How to write a successful novel trilogy finale— Hunger Games 3: Mockingjay (Part 2) by Suzanne Collins

This is the penultimate installment in the Original Hunger Games trilogy deep-dive and book analysis!

In it, we explore the brainwashing of Peeta, the unraveling (or revelation) of Gale’s Dark Side, and the philosophy of war and vengeance.

And we look at it all from the perspective of writers looking to hone their writing and storytelling skills.

Here, take a look!

• Book 3: Part 1
• Book 3, 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 as well: 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

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BOOK NOTES

Chapter 10

In This Chapter

• All of District 13 take shelter underground after Peeta’s warning
• Prim comforts Katniss, who is worrying about Peeta being tortured

Part I of the book ended with Peeta yelling out on TV that District 13 will be “dead by morning!” and then being beaten bloody as the camera falls to the floor.

Katniss tries to scream, but can’t, and Haymitch yells at everyone that Peeta is warning them, they need to get to safety NOW.

When someone questions Haymitch, he points out that “they’re beating him bloody while we speak. What more do you need?”

Katniss backs him up, and Coin calls a District-wide alarm.

Katniss and the others are herded even deeper underground to the bunkers.

(Very handy that they just so happen to have these underground bunkers ready for such a time as this)

Plutarch warns Katniss that everyone will be looking to her to figure out how to act. “If you’re calm and brave, others will try to be as well. If you panic, it could spread like wildfire…”

(Psychologically, this is true. People watch their leaders to know how to react to things)

Katniss is irritated by Plutarch’s over-cheerfulness as he adds “look at the courage Peeta just displayed!” and follows the instructions for reaching her bunker and grabbing supplies.

Katniss waits for her mother and Prim, but her mom shows up and Prim is still missing. Katniss realizes Prim must have gone back for the cat, and Katniss races to her as the people start closing the thick metal doors.

Just in time, Prim runs to them with Buttercup the cat, and Katniss is angry but relieved that Prim is okay. Katniss tells the cat “I should’ve drowned you when I had the chance.” And the cat flattens his ears, but “I hiss before he gets a chance, which seems to annoy him a little, since he considers hissing his own personal sound of contempt.”

This makes Prim come to Buttercup’s defense, and Katniss comments:

“The idea that I’ve wounded the brute’s tiny cat feelings just invites further taunting. But Prim’s genuinely distressed for him. So instead, I visualize Buttercup’s fur lining a pair of gloves, an image that has helped me deal with him over the years.”

(This is funny. And also, Katniss seems to be demonstrating a bit of more stereotypically masculine sentiments here, the idea of skinning cats and mocking those who are weaker — either to build them up or tear them down — is usually more in the purview of teen guys than girls, which is interesting…)

After Prim leaves, Katniss turns and bumps right into Gale, who’s holding medical supplies that were originally from Katniss’ family’s kitchen in 12. “Site of our last conversation, kiss, fallout, whatever.”

(Interesting that Katniss herself is getting tired of the melodrama of the will-they-or-won’t-they romance-thing with Gale, as demonstrated by her use of the word “whatever.” 

(That’s a little bit like lemon acid to cut the cloying fat. Collins is a pretty “aware” writer, she knows when to tone it down and how to do it with humor so it works even better)

Katniss and her family make their way to their bunker room and Coin is just announcing that this is not a drill, that Peeta has warned them of a possible attack, when her announcement is interrupted by a bomb.

After the shock of it wears off a bit, Prim explains that it was probably a bunker missile, designed to “penetrate deep in the ground before they go off. Because there’s no point in bombing Thirteen on the surface anymore.”

They stay underground to wait out the attack and while Katniss’ mom goes to help those who need medical assistance, Katniss and Prim stay in their bunker, where Katniss reflects that she’s glad to have some time to spend with Prim — she’s been so distracted and preoccupied lately.

Prim tells Katniss she’s probably going to be trained to be a doctor, and Katniss feels “something small and quiet, like a match being struck, lights up the gloom inside me. This is the sort of future a rebellion could bring.”

Then it’s Katniss’ turn to tell Prim about Peeta and his “deterioration on-screen, and how I think they must be killing him at this very moment.”

Prim comforts Katniss as she runs out of words. “there’s this piercing sort of pain where my heart is. Maybe I’m even having a heart attack, but it doesn’t seem worth mentioning.”

(Katniss’ ability to have a sense of humor — even gallows humor — is another major point in her favor. In terms of survival, and in terms of reader-likeability)

Prim tells Katniss that she doesn’t think Snow will kill Peeta because “if he does, he won’t have anyone left you want. He won’t have any way to hurt you.”

This triggers a memory of what Johanna said, back in Book 2, how she has no one left that she loves.

But then what does Snow want with Peeta? Katniss wonders aloud. “Whatever it takes to break you,” Prim replies.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: The scream begins in my lower back and works its way up through my body only to jam in my throat.

Closing: Prim sounds about a thousand years old when she speaks. // “Whatever it takes to break you.”

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out what is happening to Peeta.

Payoffs:

• Prim is really coming in to her own as a mature young lady, even though she’s still a child, really. She’s not a mere plot-mechanism to stir Katniss to action, she is her own person in this book, which is good to see.

Complications:

• Peeta was persona non grata for calling for a cease-fire, but he also warned District 13 about the Capitol attack
• And now he’s possibly being beaten to death off camera

OTHER COMMENTS

• What’s interesting about all of this is that this kind of distance-torture would not work on Katniss if she didn’t care about Peeta. And not just care, but care deeply / love.
• So Snow, who told Katniss in book 2 that he “saw through” her act and wanted her to “convince him” that she DID love Peeta (and wasn’t just trying to survive)…actually was convinced, despite the subtle head-shake he gave her at the party. It is because he believes Katniss loves Peeta that he chose to kidnap and torture Peeta to get at her. Ironic, eh?

Chapter 11

In This Chapter

• District 13 survives the bombing by the capitol, and Prim’s cat entertains the citizens
• Katniss talks to Finnick about “how Snow operates.”
• Katniss has a mental breakdown, and D13 decides to attempt a rescue operation.

All in all, there are five bunker missiles that fall over District 13, spread out over many hours “so that just when you think the raid is over, another blast sends shock waves through your guts.”

Katniss figures the bombs are designed to keep the people in lockdown than to utterly destroy the district, since, after all, “you don’t destroy what you want to acquire in the future.”

Most likely, Katniss thinks, the bombings are meant to keep Katniss off the television.

(Post 2020, the word “lockdown” has a totally different feeling than when I first read this book…)

Everyone in the bunker keeps to their strict schedules, and Katniss says that her family’s space becomes popular because everyone’s fascinated with Buttercup. Katniss even accidentally starts an “evening game of Crazy Cat” by wiggling a flashlight beam around on the floor, which Buttercup tries to catch.

“I’m petty enough to enjoy it because I think it makes him look stupid. Inexplicably, everyone here thinks he’s clever and delightful.”

(Katniss really is not a stereotypical girl’s girl. Not hyper-feminine or even VERY feminine, although she has her own kind of femininity. Most girls would find a cat chasing a flashlight cute. But she thinks it makes Buttercup look stupid, and finds the other people’s adoration of the cat “inexplicable.” Ha! 

(It’s kind of interesting to put her in a romance subplot, actually. She really doesn’t have strong romantic feelings about people. The kind of love that she excels in is “storge — familial love.” Even with both Peeta and Gale, Katniss’ love for them really seems more familial than romantic — for example, kissing them only for the cameras or to comfort or help them in some way, never because she just wants to kiss them— which is somewhat unusual for teen novels, and interesting)

On the third night of lockdown, Katniss realizes that Crazy Cat is a metaphor for her situation. She is the cat, and the flashlight is Peeta. The cat keeps chasing the light, thinking there’s a chance he might catch it, but when Katniss puts the light so high that it’s unreachable, the cat goes crazy, pacing and wailing, and Katniss realizes this is what Snow is trying to do to her now.

(Way to tie in a metaphor using a cat game in the book!) 

“Thinking that Peeta was in his possession and being tortured for rebel information was bad. But thinking that he’s being tortured specifically to incapacitate me is unendurable.”

(Even if Katniss didn’t love Peeta, this would still be horrible for her, given the fact that Katniss already has a District 12/Seam sense of honor, where she hates owing people for significant things, like her own life and the lives of her loved ones)

At night, when everyone goes to sleep, Katniss goes to find Finnick, who is sitting up, “knotting his rope, not even pretending to rest.”

“This is what they’re doing to you with Annie, isn’t it?” Katniss asks him, and he confirms: “Well, they didn’t arrest her because they thought she’d be a wealth of rebel information.”

Finnick apologizes that he didn’t warn her about “how Snow operates,” then adds: “It’s just that I didn’t understand when I met you. After your first Games, I thought the whole romance was an act on your part…But it wasn’t until Peeta hit the force field and nearly died that I — ”

(Interestingly, it’s all the cynical people — Finnick, Haymitch, Snow, even Katniss herself, etc — who think that Katniss’ romance with Peeta in their first Games was all an act. And they were mostly right. Katniss fools the Capitol audience easily, but not so much the people who have known significant suffering and evil in their lives.)

