Catching Fire, Chapter 16
May. 13th, 2011 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaLast time on Catching Fire, Johanna! <3
I know any move I would make toward Darius, any act of recognition, would only result in punishment for him.
Really don't know why she's so sure of this. Among other things, he's already gotten the worst punishment they give. This is yet another time where the narrative is making excuses for why Katniss should do whatever the easiest thing is. Also, she could start talking to Peeta about whatever she wants to say and pretend it has nothing to do with him.
the only time I really feel present is when I purposely knock a dish of peas to the floor and, before anyone can stop me, crouch down to clean them up. Darius is right by me when I send the dish over, and we two are briefly side by side, obscured from view, as we scoop up the peas. For just one moment our hands meet. I can feel his skin, rough under the buttery sauce from the dish. In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.
That said, this is a nice bit. If the book had managed to properly portray a desperate situation where saying anything would result in horrible reprisals, it'd work well, and it's great to get another glimpse of non-sociopath Katniss.
Then Effie's clucking at me from behind about how “That isn't your job, Katniss!” and he lets go.
Thank you Effie, if it really is some huge deal then that's actually the right idea.
Katniss then starts feeling sulky and avoiding Peeta.
I'm still angry with him for laughing at me along with the other victors, and the last thing I want is his sympathy and comfort. I haven't changed my mind about saving him in the arena, but I don't owe him more than that.
This is such petty, petty nonsense. "I'm going to die for you because you're worth more than me, but not quite enough I'll talk to you."
As I watch the procession to the City Circle, I think how it's bad enough that they dress us all up in costumes and parade us through the streets in chariots on a regular year. Kids in costumes are silly, but aging victors, it turns out, are pitiful. A few who are on the younger side, like Johanna and Finnick, or whose bodies haven't fallen into disrepair, like Seeder and Brutus, can still manage to maintain a little dignity. But the majority, who are in the clutches of drink or morphling or illness, look grotesque in their costumes, depicting cows and trees and loaves of bread. Last year we chattered away about each contestant, but tonight there's only the occasional comment. Small wonder the crowd goes wild when Peeta and I appear, looking so young and strong and beautiful in our brilliant costumes. The very image of what tributes should be.
...what.
This sounds reasonable until you think about it for five seconds. Duke Devlin is just twenty-four years old. Johanna seems even younger. Yet they're old hags who can just barely "maintain a little dignity", while naturally Katniss and her notboyfriend look awesome.
I mean, if nothing else, Duke Devlin, who the whole capital is trying to sleep with. Don't think he looked ridiculous. They'd probably lynch his stylist.
Effie calls a reminder to meet early for breakfast to work out our training strategy, but even her voice sounds hollow. Poor Effie. She finally had a decent year in the Games with Peeta and me, and now it's all broken down into a mess that even she can't put a positive spin on. In Capitol terms, I'm guessing this counts as a true tragedy.
Um, yes, it does. See, as you keep saying, everyone involved with you is in danger. If the way Snow talked about you and Gale is any indication, everyone else is in even more danger, because people will notice your death but no one cares about the rest. So yes. It's pretty damn awful for her.
Tongues figure prominently in my nightmares. First I watch frozen and helpless while gloved hands carry out the bloody dissection in Darius's mouth. Then I'm at a party where everyone wears masks and someone with a flicking, wet tongue, who I suppose is Finnick, stalks me, but when he catches me and pulls off his mask, it's President Snow, and his puffy lips are dripping in bloody saliva. Finally I'm back in the arena, my own tongue as dry as sandpaper, while I try to reach a pool of water that recedes every time I'm about to touch it.
Dreams are getting better, which is good because this is about the billionth of these. Still a bit shaky - they're a trifle too coherent, but they work as dreams. The real issue is just that this book has been packed with them. Probably should have cut out some of the earlier, weaker ones.
Katniss sulks more in her room after waking up because she doesn't want to talk about their strategy, because she's whiny and dumb.
I really feel bad at times, because I do like flawed heroes. But I don't get the sense she's doing things because she's so stressed out she can't handle it any longer. She's just petulant.
“You're late,” he snarls at me.
“Sorry. I slept in after the mutilated-tongue nightmares kept me up half the night.”
Yeah it's all about you Katniss.
See, a good character would have had those nightmares and then felt bad because nightmares are nothing compared to actually going through it, and then I'd be sympathetic because of course it's not like you can stop being afraid just because someone else is worse off. But for that to work, she has to acknowledge that life sucks more for someone else.
Haymitch says the strategy will be to make friends, because the fact the others already know each other means that they'll go after strangers first.
Katniss goes ew, you mean join the trained set like we're one of them? Haymitch says STFU, how is that different than what they did for the last few months. Thank you Haymitch. Anyway, he says it doesn't really matter if it's the trained ones or not, just get allies.
Effie shows up a bit early to take us down because last year, even though we were on time, we were the last two tributes to show up. But Haymitch tells her he doesn't want her taking us down to the gym. None of the other victors will be showing up with a babysitter, and being the youngest, it's even more important we look self-reliant. So she has to satisfy herself with taking us to the elevator, fussing over our hair, and pushing the button for us.
See? Effie is awesome and cares.
But most of the tributes aren't there. A few are, though.
the woman from District 2, Enobaria, are present. Enobaria looks to be about thirty and all I can remember about her is that, in hand-to-hand combat, she killed one tribute by ripping open his throat with her teeth.
I really think there's a major different in perspective between me and the book. You tell me a kid thrown into a cagefight and forced to fight to the death tore someone's throat out, and I think wow, that poor kid. The book thinks they're an evil sadist.
