This is Part 1 of our Hunger Games: Mockingjay (Book 3) dissection-analysis for writers who want to hone their craft!
- Part 2: Coming soon
- 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
- And Book 2 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
Chapter 1
In This Chapter
- Katniss visits her destroyed home district.
- We find out what happened to everyone in District 12 after the devastating ending of the last book.
The story begins with Katniss back home in District 12, as ash falls around her.
(Not only is this great symbolism for where she and we are in the story right now — at a nadir — but also, it reminds me of Sanderson’s Mistborn “falling ash” concept.
(Side note: If you’ve been following previous installments of these detailed book notes, you may have noticed I reference Brandon Sanderson a lot — not because he’s my favorite writer, but because he’s the most all-around educational living writer that I’ve found so far. So many things he does in his story writing and in his business choices are worth learning from…okay, back to the analysis)
Katniss catches up the reader with a summary of what happened since a month ago, when Gale told her that District 12 is no more (at the end of Book 2):
- The Capitol firebombed everything in District 12, except for the Victor’s Village
- At first, the District Thirteen authorities didn’t want to let Katniss return, until Plutarch Heavensbee spoke up for her to “convince her we’re on the same side.”
- Katniss is still suffering from aftereffects of her injuries in the Quarter Quell, and is taking drugs to control her pain and mood, and those are sometimes making her “see things.”
(Katniss is now effectively a veteran, and the way Collins portrays her is, as far as I am aware of this group of people, fairly accurate-sounding. At least, accurate to the idea of veterans with complex PTSD, which many — perhaps most? — veterans who have been in action come home with)
Katniss uses a “technique” that her doctors suggested to get a hold of herself, mentally. She recites to herself everything she knows to be true, starting from the “simplest things…and work[ing] toward the more complicated.”
So Katniss tells herself her name, age, home location, how she was in the Hunger Games but escaped, that Peeta was taken prisoner and is thought to be dead…
(This technique is also useful for giving necessary background info for those who may need a reminder of what is going on in the story, or for those who for some reason have jumped into the trilogy from the third book instead of the first)
Katniss is interrupted by Gale, who’s speaking to her via headset from a hovercraft overhead. Katniss brushes off his concern and as she walks through the devastation of her former home, she thinks to herself how more than ninety percent of the district is dead, and the remaining 800 are refugees in District 13.
(Interesting. So if <10% = 800, then District 12 must have had over 8000 people at one point. Which is not that many people, if you think about it. How big is Panem, exactly?)
Of course, Katniss is feeling guilty that her people were vaporized for her “misdeeds,” so to speak, and reflects on how thankfully Gale was able to save the survivors —
After Katniss had been lifted from the arena of the Quell, District 12 had its electricity cut and in 15 minutes, the place was being bombed. Gale thought of taking the people to the Meadow that he and Katniss once hunted in. He and the other able-bodied survivors managed to stay alive for three days, until hovercrafts from District 13 arrived to evacuate them.
(Very convenient, that the electricity was cut so people wouldn’t have to worry about disabling the electric fence while running for their lives)
District 13 had “more than enough clean, white living compartments, plenty of clothing, and three meals a day.” The only problem is that “the compartments had the disadvantage of being underground, the clothing was identical, and the food was relatively tasteless.”
(Now this is reminding me of City of Ember — a dystopian story featuring an underground population. Just how long can people really live underground without facing severe physical and mental issues, though?
(Except it’s also giving off communo-military utopian vibes with an undertone of creepy/tyrannical…They don’t even call housing houses or apartments but “compartments.”)
Katniss continues that people “interpreted [their enthusiasm] as kindness,” but another refugee from District 10 “leaked the real motive” to Katniss, saying that awhile back, District 13 suffered a pox epidemic that killed many and left others infertile. In other words, “they see us [as] new breeding stock.”
(Boy, that hits home, considering what happened in the world these last few years…also if what this refugee says is true, then way to continue the dehumanization, District 13)
But even if that is true, Katniss thinks, at least the survivors are being trained for work, the children are getting an education and those over fourteen are given military ranks and addressed as “soldier.”
Yet Katniss thinks to herself:
“Still, I hate them. But of course, I hate almost everybody now. Myself more than anyone.”
(Another reason why I think the Hunger Games resonated so well in this era is because it really fit with the times. The last few decades have seen English-speaking/Western society overall turning more nihilistic, lonely, alienated, and misanthropic than, say, the post-WWII era, and Katniss’ feelings are understandable for too many readers)
Katniss finds herself at the “approximate site of the bakery Peeta’s family owned.” Nothing is left but a melted oven. Peeta’s whole family died in the fire bombs, as did most of the more “well-to-do” in District 12.
Katniss stumbles over what’s left over of the stocks and gallows, and, traumatized, runs to her house in the Victor’s Village. As she stands indoors, she reflects on how everyone in District 13 wants her to “truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay…the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution.”
But Katniss hasn’t been cooperating.
(That’s one of the things about Katniss. She is not a cooperator, deep down, although she does to some degree if it has to do with survival — her own, or her loved ones)
She reflects on the President of District 13, a woman named Alma Coin who is “fifty or so, with gray hair that falls in an unbroken sheet to her shoulders” which fascinates Katniss because of its uniformity. She also has gray eyes that are “very pale, as if almost all the color has been sucked out of them. The color of slush that you wish would melt away.”
(An excellent, if a bit on-the-nose description of Coin as a character. By giving us a look at her physical description through Katniss’ eyes, and using particularly distasteful metaphors to compare her to, Collins foreshadows what kind of person Coin is going to be)
Katniss reflects on her fellow survivors from the quell, Beetee who was pulled into weapons development so that Katniss never sees him, and Finnick, who is so distracted by his worry over his girlfriend Annie that they can’t do much with him, either.
Katniss hates the Capitol but isn’t sure her being the Mockingjay will really help the rebels, considering how everything she’s done so far “results in suffering and loss of life.”
Katniss is distracted from her thoughts by a hiss — it’s her sister’s cat, Buttercup. When Katniss says Prim’s name, he approaches her and Katniss sticks him in her game bag so she can carry him home to her sister. As she does so, Katniss thinks: “[Prim’s] goat, Lady, an animal of actual value, has unfortunately not made an appearance.”
(And there’s that snarky narrative voice that we readers have come to love…)
Gale tells Katniss they need to go, and Katniss runs upstairs to grab her father’s hunting jacket. But while she’s there, she smells something “cloying and artificial.”
There’s a white rose among dried flowers on her dresser. It’s fresh. And it means that Snow (or one of his agents) has been here recently.
Katniss is horrified, gagging as she runs out of the house to the hovercraft. When Gale asks if she’s alright, Katniss says yes, because she knows she cannot explain to him or anyone else just what that rose means — how it’s not just a flower, but “a promise of revenge,” referencing the last time Snow threatened her before the Victory Tour.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather.
Closing: Positioned on my dresser, that white-as-snow rose is a personal message to me. It whispers, I can find you. I can reach you. Perhaps I am watching you now.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- When and how Katniss is going to take on the official mantle of the Mockingjay symbol.
- Coin is going to be bad news. We just need to see how.
Payoffs:
- We find out what Gale meant from Book 2 when he said “there is no District 12.”
Complications:
- Katniss isn’t playing along with the others’ desire for her to be a rebel leader. She’s also suffering from all kinds of PTSD.
OTHER COMMENTS
- The greatest cruelty of the Games, equal to the threat to people’s lives, is the way it f’s with people’s minds. Not just the people in the arena, but the people watching them. It dehumanizes tributes and District folk by treating them like animals raised for slaughter, but it also dehumanizes (“monstrosizes” the Capitol citizens as beasts who find enjoyment in the suffering of others.)
- In this third book of the Hunger Games trilogy, we can’t do actual Games again, not just because the arena was blown up in the last book and the rebels have taken decisive action, but also because story-wise, that would be bo-ring.
