Catching Fire, Conclusion
May. 31st, 2011 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
farlaThis book is not full of filler.
In order to have filler, you must have plot the filler is avoiding.
You know, here. I will rewrite this book. It's easy.
The final chapter of Hunger Games ends with the district being attacked. Katniss is injured, goes unconscious and wakes up in a hovercraft to find out her home is gone and that they're headed to District 13, which has finally acted upon seeing another district about to be wiped out...but they couldn't rescue Peeta. We then jump to the third book.
Because really, nothing has actually happened. Katniss hasn't aided the rebellion in any meaningful way, and neither have we seen the rebellion doing stuff, so there's no sense they needed more time to get ready.
We start off this book with a terrible love triangle, and it doesn't even get resolved normally - Katniss rededicates herself to being Millstone's helpmeet once the game starts, so all the rest is just pointless waffling with no bearing on her ultimate decision.
Then there's the tour, where they're told to convince Snow they're really in love or else...and they fail and nothing happens. In the process, they see a lot of the districts, all but one of which is skipped over. Oh, and Katniss sees the watch-clue she doesn't figure out.
Then there's the crackdown in Katniss' district, which accomplishes...nothing.
Then Katniss meets the other victor-tributes, only all her networking is pointless because the plan's already decided, and then she and Peeta do a defiant!!!! thing during their private sessions, only that's pointless because the head gamemaker is a secret rebel.
Then there are the games, which run exactly like regular games with extra suicide allies.
Then we find out that there's rebellion and 13 exists.
So all this book did was give us clues about 13. Since they were all stupid clues, and since none of them addressed the how of the district surviving, they didn't really do that great of a job, and really, it'd have worked fine to just introduce 13 now and explain it once they got there.
But. If we must have this book.
First, when we see the districts, we see the ones that will be rebelling, instead of skimming over them. That is the focus, not Katniss wangsting about if she's convinced Snow she loves Peeta.
Next, Katniss is connected to the rebellion in some minor way. The money, for one. And she's got a phone - say that this means she can call to the capital, and they use to to pass coded messages. And, of course, the bow and arrow thing. Only a very specific part of a tree can be used to make bows, and Katniss can pass that knowledge on, as well as help train people in shooting. A year isn't much time to learn how to shoot, but it's still better than fighting unarmed like they end up doing.
Then, the games. We know the games are a huge production for the capital - and that means they're a huge distraction. So the rebellion goes off right as the games begin. The tributes have to survive the arena, as I outlined, until they can be rescued. (if you wish tension, give them limited resources and thus incentive to kill each other off). Lying seems to be a thing, so perhaps Katniss is told a distorted version of the truth in the hopes that when she repeats it in the arena, the capital will fall for it. If we must have a third book, the tributes are rescued but the capital hasn't been beaten yet - just forced to withdraw enough that they can't defend the game arena. (Katniss then proves herself useful on her own merit - perhaps with her hunting skills, she manages to find a way through the mountains to the capital, to launch an EMP pulse or something behind the barrier they set up to stop that kind of thing.)
But this didn't happen.
The reason it didn't happen is that everything revolves around Katniss. Katniss is the destined hero. Everyone has somehow read a prophesy saying so. Their rebellion is but a small thing done to aid the destined hero, who will do most of the work herself. And without her, the rebellion could never succeed and might as well just give up immediately. Indeed, the actual goals of the rebellion are simply to be a vehicle for Katniss' heroism.
This really doesn't work without magic. It's not a scifi compatible plotline.
There's no reason for people to worship Katniss in the first place. She does one thing, one not even particularly rebellious thing. The "spark" is showing the capital is human and fallible. It's not her in particular - she still played their game fine up to that point. And god knows she didn't do anything after that point to deserve any of the hero treatment.
Which brings us to our next problem, characters.
When the book started, it seemed to be doing better. That didn't last long. We have the idea Katniss is somehow the chosen one and great despite how she's a murderous sociopath, though not great enough to avoid getting bashed for not being as great as Saint Peeta. We have a Career as a main character, only the fact he's trained is deemphasized and eventually completely erased, while the other two districts that train people continue to be one-dimensionally evil. We see that a lot of victors are drug addicts, but this is portrayed as a personal failing of theirs. And we see more female characters, but turns out they're the weaker sex - all the mentally ill characters in this book are female, another woman is laid up with headaches so bad she never actually appears, Katniss' mother is just a social climber who gives President Childmurder tea and cookies, the female part of her prep team breaks down faster... Even Johanna, who is awesome, is identified as the tribute who won by pretending to be weak. (Enobaria would be cool if she actually had screentime, but she doesn't.) All positions of power are male - president, mayor, mentor, fashion designer. Almost all important characters besides Katniss are male - Gale is running around trying to get the rebellion underway, Peeta is a saint, Finnick is the one keeping the group alive throughout the games, Beetee is the one whose awesome intellect actually gets them out. Johanna is the only female character in the group capable of speech, and she's a secondary character.