And this is when Katniss realizes that she has actually done what Snow told her to do, and convinced him that she did love Peeta. “And in doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me.”

Katniss asks Finnick how he bears it, and he shoots her a look of disbelief: “I don’t, Katniss! Obviously, I don’t…” and then he adds some advice: “Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

(BOY is that true. Maybe not even 10x, depending on how fallen-apart you are. Maybe 100x. Maybe more than a lifetime’s worth of time can afford you…But good advice, Finnick)

Katniss spends the rest of the night knotting ropes next to Finnick, on his advice to distract herself as much as possible.

The next day, Coin announces that they all can leave the bunker. Their old places of residence have been destroyed, and there are new compartments to move into.

Boggs shows up and grabs Katniss, Gale, and Finnick to a new Command room, where Coin, Plutarch, Haymitch, and others already are.

Immediately, the president tells Katniss and Finnick that they have to suit up and get aboveground to get footage of the damage from the bombing and to show that “the Mockingjay is still alive.”

Finnick asks for coffee, and then offers Katniss sugar cubes, in the same way he did when they first met, and Katniss notes: “I catch Gale watching me and Finnick unhappily. What now? Does he actually think something’s going on between us? Maybe he saw me go to Finnick’s last night. I would’ve passed the Hawthornes’ space to get there. I guess that probably rubbed him the wrong way…Well, fine…Gale can think whatever he wants.”

(Another great callback to Book 2. Also, Gale is…interesting. We will definitely see this moment playing an important plot role in the future. 

(Also, Katniss had to go to Finnick and not Gale for this situation, because Gale can’t empathize the way Finnick can, and Finnick has no romantic attachments to Katniss, which makes things less complicated with him. It’s another case of building that wedge between Katniss and Gale which will finally break them apart once and for all in the end.

(Katniss’ exasperation with Gale is kind of fun, here, since the reader has long been exasperated with him.

(Also, side note: A hawthorn is a thorny shrub, commonly used for hedges. Hmm…thorns, hedges…symbolism?)

Katniss and Gale and the others arrive above ground, and they see giant craters from the bombs. Haymitch asks how much of an edge Peeta’s warning gave them, and Boggs says about ten minutes.

Those ten minutes probably saved Prim and Gale, Katniss realizes, who were some of the last ones in the bunker: “Peeta might have saved them. Add their names to the list of things I can never stop owing him for.”

When they approach the ruins of the Old Justice Building for filming, Katniss sees the ground littered with fresh pink and red roses, and realizes they’re a message from Snow.

She recognizes that the fact that the roses are not white, but pink and red, mean that they are “flowers not meant for one, but for a pair of lovers.” They were the same flowers that were on set during her post-victory interview with Peeta. She knows this move is “designed to unhinge” her.

And Katniss’ anxiety gets the best of her. Shaking and unable to speak, Katniss starts crying and Plutarch asks quietly what’s wrong with her. Finnick tells him, and everyone seems to sigh, as they realize that their Mockingjay is “broken.”

Several people try to comfort Katniss, but she only wants Haymitch “because he loves Peeta, too.”

(This is an interesting point. Having someone in common that you love bonds two people, just as sharing similar experiences or characteristics do) 

Haymitch tries to soothe her, and eventually they drug her with a hypodermic needle.

(Okay, while this is convenient for the book transitions, these people are far too trigger-happy with their hypodermic needle delivered sleeping drugs…)

When Katniss awakes, she sees Haymitch, who tells her that they’re going to try to get Peeta out. Why didn’t they try before? Katniss asks, and Haymitch says it’s because it was too costly — “covers will be blown, people may die. But keep in mind that they’re dying every day.”

But everyone has agreed to do it because “it’s the same choice we made in the arena. To do whatever it takes to keep you going. We can’t lose the Mockingjay now. And you can’t perform unless you know Snow can’t take it out on Peeta.”

They’ll also be getting Annie out for Finnick, who recently had another mental breakdown right after Katniss did.

Boggs is leading the charge, and Haymitch says the team was volunteer only. Haymitch volunteered but Boggs “pretended not to notice me waving my hand in the air. See? He’s already demonstrated good judgment.”

Katniss senses something is wrong, since Haymitch is “trying a little too hard to cheer me up.” And then she asks who else volunteered.

Haymitch says “You know who else, Katniss.”

And of course, it’s Gale.

(Why does Gale do it, do you suppose? It could be out of noble motives, trying to rescue innocent Peeta from the evil Capitol, but based on what we’ve seen of Gale’s character, it’s more likely that he’s running this potential suicide mission in order to prove himself and perhaps win back Katniss’ attention and affection. See? The scene with Finnick has paid off already)

Comments & Analysis

Opening: What will break me? // This is the question that consumes me over the next three days as we wait to be released from our prison of safety.

Closing: “You know who else, Katniss. You know who stepped up first.” // Of course I do. // Gale.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We’ll see whether Gale survives the extraction attempt, and Peeta and Annie, for that matter.

Payoffs:

• The odd look that Finnick gave Katniss in Book 2 after Peeta hits the force field finally makes sense. Although readers probably could have guessed, as well.
• It’s just confirmed in this chapter that that was the moment Finnick realizes Katniss really does love Peeta, at least in some form.

Complications:

• Gale has put himself in danger in order to join the attempt to save Peeta. Katniss could possibly lose them both. All sorts of stuff could happen.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Okay. I have never been a fan of love triangles in any story or medium, and the melodrama is starting to be too much for me. Still, I can see how in some places it does thicken up the plot, so I try to hold my tongue, but the longer this drama drags on, the more tempted I am to roll my eyes, repeatedly, and that’s really not a reaction you want to evoke in readers.
• Of course, I’m not really the target audience for this book/series, necessarily. At least, not anymore, so that may not matter. Let’s put on our clinical analysis hat and keep going.
• It’s also fun to see Katniss and Finnick developing a genuine, solid friendship. Finally she has an important peer-age guy in her life who isn’t in the love-triangle and with whom she can just talk to about important things. He’s almost like a brother to her at this point, since they’ve gone through and are going through the same things.
• I wasn’t a huge fan of Finnick the first time I read this book, but upon re-reading, he’s growing on me, which is a bit of a pity, because we re-readers know what happens to him later.
• Another thing: Gale seems to be viewing the whole triangle as a competition in which Katniss’ love and trust is a prize. He’s probably volunteered for the attempt because he
• But the problem with Gale is that he’s too death-happy, a bit like Katniss, though she’s nowhere near as intense as he is, even though arguably she’s suffered more. His focus is not so much on preserving goodness and life (including his own), but on making sure that the ones he hates suffer for their evil deeds, even if he has to die to get what he wants. It’s not a good focus.

Chapter 12

In This Chapter

• Katniss and Finnick provide a diversion for President Snow and the capitol by revealing deep, dark, juicy secrets
• Katniss finds out what happened to Haymitch’s family and friends
• The extraction mission is a success, and Peeta and Annie are back, although not all is as desired…

Haymitch offers to have Katniss sedated until the mission to save Peeta is over.

(Boy, what a mentor, offering to knock Katniss out just as he has been knockingg himself out all these years with alcohol. 

(There are times when Haymitch is super clever, but not necessarily wise…but the complexity is what makes his character so interesting.)

This causes Katniss to suddenly wonder what happened to Haymitch’s family and friends? How did he end up as the antisocial loner he was when they first started working together?

(Good timing, because Katniss is about to find out)

Katniss refuses the sedation offer and instead wants to catch up and join the mission. Of course, that’s impossible. As Haymitch says, she’s too weak and too valuable.

Katniss begs Haymitch for something to do, and Haymitch agrees to ask.

While he’s gone, Katniss sees Finnick and explains what’s going on, and to her surprise, that calms him down.

“Don’t you see, Katniss,” he explains, “this will decide things. One way or the other. By the end of the day, they’ll either be dead or with us.”

(It’s interesting that he puts these two options out as the only two options. Of course, there’s really MORE than two options, but the author is clever to anchor readers’ expectations. We don’t really THINK they’re all going to die, because how else is the author going to keep people’s interest in the story if Peeta dies at this point? Maybe she could, but it would be monumentally difficult. 

(On the other hand, they can’t just get Peeta back and have everything be dandy again — that would be too easy. There must be a third option, and that’s why we keep reading, to find out what that third option is)

Haymitch returns and informs Finnick and Katniss that they need post-bombing footage. Something that will distract even President Snow himself. What could they do?

Katniss decides to talk about Peeta. She has Cressida cue her, “and then I do the thing that Haymitch has wanted since my first interview. I open up.”

She tells the true story of how Peeta saved her life by throwing her bread, and then says that the Capitol is fragile, dependent on the Districts. She declares her freedom, and everyone “loves the bread story.”

