Catching Fire, Chapter 7
Apr. 28th, 2011 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaLast chapter of Catching Fire, there was a lot of hypocrisy and then stuff finally caught on fire.
Katniss decides to explain things to Gale. She goes to the lake and leaves him directions.
Then we jump back to the mayor's house. Katniss pretends she didn't see the special report and goes to talk to Marge. They chat about the pin. Katniss says it's an odd choice for a design.
The rebels caught on and turned them against the Capitol by sending them home loaded with lies. When this was discovered, the jabberjays were left to die. In a few years, they became extinct in the wild, but not before they had mated with female mockingbirds, creating an entirely new species.
“But mockingjays were never a weapon,” said Madge. “They're just songbirds. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. But it's not true. A mockingbird is just a songbird. A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist. They hadn't counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to pass on its genetic code, to thrive in a new form. They hadn't anticipated its will to live.
...great, so Marge was just an idiot, there was no meaning to her having the design. That was a nice little thing last book, that the mayor's daughter and by extension family were still unhappy enough with the system to be wearing that to the reaping.
Also wow forced symbolism overload.
Also it sure doesn't sound like the jabberjays had the brains to adapt to the wild at all, what with dying out in a few years. (Average mockingbird lifespan is apparently eight years - and they use that, because they're bright and learn stuff they pass on to offspring.) That they interbred with female mockingbirds just says they were horny. It doesn't even prove they were particularly fit, you can actually damage wild animal populations by letting domestic animals out to pollute the gene pool with their inferiority.
And from the description of mockingjay behavior, they don't seem as bright, because they don't seem to remember songs the way mockingbirds do. They have a greater tendency to repeat back any new sound, but they forget it soon after rather than incorporating it into their long-term repertoire. And they're repeatedly used to alert characters to the presence of a hovercraft with alarm calls, despite the fact the hovercraft never harms them. Mockingbirds are quite discriminating about their alarm calls. They're able to remember individual people who mess with their nest and focus their hate on the person, so going from that to not being able to figure out an entire class of entity is harmless is a pretty nasty drop in IQ. They're clever birds with their own particular behaviors, not just a collection of generic birdness you can use as a plot device! I've just been ignoring this because whatever, it's a new species, BUT THEY'RE NOT BETTER THAN MOCKINGBIRDS MOCKINGBIRDS ARE FUCKING AWESOME.
As always, they remind me of Rue. I think of the dream I had the last night on the train, where I followed her in mockingjay form. I wish I could have stayed asleep just a bit longer and found out where she was trying to take me.
Oh book, it's like you looked at your fridging and asked yourself how you could make it worse.
It's not enough you made her the perfect victim, do you really have to bury absolutely everything about her as a person? What about Rue makes her a mockingjay? That she sang to them? What about her skill in the trees, her concern for her family, her knowledge of plants? Why would she want to take Katniss anywhere? What does this have to do with her?
I reach an old house near the edge of the lake. Maybe “house” is too big a word for it. It's only one room, about twelve feet square. My father thought that a long time ago there were a lot of buildings — you can still see some of the foundations — and people came to them to play and fish in the lake. This house outlasted the others because it's made of concrete. Floor, roof, ceiling. Only one of four glass windows remains, wavy and yellowed by time. There's no plumbing and no electricity, but the fireplace still works and there's a woodpile in the corner that my father and I collected years ago.
This is interesting.
I mentioned last time about how apples aren't wild plants and that the apple trees should be from an old orchard. When I first hit the mention of house I thought yay! confirmation! But then these don't seem like actual houses after all, but like somewhere to camp. So, why are there apple trees? What did this place used to be? Is it supposed to have always been a forested area? I had the impression the forest had grown up as humans retreated, thus the return of wild animals, but perhaps not.
What we know about the timeline so far is that there's a long series of disasters. Then the country of Panem forms out of the ashes in the district and capital setup. Then, seventy-five years ago, there's a rebellion.
Do these buildings predate Panem? If so, why weren't they destroyed in the disasters? Were those disasters localized, with the area that makes up the current world made up of the places that made it out okay? The thing is, most local disasters cause refugees and crowding, but the setup here suggests that Panem's founding was preceded by amazing amounts of death and a crippled labor pool, necessitating the rigid district setup to keep things running and explaining the lack of resource exploitation early on so that areas like the forest are left to grow. That would suggest the primary disaster was some sort of plague, with the survivors gathering together to make the current country. But that doesn't really fit with the vague litany of problems we're given, which suggests everything went wrong at once rather than one major thing that would stand out and be remembered.