Relatedly, worldbuilding is terrible.
If District 13 exists and can't be attacked for whatever reason, they should try to get the word out so people will escape and come join them to build up an army. Supporting immigrants wouldn't be an issue considering how hard escaping is and how few people would succeed. Those in District 13 should be trying to arm and train rebellions in the other district, as well as plan to replicate whatever reason they're immune to attack in other districts, so those ones can drive off the capital as well.
Because all the districts do one job, none of them can be blown off the map. The only way 12 can be destroyed is if the capital has a huge stockpile of coal so they can keep supplying it for the time it takes to make/rebuild 12's mining capability and train new workers.
Really, the district thing should have been a focal point - that because of the capital's arrogance, the districts' strikes can do more damage, or how everyone thinks the capital will repeat what happened to 13 if any rebel, but that in fact they can't afford to lose any of the remaining districts or the people within them who know how to do the job. But then that goes for a lot of this. The people don't really interact with their world much, things just sort of happen. Like the fabric district rebels, but they don't use their resources to give everyone peacekeeper uniforms and cause chaos as the actual peacekeepers don't know how to fight, or distribute the kevlar they also happen to be involved with. They just rebel and happen to be in that district at the time.
And the blame. The capital gets the blame, and by capital, I mean the people Katniss fawns over and says it isn't their fault because they're like little birds. There are humans behind this and they deserve blame, and I do mean the plural here, Snow didn't make people like watching kids die. Other people can get degrees of blame too, for what they do - if they play along with the capital or try to save others, if they'd save the few they know over the many they don't.
Anyway...so, next book Katniss is the mockingjay, and apparently there's going to be yet another Hunger Games, which I'm kind of looking forward to because those chapters are about the only part that isn't boring and the sheer audacity of bad writing that is rehashing this plot yet again kind of impresses me.
I'm going to take a breather again. I'm also thinking of moving these reviews elsewhere, because they're kind of eating my Lj and I need that to post about the latest internets drama, chicklets, and my thoughts on reviews.
In order to have filler, you must have plot the filler is avoiding.
You know, here. I will rewrite this book. It's easy.
The final chapter of Hunger Games ends with the district being attacked. Katniss is injured, goes unconscious and wakes up in a hovercraft to find out her home is gone and that they're headed to District 13, which has finally acted upon seeing another district about to be wiped out...but they couldn't rescue Peeta. We then jump to the third book.
Because really, nothing has actually happened. Katniss hasn't aided the rebellion in any meaningful way, and neither have we seen the rebellion doing stuff, so there's no sense they needed more time to get ready.
We start off this book with a terrible love triangle, and it doesn't even get resolved normally - Katniss rededicates herself to being Millstone's helpmeet once the game starts, so all the rest is just pointless waffling with no bearing on her ultimate decision.
Then there's the tour, where they're told to convince Snow they're really in love or else...and they fail and nothing happens. In the process, they see a lot of the districts, all but one of which is skipped over. Oh, and Katniss sees the watch-clue she doesn't figure out.
Then there's the crackdown in Katniss' district, which accomplishes...nothing.
Then Katniss meets the other victor-tributes, only all her networking is pointless because the plan's already decided, and then she and Peeta do a defiant!!!! thing during their private sessions, only that's pointless because the head gamemaker is a secret rebel.
Then there are the games, which run exactly like regular games with extra suicide allies.
Then we find out that there's rebellion and 13 exists.
So all this book did was give us clues about 13. Since they were all stupid clues, and since none of them addressed the how of the district surviving, they didn't really do that great of a job, and really, it'd have worked fine to just introduce 13 now and explain it once they got there.
But. If we must have this book.
First, when we see the districts, we see the ones that will be rebelling, instead of skimming over them. That is the focus, not Katniss wangsting about if she's convinced Snow she loves Peeta.
Next, Katniss is connected to the rebellion in some minor way. The money, for one. And she's got a phone - say that this means she can call to the capital, and they use to to pass coded messages. And, of course, the bow and arrow thing. Only a very specific part of a tree can be used to make bows, and Katniss can pass that knowledge on, as well as help train people in shooting. A year isn't much time to learn how to shoot, but it's still better than fighting unarmed like they end up doing.
Then, the games. We know the games are a huge production for the capital - and that means they're a huge distraction. So the rebellion goes off right as the games begin. The tributes have to survive the arena, as I outlined, until they can be rescued. (if you wish tension, give them limited resources and thus incentive to kill each other off). Lying seems to be a thing, so perhaps Katniss is told a distorted version of the truth in the hopes that when she repeats it in the arena, the capital will fall for it. If we must have a third book, the tributes are rescued but the capital hasn't been beaten yet - just forced to withdraw enough that they can't defend the game arena. (Katniss then proves herself useful on her own merit - perhaps with her hunting skills, she manages to find a way through the mountains to the capital, to launch an EMP pulse or something behind the barrier they set up to stop that kind of thing.)