- However, that doesn’t mean the Games aren’t over. They’ve just moved to another arena — the real world. (Well, the real world within the story, that is). And Katniss is still a player in the game, this time against Snow and the Capitol itself, rather than fellow tributes. And with the last line, we see a key feature of the Games in play — Snow is still f’ing with her mind.
- Another thing: This opening chapter is one of the slowest, pacing-wise, but by this point there’s a lot of information dumping that needs to happen, so it would be tricky to make this any more exciting than it is, currently.
Chapter 2
In This Chapter
- Katniss reflects on her new militaristic lifestyle in District 13.
- Katniss sees Peeta on TV, and he says something that gets him in major trouble with the rebels.
After a brief conversation, Katniss and Gale sit in mostly silence as the hovercraft takes them back to District 13.
Katniss notes that from the air, District 13 looks about the same as 12, no life above ground. In the 75 years since the Dark Days and District 13’s supposed destruction, all construction has been underground.
The only reason why they survived was because District 13 focused on nuclear development. So they struck a deal with the Capitol — “play dead in exchange for being left alone.”
District 13 then went underground except for going outside at “specific times in your schedule” for exercise and sunlight.
(This requires a rather large suspension-of-disbelief stretch. Even if they agreed to be left alone, why stay underground for 75 years? Might as well live above ground and just not travel to other districts…you’d think everyone would be suffering from vitamin D deficiencies and weird mental illnesses)
Katniss further describes life in District 13: Everyone has a schedule that is tattooed on your forearm every day. (Katniss gives an example: 7:00 — Breakfast. 7:30 — Kitchen Duties. 8:30 — Education Center, Room 17. And so on.”
The ink is “indelible until 22:00 — Bathing.”
(SUPER communistic. No individual freedom here at all. I don’t think this kind of society has ever survived long in the real world, certainly not 75 years. Even cults get exposed or blow up eventually, at least, if they are high-control like this one)
Katniss was exempt from the daily schedule tattooing while she was in the hospital but after moving into “Compartment 307” with her mom and sister, she was “expected to get with the program.”
(Note how clinical the mention of all of these strict schedules and “compartment numbers” are)
Even so, Katniss’ “ramblings” are tolerated to some degree because she is classified as “mentally disoriented.” But she knows that will not last long.
When Katniss reaches her “home,” just in time for “18:00 — Reflection, a half hour of downtime before dinner” she empties her game bag “and it becomes 18:00 — Cat Adoration.”
(This was a great line. I love how Collins set up the “punchline” for this so well, too, humor works really well against the stark, restrictive feeling of an hourly schedule.)
As Katniss heads down to the dining hall for dinner with Gale, his communicuff beeps, calling him and Katniss to Command. Command is a high-tech center with a large TV screen at one end, and when Katniss sees who’s on screen, she shoves through the people to get a closer look at Peeta.
He looks “healthy to the point of robustness” as he is interviewed by Caesar, who asks him about the last night in the arena.
“…As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly.”
“It costs your life,” says Caesar.
“Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?” says Peeta. “It costs everything you are.”
Caesar insinuates that because Katniss blew out the force field and the arena, she was secretly working with the rebels, but that causes Peeta to get agitated, grabbing Caesar’s chair and yelling: “She didn’t know, Caesar! Neither of us knew anything except that we were trying to keep each other alive!”
Caesar calms him and asks about Haymitch, and all Peeta says is that he shouldn’t have trusted him. This is the trigger for Katniss to think about Haymitch, who has not been having a good time in District 13, where he is not allowed to drink to his hearts’ content. “They’ve got him in seclusion until he’s dried out, as he’s not deemed fit for public display. It must be excruciating…”
But Katniss has no compassion for him, because of how he’s deceived her and Peeta.
At the end of the interview, Caesar asks him about the war, and Peeta pleads for people to stop fighting and killing because “there won’t be enough of us left to keep going.”
In other words, Peeta is asking for a cease-fire. This, of course, is seen as “complicity with the Capitol” in the eyes of the rebels, making him a traitor and enemy. Katniss tries to leave, but when Coin says she hasn’t been dismissed, a man tries to hold her back. Instinctively, Katniss shakes him off and races down the halls until she ends up in a supply closet.
After a while, Gale appears with a bloody nose. “I got in Boggs’s way,” he explains, referring to “Coin’s right-hand lackey,” the one who tried to stop Katniss. Apparently, Gale blocked Boggs so that Katniss could get away.
As a result, Gale was punished by having his communicuff confiscated. (Aka, he’s been demoted), but he laughs it off, and Katniss thinks of how it’s been nice to have Gale’s friendship back, now that there’s no more threat of a Capitol-arranged marriage to Peeta.
When Katniss wonders aloud why Peeta might have called for the cease-fire, and Gale speculates that he could have been tortured…or more likely he wanted to save Katniss by painting her as a “confused pregnant girl.”
(This is the first time Gale has said anything nice about Peeta, voluntarily. Good for him. Side note, I originally read that line as “confused peasant girl.” Ha!)
And Katniss understands: “since Peeta and I weren’t killed, his last wish to preserve my life still stands.”
She realizes that if she lies low, she might be safe no matter who wins. But Peeta, by calling for the cease-fire, will probably die if the Rebels win, although if the Capitol wins, then who knows.
Katniss has a flashback to all the horrific moments of the recent past and realizes she can’t let the Capitol win. She scrambles to her feet and knocks over a box of a hundred pencils. As she and Gale try to pick up the pencils, she adds:
“We can’t go back.”
“I know.” Gale sweeps up a handful of pencils and taps them on the floor into perfect alignment.
“Whatever reason Peeta had for saying those things, he’s wrong.” The stupid sticks won’t go in the box and I snap several in my frustration.
“I know. Give it here. You’re breaking them to bits.” He pulls the box from my hands and refills it with swift, concise motions.
“He doesn’t know what they did to Twelve. If he could’ve seen what was on the ground — ” I start.
“Katniss, I’m not arguing. If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it. Without hesitation.”
(Great idea to give Katniss and Gale something to do while they have this plot-important dialogue, instead of just sitting around while they talk, and good idea to make it a box of one HUNDRED pencils, and make Katniss frustrated as she tries to jam the pencils back in the box, so it will take some time for them to get all the words out.
(And also it’s good characterization for both Katniss and Gale in this moment, too. Katniss is still jittery and mentally unsound, Gale is calm but deep underneath has simmering vengeance driving him. He doesn’t realize that that vengeful spirit is ultimately destructive…what about the Avoxes working in the Capitol, for example?
(Both Katniss and Gale want to preserve the lives of those they love and defeat their enemy, but Gale is more motivated by the latter — especially with a significant helping of spiteful vengeance, while Katniss is more motivated by the former. She has more of a capacity for forgiveness, which is what makes her a stronger character than Gale. In fact, Katniss is probably the halfway point between Peeta and Gale’s characters, if we were to line all three up on a “nobility” scale)
“The question is, what are you going to do?” Gale asks, and Katniss knows the answer. She has to be the Mockingjay.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Are there Capitol hoverplanes speeding in to blow us out of the sky?
Closing: I take a deep breath. My arms rise slightly — as if recalling the black-and-white wings Cinna gave me — then come to rest at my sides. // “I’m going to be the Mockingjay.”
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will see how Katniss fares as the Mockingjay. What will it entail? What obstacles will she face?
Payoffs:
- The mockingjay symbol introduced from the very beginning is finally coming into its own, embodied in the reluctant-turned-determined Katniss.
Complications:
- Peeta is doing propaganda for the other side (the Capitol) now, and this will make it that much harder for Katniss to protect him…from her own allies.
OTHER COMMENTS
- It’s interesting that Peeta calling for a cease-fire is the thing that gets him in trouble with the rebels. To be fair, there is a time to fight, and a time when NOT fighting is the wrong choice, but nobility and peace has always been Peeta’s defining characteristic.