She became so famous for this act that, after she was a victor, she had her teeth cosmetically altered so each one ends in a sharp point like a fang and is inlaid with gold.
Okay, Katniss, your stylists explicitly said they could remodel you over your objections. So for starters, there's no reason to say that she chose to do that. Next - so the hell what? She lived because she did that, if she wants to remember that as a source of strength let her. Compared to your endless girl on fire blather that is a downright healthy coping mechanism, at least it's something she did instead of taking all her strength from a costume a random guy made to look pretty.
Enobaria, you are awesome.
I tell Peeta I think we'd do best to split up, thus covering more territory. When he goes off to chuck spears with Brutus and Chaff, I head over to the knot-tying station, hardly anyone ever bothers to visit it.
...so she tells him to split up, then plays hooky.
While Katniss is hanging out with the knot-tying teacher, Duke Devlin shows up!
his fingers easily finishing the complicated knot I've been sweating over. Of course it's Finnick, who seems to have spent his childhood doing nothing but wielding tridents and manipulating ropes into fancy knots for nets
I really don't think this book quite understands the concept of training kids. If you raise them for Thing A, you don't spend all their time teaching them Thing B instead.
Both are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair. The woman, Wiress, is probably around my mother's age and speaks in a quiet, intelligent voice. But right away I notice she has a habit of dropping off her words in mid-sentence, as if she's forgotten you're there. Beetee, the man, is older and somewhat fidgety. He wears glasses but spends a lot of time looking under them.
Hello new friends! You also seem more interesting than Katniss.
They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by stripping naked.
I'm bored, so let's speculate wildly.
Almost naked Duke Devlin doing everything short of actually jumping her right then: okay.
Random drunken guy grabbing her to shove his tongue in her mouth: okay
Naked woman: OMGWTFBBQ
Katniss finds breasts more distracting than Duke Devlin flashing 98% as much flesh while sucking on sugar cubes, talking about how hot she is and leaning in so close their lips almost touch. And we do know she was getting a good look at the breasts because she spent some time on how the light from their costumes played on them. Also, she doesn't seem to have any real memory of the conversation compared to those breasts. This, to me, kind of suggests Katniss is gay. I mean, I guess she could just be really homophobic and squicked by the possibility of someone else thinking she was gay, but let's face it, when politicians start going on about that it usually just means they're homophobic AND gay.
Admittedly, I have witnessed some real world girls behaving like this, but they also kept groping each other so it didn't completely convince me of the whole not gay thing.
Katniss manages to pry her thoughts away from how uncomfortable and confused Johanna's stripping makes her to realize that oh hey, also there's the whole rebellion thing. If she talks to them maybe she can find out if there was a District 3 rebellion.
I glance around the Training Center. Peeta is at the center of a ribald circle of knife throwers. The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls. The male tribute from District 5 is vomiting wine on the sword-fighting floor. Finnick and the old woman from his district are using the archery station. Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for a wrestling lesson. I decide to stay put.
In order:
Morphine is not crack dammit.
Poor district 5 guy! He's probably doomed but I wish Katniss would go make friends anyway. Someone who reacts to the childmurder game by trying to destroy their ability to think is someone decent.
What does archery have to do with fishing seriously it's not like you can just pick it up in a couple days if they don't already know they can't learn it before the games.
Johanna! <3
So she makes smalltalk with the District 3s.
Wiress brings up some sort of stitching device she's working on.
“It senses the density of the fabric and selects the strength,” she says, and then becomes absorbed in a bit of dry straw before she can go on.
“The strength of the thread,” Beetee finishes explaining. “Automatically. It rules out human error.” Then he talks about his recent success creating a musical chip that's tiny enough to be concealed in a flake of glitter but can hold hours of songs.
...so she's making a slightly better stitcher and he's making a superchip. I'm honestly not sure what the point of the chip even is, though - it still has to be hooked up to a speaker and power source. Miniaturizing storage alone only goes so far, and past a certain point it's just making something you'll lose. (And really, if the mp3 player boom has taught us nothing else, it's that "hours" of songs is nowhere near enough. How about a ring-sized version that held weeks of songs?
Katniss mentions production issues, ie strikes, and he says that they've been having those in their district, then asks about if there's been any similar coal problems.
Well, no. The book was busy making excuses and focusing on how hard it is to be Katniss.
“Oh. That's a shame,” says Wiress in a slightly disappointed voice. “I found your district very ...” She trails off, distracted by something in her head.
“Interesting,” fills in Beetee. “We both did.”
I feel bad, knowing that their district must have suffered much worse than ours. I feel I have to defend my people. “Well, there aren't very many of us in Twelve,” I say. “Not that you'd know it nowadays by the size of the Peacekeeping force.
By which, of course, Katniss is referring to the peacekeeper numbers finally going back up to the level all the other districts have always been dealing with. Fuck off, Katniss. None of them had the numbers to rebel safely, you can't say you just didn't have enough people. It was a choice, and the choice was that, knowing at least half the districts had rebelled, you would sit and let them take the full force of the capital's retaliation rather than trying to help.
Then they point out something about the gamemakers who are watching them.
A patch of space about six inches square at the corner of the table seems almost to be vibrating. It's as if the air is rippling in tiny visible waves, distorting the sharp edges of the wood and a goblet of wine someone has set there.
“A force field. They've set one up between the Game-makers and us.
Hello clumsy plothole patching! By implication, that means in seventy-four years, roughly two thousand children entered a room filled with weaponry, including arrows, slings, throwing knives and spears, and in all that time out of all those kids, Katniss is the only one to ever aim at the monsters planning out the childmurder games, and all she did was show off some fancy shooting with an apple.
It'd never occur to her she could have done anything else, so she happily brags about it.