The book has no answers. Instead, Gale shows up. He's carrying the gifts she left for him in the snow but hasn't opened the bag, because he's mad. Despite the fact Katniss already told him that the last time she did it it was because she had no choice.
Katniss says that Snow threatened to kill him and their families. Gale accepts this but is still sulky and says he doesn't want Peeta's gloves, so Katniss says the gloves were Cinna (THE BESTEST MOST WONDERFULEST)'s so he's okay with it.
They sit by the fire and Katniss explains how very fucked they are. Gale asks her plan. She says their only chance is to run away together and oh god Katniss how did you not see what you said.
Gale, naturally, is thrilled.
His voice drops to a whisper. “I love you.”
That's why.
I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second you're proposing an escape plan and the next... you're expected to deal with something like this. I come up with what must be the worst possible response. “I know.”
It sounds terrible. Like I assume he couldn't help loving me but that I don't feel anything in return. Gale starts to draw away, but I grab hold of him. “I know! And you... you know what you are to me.” It's not enough. He breaks my grip. “Gale, I can't think about anyone that way now. All I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim's name at the reaping, is how afraid I am. And there doesn't seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don't know.”
Once again, she has a great point here. She's saying she can't deal with this right now, and that's completely valid.
Gale, who's shaping up to be this book's creepy asshole, is very disappointed. But he starts talking about how he'll convince his mother.
I guess he's still going, anyway. But the happiness has fled, leaving an all-too-familiar strain in its place.
She's not responsible for the fact he's in love with her.
The only thing Katniss could be blamed for is stringing them along by not telling them to give up, but she's not. Every time she gets to state her feelings, she's clear that she doesn't know because she's too busy not dying to worry about romance.
As should Gale. The fact the evil government is about to kill him and his family is the real issue here.
Katniss says it'll be hard convincing her mother as well.
“She'll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim
She did? Because I seem to remember her coming in to offer cookies to President Childmurder.
“Haymitch will be the real challenge.”
“Haymitch?” Gale abandons the chestnuts. “You're not asking him to come with us?”
“I have to, Gale. I can't leave him and Peeta because they'd—” His scowl cuts me off. “What?”
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize how large our party was,” he snaps at me.
“They'd torture them to death, trying to find out where I was,” I say.
“What about Peeta's family? They'll never come. In fact, they probably couldn't wait to inform on us.
Let me guess, Gale's the major love interest this book? I can tell by the way he's not only a manipulative asshole, but his total disregard for the lives of other people.
What if he decides to stay?” he asks.
I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. “Then he stays.”
“You'd leave him behind?” Gale asks.
“To save Prim and my mother, yes,” I answer. “I mean, no! I'll get him to come.”
“And me, would you leave me?” Gale's expression is rock hard now. “Just if, for instance, I can't convince my mother to drag three young kids into the wilderness in winter.”
Jesus christ is there a point to this? What the hell does he want her to say? She's leaving. She's doing her best to save as many people as she can. If you decide to commit suicide and stay, what the hell should she do? Die with you and let her family die too?
It turns out, of course, that Gale didn't believe a word she said. He agreed with her to get in her pants. Now that he's not expecting to be rewarded with sex for going along with her foolish woman thoughts, he's not interested in going. Because how would she know? She's just the one actually talking to Snow. He totally saw him offer to throw her a wedding on TV so obviously things are fine.
That bit wasn't sarcasm, that's his reasoning.
Katniss blurts out that District 8 is in revolt.
Gale is thrilled. Katniss tries to tell him that by revolt she means people being shot. And it's all her fault.
You haven't hurt people—you've given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. There's already been talk in the mines. People who want to fight. Don't you see? It's happening! It's finally happening! If there's an uprising in District Eight, why not here? Why not everywhere? This could be it, the thing we've been—”
This is the first decent thing he's said. This is indeed the perfect time for another uprising. Their forces are already split. You don't want to wait for them to finish up there, you want to act now.
The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they're not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people — they mean less than nothing to them!” I say.
Yes, Katniss, that's why you need an armed rebellion to kill them all.
Anyway, that's the end result of their argument - Katniss argues that people will get hurt, Gale argues that they need to rebel because things suck now. For the record, Gale is wrong here. Bricks don't win against guns. Rebellion may be necessary, but you shouldn't be stupid about it.
