Catching Fire, Chapter 15
May. 12th, 2011 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaLast time on Catching Fire, Katniss hollows out her soul and the book once again made an attempt to tell us Random Act is actually striking back at the capital.
Okay, remember last time there was that bit about people being upset about the victors being killed because they're attached? For some reason the book is running with that. Her prep team is a mess.
At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears at least twice, and Octavia pretty much keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them.
So no, no this is stupid.
Here's the thing - last book involved all sorts of stuff trying to get the people of the capital interested in the tributes. If all it takes to convince people that the childmurder games are wrong is knowing the person a little, they wouldn't be making the tributes give interviews about themselves. And they wouldn't keep digging around for friends and family to interview as the games progressed, and so on. Even if, and this is a huge if, television interviews are carefully staged to not go too far, anyone with a higher level of interaction with them, like the prep team, should already be getting attached the first time through.
Combine that with the fact that by losing me they'll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable.
Fuck you, book.
The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I'm the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.
You know, this probably has to do with different cultural expectations, but if I'm going to be murdered I'd sort of prefer the people around me were sad.
But as the second line shows Katniss is a sociopath. She's not referring to the idea of "being strong" in the sense that crying might scare someone worse, but in the sense she doesn't want to be inconvenienced by their whining.
it's something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don't have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who've been celebrities for ages, to forget we're human beings. It's more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts.
Bullshit. As I just said, they go to great lengths to make the tributes humanized. I'll buy that the longstanding victors might get treated a bit differently, but even then not much.
Next, what friends? Hey, Katniss? Who were last year's tributes? Oh right, you don't know their names, they were just two Seam kids. How about the year before that, remember them? No? Any tributes? You seem to remember a bunch of games, maybe you could at least remember their deaths? No, not really something that's come up, huh? Why, it's like you never really knew any of them and they weren't your friends.
More, I would like to express with horror that Katniss has just admitted that she gives no fucks about child murder as a general thing. Last book she at least managed to express sympathy for Rue, who was obviously doomed, and general sympathy over how horrifying the games were. But now she's specifically invoked friendship. It's only wrong if you know someone. That's actually in line with the bit earlier about how the other victors will know each other, but at least then it seemed it was that this made the murdering worse. Now, it seems it's the only problem with killing. If you don't know someone...
Well, we're back to that oft-repeated line about how hard can it be to shoot someone. And as always, Katniss' answer is not much, at least as long as you're not Gale, Peeta, Madge or Prim.
Anyway, Katniss is snappish at even BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST Cinna when he appears, because of this irritating display of human emotion. She does say it's partly because it's reminding her that her family is probably crying back at home, but fuck it, if she cared much about that she wouldn't be planning on dying in the ring.
Of course, being BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST he knows just what to say.
Cinna just smiles. “Had a damp morning?”
That's right, Cinna gives no fucks! Sociopathy buddies! No wonder Katniss likes the guy. He then says he's fine because he channels his emotions into his work, which, if Cinna hadn't annoyed me to the point I keep sticking BEST WONDERFUL everywhere, would be a pretty good line that would allow him to be in control without looking like an unsympathetic asshole. Unfortunately, the book has consistently failed to convince me Cinna has emotions I should care about. Remember, this is the guy who was all SYNTHETIC FIRE :D IT WON'T BURN NO WORRIES NO I WON'T DEMONSTRATE IT EARLY SO YOU'RE NOT SCARED I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING PUT ON THE BARBECUE DEATH SUIT LITTLE GIRL. Actions speak louder than words, and Cinna's words may have been that he knows the capital's despicable, but his actions have been FASHION FASHION FASHION.
See, the moral here is don't do the BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST thing with a character. If I wasn't being told to worship the ground his fashionable shoes walk on I'd be much more sympathetic. If he'd been understatedly helpful while Katniss seethed and hated him, I'd probably love him (Effie! ♥ ) and I'd talked about how he was a perfectly decent guy. This here would be character development, suggesting he's not as 0kay with everything as he seems. Instead it's just more of the same.
Lunch makes me feel a bit better. Pheasant with a selection of jewel-colored jellies, and tiny versions of real vegetables swimming in butter, and potatoes mashed with parsley. For dessert we dip chunks of fruit in a pot of melted chocolate, and Cinna has to order a second pot because I start just eating the stuff with a spoon.
Welp. There goes my reasoning about fruit. That's really weird, fresh fruit should be the first thing you're running into trouble with in the event of trouble in District 11. It's not just that it's hard to stockpile - it is, but you can keep it for a while if you know what you're doing. It's that it's a once a year thing. They aren't getting more until that year's harvest rolls around, and if anything goes wrong, you have to wait for next year. Going by the shrimp thing, people in the capital are very touchy about not having whatever they want when they want, so any government catered meals should involve food that isn't in any danger of running out, because you want it there in case someone orders it.
Maybe there are no stockpiles? I mean, it's possible this place is stretched to the limits of its resources, so they can't keep one kind of food in reserve and replace it with another because they don't have any extra. But in that case, the district rebellion is a huge deal, they'll be starve quite fast. And such a delicate setup would lead to their being constant minor shortages as chance meant a couple extra requests for one thing instead of another, so it wouldn't be notable.
Anyway, time for Katniss to get a new outfit.
I look as if I have been coated in glowing embers — no, that I am a glowing ember straight from our fireplace. The colors rise and fall, shift and blend, in exactly the way the coals do.
Eh, compared to lighting her on fire with impossible synthetic flame, that's not very impressive. Also, unless that thing's hiding a laser gun she can use to blow Snow's head off, none of this matters.
I do not see a girl, or even a woman, but some unearthly being who looks like she might make her home in the volcano that destroyed so many in Haymitch's Quell. The black crown, which now appears red-hot, casts strange shadows on my dramatically made-up face. Katniss, the girl on fire, has left behind her flickering flames and bejeweled gowns and soft candlelight frocks. She is as deadly as fire itself.
“I think ... this is just what I needed to face the others,” I say.
I don't even.
This book seems like it wants to say the media is stupid, but at the same time it thinks fashion and presentation is terribly important. Do you know what you need to face the others, Katniss? A FUCKING BOW. Finding your self-preservation instincts wouldn't be amiss either.
Then he says that this time on the chariot she should be aloof and act like the crowd's beneath her. Have I mentioned this doesn't matter? Because god damn does it not.
Katniss goes down to hang out by the chariots in the hopes Peeta's there, but he isn't. She doesn't actually want to talk to anyone, so she tries not to be noticed instead of just leaving again.
Finnick Odair is something of a living legend in Panem. Since he won the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games when he was only fourteen, he's still one of the youngest victors.
Uh...really? I know the games are weighted toward older participants, both in terms of selecting them and in terms of ability, but they're also pretty random. It's quite possible for one year to be made up only of younger players, or for the older ones to kill each other off or to die to chance traps.