Then Plutarch calls Finnick, and he takes the seat to reveal his deepest darkest secrets —

President Snow sold Finnick and other “desirable victors” as prostitutes in the Capitol. If anyone refused, he killed someone they loved. Over time, Finnick learned to use this to his advantage, by collecting secrets from his so-called “lovers.”

Finnick starts spilling all these lurid secrets, and Katniss can tell that no one can ignore the juicy gossip he is sharing, especially when he talks about President Snow, who rose to power through poisoning his rivals. Snow protected himself by drinking the poison as well, using an antidote to stay alive. But even the antidote isn’t enough to cover the bloody mouth sores that he deals with.

When Finnick finishes, he’s led off by Plutarch to chat, and Katniss turns to Haymitch. “Is that what happened to you?”

Haymitch says no. His family and girlfriend were killed two weeks after his victory because of the stunt he pulled to win. Snow was using him as the example to future victors “of what could happen to a victor who caused problems.”

In the afternoon, Beetee and his team hijack the TV airwaves and broadcast Finnick’s “salacious and gory account of the Capitol” to everyone.

After an hour, it’s done. Beetee then shows Finnick and Katniss the plan to rescue Peeta and the other captives in the Capitol. The plan is so complex, Katniss doesn’t quite understand it, which Beetee sees as a good sign.

Then Finnick and Katniss are left to their own devices, killing time while waiting for the mission to be completed.

Around midnight, Haymitch arrives and says that they’ve returned. They see Johanna, unconscious on a gurney, then Gale being worked on by a doctor “wounded but alive” but when Katniss calls to him, a nurse pushes her away.

And then someone calls Finnick’s name. Finnick sees Annie and runs for her, and Katniss is a little jealous “not for either Finnick or Annie but for their certainty. No one seeing them could doubt their love.”

Then, the one everyone is waiting for — Boggs tells Katniss that Peeta has been rescued too, and is in the room at the end of the hall, recovering from the gas.

Katniss is giddy as she thinks: “What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He’ll probably be kissing me anyway…”

(Is it just me or does this sound too presumptuous? That may be the point, though. Sharp readers will probably expect something wildly opposite to ecstatic kissing just because it’s mentioned right here. However, it still does make Katniss feel a little cringe in this moment…even if it works, plot-structure-wise)

So when Katniss enters the room and Peeta leaps toward her, she runs to give him a hug, only for him to grab her by the throat.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Today I might lose both of them. // I try to imagine a world where both Gale’s and Peeta’s voices have ceased.

Closing: My lips are just forming his name when his fingers lock around my throat.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will find out what happened to Haymitch’s family and friends.

Payoffs:

• We finally learn more of Finnick’s past and are told an important secret about President Snow — how he used poison to get to where he is now

Complications:

• Peeta is not himself.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Nice cliffhanger.
• Really makes you want to turn the page, for sure.
• But extremely out-of-character for Peeta.
• Will take a lot of explaining / reasoning to make this twist work.

Chapter 13

In This Chapter

• Peeta’s aggressive actions are explained.
• Katniss discovers Beetee and Gale working on psychological weapons of war.
• They try to rehabilitate Peeta

Katniss recovers from her near-strangulation by Peeta in the hospital.

(Boy, she has really been spending a lot of time in the hospital in this book!)

She relates that Boggs saved her by knocking Peeta out before “any permanent damage could be done.” Peeta had caught Haymitch off guard. He has been “hijacked,” a term that means that the Capitol had tortured him using tracker jacker poison to change his memories, and make all of his memories of Katniss painful and scary.

Prim is beside Katniss, taking care of her. She stood up to Plutarch who tried to make her leave, and Haymitch stood up to her, so she stays.

She asked Beetee, who was explaining the hijacking process, if it can be reversed, but no one knows.

“Of course, we’ll try, Prim” Beetee assures her, but “we don’t know to what degree we’ll succeed. If any,” because “fearful events are the hardest to root out. They’re the ones we naturally remember the best”

(Scientifically, this is true. Anytime you can make a story more true-to-life / reality, you make it more convincing, so it’s great for storytelling that Collins puts this in here.)

Plutarch reported that Peeta’s stylist team were executed on live TV. This news makes Katniss want to cry, which leads to her gasping, and they have to sedate her again.

When Katniss is discharged, Prim takes her back to their family’s compartment, and reassures her that the Capitol has only had Peeta for weeks, but “the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don’t give up on him.”

Katniss realizes that Prim has “inherited the best qualities our family has to offer” from their mother’s healing abilities to her father’s level-headedness and Katniss’ own “fight.”

When Prim returns to the hospital, Katniss goes down to Special Defense, where she finds Gale with Beetee. They have been using Gale’s knowledge of psychology and hunting to create booby-traps. One of the ideas is a bomb that explodes, drawing medics to run to the aid of the wounded, and then setting off a second bomb to kill the rest.

“That seems to be crossing some kind of line. So anything goes?” Katniss asks. Beetee looks confounded while Gale seems hostile.

When Katniss comments that there’s no “rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being,” Gale points out that they’ve been following the “same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta.”

(Ooh, boy. Gale’s dark side is REALLY coming out here. This story could be “the downfall of Gale” or perhaps “the revelation of Gale.” 

(Killing an enemy in war is one thing, especially when you’re doing it in defense of the innocent. But using the best characteristics of humanity, like compassion, and turning it against them is destructive on another level — it’s literally evil. 

(Way to strip away Gale’s sympathetic-ness so that readers won’t be too upset when Katniss dumps him eventually)

This makes Katniss leave, where she’s found by Haymitch who wants her to come with him to the hospital.

Apparently, they’re trying a new technique to help Peeta: by sending “the most innocuous person from Twelve they can come up with…someone Peeta might share childhood memories with,” but who isn’t too close to Katniss.

The doctors end up choosing Delly Cartwright, a girl who lost her parents in the bombing of Twelve, but who grew up with Peeta and has a very sweet temper.

Katniss sees Delly and they chat a little bit, and Plutarch comments that Delly has known Peeta for a long time.

“Oh yes! We played together from when we were little. I used to tell people he was my brother,” Delly says.

(Ha. Needed to put that in there in order not to complicate things with a potential other love triangle. Especially since Delly is portrayed as so much sweeter and more innocent and friendly than Katniss, so far…)

When Haymitch asks if Delly might bring up any memories of Katniss for Peeta, Katniss says they didn’t “overlap much” in class, and Delly says that she “never dreamed [Katniss] would notice me…everyone admired her so.”

At this, Katniss notes:

“Haymitch and I both have to take a hard look at her face to double-check if she’s joking. To hear Delly describe it, I had next to no friends because I intimidated people by being so exceptional. Not true. I had next to no friends because I wasn’t friendly. Leave it to Delly to spin me into something wonderful.”

And so Delly goes in and tries to chat with Peeta, and all is well at first, although when Peeta asks where he is and why, Delly has to skirt around the question to avoid mentioning the destruction of Twelve and of his entire family.

But Peeta figures out that Twelve burned down, and blames it on Katniss. He gets so agitated that they pull Delly out as Peeta yells: “Don’t trust her, Delly…I did, and she tried to kill me. She killed my friends. My family. Don’t even go near her! She’s a mutt!…A stinking mutt!”

(Unfortunately, “mutt” always takes me out of the story. That’s one of the dangers of using a word that actually is used commonly in the real world, and trying to put your own nuances on it in the story world. “Mutt” makes me think of a cute little chihuahua-bulldog mix or something. Similar-sounding/looking words that come to mind include “mitts” “muffins” “mug” and “mud.”

(In other words — It doesn’t quite work as an insult, it’s too soft. 

(Same problem with Harry Potter’s “mudblood” insult. It’s made of two common words, neither of which are particularly emotionally charged, and doesn’t really have the same shock factor as a real-world “bad word” like the n-word, for instance. 

(It might have been more effective for Peeta to scream, here: “she’s a murderer!” or “traitor”…especially if that’s exactly the opposite of everything Katniss has been trying to be. 

(Also, adding the “stinking” to “mutt” just makes the entire thing even more ridiculous and actually kind of funny, when you don’t want it to be funny — it takes you out of the story)

Katniss is of course injured by all this, narrating: “Not only does he hate me and want to kill me, he no longer believes I’m human. It was less painful being strangled.”

Katniss tells Haymitch she can’t stay here and be the Mockingjay anymore. She wants to go to the Capitol.

Plutarch counters that they can’t do that until all the districts are secure. Luckily, “the fighting’s almost over in all of them but Two” which is a “tough nut to crack.”

So, fine, Katniss says. Send me there, then.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: The cold collar chafes my neck and makes the shivering even harder to control.

Closing: That’s right. First the districts. Next the Capitol. And then I hunt down Snow. // “Fine,” I say. “Send me to Two.”

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see Katniss as a soldier in District 2.
• We will see if Peeta recovers from his torture-induced hatred of Katniss, or if he will spiral and turn evil.

Payoffs:

• After being almost unrealistically kind and good to Katniss, even when she’s being a bear and doesn’t deserve kindness, Peeta has finally turned “mean” to her.
• It might be a tad too much, but to be fair, Katniss has some of this coming.

