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farlaLast time on Catching Fire, Johanna! Also explosions.
The earth explodes into showers of dirt and plant matter. Trees burst into flames.
Okay, the point at which trees are spontaneously bursting into flames is the point you start spontaneously bursting into flames. Humans are not more durable than trees. Wood spontaneously ignites at 570 degrees Fahrenheit, or 300 degrees Celsius. Bear in mind water boils at 100 Celsius. So it's three times boiling point here.
Even the sky fills with brightly colored blossoms of light. I can't think why the sky's being bombed until I realize the Gamemakers are shooting off fireworks up there
This is why the narration is so irritating. Why would they be shooting fireworks? If Katniss was just guessing I wouldn't care, but the way it's phrased is as if it's meant to be objectively true. If they are, bad writing. If they're not, bad writing to imply it.
This whole section is pretty jumbled. It seems the area's getting bombed but that's never actually stated.
For no discernible reason Katniss then starts monologuing about how there won't be a victor, and maybe it was planned from the start for all the tributes to die, only she and everyone else seem to be fine so stop being so whiny.
The hovercraft materializes above me without warning. If it was quiet, and a mockingjay perched close at hand, I would have heard the jungle go silent and then the bird's call that precedes the appearance of the Capitol's aircraft. But my ears could never make out anything so delicate in this bombardment.
Fail recapping. There's just no reason to go on this long tangent here - it isn't quiet and there don't seem to even be mockingjays on the entire island. Also, seriously, are mockingjays the only birds in existence? They're always brought up and they seem to be the only ones around, only birdsong and when they go quit everything's quiet.
Anyway, THE CLAW comes down and retrieves her body. When she gets into the hovercraft she sees the head gamemaker.
His hand reaches for me, I think to strike me, but he does something worse. With his thumb and his forefinger, he slides my eyelids shut, sentencing me to the vulnerability of darkness. They can do anything to me now and I will not even see it coming.
Why is Katniss incapable of blinking?
Katniss wakes up in a hospital bed. She yanks her tubes out and then passes out. When she wakes up again her hands are tied down. This time she looks around first, sees Beetee on another bed, then smashes her head against the bed and passes out again.
Look, I know we're getting some dramatic thing where there's the SHOCKING TWIST that she isn't actually held by the capital, but why the fuck is no one in the room with her? Even assuming they were too busy the first time, they took the time to tie her up but can't have anyone sit with her to explain?
Anyway, third wakeup she's no longer tied up or stuck with tubes, so she gets up and finds a syringe to inject an air bubble. She considers killing Beetee, but worries it'll set off the machines and she'll get caught before she finds Peeta. (So, to put it another way, she chooses to abandon someone she can easily mercy-kill (and who the capital will be far more interested in torturing, for the record) in favor of a very slim chance of getting Peeta instead. Our heroine.)
This is so stupid. Katniss' assumptions are reasonable here, and even if they hadn't realized originally, the fact they had to tie her down so she'd stop trying to kill herself was a tip off. Of course as soon as she gets up she's going to try to kill herself and anyone else around, so why on earth would you untie her and still have no one there to explain what's going on? Katniss could easily have killed herself, Beetee or both. All it'd take is Katniss thinking maybe Snow will leave Peeta alone if she's dead, or else, in her confusion, assuming he died in the arena.
“Communications are down in Seven, Ten, and Twelve. But Eleven has control of transportation now, so there's at least a hope of them getting some food out.”
How can communications be down, they have broadcast capability. Anyway, this is meh. How can they control transportation when the capital has bombers? We know transportation = trains. Bombs do not play well with trains.
Then Duke Devlin asks about if he can go get his girlfriend (you know, the "poor, mad" one), and he's told no, but I've given special orders for her retrieval if possible.
Which...this is one of those things that's there to get across information, namely that the districts are contested and they're far from winning, but the actual content doesn't make sense. Why would they need special orders for this?
She then hears Haymitch and she decides to rush into the room.
He looks at my hand. “So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.”
Shut up Haymitch. It was a perfectly good idea, she wasn't planning to fight anybody, just kill Peeta. The syringe could have done that, and failing that, it'd have given her a chance to kill herself when she was found.
I really hate this about this book.
