Catching Fire, Chapter 9
Apr. 30th, 2011 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaLast time on Catching Fire, Katniss guilt-tripped herself into deciding to stay and do what Gale wanted.
Peeta shows up in the morning. She tells him she can't leave after all and Peeta says he knows. Apparently she forgot the smug jackass already said that to her earlier because I don't know, he's precog or something.
I wonder if he slept at all. Couldn't have been long. I think of his agreeing to go with me yesterday, his stepping up beside me to protect Gale, his willingness to throw his lot in with mine entirely when I give him so little in return. No matter what I do, I'm hurting someone.
His refusal to back the fuck off when you turn him down, or more accurately his refusal to even get in a situation where you'd be able to turn him down, is not your fault.
Katniss goes to sleep.
At some point, Clove, the girl from District 2, enters my dreams. She chases me, pins me to the ground, and pulls out a knife to cut my face. It digs deeply into my cheek, opening a wide gash. Then Clove begins to transform, her face elongating into a snout, dark fur sprouting from her skin, her fingernails growing into long claws, but her eyes remain unchanged.
Did you really think the other EVIL WHORE would avoid getting twisted into dog form? How foolish. How can we properly demonize the two girls if we don't keep turning them into bitch monsters?
Hate you so much book.
(At least the third girl/second kill never got a name, so she's forgotten entirely and spared this. Unlike, naturally, the unnamed boy, who Katniss fixates on.)
Clove begins to lap the blood flowing from my wound, each lick sending a new wave of pain through my face.
In less ragey news, hey, it's failwriting.
A really common writing mistake is to write dreams as just more fantastic versions of real life. From what we've been told so far, Katniss either relieves events exactly like before or has slightly changed versions like this one. It's actually quite hard to really write an accurate dream, in part because remembering dreams in real life is tricky business, and even when you try to keep a dream in mind it's often getting smoothed together into something more coherent.
One random tidbit - you know the standard dream where you're naked or something, and everyone points and laughs? That's not the standard dream, that's the standard fictional rendering. In the standard dream, the dreamer spends their time hoping no one notices and trying to get away. Similar for dreams about not studying for a test, there isn't a sudden moment of reveal, because the power of the dream is that you're locked in and have to keep trying to avoid it. Indeed, generally dreams like that don't have a clear end. But when we think about it with awake, functioning brains, we put it together differently, bring things to their logical conclusion.
Physical sensation in dreams is far more likely to be impressionistic, with the horror of getting torn apart and fear of pain, or related to sleep paralysis, like the sensation of not being able to breathe.
So, what sort of nightmares should Katniss have? Death and helplessness are both good ones. Being torn up so she can't move or see, because both those things often don't work well in dreams to start with, and when Katniss starts panicking and trying to do them she'll realize something's wrong, leading to the dream focusing on those. Katniss was quite upset by losing her hearing, so I think physical mutilation in general likely scares her, so a dream of being cut apart that does permanent damage would also work. And speaking of mutilation, she was also helpless after the games and has been repeatedly threatened with mutilation in the name of fashion, and I'd expect would have some nightmares too. Oh, and given how hard she tried to save Rue and Peeta, being pinned and attacked somewhere and unable to move while something horrible happens to one of them should also be a nightmare.
This really isn't too hard, it's just easy to slip up on. You have to try to think about actual dreams instead of the fictional kind.
I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I'm not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol's design, not mine.
FEMINISM: Because you're not supposed to want that, slut.
I welcome the blizzard, with its ferocious winds and deep, drifting snow. This may be enough to keep the real wolves, also known as the Peacekeepers, from my door.
...jesus fucking christ ungrateful bastards.
The revolution is going to crash and burn because they're totally fucking incapable of forming alliances with anyone they don't approve of, isn't it?
Anyway, Katniss thinks that she's scared, but that at the same time she's already been through so much so it's not anything new. I think she's drastically underestimating torture here, but anything that gets her doing stuff is good.
Then she thinks about Prim and has a panic attack, but then thinks that they've already hurt her sister.
Prim ... Rue ... aren't they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?
Well, yes. But do remember that you were one of the agents of that stuff no one has the right to do to other kids. I'm not saying you should beat yourself up over it forever, but some recognition people didn't deserve their horrible deaths would be nice.