I confess. “Last year I shot an arrow at them during my private training session.” Beetee and Wiress look at me curiously. “I was provoked.
By them not noticing her awesome shooting, not the whole childmurder thing. And not "at them" so much as "at an apple".
do all force fields have a spot like that?”
“Chink,” says Wiress vaguely.
“In the armor, as it were,” finishes Beetee. “Ideally it'd be invisible, wouldn't it?”
That isn't what chink means. Flaw, maybe. A chink is either a crack or an opening. You don't say there's a chink in the armor if there's a discolored patch in the armor, you say it if there's a place you can stab through.
When we make our way into the dining area, I see some of Peeta's gang have other ideas. They're dragging all the smaller tables to form one large table so that we all have to eat together. Now I don't know what to do.
Oh god people are being friendly! IT BURNS US
Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me.
Remember how I said that the thing with Madge had seemed like retconning, but then the book explained they'd become friends? Now it's been retconned back again. Dammit.
She and Peeta meet up in line and she says she likes the 3s. Peeta says the others don't think much of them, which, well, yeah, they both seem pretty out of it.
“Johanna's nicknamed them Nuts and Volts,” he says. “I think she's Nuts and he's Volts.”
Wiress has indeed been irritatingly much nuttier than Beetee. I don't think she ever manages to say a single complete sentence. So we have a "hysterical" young woman and now an older woman who's neurotic if not psychotic, compared to a sum total of zero mentally ill men so far. Closest we get is the guy in the pair of morphine addicts. Note also the only people we see who are alcoholics are men - Haymitch, his buddy Chaff, District 5 guy. Because crazy women have to be attractive and vulnerable about it.
“And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling up her breasts for wrestling,” I retort.
Huh, my theory accrues support. Katniss/Johanna OT♠ ?
Peeta ignores this, possibly because he's not really sure what the right thing to say about Johanna's oiled breasts is, and says the name's been around a while, he's just passing it on. He does kind of have a point here - they don't seem in the best mental state as it is and the other tributes would know better than they do.
Katniss, who was already feeling jealous about how easily Peeta got along with the rest of the tributes, decides to insist they team up with 3 because they're "smart" and "invent things".
Peeta recognizes Katniss is mad, not really that hard to do, and asks her what's wrong. Everything, basically, but she calms down slightly. And Peeta promises her final say about any allies. Well, maybe someone pointed out how fucking stupid it was last games when he kept trying to boss her around. So she says she likes Seeder but not Chaff.
So of course he says she has a real point there haha no he tells he she just needs to get to know the guy. Fuck you Peeta.
I promise, I won't let him kiss you again,” says Peeta.
Oh thank goodness Katniss you have ~a man~ to protect you from the unwanted attentions of others! Because you are so fucking defenseless otherwise, unlike strong manly Peeta. Remember that time he...no, he got his ass kicked. How about...nope. Well - no, not then there. Right, Peeta's a fucking baker while you kill mountain lions.
Chaff is sober so he doesn't try to kiss her again. You know, alcohol can only excuse so much, and it didn't say anything about him being completely smashed back then, so I don't really believe this is a simple matter of sober/drunk.
After lunch I do the edible-insect station with the District 8 tributes — Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth.
Probably doomed. Really, why didn't someone volunteer for Cecelia? At least..."Woof" could be someone who chose to do this to protect someone else.
I wish I could mention meeting Twill and Bonnie in the woods, but I can't figure out how.
Well, it's been months, so either they're dead or they're long gone. So I'd say you could mention them by saying you met people. Because come on, what are they going to do to you for saying it? Kill you? You don't have to give any detail. Just something indicating you know what happened and you're really sorry but that some people escaped.
Cashmere and Gloss, the sister and brother from District 1, invite me over and we make hammocks for a while. They're polite but cool, and I spend the whole time thinking about how I killed both the tributes from their district, Glimmer and Marvel, last year, and that they probably knew them and might even have been their mentors. Both my hammock and my attempt to connect with them are mediocre at best.
SAY YOU'RE SORRY.
How hard is this? SAY YOU'RE SORRY.
I join Enobaria at sword training and exchange a few comments, but it's clear neither of us wants to team up.
...So, the promise of non-evil trained kids seems to have come down to District 4 just being the one exception because Duke Devlin is hot and therefore a major character. The fact District 4 is another career district is being steadily swept under the rug - the recounting of his games emphasizes it's his personal appearance and district skills that win it for him, no mention of him actually getting training, and no handwringing about his brutal kills.
Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4. Between her district accent and her garbled speech — possibly she's had a stroke — I can't make out more than one in four words.
So District 3 has the one person who seems definitely mentally ill so far and District 4 has a woman who can barely talk who replaced a woman who was hysterical. Meanwhile, number of men showing mental problems: 0.
I guess you could fanwank this as there seem to be fewer female victors, so they couldn't replace them with someone more competent while they could remove the more obviously unfit guys, except that it seems like the majority of districts just went with the lottery.
. Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim
This just occurred to you? You see an eighty year old hobble up with a cane and you thought "well, clearly she just really wanted in on all this fun murdering?"
Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that.
It's a great idea, really. The idea the trained kids normally form a pack is, as I've explained before, insane. You want allies who can't take you out. A woman who can provide food without being a threat in the games is a good pick.
So Katniss heads off to shoot stuff because how do you emotions.
Since I'm hitting everything he throws up, he starts increasing the number of birds he sends airborne. I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting. When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it's so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.
What, no fear? Because I know you like to ignore this, book, but it's not like they're here because they want to be so badly. The whole model of this seems stuck on those-mean-popular-girls for no discernible reason.
