Catching Fire, Chapter 2

[farla]

Last time on Catching Fire, there was the dramatic smell of blood and roses! Then, President Snow showed up to glare at Katniss.

Actually, things sure are patriarchal, aren't they?

I said last chapter that it's doing a lot better with female characters, and it is. But the president, hunger games announcer, peacekeeper leader, other peacekeeper, mayor, and main interviewer are all male. The only female characters we have in the same ballpark are Effie, extremely low-status announcer, and Peeta's costume designer.

I suppose I can't really fault this - there's no reason to believe a series of disasters followed by oppression would lead to gender equality. Still, I would sort of like some sort of textual acknowledgment of it. Katniss doesn't seem to ever indicate her world has any sort of prejudices causing this, it's just that it happens to work out this way, which is really the worst way to be going about this.

Possibly that gets addressed later, but - well, it's not like these are very subtle books, so you'll forgive me for guessing it won't.

Katniss explains that the president doesn't go on the victory tour with the winner, so if he's here now it's for a particular reason, which can only be bad.

this man who despises me. Will always despise me. Because I outsmarted his sadistic Hunger Games, made the Capitol look foolish, and consequently undermined his control.

I really wish the book would stop insisting a double suicide was that big of a deal. She didn't outsmart them so much as play chicken with her life. It's completely unexplained how this makes them look foolish (or at least, much more foolish than the original "okay two winners NO WAIT WE CAN'T CHANGE THE RULES" thing did already), and certainly not how it'd undermine control.

I mean, if they'd chosen to let Katniss and Peeta both die - then they don't have a winner, so they're deprived of a thing they want, but the core message of "we kill your kids and you can't stop us" is pretty unchallenged. She managed to survive with Peeta, but it was only because they chose to let her. If, say, the return of the one kid was a big thing, part of the social contract with the districts and so if they couldn't bring back one it'd cause an uprising in itself, then sure. Something like that would mean the capital was actually in the position to lose something if kids started organizing suicide pacts. But this? They still got the final say.

Also, I notice Katniss is saying they're "his" games. So it looks like we're finally getting an answer to who's to blame for the games, after indicating it apparently wasn't the districts, the people of the capital, or the gamemakers.

I certainly hope I'm mistaken because saying the president is solely to blame for three quarters of a century of a popular televised murder game is even worse than the way last book played blame hot potato with the issue.

All I was doing was trying to keep Peeta and myself alive. Any act of rebellion was purely coincidental.

And once again we have something that really doesn't match up with the last book, but okay. Last-book Katniss' sudden decision to be a rebel because Rue died was a pretty sudden change in character that made her look worse and I thought it was done terribly, so okay. From now on, Katniss wasn't rebellious during the childmurder games.

But when the Capitol decrees that only one tribute can live and you have the audacity to challenge it, I guess that's a rebellion in itself. 

Oh book, I'm trying to be nice here. She wasn't challenging the idea that only one can live. She was committing suicide. What she did was not rebellious. And I say this as someone who spent half last book's reviews advocating suicide as rebellion. Yes, she was hoping they'd prefer keeping them both alive over none, but really, it wasn't much of a rebellion to threaten to kill yourself after you've murdered all the other children and given them a good show. Please stop talking it up as if she did something impressive. Impressive would have been refusing to play.

It seems Snow knows the score. (Huh, I just realized - wtf naming pattern? He's from the capital and they obviously don't get much cultural contact with anyone else, so why would they have noun names like District 12? And Snow should be a last name, which should be even more insulated from cultural change. I suppose it's technically possible one of the tiny number of people who actually have that surname now survived the unspecified series of disasters to be his paternal ancestor, but it's kind of a stretch.)

But whatever, the point is he knows she was fucking with them on the love story and wants her to know he knows, because he doesn't want any more trouble from her. He tells her that they should agree not to lie to each other because it'll go easier.

“My advisers were concerned you would be difficult, but you're not planning on being difficult, are you?” he asks.
“No,” I answer.

I like this. He's the face of the evil oppressive government, she's a single sixteen year old. Being scared and meek when face to face works - and it's far better than what a lot of stories do, where they have a character say they're scared, but be unable to restrain the snarky comments.

all those ... cousins.” By the way he lingers on the word “cousins,” I can tell he knows that Gale and I don't share a family tree.

This is a bit more disappointing. Come on, how could he not? They have to have a registry of everyone. Last book it's even said that if anyone misses the mandatory reaping gathering, the peacekeepers will find them immediately after, and it just makes sense - otherwise, anyone could just slip through the fence and run off and they'd never even know.