I'm glad the book's finally gotten here, but I'm suspicious of the qualifications. Is this going to turn into one of those things where only the right kind of person deserves basic decency, and everyone else can be mistreated as much as you like?
this morning my brain is not assembling lists of supplies for the wild, but trying to figure out how they organized that uprising in District 8. So many, so clearly acting in defiance of the Capitol. Was it even planned, or something that simply erupted out of years of hatred and resentment? How could we do that here?
Uh, put some cloth over your head and grab a brick, then get shot.
District 8 is not someone you want to emulate, and they obviously had little to no organization.
We need someone to direct us and reassure us this is possible. And I don't think I'm that person. I may have been a catalyst for rebellion, but a leader should be someone with conviction, and I'm barely a convert myself. Someone with unflinching courage, and I'm still working hard at even finding mine. Someone with clear and persuasive words, and I'm so easily tongue-tied.
You know, I wonder if this is a more wide-ranging pattern.
Katniss' importance here is basically accidental, while Peeta's speech abilities are to his own credit. The difference between being attractive and being charming. He's in control of it, while Katniss isn't.
Also hate for saying Katniss is a coward and Peeta isn't. When did Peeta become super brave and unflinching? And if he's got conviction, it's entirely the wrong sort. I may disagree that the trained kids are evil, but joining up with them to help them kill multiple people on the off-chance he could help Katniss was not right.
Anyway, she goes and sees Gale. The painkillers have worn off and Katniss is worried.
You know, why don't they have opiates on hand normally? Pure morphine I can see being hard to get, but poppies are really easy to grow, and you can usually pretend innocence about how they're just ornamental. (And their gardens do hold things other than plants, because Katniss' family has a lot of dried mint, which is one of the least useful herbs. It's mostly for upset stomachs and, ironically, is an appetite stimulator.)
In short, why aren't they pouring laudanum down his throat or something? (...hey, why isn't Haymitch using it?)
Instead, her mom says they're covering his back in a snow and herbal mixture. You know, I'm not entirely sure that's really safe. At a certain point you're going to cause hypothermia, and even before then, cold prevents bloodflow. In the short term it keeps swelling down, but in the longer term there's a reason why injuries swell in the first place.
Anyway, the mixture of cold snow and "herbs" somehow acts as a super painkiller that works almost instantly. In light of what I just said a likely recipe for this is poppy, as opiates work topically, although I'm not sure what concentration you need. Definitely some sort of really strong narcotic.
My point here is that herbal doesn't mean weak. There's a lot of plants that'll fuck you up. The issue of herbal medicine verses industrially produced stuff is usually better refinement and better quality control. By filtering out more toxic compounds and having a better idea exactly how much you're giving a person, you can give them higher doses without accidentally overdosing them. And, of course, it's possible to synthesize new drugs that work without the side affects you'd get from herbal stuff. But the herbal stuff definitely works.
Katniss apologizes for the screaming and her mom says she understands.
Of course, I love Gale. But what kind of love does she mean? What do I mean when I say I love Gale? I don't know. I did kiss him last night, in a moment when my emotions were running so high. But I'm sure he doesn't remember it. Does he? I hope not.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-
Book, when I idly wondered if it was possible to top the infuriating endless loop of Katniss realizing Peeta sincerely loved her and then switching back to thinking he was acting for no reason, it was not a challenge. It didn't mean you needed to find a way.
When the blizzard stops, the snow is higher than her head and she seems to take this in stride. If winter is this awful, why is she plotting rebellion now of all times? Seems like more of a summer thing.
She, Haymitch and Peeta head to the square to talk about what to do, because they don't want to chat in their probably bugged houses. (Haymitch is ignoring it and says to focus on the wedding.)
Nothing much will happen during the blizzard. That's what Peeta and I had agreed. But we couldn't have been more wrong. The square has been transformed. A huge banner with the seal of Panem hangs off the roof of the Justice Building. Peacekeepers, in pristine white uniforms, march on the cleanly swept cobblestones. Along the rooftops, more of them occupy nests of machine guns. Most unnerving is a line of new constructions —an official whipping post, several stockades, and a gallows — set up in the center of the square.
So, yeah. It seems Cray was a really, really good guy.
I suspect we're not supposed to think much of the fact these things weren't there before, as if it's just a choice of whoever's in charge. But Cray wasn't in charge. He's a government worker. If he didn't have gallows up, it's not because the peacekeepers were too fat and lazy to bother with convicting people. They were accountable for following the capital's laws and instead they let people get away with things. That's not a safe move when you're working for an evil government.
