally figure out why everyone was so bent on protecting Peeta.

Complications:

• Now that there is no more District 12, what will happen to Katniss and her family in the third book?

OTHER COMMENTS

• What a hook for the last sentence of a book! It is definitely a page turner, which must have made readers who were waiting for the third book to come out particularly impatient. I myself remember reading the Hunger Games series at the local bookstore at the recommendation of a friend. I think I couldn’t find the third book in the library because it was checked out so I went to the bookstore to find the third book, and enjoyed a fun afternoon reading there.
• Overall, it’s an unsatisfying ending for a book, but it works to throw readers directly into book 3.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Why I Rated This Book 4.3 Stars

I use this criteria to rate every book (out of 6 points per category):

Star ratings:
1 star = Basically, trash. Or worse.
2 stars = Only worth it if you really like the topic.
3 stars = Average.
4 stars = Quite Good.
5 stars = Worth re-reading more than once.
6 stars = Life-changing.

3. Craft ✍ ✍ ✍ ✍

Is this work is well-written, and are the ideas clearly and skillfully presented?

In book 2, Collins has a real challenge on her hands, trying to make the same steps more interesting on a second pass.

And the way she did that is to take the stakes of the Game up a notch:

This time the true fight is more against the Gamemakers and their tricks, rather than against the other tributes.

For example, in the first book, Katniss shoots at the Gamemakers during the score evaluation. In the second, she can’t do that again, so how does Collins increase the stakes? She has Katniss create a Seneca Crane hanging dummy to play mind games on the Gamemakers.

But also: in the first book, Katniss was focused on saving herself so she could get home to take care of Prim. In the second, Prim doesn’t need care and Katniss trying to save herself would be too selfish, so her new goal is to preserve Peeta’s life — which is an even more noble goal than in book one, because we’ve seen by now that Peeta is the most “morally good” person of the bunch (Katniss and Haymitch even say it straight up), plus he’s not related to Katniss and she isn’t even entirely sure she loves him (at least, compared to Gale), so it’s a less-selfish choice for Katniss to be willing to give her life for him.

Peeta is the most capable of love, and incapable of evil, even to save his own life. Thus, saving him makes Katniss a more likable character than if she’s just in this to save her own neck, again.

Another thing:

One of the tricks of a book like this is that you know it’s a trilogy so you know Katniss must survive to tell the third story.

In other words, her life isn’t in danger, no matter how dangerous the arena is. Yet you still have to make the arena dangerous to make it interesting, and you have to have other stakes to keep the readers on tenterhooks. In this case, it’s the question of Peeta — will he live or die?

And who will Katniss choose? Peeta or Gale? Will Katniss survive, only to lose everything else that makes her life worth living? Lots of questions keep readers reading because they want to know the answer.

In other words, Collins did a great job upping the stakes and making the book still suspenseful and interesting despite Katniss’ plot armor and the fact that this book follows a real powerful hit of a first book.

That said, there are a few issues with pacing. More than the first half of this book shows Katniss at home or on tour, dealing with her love triangle and the increasing political discontent around the country, etc., etc. And while that is somewhat interesting, it’s not quite as fast as the pacing for the first book.

For me, this does detract from the book a little bit, it’s definitely not as strong as book 1, but overall, this is still a solid entry from Collins.

2. Concept 📖📖📖📖📖

Is this an interesting concept, well-executed? (Are implicit and explicit promises paid off?)

Collins has her work cut out for her, continuing the Hunger Games series in a second book which in some ways mimics the exact same format as the first games. At least in the first book, readers didn’t know what was coming — the fashion shows, the training center, the rankings, etc. In book 2, we know exactly what’s coming, and Collins handles the repetition skillfully.

Off and on, I’ve been thinking of why Hunger Games is such a popular series. There are many reasons, of course, from characterization to intriguing plot to fashion trends to resonance with current events, but this time I want to highlight another one I think is key:

Fulfillment of fantasy.

What I mean is, when people read books they like, they tend to identify with the main character in some important way. They root for the character to succeed, they want to see what happens to him/her, they feel to some degree as if they themselves are living the character’s life, if only temporarily and mentally.

It sounds a bit weird, of course, to say that Hunger Games fulfills some people’s fantasies.

