Catching Fire, Chapter 3
Apr. 23rd, 2011 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaLast time on Catching Fire, President Snow told Katniss her underage makeouts with Peeta had better be really convincing, or else the districts might rebel against the capital she hates so much! Realizing this wasn't much of an incentive, he then explained he'd kill everyone she cares about if she doesn't do a good job.
The smell of blood ... it was on his breath.
First, that really would have been a better dramatic ending line for last chapter.
Next, unless there are vampires running around, my association for blood is sickness. Like, President Snow is really, really ill and has internal lesions.
Katniss, being more prone to flights of gruesome fancy, pictures the guy dipping cookies into a teacup of blood. I'd snark that she should know (cooked) blood is actually delicious, but as we saw last book, she's apparently a member of some very lax branch of Islam.
Outside the window, a car comes to life, soft and quiet like the purr of a cat, then fades away into the distance. It slips off as it arrived, unnoticed.
Oh, come on. There's no way a fancy car could drive through her town without everyone noticing.
But anyway, Katniss is now freaking out and near fainting. Everyone she knows is doomed if she doesn't act well! But she can't act!
This is kind of a sueishy bit because she certainly seems to have done a great acting job so far and it seems more like she's just underestimating her own ability, but in fairness, the current stakes are enough that anyone would be scared.
I hear my mother's light, quick tread in the hall. She can't know, I think. Not about any of this. I reach my hands over the tray and quickly brush the bits of cookie from my palm and fingers. I take a shaky sip of my tea.
“Is everything all right, Katniss?” she asks.
“It's fine. We never see it on television, but the president always visits the victors before the tour to wish them luck,” I say brightly.
My mother's face floods with relief. “Oh. I thought there was some kind of trouble.”
“No, not at all,” I say. “The trouble will start when my prep team sees how I've let my eyebrows grow back in.”
See? Great actor.
Also eyebrows don't really grow back in well. Hers are probably okay because they were only messed with twice, once before the games and once after, but still, they're probably going to be more upset about how they have to wax the rest of her then some easily fixed brows. Maybe she's just completely bullshitting here? That seems kind of dumb since that increases the chance her mom can see though the lie though.
Anyway, her mom offers to draw her a bath and she says okay and then explains that she's trying to fix their relationship.
My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing her for something she couldn't help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father's death. Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.
Terribly retconny because we never saw any sign of this in the arena and she sure seems to be dealing just fine with all those things that happened, but yeah, okay.
But it's bugging me that we keep getting this sensitive portrayal of depression when the book couldn't manage it for any of the many major issues it features. This is clearly the author's pet issue.
But Katniss is also grateful to her mom because when they came home her mom said that Peeta's great but Katniss is too young for a boyfriend, which gave her an excuse to get a bit of space.
That works okay. Culturally people have had a wide range of beliefs about the appropriate age for dating, and the whole reaping thing could be used as a standard. I mean, you really don't want a pregnant sixteen year old entering the games.
She then tries to think who she should tell. She doesn't want to tell her family and scare them. But then she says she won't tell Gale because he won't leave even if he knows. Um, you could tell him and let him make that decision, though. You're just assuming.
Besides, Gale's already so angry and frustrated with the Capitol that I sometimes think he's going to arrange his own uprising. The last thing he needs is an incentive
That makes a bit more sense. On the other hand, if so all the more reason to tell him he's under watch - knowing his life is on the line might make him more cautious and less hotheaded.
We then learn that Katniss has no other friends as she lists off her remaining confidants as Cinna, Peeta and Haymitch, picking Haymitch as the only option.
Okay, we're only three chapters in but this is the second book, so I feel justified in calling it a pattern. See how those are all guys? The active relationships the book has are all male. The book has made some stabs at female relationships with the addition of Gale's mom and improving the one with her own, but those are very much afterthoughts. Male writers will write so the character interactions are between males. Female writers write the exact same thing, but stick a female main character into the network of guys. If anything, female writers tend to be worse offenders here. There's a lot that can be said about why this is, sociatal conditioning etc etc, but the short version is please don't do this. Just look over what you're doing now and then and see if you're falling into this trap.
Anyway, Katniss then proves me right by flashbacking to yet another bit with awesome dad, who it turns out also taught her to swim and they had this wonderful lake that she's kept a secret from everyone because it was their special place.
She's interrupted by the arrival of the design team. Remember those guys, they were basically lame stereotypes and the narration kept talking about them like they were a gaggle of particularly bright dogs? Apparently the book thinks they were popular and brought them back as recurring characters.