Being from District 4, he was a Career, so the odds were already in his favor, but what no trainer could claim to have given him was his extraordinary beauty. Tall, athletic, with golden skin and bronze-colored hair and those incredible eyes.
Is this our Duke Devlin?
Also, if he's from a career district, why was he in the games at fourteen? They must have a pretty set system worked out if they're raising kids from birth. You don't want to train more than you need and risk some outgrowing the games before you can send them, and you don't want to run out and have to send regular kids either.
While other tributes that year were hard-pressed to get a handful of grain or some matches for a gift, Finnick never wanted for anything, not food or medicine or weapons.
Yup. I'm calling him Duke Devlin from now on because god damn, Finnick from the fishing district, book your names are so stupid.
Anyway, from the sounds of it, his win wasn't that impressive at all, he got every imaginable advantage.
When he received a silver parachute with a trident—which may be the most expensive gift I've ever seen given in the arena—it was all over. District 4's industry is fishing. He'd been on boats his whole life. The trident was a natural, deadly extension of his arm.
Oh my god seriously.
No.
You don't fish with tridents. You fish with massive fucking nets. Out of, incidentally, fish farms, because those are vastly more efficient than leaving them to run around wild.
Also, he's a trained kid. What was he doing on boats learning to use a weapon that isn't provided in the arena instead of training? If they'd spent that time teaching him about swords he could have had that advantage the whole time, instead of relying on the whim of a sponsor.
He wove a net out of some kind of vine he found, used it to entangle his opponents so he could spear them with the trident
It's seriously like her only knowledge of Rome is some Hollywood movie. Yes, there were the gladiators with tridents and nets. No, that wasn't a legitimate fighting style, it was something invented to make the games more interesting visually.
Because of his youth, they couldn't really touch him for the first year or two. But ever since he turned sixteen, he's spent his time at the Games being dogged by those desperately in love with him.
So let me get this straight. The capital is okay with twelve year olds dying in the childmurder games, but no sex with fourteen year olds, but the age of consent is sixteen.
I just. If this was another book I'd assume there was some sort of message about the different values placed on sex compared to violence in our culture, but the final qualifier kind of kills that. So I'm left with the possibility this reflects some unconscious view of the author.
Also, given the capital's magic science, I do find it a bit hard to believe someone could be naturally more beautiful than modified citizens.
But hey, at least the book didn't specify gender here. I'm...not really sure which of the various bad options here is best, but there's room for homosexuality existing this time which is a step up from last book.
He's draped in a golden net that's strategically knotted at his groin so that he can't technically be called naked, but he's about as close as you can get. I'm sure his stylist thinks the more of Finnick the audience sees, the better.
Uh...that generally isn't how it works. Especially once people know he's hot, putting him on display like that just gets boring.
He wets his lips just ever so slightly with his tongue. Probably this drives most people crazy. But for some reason all I can think of is old Cray, salivating over some poor, starving young woman.
Okay, so we're finally getting some suggestion Cray was bad in a more specific way than just paying for sex. But eh, book.
The author seems to have realized things weren't that bad at Katniss' district and that the evil government needed to start being evil. She then needed a reason for why things hadn't been like that before, and the explanation was a change in leadership.
Now, if Head Peacekeeper amounts to local god-king, and they're given pretty much free reign to do as they want, this works fine. You can have people be a mix of good and bad - one doesn't enforce rules as much but is decadent himself while another is strict in all ways.
But that makes no sense in the context of a government that's constantly watching for dissent and trying to control everything. Cray was, at bare minimum, still telling the capital he was enforcing all the rules. That alone would be incredibly dangerous given this is an evil government constantly watching everything that mutilates and enslaves people it doesn't like and makes torture wasps for kicks. Most likely, he was supposed to give regular reports, so he would have to have been falsifying all those - marking down that various punishments had been given out. That's a lot of risk to be taking, and why?
It's not simply that Cray's lazy - he could still have had some halfhearted crackdowns, and wouldn't have had to do any work himself if he didn't want to, since all he has to do is give orders. If this was just a matter of, say, Cray punishing people with fines while the new guy goes with whipping, that would be at least within an understandable range. He could still had the access to meat if they confiscated it whenever it was found - indeed, a good measure of a corrupt police force is when convictions don't stick because the evidence keeps disappearing. And the more the peacekeepers enforce the rules, the more starving young women have no options but prostitution.
Instead Cray let an entire black market run, at great risk to himself. He didn't even force people to give him things for free. Here's the one time he actually shows up, remember:
Cray, our Head Peacekeeper, frowns when he sees me with the bottles. He's an older man with a few strands of silver hair combed sideways above his bright red face. “That stuff's too strong for you, girl.” He should know. Next to Haymitch, Cray drinks more than anyone I've ever met.
“Aw, my mother uses it in medicines,” I say indifferently.
“Well, it'd kill just about anything,” he says, and slaps down a coin for a bottle.:
He's a heavy drinker. He's paying for the alcohol. The alcohol is sold by a woman who can't get other work - someone who without the black market would have no options other than prostitution. And he's expressing concern for Katniss buying it, instead of the other possible response to seeing a sixteen year old girl he thinks is about to get plastered.
In short, there's more to taking advantage of young women than just paying them for sex. The book not only fails to show any of that, it inadvertently suggests he's doing a great deal to help people.
It's actually pretty ironic, because generally the book has been very good at portraying anything halfway sexual as creepy and exploitative.
Back to that! Duke Devlin says it's too bad about the whole thing where she's probably going to die in the murder games. After all,
You could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted.”
Yes, she too could get in on the prostitution. But Katniss isn't interested.
“I don't like jewels, and I have more money than I need.
Right. Fuck those starving orphans. And yeah, there are god know how many people in agony back at your house being treated after whippings because your mom can't afford any more morphine, but none of them are named Gale, so why would you need to spend money buying painkillers for them?
I realize the author isn't interested in that, but in that case the book shouldn't involve it. The story would have worked fine if the evil government was generally oppressive without starving everyone, and it'd have made the way everything revolves around Katniss far more reasonable. Extra money is no big deal when all that can be bought are luxuries, but when you're surrounded by people dropping from hunger, it's very different.
Katniss asks how much he's getting and he says he's not into money either.
“Then how do they pay you for the pleasure of your company?” I ask.
“With secrets,” he says softly. He tips his head in so his lips are almost in contact with mine. “What about you, girl on fire? Do you have any secrets worth my time?”
So there will be INTRIGUE. Okay. All I ask is Katniss pay a bit more attention than the mockingjay watch.
For some stupid reason, I blush, but I force myself to hold my ground. “No, I'm an open book,” I whisper back. “Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself.”
Oh come on book, work with me here.
As I said often with the last book, this is YA, so I will accept a lack of subtlety. Bit is it so much to ask that the character at least keep up with the hints being dropped?