But this didn't happen.
The reason it didn't happen is that everything revolves around Katniss. Katniss is the destined hero. Everyone has somehow read a prophesy saying so. Their rebellion is but a small thing done to aid the destined hero, who will do most of the work herself. And without her, the rebellion could never succeed and might as well just give up immediately. Indeed, the actual goals of the rebellion are simply to be a vehicle for Katniss' heroism.
This really doesn't work without magic. It's not a scifi compatible plotline.
There's no reason for people to worship Katniss in the first place. She does one thing, one not even particularly rebellious thing. The "spark" is showing the capital is human and fallible. It's not her in particular - she still played their game fine up to that point. And god knows she didn't do anything after that point to deserve any of the hero treatment.
Which brings us to our next problem, characters.
When the book started, it seemed to be doing better. That didn't last long. We have the idea Katniss is somehow the chosen one and great despite how she's a murderous sociopath, though not great enough to avoid getting bashed for not being as great as Saint Peeta. We have a Career as a main character, only the fact he's trained is deemphasized and eventually completely erased, while the other two districts that train people continue to be one-dimensionally evil. We see that a lot of victors are drug addicts, but this is portrayed as a personal failing of theirs. And we see more female characters, but turns out they're the weaker sex - all the mentally ill characters in this book are female, another woman is laid up with headaches so bad she never actually appears, Katniss' mother is just a social climber who gives President Childmurder tea and cookies, the female part of her prep team breaks down faster... Even Johanna, who is awesome, is identified as the tribute who won by pretending to be weak. (Enobaria would be cool if she actually had screentime, but she doesn't.) All positions of power are male - president, mayor, mentor, fashion designer. Almost all important characters besides Katniss are male - Gale is running around trying to get the rebellion underway, Peeta is a saint, Finnick is the one keeping the group alive throughout the games, Beetee is the one whose awesome intellect actually gets them out. Johanna is the only female character in the group capable of speech, and she's a secondary character.
Relatedly, worldbuilding is terrible.
If District 13 exists and can't be attacked for whatever reason, they should try to get the word out so people will escape and come join them to build up an army. Supporting immigrants wouldn't be an issue considering how hard escaping is and how few people would succeed. Those in District 13 should be trying to arm and train rebellions in the other district, as well as plan to replicate whatever reason they're immune to attack in other districts, so those ones can drive off the capital as well.
Because all the districts do one job, none of them can be blown off the map. The only way 12 can be destroyed is if the capital has a huge stockpile of coal so they can keep supplying it for the time it takes to make/rebuild 12's mining capability and train new workers.
Really, the district thing should have been a focal point - that because of the capital's arrogance, the districts' strikes can do more damage, or how everyone thinks the capital will repeat what happened to 13 if any rebel, but that in fact they can't afford to lose any of the remaining districts or the people within them who know how to do the job. But then that goes for a lot of this. The people don't really interact with their world much, things just sort of happen. Like the fabric district rebels, but they don't use their resources to give everyone peacekeeper uniforms and cause chaos as the actual peacekeepers don't know how to fight, or distribute the kevlar they also happen to be involved with. They just rebel and happen to be in that district at the time.
And the blame. The capital gets the blame, and by capital, I mean the people Katniss fawns over and says it isn't their fault because they're like little birds. There are humans behind this and they deserve blame, and I do mean the plural here, Snow didn't make people like watching kids die. Other people can get degrees of blame too, for what they do - if they play along with the capital or try to save others, if they'd save the few they know over the many they don't.
Anyway...so, next book Katniss is the mockingjay, and apparently there's going to be yet another Hunger Games, which I'm kind of looking forward to because those chapters are about the only part that isn't boring and the sheer audacity of bad writing that is rehashing this plot yet again kind of impresses me.
I'm going to take a breather again. I'm also thinking of moving these reviews elsewhere, because they're kind of eating my Lj and I need that to post about the latest internets drama, chicklets, and my thoughts on reviews.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Mockingjay
Date: 2011-06-01 12:57 pm (UTC)Re: Mockingjay
Date: 2011-06-01 02:20 pm (UTC)Re: Mockingjay
Date: 2011-06-01 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 07:25 pm (UTC)Also, I had hoped that the reason people got killed in the beginning of the quell, was simply to keep the Capitol from guessing that something was going on. But I guess that would require someone to be more heroic than Katniss and Peeta.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 07:33 pm (UTC)I suppose the big difference is in execution. In fantasy, it's very much Chosen One, while in scifi treated as making a person the macguffin. That probably connects to how in scifi it's really more about the particular trait the person has, while fantasy tends to be nebulous and just go with the idea they're destined for it. You'd think Katniss would be the former, but because no one's behavior matches up with her existing traits, it really comes off as the latter. Peeta is the one who really tried to defy the capital by saving someone else instead of himself, but his actions don't count toward mockingjayhood and it's really not clear what anyone else could do to have similar status to Katniss.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-19 01:44 pm (UTC)The first person perspective makes it hard to see things in other ways as often the first interpretion wins(*), and that comes from herself being unaware of being manipulated.