I just have time to towel off and slip into a robe before my prep team bursts into the bathroom. There's no question of privacy. When it comes to my body, we have no secrets, these three people and me.
The book really does not care about addressing issues at all.
This is hardly the most major of the many things it's just declared Katniss is okay with, but seriously. She's repeatedly been forced to strip naked in front of strangers. It's part of how she has no control over her life and the capital treats her and the other children as fun little toys.
But that's not at all what the book thinks. The book thinks it's just a necessary setup bit for her to wear pretty dresses, which is what matters. This is because the book is morally bankrupt.
Their first line is about her eyebrows, so I guess we really were supposed to take that line as true. That's stupid, book. If anything, the problem would be her plucking too much of them, since that'd be hard to fix.
After that, it won't be long before the Capitol begins gearing up for the Quarter Quell.
The book then fails to explain what the fuck this is, only when it is. It happens every twenty five years and apparently it's even more depressing that usual. The writing is unusually poor here.
We do find out that Haymitch was the victor of the last one of these.
Haymitch has never mentioned his personal experience in the arena to me. I would never ask. And if I ever saw his Games televised in reruns, I must've been too young to remember it.
...so, they do show reruns as I speculated earlier, and yet they don't show them enough for her to about this, the one thing that matters. This smacks of hastily patched plothole. Also, it shouldn't just be reruns, plenty of other people should have seen it and mentioned it.
After they've exhausted the topic of the Quarter Quell, my prep team, launches into a whole lot of stuff about their incomprehensibly silly lives.
This too is stupid. What exactly do people talk about normally? They talk about people. I've yet to see any sign of the people of District 12 having nothing but serious business conversations. Also, maybe they're not talking about anything important because you're heavily monitored and it'd be suicide.
Then her mom comes in because Cinna wants Katniss' hair done up in the fancy braid thing her mom did when she was sent to the capital originally and she's supposed to show the prep team.
In the mirror, I can see their earnest faces following her every move, their eagerness when it is their turn to try a step. In fact, all three are so readily respectful and nice to my mother that I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them. Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I'd been raised in the Capitol?
Wow, whiplash.
We're still playing hot potato with the blame here. No, book, they're horrible people for not giving a shit about the childmurder games. It's just that talking about minor things doesn't have anything to do with that. It doesn't matter. Stop mentioning it, stop saying it means something one way or the other, stop using it for superiority OR false equivalencies.
Katniss, remember all that hate and enemy business you did such a good job with during the games? These people. These people are your enemy.
When my hair is done, I find Cinna downstairs in the living room, and just the sight of him makes me feel more hopeful
Katniss what did I just say.
He looks the same as always, simple clothes, short brown hair, just a hint of gold eyeliner.
Cinna THE BESTEST MOST WONDERFULEST PERSON EVER.
Because fashion is evil but it's okay because Cinna isn't really a fashion guy, so that's why Katniss can wear a dress covered in more jewels than the organs and combined income of everyone in District 12 without there being anything at all wrong with doing so.
She goes on to say that they've been talking on the phone a lot because Cinna is just so wonderful. So wonderful.
See, a winner has to have a talent. This is a total asspull because Haymitch has made it clear that the winners are just left to their own devices most of the year. But anyway. Talent. Because the victors don't work they do something else with their time. But poor plain Katniss has no talent! It's time for another edition of sueish flaws.
I don't have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally, which they don't.
It's called archery and it's also a sport, Katniss.
She goes on to explain she failed at everything else on the list.
Cooking, flower arranging, playing the flute.
...seriously, book? Seriously?
Then in case we didn't get it the book adds that Prim was good at all of those. Because they are GIRL THINGS and Katniss FAILS AS A GIRL. Feminism!
Thankfully Cinna said she could design clothes for her talent, by which he meant he'd design clothes and sell them and she could sign her name on them.
I said yes because it meant getting to talk to Cinna, and he promised he'd do all the work.
Feminism!
Also, jesus this is horribly wasteful since again, starving people. You shouldn't be encouraging the capital to be even more consumerist.
I may have no interest in designing clothes but I do love the ones Cinna makes for me. Like these. Flowing black pants made of a thick, warm material. A comfortable white shirt. A sweater woven from green and blue and gray strands of kitten-soft wool. Laced leather boots that don't pinch my toes.
Hey, remember when Katniss was talking about how much she hated to wear fancy expensive clothes and she liked her old outfit and the wool coat just didn't fit right? Because yet again, the book sure doesn't!