Also, right then, the black market building is being burned down. That's kind of excessive and wasteful, but whatever, capital's evil so sure.
“Well, I better go see how much rubbing alcohol the apothecary can spare.”
...wait, evil prohibition is on too?
I mean, really, are we really being told that the only source of alcohol is the black market? They don't have bars? And Katniss claimed last book there was wine around that her mother had, and her mother didn't buy from the black market.
I can understand certain kinds being banned if they're too high proof, or it being illegal to manufacture, but the idea it's the only source of alcohol is ridiculous.
Also, rubbing alcohol isn't kind of dangerous, it's deadly. A glass of it will kill you. Assuming Haymitch is dumb enough to try it anyway, he wouldn't need to stock up on much.
The book sort of knows this, but doesn't seem to get that it's a certainty, not a risk you take.
“We can't let him drink it. He'll kill himself, or at the very least go blind. I've got some white liquor put away at home.”
“Me, too. Maybe that will hold him until Ripper finds a way to be back in business,” says Peeta.
Um...couldn't you just go visit her? You know she's got the stuff. If there's no longer a central black market, people can still sell out of their houses.
Admittedly, this then begs the question of where she's getting the stuff - presumably distilling it herself? Point is, someone on the supply chain is producing it unimpeded by the market building's destruction, you don't need to wait for her to set up a new stall to get it.
What an idiot I am. There's an inherent flaw in the plan that both Gale and I were too blind to see. An uprising requires breaking the law, thwarting authority. We've done that our whole lives, or our families have. Poaching, trading on the black market, mocking the Capitol in the woods. But for most people in District 12, a trip to buy something at the Hob would be too risky.
WHY.
We're established by now that there is no risk. No one's been whipped since Cray took charge, and the lack of surveillance wasn't because the police were incompetent and missing most crime but because they were purposefully turning a blind eye. The peacekeepers hang out at the Hob buying illegal goods. What risk?
Anyway, they visit Gale's mother and find out that no one will hire her to do the washing any longer. Because they're scared. What are they scared of? By the looks of things, a whipping is business as usual to the new head peacekeeper, not a sign the entire family and anyone who associates with them is also evil.
The last thing I notice as we leave the square is that I do not recognize even one of the Peacekeepers' faces.
Okay, that's a bigger deal. But it means more than just that there's strangers! Where are the original peacekeepers? Does this just mean there's a lot of new ones brought in, or are the original ones gone? Are they dead? Assuming that they're normally recruited from the district, as is implied by Katniss mentioning the new guy's accent, that affects all their families, so what's going on there?
Instead, Katniss switches topics to say people are going hungry.
The mines stay shut for two weeks, and by that time half of District 12 is starving. The number of kids signing up for tesserae soars, but they often don't receive their grain.
So they're signing up because it's the only way to get grain, except it doesn't work, so why are they signing up?
Food shortages begin, and even those with money come away from stores empty-handed. When the mines reopen, wages are cut, hours extended, miners sent into blatantly dangerous work sites. The eagerly awaited food promised for Parcel Day arrives spoiled and defiled by rodents.
...the canned food shipped in the winter is spoiled. Seriously?
How does this whole economy work? Is it that they're not sending food or that the snow prevents it? Because closing the mines and letting people starve because they can't afford food is a good way to throw your power around, but being unable to ship food in is very much not. If they can't manage that, then they can't move troops either, and you're removing the "at least they make the trains run on time" justification for people who'd otherwise not rock to boat.
The installations in the square see plenty of action as people are dragged in and punished for offenses so long overlooked we've forgotten they are illegal.
Ugh, make up your mind book! Either they're a bunch of sheeple who followed rules even when they weren't enforced or they're not.
Rory has signed up for tesserae, something Gale can't even speak about, but it's still not enough with the inconsistent availability and the ever-increasing price of food.
Except Katniss still has plenty of money, so if there's food she can pay for it and if there isn't it doesn't matter what you signed up for.
The only bright spot is, I get Haymitch to hire Hazelle as a housekeeper, resulting in some extra money for her and greatly increasing Haymitch's standard of living.
Right. Remember kids, charity is evil! Katniss can't simply buy them food herself.
Haymitch is busy with withdrawal, of course.