Peeta goes over to ask what Duke Devlin wanted to talk about and Katniss just said he was hitting on her so whatever.
“Do you think we'd have ended up like this if only one of us had won?” he asks, glancing around at the other victors. “Just another part of the freak show?”
What freak show?
I mean, it's not like any of them have any choice in their outfits. Duke Devlin was hitting on Katniss, but that wasn't particularly weird. And the only description of the group Katniss gave is that they're standing around talking to each other.
Katniss says Peeta would have.
“Because you have a weakness for beautiful things and I don't,” I say with an air of superiority. “They would lure you into their Capitol ways and you'd be lost entirely.”
...
I climb up and pull him up after me. “Hold still,” I say, and straighten his crown. “Have you seen your suit turned on? We're going to be fabulous again.”
God damn it Katniss.
as we begin to glow, I can see people pointing at us and chattering, and I know that, once again, we'll be the talk of the opening ceremonies.
IT DOESN'T MATTER.
You don't even have the excuse of wanting sponsors. The capital is doing this to kill you, making sure Haymitch can't send you stuff will be child's play.
I can't help catching glimpses of us on the huge screens along the route, and we are not just beautiful, we are dark and powerful.
You are kids wearing makeup.
And I love it. Getting to be myself at last.
She's getting to be "herself" when she's in heavy makeup, demanding the adoration of everyone even as she pretends she doesn't notice them, while she steals glances at her own image to bask in how amazing she looks. And this makes her noble and independent and heroic.
No wonder these books are popular. That's not a message people will argue with.
I can see that a couple of the other stylists have tried to steal Cinna and Portia's idea of illuminating their tributes. The electric-light-studded outfits from District 3, where they make electronics, at least make sense. But what are the livestock keepers from District 10, who are dressed as cows, doing with flaming belts? Broiling themselves? Pathetic.
So damn catty. The first time this happened, I thought it was part of the general satire. The longer it goes on, the more convinced I am that the author just can't stop herself. She really does think like this.
So hey, let's drag this back to worldbuilding and a type of failure that interests rather than enrages me. 10 is animal products? Remember back when I was saying 2% of America's population handles all the food? That was both plant and animal stuff.
So. If we break the districts and capital up evenly, each is 7.7%
We know the average district is > 7.7 because Katniss' district is significantly smaller than others, so everything else must have a higher portion of the population, and that 11 is significantly larger than those in turn.
Even very conservatively, the combined populations of 10 and 11 should be over 15% of the population. That's a ridiculous number.
The only way to make this work is if we assume the capital is much larger than the population of any district, which is hard to believe given it appears to be a single city, while the districts stretch out quite a long way.
Cities are, of course, high density areas. But the capital doesn't seem to be an especially cramped place, and it'd have to be pretty tightly packed to be so much bigger than any district that 10 and 11 are reduced to a single digit percentage.
And, of course, the bigger it gets, the further we get from how society actually functions.
Right now, the top 1% of the American population holds more than a third of all wealth. That is, about five percent more than the combined income of the bottom 90% of the population.
And this comparison is within America. Countrywise, America's interactions with the rest of the world mirror this same sort of inequality. Indeed, it's more accurate a comparison to here, because America does indeed control other countries to get a certain resource. Banana republics and all that. It's kind of depressing how flippantly people use the term these days.
The larger the capital is, the more reasonable the system becomes. If the capital makes up 50% of the population (giving each district a mere 4% of the population, and the combined 10 and 11 being possibly just under 10%) then it's more a matter of the tyranny of the majority. Making the capital 75% of the country, with districts averaging 2% and the food districts perhaps 5%, now in ballpark range for current agricultural production.
But in that case, you don't need monitoring systems everywhere looking for dissent, because most people are happy. You don't need to fear rebellion because you not only have better quality of soldiers but better quantity. Oppressing any group of people is still wrong, but it's not going to be a popular uprising any longer, and you're really better off trying to change the system to let the remainder in rather than trying to win by force of arms (even if for no better reason than that by this point you have no chance of winning by force of arms.)
...and back to the story. Katniss says everyone's looking at the pair because they're so awesome.
We seem particularly riveting to the pair from District 6, who are known morphling addicts. Both bone thin, with sagging yellowish skin.
This is a common misconception about drugs thanks to the fact anti-drug programs tend to be more concerned with scaring kids away than balanced education.
Morphine - and yes, it's definitely morphine because it's mentioned Gale's affected by opiates - is indeed a highly addictive drug that you shouldn't use. That said, addicts who have access to food, such as for example incredibly wealthy victors of the childmurder games, will eat normally. The thinness normally comes because addicts given the choice between drugs or food will go with drugs.
It doesn't cause jaundice. Alcohol causes jaundice. Unless morphling is morphine cut with something nasty it shouldn't either, and we can be relatively sure it isn't because it's a drug given out by the capital to treat headache pain.
do I see the president fixated on me as well?
Katniss, he's just glaring at you. Because he hates you and he's plotting which horrible way you're going to die. He is not impressed by you being sparkly.
Anyway, Katniss has finally hit her gloating quota and starts paying attention to other people again. Haymitch is over by the District 11 tributes, one of whom is missing an arm.
I'm sure they offered him some artificial replacement, like they did Peeta when they had to amputate his lower leg, but I guess he didn't take it.
That's rather cut off your nose to spite your face, isn't it?
The woman hugs Katniss and Katniss quickly whispers a question about what happened to Thresh and Rue's families. Katniss! You're acting like a person again! Please keep doing that. Anyway, families are still okay.
Chaff throws his good arm around me and gives me a big kiss right on the mouth. I jerk back, startled, while he and Haymitch guffaw.
oh my god what why
no really why what makes you think this is funny
That's about all the time we get before the Capitol attendants are firmly directing us toward the elevators. I get the distinct feeling they're not comfortable with the camaraderie among the victors, who couldn't seem to care less.
Random old guys grabbing sixteen year old girls for a kiss is not camaraderie!
As they head to an elevator, someone joins them.
Johanna Mason. From District 7 Lumber and paper, thus the tree. She won by very convincingly portraying herself as weak and helpless so that she would be ignored. Then she demonstrated a wicked ability to murder.
Oh book, you know just how to make me hate you.
So, we have the lovely concept of a girl winning by looking really pathetic, and then a "wicked" murder spree. Unlike Katniss' ability to murder, which I suppose was...hm, helpful? amateur? nice? I really can't find a good antonym here. I really don't think Katniss has room to throw stones. And "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know" Peeta took part in the mangling of that first girl - who begged and screamed, remember - in the games and was the one to finally kill her afterward. If we're going to start throwing around words like wicked, I think we should keep that in mind.
She ruffles up her spiky hair and rolls her wide-set brown eyes. “Isn't my costume awful? My stylist's the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her. Wish I’d gotten Cinna. You look fantastic.”