Who wants to identify with a starving teenager fighting for her life and forced to be a murderer in a tyrannical society?

Of course, that part is no fun.

But Katniss’ story addresses several universal human fantasies on multiple levels, from shallow to deep.

Beginning with physical needs and desires — food. Collins is always good about clearly describing the food that Katniss eats, and while we readers are (probably) not starving or even hungry when we read this story, well-described food is still a nice draw.

Next: Desire for unconditional love. In this story, Peeta shows near Jesus-level unconditional love for Katniss. He’s not only willing to protect her with his life, he’s even willing to step aside and let her be with Gale, because he prioritizes her well-being and happiness over his own desires. It’s almost impossible to find someone like this in real life, so this is a major “fulfillment of fantasy” element in the story.

And another factor akin to the above is the concept of having someone to love, to the point of death. From the start, Katniss’ love for Prim drives her. But when it comes to us readers, how many people do we have in our lives whom we would die for? Especially in the modern age, when loneliness is at epidemic levels, having someone to love is often a great unfulfilled desire.

Follow that with: Something meaningful to fight for. In first-world countries (the location of the target audience for this book), most people have their basic needs fulfilled. They have food, shelter, clothes, etc., etc. What’s next? A sense of meaning, perhaps, a la Viktor Frankl.

Finally we have: Strength, skill, and cleverness. Katniss thinks of herself as an underdog, but in reality, she is not. She’s scrappy, she loves fiercely, she has multiple die-hard allies on her side, she’s a great hunter, she has an instinct for media presentation (although she doesn’t think she does), and a lot of charisma (although, again, she doesn’t think she does).

In other words, Katniss is what many young boys and girls want to be — strong, skilled, and clever. Oh, and admired/loved. Certainly not by President Snow and his ilk, but Katniss is clearly well-loved by everyone who knows and watches her.

…And those are just some reasons why this book (and series) work(s).

1. Core ❤️❤️❤️️❤️

Are the worldview, themes, and arguments of this work true, edifying, and worth learning?

The biggest message of Book 2 is that the enemy is not always who you think it is. It’s stated by Haymitch before Katniss goes into the arena, and it’s the realization of this message that gives Katniss the idea to take action and destroy the Game itself in the climax.

It is only by not falling for the narrative given to her by her society, and choosing not to see her fellow tributes as her true enemies that Katniss figures out how to save the day.

Another continuing theme here is the importance of love over death. In the first book, Katniss risks — but also defies — death thanks to her love for Prim, and Peeta defies death in his love for Katniss. In this second book, Katniss is starting to learn to love Peeta, and you can see that in part thanks to her decision to save him instead of herself, if she can.

Both of these are, imho, solid themes that align with reality.

LMA Assessment

Is this book more of a Love, Mystery, or Adventure?

This book was more of a Love + Mystery book, with very slight Adventure included. The question is, is it more “love” or more “mystery”? I think an argument can be made for both sides, but I’m going to go with “love.”

Because Collins does ramp up the romance angle (and the love triangle) in this book, which in my opinion is the most obvious but least important reason why this book is “love” themed…

But more than that, we get to see more of the love between different characters:

• Katniss has a friend now (Madge)
• We see more of her relationship with her mom and sister in real time instead of just in her memories
• Gale is more of a presence as well — not just as a love interest, but as a friend and hunting partner
• And importantly, we see the community of District 12 and how they really do (kind of) watch out for each other (when Gale is beaten up, for instance, and Peacekeeper Darius stands up for him.)

The adventure angle isn’t as big a deal here because there aren’t any new things for the characters to discover. A lot of political unrest, but the structure of the Games is the same as the first book, with the costuming and the interviews and the Training Center and scoring, and then being in the arena…all of that is rehashing old stuff, and trying to make it more intense.

Writing Tips & Practical Application

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

• Think about your off-screen characters: Like Katniss’ father in the Hunger Games, most stories have off-screen characters who play an important role in the current story. In your story, who are your off-screen characters that matter? How can you use them to best effect in the story?
• Consider your theme: What is the theme, moral, or main worldview of your story? Where is that revealed in your story currently? Can you or do you need to shift that reveal to somewhere else in the story (say, when you reveal a major twist or plot reveal in the story?)