Peeta and I tried to ration what white liquor we had, but it's almost run out, and the last time I saw Ripper, she was in the stocks.
Because god forbid you just visit her. Jesus.
A crate of wedding dresses shows up and Katniss realizes Snow is going ahead with that. Uh, obviously, the capital wants spectacle and so they'll get it. She wonders if they'll get killed immediately afterward, which actually sounds like an okay idea.
Personally, what I'd do is kill her during/immediately after the wedding and blame it on rebels. That'd confuse the districts and you could whip up some explanation implying Katniss betrayed them to discredit her as an icon while at the same time convincing everyone at the capital to give you more power to stop the rebellion.
My hands dig around in my closet until I find the insulated winter gear Cinna made for me for recreational use on the Victory Tour. Waterproof boots, a snowsuit that covers me from head to toe, thermal gloves. I love my old hunting stuff, but the trek I have in mind today is more suited to this high-tech clothing.
So are fancy clothes good or not? What was the point of the book's opening pity party about how hard it is wearing new clothing instead of her old stuff if she's fine with it now?
Katniss decides to go into the woods for a good sulk, which is still possible because apparently the fence has been ignored in all the improvements new peacekeeper guy is making.
Cinna's clothes hold in the heat all right, and I arrive soaked with sweat under the snowsuit while my face is numb with cold.
That's actually really bad. You start sweating and you can freeze if it's really cold. Sounds like she was better off wearing her old stuff.
Anyway, she's so lost in thought she doesn't realize that there's a fire going in the building by the lake and footprints until she hears a weapon click.
I see the white Peacekeeper uniform, the pointed chin, the light brown iris where my arrow will find a home.
What.
Katniss, you are seriously planning to shoot a stranger through their eye? Aside from the fact that if someone's holding a gun to you you shouldn't be trying to do any fancy aiming shit and should just shoot at them and hope you hit at all, seriously, shooting to kill? You have super aiming powers and it doesn't occur to you to hit the arm holding the weapon, or at least shoot in the torso where it's survivable?
The woman immediately drops the weapon and holds something out to Katniss.
I waver, unable to process this turn in events. Perhaps they have orders to bring me in alive so they can torture me into incriminating every person I ever knew.Yeah, good luck with that, I think. My fingers have all but decided to release the arrow when I see the object in the glove.
So to rephrase that - Katniss sees an unknown woman in a peacekeeper outfit, after growing up in a district where peacekeepers never did anything bad to the citizens. The woman immediately drops her weapon. She decides to shoot to kill anyway.
But she gets a better look at what the woman's holding and decides to hold off the premeditated murder of an unarmed woman for the moment.
It's a small white circle of flat bread. More of a cracker, really. Gray and soggy around the edges. But an image is clearly stamped in the center of it.
What the hell. Using a cracker to carry your super-secret image is right up there with a breadcrumb trail. My first thought was it was a picture of her or something, but that's actually dumb. I was thinking about how they'd recognize her since the whole distopian low-tech thing and them worrying about how to communicate with other districts made me forget that she's on television all the time. Hey morons, try a radio.
Anyway, that's our dramatic ending line. The next line is in the next chapter, saying the image is a mockingjay, and it's the start of section two, THE QUELL, despite the fact I'm pretty sure that's still a good way off. The way this book structures itself is really weird.
I didn't pay attention last book, but both books are structured with three parts of nine chapters, for twenty-seven total. Last time I mentioned that there was a weird bit where the second section of the book about the games had one more chapter of pre-game bullshit before the first game chapter, and looking at how this one is set to fit the exact same format, I wonder how much of the bad writing is pacing issues and filler. The dramatic ending line thing already suggested a degree of that, but for the most part she could have just been writing normally and using that to determine when she ends a chapter. Breaking the book into neat chunks like this is a lot harder to do without something else being sacrificed, and it doesn't really have any benefit but looking pretty on the chapter page. It's not a good tradeoff.
Of course, I'd like to avoid making any variant of the mistake so many of the fans make and excusing things, so it's quite possible she's just that bad of a writer, but a good chunk of the problems seem like they could be related to that. The fact characters keep standing around not doing anything, the way the romance is just an endless filler treadmill, that we keep spending all this time on stuff that doesn't really matter or rushing past stuff that it'd be nice to expand on (sometimes both at the same time), all of these could be related to trying to get things to line up neatly.