- So it makes sense that someone like him would be trying to keep people alive, but this is where context matters. In a world where the underdo Rebels need to keep morale high sot hat they have a chance of winning, Peeta using his soft-power skills to throw a wrench in their business is NOT looked at well.
Chapter 3
In This Chapter
- Katniss confides in Prim, who has a good idea.
- Katniss negotiates with President Coin.
Katniss can’t sleep, so she heads to her dresser, tiptoeing so as not to disturb her sleeping mother and sister, and takes out her pearl, a gift from Peeta in the second arena.
Prim wakes up and snuggles up with Katniss, encouraging her big sister to confide in her. “I’m good at keeping secrets. Even from Mother,” Prim says.
And Katniss thinks: “She’s really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail…Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly…into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.”
Katniss confesses that she plans to take on the Mockingjay persona, but at the same time, she’s concerned that if the rebels win without her, the rebels will execute him as a traitor.
Prim thinks about this and then tells Katniss “I don’t think you understand how important you are to the cause.” Then she tells Katniss that she could “demand almost anything and they’d have to agree to it.” Although, she wonders “how do you know they’ll keep their word?”
This is where I am half-believing and half-non-believing. On the one hand, it IS true that propaganda is extremely powerful, that a good leader or leader-figure can galvanize even ignorant or uncaring people into fighting for the cause, but there are a LOT of factors that have to be in place for that to be the case.
For example, you need to be able to control the information flow, almost 100% (which is why all totalitarians and authoritarians hate free speech with a passion). For another, you need more than one larger-than-life character (think: Avengers. There’s more than one) to really pull off something as big as a regime change, unless the regime you’re trying to change is already rotting incredibly badly from within, and even THEN it would be tough…
For another, you need your leader figure to REALLY REALLY appeal to the people. They have to feel a sense of kinship and emotional connection to him or her that goes beyond logic and reasoning.
Does Katniss fulfill these criteria? Maybe so. She started off by sacrificing herself to save her baby sister, so that resonates with people who have a noble side to their character. She’s basically vouched for by the only truly “good” character in the story, Peeta. She is a survivor, she has a natural sense for media — how people are seeing her — but without trying to manipulate her public image in a snake-oils-y manner…so it’s possible. But it’s still a bit doubtful, considering what the rebels are up against —
Prim’s words gives Katniss the idea to ask for Peeta’s immunity, and to have President Coin give her word publicly, which Prim approves of.
“I should wake you up more often, little duck,” Katniss says, and Prim gives her a goodnight kiss. Katniss is able to fall asleep.
The next morning, Katniss’ schedule has her going to Command at 7:30am, which is perfect for her purposes.
But first, breakfast.
The meals are all uniform and perfectly calculated for each person. And when Katniss tries not to stare at Gale’s mashed turnips. (Seriously?? Mashed turnips for breakfast?? I can’t think of any non-starving five-year-old who would like that…let alone adults…well, I guess it depends on how they spice it, but given what we know of District 13 so far, I’m thinking food tastiness is probably not high on their list of priorities…)
Gale sees her anyway and plops an extra spoonful in her bowl.
This is actually a pretty terrible way to live, not being able to choose your food, ever. Fine for a stint if you want to train with the military for a few years, but forever? Egh. Collins does a good job of showing us that Katniss’ new allies in District 13 are really not presenting a future existence that is any better than what Katniss and her neighbors had been living already. In some ways, it’s worse.
“You’ve got to stop that,” Katniss says.
But since I’m already scooping up the stuff, it’s not too convincing. “Really. It’s probably illegal or something.”
(Haha!)
This transitions into a few paragraphs on the strictness of food control in District 13, how food hoarding isn’t allowed. Katniss also notes that she and Gale hate being forced to eat like this, remembering how back home they were able to hunt and decide what provisions they have.
(This is good commentary on how there are different kinds of slavery. In the Hunger Games world, there was the slavery of the old system, where the government kept the Districts poor and stole their children to keep the Districts down.
(Now there’s the slavery of being in a system that doesn’t steal your children, but controls your every move — how you spend your time, when what and how much you eat, etc., etc.
(There’s also another slavery, which Katniss doesn’t experience, so we don’t see a lot of, but it exists in the Capitol — where the uber-wealthy, meaningless existence of the Capitol citizens drive them to numb themselves with ridiculous fashions, indulgent parties where they puke in order to eat more, and also drive them to be WAY too invested in entertainment to the point where their own humanity is half-stripped from them.
(Side note: This note reminds me a lot of Thomas Sowell’s the Quest for Cosmic Justice, specifically the part where he talks about how certain activists tried to tear down low-income housing without understanding that many of the residents who lived there did it ON PURPOSE because they wanted to save their money for more important things, like supporting their families back in their home countries, or saving for their children’s futures.
(The activists thought they were doing good, but really they were taking away the residents’ ability to choose for themselves).
Talking to Gale makes Katniss realize that she could ask for hunting privileges as part of her bargain with the leaders of District 13 as well. As the bell rings to “signal the end of [their] eating shift,” Katniss asks Gale to come with her to Command, and as they go, he reminds her to put Buttercup on the list, too, since he doesn’t think “the concept of useless pets is well known here.”
When she arrives, Katniss asks for some writing material to recall what she needs to ask for. The leaders are all a bit surprised she’s actually paying attention for once. Katniss finishes with a last request, to kill Snow herself.
(While this seems like just personal vendetta speaking, it’s going to be an important plot point later. I like how Collins slips in crucial plot points so naturally, there’s an in-story reason for including all the stuff that the out-of-story writer needs to have happen in order for Story to work.)
Katniss finally starts laying out her conditions for being the Mockingjay, and her first request, to keep Buttercup, sets off a mini-firestorm. The Capitol rebels think it’s no biggie, but the rebels from 13 don’t see it that way.
When Katniss asks “for Gale,” Coin and the others matter-of-factly ask her to clarify what she means, including whether or not she wants him “presented as your new lover?” but that idea is quickly shut down, because having her discarding Peeta so quickly would be bad for her public image.
Katniss is rattled by the “implications that I could so readily dispose of Peeta, that I’m in love with Gale, that the whole thing has been an act.”
(So. President Snow was not the only one who wasn’t convinced by Katniss’ lovey-dovey act. Everyone seems to know Peeta loves Katniss for real, but Katniss only loves Prim. Everyone else is questionable when it comes to her, even her mother and Gale.)
Katniss also finds it insulting that they think she’d even be considering the question of a “lover” under the circumstances, and that anger propels her to make her most important demand — that Peeta is pardoned if the rebels win. Instinctively, she extends the protection to the other captured tributes, including Johanna and Enobaria.
(Anger is a pretty strong and reliable motivator/fuel for Katniss’ character throughout these stories. It feels very realistic, though, given who she is and what circumstances she’s in)
Katniss comments (to the reader) that she doesn’t care what happens to Enobaria, really, but she feels it’d be wrong to leave her out.
(This is good. It shows that Katniss still has a sense of humanity — justice and mercy — which makes her prickly personality more stomach-able because we readers still trust in her character. BUT ALSO, it’s actually an important move for the climax of the story, when all the surviving tributes have to take a critical vote.
(And the vote — in order to be sufficiently dramatic — has to come down to just Katniss and Haymitch. You’d need a character like Enobaria to survive until that vote in order to make it all work properly.)
This request makes Coin instinctively say “no,” but Katniss, in rising anger, insists that they will not only be granted immunity, but that Coin will “personally pledge this in front of the entire population…recorded for future generations.”
As Katniss stands in her fury, she hears Fulvia in the back hissing to Plutarch: “That’s her! Right there. With the costume, gunfire in the background, just a hint of smoke.”
(This is kind of funny and kind of sad, and also kind of the point — turning everything into media for the consumption is the modus operandi of our times, and that’s why Hunger Games resonated so hard in this era).