Gale shakes his head, not hiding his disgust with me. “You could do so much.”
No, she couldn't. She's just a sixteen year old. The most she can do at this point is become a martyr.
Then he says he doesn't want the gloves because he doesn't want anything made at the capital and leaves.
Anything they made in the Capitol? Was that directed at me? Does he think I am now just another product of the Capitol and therefore something untouchable?
I quote mainly because wow, that's pretty bad writing even for the book. But also, it's not always about you. It's common in a rebellion like this to insist you cut ties with the evil oppressors and stop relying on their scraps. (Whether or not this is actually a good idea depends on opinion and situation, but it's definitely a school of thought.) If the author cared at all about actual revolution rather than things revolving around Katniss, that would be the case here.
Katniss decides to go talk to Gale's mother, hoping she'll stop him from doing anything dumb. You know, she and the kids are still actual people, not just Gale-related props. You should warn her to get out, even if she can't convince Gale. Katniss plans to go that night.
She finds Peeta next and tells him there's an uprising and they should flee. Apparently he's reading along with us and seeing Gale's impressive showing realizes he's falling behind in the asshole Olympics.
“By 'we' do you mean just you and me? No. Who else would be going?” he asks.
Yes, because that's really what you should be thinking about.
Katniss repeats the list and admits Gale might not be coming.
Sure, Katniss, I'll go.”
I feel a slight twinge of hope. “You will?”
“Yeah. But I don't think for a minute you will,” he says.
A truly good showing by Peeta. Nothing is sexier than telling a girl that they don't even know their own thoughts. Still, he has a way to go to catch up with Gale.
“Katniss, hold up.” I kick a dirty, frozen chunk of snow off the path and let him catch up. The coal dust makes everything look especially ugly. “I really will go, if you want me to. I just think we better talk it through with Haymitch. Make sure we won't be making things worse for everyone.”
There we go! Now Peeta's doing the same false agreement thing, where he's going along because Katniss is just so cute when she thinks she made a plan but actually thinks it's incredibly stupid.
Anyway, they hear a weird sound. Peeta seems to recognize it because his expression gets hard. Naturally, Katniss doesn't just ask what it is. Instead they keep going toward the sound.
When we reach the square, it's clear something's happening, but the crowd's too thick to see. Peeta steps up on a crate against the wall of the sweetshop and offers me a hand while he scans the square. I'm halfway up when he suddenly blocks my way. “Get down. Get out of here!” He's whispering, but his voice is harsh with insistence.
“What?” I say, trying to force my way back up.
“Go home, Katniss! I'll be there in a minute, I swear!” he says.
And now he's treating her like a kid and refusing to explain what's going on. God, Peeta, you are really determined to make me regret thinking you were okay for a couple chapters.
Katniss, of course, wants to know what's going on, and if Peeta's blocking the crate, she'll just go through the crowd. It's nice to see her showing such spine.
The crowd disagrees and people start grabbing her and shoving her back.
Voices hiss.
“Get out of here, girl.”
“Only make it worse.”
“What do you want to do? Get him killed?”
No one, of course, bothers to actually tell her shit, so she continues to not be able to make a decision about this. We keep getting told that it's a bad idea for her to get close to whatever's going on. Surely the best idea then is to tell her instead of forcing her to get close to see what's going on.
I only know that whatever waits in the middle of the square is meant for me. When I finally break through to the cleared space, I see I am right. And Peeta was right. And those voices were right, too.
Actually Peeta and the voices can go fuck themselves, because it's Gale getting whipped and it's presumably over the turkey he shot, because the bird's nailed to the post he's tied to, not because of Katniss at all.
Standing behind him is a man I've never seen, but I recognize his uniform. It's the one designated for our Head Peacekeeper. This isn't old Cray, though. This is a tall, muscular man with sharp creases in his pants.
Why, though?
I mean, it's surely not a coincidence that after years of Cray being in charge this guy replaced him, but why now, exactly? They could have replaced him as soon as it was clear Katniss was a poacher, because from the looks of it stopping poaching was supposed to be his job. And they could have replaced him when Katniss came back to try to get an excuse to kill her, or just to make her miserable by preventing her from hunting in the first place. What's the point of doing it right now when they're reached the stage of murdering everyone?
(Also look everyone: Yet. Another. Guy.)