What I don't understand is why anyone would do that, because it's such a completely backward sense of priorities.
Peeta shows up in the morning. She tells him she can't leave after all and Peeta says he knows. Apparently she forgot the smug jackass already said that to her earlier because I don't know, he's precog or something.
I wonder if he slept at all. Couldn't have been long. I think of his agreeing to go with me yesterday, his stepping up beside me to protect Gale, his willingness to throw his lot in with mine entirely when I give him so little in return. No matter what I do, I'm hurting someone.
His refusal to back the fuck off when you turn him down, or more accurately his refusal to even get in a situation where you'd be able to turn him down, is not your fault.
Katniss goes to sleep.
At some point, Clove, the girl from District 2, enters my dreams. She chases me, pins me to the ground, and pulls out a knife to cut my face. It digs deeply into my cheek, opening a wide gash. Then Clove begins to transform, her face elongating into a snout, dark fur sprouting from her skin, her fingernails growing into long claws, but her eyes remain unchanged.
Did you really think the other EVIL WHORE would avoid getting twisted into dog form? How foolish. How can we properly demonize the two girls if we don't keep turning them into bitch monsters?
Hate you so much book.
(At least the third girl/second kill never got a name, so she's forgotten entirely and spared this. Unlike, naturally, the unnamed boy, who Katniss fixates on.)
Clove begins to lap the blood flowing from my wound, each lick sending a new wave of pain through my face.
In less ragey news, hey, it's failwriting.
A really common writing mistake is to write dreams as just more fantastic versions of real life. From what we've been told so far, Katniss either relieves events exactly like before or has slightly changed versions like this one. It's actually quite hard to really write an accurate dream, in part because remembering dreams in real life is tricky business, and even when you try to keep a dream in mind it's often getting smoothed together into something more coherent.
One random tidbit - you know the standard dream where you're naked or something, and everyone points and laughs? That's not the standard dream, that's the standard fictional rendering. In the standard dream, the dreamer spends their time hoping no one notices and trying to get away. Similar for dreams about not studying for a test, there isn't a sudden moment of reveal, because the power of the dream is that you're locked in and have to keep trying to avoid it. Indeed, generally dreams like that don't have a clear end. But when we think about it with awake, functioning brains, we put it together differently, bring things to their logical conclusion.
Physical sensation in dreams is far more likely to be impressionistic, with the horror of getting torn apart and fear of pain, or related to sleep paralysis, like the sensation of not being able to breathe.
So, what sort of nightmares should Katniss have? Death and helplessness are both good ones. Being torn up so she can't move or see, because both those things often don't work well in dreams to start with, and when Katniss starts panicking and trying to do them she'll realize something's wrong, leading to the dream focusing on those. Katniss was quite upset by losing her hearing, so I think physical mutilation in general likely scares her, so a dream of being cut apart that does permanent damage would also work. And speaking of mutilation, she was also helpless after the games and has been repeatedly threatened with mutilation in the name of fashion, and I'd expect would have some nightmares too. Oh, and given how hard she tried to save Rue and Peeta, being pinned and attacked somewhere and unable to move while something horrible happens to one of them should also be a nightmare.
This really isn't too hard, it's just easy to slip up on. You have to try to think about actual dreams instead of the fictional kind.
I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I'm not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol's design, not mine.
FEMINISM: Because you're not supposed to want that, slut.
I welcome the blizzard, with its ferocious winds and deep, drifting snow. This may be enough to keep the real wolves, also known as the Peacekeepers, from my door.
...jesus fucking christ ungrateful bastards.
The revolution is going to crash and burn because they're totally fucking incapable of forming alliances with anyone they don't approve of, isn't it?
Anyway, Katniss thinks that she's scared, but that at the same time she's already been through so much so it's not anything new. I think she's drastically underestimating torture here, but anything that gets her doing stuff is good.
Then she thinks about Prim and has a panic attack, but then thinks that they've already hurt her sister.
Prim ... Rue ... aren't they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?
Well, yes. But do remember that you were one of the agents of that stuff no one has the right to do to other kids. I'm not saying you should beat yourself up over it forever, but some recognition people didn't deserve their horrible deaths would be nice.