So...confirmation that other tributes have no choice in their outfits and yet Katniss still felt free calling them freaks for it.
Honestly, the endless fashion whining makes less and less sense. If something's such a terrible idea, why do stylists keep doing it?
Still. Hi Johanna! You seem capable of talking like a normal person and also killing people! I hope you stick around.
Girl talk. That thing I've always been so bad at. Opinions on clothes, hair, makeup.
Katniss I have just sat through pages worth of your blather about your opinions on clothing, hair and makeup. STFU.
So I lie. “Yeah, he's been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet.” Velvet. The only fabric I could think of off the top of my head.
What about that statement was a lie?
“I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District Two? The deep blue one with the diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back,” says Johanna.
Ooooooookay Johanna that's a bit much to be saying to someone you barely know.
I bet you did, I think. With a few inches of my flesh.
And just like that, Johanna's statement becomes perfectly reasonable compared to the wild nonsense Katniss is accusing her of secretly meaning. Stop demonizing people, Katniss.
While we wait for the elevators, Johanna unzips the rest of her tree, letting it drop to the floor, and then kicks it away in disgust. Except for her forest green slippers, she doesn't have on a stitch of clothing. “That's better.”
Oh Johanna. We have barely met and already you're awesome. Please don't die.
We end up on the same elevator with her, and she spends the whole ride to the seventh floor chatting to Peeta about his paintings while the light of his still-glowing costume reflects off her bare breasts.
While, presumably, Katniss just quietly seethes. Katniss, really, she's not trying to steal your notboyfriend. He's not actually that great of a catch. If you're that upset, just offer to strip off your costume and let her try it. Then you're naked and she isn't, thus recapturing your precious manipulative notboyfriend's attention.
Johanna, sadly, gets off the elevator and we're deprived of her presence again.
“It's you, Katniss. Can't you see?” he says. “What's me?” I say.
“Why they're all acting like this. Finnick with his sugar cubes and Chaff kissing you and that whole thing with Johanna stripping down.” He tries to take on a more serious tone, unsuccessfully. “They're playing with you because you're so ... you know.”
“No, I don't know,” I say. And I really have no idea what he's talking about.
“It's like when you wouldn't look at me naked in the arena even though I was half dead. You're so ... pure,” he says finally.
See I thought the bit about not looking at him had more to do with the fact he was in love with her and she wasn't and on top of that, couldn't even say so. I can't speak for everyone but for me that would do a wonderful job in making me rediscover an intense fear of nakedness.
Also, let's rank this.
Duke Devlin was being flirty. He was coming on pretty strong given that he's almost a decade older than her and all, but he was just flirting.
Waste material that should be discarded or possibly burned GRABBED HER AND KISSED HER WITHOUT ANY WARNING.
Johanna stripped naked. Also, she was dressed in a stupid tree costume. I am willing to believe it was irritating as fuck to wear, having worn any number of costumes, and that it is entirely possible she could have just wanted to get it off. On the sexual harassment scale, a girl taking off her clothes and then having a normal conversation while she stands outside your immediate personal space ranks below an asshole suddenly grabbing and kissing you on the mouth.
“I am not!” I say. “I've been practically ripping your clothes off every time there's been a camera for the last year!”
Why hello there prostitution subtext I had not missed you please go away again.
Anyway Peeta reassures her that she's perfect "for him" in a way that somehow just makes me think of creepy people and virginity fetishes and they get back to their room and suddenly Haymitch looks upset.
I turn around and find the redheaded Avox girl who tended to me last year until the Games began. I think how nice it is to have a friend here.
Katniss an ounce of consideration for others please. An ounce.
I would like Katniss' sense of connection with the girl if she could just please keep in mind that the girl's life is horrible, instead of her current phrasing which makes it sound like all that matters is herself.
I notice that the young man beside her, another Avox, also has red hair.
Then a chill runs through me. Because I know him, too. Not from the Capitol but from years of having easy conversations in the Hob, joking over Greasy Sae's soup, and that last day watching him lie unconscious in the square while the life bled out of Gale.
Our new Avox is Darius.
WHY RED HAIR EVERYWHERE I can't make sense of the biology here at all.
Okay that's probably not what I'm supposed to be taking away from this but. But. Red hair is the least common phenotype.
I mean, honestly Katniss' district has issues, which is that their two phenotypes are too different and there don't seem to be any of the obvious mixes. The poorer class are black hair/olive skin/grey eyes and the richer class are blond hair/light skin/blue eyes, despite the fact that any crossbreeding between the two groups should get you brown hair at the least, and definitely blond/grey eyes because blue and grey are quite close. But that's comparatively reasonable, it's possible that they've lost more alleles to genetic drift and they really are down to a lots-of-melanin/very little melanin set.
Whereas red hair? Wikipedia says its numbers in the US are somewhere between 2-6%. And that's total redheads, which includes a lot of people who don't have the sort of bright distinctive coloring that'll get people saying you look like a fox and then refusing to ever bother learning your actual name.
It's possible a single district could have had a high percentage of them, but so far there doesn't seem to be any connection between redheads. Katniss assumes the enslaved girl was from the capital, the tribute girl was from 5, I think? And now Darius, from who knows. Her district, some other district, the capital? It occurs to me that if the book's consistent the hair thing should mean he's not a local, but if peacekeepers are sent in from other areas then Cray's whole thing falls apart, since any newcomer could have ratted him out, and besides, Katniss thought the replacement guy's accent being different was really weird, implying that's not normally true about peacekeepers.
...but back to the reveal.
Katniss' shock and horror is not really doing it for me. She mentioned how she didn't recognize any of the peacekeepers, and I said then that she should have cared about the fact this meant something had happened to the original ones. What did she think that meant, the peacekeepers vanishing right as a new guy comes in and notices none of the capital's laws are being enforced in a district whose victor just fucked everything up for Snow, and when she managed that in no small part because of that lack of enforcement? This is supposedly a guy she's known for years, who was knocked out (and head wounds are a pretty big deal) trying to protect someone, and he disappeared, as did the woman who took a similar risk to help save someone's life and all the rest, and all she thought was the newcomers were scary. She didn't care then, so it's hard to sympathize with her being upset now that she's getting her face rubbed in it.
Okay, remember last time there was that bit about people being upset about the victors being killed because they're attached? For some reason the book is running with that. Her prep team is a mess.
At some point during the prep, each of them bursts into tears at least twice, and Octavia pretty much keeps up a running whimper throughout the morning. It turns out they really have become attached to me, and the idea of my returning to the arena has undone them.
So no, no this is stupid.
Here's the thing - last book involved all sorts of stuff trying to get the people of the capital interested in the tributes. If all it takes to convince people that the childmurder games are wrong is knowing the person a little, they wouldn't be making the tributes give interviews about themselves. And they wouldn't keep digging around for friends and family to interview as the games progressed, and so on. Even if, and this is a huge if, television interviews are carefully staged to not go too far, anyone with a higher level of interaction with them, like the prep team, should already be getting attached the first time through.