But because she is so awesome everyone now wants her to be their ally.
“They saw her shoot,” says Peeta with a smile. “Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself.”
Um. She shot during the games, remember? They should have already seen her showing off her skills, as should you when you had to watch it afterward.
“You're that good?” Haymitch asks me. “So good that Brutus wants you?”
I shrug. “But I don't want Brutus. I want Mags and District Three.”
“Of course you do.” Haymitch sighs and orders a bottle of wine. “I'll tell everybody you're still making up your mind.”
Back to the issue of allies, a strong close-combat guy is the worst possible ally for her. Her advantage is distance, she can't afford someone close by who, when he turns on her, can just grab her and throttle her to death. She's not going to be able to outwrestle a well fed and well trained adult man, especially considering we're deep in Meaningful Name territory. Guy who stabbed Caesar is proooooooobably not the guy you want on your team.
Anyway everyone now knows Katniss is awesome as is proper so she's willing to hang out with them more. Including Duke Devlin.
who gives me an hour of trident lessons in exchange for an hour of archery instruction.
Wow, two solid hours wasted. She's not going to get good at that in an hour and god knows no one is going to get good at archery in an hour. Even if you actually could learn it that fast, there's just the issue of not having the right muscles built up.
the more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don't hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them.
It'd be nice for this to be shown, instead of occasionally thrown in as telling. (And between snark about them being a freak show, no less.) The story of someone moral and concerned about others yet thrust into this situation would be a good one. But it's not at all the one we're told. The book even inadvertently admits it next line.
all of them must die if I'm to save Peeta.
I mean, yes, Katniss has (somehow gotten) the idea she has to repay Peeta by dying instead of him. But the other twenty-two people don't even have an imaginary debt. As she gets to know them, she should be forced to really consider if she's willing to kill them for Peeta. That's a lot worse than just dying for him.
More, Katniss seems to be assuming that she can keep Peeta alive. It's very possible that even with her best efforts he'll stumble into a trap and die, so she should also be thinking about what she'll do then -will she kill the rest to survive or die? (Okay, it's Katniss, she'll murder them without a second thought, but at least have a first thought about it.) I mean, the only reason he survived the arena the first time was he didn't bother to try a single berry while he was gathering them. (Huh, that'd be an interesting fanfic - Katniss gets to that point only for him to die because she let him gather berries without her. Going on my idea that it'd have made more sense to just say any two victors, she would then have the opportunity to team up with our beloved redhaired girl. Would she?)
Finally, it's time for them to have the private exhibitions showing off. Katniss has no idea what to do.
I shake my head. “I can't really use them for target practice this year, with the force field up and all. Maybe make some fishhooks.
Well you could show off your snaremaking abilities or possibly STOP BEING THEIR FUCKING DOG AND REFUSE I MEAN SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK CAN THEY DO YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE EXCUSE OF WORRYING ABOUT A SCORE BECAUSE YOU ALREADY WON YOUR CHILDMURDER GAMES EVERYONE SAW WHAT YOU DID YOU'VE ALREADY GOT A FANBASE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO WILL CARE ABOUT YOUR SCORE THIS TIME AROUND IS NEGLIGIBLE SHOW A FUCKING SPINE.
We sit in silence awhile and then I blurt out the thing that's on both our minds. “How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?”
Hm, well, just off the top of my head, probably the same way you killed a bunch of kids during the childmurder games.
Katniss then outright states that she didn't see any of the other kids as people except Rue for reminding her of Prim.
Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. “Her death was the most despicable, wasn't it?”
…
…
Several pairs of feet breaking into a run. The fire starter must have dozed off. They’re on her before she can escape. I know it’s a girl now, I can tell by the pleading, the agonized scream that follows. Then there’s laughter and congratulations from several voices. Someone cries out, “Twelve down and eleven to go!” which gets a round of appreciative hoots.
Of course it wasn't really twelve down - they botched the kill and Peeta, annoyed by their argument, volunteered to do back and make sure she was really dead.
So Peeta. Tell me more about how you think the "most despicable" death was of a girl who died relatively fast and with someone there to comfort her, not the girl who begged and screamed while your group mangled her for fun. Oh, but she doesn't really matter because you just had to join up with them to save Katniss, and really, who cares about what horrible things you did to anyone else along the way?
Peeta is gone for a while and it's more than half an hour later Katniss finally gets called in. The game-makers are all unsettled. Katniss worries, because she doesn't want them hating Peeta and focusing anything on him.
But how did he upset them? Because I'd love to do just that and more. To break through the smug veneer of those who use their brains to find amusing ways to kill us.
Well, shooting them might be a good idea OH WAIT.
Do you have any idea how much I hate you? I think. You, who have given your talents to the Games?
Little late to be pretending moral outrage.
Katniss decides to make a noose, hang a dummy, and then writes a name on it.
hen I step away quickly to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers' faces as they read the name on the dummy.
SENECA CRANE.
I guess the point is to tell them they're all under the government's thumb, but everyone in the capital already knows this, as we learned early last book when Effie apologized to thin air. Personally, I'd have liked something like YOU. Or, if she really must namedrop the guy, both.
So. In conclusion, here are my chicks. Guess which one had problems.
I sat and watched them while working on this. Throughout it, they were not only more enjoyable than the book, but all around nicer and more caring. When you are out-sociopathing chickens...well, it's past the point where you need to look at your life. More like time to turn yourself over to the police.
I know any move I would make toward Darius, any act of recognition, would only result in punishment for him.