(Actually, this raises an interesting point - how to they deal with people reporting births? Parents have no incentive to tell the state about their kid. Even just keeping it secret for a while would be a good idea, because that way the kid's older and stronger by the time they enter the drawing for the games.)

Well, it's all on the table now. Maybe that's better. I don't do well with ambiguous threats. I'd much rather know the score.

This is a bit silly, because Katniss actually does great with ambiguous threats, in the sense that they scare the hell out of her and make her afraid to do anything. That's pretty normal, and it's why ambiguous threats are such a great idea. If you tell someone, "If you do X, I will Y," then the person can make a choice if they're willing to suffer that consequence. Tell someone, "If you do X, you'll regret it," and now they can't make that decision, because they aren't sure what the punishment is. They'll rather avoid X just in case. And tell someone that if they do anything you don't like, something bad happens, and they'll avoid A, B, and C too, because they don't know if those things will get the unknown horrible thing as well.

For this reason, it's unclear what the president really gains by narrowing things down and being honest, although of course, the downside of the vaguer threats is that eventually people get stressed to the point they assume they're doomed anyway, and then you get lashing out at random, so perhaps he figures Katniss is on her last nerve and will work better if she's given a promise of safety if she just does what he wants.

“If the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, had had any brains, he'd have blown you to dust right then. But he had an unfortunate sentimental streak.

And we have another guy in charge for our running tally. (And another Roman name. Book, you are less clever than you think.)

But more importantly. This seems to further imply it wasn't really much of a rebellion. They just liked a good love story and wanted the most cinema-friendly end.

Anyway, Crane's dead now for making the wrong choice. So I guess we really are going for putting all the evil of the games on President Snow's shoulders.

This is a terrible decision in both the plot and plot hole manner.

These are popular televised murder games. The population of the capital is utterly complicit in them and evidently influences the games a great deal - and that same population elected him, since his title is "president". You can't run murder games in a democracy unless people actually want there to be murder games.

And it's also so damn cheap. I know last book completely failed to ever address the underlying system that the games took place in, but at least it didn't actually say there was no problem with an underlying system, it's just one evil guy with a very punchable face behind everything.

There's a rose in President Snow's lapel, which at least suggests a source of the flower perfume, but it must be genetically enhanced, because no real rose reeks like that. As for the blood ... I don't know.

In contrast, this is just garden variety bad writing. The obvious answer is he's wearing some sort of perfume and the rose is just a visual decoration. In the event the rose itself actually is the source of the smell, she says it must be messed with to do that, yet doesn't realize if they're messing with it already they could have made it produce a rose and blood smell.

While Katniss is worrying about this, he explains that while people in the capital city believed the love story, some districts didn't, which surprises her.

You have no access to information about the mood in other districts.

Yet for some reason he's giving that right now. Well, I suppose it's need-to-know information at this point, and she'd likely figure it out on the tour anyway.

...but then, the tour doesn't make much sense, does it? They don't want anyone to know much of anything about the other districts - that's consistent across the two books so far. Yet the tour by definition means that they're bringing someone around across districts, and they're not killing the kid afterward but just putting them back in their original district to share all the gossip. And evidently plenty does get around - last book she said everyone hated trained kids, and this book that everyone hates the winners.

He goes on to make a big deal of the fact it was someone from District 12 who did it, because the book loves exceptionalism and so she has to be from the suckiest district of all. But the point is, it's given them ideas that if she can do it, so can they.

“What is to prevent, say, an uprising?”

Speaking of need-to-know information, she really does not need to know that.

I mean, the basic premise is pretty far fetched already, but I'm definitely not going to believe that someone in power, especially someone who uses lack of information as a major part of how they keep that power, would casually tell someone, "Your minor act has had huge repercussions, and anything further would be a disaster for us, so, um, pretty please don't do anything more?"

“There have been uprisings?” I ask, both chilled and somewhat elated by the possibility.

See? This is exactly what I mean. And yes, the book is portraying Katniss' reaction sanely, but that just underlines how bizarre he's acting.

“Not yet. But they'll follow if the course of things doesn't change. And uprisings have been known to lead to revolution.” President Snow rubs a spot over his left eyebrow, the very spot where I myself get headaches. “Do you have any idea what that would mean? How many people would die? What conditions those left would have to face? Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse.”

Huh. I like the concept of this, but it doesn't work well with the worldbuilding. The capital's been doing stuff for the evululz. We've seen the place and it's obvious from the disparity in lifestyle (as well as the complexity of the Hunger Games) that at best, the reason the districts are impoverished hellholes is because the capital sucks up all the resources, and at worst, because they just think it's funny.