Combine that with the fact that by losing me they'll be losing their ticket to all kinds of big social events, particularly my wedding, and the whole thing becomes unbearable.
Fuck you, book.
The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I'm the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.
You know, this probably has to do with different cultural expectations, but if I'm going to be murdered I'd sort of prefer the people around me were sad.
But as the second line shows Katniss is a sociopath. She's not referring to the idea of "being strong" in the sense that crying might scare someone worse, but in the sense she doesn't want to be inconvenienced by their whining.
it's something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us. They certainly don't have a problem watching children murdered every year. But maybe they know too much about the victors, especially the ones who've been celebrities for ages, to forget we're human beings. It's more like watching your own friends die. More like the Games are for those of us in the districts.
Bullshit. As I just said, they go to great lengths to make the tributes humanized. I'll buy that the longstanding victors might get treated a bit differently, but even then not much.
Next, what friends? Hey, Katniss? Who were last year's tributes? Oh right, you don't know their names, they were just two Seam kids. How about the year before that, remember them? No? Any tributes? You seem to remember a bunch of games, maybe you could at least remember their deaths? No, not really something that's come up, huh? Why, it's like you never really knew any of them and they weren't your friends.
More, I would like to express with horror that Katniss has just admitted that she gives no fucks about child murder as a general thing. Last book she at least managed to express sympathy for Rue, who was obviously doomed, and general sympathy over how horrifying the games were. But now she's specifically invoked friendship. It's only wrong if you know someone. That's actually in line with the bit earlier about how the other victors will know each other, but at least then it seemed it was that this made the murdering worse. Now, it seems it's the only problem with killing. If you don't know someone...
Well, we're back to that oft-repeated line about how hard can it be to shoot someone. And as always, Katniss' answer is not much, at least as long as you're not Gale, Peeta, Madge or Prim.
Anyway, Katniss is snappish at even BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST Cinna when he appears, because of this irritating display of human emotion. She does say it's partly because it's reminding her that her family is probably crying back at home, but fuck it, if she cared much about that she wouldn't be planning on dying in the ring.
Of course, being BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST he knows just what to say.
Cinna just smiles. “Had a damp morning?”
That's right, Cinna gives no fucks! Sociopathy buddies! No wonder Katniss likes the guy. He then says he's fine because he channels his emotions into his work, which, if Cinna hadn't annoyed me to the point I keep sticking BEST WONDERFUL everywhere, would be a pretty good line that would allow him to be in control without looking like an unsympathetic asshole. Unfortunately, the book has consistently failed to convince me Cinna has emotions I should care about. Remember, this is the guy who was all SYNTHETIC FIRE :D IT WON'T BURN NO WORRIES NO I WON'T DEMONSTRATE IT EARLY SO YOU'RE NOT SCARED I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING PUT ON THE BARBECUE DEATH SUIT LITTLE GIRL. Actions speak louder than words, and Cinna's words may have been that he knows the capital's despicable, but his actions have been FASHION FASHION FASHION.
See, the moral here is don't do the BESTEST AND MOST WONDERFULEST thing with a character. If I wasn't being told to worship the ground his fashionable shoes walk on I'd be much more sympathetic. If he'd been understatedly helpful while Katniss seethed and hated him, I'd probably love him (Effie! ♥ ) and I'd talked about how he was a perfectly decent guy. This here would be character development, suggesting he's not as 0kay with everything as he seems. Instead it's just more of the same.
Lunch makes me feel a bit better. Pheasant with a selection of jewel-colored jellies, and tiny versions of real vegetables swimming in butter, and potatoes mashed with parsley. For dessert we dip chunks of fruit in a pot of melted chocolate, and Cinna has to order a second pot because I start just eating the stuff with a spoon.
Welp. There goes my reasoning about fruit. That's really weird, fresh fruit should be the first thing you're running into trouble with in the event of trouble in District 11. It's not just that it's hard to stockpile - it is, but you can keep it for a while if you know what you're doing. It's that it's a once a year thing. They aren't getting more until that year's harvest rolls around, and if anything goes wrong, you have to wait for next year. Going by the shrimp thing, people in the capital are very touchy about not having whatever they want when they want, so any government catered meals should involve food that isn't in any danger of running out, because you want it there in case someone orders it.
Maybe there are no stockpiles? I mean, it's possible this place is stretched to the limits of its resources, so they can't keep one kind of food in reserve and replace it with another because they don't have any extra. But in that case, the district rebellion is a huge deal, they'll be starve quite fast. And such a delicate setup would lead to their being constant minor shortages as chance meant a couple extra requests for one thing instead of another, so it wouldn't be notable.
Anyway, time for Katniss to get a new outfit.
I look as if I have been coated in glowing embers — no, that I am a glowing ember straight from our fireplace. The colors rise and fall, shift and blend, in exactly the way the coals do.
Eh, compared to lighting her on fire with impossible synthetic flame, that's not very impressive. Also, unless that thing's hiding a laser gun she can use to blow Snow's head off, none of this matters.
I do not see a girl, or even a woman, but some unearthly being who looks like she might make her home in the volcano that destroyed so many in Haymitch's Quell. The black crown, which now appears red-hot, casts strange shadows on my dramatically made-up face. Katniss, the girl on fire, has left behind her flickering flames and bejeweled gowns and soft candlelight frocks. She is as deadly as fire itself.
“I think ... this is just what I needed to face the others,” I say.
I don't even.
This book seems like it wants to say the media is stupid, but at the same time it thinks fashion and presentation is terribly important. Do you know what you need to face the others, Katniss? A FUCKING BOW. Finding your self-preservation instincts wouldn't be amiss either.
Then he says that this time on the chariot she should be aloof and act like the crowd's beneath her. Have I mentioned this doesn't matter? Because god damn does it not.
Katniss goes down to hang out by the chariots in the hopes Peeta's there, but he isn't. She doesn't actually want to talk to anyone, so she tries not to be noticed instead of just leaving again.
Finnick Odair is something of a living legend in Panem. Since he won the Sixty-fifth Hunger Games when he was only fourteen, he's still one of the youngest victors.
Uh...really? I know the games are weighted toward older participants, both in terms of selecting them and in terms of ability, but they're also pretty random. It's quite possible for one year to be made up only of younger players, or for the older ones to kill each other off or to die to chance traps.
Being from District 4, he was a Career, so the odds were already in his favor, but what no trainer could claim to have given him was his extraordinary beauty. Tall, athletic, with golden skin and bronze-colored hair and those incredible eyes.
Is this our Duke Devlin?