Complications:

• Now that Peeta hates Katniss enough to try to kill her, how are they ever going to be friends again? Will this ruin them as a duo forever?

OTHER COMMENTS

• One thing I have learned is that you want to be careful with twists and how you reveal them. There is a time for plotting out a story and asking yourself “What is the MOST unexpected / shocking thing that could happen here?” and then work backwards to try and make it happen so that readers are surprised.
• But surprise is not the ONLY emotion you want to elicit to keep people not just reading but emotionally invested in your story.
• Delight, for example, is one of those other emotions that you want to try to evoke to grab your readers’ hearts.
• In dystopian novels, though, that’s an ingredient that’s in short supply (Collins does it with her insertion of dark humor here and there, as well as her luxurious descriptions of food and pageantry in the Capitol, in previous books).
• Pathos / poignancy is good, too, which Collins does with moments like when Katniss pushes Prim aside to volunteer as tribute, or when Peeta does the same in Book 2, to Haymitch in order to protect Katniss.
• But back to surprise:
• There’s always a pros/cons cost-benefit analysis you have to run when you do something surprising and uncharacteristic.
• Like in this case, Collins has Peeta try to kill Katniss. It’s completely out of the blue, for the reader as well as Katniss herself, because we’ve never seen this kind of behavior — not only from Peeta but from anyone else who might have been hijacked…because we haven’t seen or even heard of anyone being hijacked before (it might have helped if we did see it with a different character, because prior to this, we readers weren’t aware that mental hijacking was a potential concept in this world).
• But it’s also highly uncharacteristic of Peeta, whose function and mission in the book has always been completely focused on helping Katniss, saving Katniss, even at the expense of not only his life, but his heart as well (remember how he offered her the locket with Gale’s picture in it?).
• Peeta was the epitome of selfless love with Katniss as the object of that love, and so having him turn on Katniss is extremely surprising — shocking, even. To the point where it could be construed as unbelievable.
• So I’m not sure that the “pro” of having that shocking twist outweighs the “con” of it being so entirely out of character (even though it’s immediately explained in the following chapter as hijacking, aka brainwashing).
• Oh of course, Collins makes it make more sense as the story goes on, and the plot of the book arguably requires something like this shocking reversal in order to work properly.
• But it’s a good reminder to writers of stories to consider REALLY CAREFULLY the cost-benefit analysis of the big twists and shockers in your own books — are they done (set up, hinted at, structured) well enough that you draw the readers in even more? Or if not, does the rest of the story unfold in such a way that they will forgive you for it in the end?

Chapter 14

In This Chapter

• Katniss arrives in the mountainous District 2 to tape more propaganda.
• Gale arrives and has a heart-to-heart convo with Katniss.
• Gale comes up with a controversial way to defeat District 2.

The chapter begins with Katniss’ description of the setup of District 2. It’s a “series of villages spread across the mountains,” each associated with a mine or quarry, and the center of the district “is a virtually impenetrable mountain that houses the heart of the Capitol’s military.”

Katniss and the rebels nickname this mountain the “Nut,” based on Plutarch calling District 2 “a tough nut to crack.” This mountain is the Capitol’s new military base, a “natural fortress.”

Katniss stays for a few days, visiting the wounded, taping “propos,” and enjoying her lack of the rigid schedule she had in 13. She also gets to hunt, which clears her mind.

Katniss realizes that Peeta was sent to her as a weapon against her. Boggs mentioned that “it was a little too easy to rescue Peeta.”

“It’s only now that he’s been corrupted that I can fully appreciate the real Peeta,” Katniss thinks as she reflects on his warmth, kindness, steadiness.

(It’s true, as they say — you never know what you have ‘til it’s gone. So it’s good, plot structurally, for Katniss to have some time away from “the real Peeta” to learn to really appreciate him.)

“Outside of Prim, my mother, and Gale, how many people in the world love me unconditionally? I think in my case, the answer may now be none.”

(See, here’s the thing. This line doesn’t work, because Katniss by her own reckoning already has THREE people who love her unconditionally. Most people at most have two — Their parents. Maybe not even that. 

(As for siblings and friends, especially in our modern day atomized society, even they don’t love you unconditionally. The best you can hope for are “very light and very few” conditions for their love of you. 

(Oh, there might be grandparents, as well, for some lucky ducks. But a lot of us don’t have grandparents.

(So this line, which was likely meant to make Katniss seem pitiable, doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. It makes her instead self-centered and self-pitying instead — which, arguably, may also be the point.

(To be fair, Katniss did miscalculate — even Gale’s love isn’t really unconditional, as we see the deterioration of their relationship and the revelation of the evil/dark/vengeful side of his character over the course of this book. So currently, she really only has at most TWO people who love her unconditionally — her mom and Prim).

Katniss continues to get news from 13, where Plutarch reports to her: “Good news, Katniss! I think we’ve almost got him convinced you’re not a mutt!…Today he was allowed to feed himself pudding!” followed by Haymitch who admits Peeta’s no better.

Prim however, has come up with a counter-hijacking measure for Peeta: bring up his distorted memories of Katniss and accompany them with a calming drug like morphling. At best, Haymitch reports, the experience seems to have cofused Peeta.

Next, Katniss hears that a team is coming to help with the mountain in District 2. Unsurprisingly, Gale is one of them. “I thought Beetee would bring him, not for his technological expertise, but in the hopes that he could somehow think of a way to ensnare a mountain.”

(Note that Katniss is not thinking of Gale coming for her sake, or even thinking that she will be glad to have him back. She’s slowly — although it’s picking up pace — losing her respect and friendship for him)

Katniss does mention that she told him to stay with Beetee, when she first went to District 2, in part because it would make it harder for her to “mourn Peeta.”

When Gale arrives, he finds Katniss plucking geese. He joins in and they start chatting. Eventually, Gale brings up Peeta, and says that when he saw Peeta’s deteriorated mental state, he thought “I’ll never compete with that. No matter how much pain I’m in…I don’t stand a chance if he doesn’t get better. You’ll never be able to let him go.”

(Sigh. Again with the competition. It’s almost as if Gale only wants Katniss because she’s not 100% his, and he needs ownership. 

(…Have I mentioned I’m getting tired of this triangle? The exhaustion started in book one. But alright, I admit, I understand why it’s here. And it does work for the majority of the audience)

But Gale still kisses Katniss, though when he asks her what she’s thinking, she says “I don’t know.”

“Then it’s like kissing someone who’s drunk. It doesn’t count,” Gale says.

(Dude. Gale is like a romantic Orwellian tyrant. It’s not enough that you do what I want you to do, you have to BELIEVE it as well. 

(Okay, okay. To be fair, from another angle, this is a “noble thing to do.” Taking advantage of someone who’s confused and not entirely on board with you is definitely NOT the right thing to do)

As they gather firewood, Katniss asks him how he knows (what it’s like to kiss a drunk person), and that leads to a conversation about who else Gale has kissed, and he says “too many to remember,” which makes Katniss roll her eyes.

“So when did I become so special? When they carted me off to the Capitol?” she asks.

(Good question. One which we, the reader are also wondering).

Gale says it was before that, and relates an incident when peacekeeper Darius was trying to tease Katniss into giving up a rabbit for a kiss.

“Darius was just joking around,” I say.

“Probably. Although you’d be the last to figure out if he wasn’t,” Gale tells me. “Take Peeta. Take me. Or even Finnick. I was starting to worry he had his eye on you, but he seems back on track now.”

(Okay, I have to admit, this is kind of funny. And also we now have confirmation that yes, Gale was jealous of Finnick, the only question is, was the jealousy based even a little bit on reality? Was Finnick so desperate that he WAS eyeing Katniss? 

(Maybe, if Annie and Peeta both died, Katniss and Finnick would have been a better fit than Katniss and Gale, since they went through the same trauma — both in terms of going through the Games and in terms of losing someone they loved in the same way and by the same means.)

And we are back to war strategy on the next day, with Katniss attending a meeting of “brains” who are working on the problem of cracking the Nut.

The commander from 2, a woman named Lyme, is giving a tour of the Nut, and Katniss realizes she’s seen Lyme before. She was in the Hunger Games over a generation ago.

Gale comes up with an idea of using the mountain itself against the people inside. He points to avalanche paths and with Beetee’s help suggests designing detonation sequences to trigger avalanches and block the entrance.

Boggs points out that this risks killing everyone inside. Beetee says that they could escape through the train tunnel, though, and Gale shuts that down by saying “not if we blow it out.”

Katniss realizes:

“His intent, his full intent, becomes clear. ale has no interest in preserving the lives of those in the Nut…This is one of his death traps.”

Comments & Analysis

Opening: District 2 is a large district, as one might expect, composed of a series of villages spread across the mountains.

Closing: Gale has no interest in preserving the lives of those in the Nut. No interest in caging the prey for later use. // This is one of his death traps.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see if Gale’s idea wins the day and he convinces the others to death trap the mountain.
• We will probably see this backfire on him in some way.