Katniss, reasonably, is impressed both by how sincere he sounds and what complete bullshit this obviously is. I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's going to be a point she's wrong on - it's a bit weird that the narrative is using words like sincere given its track record with bluntness last book - but I don't really see a way this book could end where it turns out the capital was secretly good, so.

 I don't know how I dare to say the next words, but I do. “It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down.”

Damn it Katniss, I just said I liked how you weren't saying snarky bullshit.

The most annoying thing about this is that this, slightly reworded, would work as a decent example of how you learn to talk when you live in a police state.

The correct statement here is to emphasize how minor the berries are. Turn it around on him, as in, a handful of berries could hardly cause any damage unless the system was terribly fragile, and surely it's not. This at least tries to direct blame away from her - to say her actions really are that big of a deal, he has to admit that oops, yes, the system is a fucked up unstable mess. And how was she, model citizen, to realize it was so unstable? How is it really her fault that she did this one small thing when other people did all the big things to get it to this point?

I mean, still very good odds he'll be pissed over this and disappear her, but hey, he does already hate her. And at least she'd be putting an effort into phrasing her comment along approved lines.

“It is fragile, but not in the way that you suppose.”

Anyway, President Snow continues to be weirdly reasonable. Unfortunately, he's also being vague in a way that's a pet peeve of mine.

There's certain statements, and you see this more in television than books, where someone says something portentous that actually doesn't mean anything. What does "not the way you suppose" mean? Nothing. Just that we aren't getting any real information here.

Her mom brings in tea and cookies, because I don't know.

Her mom is a pretty irritating character here. If it wasn't for last book's poverty-oppression-starving-misery dance, I could understand this, but it's just so damn frivolous. She knows medicine, she should know how many people die that the capital could have saved. Everyone should know that the reason people die in coal mining accidents is that the capital wants coal and doesn't care enough for safety regulations, just like everyone should know the capital has plenty of food while they starve. And then he tried to take her twelve year old daughter to die in the childmurder games, and her other daughter had to sacrifice herself instead. Sure, her daughter came back alive. That doesn't change that she spent three days watching Katniss slowly break down from dehydration to the point she had to crawl the last few feet to the pond, then horribly burned and stung by wasps and deafened by an explosion. That she saw all the other kids die horribly on camera, and Peeta nearly die from the infection in his leg. And that's just this year, she's seen variations of that happen every year for her entire life.

Everyone should hate Snow.

But I guess we know where Katniss got her sociopathy now, because her mom cares more about new shoes and giving the president cookies. He's charming and nice about it. Then he's quiet and messing with his tea until Katniss cracks and continues the conversation herself, saying she didn't mean to cause an uprising.

“I believe you. It doesn't matter. Your stylist turned out to be prophetic in his wardrobe choice. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem,” he says.

Oh my god, I get you think it's a clever phrase but please stop beating it into the ground already.

Anyway, still really really really don't get why he's telling the girl who hates them that she's about to cause them to be overthrown.

There's the standard conversation where she wants to know why not kill her, he says that'd just look worse, etc etc. I don't know why they don't catch her for all that hunting she does. That'd actually work extremely well, since it was obvious during the games that she was a poacher, and arguably even that that is thumbing her nose at the capital. (Certainly, a lot more than her berry thing.) So she wins and then they get her for flaunting her rulebreaking in general, which fits well into the narrative the games are supposed to be about: don't fuck with us or we kill kids.

Then he gets to the point - she doesn't love Peeta, she seems to like Gale, he can't kill her but Gale? Gale is a lot easier to disappear.

She starts worrying if he thinks she and Gale are going off into the woods for more romantic pursuits, because they wouldn't actually know what's going on. Or would they?

Could we have been followed? That seems impossible. At least by a person. Cameras? That never crossed my mind until this moment.

...yet she had no problem believing there were invisible cameras and mikes everywhere during the childmurder games, games she's spent her whole life watching as part of a display of the capital's power.

Believing they wouldn't bother with District 12's woods before she became victor, okay, sure. She'd grown up knowing her dad poached safely. But she was worried she was under surveillance, how could she think somehow the fence would stop the full might of the government when it couldn't stop an eleven year old girl?

If we've been watched since, what have they seen? Two people hunting, saying treasonous things against the Capitol, yes. But not two people in love, which seems to be President Snow's implication. We are safe on that charge. Unless ... unless ..

This is going nowhere good.

Parcel Day, the first of twelve, in which food packages were delivered to every person in the district. That was my favorite. To see all those hungry kids in the Seam running around, waving cans of applesauce, tins of meat, even candy.
-
That was one of the few times I actually felt good about winning the Games.