(*) I recently reread Harry Potter, and when you know how manipulative Dumbledore is later on, you get the revelations after the fifth easily in a complete different way. "The power the Dark Lord knows not" was not his love, but Harry having a part of Voldemorts soul. Yet most people stay with Dumbledores "love"-interpretion.
Filler
Date: 2011-06-02 04:24 am (UTC)Re: Filler
Date: 2011-06-02 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 09:16 am (UTC)Apparently the folks in Hollywood are thinking about turning the trilogy into four movies. Guess what the writer suggests they do...
Leave the relatively slimmer third book, Mockingjay, alone. Instead dig deep into meaty Book 2, Catching Fire. I always thought Collins cut the scene in the hunting cabin with Bonnie and Twill, the runaways from District 8 who spoke of revolution, a little short. There’s more tense fun to be had with them and their revelations. Perhaps a natural gut punch of an end to a second movie could follow Snow soonafter dropping his bomb on Katniss that he’s tossing her back in the arena. Boom! Jennifer Lawrence herself said this was her favorite scene of the entire trilogy, and the one she could not wait to bring to life.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 04:29 pm (UTC)The reason this book is filler is because it never actually goes anywhere. There's a lot of worldbuilding that could have happened (like seeing all those districts who end up rebelling, or developing how the resistance works) yet was glossed over. That's why it ends up filler, because there's no followthrough and it never really matters. If the movie adapters are better writers than Collins, which isn't asking much, then they could do a good job of it.
It's like fanfic - it shines when the source material is lacking.
Mortified
Date: 2011-06-26 05:03 pm (UTC)While there are tons of plot holes and flaws, I don't know, I just like the series. The author has said repeatedly that it's a war story, but that doesn't really show until after The Hunger Games. You're for sure reading Mockingjay, right? Because fans who did not love the first two books thought Mockingjay was the best, and vice versa.
But I have a feeling you hate these books so much you'll probably still hate Mockingjay. XD Ah, well.
Re: Mortified
Date: 2011-06-27 01:10 am (UTC)I...don't really think an explanation can save things, though. A lot of what I complain about isn't something where I don't understand why it's happening, but object to it happening at all. Of things that could be saved with a good explanation, the characters need to acknowledge something's odd on their own, when characters accept things that don't make sense a later explanation can't save it.
You're for sure reading Mockingjay, right? Because fans who did not love the first two books thought Mockingjay was the best, and vice versa.
I am. But...I liked Hunger Games more than Catching Fire, so I'm not sure where I'll fall. Also, I'm pretty picky about consistency, and at this point it's going to be hard for the series to dig itself out of the hole without massive retconning of all the stuff I hated.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 01:10 am (UTC)good grief, this! i read the trilogy at the start of this year. and the day i read the section about the capital coming down on the district, i commented to a colleague that read the book, why would a government do that? it would only make things worse. the next day, (really) khadafi started doing this in libya.
i thought it was ludicrous to bomb 12 but, i guess snow thought differently.
as to your other point, yes, i feel katniss excuses the capital from their behavior and responsibility in the games. and for the life, of me, i don't know why.
sigh. not so far fetched at all.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 06:34 pm (UTC)Likewise, peeta started out as a stock sensitive guy character, now all of the sudden he's being lauded as a saintly hero, despite doing nothing to earn this. All his brave, manly-man type qualities (as well as his supposed "betterness") are entirely informed. We're supposed to accept it because Katniss' psychosis/the narrative tell us to, but he's really just better at being dead weight.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 05:57 am (UTC)This is forgiveable if Collins intends to do something where she eventually realizes she's being manipulated, and steps up on her own, but I doubt this will happen.
Your expectations are not low enough.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-06 06:41 am (UTC)Yes, and all the horrible angsty stuff in this book about the Peacekeepers cracking down and people being punished and terrorized and the fence being electrified and it being worth someone's life to poach in the forest and the food from the capital being shut off and people starving?
Should have been in the first fucking book. That's how the situation should have stood when the story started, in order to convince us that the government was really evil and oppressive and that Katniss' home district was really starving.
tNCbGmkFShKpDt
Date: 2014-08-31 07:38 pm (UTC)