Payoffs:

• Gale’s expertise with traps, which was set up in book one, and used a bit in book two (to train Peeta and Katniss before the Quarter Quell) is really coming into its own, here. He’s becoming the Master Trap-Maker.

Complications:

• Gale still shows interest in Katniss, but with Peeta out-of-commission, he realizes he can’t compete.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Okay, prior to this chapter, Gale was still a bit sympathetic. This time he has gone full on Darth Vader, and I don’t think his story comes with a deathbed redemption scene offered via long-lost son.
• And Collins’ writing skill is in showing that Gale is not the only one. A lot of human beings would do the same as him if they had the same opportunities and resentments. He’s being evil, but he’s not being more evil than the majority of humanity.
• Collins set up the revelation of Gale’s true character very well, having hints of it scattered throughout all the books, but most concentrated in book three. He and Coin are excellent character warnings for readers. They think they mean well, but what they do is…well, evil. In trying to defeat the monster, they become the monster.
• Which in a way is worse than Snow, who knows he’s evil (pragmatically so) and doesn’t hide it or deny it to himself or others.
• Also, Gale’s whole relationship with Katniss is…interesting. On the one hand, he thinks he wants her. On the other hand, the author lets us know that Gale has “kissed a lot of other girls” before Katniss.
• And while this is pretty par for the course nowadays and doesn’t necessarily mean that Gale isn’t really a faithful person, one has a hard time imagining that Peeta would have done the same.
• Especially given how Peeta claims to have loved Katniss since they were children, and we have no reason to doubt his claim.
• This lessens the “pity factor” for Gale, making it easier for readers to let him go in their minds as a potential partner for Katniss, and less likely to hate the story or the author when Gale doesn’t “get the girl” in the end.

Chapter 15

In This Chapter

• Katniss, Gale, Beetee and the others argue over the idea of burying people alive.
• Haymitch reports an interesting development in Peeta’s un-brainwashing process.
• Katniss deals with the aftermath of the avalanche and gets shot.

Beetee points out neutrally that most of the workers in the Nut are just average citizens, to which Gale retorts: “We’ll never be able to trust them again.”

Lyme wants to give the people a chance to surrender, but Gale brings up the firebombing of 12, which makes Lyme look as if she wants to hit him. Gale is agitated too, and yells: “We watched children burn to death and there was nothing we could do!”

(This is wise of Collins, reminding readers why Gale’s particularly bloodthirsty about all this. 

(It’s one thing to be disturbed by poor living conditions and the annual threat of seeing yourself or your loved ones dragged off to fight to the death. It’s another to actually experience the literal destruction of your entire hometown, and the loss of so many lives you personally knew and cared about. 

(It’s enough to bring up any metaphorical “demons” you have hiding in your soul, and Gale’s demons have all come out to play…)

Gale’s words brings a mental image to Katniss’ mind and she instinctively wants to agree with him and bring the mountain down on everyone inside.

But then she thinks, “I’m also a girl from District 12. Not President Snow.”

And that gives Katniss the strength to take Gale’s arm and try to remind him of moral reality in words that he can better understand: “The Nut’s an old mine. It’d be like causing a massive coal mining accident.”

“Surely the words are enough to make anyone from 12 think twice about the plan,” Katniss thinks, but it doesn’t work. Gale dismisses it by saying: “but not so quick as the one that killed our fathers. Is that everyone’s problem? That our enemies might have a few hours to reflect on the fact that they’re dying, instead of just being blown to bits?”

(If the key lesson Katniss needed to learn from book 2 was “remember who the real enemy is,” Gale has most definitely not learned that lesson. He seems to think that he is on the side of good while the Capitol and everyone on their side is evil and must be eliminated for the world to be “good.” He doesn’t understand the Solzhenitsyn quote: 

(“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” 

(Gale represents the people who, in trying to fight off their oppressors, end up becoming the oppressors, which is a very real danger and the reason why most revolutions in the history of the entire world have failed, often resulting in the ushering in of a totalitarian oppression far worse than the original state of things.)

When Katniss argues back that some of the people in the Nut may be innocents who were forced into the mountain against their will, would Gale hurt them, too? Gale says yes, “I would sacrifice a few, yes, to take out the rest of them…And if I were a spy in there, I’d say, ‘Bring on the avalanches!’”

(Well, that’s something, at least, that he wouldn’t exempt his own life for his cause. But in a way, this makes him more dangerous, akin to the suicide-bombers who happily throw away their lives in order to destroy the lives of those they consider unworthy.)

Katniss reflects that perhaps others would also be willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, like Gale. “But it’s a coldhearted decision to make for other people and those who love them.”

(Exactly. If you want to give up your own life for your cause, that’s very noble of you. If you want others to give up their lives for your cause, you’re a cad).

Boggs compromises: Why not avalanche the mountain but leave the train tunnel so people can escape, and they will wait outside, heavily armed, to take them prisoner.

Then Beetee suggests calling Coin into the meeting, and Gale confidently says “she’ll want to block the tunnel.”

Beetee agrees: “Yes, most likely. But you know, Peeta did have a point…about the dangers of killing ourselves off…I think it’s at least worth a conversation.”

(Beetee is also getting kind of scary. He reads as an amoral, pragmatic, psychopathic robot of a person. He doesn’t get off on killing people, which is why he’s not a serial killer or mass murderer, but he could easily be one if he did. 

(He doesn’t seem to have an instinctive care or respect or concern for human life, like Boggs seems to have, instead his argument to spare the people in the Nut stems from the cold calculating Darwinian rationale that if there aren’t enough humans to reproduce, then the human race will die out, and we don’t want that because…well, just because)

The order is given, the plan is set into motion, and Gale’s plan “exceeds anyone’s expectations.”

The naturally unstable mountainsides crumble and collapse almost like fluid, “turning the Nut into a tomb.”

Katniss imagines the trapped people inside, trying desperately to reach an exit, only to find them all blocked. It reminds her of the day her father died in the mine accident, how she and her mother and sister stood by the mine entrance, watching miners being brought up, hoping one of them would be Katniss’ father.

“What did we just do?” Katniss thinks to herself.

Haymitch calls Katniss back to safety where Boggs finds her, and comforts her with the news that they didn’t bomb the train tunnel, that at least some people will probably get out.

While Katniss waits inside, Haymitch tells her through her earpiece that there’s been an “interesting turn of events with Peeta.” Apparently, they’d shown him a clip of her singing the Hanging Tree, which the Capitol didn’t have access to and couldn’t use in his hijacking.

Apparently, Peeta recognized the song. Katniss says that’s impossible, since she never sang the song to him. But Haymitch said it wasn’t her, but her father. Apparently he’d sung it once when he traded at the bakery. “It’s the first connection to you that hasn’t triggered some mental meltdown,” Haymitch says.

(Nice story structuring here — some good news — Peeta being reached through a song and a memory, and it’s especially meaningful that it was Katniss’ dead father, who she was just thinking about — following some really bad news — the brutal bombing of the Nut and the live-burial of thousands inside in a mountain tomb)

After midnight, Katniss is told that she needs to make a speech.

“We’ve won, but the fighting’s continuing,” Haymitch says. So if she could just go on TV and tell everyone that District Two is “finished,” that might speed up the surrender.

Katniss is doubtful, knowing how bad she is at giving prepared speeches, but when Haymitch tells her she might save a lot of lives, she is willing to try it.

Katniss heads to the square with the TV crew and starts her speech when a pair of trains screech into the station, emitting crowds of people, who flatten themselves as bullets fly over them (courtesy of the rebel team, including Gale, who had gone to the square armed).

Katniss sees a burned young man go down and runs instinctively to the wounded, yelling at the rebels to hold their fire.

But as Katniss reaches the man’s side, he gets up and points a gun at her. Katniss freezes as the man says “give me one reason why I shouldn’t shoot you.”

Katniss can’t think of anything but “I can’t.”

When the young man pauses, confused, Katniss realizes it’s true.

“I can’t. That’s the problem, isn’t it?…We blew up your mine. You burned my district to the ground. We’ve got every reason to kill each other. So do it. Make the Capitol happy. I’m done killing their slaves for them.”

Katniss drops her bow and kicks it to the man, who mutters: “I’m not their slave.”

But “I am,” Katniss says, and then relates how that’s why she killed Cato, and Cato killed Thresh, who killed Clove, who tried to kill Katniss, and so on and on in a vicious cycle.

“It just goes around and around and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I’m tired of being a piece in their Games.”

This reminds Katniss of Peeta: “On the rooftop the night before our first Hunger Games. He understood it all before we’d even set foot in the arena.”

(This is a great moment. The clear presentation of the book’s core theme. That blind, bloody vengeance is not justice. And that when you allow those demons of vengeance in your soul to direct you, you become a slave. This is what Peeta understands and Gale does not, and Katniss is torn between the two moral poles.)

Via earpiece, Haymitch tells Katniss to “keep talking,” so she does. She asks the young man why he is fighting against his own victor, Lyme, and his own fellow citizens in District 2.