Katniss may get a pass for her sociopathy, but the book doesn't treat her well. She's constantly belittled and lied to, and told she can never be as good a person as Peeta.
But there's more to rage about.
There was a plan to break us out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor tributes from 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it.
In context, "us" is "Katniss and Peeta".
So, there's the obvious issue, which is how Katniss JUST HAPPENED to pick the vital member of the team, Beetee, by pure coincidence. But the bigger thing is that they only did it because of her.
Now, I can easily see the victors slowly planning how they'd fight the capital, but never quite being in the right position for a breakout attempt, because they were always just mentors. The kids were picked at random and likely scared out of their minds. Trying to get them to work together would be a huge risk, even assuming you got the right combination of kids that could pull it off. Even if they did you'd have the problem of if they'd be good enough actors that the capital wouldn't be suspicious. It's even possible one would go to the capital in the hope of bartering the knowledge in return for being spared the games. So only when the victors were put in the arenas themselves could they finally try to do something like this.
Except that's not it at all. This is all done to rescue Katniss. The idea other people's lives have any value is not on the table. This was not a valiant strike against the institution of the Hunger Games, it was just a rescue mission. If Katniss wasn't so attached to Peeta, they'd probably have just tried to make her the winner by the normal method.
What I find particularly horrible here is even knowing that the games didn't have to end with a single victor, that they just had to last a couple days, no one made any effort at all to minimize casualties.
Of course the guy in charge is secretly on their side, as was easily guessed since he showed up with the watch. He ensured Beetee would have the wire needed to blow open the force field. Wiress, naturally, had no importance in this, only Beetee is capable of anything.
You know what would have been a bit better? If Wiress was the inventor of the actual wire and Beetee the one in charge of setting it up, or vice versa. Or they could both have been in charge of doing it, and the reason things screw up so badly is that Beetee's trying to do it alone - or better yet, Beetee could have been the one who was in shock and ended up dying.
The bread we received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four.
This is s stupid code. It should have been shifted by an unknown number, so, say, leaving on day 3 was a District 1 loaf. Same for the rolls. As I said, the bread thing was already kind of suspicious. Shifting the numbers means that even if the capital noticed the code, they wouldn't have known what the actual message was.
Yes, that'd have made it impossible for readers to work out either, but I don't get the impression this was something readers were supposed to solve so much as something to go "Oh, that's what was going on," afterward. Among other things, they're initially given bread from 4, then 3, and then 3 again. So it doesn't work as a countdown and neither is it the same bread each time.
The actual rescue was done with a hovercraft from 13, which totally does exist after all.
Okay, then they're kind of enormous dicks. I can see 13 not being strong enough to directly fight the capital, but they could put out rumors of their existence - the capital already knows they're around, so it's not like they're hiding from them, and that means they could let people know they're still there and try to help less directly. There's no reason to be totally hidden and stop even rumors unless they survived only because the capital didn't even know they existed, which is apparently not the case.
Katniss and Peeta weren't told because it was too risky. Nevermind the fact the plan only works by chance, with Katniss almost killing people dozens of times. Nevermind that it'd have failed if Katniss hadn't randomly figured out what the plan was just in time. Nevermind that if they'd known they wouldn't both have run off looking for each other and putting everyone in more danger.
Then the exact justification is that they were worried Katniss and Peeta would get captured, since the capital would go for them first, so the less they knew the better. Except that everything important the capital already saw on television - the plan was to use the wire to blow the force field, why not tell them that much? Haymitch and Plutarch Heavensbee are already safe on the hovercraft, so even who told them wouldn't have been any worry - and they'd work out who the traitors were by who's disappeared, so it can't even be that there's some intelligence use to either of them admitting to who told them.
Katniss wants to know why the capital would aim for them, having apparently forgotten that Snow just hates her, and she's told for the same reason as everyone died for her in the games.
“We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss,” says Plutarch. “While you live, the revolution lives.”
It's hard to know where to begin.
I mentioned in a comment that the way things were going works only if you assume things are working on fantasy tropes, where Character A is the only one with the magic destiny needed to defeat Empire X. Key there is fantasy, because the idea someone is irreplaceable like this requires magic.