Also, if he's from a career district, why was he in the games at fourteen? They must have a pretty set system worked out if they're raising kids from birth. You don't want to train more than you need and risk some outgrowing the games before you can send them, and you don't want to run out and have to send regular kids either.
While other tributes that year were hard-pressed to get a handful of grain or some matches for a gift, Finnick never wanted for anything, not food or medicine or weapons.
Yup. I'm calling him Duke Devlin from now on because god damn, Finnick from the fishing district, book your names are so stupid.
Anyway, from the sounds of it, his win wasn't that impressive at all, he got every imaginable advantage.
When he received a silver parachute with a trident—which may be the most expensive gift I've ever seen given in the arena—it was all over. District 4's industry is fishing. He'd been on boats his whole life. The trident was a natural, deadly extension of his arm.
Oh my god seriously.
No.
You don't fish with tridents. You fish with massive fucking nets. Out of, incidentally, fish farms, because those are vastly more efficient than leaving them to run around wild.
Also, he's a trained kid. What was he doing on boats learning to use a weapon that isn't provided in the arena instead of training? If they'd spent that time teaching him about swords he could have had that advantage the whole time, instead of relying on the whim of a sponsor.
He wove a net out of some kind of vine he found, used it to entangle his opponents so he could spear them with the trident
It's seriously like her only knowledge of Rome is some Hollywood movie. Yes, there were the gladiators with tridents and nets. No, that wasn't a legitimate fighting style, it was something invented to make the games more interesting visually.
Because of his youth, they couldn't really touch him for the first year or two. But ever since he turned sixteen, he's spent his time at the Games being dogged by those desperately in love with him.
So let me get this straight. The capital is okay with twelve year olds dying in the childmurder games, but no sex with fourteen year olds, but the age of consent is sixteen.
I just. If this was another book I'd assume there was some sort of message about the different values placed on sex compared to violence in our culture, but the final qualifier kind of kills that. So I'm left with the possibility this reflects some unconscious view of the author.
Also, given the capital's magic science, I do find it a bit hard to believe someone could be naturally more beautiful than modified citizens.
But hey, at least the book didn't specify gender here. I'm...not really sure which of the various bad options here is best, but there's room for homosexuality existing this time which is a step up from last book.
He's draped in a golden net that's strategically knotted at his groin so that he can't technically be called naked, but he's about as close as you can get. I'm sure his stylist thinks the more of Finnick the audience sees, the better.
Uh...that generally isn't how it works. Especially once people know he's hot, putting him on display like that just gets boring.
He wets his lips just ever so slightly with his tongue. Probably this drives most people crazy. But for some reason all I can think of is old Cray, salivating over some poor, starving young woman.
Okay, so we're finally getting some suggestion Cray was bad in a more specific way than just paying for sex. But eh, book.
The author seems to have realized things weren't that bad at Katniss' district and that the evil government needed to start being evil. She then needed a reason for why things hadn't been like that before, and the explanation was a change in leadership.
Now, if Head Peacekeeper amounts to local god-king, and they're given pretty much free reign to do as they want, this works fine. You can have people be a mix of good and bad - one doesn't enforce rules as much but is decadent himself while another is strict in all ways.
But that makes no sense in the context of a government that's constantly watching for dissent and trying to control everything. Cray was, at bare minimum, still telling the capital he was enforcing all the rules. That alone would be incredibly dangerous given this is an evil government constantly watching everything that mutilates and enslaves people it doesn't like and makes torture wasps for kicks. Most likely, he was supposed to give regular reports, so he would have to have been falsifying all those - marking down that various punishments had been given out. That's a lot of risk to be taking, and why?
It's not simply that Cray's lazy - he could still have had some halfhearted crackdowns, and wouldn't have had to do any work himself if he didn't want to, since all he has to do is give orders. If this was just a matter of, say, Cray punishing people with fines while the new guy goes with whipping, that would be at least within an understandable range. He could still had the access to meat if they confiscated it whenever it was found - indeed, a good measure of a corrupt police force is when convictions don't stick because the evidence keeps disappearing. And the more the peacekeepers enforce the rules, the more starving young women have no options but prostitution.
Instead Cray let an entire black market run, at great risk to himself. He didn't even force people to give him things for free. Here's the one time he actually shows up, remember:
Cray, our Head Peacekeeper, frowns when he sees me with the bottles. He's an older man with a few strands of silver hair combed sideways above his bright red face. “That stuff's too strong for you, girl.” He should know. Next to Haymitch, Cray drinks more than anyone I've ever met.
“Aw, my mother uses it in medicines,” I say indifferently.
“Well, it'd kill just about anything,” he says, and slaps down a coin for a bottle.:
He's a heavy drinker. He's paying for the alcohol. The alcohol is sold by a woman who can't get other work - someone who without the black market would have no options other than prostitution. And he's expressing concern for Katniss buying it, instead of the other possible response to seeing a sixteen year old girl he thinks is about to get plastered.
In short, there's more to taking advantage of young women than just paying them for sex. The book not only fails to show any of that, it inadvertently suggests he's doing a great deal to help people.
It's actually pretty ironic, because generally the book has been very good at portraying anything halfway sexual as creepy and exploitative.
Back to that! Duke Devlin says it's too bad about the whole thing where she's probably going to die in the murder games. After all,
You could have made out like a bandit in the Capitol. Jewels, money, anything you wanted.”
Yes, she too could get in on the prostitution. But Katniss isn't interested.
“I don't like jewels, and I have more money than I need.
Right. Fuck those starving orphans. And yeah, there are god know how many people in agony back at your house being treated after whippings because your mom can't afford any more morphine, but none of them are named Gale, so why would you need to spend money buying painkillers for them?
I realize the author isn't interested in that, but in that case the book shouldn't involve it. The story would have worked fine if the evil government was generally oppressive without starving everyone, and it'd have made the way everything revolves around Katniss far more reasonable. Extra money is no big deal when all that can be bought are luxuries, but when you're surrounded by people dropping from hunger, it's very different.
Katniss asks how much he's getting and he says he's not into money either.
“Then how do they pay you for the pleasure of your company?” I ask.
“With secrets,” he says softly. He tips his head in so his lips are almost in contact with mine. “What about you, girl on fire? Do you have any secrets worth my time?”
So there will be INTRIGUE. Okay. All I ask is Katniss pay a bit more attention than the mockingjay watch.
For some stupid reason, I blush, but I force myself to hold my ground. “No, I'm an open book,” I whisper back. “Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself.”
Oh come on book, work with me here.
As I said often with the last book, this is YA, so I will accept a lack of subtlety. Bit is it so much to ask that the character at least keep up with the hints being dropped?
Peeta goes over to ask what Duke Devlin wanted to talk about and Katniss just said he was hitting on her so whatever.
“Do you think we'd have ended up like this if only one of us had won?” he asks, glancing around at the other victors. “Just another part of the freak show?”
What freak show?