Then she turns to the machine gunners on her side and reminds them that she — and some of them — came from a mining town. “Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to kill whoever manages to crawl from the rubble?”

“Who is the enemy?” Haymitch reminds her — the exact same line he used in District 2.

Katniss answers Haymitch’s question aloud: “The rebels are not your enemy! We all have one enemy, and it’s the Capitol!”

Then she turns and begs the young man to join them.

And gets shot.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: The implications of what Gale is suggesting settle quietly around the room.

Closing: My words hang in the air. I look to the screen, hoping to see them recording some wave of reconciliation going through the crowd. // Instead I watch myself get shot on television.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see whether or not Katniss survives (obviously, she will — plot armor), and who shot her.

Payoffs:

• We get to see Haymitch use his “remember the real enemy” line again, and more importantly, see KATNISS using the line, showing she understands the point.

Complications:

• Despite Katniss’ best efforts, she is still shot.

OTHER COMMENTS

• The end of this chapter is a good “stand-up-and-cheer” moment (In Brandon Sanderson terminology — moments in the story when the reader wants to applaud for the character).
• Seeing Katniss risk her life by making herself vulnerable to an unknown enemy with a gun is nerve-wracking, but also admirable. Sometimes that is the only way to get through to someone…show your throat, so to speak. Give them the opportunity to kill you, to show that you are genuine, that you mean what you say. It even works, at times.
• Which is why the ending of the chapter comes as a bit of a shock and works as a page turner — did the young man really shoot Katniss even after her powerful plea?

Chapter 16

In This Chapter

• Katniss and Johanna have a heart-to-heart chat about why Johanna hates Katniss.
• Then Gale and Katniss argue over the morality of causing the avalanche.
• Finnick and Annie have a wedding, and Katniss goes to see Peeta.

“Always.” Katniss dreams of Peeta and slowly wakes up in a hospital room.

(Again? Seriously. The girl might as well live in the hospital now, considering how much time she’s spent there in this book)

Katniss recalls where the word came from — after she’d hurt her heel from climbing over the electric fence back home in District 12, Peeta had helped put her to bed, and she’d sleepily asked him to stay with her, and that’s what he said.

(As Gale fades into obscurity, Peeta is being brought center stage. It’s a good place to bring in the word “always,” too, given how the current Peeta has been hijacked. It’s like a promise that this mental confusion of his is only temporary, and the real Peeta — as Prim said — will come back, since he himself promised).

Katniss notes that the one who shot her was not the young man she’d been pleading with. It was someone else in the crowd.

Just then, Johanna Mason appears at Katniss’ bedside. Katniss instinctively is wary of her because of how she’d attacked back in the Quell, but she realizes that it was part of the rebel plot.

Johanna promptly steals Katniss’ morphling drip. She complains about the head doctor who keeps emphasizing how “totally safe” she is (which makes Katniss smile ironically, given how totally unsafe they’ve always been and still are), and then comments how Cinna’s design for Katniss’ Mockingjay outfit protected her from the bullet.

And this is where we find out: The bullet hadn’t touched Katniss. Its impact simply ruptured her spleen.

(I like how all these dead/gone characters from the past have been coming up, their memories bringing strength and help to the current characters that we’re following. 

(From Katniss’ dead father’s song helping Peeta remember Katniss without rancor, to Peeta’s old self coming to Katniss in her dreams, to Cinna’s careful work on Katniss’ uniform saving her life, probably, and so on. 

(It reminds me of the quote from Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” 

(And no, I’m not talking about ghosts or spiritual woo stuff right now. But about the reality of the importance of history. Personal history and also history on a larger scale. And the importance of memory. Who and what you remember shapes who you are and what you do today.)

Johanna mentions that they couldn’t fix Katniss’ spleen, but she doesn’t need it. But if she did, they’d find a way to get one to her, since she’s so necessary.

“Is that why you hate me?” Katniss asks, and Johanna admits:

“Partly…I also think you’re a little hard to swallow. With your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn’t an act, which makes you more unbearable. Please feel free to take this personally.”

Katniss says Johanna should have been the mockingjay, because no one would have had to feed her lines, and Johanna says “True. But no one likes me.”

(In art class, I learned that the “temperature” of colors depends on the context in which you view them. Certain reds, for example, look warmer when contrasted to cool colors, while next to warmer colors, the reds would be on the cooler side of the spectrum. 

(This is like Katniss. When we are in her head, we see her faults and foibles, her self-doubt, her constant depiction of herself as cold-hearted and pragmatic survivor. But when we get a glimpse of her through the eyes of someone even more cold-hearted and pragmatic, in a sense—Johanna Mason — we see that Katniss can be viewed as a warm, caring, defender of the helpless, too. 

(It’s not that that feature of her personality wasn’t visible from what we’ve seen her do so far in the story, but that it seemed “cooler” in the context of Katniss’ personal narration compared to the way Johanna says it. 

(Katniss is always surprised when people like her, the most notable case in point being Peeta. But from what Johanna says, it’s clear why Katniss is the perfect choice to be the Mockingjay, and not Johanna, or even Peeta — 

(It’s similar to the reason why Ender in Ender’s Game was chosen for battle school, and not his more psychopathic brother Peter nor his more empathetic sister Valentine. Ender is a good balance of both pragmatic acceptance of harsh reality and deep love for goodness and humanity. He’s both cold and warm, calculating and compassionate. Just like Katniss.)

 Gale arrives, and Johanna takes off. They argue again over the morality of turning the mountain into a death trap.

What’s the difference between crushing the enemy with a mountain versus shooting down hoverplanes? Gale asks.

Katniss points out that the hoverplanes were actively bombing a hospital in Eight, at the time, but Gale counters that in both cases, taking out the people of Two prevented further attacks.

“But that kind of thinking…you could turn it into an argument for killing anyone at any time. You could justify sending kids into the Hunger Games to prevent the districts from getting out of line,” Katniss point out, and Gale simply rejects her reasoning, saying that the two of them “know how to disagree. We always have,” and maybe that’s a good thing.

(It’s not necessarily bad to have disagreements with people you care about, but this definitely does not bode well for Gale’s hopes of ever getting together with Katniss. 

(Just like it’s possible for people of different religious or political persuasions to get married and stay together — but ONLY if at least one, if not both, parties do not care very deeply about their religious or political affiliations — it’s only possible for Gale and Katniss to work together as partners in the long term if they’re on the same page on the things they care the most deeply about, on their fundamental philosophies and worldviews. 

(But more and more we’re seeing that this is not the case. Gale flippantly says that them “disagreeing” is maybe a “good thing” but that would only be true if they were disagreeing on flavors of cake or something similarly unimportant, rather than the nature of morality itself, what being a good person / living a good life entails…which can only drive a ever-widening wedge between them if they ever tried to make it work between them. 

(In short, Gale’s not wise enough to see that given their fundamentally opposing views of reality, he and Katniss are never going to work out)

Katniss is told by her doctors to take walks, so she does, and although it’s painful, she continues to allow Johanna to “dip into her morphling supply.”

Plutarch updates her on the District 2 situation, saying that the rebels are taking some time to regroup while the Capitol is holding the threat of nuclear annihilation over everyone’s heads, as it is “completely cut off from outside help.”

Plutarch tells Katniss he’s about to stage a televised wedding, which terrifies Katniss at first, when she thinks it’s going to be her and Peeta, but Plutarch reassures her — it’s Finnick and Annie.

Plutarch and Coin argue over the event. Coin wants bare bones, Plutarch wants pomp and circumstance. Everyone is excited. Katniss notes: “Maybe…we are all so starved for something good to happen that we want to be part of it.”

Katniss volunteers to give Annie one of her dresses for the wedding, and on the hoverplane, realizes she’s “less mad than unstable…but if Finnick loves her, that’s good enough for me.”

(A very good general rule of thumb: if someone you trust loves someone else, that someone else is probably a decent person)

At the wedding, Katniss is genuinely happy for Finnick and Annie, and District 12 starts the dancing. Johanna nudges Katniss “Are you going to miss the chance to let Snow see you dancing?” and so Katniss pulls Prim onto the floor and dances.

When the wedding cake comes out, Katniss realizes that Peeta must have contributed the flowers. Which tells her that the mentally unstable boy must have gotten pulled together enough to focus and keep his hand steady to do something that the old him used to do.

Haymitch pulls Katniss aside and tells her that doing the cake was like “therapy” for Peeta and that “he seemed almost like before.”

(I like how Collins uses EVERY detail, including the seemingly-insignifcant onces, and imbues them with meaning. Like the wedding cake could have just been a generic wedding cake, but no, here it’s a sign of Peeta’s mind, slowly healing)

Haymitch says that he’s talked to Peeta, and Peeta was angry, but “for all the right reasons. Not telling him about the rebel plot and whatnot.” And then he reveals that Peeta wants to see Katniss.

Katniss is floored. She’d given up on Peeta. She’d planned to “go to the Capitol, kill Snow, and get taken out myself. The gunshot was only a temporary setback.”