The revolution is the result of seventy five years of brutality, with who knows how many years and abuses before that. Katniss just gave people the idea rebellion was possible by showing it was possible for the capital to screw up. They aren't fighting for her, so they're not going to stop fighting without her. Katniss is not the only one capable of wearing a pin or hating the capital. She isn't needed to fight. Her contribution has been solely PR related, and when you have two thousand dead children on television and god only knows how many deaths by starvation and other forms of neglect, you don't need a shiny figurehead in a pretty glowing outfit to convince you things suck and you should fight.
I am the mockingjay.
The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.
The metaphor has really broken down.
The jabberjays are what survived despite the capital's intentions, with the mockingjays their descendents. The mockingjays, metaphorically, are an accident, created from the capital's actions but without their intent - which would also work as a description of what's going on had the author's focus and frame been different. More, the jabberjays were all male, as I mentioned last time, so this metaphor is going interesting places.
And that isn't what Katniss did. Katniss was the clear winner of the games. What she did was save someone else and show that the capital could be outmaneuvered. Also, the capital had no specific plans against her originally.
Anyway, then Haymitch says that they weren't able to grab Peeta.
along with Johanna and Enobaria,
WHAT.
Johanna was actually in on the plan, while Peeta was running around like an idiot and making it clear to everyone he had no idea what was happening. (Incidentally, had either of them known the plan they'd have known to stay close so they could both be rescued.) So she's going to be tortured to death now. I really hope they have some sort of plan to rescue her, but she's not named Katniss so I assume she's doomed. Fuck.
Of course this book hasn't made sense before, so maybe Johanna will live? I really hope so.
Katniss, of course, doesn't give a shit about anyone but her notboyfriend and tries to gouge out Haymitch's eyes. I'd actually be quite sympathetic to this if the book acknowledged what I just said about how if they'd only told her things might not have gone so badly, but instead it's just Katniss being hysterical about Millstone.
I know it's all Haymitch can do not to rip me apart, but I'm the mockingjay. I'm the mockingjay and it's too hard keeping me alive as it is.
I think this trope is particularly annoying because I actually like it when done properly. The idea that someone unsuited and not inherently deserving of more consideration than another person is somehow vitally important and must be preserved even at the cost of many other lives is a good one and can raise a lot of interesting questions. It's often done badly, though - as if the fact you can wield a particular plot device makes you a better person. Still, it's rarely done this badly.
This kind of thing rarely shows up outside of royalty stuff, where there's the idea that somehow a person is, by virtue of blood, inherently the most important person and while they live the country lives, etc. It actually fits quite well into the generally reactionary feel of much of this book, right next to how Katniss can't just donate her vast wealth to help others but has to help them help themselves by buying things. Arguably, it's not the same thing because it's technically merit based, but what has she really done? It's really more that the book has declared her to be the head of the rebellion, and there have been weird undertones that this is just a manifestation of her inherent qualities. And that's where we get to the better-by-blood concept. There's no nobility, so she isn't better dint of ancestry, but she's still set apart as inherently superior.
Anyway, it turns out clawing open people's faces loses you your awake privileges, so they strap her back onto her hospital bed and dope her up again, because that's totally a mature response. In response, Katniss says nasty things to Duke Devlin about how they're using Annie as when she's lucid for a bit. Then she thinks,
They probably won't even bother to question her, she's so far gone. Gone right off the deep end years ago in her Games.
Which. Fuck you, you never even met her, you just saw her reacting perfectly reasonably to getting chosen to go back to the arena and someone told you that the first time, she ran away and hid after seeing someone beheaded.
Katniss then stops talking or drinking because she doesn't have her precious Millstone. At least we don't get a bunch of blank pages. Catching Fire: still technically better than Twilight.
So then Gale shows up (badly injured) and Katniss remembers people other than Peeta exist (literally what the book says), and finally asks about her sister and mother.
He says he got them out in time. The district has been firebombed.
“Katniss,” Gale says softly.
I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly.
“Don't,” I whisper.
But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. “Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”
You know, out of the context of the rest of the book that's pretty good. It's just in context it falls flat.
Katniss doesn't give a fuck about District 12. The place was an ugly hellhole where people starved to death. If they burned the surrounding forest as well, that's a loss that I can see hurting Katniss.