Finally, Coin agrees and Katniss makes her last demand — to kill Snow. Coin gives a hint of a smile, and then says, “When the time comes, I’ll flip you for it.” Katniss finds that fair enough, and now it’s time for Katniss to be put in the capable hands of Plutarch and Fulvia, who will take it from there.
As the two complain about the lack of coffee, Fulvia shows Katniss her design sketches for Katniss’ costume.
(Ha! Of course it’s coffee. What is it about coffee when it comes to Americans? I hear it’s more tea in the UK, although that may have changed by now…)
Katniss sees the designs and recognizes them as Cinna’s. He’d made Fulvia promise not to show Katniss the book until she’d decided to be the Mockingjay on her own.
Plutarch reveals that their goal is to make a series of “propos” (propaganda spots) featuring Katniss. Apparently Beetee has figured out how to hijack the Capitol media.
Plutarch and Fulvia (and Gale, too, because he’s still there, of course), take Katniss down to look at another little surprise.
But as Katniss exits the elevator, she feels like something is wrong. And this is confirmed when a guard tells them they’re in the wrong place. Plutarch is confused, and as he’s talking to the guard, Katniss hears a sound. “Just a tiny whimper. Like something a cowed dog might make to avoid being struck, only all too human and familiar.”
Gale and Katniss exchange a look, and instinctively jump into action — Katniss drops the sketchbook, Gale pretends to help her pick it up, bumps into her, grabs the guard “for balance,” and gives Katniss the opening she needs to check out the door. Inside, she finds her prep team, shackled, bruised, and naked.
(This is a good illustration — albeit slightly late — of why Katniss finds it so hard to let go of Gale, even for Peeta. Readers have really only seen Peeta in action, and Gale is always colored a little bit “less-than” him, but from Katniss’ perspective. Gale is an old, trusted friend, almost like a right hand to her, whereas Peeta is a noble guy, but just too new to her to beat Gale handily, which makes sense with someone like Katniss who has a hard time trusting people)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Buttercup’s eyes reflect the faint glow of the safety light over the door as he lies in the crook of Prim’s arm, back on the job, protecting her from the night.
Closing: That’s my chance. I dart around the distracted guard, push open the door marked 3908, and find them. Half-naked, bruised, and shackled to the wall. // My prep team.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will find out whether or not this agreement between Katniss and Coin will work out…
Payoffs:
- A bit sad, but good to see Primrose growing mature and wise enough to give Katniss advice. Katniss’ sacrifice of her soundness of mind for her sister’s sake turns out to have been worth it in more ways than one.
Complications:
- Although Katniss gets what she wants, more or less, it has raised the stakes for her, because Katniss is not exactly the obedient type by nature, and this time, she will have to muster up some obedience in order to protect Peeta and the others.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Boy oh boy. If you didn’t think the spirit of District 13 leadership was evil, now you have incontrovertible proof.
- It’s a good reminder that in real life, this actually does happen — just because someone fights an evil doesn’t mean they are on the side of good. Sometimes two evils will fight each other, AND goodness at the same time. Like fascism (Hitler) versus communism (Stalin) in WWII, for example.
- But it can be hard, mentally and emotionally, to understand and accept this concept. Which is why I like Hunger Games as a series — it presents difficult/un-palateable-but-true concepts in an entertaining story form which makes it more understandable and palateable.
Chapter 4
In This Chapter
- Katniss rescues her prep team.
- Katniss and Gale have a slight falling out.
Katniss is understandably horrified by the disgusting circumstances in which she finds her prep team. Flavius, Octavia, and Venia are underweight, and cringingly fearful — even of Katniss.
Plutarch tells Katniss that Cinna requested the prep team be sent to Katniss, and Katniss explodes at him that Cinna would never have wanted them to be abused like this. Plutarch and Fulvia are both in shock by the condition of the prep team, too, knowing they were being “confined for stealing food,” but not like this.
Venia reveals that they were incarcerated because Octavia stole a slice of bread, and Katniss is shocked. But the guard is puzzled by her shock. “They were warned. You can’t take bread.”
(This just goes to show the “mundanity of evil.” When you get so used to social norms being a certain way, it’s hard to understand that those norms themselves might not be right or good. Katniss understood this, back in Book 1, when she was feeling horrified and disgusted by how flippantly the Capitol people — including this very same prep team — were treating the entire concept of the Hunger Games, where children fight to the death.
(They had dehumanized the District people so much that they didn’t even realize they were supporting evil. But in the same way, the District 13 people don’t see how cooping up and starving people for a small infraction is also dehumanizing. They all just think it’s normal.
(What makes Katniss more insightful than most other mindless people in her world is that she recognized back then that had she been raised in the Capitol with their social norms, she might have turned out just as callous and insensitive as they, which is why she never took it really personally when her prep team acted the way they did.)
Katniss yells at the guard to unchain her prep team, and when he resists, because she doesn’t have the “authority,” Plutarch steps in.
(Katniss really is a good representation of rebellion. But not just rebellion for the sake of rebellion. It’s wise rebellion against authority that has gone crooked.)
When Katniss takes the prep team home for treatment, her mother views them with consternation, and Katniss knows it’s not just due to their deplorable condition, but “the realization that this sort of thing goes on in 13 as well.”
Katniss tells Plutarch and Fulvia “I guess we’ve all been put on notice.” She points out that punishing her prep team is to show them all “who’s really in control and what happens if she’s not obeyed.”
(SO creepy! And effective)
Plutarch isn’t concerned, saying “Perhaps we’re a little more necessary to the war effort than you give us credit for.”
But Katniss counters: “Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren’t. And then we were very disposable — right, Plutarch?”
(This is a great warning for those who delude themselves into thinking that they can take on a “rebel” role for personal glory or fun or whatever. The idea is: You better fight for the right Revolution and for the right reasons, or else the Revolution will eat you, too. Which the French found out too late, back during the Reign of Terror of the 1790s. And they weren’t alone. Think of how many people the Communist Revolution “ate” in China in the 1950s. Or Cambodia in the 1970s. Or North Korea to this day…)
After that shaky start to her day, Katniss is allowed to go hunting in the afternoon. She and Gale easily bag a bunch of game, as the animals in the area are “not nearly suspicious enough.”
As they relax by a pond while Gale cleans the game, Gale surprises Katniss by asking “Katniss, why do you care so much about your prep team?”
“I open my eyes to see if he’s joking, but he’s frowning down at the rabbit he’s skinning. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Hm. Let’s see. Because they’ve spent the last year prettying you up for slaughter?’ he suggests.
‘It’s more complicated than that. I know them. They’re not evil or cruel. They’re not even smart. Hurting them, it’s like hurting children. They don’t see…I mean, they don’t know…’ I get knotted up in my words.
‘They don’t know what, Katniss?’ he says. ‘That tributes — who are the actual children involved here, not your trio of freaks — are forced to fight to the death?…’
(And this, right here, reminds you that although Katniss and Gale know each other real well, mentally, having hunted together and survived together for years. But fundamentally, at the most basic level, they are not on the same page. They don’t take the same principles for granted. They don’t share the same moral compass. You can see this from how Katniss is surprised by Gale’s question, thinking that he must be “joking,” when he is, in fact, serious.
(It’s not that Gale doesn’t have a bit of a point, in his own way. Ignorance IS a poor excuse for evil. And yet, sometimes it IS a legitimate reason. Which is why our [American] justice system doesn’t automatically hand out the death penalty for every murder, for example. There are cases where people can and have realized the darkness of what they’ve done, and repented for it. In some sense, you could say they were once blind to what they were doing, and are capable of being forgiven. But of course it’s complicated, and it can be hard — near impossible — to tell who is truly depraved beyond redemption and who is not.
(That said, even if Gale is right that Katniss’ prep team should not have been so blind to the suffering of others, it still doesn’t follow that this gives him the moral right to torture them, or to look away while they are being tortured.
(The contempt Gale shows as he calls the prep team ‘freaks’ shows that he does not have the insight Katniss had in Book 1, when she mused that ‘there but for the grace of God, go I,’ although not in those exact words, of course.