Just then, Effie Trinket arrives in a pumpkin orange wig to remind everyone, “We're on a schedule!” She kisses me on both cheeks while waving in the camera crew, then orders me into position. Effie's the only reason we got anywhere on time in the Capitol, so I try to accommodate her.
The book seems to have somehow held off the desire to bitch unfairly about her. Good job book!
Anyway, Katniss leaves to let them film the clothes she claims to have made and sees Prim.
Bam! It's like someone actually hits me in the chest. No one has, of course, but the pain is so real I take a step back. I squeeze my eyes shut and I don't see Prim—I see Rue, the twelve-year-old girl from District 11 who was my ally in the arena. She could fly, birdlike, from tree to tree, catching on to the slenderest branches. Rue, who I didn't save. Who I let die. I picture her lying on the ground with the spear still wedged in her stomach... .
Okay, the writing there is especially bad, but hey, good job with the trauma there. Katniss has so far been brushing off the events of last book and it's nice to see her showing some lasting scars.
It's not a real PTSD flash or anything, because then Cinna comes to tell her to raise her arms and put her coat on and she's fine again, but certainly better than anything we've see so far.
I feel fur, inside and out, encasing me. It's from no animal I've ever seen. “Ermine,” he tells me as I stroke the white sleeve.
Ah, priorities.
Also, hey look it's more research fail. Stoats are totally native to her area. If they still exist, they exist there.
Anyway, her mom comes in and gives her the mockingjay pin, which Katniss once again had totally forgotten about. You know, in another book I'd wonder if this was supposed to mean something symbolic, but the symbolism here is more of the sledgehammer to face sort, so it's just funny how the book sets this up as a big important thing but can't actually do anything with it. In that way, it's quite symbolic of the whole thing, isn't it?
Effie Trinket's nearby, clapping her hands. “Attention, everyone! We're about to do the first outdoor shot, where the victors greet each other at the beginning of their marvelous trip. All right, Katniss, big smile, you're very excited, right?” I don't exaggerate when I say she shoves me out the door.
¬_¬
My face breaks into a huge smile and I start walking in Peeta's direction. Then, as if I can't stand it another second, I start running. He catches me and spins me around and then he slips — he still isn't entirely in command of his artificial leg—and we fall into the snow, me on top of him, and that's where we have our first kiss in months. It's full of fur and snowflakes and lipstick, but underneath all that, I can feel the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything. And I know I'm not alone. As badly as I have hurt him, he won't expose me in front of the cameras. Won't condemn me with a halfhearted kiss. He's still looking out for me. Just as he did in the arena. Somehow the thought makes me want to cry.
Remember when Katniss saved his life in the arena? Because neither she nor the book do any longer.
Also stop blaming Katniss for Peeta being a creep, book.
They leave on the train and she gets a chance to talk to Haymitch.
I tell him everything. About the president's visit, about Gale, about how we're all going to die if I fail.
His face sobers, grows older in the glow of the red tail-lights. “Then you can't fail.”
Yes, Haymitch, I think she gets that.
But then he points out it's not going to just be this trip.
“Even if you pull it off, they'll be back in another few months to take us all to the Games. You and Peeta, you'll be mentors now, every year from here on out. And every year they'll revisit the romance and broadcast the details of your private life, and you'll never, ever be able to do anything but live happily ever after with that boy.”
Not a hundred percent sure of this. I mean, think of all the popular celebrity couples that break up. The fans are...disappointed, but it's generally understood that relationships don't necessarily work out, not that people were never actually in love.
For that matter, the capital controls all the media and the president just explained he doesn't let other districts know what's going on. If she decides to break up with Peeta and marry a tree, it doesn't matter as long as she poses for the cameras once a year.
But my logic has no place here. It's dramatic ending line time.
He means there's only one future, if I want to keep those I love alive and stay alive myself. I'll have to marry Peeta.
So okay, marginally better justified than that Draco and Hermione have to share a room because that's the rule for head boy and girl. But only marginally, and it's still a ridiculous contrivance. Evil government aren't shippers, book.
Incidentally, if I was President Snow, there's a much neater solution here. Get them to do their lovey bullshit this year, then arrange for Peeta to die in a tragic accident. Then Katniss can do the grieving lover thing and mope for a while, which she does do a good job at. Problem solved. Much easier than trying to force the two of them together all the time and hoping they never slip up.
The smell of blood ... it was on his breath.
First, that really would have been a better dramatic ending line for last chapter.
Next, unless there are vampires running around, my association for blood is sickness. Like, President Snow is really, really ill and has internal lesions.