I'm glad the book's finally gotten here, but I'm suspicious of the qualifications. Is this going to turn into one of those things where only the right kind of person deserves basic decency, and everyone else can be mistreated as much as you like?
this morning my brain is not assembling lists of supplies for the wild, but trying to figure out how they organized that uprising in District 8. So many, so clearly acting in defiance of the Capitol. Was it even planned, or something that simply erupted out of years of hatred and resentment? How could we do that here?
Uh, put some cloth over your head and grab a brick, then get shot.
District 8 is not someone you want to emulate, and they obviously had little to no organization.
We need someone to direct us and reassure us this is possible. And I don't think I'm that person. I may have been a catalyst for rebellion, but a leader should be someone with conviction, and I'm barely a convert myself. Someone with unflinching courage, and I'm still working hard at even finding mine. Someone with clear and persuasive words, and I'm so easily tongue-tied.
You know, I wonder if this is a more wide-ranging pattern.
Katniss' importance here is basically accidental, while Peeta's speech abilities are to his own credit. The difference between being attractive and being charming. He's in control of it, while Katniss isn't.
Also hate for saying Katniss is a coward and Peeta isn't. When did Peeta become super brave and unflinching? And if he's got conviction, it's entirely the wrong sort. I may disagree that the trained kids are evil, but joining up with them to help them kill multiple people on the off-chance he could help Katniss was not right.
Anyway, she goes and sees Gale. The painkillers have worn off and Katniss is worried.
You know, why don't they have opiates on hand normally? Pure morphine I can see being hard to get, but poppies are really easy to grow, and you can usually pretend innocence about how they're just ornamental. (And their gardens do hold things other than plants, because Katniss' family has a lot of dried mint, which is one of the least useful herbs. It's mostly for upset stomachs and, ironically, is an appetite stimulator.)
In short, why aren't they pouring laudanum down his throat or something? (...hey, why isn't Haymitch using it?)
Instead, her mom says they're covering his back in a snow and herbal mixture. You know, I'm not entirely sure that's really safe. At a certain point you're going to cause hypothermia, and even before then, cold prevents bloodflow. In the short term it keeps swelling down, but in the longer term there's a reason why injuries swell in the first place.
Anyway, the mixture of cold snow and "herbs" somehow acts as a super painkiller that works almost instantly. In light of what I just said a likely recipe for this is poppy, as opiates work topically, although I'm not sure what concentration you need. Definitely some sort of really strong narcotic.
My point here is that herbal doesn't mean weak. There's a lot of plants that'll fuck you up. The issue of herbal medicine verses industrially produced stuff is usually better refinement and better quality control. By filtering out more toxic compounds and having a better idea exactly how much you're giving a person, you can give them higher doses without accidentally overdosing them. And, of course, it's possible to synthesize new drugs that work without the side affects you'd get from herbal stuff. But the herbal stuff definitely works.
Katniss apologizes for the screaming and her mom says she understands.
Of course, I love Gale. But what kind of love does she mean? What do I mean when I say I love Gale? I don't know. I did kiss him last night, in a moment when my emotions were running so high. But I'm sure he doesn't remember it. Does he? I hope not.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-
Book, when I idly wondered if it was possible to top the infuriating endless loop of Katniss realizing Peeta sincerely loved her and then switching back to thinking he was acting for no reason, it was not a challenge. It didn't mean you needed to find a way.
When the blizzard stops, the snow is higher than her head and she seems to take this in stride. If winter is this awful, why is she plotting rebellion now of all times? Seems like more of a summer thing.
She, Haymitch and Peeta head to the square to talk about what to do, because they don't want to chat in their probably bugged houses. (Haymitch is ignoring it and says to focus on the wedding.)
Nothing much will happen during the blizzard. That's what Peeta and I had agreed. But we couldn't have been more wrong. The square has been transformed. A huge banner with the seal of Panem hangs off the roof of the Justice Building. Peacekeepers, in pristine white uniforms, march on the cleanly swept cobblestones. Along the rooftops, more of them occupy nests of machine guns. Most unnerving is a line of new constructions —an official whipping post, several stockades, and a gallows — set up in the center of the square.
So, yeah. It seems Cray was a really, really good guy.
I suspect we're not supposed to think much of the fact these things weren't there before, as if it's just a choice of whoever's in charge. But Cray wasn't in charge. He's a government worker. If he didn't have gallows up, it's not because the peacekeepers were too fat and lazy to bother with convicting people. They were accountable for following the capital's laws and instead they let people get away with things. That's not a safe move when you're working for an evil government.