Huh. This book really does seem to have a conflicted attitude about handouts, doesn't it? She's proud she managed to get the government to give them free food, but doesn't think that the free money the government gives her could be used to do the same thing.

Anyway, we're in flashback time now. Katniss talks about kissing Peeta again, and then she's finally left alone. She runs off to her secret spot with Gale.

I waited at least two hours. I'd begun to think that he'd given up on me in the weeks that had passed. Or that he no longer cared about me. Hated me even.

Okay, I know Katniss is a sixteen year old girl and all, but...but if he hates you for your romance with Peeta, you could always just say it was fake. If he hates her for faking it, then he's saying that he's so possessive he literally wouldn't let her kiss another person to save the guy's life and he's a horrible person.

But he shows up and she hugs him, and then they hang out and do their usual hunting time.

 Then suddenly, as I was suggesting I take over the daily snare run, he took my face in his hands and kissed me.

Is there no one in Katniss' life who understands the concept of consent.

I mean, on the creepy-meter, Gale is still doing way better than Peeta, but how hard is it to say you like her and give her the ability to say yes first? It's not so much that the kiss is a big deal as that the way it goes seems to be a deliberate attempt to make sure she can't refuse it.

I was completely unprepared. You would think that after all the hours I'd spent with Gale—watching him talk and laugh and frown — that I would know all there was to know about his lips. But I hadn't imagined how warm they would feel pressed against my own. Or how those hands, which could set the most intricate of snares, could as easily entrap me. I think I made some sort of noise in the back of my throat, and I vaguely remember my fingers, curled tightly closed, resting on his chest. Then he let go and said, “I had to do that. At least once.” And he was gone.

Aaaaaaaand now Gale's caught up with Peeta.

Also dammit book, stop encouraging this.

Anyway, Katniss can't decide how she feels about this, and then that she still hasn't even figured out how she feels about Peeta. But she does decide to actually talk it out this time, because it's not like she's unable to explain like during the games.

I had this whole speech worked out, about how I didn't want a boyfriend and never planned on marrying, but I didn't end up using it. Gale acted as if the kiss had never happened.

...so she just doesn't say anything either.

So hey, it is mobius logic! She isn't talking to him so they have this weird thing between them so she can't talk to him like before. Why doesn't she just explain? I mean, as these things go, "It's not you, it's that I'm never marrying because our society sucks" is probably the gentlest rejection ever.

But really it's that she's secretly in love with him, so we need to keep the romance subplot rolling. (Book, we really don't need to keep the romance subplot rolling. If you drop it now I promise not to make any comments about poor editing. Just make it stop.)

Whatever I pretended, I could never look at his lips in quite the same way.

Ugh, book.

Anyway, Katniss realizes that this looks really, really bad from the capital's viewpoint, because she ditches Peeta for Gale as soon as possible and clearly likes being with him better.

“Please don't hurt Gale,” I whisper. “He's just my friend. He's been my friend for years. That's all that's between us. Besides, everyone thinks we're cousins now.”

That doesn't even matter because he only cares about the other districts, everyone in your district is stuffed full of candy.

Anyway, she promises to do a good job and convince everyone, and he says she'd better do such an awesome job she convinces even him, and okay fine whatever she gets it. I guess that's supposed to be really dramatic but he already said he knows she's pretending. If there hadn't been for the whole "let's be totally honest" bit that'd feel a lot more ominous.

Then we have our Dramatic Ending Line again.

 “By the way, I know about the kiss.”

...Katniss was already assuming that, way to be behind there Snow. Again, really works better if he hadn't already said he knew better. This is like the thing with Katniss explaining the berries again.

So.

This chapter was okay. Katniss isn't being a particularly strong character, but she's being a realistic one and I think that counts for more here. He's evil oppressive government head, she's sixteen. Being scared of him makes sense and with one exception, she manages to avoid snarking at him.

Being sixteen does somewhat excuse the relationship stuff as well, but I still hate it, and honestly, this book has not done much to convince me we're supposed to be taking this at anything but face value.

The president's belief she needs to know all sorts of things she really doesn't need to know doesn't really make sense, but it's YA and hey, we can't expect subtlety. Of the unsubtle things the book has done this is really minor. Personally I'd rather we learned this by the president not saying it and Katniss figuring it out as he went, but admittedly Katniss has shown the political intelligence of a dead squirrel so I can understand why not.

The most important part was Katniss kept the snark mostly under control and the characters behaved in a reasonably human manner.

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[farla.livejournal.com]

Hi anon! Was I gone that long?