Katniss, being more prone to flights of gruesome fancy, pictures the guy dipping cookies into a teacup of blood. I'd snark that she should know (cooked) blood is actually delicious, but as we saw last book, she's apparently a member of some very lax branch of Islam.
Outside the window, a car comes to life, soft and quiet like the purr of a cat, then fades away into the distance. It slips off as it arrived, unnoticed.
Oh, come on. There's no way a fancy car could drive through her town without everyone noticing.
But anyway, Katniss is now freaking out and near fainting. Everyone she knows is doomed if she doesn't act well! But she can't act!
This is kind of a sueishy bit because she certainly seems to have done a great acting job so far and it seems more like she's just underestimating her own ability, but in fairness, the current stakes are enough that anyone would be scared.
I hear my mother's light, quick tread in the hall. She can't know, I think. Not about any of this. I reach my hands over the tray and quickly brush the bits of cookie from my palm and fingers. I take a shaky sip of my tea.
“Is everything all right, Katniss?” she asks.
“It's fine. We never see it on television, but the president always visits the victors before the tour to wish them luck,” I say brightly.
My mother's face floods with relief. “Oh. I thought there was some kind of trouble.”
“No, not at all,” I say. “The trouble will start when my prep team sees how I've let my eyebrows grow back in.”
See? Great actor.
Also eyebrows don't really grow back in well. Hers are probably okay because they were only messed with twice, once before the games and once after, but still, they're probably going to be more upset about how they have to wax the rest of her then some easily fixed brows. Maybe she's just completely bullshitting here? That seems kind of dumb since that increases the chance her mom can see though the lie though.
Anyway, her mom offers to draw her a bath and she says okay and then explains that she's trying to fix their relationship.
My time in the arena made me realize how I needed to stop punishing her for something she couldn't help, specifically the crushing depression she fell into after my father's death. Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.
Terribly retconny because we never saw any sign of this in the arena and she sure seems to be dealing just fine with all those things that happened, but yeah, okay.
But it's bugging me that we keep getting this sensitive portrayal of depression when the book couldn't manage it for any of the many major issues it features. This is clearly the author's pet issue.
But Katniss is also grateful to her mom because when they came home her mom said that Peeta's great but Katniss is too young for a boyfriend, which gave her an excuse to get a bit of space.
That works okay. Culturally people have had a wide range of beliefs about the appropriate age for dating, and the whole reaping thing could be used as a standard. I mean, you really don't want a pregnant sixteen year old entering the games.
She then tries to think who she should tell. She doesn't want to tell her family and scare them. But then she says she won't tell Gale because he won't leave even if he knows. Um, you could tell him and let him make that decision, though. You're just assuming.
Besides, Gale's already so angry and frustrated with the Capitol that I sometimes think he's going to arrange his own uprising. The last thing he needs is an incentive
That makes a bit more sense. On the other hand, if so all the more reason to tell him he's under watch - knowing his life is on the line might make him more cautious and less hotheaded.
We then learn that Katniss has no other friends as she lists off her remaining confidants as Cinna, Peeta and Haymitch, picking Haymitch as the only option.
Okay, we're only three chapters in but this is the second book, so I feel justified in calling it a pattern. See how those are all guys? The active relationships the book has are all male. The book has made some stabs at female relationships with the addition of Gale's mom and improving the one with her own, but those are very much afterthoughts. Male writers will write so the character interactions are between males. Female writers write the exact same thing, but stick a female main character into the network of guys. If anything, female writers tend to be worse offenders here. There's a lot that can be said about why this is, sociatal conditioning etc etc, but the short version is please don't do this. Just look over what you're doing now and then and see if you're falling into this trap.
Anyway, Katniss then proves me right by flashbacking to yet another bit with awesome dad, who it turns out also taught her to swim and they had this wonderful lake that she's kept a secret from everyone because it was their special place.
She's interrupted by the arrival of the design team. Remember those guys, they were basically lame stereotypes and the narration kept talking about them like they were a gaggle of particularly bright dogs? Apparently the book thinks they were popular and brought them back as recurring characters.
I just have time to towel off and slip into a robe before my prep team bursts into the bathroom. There's no question of privacy. When it comes to my body, we have no secrets, these three people and me.
The book really does not care about addressing issues at all.
This is hardly the most major of the many things it's just declared Katniss is okay with, but seriously. She's repeatedly been forced to strip naked in front of strangers. It's part of how she has no control over her life and the capital treats her and the other children as fun little toys.