(Gale is blinded by his hatred to his own darkness. Katniss is dark too, in some ways, but is more self-aware than Gale is on this issue, and that lessens her darkness. Significantly.
(Ultimately, they are incompatible and cannot end up together if they keep going in the same direction.)
Gale scolds Katniss for “defending them,” and Katniss feels a bit ashamed of herself. She reminds him of how he was tortured once for stealing a turkey and Gale backs down, slightly. “I’m not looking for a fight,” he says. “But I don’t think Coin was sending you some big message by punishing them…She probably thought you’d see it as a favor.”
(Interesting. Gale COULD be right, here. Coin IS cruel, but she is also pragmatic, and it’s highly possible she just assumed [like a lot of cruel people do] that Katniss would be as pragmatic and cold and cruel as herself. Look at how she talked about Peeta and Gale, earlier — talking about them as if they were bargaining pieces rather than human beings with intrinsic worth. It’s how she sees all people, you can tell.
(So it IS possible that Coin “thought she was doing Katniss a favor,” a la Gale’s interpretation. However, I still lean more toward Katniss’ interpretation. Coin may not have been consciously trying to intimidate Katniss and Plutarch and the others with this specific situation, but overall she probably DOES want them to fully buy into her power and status.)
After hunting, Katniss attends the group assembly which is taking place in a huge room called the Collective. It was built for many more people than the thousands who show up, thanks to the pox epidemic that killed so many of the District 13 citizens.
Katniss bumps into Finnick and tells him she asked for immunity for the other tributes, and Finnick says good, he was worried about Annie. Good thing, since Katniss had forgotten to add Annie to the list, so she goes to Coin and asks her to put Annie on the list too.
Coin briskly makes the announcement but included is a veiled threat that any deviance from the mission “either in motive or deed, will be viewed as a break in this agreement.”
In other words, every captured tribute’s life now depend on Katniss.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The stink of unwashed bodies, stale urine, and infection breaks through the cloud of antiseptic.
Closing: “…It follows that any deviance from her mission, in either motive or deed, will be viewed as a break in this agreement. The immunity would be terminated and the fate of the four victors determined by the law of District Thirteen. As would her own. Thank you.” // In other words, I step out of line and we’re all dead.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- Katniss will realize that the way District 13 is trouble, and will have to deal with it somehow.
Payoffs:
- We get to see Katniss’ prep team again! Unfortunately, not under great circumstances…
Complications:
- Katniss’ escape to District 13 may have taken her from the frying pan and into the fire…and the “frying pan” already wasn’t great to bein with.
OTHER COMMENTS
- In this book, the costs are weightier, in some ways, but the hooks are not quite as hook-y. We’re talking about more philosophical matters, and this book lacks the action and edge-of-your-chair feeeling that the first book had (and, to some extent, the second part of the second book). That makes it difficult to make this story a page-turner that you HAVE to read in one sitting. It’s not necessarily bad, but it does make the author’s work harder.
Chapter 5
In This Chapter
- Katniss gets new spiffy weapons, and bombs her first propo
Katniss opens this chapter by reflecting on how she is, once again, a pawn in someone else’s game. First it was the Gamemakers, then President Snow, and now the rebels and Coin.
She is getting spiffed up by her prep team, who look very different from how they were in the Capitol, without their makeup and dyes and colorful clothing.
Katniss has a horrible scar from where Johanna stabbed her to dig out the tracker. It grosses out Fulvia, which Katniss finds exasperating.
At lunch time, Katniss has to show her prep team to the cafeteria, and this elicits quite the reaction from the locals who are shocked by their bizarre appearance.
Gale shows up and makes small talk with the prep team and Katniss, and Katniss relates that the night before she had argued with him over Coin’s implied threat to “counter my demand for the victors’ safety with one of her own.”
Gale argued that Coin needed to not look like she was “caving in to your will,” but Katniss was upset because she “really needed him to be on my side, not Coin’s. How can he not know that?”
(Because, girl, he’s never been entirely on your side…from personal experience, let me tell you that there are people who will put their vengeance and hatred for someone or something else trump their love for you. Those kind of people can never be entirely trustworthy if they don’t change, and they may be impossible to change…)
After the meal, Katniss and Gale go down to see Beetee in Special Defense, and when Gale points out that she’s “still angry,” Katniss retorts that he’s “still not sorry.”
Gale stands with what he said, but Katniss grudgingly acknowledges to herself that this is, after all, one reason why she trusts him — because no one can “dictate” what he thinks.
(To be fair, that IS one of the factors for trustworthiness — an unwillingness to lie to your face. However, it is not the only factor)
Beetee is there, waiting, and he and Gale start talking about snaring hummingbirds, just as a thought exercise.
(Nice foreshadowing for the final part of the book, when a “clever” trap that Gale comes up with inadvertently puts the nail in the coffin for him and Katniss — ruining not only any romantic possibilities, but even their friendship, ultimately. Which had to happen, but is still a bit sad)
All this talk makes Katniss uncomfortable, especially as she recalls how Beetee won his Games — he’d rigged a trap and electrocuted a group of other kids who were hunting him…and stood there watching them die.
“Not his fault. Only self-defense. We were all acting only in self-defense…” Katniss thinks to herself, very unconvincingly. (Because she knows that it wasn’t ENTIRELY self-defense, really. Certainly standing around watching others die is not part of self-defense)
Katniss asks Beetee what she’s here for, and Beetee gives her a new bow. Gale gets one too, a souped-up gadget that is “not fair to the deer,” as Katniss points out. But Gale rejoins that he “wouldn’t be using it on deer, would I?”
And Katniss asks “So it’d be easy for you? Using that on people?”
Gale says not exactly, but he would have used it to prevent people he cared about getting hurt. Katniss agrees, but doesn’t add what she’s learned about how when you kill a person, “they never leave you.”
Katniss’ new bow is controlled by her voice, and gives her increased accuracy over one hundred yards. There are a variety of arrows, too — some are incendiary and even explosive, with different colored shafts.
Next, Katniss goes to the sound stage to get videorecorded. They give Katniss a line to say: “People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!”
(Wow, that motto is multiple levels of stupid. Collins did a good job here writing a super-fake-sounding line that gets across purely via the medium of the written word).
Katniss can’t imagine saying the line unless she was making fun of it, like she did with Effie’s line “may the odds be ever in your favor!” but she does what she’s told.
It is underwhelming.
And this is underscored by Haymitch laughing sarcastically over the intercom in response.
(Haven’t heard from him in a while. Welcome back to the Story, our favorite alcoholic mentor!)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Another force to contend with. Another power player who has decided to use me as a piece in her games, although things never seem to go according to plan.
Closing: Finally, the intercom crackles and Haymitch’s acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, “And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies.”
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will find Katniss figure out her own way to be the Mockingjay, not via this scripted stuff.
Payoffs:
- We see how Katniss simply canNOT bring herself to be inauthentic.
Complications:
- Katniss is uninspiring when given lines to read. This is not great for her agreement with Coin.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Haymitch’s last line is great.
Chapter 6
In This Chapter
- Haymitch reveals Katniss’ secret sauce, so to speak.
- Katniss and Haymitch — sort of — make up.
A day after the failed propo shooting, Katniss is still furious that Haymitch is not only back in spirit, but apparently back in power, to some degree.
(Boy her anger toward him is really quite serious…)
Haymitch convinces everyone else that Katniss cannot do what they want her to do. She’s not capable of swaying anyone’s opinions using their scripts.
Instead, he invites everyone who matters to a meeting. He shows the failed recording from the day before, and then asks if anyone thinks that footage is at all useful.
When no one answers, he says “I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you…where she made you feel something real.”
The suggestions that come out after a pause include:
- When Katniss volunteered for Prim
- When Katniss sang for Rue when she died
- When Katniss drugged Peeta in order to get him medicine to save his life
- Of course, when Katniss held out the berries, which “meant different things to different people.”