(Side note. Katniss’s suicidal attitude is rather selfish, here. She has forgotten what her death might be to people who love her, like her mom and Prim and even Gale. 

(On the one hand, she’s reasoning like Gale, and that’s not great because we know that that way lies darkness.

(On the other hand, perhaps she figures that they’re mentally-emotionally strong enough to bear her loss, and her likelihood of surviving an assassination of Snow isn’t great, so all things considered, it’s a worthwhile trade?) 

But of course, she can’t refuse. So at midnight, she visits Peeta’s hospital room, after Plutarch has gotten all his wedding footage.

“The best thing about the Capitol basically ignoring Twelve all these years is that you people still have a little spontaneity. The audience eats that up…Makes for good television,” Plutarch comments.

(Every now and then I am reminded through these subtle paragraphs why Collins’ Hunger Games resonated so well. Like most Jane Austen novels, Collins has a really good instinctive grasp of reality on both an individual human and societal scale. 

(What she describes rings true, even though its a fictional story set in a dystopic world. For example, her commentary here about the Capitol ignoring Twelve which results in the people of Twelve having a little spontaneity, which is attractive. That is undoubtedly true in real-life comparable situations.)

Katniss is not alone, of course. She is surrounded by an “audience of doctors” with “clipboards ready, pens poised.”

And Haymitch is in her ear again, via earpiece.

She walks in.

Peeta stares at her warily. Katniss is plenty wary herself. Their conversation is terse, and Katniss blames herself for feeling so defensive. She decides to leave, when Peeta suddenly says that he remembers throwing her the bread.

“I must have loved you a lot,” Peeta says. Then he asks her if she loved him.

Katniss looks down. “Everyone says I did. Everyone says that’s why Snow had you tortured. To break me.”

(Ha! This is great, this scene. Arguably worth having Peeta become uncharacteristically murderous toward Katniss just so we have this semi-painful/awkward reunion. We are now seeing Katniss being confronted by Peeta himself on the blasted triangle ;D)

Peeta questions her a bit about their first games, and then asks about Gale. The conversation devolves quickly after that, and Katniss walks out.

“All those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over,” Katniss thinks.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: “Always.” // In the twilight of morphling, Peeta whispers the word and I go searching for him.

Closing: Finally, he can see me for who I really am. Violent. Distrustful. Manipulative. Deadly. // And I hate him for it.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see if and how Katniss and Peeta mend their relationship.

Payoffs:

• Again, while it’s unpleasant, it’s also high time that Katniss stopped taking Peeta’s unconditional positive regard for her for granted. It also makes him more human, and not too perfect.

Complications:

• Peeta has seemed to regain a lot of his sanity, but his love for Katniss apparently has not returned. So Katniss has him back, physically, but not in every other way that counts.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Mockingjay was published in September 2008, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out in 2011. So technically, Collins used the “always” line first, before the screenwriters gave it to Snape. However, it did jolt me a bit to see it used as the first word of this chapter, said by Peeta in a dream to Katniss. Maybe that says something about the word itself, eh?

Chapter 17

In This Chapter

• Katniss and Johanna bond over their mutual desires to personally fight in the war in the Capitol.
• Peeta joins Katniss and co for a disastrous lunch.

Katniss finds out that she’s not going to the Capitol, and she is furious, running down to burst into a war meeting in Command. She wants to fight, but Boggs points out that she’s not a trained soldier, and she’s not physically fit right now.

Katniss argues, and Coin allows her to take three weeks to prove herself. During that time she will begin training. If the Assignment Board okays her, they will think about letting her go.

Katniss realizes now that blowing off her schedule has resulted in this state of affairs, where Gale can go to fight, but not her.

In the hospital, she finds Johanna in the same situation.

“Fine, I’ll train. But I’m going to the stinking Capitol if I have to kill a crew and fly there myself,” Johanna spits.

“Probably best not to bring that up in training, but it’s nice to know I’ll have a ride,” Katniss replies, which makes Johanna grin, and Katniss realizes she’s made herself another ally.

(This is another major life lesson that I think Hunger Games gets across quite well. That success in the Game…of everything, from business to life, depends on having the right allies. People are the most valuable resource, not money or knowledge or time, or anything else…if you want to look at it in a pragmatic sort of way. 

(One major reason Katniss has been able to survive so long and so well is her ability to choose and win over the right people — even just luck out with having the right people — around her at every stage of the process. From Prim and Peeta and Haymitch to Cinna and Finnick and the rebels of Panem, and now, Johanna. 

(They don’t all love her — although most of them do, in different ways — but they’re all ultimately on her side)

At training, Katniss quickly realizes she’s not up to it. She gets a note from the trainer for special drugs for her rib pains. She and Johanna have a terrible night, because Katniss had to stop her morphling in order to take the special drugs, meaning Johanna couldn’t mooch off of her.

But Johanna drags her out of bed in the morning to go to training. When Katniss protests, Johanna says, “You can do it. We both can. We’re victors, remember? We’re the ones who can survive anything they throw at us.”

Afterwards, Johanna decides they have to stop living in the hospital, so Katniss volunteers to room with her, since Johanna is not allowed to live on her own. They end up getting their own compartment across from Katniss’ mother and sister, who “agree to keep an eye” on the two.

As time progresses, Katniss and Johanna improve through sheer force of will. One day, they sit down for a meal with Gale, Delly, Finnick, and Annie. The last two are still blissfully happy, and Katniss has come to appreciate Delly more, as Delly is her main champion when it comes to Peeta, helping to “sugarcoat” Katniss’s good points.

They’re all having a good time, eating good food and chatting when suddenly Katniss notices Peeta standing there. Johanna invites him to sit, but Peeta still has shackled wrists and guards keeping an eye on him.

“We’re old friends,” Johanna says. “Peeta and I had adjoining cells in the Capitol. We’re very familiar with each other’s screams.”

This makes Annie “cover her ears and exit reality,” which makes Finnick comfort her while glaring at Johanna.

(Really have to admire Collin’s ability to turn a phrase, here, inject a smidge of humor in the perfect places)

Delly tells Annie that Peeta decorated her wedding cake, and when Annie thanks Peeta, he says “my pleasure” with “that old note of gentleness in his voice that I thought was gone forever,” Katniss notes.

(Yep. Peeta is gentleness and strength, physical, mental, and moral, which is what makes him such an ideal character type, without turning into a trite stereotype)

Finnick and Annie take their leave, and Peeta antagonizes the rest of the people at the table. Then Gale and Katniss leave, and have a brief chat about Peeta, where Katniss says “maybe he sees me as I really am” and Gale counters with “as your oldest friend, believe me when I say he’s not seeing you as you really are.”

(Well, Gale is still good for something, I guess…story-structurally, I mean.)

Johanna arrives later, reporting that Delly got mad at Peeta for treating Katniss badly, which led to Peeta starting to argue himself “like he was two people,” and that in the resulting hullabaloo, Johanna got to steal his soup.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: Blindsided. That’s how I feel when Haymitch tells me in the hospital.

Closing:Roses. Wolf mutts. Tributes. Frosted dolphins. Friends. Mockingjays. Stylists. Me. // Everything screams in my dreams tonight.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see Katniss’ friendship with Johanna develop.

Payoffs:

• It’s nice to see Johanna and Katniss becoming sort-of friends after their prickly relationship in book 2. As Peeta takes a backseat, Katniss is still able to find allies and friends that she needs.

Complications:

• Katniss wants to fight, but isn’t in good condition to do so, so now she’s got more obstacles to overcome.

OTHER COMMENTS

• Peeta makes a really good point here in his antagonistic conversation with Katniss at the dining table. He mentions that he has a lot of memories that the Capitol didn’t touch, because it didn’t know about them — memories of how Katniss acted with him at night on the train while they were traveling, for example.
• Of course, Peeta is referring to them cuddling and sleeping (just sleeping, of course, but even that really does cross a line) together on the train, usually after Katniss wakes from a screaming nightmare.
• Peeta’s not wrong to be suspicious and angry with Katniss about those memories. Katniss really did use him by crossing those boundaries with him (even if, by modern standards, that was a very light boundary. But think about it — in the not-so-distant past, non-familially-related men and women were not trusted to be alone together for hours at night no matter what, and there was a reason for that).
• Katniss may not have overtly used Peeta the way, say, Finnick was used by the Capitol people…but she did in a way use him. She used him for comfort when she wasn’t ready or willing to give him her total trust and loyalty in exchange, which he is not wrong for wanting. Her mixed signals and letting him give her something she needs (comfort) without giving back an appropriate and equivalent offering (real love) was wrong. IS wrong.
• This is something that too many modern people no longer acknowledge — that having multiple partners, going too far with too many of them, and switching people whenever they don’t serve your purposes anymore is a horrendous way to conduct your relationships — but refusal to face reality doesn’t change reality. And Katniss is reaping the deserved rewards of her actions here, in Peeta’s suspicion towards her.
• Final note: You really have to feel sorry for Peeta here. He’s mentally confused, he’s lashing out, and the people around him are not showing him half the kindness and grace he’s always showed them (or at least, showed Katniss. Although to be fair, he was also very kind and compassionate with other ne’er-do-wells like Haymitch, and even Gale — although you could argue that was for Katniss’ sake).
• This guy has been horribly treated throughout this whole trilogy by almost everyone (especially Katniss, in many ways), that by the end you just want him to get what he wants, what he’s always wanted. You want him to win — both the girl, and the newer, better world that he’s been wishing and fighting for. Great setup on Collins’ part.