I suppose we could guess that it's implied people died, but it really isn't - "got them out in time" can mean most people weren't that lucky, but just as easily that they got everyone out in time. (Also, if everyone else burned then wow, Gale is a complete dick for getting them out but not warning everyone else.) And it doesn't matter much for Katniss' reaction. Whether or not she gives a fuck about anyone in 12 aside from Peeta, Gale, Prim and maybe her mother or Haymitch is wildly inconsistent, but even in her most charitable bursts it's limited to everyone she knows personally. The fact her home was wiped off the map shouldn't matter much - it only matters if it hit anyone she cares about.
Next is the logistics issue. District 12 produced coal. It's vital. We know all the districts heat their homes with coal because last book, Katniss told Rue her district thought people in the agricultural district had plenty to eat, and Rue said in her district they thought Katniss' district got free coal to heat their homes. Presumably, the coal is also used to power the electric plants that serve everyone, including the capital.
I wonder if maybe the first book was partway done before the author decided on a trilogy, because the district setup is so horribly unsuited for this kind of reprisal. But then, given all the other massive worldbuilding errors, maybe that's being too charitable and the author just never thought twice about any of it.
So. That's the end. Two thirds of the book is spent on pointless waffling, then a hurried murdergame final third, then this terrible chapter summing everything up in rush.
The earth explodes into showers of dirt and plant matter. Trees burst into flames.
Okay, the point at which trees are spontaneously bursting into flames is the point you start spontaneously bursting into flames. Humans are not more durable than trees. Wood spontaneously ignites at 570 degrees Fahrenheit, or 300 degrees Celsius. Bear in mind water boils at 100 Celsius. So it's three times boiling point here.
Even the sky fills with brightly colored blossoms of light. I can't think why the sky's being bombed until I realize the Gamemakers are shooting off fireworks up there
This is why the narration is so irritating. Why would they be shooting fireworks? If Katniss was just guessing I wouldn't care, but the way it's phrased is as if it's meant to be objectively true. If they are, bad writing. If they're not, bad writing to imply it.
This whole section is pretty jumbled. It seems the area's getting bombed but that's never actually stated.
For no discernible reason Katniss then starts monologuing about how there won't be a victor, and maybe it was planned from the start for all the tributes to die, only she and everyone else seem to be fine so stop being so whiny.
The hovercraft materializes above me without warning. If it was quiet, and a mockingjay perched close at hand, I would have heard the jungle go silent and then the bird's call that precedes the appearance of the Capitol's aircraft. But my ears could never make out anything so delicate in this bombardment.
Fail recapping. There's just no reason to go on this long tangent here - it isn't quiet and there don't seem to even be mockingjays on the entire island. Also, seriously, are mockingjays the only birds in existence? They're always brought up and they seem to be the only ones around, only birdsong and when they go quit everything's quiet.
Anyway, THE CLAW comes down and retrieves her body. When she gets into the hovercraft she sees the head gamemaker.
His hand reaches for me, I think to strike me, but he does something worse. With his thumb and his forefinger, he slides my eyelids shut, sentencing me to the vulnerability of darkness. They can do anything to me now and I will not even see it coming.
Why is Katniss incapable of blinking?
Katniss wakes up in a hospital bed. She yanks her tubes out and then passes out. When she wakes up again her hands are tied down. This time she looks around first, sees Beetee on another bed, then smashes her head against the bed and passes out again.
Look, I know we're getting some dramatic thing where there's the SHOCKING TWIST that she isn't actually held by the capital, but why the fuck is no one in the room with her? Even assuming they were too busy the first time, they took the time to tie her up but can't have anyone sit with her to explain?
Anyway, third wakeup she's no longer tied up or stuck with tubes, so she gets up and finds a syringe to inject an air bubble. She considers killing Beetee, but worries it'll set off the machines and she'll get caught before she finds Peeta. (So, to put it another way, she chooses to abandon someone she can easily mercy-kill (and who the capital will be far more interested in torturing, for the record) in favor of a very slim chance of getting Peeta instead. Our heroine.)