I mean, it's not like any of them have any choice in their outfits. Duke Devlin was hitting on Katniss, but that wasn't particularly weird. And the only description of the group Katniss gave is that they're standing around talking to each other.
Katniss says Peeta would have.
“Because you have a weakness for beautiful things and I don't,” I say with an air of superiority. “They would lure you into their Capitol ways and you'd be lost entirely.”
...
I climb up and pull him up after me. “Hold still,” I say, and straighten his crown. “Have you seen your suit turned on? We're going to be fabulous again.”
God damn it Katniss.
as we begin to glow, I can see people pointing at us and chattering, and I know that, once again, we'll be the talk of the opening ceremonies.
IT DOESN'T MATTER.
You don't even have the excuse of wanting sponsors. The capital is doing this to kill you, making sure Haymitch can't send you stuff will be child's play.
I can't help catching glimpses of us on the huge screens along the route, and we are not just beautiful, we are dark and powerful.
You are kids wearing makeup.
And I love it. Getting to be myself at last.
She's getting to be "herself" when she's in heavy makeup, demanding the adoration of everyone even as she pretends she doesn't notice them, while she steals glances at her own image to bask in how amazing she looks. And this makes her noble and independent and heroic.
No wonder these books are popular. That's not a message people will argue with.
I can see that a couple of the other stylists have tried to steal Cinna and Portia's idea of illuminating their tributes. The electric-light-studded outfits from District 3, where they make electronics, at least make sense. But what are the livestock keepers from District 10, who are dressed as cows, doing with flaming belts? Broiling themselves? Pathetic.
So damn catty. The first time this happened, I thought it was part of the general satire. The longer it goes on, the more convinced I am that the author just can't stop herself. She really does think like this.
So hey, let's drag this back to worldbuilding and a type of failure that interests rather than enrages me. 10 is animal products? Remember back when I was saying 2% of America's population handles all the food? That was both plant and animal stuff.
So. If we break the districts and capital up evenly, each is 7.7%
We know the average district is > 7.7 because Katniss' district is significantly smaller than others, so everything else must have a higher portion of the population, and that 11 is significantly larger than those in turn.
Even very conservatively, the combined populations of 10 and 11 should be over 15% of the population. That's a ridiculous number.
The only way to make this work is if we assume the capital is much larger than the population of any district, which is hard to believe given it appears to be a single city, while the districts stretch out quite a long way.
Cities are, of course, high density areas. But the capital doesn't seem to be an especially cramped place, and it'd have to be pretty tightly packed to be so much bigger than any district that 10 and 11 are reduced to a single digit percentage.
And, of course, the bigger it gets, the further we get from how society actually functions.
Right now, the top 1% of the American population holds more than a third of all wealth. That is, about five percent more than the combined income of the bottom 90% of the population.
And this comparison is within America. Countrywise, America's interactions with the rest of the world mirror this same sort of inequality. Indeed, it's more accurate a comparison to here, because America does indeed control other countries to get a certain resource. Banana republics and all that. It's kind of depressing how flippantly people use the term these days.
The larger the capital is, the more reasonable the system becomes. If the capital makes up 50% of the population (giving each district a mere 4% of the population, and the combined 10 and 11 being possibly just under 10%) then it's more a matter of the tyranny of the majority. Making the capital 75% of the country, with districts averaging 2% and the food districts perhaps 5%, now in ballpark range for current agricultural production.
But in that case, you don't need monitoring systems everywhere looking for dissent, because most people are happy. You don't need to fear rebellion because you not only have better quality of soldiers but better quantity. Oppressing any group of people is still wrong, but it's not going to be a popular uprising any longer, and you're really better off trying to change the system to let the remainder in rather than trying to win by force of arms (even if for no better reason than that by this point you have no chance of winning by force of arms.)
...and back to the story. Katniss says everyone's looking at the pair because they're so awesome.
We seem particularly riveting to the pair from District 6, who are known morphling addicts. Both bone thin, with sagging yellowish skin.
This is a common misconception about drugs thanks to the fact anti-drug programs tend to be more concerned with scaring kids away than balanced education.
Morphine - and yes, it's definitely morphine because it's mentioned Gale's affected by opiates - is indeed a highly addictive drug that you shouldn't use. That said, addicts who have access to food, such as for example incredibly wealthy victors of the childmurder games, will eat normally. The thinness normally comes because addicts given the choice between drugs or food will go with drugs.
It doesn't cause jaundice. Alcohol causes jaundice. Unless morphling is morphine cut with something nasty it shouldn't either, and we can be relatively sure it isn't because it's a drug given out by the capital to treat headache pain.
do I see the president fixated on me as well?
Katniss, he's just glaring at you. Because he hates you and he's plotting which horrible way you're going to die. He is not impressed by you being sparkly.
Anyway, Katniss has finally hit her gloating quota and starts paying attention to other people again. Haymitch is over by the District 11 tributes, one of whom is missing an arm.
I'm sure they offered him some artificial replacement, like they did Peeta when they had to amputate his lower leg, but I guess he didn't take it.
That's rather cut off your nose to spite your face, isn't it?
The woman hugs Katniss and Katniss quickly whispers a question about what happened to Thresh and Rue's families. Katniss! You're acting like a person again! Please keep doing that. Anyway, families are still okay.
Chaff throws his good arm around me and gives me a big kiss right on the mouth. I jerk back, startled, while he and Haymitch guffaw.
oh my god what why
no really why what makes you think this is funny
That's about all the time we get before the Capitol attendants are firmly directing us toward the elevators. I get the distinct feeling they're not comfortable with the camaraderie among the victors, who couldn't seem to care less.
Random old guys grabbing sixteen year old girls for a kiss is not camaraderie!
As they head to an elevator, someone joins them.
Johanna Mason. From District 7 Lumber and paper, thus the tree. She won by very convincingly portraying herself as weak and helpless so that she would be ignored. Then she demonstrated a wicked ability to murder.
Oh book, you know just how to make me hate you.
So, we have the lovely concept of a girl winning by looking really pathetic, and then a "wicked" murder spree. Unlike Katniss' ability to murder, which I suppose was...hm, helpful? amateur? nice? I really can't find a good antonym here. I really don't think Katniss has room to throw stones. And "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know" Peeta took part in the mangling of that first girl - who begged and screamed, remember - in the games and was the one to finally kill her afterward. If we're going to start throwing around words like wicked, I think we should keep that in mind.
She ruffles up her spiky hair and rolls her wide-set brown eyes. “Isn't my costume awful? My stylist's the biggest idiot in the Capitol. Our tributes have been trees for forty years under her. Wish I’d gotten Cinna. You look fantastic.”
So...confirmation that other tributes have no choice in their outfits and yet Katniss still felt free calling them freaks for it.
Honestly, the endless fashion whining makes less and less sense. If something's such a terrible idea, why do stylists keep doing it?