Also, right then, the black market building is being burned down. That's kind of excessive and wasteful, but whatever, capital's evil so sure.
“Well, I better go see how much rubbing alcohol the apothecary can spare.”
...wait, evil prohibition is on too?
I mean, really, are we really being told that the only source of alcohol is the black market? They don't have bars? And Katniss claimed last book there was wine around that her mother had, and her mother didn't buy from the black market.
I can understand certain kinds being banned if they're too high proof, or it being illegal to manufacture, but the idea it's the only source of alcohol is ridiculous.
Also, rubbing alcohol isn't kind of dangerous, it's deadly. A glass of it will kill you. Assuming Haymitch is dumb enough to try it anyway, he wouldn't need to stock up on much.
The book sort of knows this, but doesn't seem to get that it's a certainty, not a risk you take.
“We can't let him drink it. He'll kill himself, or at the very least go blind. I've got some white liquor put away at home.”
“Me, too. Maybe that will hold him until Ripper finds a way to be back in business,” says Peeta.
Um...couldn't you just go visit her? You know she's got the stuff. If there's no longer a central black market, people can still sell out of their houses.
Admittedly, this then begs the question of where she's getting the stuff - presumably distilling it herself? Point is, someone on the supply chain is producing it unimpeded by the market building's destruction, you don't need to wait for her to set up a new stall to get it.
What an idiot I am. There's an inherent flaw in the plan that both Gale and I were too blind to see. An uprising requires breaking the law, thwarting authority. We've done that our whole lives, or our families have. Poaching, trading on the black market, mocking the Capitol in the woods. But for most people in District 12, a trip to buy something at the Hob would be too risky.
WHY.
We're established by now that there is no risk. No one's been whipped since Cray took charge, and the lack of surveillance wasn't because the police were incompetent and missing most crime but because they were purposefully turning a blind eye. The peacekeepers hang out at the Hob buying illegal goods. What risk?
Anyway, they visit Gale's mother and find out that no one will hire her to do the washing any longer. Because they're scared. What are they scared of? By the looks of things, a whipping is business as usual to the new head peacekeeper, not a sign the entire family and anyone who associates with them is also evil.
The last thing I notice as we leave the square is that I do not recognize even one of the Peacekeepers' faces.
Okay, that's a bigger deal. But it means more than just that there's strangers! Where are the original peacekeepers? Does this just mean there's a lot of new ones brought in, or are the original ones gone? Are they dead? Assuming that they're normally recruited from the district, as is implied by Katniss mentioning the new guy's accent, that affects all their families, so what's going on there?
Instead, Katniss switches topics to say people are going hungry.
The mines stay shut for two weeks, and by that time half of District 12 is starving. The number of kids signing up for tesserae soars, but they often don't receive their grain.
So they're signing up because it's the only way to get grain, except it doesn't work, so why are they signing up?
Food shortages begin, and even those with money come away from stores empty-handed. When the mines reopen, wages are cut, hours extended, miners sent into blatantly dangerous work sites. The eagerly awaited food promised for Parcel Day arrives spoiled and defiled by rodents.
...the canned food shipped in the winter is spoiled. Seriously?
How does this whole economy work? Is it that they're not sending food or that the snow prevents it? Because closing the mines and letting people starve because they can't afford food is a good way to throw your power around, but being unable to ship food in is very much not. If they can't manage that, then they can't move troops either, and you're removing the "at least they make the trains run on time" justification for people who'd otherwise not rock to boat.
The installations in the square see plenty of action as people are dragged in and punished for offenses so long overlooked we've forgotten they are illegal.
Ugh, make up your mind book! Either they're a bunch of sheeple who followed rules even when they weren't enforced or they're not.
Rory has signed up for tesserae, something Gale can't even speak about, but it's still not enough with the inconsistent availability and the ever-increasing price of food.
Except Katniss still has plenty of money, so if there's food she can pay for it and if there isn't it doesn't matter what you signed up for.
The only bright spot is, I get Haymitch to hire Hazelle as a housekeeper, resulting in some extra money for her and greatly increasing Haymitch's standard of living.
Right. Remember kids, charity is evil! Katniss can't simply buy them food herself.
Haymitch is busy with withdrawal, of course.
Peeta and I tried to ration what white liquor we had, but it's almost run out, and the last time I saw Ripper, she was in the stocks.