(Collins knows what scenes were the real heart-tuggers in her books. None of that was an accident)
Haymitch asks what all these things have in common, and Gale says: “They were Katniss’s. No one told her what to do or say.”
Which leads to Haymitch proposing to throw Katniss into combat again.
Gale points out people think Katniss is pregnant, and Plutarch solves that by saying they’ll spread the word she had a miscarriage from the electric shock in the last arena.
(Nice way of tying up loose ends, although you’d think they should have addressed this a long time ago, while Katniss was wandering around 13 in her “daze”)
Katniss speaks up, saying she wants to go. “And if you’re killed?” asks Coin. “Make sure you get some footage,” Katniss says.
Coin agrees and tells the people to take Katniss to District Eight, with a squad of bodyguards and camera crew.
When everyone leaves, Haymitch asks for some one on one time with Katniss. Gale is reluctant to leave until Katniss says it’s okay, and then Haymitch says “We’re going to have to work together again. So, go ahead. just say it.”
(Very pragmatic / effective / wise. Just get it all out on the table. Side note — it’s fun in stories to watch people who dislike each other work together on a very important project together. I think that’s because in real life this is a really important skill to develop, since you can never be guaranteed that you’ll always get to work with people you like. So watching a more intense version of it in literature can be super helpful).
Both of them more-or-less acknowledge their failure in being unable to save Peeta.
“We’re still in the game,” Katniss says.
“And I’m still your mentor,” Haymitch replies.
(And there it is. This is why this is the third book in the Huner Games series. Because it IS a Hunger Games, albeit without an official arena and all the usual pomp and circumstance. But the principle features are still present — the too-young contestants fighting to the death, the mentorship, the political games, the training and weaponry and strategy…and pretty soon we will also see the environmental traps as well
(To be honest, all human conflict, eg wars, can be seen as a kind of game, really. A costly one for sure, but still a game. There are even theories that the reason why sporting games are so popular is because they are a less-deadly form of war).
Katniss gets fitted out with her fighting equipment, but as they are about to go, Finnick appears in a state of disarray, dressed in a hospital gown, yelling that he isn’t allowed to go with her. Katniss calms him by saying Beetee has a special new trident for him that he needs training with (technically, true that Beetee has a new trident), and also suggests that he might want to put on a pair of pants first.
At this, Finnick takes off the gown and says “Why? do you find this — distracting?” as he strikes a provocative pose.
Katniss laughs at that, since Finnick is sounding more like his old self, although Boggs, who is with her, seems a bit uncomfortable by the whole thing. He commends her on handling the situation well, though, and they head to the hovercraft hangar.
Along the way, Katniss learns a little more about why District 13 didn’t try to fight back against the Capitol and save the other districts — basically they didn’t have the manpower to do so.
(It’s useful how Collins slips in important background information like this in small installments that never get TOO info-dumpy, and pair it with action so the characters aren’t just sitting around doing maid-and-butler dialogue. ←That is a term that I learned from Brandon Sanderson & friends, on dialogue that sounds too unnatural and designed to info-dump)
Katniss and her team get in the hovercraft, and as they fly to District 8, Plutarch tells her what they’re about to get into —
First, all the districts are at war with the Capitol except District 2, which was secretly the Capitol’s center of defense, despite their public reputation as the “home of the nation’s stone quarries.”
Turns out, many of the peacekeepers come from District 2, where people volunteer for the “dull life of deprivation in the districts” in order to expiate debts and escape poverty and the quarries. This is the same reason why District 2 children were “eager to volunteer” in the Games in the past.
Gale asks what the government would be like if they won, and Plutarch describes a constitutional republic like the one America enjoys currently (Because, technically Hunger Games world exists in a dystopian future version of America).
“Don’t look so suspicious; it’s worked before,” Plutarch says.
In books, Haymitch says, clearly still suspicious. Katniss is also unimpressed, but then Plutarch hands out poison pills for everyone, nicknamed nightlock in Katniss’ honor.
Plutarch shows Katniss a tiny pocket at her left shoulder where she can put the pill so that even if her hands are tied, she can still bite the pill free if need be.
(Well, that’s a nicely ominous way to end a chapter…)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The shock of hearing Haymitch’s voice yesterday, of learning that he was not only functional but had some measure of control over my life again, enraged me.
Closing: I examine it and find a tiny pocket that both secures and conceals the pill. Even if my hands were tied, I could lean my head forward and bite it free. // Cinna, it seems, has thought of everything.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will see if Haymitch and Katniss’ truce is enough for them to work together well like before.
Payoffs:
- Haymitch and Katniss are back in the games, so to speak, as mentor and mentee again.
Complications:
- Because Katniss cannot inspire people from a studio, she has to be put back in danger, in a live war zone. This not only risks her safety (we’re not worried about that, thanks to her plot armor), but it risks the safety of secondary characters readers care about, too — like Gale, for example.
OTHER COMMENTS
- Again, it’s interesting how the hooks here are different from the first book and the second half of the second book. The hooks are more subtle here.
- Another thing is the density of the chapters. The word counts are the same or more than before, but the pacing is a lot slower than in previous book, there’s less forward motion for each chapter, a little like the story is being diluted, somewhat. Not in a fluff-adding way, necesssarily. There’s a lot of backround info and inner thouhts from Katniss we need to know, but it does still make a difference.
Chapter 7
In This Chapter
- Katniss visits a makeshift hospital in District 8 and realizes how much power she really has.
- Katniss comes into her own as the Mockingjay.
Katniss is dropped off on the outskirts of District 8 with Gale, Boggs, camera crew, a woman director named Cressida and her assistant, Messalla.
They head toward a makeshift hospital made from a converted warehouse. Katniss panics at the idea of being around all the injured, but Boggs reassures her that all she needs to do is let the injured see her.
A woman sees them — it’s Commander Paylor of Eight, says Boggs. Boggs tells Paylor that Katniss was “in recovery, post-miscarriage” but wants to visit the injured.
Inside the warehouse-hospital, the injured are layered on rows of cots and pallets. The place stinks of wounds and vomit, and Katniss forces herself to let go of Gale and step forward.
As soon as one person finds out that Katniss has arrived, the others begin calling for her. Katniss moves from person to person, murmuring “nothing of importance…but it doesn’t matter. Boggs is right. It’s the sight of me, alive, that is the inspiration.”
Katniss realizes: “I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.”
(Katniss is a great example of learning to work with “having greatness thrust upon you,” a la Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.)
Another thing Katniss realizes is how much power she really has. Snow and Coin and the others realized it long before she did, but now she really understands.
After a while, Katniss and the others leave and Katniss remembers that they’d been filming her. The team chats for a bit, and then Boggs tells everyone they have to go immediately, there’s a problem — incoming bombers.
They start running, but the bombs start falling before they reach the airstrip. Boggs protects Katniss by body-blocking her and keeping her pinned to the ground while bombs rain down around them.
When the bombs stop for a few seconds, they run for it, until the next volley, and now it’s Gale body-blocking Katniss, and they realize at the same time that the bombs are targeting the hospital.
“Not your problem,” Plutarch says, ordering Katniss and Gale to head for the bunker. Haymitch says the same through Katniss’ earpiece, which she rips off.
Gale and Katniss run for a warehouse rooftop ladder and climb to the top. They see a pair of soldiers with Paylor, and the two start shooting at the Capitol bombers with their spiffy new weapons courtesy of Beetee.
Using their old hunting shorthand, Gale and Katniss work together to shoot at the hoverplanes.
When they have done what they could there, Katniss and the others head off the roof and Katniss sees that the bombs have set the hospital on fire, trapping patients inside.
There are people trying to rescue the wounded, but Katniss thinks: “I already know what they will find. If the crushing debris and the flames didn’t get them, the smoke did.”
Katniss is devastated by the cruelty of bombing a hospital and asks why. Gale explains: “Scare others off. Prevent the wounded from seeking help…Those people you met, they were expendable. To Snow, anyway.”