Still. Hi Johanna! You seem capable of talking like a normal person and also killing people! I hope you stick around.
Girl talk. That thing I've always been so bad at. Opinions on clothes, hair, makeup.
Katniss I have just sat through pages worth of your blather about your opinions on clothing, hair and makeup. STFU.
So I lie. “Yeah, he's been helping me design my own clothing line. You should see what he can do with velvet.” Velvet. The only fabric I could think of off the top of my head.
What about that statement was a lie?
“I have. On your tour. That strapless number you wore in District Two? The deep blue one with the diamonds? So gorgeous I wanted to reach through the screen and tear it right off your back,” says Johanna.
Ooooooookay Johanna that's a bit much to be saying to someone you barely know.
I bet you did, I think. With a few inches of my flesh.
And just like that, Johanna's statement becomes perfectly reasonable compared to the wild nonsense Katniss is accusing her of secretly meaning. Stop demonizing people, Katniss.
While we wait for the elevators, Johanna unzips the rest of her tree, letting it drop to the floor, and then kicks it away in disgust. Except for her forest green slippers, she doesn't have on a stitch of clothing. “That's better.”
Oh Johanna. We have barely met and already you're awesome. Please don't die.
We end up on the same elevator with her, and she spends the whole ride to the seventh floor chatting to Peeta about his paintings while the light of his still-glowing costume reflects off her bare breasts.
While, presumably, Katniss just quietly seethes. Katniss, really, she's not trying to steal your notboyfriend. He's not actually that great of a catch. If you're that upset, just offer to strip off your costume and let her try it. Then you're naked and she isn't, thus recapturing your precious manipulative notboyfriend's attention.
Johanna, sadly, gets off the elevator and we're deprived of her presence again.
“It's you, Katniss. Can't you see?” he says. “What's me?” I say.
“Why they're all acting like this. Finnick with his sugar cubes and Chaff kissing you and that whole thing with Johanna stripping down.” He tries to take on a more serious tone, unsuccessfully. “They're playing with you because you're so ... you know.”
“No, I don't know,” I say. And I really have no idea what he's talking about.
“It's like when you wouldn't look at me naked in the arena even though I was half dead. You're so ... pure,” he says finally.
See I thought the bit about not looking at him had more to do with the fact he was in love with her and she wasn't and on top of that, couldn't even say so. I can't speak for everyone but for me that would do a wonderful job in making me rediscover an intense fear of nakedness.
Also, let's rank this.
Duke Devlin was being flirty. He was coming on pretty strong given that he's almost a decade older than her and all, but he was just flirting.
Waste material that should be discarded or possibly burned GRABBED HER AND KISSED HER WITHOUT ANY WARNING.
Johanna stripped naked. Also, she was dressed in a stupid tree costume. I am willing to believe it was irritating as fuck to wear, having worn any number of costumes, and that it is entirely possible she could have just wanted to get it off. On the sexual harassment scale, a girl taking off her clothes and then having a normal conversation while she stands outside your immediate personal space ranks below an asshole suddenly grabbing and kissing you on the mouth.
“I am not!” I say. “I've been practically ripping your clothes off every time there's been a camera for the last year!”
Why hello there prostitution subtext I had not missed you please go away again.
Anyway Peeta reassures her that she's perfect "for him" in a way that somehow just makes me think of creepy people and virginity fetishes and they get back to their room and suddenly Haymitch looks upset.
I turn around and find the redheaded Avox girl who tended to me last year until the Games began. I think how nice it is to have a friend here.
Katniss an ounce of consideration for others please. An ounce.
I would like Katniss' sense of connection with the girl if she could just please keep in mind that the girl's life is horrible, instead of her current phrasing which makes it sound like all that matters is herself.
I notice that the young man beside her, another Avox, also has red hair.
Then a chill runs through me. Because I know him, too. Not from the Capitol but from years of having easy conversations in the Hob, joking over Greasy Sae's soup, and that last day watching him lie unconscious in the square while the life bled out of Gale.
Our new Avox is Darius.
WHY RED HAIR EVERYWHERE I can't make sense of the biology here at all.
Okay that's probably not what I'm supposed to be taking away from this but. But. Red hair is the least common phenotype.
I mean, honestly Katniss' district has issues, which is that their two phenotypes are too different and there don't seem to be any of the obvious mixes. The poorer class are black hair/olive skin/grey eyes and the richer class are blond hair/light skin/blue eyes, despite the fact that any crossbreeding between the two groups should get you brown hair at the least, and definitely blond/grey eyes because blue and grey are quite close. But that's comparatively reasonable, it's possible that they've lost more alleles to genetic drift and they really are down to a lots-of-melanin/very little melanin set.
Whereas red hair? Wikipedia says its numbers in the US are somewhere between 2-6%. And that's total redheads, which includes a lot of people who don't have the sort of bright distinctive coloring that'll get people saying you look like a fox and then refusing to ever bother learning your actual name.
It's possible a single district could have had a high percentage of them, but so far there doesn't seem to be any connection between redheads. Katniss assumes the enslaved girl was from the capital, the tribute girl was from 5, I think? And now Darius, from who knows. Her district, some other district, the capital? It occurs to me that if the book's consistent the hair thing should mean he's not a local, but if peacekeepers are sent in from other areas then Cray's whole thing falls apart, since any newcomer could have ratted him out, and besides, Katniss thought the replacement guy's accent being different was really weird, implying that's not normally true about peacekeepers.
...but back to the reveal.
Katniss' shock and horror is not really doing it for me. She mentioned how she didn't recognize any of the peacekeepers, and I said then that she should have cared about the fact this meant something had happened to the original ones. What did she think that meant, the peacekeepers vanishing right as a new guy comes in and notices none of the capital's laws are being enforced in a district whose victor just fucked everything up for Snow, and when she managed that in no small part because of that lack of enforcement? This is supposedly a guy she's known for years, who was knocked out (and head wounds are a pretty big deal) trying to protect someone, and he disappeared, as did the woman who took a similar risk to help save someone's life and all the rest, and all she thought was the newcomers were scary. She didn't care then, so it's hard to sympathize with her being upset now that she's getting her face rubbed in it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-07-21 05:09 pm (UTC)^ is it sad this is why I didn't like Rue? I felt she was forced upon the readers in all the wrong ways. There's a sea of blank slates then suddenly BOOM a super developed girl. Then the book gives you this impression she's going to make it to the final three or something, and they make her a martyr. I do kind of like her now...but still ~very unpopular opinion.~
no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 03:59 am (UTC)I think if the rest of the characters had been portrayed sympathetically she'd have been a lot better. Come to think of it, if Katniss hadn't been catty about pretty much every other adult, Cinna wouldn't have seemed so BESTEST AND WONDERFUL in comparison either. It's partly their exceptionalism that causes the problem.