This is so stupid. Katniss' assumptions are reasonable here, and even if they hadn't realized originally, the fact they had to tie her down so she'd stop trying to kill herself was a tip off. Of course as soon as she gets up she's going to try to kill herself and anyone else around, so why on earth would you untie her and still have no one there to explain what's going on? Katniss could easily have killed herself, Beetee or both. All it'd take is Katniss thinking maybe Snow will leave Peeta alone if she's dead, or else, in her confusion, assuming he died in the arena.
“Communications are down in Seven, Ten, and Twelve. But Eleven has control of transportation now, so there's at least a hope of them getting some food out.”
How can communications be down, they have broadcast capability. Anyway, this is meh. How can they control transportation when the capital has bombers? We know transportation = trains. Bombs do not play well with trains.
Then Duke Devlin asks about if he can go get his girlfriend (you know, the "poor, mad" one), and he's told no, but I've given special orders for her retrieval if possible.
Which...this is one of those things that's there to get across information, namely that the districts are contested and they're far from winning, but the actual content doesn't make sense. Why would they need special orders for this?
She then hears Haymitch and she decides to rush into the room.
He looks at my hand. “So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.”
Shut up Haymitch. It was a perfectly good idea, she wasn't planning to fight anybody, just kill Peeta. The syringe could have done that, and failing that, it'd have given her a chance to kill herself when she was found.
I really hate this about this book.
Katniss may get a pass for her sociopathy, but the book doesn't treat her well. She's constantly belittled and lied to, and told she can never be as good a person as Peeta.
But there's more to rage about.
There was a plan to break us out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor tributes from 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it.
In context, "us" is "Katniss and Peeta".
So, there's the obvious issue, which is how Katniss JUST HAPPENED to pick the vital member of the team, Beetee, by pure coincidence. But the bigger thing is that they only did it because of her.
Now, I can easily see the victors slowly planning how they'd fight the capital, but never quite being in the right position for a breakout attempt, because they were always just mentors. The kids were picked at random and likely scared out of their minds. Trying to get them to work together would be a huge risk, even assuming you got the right combination of kids that could pull it off. Even if they did you'd have the problem of if they'd be good enough actors that the capital wouldn't be suspicious. It's even possible one would go to the capital in the hope of bartering the knowledge in return for being spared the games. So only when the victors were put in the arenas themselves could they finally try to do something like this.
Except that's not it at all. This is all done to rescue Katniss. The idea other people's lives have any value is not on the table. This was not a valiant strike against the institution of the Hunger Games, it was just a rescue mission. If Katniss wasn't so attached to Peeta, they'd probably have just tried to make her the winner by the normal method.
What I find particularly horrible here is even knowing that the games didn't have to end with a single victor, that they just had to last a couple days, no one made any effort at all to minimize casualties.
Of course the guy in charge is secretly on their side, as was easily guessed since he showed up with the watch. He ensured Beetee would have the wire needed to blow open the force field. Wiress, naturally, had no importance in this, only Beetee is capable of anything.
You know what would have been a bit better? If Wiress was the inventor of the actual wire and Beetee the one in charge of setting it up, or vice versa. Or they could both have been in charge of doing it, and the reason things screw up so badly is that Beetee's trying to do it alone - or better yet, Beetee could have been the one who was in shock and ended up dying.
The bread we received in the arena was code for the time of the rescue. The district where the bread originated indicated the day. Three. The number of rolls the hour. Twenty-four.
This is s stupid code. It should have been shifted by an unknown number, so, say, leaving on day 3 was a District 1 loaf. Same for the rolls. As I said, the bread thing was already kind of suspicious. Shifting the numbers means that even if the capital noticed the code, they wouldn't have known what the actual message was.
Yes, that'd have made it impossible for readers to work out either, but I don't get the impression this was something readers were supposed to solve so much as something to go "Oh, that's what was going on," afterward. Among other things, they're initially given bread from 4, then 3, and then 3 again. So it doesn't work as a countdown and neither is it the same bread each time.
The actual rescue was done with a hovercraft from 13, which totally does exist after all.
Okay, then they're kind of enormous dicks. I can see 13 not being strong enough to directly fight the capital, but they could put out rumors of their existence - the capital already knows they're around, so it's not like they're hiding from them, and that means they could let people know they're still there and try to help less directly. There's no reason to be totally hidden and stop even rumors unless they survived only because the capital didn't even know they existed, which is apparently not the case.