Really don't know why she's so sure of this. Among other things, he's already gotten the worst punishment they give. This is yet another time where the narrative is making excuses for why Katniss should do whatever the easiest thing is. Also, she could start talking to Peeta about whatever she wants to say and pretend it has nothing to do with him.
the only time I really feel present is when I purposely knock a dish of peas to the floor and, before anyone can stop me, crouch down to clean them up. Darius is right by me when I send the dish over, and we two are briefly side by side, obscured from view, as we scoop up the peas. For just one moment our hands meet. I can feel his skin, rough under the buttery sauce from the dish. In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.
That said, this is a nice bit. If the book had managed to properly portray a desperate situation where saying anything would result in horrible reprisals, it'd work well, and it's great to get another glimpse of non-sociopath Katniss.
Then Effie's clucking at me from behind about how “That isn't your job, Katniss!” and he lets go.
Thank you Effie, if it really is some huge deal then that's actually the right idea.
Katniss then starts feeling sulky and avoiding Peeta.
I'm still angry with him for laughing at me along with the other victors, and the last thing I want is his sympathy and comfort. I haven't changed my mind about saving him in the arena, but I don't owe him more than that.
This is such petty, petty nonsense. "I'm going to die for you because you're worth more than me, but not quite enough I'll talk to you."
As I watch the procession to the City Circle, I think how it's bad enough that they dress us all up in costumes and parade us through the streets in chariots on a regular year. Kids in costumes are silly, but aging victors, it turns out, are pitiful. A few who are on the younger side, like Johanna and Finnick, or whose bodies haven't fallen into disrepair, like Seeder and Brutus, can still manage to maintain a little dignity. But the majority, who are in the clutches of drink or morphling or illness, look grotesque in their costumes, depicting cows and trees and loaves of bread. Last year we chattered away about each contestant, but tonight there's only the occasional comment. Small wonder the crowd goes wild when Peeta and I appear, looking so young and strong and beautiful in our brilliant costumes. The very image of what tributes should be.
...what.
This sounds reasonable until you think about it for five seconds. Duke Devlin is just twenty-four years old. Johanna seems even younger. Yet they're old hags who can just barely "maintain a little dignity", while naturally Katniss and her notboyfriend look awesome.
I mean, if nothing else, Duke Devlin, who the whole capital is trying to sleep with. Don't think he looked ridiculous. They'd probably lynch his stylist.
Effie calls a reminder to meet early for breakfast to work out our training strategy, but even her voice sounds hollow. Poor Effie. She finally had a decent year in the Games with Peeta and me, and now it's all broken down into a mess that even she can't put a positive spin on. In Capitol terms, I'm guessing this counts as a true tragedy.
Um, yes, it does. See, as you keep saying, everyone involved with you is in danger. If the way Snow talked about you and Gale is any indication, everyone else is in even more danger, because people will notice your death but no one cares about the rest. So yes. It's pretty damn awful for her.
Tongues figure prominently in my nightmares. First I watch frozen and helpless while gloved hands carry out the bloody dissection in Darius's mouth. Then I'm at a party where everyone wears masks and someone with a flicking, wet tongue, who I suppose is Finnick, stalks me, but when he catches me and pulls off his mask, it's President Snow, and his puffy lips are dripping in bloody saliva. Finally I'm back in the arena, my own tongue as dry as sandpaper, while I try to reach a pool of water that recedes every time I'm about to touch it.
Dreams are getting better, which is good because this is about the billionth of these. Still a bit shaky - they're a trifle too coherent, but they work as dreams. The real issue is just that this book has been packed with them. Probably should have cut out some of the earlier, weaker ones.
Katniss sulks more in her room after waking up because she doesn't want to talk about their strategy, because she's whiny and dumb.
I really feel bad at times, because I do like flawed heroes. But I don't get the sense she's doing things because she's so stressed out she can't handle it any longer. She's just petulant.
“You're late,” he snarls at me.
“Sorry. I slept in after the mutilated-tongue nightmares kept me up half the night.”
Yeah it's all about you Katniss.
See, a good character would have had those nightmares and then felt bad because nightmares are nothing compared to actually going through it, and then I'd be sympathetic because of course it's not like you can stop being afraid just because someone else is worse off. But for that to work, she has to acknowledge that life sucks more for someone else.
Haymitch says the strategy will be to make friends, because the fact the others already know each other means that they'll go after strangers first.
Katniss goes ew, you mean join the trained set like we're one of them? Haymitch says STFU, how is that different than what they did for the last few months. Thank you Haymitch. Anyway, he says it doesn't really matter if it's the trained ones or not, just get allies.
Effie shows up a bit early to take us down because last year, even though we were on time, we were the last two tributes to show up. But Haymitch tells her he doesn't want her taking us down to the gym. None of the other victors will be showing up with a babysitter, and being the youngest, it's even more important we look self-reliant. So she has to satisfy herself with taking us to the elevator, fussing over our hair, and pushing the button for us.
See? Effie is awesome and cares.
But most of the tributes aren't there. A few are, though.
the woman from District 2, Enobaria, are present. Enobaria looks to be about thirty and all I can remember about her is that, in hand-to-hand combat, she killed one tribute by ripping open his throat with her teeth.
I really think there's a major different in perspective between me and the book. You tell me a kid thrown into a cagefight and forced to fight to the death tore someone's throat out, and I think wow, that poor kid. The book thinks they're an evil sadist.
She became so famous for this act that, after she was a victor, she had her teeth cosmetically altered so each one ends in a sharp point like a fang and is inlaid with gold.
Okay, Katniss, your stylists explicitly said they could remodel you over your objections. So for starters, there's no reason to say that she chose to do that. Next - so the hell what? She lived because she did that, if she wants to remember that as a source of strength let her. Compared to your endless girl on fire blather that is a downright healthy coping mechanism, at least it's something she did instead of taking all her strength from a costume a random guy made to look pretty.