But that's not at all what the book thinks. The book thinks it's just a necessary setup bit for her to wear pretty dresses, which is what matters. This is because the book is morally bankrupt.
Their first line is about her eyebrows, so I guess we really were supposed to take that line as true. That's stupid, book. If anything, the problem would be her plucking too much of them, since that'd be hard to fix.
After that, it won't be long before the Capitol begins gearing up for the Quarter Quell.
The book then fails to explain what the fuck this is, only when it is. It happens every twenty five years and apparently it's even more depressing that usual. The writing is unusually poor here.
We do find out that Haymitch was the victor of the last one of these.
Haymitch has never mentioned his personal experience in the arena to me. I would never ask. And if I ever saw his Games televised in reruns, I must've been too young to remember it.
...so, they do show reruns as I speculated earlier, and yet they don't show them enough for her to about this, the one thing that matters. This smacks of hastily patched plothole. Also, it shouldn't just be reruns, plenty of other people should have seen it and mentioned it.
After they've exhausted the topic of the Quarter Quell, my prep team, launches into a whole lot of stuff about their incomprehensibly silly lives.
This too is stupid. What exactly do people talk about normally? They talk about people. I've yet to see any sign of the people of District 12 having nothing but serious business conversations. Also, maybe they're not talking about anything important because you're heavily monitored and it'd be suicide.
Then her mom comes in because Cinna wants Katniss' hair done up in the fancy braid thing her mom did when she was sent to the capital originally and she's supposed to show the prep team.
In the mirror, I can see their earnest faces following her every move, their eagerness when it is their turn to try a step. In fact, all three are so readily respectful and nice to my mother that I feel bad about how I go around feeling so superior to them. Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I'd been raised in the Capitol?
Wow, whiplash.
We're still playing hot potato with the blame here. No, book, they're horrible people for not giving a shit about the childmurder games. It's just that talking about minor things doesn't have anything to do with that. It doesn't matter. Stop mentioning it, stop saying it means something one way or the other, stop using it for superiority OR false equivalencies.
Katniss, remember all that hate and enemy business you did such a good job with during the games? These people. These people are your enemy.
When my hair is done, I find Cinna downstairs in the living room, and just the sight of him makes me feel more hopeful
Katniss what did I just say.
He looks the same as always, simple clothes, short brown hair, just a hint of gold eyeliner.
Cinna THE BESTEST MOST WONDERFULEST PERSON EVER.
Because fashion is evil but it's okay because Cinna isn't really a fashion guy, so that's why Katniss can wear a dress covered in more jewels than the organs and combined income of everyone in District 12 without there being anything at all wrong with doing so.
She goes on to say that they've been talking on the phone a lot because Cinna is just so wonderful. So wonderful.
See, a winner has to have a talent. This is a total asspull because Haymitch has made it clear that the winners are just left to their own devices most of the year. But anyway. Talent. Because the victors don't work they do something else with their time. But poor plain Katniss has no talent! It's time for another edition of sueish flaws.
I don't have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally, which they don't.
It's called archery and it's also a sport, Katniss.
She goes on to explain she failed at everything else on the list.
Cooking, flower arranging, playing the flute.
...seriously, book? Seriously?
Then in case we didn't get it the book adds that Prim was good at all of those. Because they are GIRL THINGS and Katniss FAILS AS A GIRL. Feminism!
Thankfully Cinna said she could design clothes for her talent, by which he meant he'd design clothes and sell them and she could sign her name on them.
I said yes because it meant getting to talk to Cinna, and he promised he'd do all the work.
Feminism!
Also, jesus this is horribly wasteful since again, starving people. You shouldn't be encouraging the capital to be even more consumerist.
I may have no interest in designing clothes but I do love the ones Cinna makes for me. Like these. Flowing black pants made of a thick, warm material. A comfortable white shirt. A sweater woven from green and blue and gray strands of kitten-soft wool. Laced leather boots that don't pinch my toes.
Hey, remember when Katniss was talking about how much she hated to wear fancy expensive clothes and she liked her old outfit and the wool coat just didn't fit right? Because yet again, the book sure doesn't!
Just then, Effie Trinket arrives in a pumpkin orange wig to remind everyone, “We're on a schedule!” She kisses me on both cheeks while waving in the camera crew, then orders me into position. Effie's the only reason we got anywhere on time in the Capitol, so I try to accommodate her.
The book seems to have somehow held off the desire to bitch unfairly about her. Good job book!
Anyway, Katniss leaves to let them film the clothes she claims to have made and sees Prim.