Katniss and Peeta weren't told because it was too risky. Nevermind the fact the plan only works by chance, with Katniss almost killing people dozens of times. Nevermind that it'd have failed if Katniss hadn't randomly figured out what the plan was just in time. Nevermind that if they'd known they wouldn't both have run off looking for each other and putting everyone in more danger.
Then the exact justification is that they were worried Katniss and Peeta would get captured, since the capital would go for them first, so the less they knew the better. Except that everything important the capital already saw on television - the plan was to use the wire to blow the force field, why not tell them that much? Haymitch and Plutarch Heavensbee are already safe on the hovercraft, so even who told them wouldn't have been any worry - and they'd work out who the traitors were by who's disappeared, so it can't even be that there's some intelligence use to either of them admitting to who told them.
Katniss wants to know why the capital would aim for them, having apparently forgotten that Snow just hates her, and she's told for the same reason as everyone died for her in the games.
“We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss,” says Plutarch. “While you live, the revolution lives.”
It's hard to know where to begin.
I mentioned in a comment that the way things were going works only if you assume things are working on fantasy tropes, where Character A is the only one with the magic destiny needed to defeat Empire X. Key there is fantasy, because the idea someone is irreplaceable like this requires magic.
The revolution is the result of seventy five years of brutality, with who knows how many years and abuses before that. Katniss just gave people the idea rebellion was possible by showing it was possible for the capital to screw up. They aren't fighting for her, so they're not going to stop fighting without her. Katniss is not the only one capable of wearing a pin or hating the capital. She isn't needed to fight. Her contribution has been solely PR related, and when you have two thousand dead children on television and god only knows how many deaths by starvation and other forms of neglect, you don't need a shiny figurehead in a pretty glowing outfit to convince you things suck and you should fight.
I am the mockingjay.
The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.
The metaphor has really broken down.
The jabberjays are what survived despite the capital's intentions, with the mockingjays their descendents. The mockingjays, metaphorically, are an accident, created from the capital's actions but without their intent - which would also work as a description of what's going on had the author's focus and frame been different. More, the jabberjays were all male, as I mentioned last time, so this metaphor is going interesting places.
And that isn't what Katniss did. Katniss was the clear winner of the games. What she did was save someone else and show that the capital could be outmaneuvered. Also, the capital had no specific plans against her originally.
Anyway, then Haymitch says that they weren't able to grab Peeta.
along with Johanna and Enobaria,
WHAT.
Johanna was actually in on the plan, while Peeta was running around like an idiot and making it clear to everyone he had no idea what was happening. (Incidentally, had either of them known the plan they'd have known to stay close so they could both be rescued.) So she's going to be tortured to death now. I really hope they have some sort of plan to rescue her, but she's not named Katniss so I assume she's doomed. Fuck.
Of course this book hasn't made sense before, so maybe Johanna will live? I really hope so.
Katniss, of course, doesn't give a shit about anyone but her notboyfriend and tries to gouge out Haymitch's eyes. I'd actually be quite sympathetic to this if the book acknowledged what I just said about how if they'd only told her things might not have gone so badly, but instead it's just Katniss being hysterical about Millstone.
I know it's all Haymitch can do not to rip me apart, but I'm the mockingjay. I'm the mockingjay and it's too hard keeping me alive as it is.
I think this trope is particularly annoying because I actually like it when done properly. The idea that someone unsuited and not inherently deserving of more consideration than another person is somehow vitally important and must be preserved even at the cost of many other lives is a good one and can raise a lot of interesting questions. It's often done badly, though - as if the fact you can wield a particular plot device makes you a better person. Still, it's rarely done this badly.
This kind of thing rarely shows up outside of royalty stuff, where there's the idea that somehow a person is, by virtue of blood, inherently the most important person and while they live the country lives, etc. It actually fits quite well into the generally reactionary feel of much of this book, right next to how Katniss can't just donate her vast wealth to help others but has to help them help themselves by buying things. Arguably, it's not the same thing because it's technically merit based, but what has she really done? It's really more that the book has declared her to be the head of the rebellion, and there have been weird undertones that this is just a manifestation of her inherent qualities. And that's where we get to the better-by-blood concept. There's no nobility, so she isn't better dint of ancestry, but she's still set apart as inherently superior.