Katniss decides to explain things to Gale. She goes to the lake and leaves him directions.
Then we jump back to the mayor's house. Katniss pretends she didn't see the special report and goes to talk to Marge. They chat about the pin. Katniss says it's an odd choice for a design.
The rebels caught on and turned them against the Capitol by sending them home loaded with lies. When this was discovered, the jabberjays were left to die. In a few years, they became extinct in the wild, but not before they had mated with female mockingbirds, creating an entirely new species.
“But mockingjays were never a weapon,” said Madge. “They're just songbirds. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. But it's not true. A mockingbird is just a songbird. A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist. They hadn't counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to pass on its genetic code, to thrive in a new form. They hadn't anticipated its will to live.
...great, so Marge was just an idiot, there was no meaning to her having the design. That was a nice little thing last book, that the mayor's daughter and by extension family were still unhappy enough with the system to be wearing that to the reaping.
Also wow forced symbolism overload.
Also it sure doesn't sound like the jabberjays had the brains to adapt to the wild at all, what with dying out in a few years. (Average mockingbird lifespan is apparently eight years - and they use that, because they're bright and learn stuff they pass on to offspring.) That they interbred with female mockingbirds just says they were horny. It doesn't even prove they were particularly fit, you can actually damage wild animal populations by letting domestic animals out to pollute the gene pool with their inferiority.
And from the description of mockingjay behavior, they don't seem as bright, because they don't seem to remember songs the way mockingbirds do. They have a greater tendency to repeat back any new sound, but they forget it soon after rather than incorporating it into their long-term repertoire. And they're repeatedly used to alert characters to the presence of a hovercraft with alarm calls, despite the fact the hovercraft never harms them. Mockingbirds are quite discriminating about their alarm calls. They're able to remember individual people who mess with their nest and focus their hate on the person, so going from that to not being able to figure out an entire class of entity is harmless is a pretty nasty drop in IQ. They're clever birds with their own particular behaviors, not just a collection of generic birdness you can use as a plot device! I've just been ignoring this because whatever, it's a new species, BUT THEY'RE NOT BETTER THAN MOCKINGBIRDS MOCKINGBIRDS ARE FUCKING AWESOME.
As always, they remind me of Rue. I think of the dream I had the last night on the train, where I followed her in mockingjay form. I wish I could have stayed asleep just a bit longer and found out where she was trying to take me.
Oh book, it's like you looked at your fridging and asked yourself how you could make it worse.
It's not enough you made her the perfect victim, do you really have to bury absolutely everything about her as a person? What about Rue makes her a mockingjay? That she sang to them? What about her skill in the trees, her concern for her family, her knowledge of plants? Why would she want to take Katniss anywhere? What does this have to do with her?
I reach an old house near the edge of the lake. Maybe “house” is too big a word for it. It's only one room, about twelve feet square. My father thought that a long time ago there were a lot of buildings — you can still see some of the foundations — and people came to them to play and fish in the lake. This house outlasted the others because it's made of concrete. Floor, roof, ceiling. Only one of four glass windows remains, wavy and yellowed by time. There's no plumbing and no electricity, but the fireplace still works and there's a woodpile in the corner that my father and I collected years ago.
This is interesting.
I mentioned last time about how apples aren't wild plants and that the apple trees should be from an old orchard. When I first hit the mention of house I thought yay! confirmation! But then these don't seem like actual houses after all, but like somewhere to camp. So, why are there apple trees? What did this place used to be? Is it supposed to have always been a forested area? I had the impression the forest had grown up as humans retreated, thus the return of wild animals, but perhaps not.
What we know about the timeline so far is that there's a long series of disasters. Then the country of Panem forms out of the ashes in the district and capital setup. Then, seventy-five years ago, there's a rebellion.
Do these buildings predate Panem? If so, why weren't they destroyed in the disasters? Were those disasters localized, with the area that makes up the current world made up of the places that made it out okay? The thing is, most local disasters cause refugees and crowding, but the setup here suggests that Panem's founding was preceded by amazing amounts of death and a crippled labor pool, necessitating the rigid district setup to keep things running and explaining the lack of resource exploitation early on so that areas like the forest are left to grow. That would suggest the primary disaster was some sort of plague, with the survivors gathering together to make the current country. But that doesn't really fit with the vague litany of problems we're given, which suggests everything went wrong at once rather than one major thing that would stand out and be remembered.