Chapter 18

In This Chapter

• Katniss and Johanna train together, and Peeta joins in too.
• Katniss is assigned to a special sharpshooter group but Johanna washes out, quite literally.

Katniss and Johanna train hard as they’re put through their paces, mimicking a genuine Capitol invasion, complete with land mines, gassings, and squad leaders “dying” on them.

They’re all being filmed, as well — Katniss and Johanna and Gale and Finnick — so that the footage can be used as propos.

And then Peeta starts to join their workouts. Plutarch tells Katniss it’s for the propos, to show people that Peeta is fighting for the rebels, not Snow. But when Plutarch suggests a few shots of Katniss and Peeta together, “not kissing necessarily, just looking happy to be back together — ” Katniss walks off.

Days before the troops are supposed to be sent out, Katniss is tested, which includes a session inside a Block that is supposed to “target each individual’s weakness.”

(I like how Collins uses the in-between times well in the story. In any strategic war there are bound to be “down times,” and not constant action. But Collins makes it work with injury recovery, training, character development, etc.)

When Katniss is in the Block, she finds herself in an ambush situation and then realizes what the people are trying to do — see if she is able to take orders. Katniss passes the test and is told to report to Command.

(Now this is looking a little too much like a trope a bunch of writers use. From Harry Potter’s boggart to Ender’s video game to Divergent’s fear test, and so on. 

(No matter how good your technology is, no way you can actually pinpoint an individual’s greatest fear and make them face it, because oftentimes people don’t have one greatest fear, their fears shift as they change, and some fears are not things you can physically mimic — such as the fear of losing the love of someone you care about, say. 

(But Collins does do a nice twist on this. It’s not your biggest FEAR, it’s your biggest WEAKNESS, and that IS something outsiders can figure out by observing you, to some degree. The only thing is just how big is this block and can they really set it up to work perfectly for every potential soldier they’re testing?)

Katniss finds out that she’s with Boggs in a special unit of sharpshooters. She’s with Gale and Finnick and five other strangers.

Plutarch shows them a holographic image of the Capitol and explains that the place is rigged with pods that, if triggered, release anything from bombs to bands of mutts.

As a Hunger Games participant, Katniss realizes — and Finnick does, too — that this is the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games.

She and Finnick decide not to let their families know what they’re heading into. And Katniss realizes the “beauty of the situation” when she thinks that “Snow will be a player too.”

Later, Haymitch reports that Johanna ended up back in the hospital. She failed at the final test because they flooded the Block with water, and she’d been water-tortured in the Capitol.

“You two should go see her. You’re as close to friends as she’s got,” Haymitch suggests.

(That’s a bittersweet line. Also interesting, coming from Haymitch, who isn’t always known for being the most empathetic. You can see he’s changing, too, and that’s one of the delightfully brilliant things about Collins’ writing. Even the secondary characters are three-dimensional, not stock)

Katniss gets permission from Boggs to go to the woods, and while there, she gathers a bundle of pine needles and ties it with a cotton bandage.

When Katniss brings it to Johanna, it brings tears to her eyes. “Smells like home,” she says. Then Johanna makes Katniss swear that she will kill Snow, on her family’s life.

(This is a bit of sad foreshadowing. Because Katniss never does directly kill Snow, and the effort does cost her her family — One dies, the other one never comes home with her).

Katniss continues to train, and briefly describes the rest of her team — a woman named Jackson who is Bogg’s second in command, two sisters named Leeg (Leeg 1 and Leeg 2), then two guys, Mitchell and Homes.

(Problem: There are too many women in this supposed elite squad. Physically, it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t ring true to reality. There’s a reason why the Navy SEALS are all men, no women. And there never will be, unless they relax the requirements, which would make the group less-than-elite. 

(Women aren’t built for ground combat like men are. A few elite-strength-and-agility women may be able to take on some average-strength-and-agility men, but even the most elite woman cannot beat an elite man in physical combat, whether that’s war or sports. That’s the reason why we even have separate men’s and women’s sports teams in the first place.

(Also what is it with Leeg 1 and Leeg 2? What is the point?)

Plutarch announces that Katniss’ team has been dubbed the “Star Squad,” the “on-screen faces of the invasion.”

The team is disgusted. “You mean we won’t be in actual combat,” Gale says.

And Plutarch says they’ll be in combat, but not the front line. There are more protests, but he says:

“You’re going to be as useful to the war effort as possible…And it’s been decided that you are of most value on television.” Then he adds: “Do you notice how [Katniss is] the only one not complaining? It’s because she understand the power of that screen.”

And Katniss thinks to herself:

“Actually, Katniss isn’t complaining because she has no intention of staying with the ‘Star Squad,’ but she recognizes the necessity of getting to the Capitol before carrying out any plan.”

(Again, the use of “Katniss” instead of “I” here is very snarky and a great touch)

Then it’s time to ship out. Katniss says goodbye to her mother and sister, and Prim says: “Next time we see each other, we’ll be free of him.”

(Famous last words. Also very sad foreshadowing, because — spoiler — the next time they see each other, one of them is going to die. And we all know who. Oh, and they won’t be free of Snow, quite yet, either.)

Katniss decides not to say goodbye to Peeta, but she does put his pearl in her pocket as a memory of who he had once been.

Katniss and her team arrive in the rebel encampment in the Capitol, and are told that even though they are out in the open, they don’t have to worry about hoverplane bombings, as the Capitol has lost most of their fleet, if not all.

The rebels, however, can’t use their hoverplanes because of the Capitol’s antiaircraft missiles, so that’s why this will be a ground war.

Katniss’ team’s duty is to deceive the Capitol about how much information they really have. They pretend to shoot non-pods to distract the Capitol, and are never chosen for a real sharpshooter’s duties.

Katniss doesn’t care that the rebels are underutilizing her abilities, as she has plans of her own. She and the other shooters have paper maps, but the commanders have handheld “holos” that produce images of the map with the pods.

Katniss’ plan is to steal Bogg’s holo device and clear out. But “I think it would be easier to steal his teeth,” she thinks.

On the fourth morning, Leeg 2 hits a mis-labeled pod and it releases metal darts, one of which kills her.

She is replaced with none other than Peeta, sent courtesy of President Coin who, according to Peeta “decided the propos needed some heating up.”

(Very convenient, to have one of the Leegs taken out so we readers don’t have to keep keeping track of which one is 1 and which one is 2, and also convenient to pave the way for Peeta’s entrance since of course it wouldn’t have made rational sense in-world nor story sense for him to have been planned to join the group from the beginning.)

This might be true, Katniss thinks, but she also realizes that sending Peeta means Coin now wants her dead.

Comments & Analysis

Opening: I throw myself into training with a vengeance.

Closing: But if Coin sent Peeta here, she’s decided something else as well. That I’m of more use to her dead than alive.

PROMISES & PAYOFFS

Promises:

• We will see Peeta attack Katniss again, or they will finally reconcile. Or maybe both.

Payoffs:

• We see one of the pods explode and kill someone — standard fare and an expectation for Hunger Games.

Complications:

• Peeta is now a physical danger to Katniss and a major complication. Will he put her in danger or will he help her, in the coming chapters? Probably both, but we’ll see…

OTHER COMMENTS

• It’s very hard to up the intensity of a story without crossing the line into melodrama, and unfortunately there are many places in this third book in the Hunger Games series that does cross that line.
• Making Peeta into a killer, for example, is just a bit too unbelievable, especially since we only hear and don’t see what kind of torture Peeta might have gone through to “change” him. The whole point of his character, from book one, was that he doesn’t change. At least, not the fundamental nobility of his nature.
• And to be fair, as the book goes on, we find that the old Peeta is still there, under the Capitol programming. But this part (where Peeta is a literal danger to Katniss) doesn’t work very well, in my book.
• The one thing that saves it, though, is that the “bringing the real Peeta” back arc should be fun. Although Collins doesn’t have very much time in which to do it…9 chapters, with lots of other stuff going on before the end of this final book in the trilogy.

Writing Tips & Practical Application

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

• Twist your story: Brainstorm a seriously massive twist in your story, making one character the exact opposite of what he/she has always been, and try to figure out a believable way to get him or her there. You can do this theoretically, or just mentally borrow another story and come up with ideas.
• Bring up worldview & philosophy: Everyone has a worldview, no exceptions. If you haven’t explicitly thought about the theme or argument of one of your old stories, take a look now and see if you can clearly, succinctly summarize what that story is trying to say on a worldview/philosophical level. You might even surprise yourself and reveal some things you were thinking that you didn’t know you were thinking.

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