Enobaria, you are awesome.
I tell Peeta I think we'd do best to split up, thus covering more territory. When he goes off to chuck spears with Brutus and Chaff, I head over to the knot-tying station, hardly anyone ever bothers to visit it.
...so she tells him to split up, then plays hooky.
While Katniss is hanging out with the knot-tying teacher, Duke Devlin shows up!
his fingers easily finishing the complicated knot I've been sweating over. Of course it's Finnick, who seems to have spent his childhood doing nothing but wielding tridents and manipulating ropes into fancy knots for nets
I really don't think this book quite understands the concept of training kids. If you raise them for Thing A, you don't spend all their time teaching them Thing B instead.
Both are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair. The woman, Wiress, is probably around my mother's age and speaks in a quiet, intelligent voice. But right away I notice she has a habit of dropping off her words in mid-sentence, as if she's forgotten you're there. Beetee, the man, is older and somewhat fidgety. He wears glasses but spends a lot of time looking under them.
Hello new friends! You also seem more interesting than Katniss.
They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by stripping naked.
I'm bored, so let's speculate wildly.
Almost naked Duke Devlin doing everything short of actually jumping her right then: okay.
Random drunken guy grabbing her to shove his tongue in her mouth: okay
Naked woman: OMGWTFBBQ
Katniss finds breasts more distracting than Duke Devlin flashing 98% as much flesh while sucking on sugar cubes, talking about how hot she is and leaning in so close their lips almost touch. And we do know she was getting a good look at the breasts because she spent some time on how the light from their costumes played on them. Also, she doesn't seem to have any real memory of the conversation compared to those breasts. This, to me, kind of suggests Katniss is gay. I mean, I guess she could just be really homophobic and squicked by the possibility of someone else thinking she was gay, but let's face it, when politicians start going on about that it usually just means they're homophobic AND gay.
Admittedly, I have witnessed some real world girls behaving like this, but they also kept groping each other so it didn't completely convince me of the whole not gay thing.
Katniss manages to pry her thoughts away from how uncomfortable and confused Johanna's stripping makes her to realize that oh hey, also there's the whole rebellion thing. If she talks to them maybe she can find out if there was a District 3 rebellion.
I glance around the Training Center. Peeta is at the center of a ribald circle of knife throwers. The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls. The male tribute from District 5 is vomiting wine on the sword-fighting floor. Finnick and the old woman from his district are using the archery station. Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for a wrestling lesson. I decide to stay put.
In order:
Morphine is not crack dammit.
Poor district 5 guy! He's probably doomed but I wish Katniss would go make friends anyway. Someone who reacts to the childmurder game by trying to destroy their ability to think is someone decent.
What does archery have to do with fishing seriously it's not like you can just pick it up in a couple days if they don't already know they can't learn it before the games.
Johanna! <3
So she makes smalltalk with the District 3s.
Wiress brings up some sort of stitching device she's working on.
“It senses the density of the fabric and selects the strength,” she says, and then becomes absorbed in a bit of dry straw before she can go on.
“The strength of the thread,” Beetee finishes explaining. “Automatically. It rules out human error.” Then he talks about his recent success creating a musical chip that's tiny enough to be concealed in a flake of glitter but can hold hours of songs.
...so she's making a slightly better stitcher and he's making a superchip. I'm honestly not sure what the point of the chip even is, though - it still has to be hooked up to a speaker and power source. Miniaturizing storage alone only goes so far, and past a certain point it's just making something you'll lose. (And really, if the mp3 player boom has taught us nothing else, it's that "hours" of songs is nowhere near enough. How about a ring-sized version that held weeks of songs?
Katniss mentions production issues, ie strikes, and he says that they've been having those in their district, then asks about if there's been any similar coal problems.
Well, no. The book was busy making excuses and focusing on how hard it is to be Katniss.
“Oh. That's a shame,” says Wiress in a slightly disappointed voice. “I found your district very ...” She trails off, distracted by something in her head.
“Interesting,” fills in Beetee. “We both did.”
I feel bad, knowing that their district must have suffered much worse than ours. I feel I have to defend my people. “Well, there aren't very many of us in Twelve,” I say. “Not that you'd know it nowadays by the size of the Peacekeeping force.
By which, of course, Katniss is referring to the peacekeeper numbers finally going back up to the level all the other districts have always been dealing with. Fuck off, Katniss. None of them had the numbers to rebel safely, you can't say you just didn't have enough people. It was a choice, and the choice was that, knowing at least half the districts had rebelled, you would sit and let them take the full force of the capital's retaliation rather than trying to help.
Then they point out something about the gamemakers who are watching them.
A patch of space about six inches square at the corner of the table seems almost to be vibrating. It's as if the air is rippling in tiny visible waves, distorting the sharp edges of the wood and a goblet of wine someone has set there.
“A force field. They've set one up between the Game-makers and us.
Hello clumsy plothole patching! By implication, that means in seventy-four years, roughly two thousand children entered a room filled with weaponry, including arrows, slings, throwing knives and spears, and in all that time out of all those kids, Katniss is the only one to ever aim at the monsters planning out the childmurder games, and all she did was show off some fancy shooting with an apple.
It'd never occur to her she could have done anything else, so she happily brags about it.
I confess. “Last year I shot an arrow at them during my private training session.” Beetee and Wiress look at me curiously. “I was provoked.
By them not noticing her awesome shooting, not the whole childmurder thing. And not "at them" so much as "at an apple".
do all force fields have a spot like that?”
“Chink,” says Wiress vaguely.