The book has no answers. Instead, Gale shows up. He's carrying the gifts she left for him in the snow but hasn't opened the bag, because he's mad. Despite the fact Katniss already told him that the last time she did it it was because she had no choice.
Katniss says that Snow threatened to kill him and their families. Gale accepts this but is still sulky and says he doesn't want Peeta's gloves, so Katniss says the gloves were Cinna (THE BESTEST MOST WONDERFULEST)'s so he's okay with it.
They sit by the fire and Katniss explains how very fucked they are. Gale asks her plan. She says their only chance is to run away together and oh god Katniss how did you not see what you said.
Gale, naturally, is thrilled.
His voice drops to a whisper. “I love you.”
That's why.
I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second you're proposing an escape plan and the next... you're expected to deal with something like this. I come up with what must be the worst possible response. “I know.”
It sounds terrible. Like I assume he couldn't help loving me but that I don't feel anything in return. Gale starts to draw away, but I grab hold of him. “I know! And you... you know what you are to me.” It's not enough. He breaks my grip. “Gale, I can't think about anyone that way now. All I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim's name at the reaping, is how afraid I am. And there doesn't seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don't know.”
Once again, she has a great point here. She's saying she can't deal with this right now, and that's completely valid.
Gale, who's shaping up to be this book's creepy asshole, is very disappointed. But he starts talking about how he'll convince his mother.
I guess he's still going, anyway. But the happiness has fled, leaving an all-too-familiar strain in its place.
She's not responsible for the fact he's in love with her.
The only thing Katniss could be blamed for is stringing them along by not telling them to give up, but she's not. Every time she gets to state her feelings, she's clear that she doesn't know because she's too busy not dying to worry about romance.
As should Gale. The fact the evil government is about to kill him and his family is the real issue here.
Katniss says it'll be hard convincing her mother as well.
“She'll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim
She did? Because I seem to remember her coming in to offer cookies to President Childmurder.
“Haymitch will be the real challenge.”
“Haymitch?” Gale abandons the chestnuts. “You're not asking him to come with us?”
“I have to, Gale. I can't leave him and Peeta because they'd—” His scowl cuts me off. “What?”
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize how large our party was,” he snaps at me.
“They'd torture them to death, trying to find out where I was,” I say.
“What about Peeta's family? They'll never come. In fact, they probably couldn't wait to inform on us.
Let me guess, Gale's the major love interest this book? I can tell by the way he's not only a manipulative asshole, but his total disregard for the lives of other people.
What if he decides to stay?” he asks.
I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. “Then he stays.”
“You'd leave him behind?” Gale asks.
“To save Prim and my mother, yes,” I answer. “I mean, no! I'll get him to come.”
“And me, would you leave me?” Gale's expression is rock hard now. “Just if, for instance, I can't convince my mother to drag three young kids into the wilderness in winter.”
Jesus christ is there a point to this? What the hell does he want her to say? She's leaving. She's doing her best to save as many people as she can. If you decide to commit suicide and stay, what the hell should she do? Die with you and let her family die too?
It turns out, of course, that Gale didn't believe a word she said. He agreed with her to get in her pants. Now that he's not expecting to be rewarded with sex for going along with her foolish woman thoughts, he's not interested in going. Because how would she know? She's just the one actually talking to Snow. He totally saw him offer to throw her a wedding on TV so obviously things are fine.
That bit wasn't sarcasm, that's his reasoning.
Katniss blurts out that District 8 is in revolt.
Gale is thrilled. Katniss tries to tell him that by revolt she means people being shot. And it's all her fault.
You haven't hurt people—you've given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. There's already been talk in the mines. People who want to fight. Don't you see? It's happening! It's finally happening! If there's an uprising in District Eight, why not here? Why not everywhere? This could be it, the thing we've been—”
This is the first decent thing he's said. This is indeed the perfect time for another uprising. Their forces are already split. You don't want to wait for them to finish up there, you want to act now.
The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they're not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people — they mean less than nothing to them!” I say.
Yes, Katniss, that's why you need an armed rebellion to kill them all.
Anyway, that's the end result of their argument - Katniss argues that people will get hurt, Gale argues that they need to rebel because things suck now. For the record, Gale is wrong here. Bricks don't win against guns. Rebellion may be necessary, but you shouldn't be stupid about it.
Gale shakes his head, not hiding his disgust with me. “You could do so much.”