Bam! It's like someone actually hits me in the chest. No one has, of course, but the pain is so real I take a step back. I squeeze my eyes shut and I don't see Prim—I see Rue, the twelve-year-old girl from District 11 who was my ally in the arena. She could fly, birdlike, from tree to tree, catching on to the slenderest branches. Rue, who I didn't save. Who I let die. I picture her lying on the ground with the spear still wedged in her stomach... .
Okay, the writing there is especially bad, but hey, good job with the trauma there. Katniss has so far been brushing off the events of last book and it's nice to see her showing some lasting scars.
It's not a real PTSD flash or anything, because then Cinna comes to tell her to raise her arms and put her coat on and she's fine again, but certainly better than anything we've see so far.
I feel fur, inside and out, encasing me. It's from no animal I've ever seen. “Ermine,” he tells me as I stroke the white sleeve.
Ah, priorities.
Also, hey look it's more research fail. Stoats are totally native to her area. If they still exist, they exist there.
Anyway, her mom comes in and gives her the mockingjay pin, which Katniss once again had totally forgotten about. You know, in another book I'd wonder if this was supposed to mean something symbolic, but the symbolism here is more of the sledgehammer to face sort, so it's just funny how the book sets this up as a big important thing but can't actually do anything with it. In that way, it's quite symbolic of the whole thing, isn't it?
Effie Trinket's nearby, clapping her hands. “Attention, everyone! We're about to do the first outdoor shot, where the victors greet each other at the beginning of their marvelous trip. All right, Katniss, big smile, you're very excited, right?” I don't exaggerate when I say she shoves me out the door.
¬_¬
My face breaks into a huge smile and I start walking in Peeta's direction. Then, as if I can't stand it another second, I start running. He catches me and spins me around and then he slips — he still isn't entirely in command of his artificial leg—and we fall into the snow, me on top of him, and that's where we have our first kiss in months. It's full of fur and snowflakes and lipstick, but underneath all that, I can feel the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything. And I know I'm not alone. As badly as I have hurt him, he won't expose me in front of the cameras. Won't condemn me with a halfhearted kiss. He's still looking out for me. Just as he did in the arena. Somehow the thought makes me want to cry.
Remember when Katniss saved his life in the arena? Because neither she nor the book do any longer.
Also stop blaming Katniss for Peeta being a creep, book.
They leave on the train and she gets a chance to talk to Haymitch.
I tell him everything. About the president's visit, about Gale, about how we're all going to die if I fail.
His face sobers, grows older in the glow of the red tail-lights. “Then you can't fail.”
Yes, Haymitch, I think she gets that.
But then he points out it's not going to just be this trip.
“Even if you pull it off, they'll be back in another few months to take us all to the Games. You and Peeta, you'll be mentors now, every year from here on out. And every year they'll revisit the romance and broadcast the details of your private life, and you'll never, ever be able to do anything but live happily ever after with that boy.”
Not a hundred percent sure of this. I mean, think of all the popular celebrity couples that break up. The fans are...disappointed, but it's generally understood that relationships don't necessarily work out, not that people were never actually in love.
For that matter, the capital controls all the media and the president just explained he doesn't let other districts know what's going on. If she decides to break up with Peeta and marry a tree, it doesn't matter as long as she poses for the cameras once a year.
But my logic has no place here. It's dramatic ending line time.
He means there's only one future, if I want to keep those I love alive and stay alive myself. I'll have to marry Peeta.
So okay, marginally better justified than that Draco and Hermione have to share a room because that's the rule for head boy and girl. But only marginally, and it's still a ridiculous contrivance. Evil government aren't shippers, book.
Incidentally, if I was President Snow, there's a much neater solution here. Get them to do their lovey bullshit this year, then arrange for Peeta to die in a tragic accident. Then Katniss can do the grieving lover thing and mope for a while, which she does do a good job at. Problem solved. Much easier than trying to force the two of them together all the time and hoping they never slip up.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-24 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-24 02:54 am (UTC)I think what's weirdest is how she really doesn't seem to have any sense of bodily autonomy, for all she claims that her district makes who you marry your choice. She's stripped naked in front of strangers, displayed for the capital in various outfits, threatened with forced surgery with her only objection being that people will think it looks weird, forced to kiss and cuddle for the cameras, and she doesn't seem to ever have any personal objections to this.
no subject
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Date: 2011-04-24 04:33 pm (UTC)If this story would commit to straight up satire of the media I could see it, but in a serious story it doesn't make sense.
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