Anyway, it turns out clawing open people's faces loses you your awake privileges, so they strap her back onto her hospital bed and dope her up again, because that's totally a mature response. In response, Katniss says nasty things to Duke Devlin about how they're using Annie as when she's lucid for a bit. Then she thinks,
They probably won't even bother to question her, she's so far gone. Gone right off the deep end years ago in her Games.
Which. Fuck you, you never even met her, you just saw her reacting perfectly reasonably to getting chosen to go back to the arena and someone told you that the first time, she ran away and hid after seeing someone beheaded.
Katniss then stops talking or drinking because she doesn't have her precious Millstone. At least we don't get a bunch of blank pages. Catching Fire: still technically better than Twilight.
So then Gale shows up (badly injured) and Katniss remembers people other than Peeta exist (literally what the book says), and finally asks about her sister and mother.
He says he got them out in time. The district has been firebombed.
“Katniss,” Gale says softly.
I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wounded animals before he delivers a deathblow. I instinctively raise my hand to block his words but he catches it and holds on tightly.
“Don't,” I whisper.
But Gale is not one to keep secrets from me. “Katniss, there is no District Twelve.”
You know, out of the context of the rest of the book that's pretty good. It's just in context it falls flat.
Katniss doesn't give a fuck about District 12. The place was an ugly hellhole where people starved to death. If they burned the surrounding forest as well, that's a loss that I can see hurting Katniss.
I suppose we could guess that it's implied people died, but it really isn't - "got them out in time" can mean most people weren't that lucky, but just as easily that they got everyone out in time. (Also, if everyone else burned then wow, Gale is a complete dick for getting them out but not warning everyone else.) And it doesn't matter much for Katniss' reaction. Whether or not she gives a fuck about anyone in 12 aside from Peeta, Gale, Prim and maybe her mother or Haymitch is wildly inconsistent, but even in her most charitable bursts it's limited to everyone she knows personally. The fact her home was wiped off the map shouldn't matter much - it only matters if it hit anyone she cares about.
Next is the logistics issue. District 12 produced coal. It's vital. We know all the districts heat their homes with coal because last book, Katniss told Rue her district thought people in the agricultural district had plenty to eat, and Rue said in her district they thought Katniss' district got free coal to heat their homes. Presumably, the coal is also used to power the electric plants that serve everyone, including the capital.
I wonder if maybe the first book was partway done before the author decided on a trilogy, because the district setup is so horribly unsuited for this kind of reprisal. But then, given all the other massive worldbuilding errors, maybe that's being too charitable and the author just never thought twice about any of it.
So. That's the end. Two thirds of the book is spent on pointless waffling, then a hurried murdergame final third, then this terrible chapter summing everything up in rush.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-31 08:49 pm (UTC)Twenty-seven more chapters, broken arbitrarily into three parts of nine each. For no discernible reason at all.
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Date: 2011-05-31 08:51 pm (UTC)And yes, I am really obsessive enough to post this.
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Date: 2011-05-31 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-31 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-31 09:38 pm (UTC)Yes it can. You'll see.
And the next one's the DARK AND GRITTY™ edition.
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Date: 2011-06-01 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-31 09:29 pm (UTC)Now you just have to read Mockingjay, which is even worse than the other two. :(
And yeah, I really hate the format of hoarding all the vital plot information, only distributing tiny little snippets throughout the main story (if it isn't just filler), and then realizing "oh hey we're at the end and we still have all this stuff" before dumping them on the reader all at once right at the end. It's just such awful, lazy writing. >:(
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Date: 2011-06-01 03:58 am (UTC)chap 27
Date: 2011-06-01 12:53 am (UTC)So what's your final verdict? Terrible, but not Twilight-terrible?
And I really hope Johanna still survives to make an appearance in the next book. She was AWESOME! Besides, it would be bloody typical for this book to save Duke, but none of the girls. Yeah, this female writer really is pushing boundaries for feminism...