Because god forbid you just visit her. Jesus.
A crate of wedding dresses shows up and Katniss realizes Snow is going ahead with that. Uh, obviously, the capital wants spectacle and so they'll get it. She wonders if they'll get killed immediately afterward, which actually sounds like an okay idea.
Personally, what I'd do is kill her during/immediately after the wedding and blame it on rebels. That'd confuse the districts and you could whip up some explanation implying Katniss betrayed them to discredit her as an icon while at the same time convincing everyone at the capital to give you more power to stop the rebellion.
My hands dig around in my closet until I find the insulated winter gear Cinna made for me for recreational use on the Victory Tour. Waterproof boots, a snowsuit that covers me from head to toe, thermal gloves. I love my old hunting stuff, but the trek I have in mind today is more suited to this high-tech clothing.
So are fancy clothes good or not? What was the point of the book's opening pity party about how hard it is wearing new clothing instead of her old stuff if she's fine with it now?
Katniss decides to go into the woods for a good sulk, which is still possible because apparently the fence has been ignored in all the improvements new peacekeeper guy is making.
Cinna's clothes hold in the heat all right, and I arrive soaked with sweat under the snowsuit while my face is numb with cold.
That's actually really bad. You start sweating and you can freeze if it's really cold. Sounds like she was better off wearing her old stuff.
Anyway, she's so lost in thought she doesn't realize that there's a fire going in the building by the lake and footprints until she hears a weapon click.
I see the white Peacekeeper uniform, the pointed chin, the light brown iris where my arrow will find a home.
What.
Katniss, you are seriously planning to shoot a stranger through their eye? Aside from the fact that if someone's holding a gun to you you shouldn't be trying to do any fancy aiming shit and should just shoot at them and hope you hit at all, seriously, shooting to kill? You have super aiming powers and it doesn't occur to you to hit the arm holding the weapon, or at least shoot in the torso where it's survivable?
The woman immediately drops the weapon and holds something out to Katniss.
I waver, unable to process this turn in events. Perhaps they have orders to bring me in alive so they can torture me into incriminating every person I ever knew.Yeah, good luck with that, I think. My fingers have all but decided to release the arrow when I see the object in the glove.
So to rephrase that - Katniss sees an unknown woman in a peacekeeper outfit, after growing up in a district where peacekeepers never did anything bad to the citizens. The woman immediately drops her weapon. She decides to shoot to kill anyway.
But she gets a better look at what the woman's holding and decides to hold off the premeditated murder of an unarmed woman for the moment.
It's a small white circle of flat bread. More of a cracker, really. Gray and soggy around the edges. But an image is clearly stamped in the center of it.
What the hell. Using a cracker to carry your super-secret image is right up there with a breadcrumb trail. My first thought was it was a picture of her or something, but that's actually dumb. I was thinking about how they'd recognize her since the whole distopian low-tech thing and them worrying about how to communicate with other districts made me forget that she's on television all the time. Hey morons, try a radio.
Anyway, that's our dramatic ending line. The next line is in the next chapter, saying the image is a mockingjay, and it's the start of section two, THE QUELL, despite the fact I'm pretty sure that's still a good way off. The way this book structures itself is really weird.
I didn't pay attention last book, but both books are structured with three parts of nine chapters, for twenty-seven total. Last time I mentioned that there was a weird bit where the second section of the book about the games had one more chapter of pre-game bullshit before the first game chapter, and looking at how this one is set to fit the exact same format, I wonder how much of the bad writing is pacing issues and filler. The dramatic ending line thing already suggested a degree of that, but for the most part she could have just been writing normally and using that to determine when she ends a chapter. Breaking the book into neat chunks like this is a lot harder to do without something else being sacrificed, and it doesn't really have any benefit but looking pretty on the chapter page. It's not a good tradeoff.
Of course, I'd like to avoid making any variant of the mistake so many of the fans make and excusing things, so it's quite possible she's just that bad of a writer, but a good chunk of the problems seem like they could be related to that. The fact characters keep standing around not doing anything, the way the romance is just an endless filler treadmill, that we keep spending all this time on stuff that doesn't really matter or rushing past stuff that it'd be nice to expand on (sometimes both at the same time), all of these could be related to trying to get things to line up neatly.
What I don't understand is why anyone would do that, because it's such a completely backward sense of priorities.