“In the armor, as it were,” finishes Beetee. “Ideally it'd be invisible, wouldn't it?”
That isn't what chink means. Flaw, maybe. A chink is either a crack or an opening. You don't say there's a chink in the armor if there's a discolored patch in the armor, you say it if there's a place you can stab through.
When we make our way into the dining area, I see some of Peeta's gang have other ideas. They're dragging all the smaller tables to form one large table so that we all have to eat together. Now I don't know what to do.
Oh god people are being friendly! IT BURNS US
Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me.
Remember how I said that the thing with Madge had seemed like retconning, but then the book explained they'd become friends? Now it's been retconned back again. Dammit.
She and Peeta meet up in line and she says she likes the 3s. Peeta says the others don't think much of them, which, well, yeah, they both seem pretty out of it.
“Johanna's nicknamed them Nuts and Volts,” he says. “I think she's Nuts and he's Volts.”
Wiress has indeed been irritatingly much nuttier than Beetee. I don't think she ever manages to say a single complete sentence. So we have a "hysterical" young woman and now an older woman who's neurotic if not psychotic, compared to a sum total of zero mentally ill men so far. Closest we get is the guy in the pair of morphine addicts. Note also the only people we see who are alcoholics are men - Haymitch, his buddy Chaff, District 5 guy. Because crazy women have to be attractive and vulnerable about it.
“And so I'm stupid for thinking they might be useful. Because of something Johanna Mason said while she was oiling up her breasts for wrestling,” I retort.
Huh, my theory accrues support. Katniss/Johanna OT
Peeta ignores this, possibly because he's not really sure what the right thing to say about Johanna's oiled breasts is, and says the name's been around a while, he's just passing it on. He does kind of have a point here - they don't seem in the best mental state as it is and the other tributes would know better than they do.
Katniss, who was already feeling jealous about how easily Peeta got along with the rest of the tributes, decides to insist they team up with 3 because they're "smart" and "invent things".
Peeta recognizes Katniss is mad, not really that hard to do, and asks her what's wrong. Everything, basically, but she calms down slightly. And Peeta promises her final say about any allies. Well, maybe someone pointed out how fucking stupid it was last games when he kept trying to boss her around. So she says she likes Seeder but not Chaff.
So of course he says she has a real point there haha no he tells he she just needs to get to know the guy. Fuck you Peeta.
I promise, I won't let him kiss you again,” says Peeta.
Oh thank goodness Katniss you have ~a man~ to protect you from the unwanted attentions of others! Because you are so fucking defenseless otherwise, unlike strong manly Peeta. Remember that time he...no, he got his ass kicked. How about...nope. Well - no, not then there. Right, Peeta's a fucking baker while you kill mountain lions.
Chaff is sober so he doesn't try to kiss her again. You know, alcohol can only excuse so much, and it didn't say anything about him being completely smashed back then, so I don't really believe this is a simple matter of sober/drunk.
After lunch I do the edible-insect station with the District 8 tributes — Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth.
Probably doomed. Really, why didn't someone volunteer for Cecelia? At least..."Woof" could be someone who chose to do this to protect someone else.
I wish I could mention meeting Twill and Bonnie in the woods, but I can't figure out how.
Well, it's been months, so either they're dead or they're long gone. So I'd say you could mention them by saying you met people. Because come on, what are they going to do to you for saying it? Kill you? You don't have to give any detail. Just something indicating you know what happened and you're really sorry but that some people escaped.
Cashmere and Gloss, the sister and brother from District 1, invite me over and we make hammocks for a while. They're polite but cool, and I spend the whole time thinking about how I killed both the tributes from their district, Glimmer and Marvel, last year, and that they probably knew them and might even have been their mentors. Both my hammock and my attempt to connect with them are mediocre at best.
SAY YOU'RE SORRY.
How hard is this? SAY YOU'RE SORRY.
I join Enobaria at sword training and exchange a few comments, but it's clear neither of us wants to team up.
...So, the promise of non-evil trained kids seems to have come down to District 4 just being the one exception because Duke Devlin is hot and therefore a major character. The fact District 4 is another career district is being steadily swept under the rug - the recounting of his games emphasizes it's his personal appearance and district skills that win it for him, no mention of him actually getting training, and no handwringing about his brutal kills.
Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4. Between her district accent and her garbled speech — possibly she's had a stroke — I can't make out more than one in four words.
So District 3 has the one person who seems definitely mentally ill so far and District 4 has a woman who can barely talk who replaced a woman who was hysterical. Meanwhile, number of men showing mental problems: 0.
I guess you could fanwank this as there seem to be fewer female victors, so they couldn't replace them with someone more competent while they could remove the more obviously unfit guys, except that it seems like the majority of districts just went with the lottery.
. Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim
This just occurred to you? You see an eighty year old hobble up with a cane and you thought "well, clearly she just really wanted in on all this fun murdering?"
Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that.
It's a great idea, really. The idea the trained kids normally form a pack is, as I've explained before, insane. You want allies who can't take you out. A woman who can provide food without being a threat in the games is a good pick.
So Katniss heads off to shoot stuff because how do you emotions.
Since I'm hitting everything he throws up, he starts increasing the number of birds he sends airborne. I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting. When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it's so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.
What, no fear? Because I know you like to ignore this, book, but it's not like they're here because they want to be so badly. The whole model of this seems stuck on those-mean-popular-girls for no discernible reason.
But because she is so awesome everyone now wants her to be their ally.
“They saw her shoot,” says Peeta with a smile. “Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself.”
Um. She shot during the games, remember? They should have already seen her showing off her skills, as should you when you had to watch it afterward.
“You're that good?” Haymitch asks me. “So good that Brutus wants you?”