Ugh. Darker and grittier? usually that should be better but seeing as how the author inexplicably chose to make something as graphic and disturbing as the childmurder games considerably 'light', I just dunno... I have the sneaking feeling that the author's interpretation of that phrase means "gorier and more disturbing."
Re: chap 27
Date: 2011-06-01 04:00 am (UTC)I would assume darker and grittier means angstier, since the book never seems to want to confront actual issues.
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Date: 2011-06-01 09:24 pm (UTC)Oh Goddammit. I hate that I called that.
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Date: 2011-07-08 10:38 pm (UTC)A lot of people hated it, but I liked all three books and only really had an issue with the lack of closure re: Cinna (literally, there is no confirmation about what his fate actually was or anything) and bits and pieces of the ending.
Also, Haymitch continues to be my goddamn favourite.
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Date: 2011-11-03 03:08 pm (UTC)Except I didn't just "like all three books" and therefor liked Mockingjay as well. I thought Mockingjay was the best, which means I will enjoy watching you pick it apart. It's fun to read about people pickig apart my favourite books, because they pick up a lot of flaws that I fail to notice because I just loved them so much. Also, about the patriarchy you mentioned earlier, (MOCKINGJAY SPOILERS) the president of District 13 is a WOMAN named Alma Coin who is reasonably sane and competent (though admittedly evil). And yes, "there is no District 12" DOES mean most people there died.
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Date: 2011-09-29 04:25 am (UTC)Just wanted to comment to say that you are quite the impressive reviewer.
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Date: 2011-09-29 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-14 12:23 pm (UTC)Anyway, I can't wait for you to read Mockingjay. I think you're absolutely going to flip out when you meet Annie Cresta for realz. And the epilogue... ohmygosh. ;)
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Date: 2011-12-14 08:53 pm (UTC)I have read Mockingjay, actually. The reviews start here (http://dragon-quill.blogspot.com/2011/08/mockingjay-ch1.html).
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Date: 2012-03-28 04:34 pm (UTC)Also, I notice how we've shifted from "Only my sister matters, and fuck everyone else" in the first book to "My boyfriend matters over all else, including myself and my beloved sister" in this book. It's not an improvement. I can see this going nowhere good for the next one.
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Date: 2012-03-29 05:53 am (UTC)It was more readable than Twilight in that I did successfully read it.
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Date: 2012-04-24 05:13 am (UTC)I actually thought that 'might' have been what the author was trying to go for. Katniss really isn't likable and isn't a person deserving of praise. However, being on TV earned her praise for doing immoral things. Even playing chicken with suicide, the heroic act would have been eating the berries and letting Peeta. (But how could 16 year old, we-never-had-a-conversation-before Peeta live with out Katniss?) However, the differences between how Katniss is perceived and who she actually is is never contrasted. It would be a real criticism of reality tv other than what we got in HG, that producers beautify people, edit them into a story line, and try to create conflict. The amount of inherent Katniss love implies she is the one true hero destined to defeat the Capitol and is that amazing. The people in the districts saw her innate awesomeness. Sigh.. these books were all over the place for me.
Vega
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Date: 2012-04-24 05:26 am (UTC)The book is aware that Katniss isn't the most convenient person to have to shepherd around for the good of the rebellion, but it never realizes that the underlying idea is terribly flawed. And while it does enjoy calling her terrible, it never does so for her actual immoral acts, only the kissing of boys.
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Date: 2012-04-26 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-10 11:38 am (UTC)Maybe 12 was some former president's harebrained social experiment (see: Finland under Czarist Russia), and was let be until now because of... some reason or other possibly having to do with bureucracy's general disinterest towards changing existing state of affairs, and wanting to go with a nice round number for the Districts.
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Date: 2013-03-04 01:54 am (UTC)That being said, your critique of The Hunger Games and its sequels is amazing. This is actually my second read through (I saw a bunch of people talking about how much they loved it and to soothe my wrath I came back) and I'm sure I'll be back (and shoot out tons of links) when the next movie comes out and everyone starts talking about how great this is and how feminist it is and blah blah blah. So, I want to thank you for your service - you've gone into the trenches and seen the horrors of Collins's prose so that I might be spared it.
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Date: 2013-03-05 04:54 pm (UTC)And glad I could be of service!