(Very realistic war scenario, when one side does not play by any “rules of engagement”)
Katniss realizes that earlier, when Gale asked Paylor if it was wise to create a warehouse-hospital, “he was not thinking of disease, but this. Because he never underestimates the cruelty of those we face.”
(That’s one of Gale’s strengths and weaknesses — he understands the opposite sides’ cruelty, because he has it himself. Cruelty not in the sense of enjoying others’ suffering but cruelty in the sense of the ability to think coldly, clinically, strategically at the expense of your humanity.
(Just as the Capitol and Snow are able to view humans as expendable pawns, Gale is capable of that, too. The fact that he is on the “right side” in the story is just a bit of lucky chance. He’s fundamentally not morally better than his enemies, although Katniss, to some degree, is — because her mind doesn’t quite go as dark as quickly as his does.
(And Peeta, to an even greater degree, is also morally better, because he rejects that kind of thinking entirely…or at least so it appears from the readers’ perspective so far, lookin through Katniss’ POV.)
While Katniss is digesting this, Cressida tells her that President Snow aired the bombing live as a “message to the rebels.”
Then she says: “What about you? Would you like to tell the rebels anything?”
Of course, Katniss does. “I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors…if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.”
(Thing is, although Snow is portrayed as cold and calculating, THIS is a rather stupid move, if he authorized it. People will hesitate to fight back if they think there’s a chance they can go back to a familiar existence. But if you cut off all their escape routes and basically show them that you would destroy everything they care about, they have nothing left to lose.
(And people who have nothing left to lose, people whose boats have been burned, who know that you will show no mercy if they surrender — those people will never surrender. They will fight like berserkers to the very end. You have just probably signed your own death warrant.)
Katniss ends with: “I have a message for [President Snow.] But…fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”
(A better speech, to be sure, than the lame motto that her team initially came up with. The only thing is, it may be a tad too on-the-nose. I’m not sure how it might be able to be made better, though. The situation as a whole just feels a little bit off…like the author has never been in war nor in a war-room strategizing session — which of course I’m guessing she hasn’t — but it shows more in this book than in the others.
(This is the tricky thing about writing. Sometimes you have to stretch yourself and write about things with which you have very little to no experience. To fill in the gaps, you can of course research primary source documents and interview eye witnesses, that would be ideal. But if you rely on secondary or tertiary reports, it feels less and less real. Research is a really critical thing, for writers.)
Cressida calls “cut!” and that’s a wrap.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: The hovercraft makes a quick, spiral descent onto a wide road on the outskirts of 8.
Closing: “Cut!” Cressida’s voice snaps me back to reality, extinguishes me. She gives me a nod of approval. “That’s a wrap.”
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will see how Katniss taking the stage as the Mockingjay affects the war.
Payoffs:
- We see Katniss acting inspiring again, instinctively.
Complications:
- The cruelty of the Capitol will make this a dirty war. How will Katniss and her loved ones survive? We shall see…
OTHER COMMENTS
- You never forget for a moment that so much of Katniss’ life and fight are happening on screen. It’s no wonder she’s totally confused about how she feels about stuff — most obviously Peeta and Gale, but other things as well — because she’s aware that she’s a performing monkey most of the time, to the point where she herself doesn’t even know her own mind anymore. Oh, and the PTSD doesn’t help, either.
- It reminds me of a rather sad interview I once read with actor Jim Carrey, where he said more or less that he didn’t know who he was, as a person, because he’d played so many roles, so well, that he never really got a chance to figure out himself.
Chapter 8
In This Chapter
- Haymitch threatens Katniss.
- Katniss and Finnick see a broadcast featuring a deteriorating Peeta.
The rest of the hospital collapses, and Boggs directs them all back to the landing strip. He carries Katniss when he assesses that she can’t move on her own, and she pukes on him.
(A little gross humor here, but also realistic to the dark/gritty situation).
When Katniss wakes up, she’s in her bed in the hospital and her mom is caring for her. She feels guilty for not telling her mother and Prim where she was going, but she’s even more concerned about how the people in Command are going to take her little act of insubordination in Eight (ie, running with Gale to the roof to shoot hovercraft when she was ordered to retreat).
But when she arrives at Command in a wheelchair, Messalla beams at her and calls her “our little star” and the others are smiling too. She learns the names of her cameramen — twins Castor and Pollux —
(Sigh. Really?)
— and they wait for the others to arrive.
Katniss notes that Haymitch is “always out of sorts,” Boggs has a plastic mask from getting his nose kicked in by Gale (on accident. Ish), and “Coin and Gale are in the midst of some exchange that seems positively chummy.”
(Bad sign. Very bad sign.)
The meeting begins with Coin replaying the propo that they made, with Katniss yelling “If we burn, you burn with us.”
The assembled crowd begs to see it again, so Coin replays it, and Plutarch says that they were able to override the system to play the propo in all the districts, even Two, “which may be more valuable than the Capitol at this point in the game.”
Coin questions the wisdom in “sending Katniss into actual combat,” and Katniss realizes that Coin doesn’t know the truth about how she and Gale disobeyed orders to run into the thick of things.
Messalla announces that they’re also working on another propo featuring footage of Katniss with the children in the doomed hospital, on the theme of: “Because you know who they are and what they do.”
And another one called “Fire is catching” and “We Remember,” (featuring the dead tributes.
Katniss finds the last one particularly brilliant, to remind people “why they’re fighting.”
After the meeting, Katniss dozes off back in the hospital, only to awake to see Haymitch sitting by her bed. He threatens her to never remove her earpiece again, or else he’ll fit her with something more permanent.
Katniss grumpily agrees to keep the earpiece in, and Haymitch adds: “While I was waiting…I ate your lunch.”
(Of course you did, Haymitch. Of course you did.)
At dinner, Katniss is joined by Finnick who eats with her as they review the newest propos. Just as they are about to turn off the TV, the Capitol starts a program featuring none other than Peeta. He looks terrible — underweiht, shaking, bags under his eyes.
Peeta tells the camera that the rebels are “using” Katniss, and that she doesn’t know what is going on.
“Anything you’d like to tell her?” Caesar Flickerman asks, and Peeta tells the camera: “Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with? Do you really know what’s going on? And if you don’t…find out.”
Finnick kills the power and tells Katniss not to let anyone know that they saw the program. Just talk about the propos, that’s it.
So when Plutarch and Fulvia come to visit, that’s exactly what Finnick and Katniss do.
(Interesting that Finnick has this instinct.)
Comments & Analysis
Opening: Boggs appears and gets a firm lock on my arm, but I’m not planning on running now.
Closing: They look relieved. They believe us. // No one mentions Peeta.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will find out why Finnick told Katniss not to let on to the others that she saw Peeta’s interview on TV. I suspect it’s to do what Peeta said and test the people around them to see who is truly trustworthy — who is going to bring it up on their own?
- We’ll also see how the others react to Peeta’s latest broadcast, when they don’t know Katniss has seen it.
Payoffs:
- Finnick is now solidly a good friend of Katniss’ having trauma-bonded with her, in a sense, based on their experiences in the last arena as well as being in the same predicament (having people they love captured by the Capitol)
Complications:
- If Peeta is being tortured by the Capitol, does he have enough plot armor to survive it?
OTHER COMMENTS
- It’s interesting to see how as Gale becomes more untrustworthy, Katniss grows her friendship with Finnick, who in a way is a temporary stand-in Peeta, wince Peeta is not in the story (mostly) for this entire part, so far.
Chapter 9
In This Chapter
- Katniss and Gale have a falling-out. They make up, uneasily.
All day, Katniss waits for someone to bring up Peeta’s appearance, but no one does. When it’s time to go hunting, Gale is busy with Beetee, so Katniss takes Finnick instead, and they talk about the Peeta broadcast.