No, she couldn't. She's just a sixteen year old. The most she can do at this point is become a martyr.
Then he says he doesn't want the gloves because he doesn't want anything made at the capital and leaves.
Anything they made in the Capitol? Was that directed at me? Does he think I am now just another product of the Capitol and therefore something untouchable?
I quote mainly because wow, that's pretty bad writing even for the book. But also, it's not always about you. It's common in a rebellion like this to insist you cut ties with the evil oppressors and stop relying on their scraps. (Whether or not this is actually a good idea depends on opinion and situation, but it's definitely a school of thought.) If the author cared at all about actual revolution rather than things revolving around Katniss, that would be the case here.
Katniss decides to go talk to Gale's mother, hoping she'll stop him from doing anything dumb. You know, she and the kids are still actual people, not just Gale-related props. You should warn her to get out, even if she can't convince Gale. Katniss plans to go that night.
She finds Peeta next and tells him there's an uprising and they should flee. Apparently he's reading along with us and seeing Gale's impressive showing realizes he's falling behind in the asshole Olympics.
“By 'we' do you mean just you and me? No. Who else would be going?” he asks.
Yes, because that's really what you should be thinking about.
Katniss repeats the list and admits Gale might not be coming.
Sure, Katniss, I'll go.”
I feel a slight twinge of hope. “You will?”
“Yeah. But I don't think for a minute you will,” he says.
A truly good showing by Peeta. Nothing is sexier than telling a girl that they don't even know their own thoughts. Still, he has a way to go to catch up with Gale.
“Katniss, hold up.” I kick a dirty, frozen chunk of snow off the path and let him catch up. The coal dust makes everything look especially ugly. “I really will go, if you want me to. I just think we better talk it through with Haymitch. Make sure we won't be making things worse for everyone.”
There we go! Now Peeta's doing the same false agreement thing, where he's going along because Katniss is just so cute when she thinks she made a plan but actually thinks it's incredibly stupid.
Anyway, they hear a weird sound. Peeta seems to recognize it because his expression gets hard. Naturally, Katniss doesn't just ask what it is. Instead they keep going toward the sound.
When we reach the square, it's clear something's happening, but the crowd's too thick to see. Peeta steps up on a crate against the wall of the sweetshop and offers me a hand while he scans the square. I'm halfway up when he suddenly blocks my way. “Get down. Get out of here!” He's whispering, but his voice is harsh with insistence.
“What?” I say, trying to force my way back up.
“Go home, Katniss! I'll be there in a minute, I swear!” he says.
And now he's treating her like a kid and refusing to explain what's going on. God, Peeta, you are really determined to make me regret thinking you were okay for a couple chapters.
Katniss, of course, wants to know what's going on, and if Peeta's blocking the crate, she'll just go through the crowd. It's nice to see her showing such spine.
The crowd disagrees and people start grabbing her and shoving her back.
Voices hiss.
“Get out of here, girl.”
“Only make it worse.”
“What do you want to do? Get him killed?”
No one, of course, bothers to actually tell her shit, so she continues to not be able to make a decision about this. We keep getting told that it's a bad idea for her to get close to whatever's going on. Surely the best idea then is to tell her instead of forcing her to get close to see what's going on.
I only know that whatever waits in the middle of the square is meant for me. When I finally break through to the cleared space, I see I am right. And Peeta was right. And those voices were right, too.
Actually Peeta and the voices can go fuck themselves, because it's Gale getting whipped and it's presumably over the turkey he shot, because the bird's nailed to the post he's tied to, not because of Katniss at all.
Standing behind him is a man I've never seen, but I recognize his uniform. It's the one designated for our Head Peacekeeper. This isn't old Cray, though. This is a tall, muscular man with sharp creases in his pants.
Why, though?
I mean, it's surely not a coincidence that after years of Cray being in charge this guy replaced him, but why now, exactly? They could have replaced him as soon as it was clear Katniss was a poacher, because from the looks of it stopping poaching was supposed to be his job. And they could have replaced him when Katniss came back to try to get an excuse to kill her, or just to make her miserable by preventing her from hunting in the first place. What's the point of doing it right now when they're reached the stage of murdering everyone?
(Also look everyone: Yet. Another. Guy.)
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Date: 2012-04-13 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-13 08:26 am (UTC)(Seriously, I can't always tell people with the same hair color apart; I can't imagine being able to pick out individuals of such a different species!)