I shrug. “But I don't want Brutus. I want Mags and District Three.”
“Of course you do.” Haymitch sighs and orders a bottle of wine. “I'll tell everybody you're still making up your mind.”
Back to the issue of allies, a strong close-combat guy is the worst possible ally for her. Her advantage is distance, she can't afford someone close by who, when he turns on her, can just grab her and throttle her to death. She's not going to be able to outwrestle a well fed and well trained adult man, especially considering we're deep in Meaningful Name territory. Guy who stabbed Caesar is proooooooobably not the guy you want on your team.
Anyway everyone now knows Katniss is awesome as is proper so she's willing to hang out with them more. Including Duke Devlin.
who gives me an hour of trident lessons in exchange for an hour of archery instruction.
Wow, two solid hours wasted. She's not going to get good at that in an hour and god knows no one is going to get good at archery in an hour. Even if you actually could learn it that fast, there's just the issue of not having the right muscles built up.
the more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don't hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them.
It'd be nice for this to be shown, instead of occasionally thrown in as telling. (And between snark about them being a freak show, no less.) The story of someone moral and concerned about others yet thrust into this situation would be a good one. But it's not at all the one we're told. The book even inadvertently admits it next line.
all of them must die if I'm to save Peeta.
I mean, yes, Katniss has (somehow gotten) the idea she has to repay Peeta by dying instead of him. But the other twenty-two people don't even have an imaginary debt. As she gets to know them, she should be forced to really consider if she's willing to kill them for Peeta. That's a lot worse than just dying for him.
More, Katniss seems to be assuming that she can keep Peeta alive. It's very possible that even with her best efforts he'll stumble into a trap and die, so she should also be thinking about what she'll do then -will she kill the rest to survive or die? (Okay, it's Katniss, she'll murder them without a second thought, but at least have a first thought about it.) I mean, the only reason he survived the arena the first time was he didn't bother to try a single berry while he was gathering them. (Huh, that'd be an interesting fanfic - Katniss gets to that point only for him to die because she let him gather berries without her. Going on my idea that it'd have made more sense to just say any two victors, she would then have the opportunity to team up with our beloved redhaired girl. Would she?)
Finally, it's time for them to have the private exhibitions showing off. Katniss has no idea what to do.
I shake my head. “I can't really use them for target practice this year, with the force field up and all. Maybe make some fishhooks.
Well you could show off your snaremaking abilities or possibly STOP BEING THEIR FUCKING DOG AND REFUSE I MEAN SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK CAN THEY DO YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE EXCUSE OF WORRYING ABOUT A SCORE BECAUSE YOU ALREADY WON YOUR CHILDMURDER GAMES EVERYONE SAW WHAT YOU DID YOU'VE ALREADY GOT A FANBASE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO WILL CARE ABOUT YOUR SCORE THIS TIME AROUND IS NEGLIGIBLE SHOW A FUCKING SPINE.
We sit in silence awhile and then I blurt out the thing that's on both our minds. “How are we going to kill these people, Peeta?”
Hm, well, just off the top of my head, probably the same way you killed a bunch of kids during the childmurder games.
Katniss then outright states that she didn't see any of the other kids as people except Rue for reminding her of Prim.
Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. “Her death was the most despicable, wasn't it?”
…
…
Several pairs of feet breaking into a run. The fire starter must have dozed off. They’re on her before she can escape. I know it’s a girl now, I can tell by the pleading, the agonized scream that follows. Then there’s laughter and congratulations from several voices. Someone cries out, “Twelve down and eleven to go!” which gets a round of appreciative hoots.
Of course it wasn't really twelve down - they botched the kill and Peeta, annoyed by their argument, volunteered to do back and make sure she was really dead.
So Peeta. Tell me more about how you think the "most despicable" death was of a girl who died relatively fast and with someone there to comfort her, not the girl who begged and screamed while your group mangled her for fun. Oh, but she doesn't really matter because you just had to join up with them to save Katniss, and really, who cares about what horrible things you did to anyone else along the way?
Peeta is gone for a while and it's more than half an hour later Katniss finally gets called in. The game-makers are all unsettled. Katniss worries, because she doesn't want them hating Peeta and focusing anything on him.
But how did he upset them? Because I'd love to do just that and more. To break through the smug veneer of those who use their brains to find amusing ways to kill us.
Well, shooting them might be a good idea OH WAIT.
Do you have any idea how much I hate you? I think. You, who have given your talents to the Games?
Little late to be pretending moral outrage.
Katniss decides to make a noose, hang a dummy, and then writes a name on it.
hen I step away quickly to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers' faces as they read the name on the dummy.
SENECA CRANE.
I guess the point is to tell them they're all under the government's thumb, but everyone in the capital already knows this, as we learned early last book when Effie apologized to thin air. Personally, I'd have liked something like YOU. Or, if she really must namedrop the guy, both.
So. In conclusion, here are my chicks. Guess which one had problems.
I sat and watched them while working on this. Throughout it, they were not only more enjoyable than the book, but all around nicer and more caring. When you are out-sociopathing chickens...well, it's past the point where you need to look at your life. More like time to turn yourself over to the police.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 04:28 am (UTC)Anyway, adorable chicks! I could go on about once wanting chickens, but that would take way too long.
You know, these "Hunger Games" are really just other ways to say things like "pep rallies" and "high school". All this crap about popularity and materialistic girls.
Yay! Johanna again! Oh, and the District 3 people are pretty awesome too!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-14 05:29 am (UTC)And yes, the books seem to be stuck in a school mindset. What's particularly irritating is that Katniss should be seventeen by now, when even sheltered upper middle class kids start outgrowing it.