(Nice use of plot points for more than one purpose. Because Katniss has freedom to go hunting with Gale, this allows her to take Finnick when Gale is unavailable)
Finnick asks Katniss if Gale has mentioned anything to her about Peeta’s interview, and Katniss shakes her head. She has a bad feeling that he knows, he’s just not talking to her.
At dinner, Katniss has a chance to walk with Gale, but he still doesn’t say anything.
After her mom and sister go to sleep, Katniss holds on to the pearl Peeta gave her and wonders about what he said. If all he said was a scripted line by the Capitol, why wouldn’t the others tell her about it? And what have the Capitol done to Peeta? And does Peeta feel abandoned by her?
(That pearl is more useful than it first appeared)
The next day, Katniss’ anger boils over and Gale realizes it and also knows why. When he says her name, “already the admission of guilt is in his tone.”
“Everyone was afraid that seeing Peeta’s propo would make you sick,” Gale says.
“Not quite as sick as you lying to me for Coin,” Katniss retorts. When Gale’s communicuff beeps, she sarcastically adds: “There she is. Better run. You have things to tell her.”
“For a moment, real hurt registers on his face. Then cold anger replaces it. He turns on his heel and goes. Maybe I have been too spiteful…I don’t care. I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good…”
(This it the difference between different people, even cultures. I know of a family from a more eastern culture, where people regularly tell “white lies” to spare others’ feelings. But in the western culture where I grew up, we’re more often taught that truth is the best policy.
(And the reason why is exactly what Katniss says. Most people really do lie for themselves, not for others. Think about parents who don’t discipline their kids. It’s because they want to avoid the pain of administering discipline and engendering anger and hatred from their children.
(But they do this at the expense of the child’s future well-being, ability to adjust to society, ability to grow up well. Which is why spoiled kids have pretty much no respect for the parents who spoiled them. It’s not just that the kid is spoiled, it’s also that the parent does not deserve their respect for selfishly allowing them to get into that state.)
The agenda for that day is to fly over to District 12 to film more propos. On the hovercraft on the way there, Plutarch tells Katniss that her propos have been working. The rebels have rallied and taken Districts 3 and 11.
The film crew has Katniss and Gale film in the destruction of their former houses, and then take them to the Meadow and the lake. When they break for lunch, Katniss shows Pollux (one of her cameramen) how the mockingjay mimic her whistling. That leads to Katniss singing a full song for the mockingjays, a song called “The Hanging Tree,” which she hasn’t sung in 10 years “because it’s forbidden.”
(Because singing in general is forbidden? Or this song in particular?)
This brings on the memory of when Katniss was small and singing “The Hanging Tree,” which upset her mother, who started to yelling at her father.
Katniss reflects on the meaning of the song lyrics, thinking that it’s about a murderer who has been hung dead and told his lover to flee, but could be asking her to come meet him in death.
Having gone through the Games, Katniss realizes that the song’s narrator may not be as creepy as he first appeared. Perhaps his girlfriend was facing a fate worse than death and he wanted to spare her the suffering?
Katniss realizes suddenly that she’s being filmed by Castor, and then the mockingjay start singing the song, so Katniss stands quietly until she hears Cressida call “Cut!”
Plutarch is pleased with the footage, and then they head back, but are sidetracked to Katniss’ old hunting place. Katniss feels a mix of emotions — anger that ale lied to her, but also some guilt for throwing his apology back in his face. “Why are we always at odds now?…Do I really want to drive him away?”
Katniss somewhat makes up with Gale by tossing him a blackberry and saying the old “may the odds be ever in your favor” line that they always made fun of. (Nice throwback to book one)
Finally, they film in Peeta’s old house and Katniss says: “Peeta, this is your home…you’re calling for a cease-fire? There’s no one left to hear you.”
Katniss heads back to her home in the victor’s Village and doesn’t notice when Gale comes up behind her. He reminds her that she once kissed him when he was beaten half to death and being treated by her mother on this table.
He has tears in his eyes and Katniss kisses him to “keep [the tears] from spilling over.”
(Okay, full confession, in the line above, I accidentally touch-typed “Katniss kills him…” at first. Ha!!)
Gale gives her a “wry smile” and says “I knew you’d kiss me.”
When Katniss asks how, he says: “Because I’m in pain…That’s the only way I get your attention.”
(Well, way to make the readers feel a little for Gale, who at this point is not performing all that well. From his perspective, it really must be pretty annoying and exhausting chasing a girl all over the place who is so muddled in her head that she can’t return your feelings properly)
Katniss is “too weary” to work out what Gale means by all that, so they all head back to 13 while Plutarch waxes eloquent about historical weapons they no longer have access to.
(It’s kind of ironic that this world has such high tech that they’re able to design entire deadly arenas complete with cameras that watch everyone 24/7…but don’t have high-flying planes and military satellites and drones? Really? Especially the drones???)
Back in 13, Katniss ignores her schedule and takes a nap in the supply closet (this is a great laugh-out-loud moment, after all the heavy emotional stuff earlier).
After dinner, she bumps into Boggs, who says she’s wanted in Command. Katniss is told that Beetee has potentially discovered a way to break into the nationwide feed to air propos in the Capitol, as well.
They start the TV, and Katniss sees Peeta sitting next to snow. Peeta talks about the need for a cease-fire, citing various disasters from broken dams to a derailed train spilling toxic waste, to a granary caught on fire.
Suddenly, Peeta’s image is interrupted by Katniss’ — Beetee has broken in. The rebels in the Command room cheer as Beetee shares several 5–10-second clips, but Katniss, Finnick, and Haymitch don’t. They know that Peeta is in even deeper trouble.
Finally, the screen goes back to Snow and Peeta and and Snow asks Peeta if he has anything to say to Katniss Everdeen.
Peeta says, with great effort: “Katniss…how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe…you…in Thirteen…Dead by morning!”
Katniss hears Snow order “End it!” and then Beetee throws in more interrupting shots from the propo. In between the propos, Katniss sees that the camera that was filming Peeta is kicked to the floor. There are the sounds of blows, and then blood spattering the tiles.
Comments & Analysis
Opening: I stop trying to sleep after my first few attempts are interrupted by unspeakable nightmares.
Closing: The camera knocked down to record the white tiled floor. The scuffle of boots. The impact of the blow that’s inseparable from Peeta’s cry of pain. // And his blood as it splatters the tiles.
PROMISES & PAYOFFS
Promises:
- We will see what happens to Katniss and Gale’s relationship. (Watch it disintegrate, more accurately…)
Payoffs:
- We see that the pearl Peeta gave Katniss in the second arena isn’t just a random throwaway gift. She’s still using it to remember him.
Complications:
- Katniss can’t easily trust Gale anymore. They are growing apart.
OTHER COMMENTS
- You have to be careful when ratcheting up the intensity of a story like the Hunger Games. If you go too far for too long, (too much darkness and despair and so on and so forth), you burn out readers’ empathy and interest. I think Book 3 really dances on that edge in many places, and in some areas, crosses the line.
- The political-psychological stuff is also another fragile thing to balance.
- It’s also clever how the author severs Katniss from Gale. It’s not done overnight, which would be unrealistic, but instead there’s a chipping away at that foundation of trust and shared values. If Katniss had never been taken into the Games, she and Gale may have made good partners in life. But after the events of the Games have changed her — or perhaps tempered her in a way different to how Gale is tempered — they are no longer truly suitable for each other (or perhaps you could say that their fundamental incompatibility is exposed and highlighted), and the author shows that change rather realistically and effectively.
Writing Tips & Practical Application
Because learning doesn’t happen until you change something you do…
- Learn political history: Read some books on politics, history, and economics. Ideally something weighty. And also from more than one perspective. Consider what you’ve learned and if any of it might be useful to your writing.
- Write a disintegrating relationship: These can be painful to write and read, but when they’re done well, they’re un-ignorable. Brainstorm a relationship that ought to be close (siblings, spouses, family, friends, whatever), and then think of ways it can be broken. What elements would make it particularly poignnat and painful (though still believable?)
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