Last time on Mockingjay, did we really need sex slave Finnick? No. No we did not. Also, Peeta tries to kill Katniss.

Katniss has just been through a bunch of tests to make sure her throat is okay.

It will all be fine. The Mockingjay will not lose her voice. Where, I want to ask, is the doctor who determines if I am losing my mind?

She said, “The Girl Is Obviously Fine And I Do Not Wish To Sit Through Several Hours Of Whining On The Subject Of How It Is Hard Being The Mockingjay And Nobody Understands.”

Katniss isn’t supposed to talk. Once again, the concept of writing in a notebook isn’t brought up, despite the fact we are following this story by reading strings of letters designed to communicate information without needing to actually speak.

Katniss explains Peeta’s deranged, then corrects herself to “hijacked”. I thought that was literal, but actually no, she was right the first time and Peeta’s deranged. The hijacked thing is the author’s love of dubiously clever wordplay, and by dubiously I mean not at all. Just like we had muttations that were hybrid wolf “mutts” and trackerjackers, messing with someone using trackerjacker venom is called hijacking so clever right?

Incidentally, her mother isn’t there because she’s in a complicated surgery despite the fact we were told earlier she doesn’t have formal training and is being treated as a nurse, and despite the fact surgery is the one thing she doesn’t seem to know about. (She doesn’t amputate obviously lost limbs.)

Plutarch ushers the doctors out and tries to order Prim to go as well, but she says, “No. If you force me to leave, I’ll go directly to surgery and tell my mother everything that’s happened. And I warn you, she doesn’t think much of a Gamemaker calling the shots on Katniss’s life. Especially when you’ve taken such poor care of her.”

And then he says, “That’s nice, little girl, but I don’t care.” because as we already found out, no one cares what Katniss’ mother thinks. If they did, Katniss wouldn’t have been going off to get blown up in 8 without a word to her mom.

Except no, somehow it actually works as a threat.

Also, yet another bit of support for antichrist Prim. She doesn’t sound concerned for her sister, just concerned she won’t be here (to spin it into something to terrify Katniss).

Anyway. The stuff is apparently a type of fear conditioning.

Beetee reminds us that one of the effects is horrible hallucinations.

“I’m sure you remember how frightening it was. Did you also suffer mental confusion in the aftermath?” asks Beetee. “A sense of being unable to judge what was true and what was false? Most people who have been stung and lived to tell about it report something of the kind.”
Yes. That encounter with Peeta. Even after I was clearheaded, I wasn’t sure if he had saved my life by taking on Cato or if I’d imagined it.
“Recall is made more difficult because memories can be changed.” Beetee taps his forehead. “Brought to the forefront of your mind, altered, and saved again in the revised form. Now imagine that I ask you to remember something–either with a verbal suggestion or by making you watch a tape of the event–and while that experience is refreshed, I give you a dose of tracker jacker venom. Not enough to induce a three-day blackout. Just enough to infuse the memory with fear and doubt. And that’s what your brain puts in long-term storage.”

What Katniss is referring to is not knowing if Peeta had really saved her because she hallucinated sparkles around him. Also, she hallucinated Glimmer’s body dissolving into rot. In other words, it doesn’t work anything like how he’s now claiming it does. She wasn’t even scared of Cato, who actually attacked her after the venom had kicked in, doing the most to trigger a bad hallucination centering on him. There was no real fear and doubt around the memory, just confusion.

Prim asks the question that’s in my mind. “Is that what they’ve done to Peeta? Taken his memories of Katniss and distorted them so they’re scary?”

No, Prim, I just explained this. That’s not how it works.

Beetee nods. “So scary that he’d see her as life-threatening. That he might try to kill her. Yes, that’s our current theory.”

Oh fuck you Beetee, that’s stupid and you’re stupid for thinking it.

Prim asks if it’s reversible. Apparently they’ve never tried? That doesn’t make any sense. They know a pretty detailed explanation of how it works but have never seen anyone with it? This is more metatextual intrusion. The author wants us to know the dramatic reason for Peeta’s behavior, but also have suspense about how to deal with it.

So they don’t know if they can treat it. So let’s add another strike against decent PTSD depictions, this book can’t even handle fantasy PTSD.

See, there were better ways of doing that. They could just have said they found the remains of the venom in his blood and they’re guessing it was used to do this, instead of knowing all about it and the capital’s inane name for it.

Prim “helpfully” keeps going.

“You’re not just going to lock him up in some padded room and leave him to suffer?”

Thanks, Prim, Katniss really needs you to supply more options for things to go wrong.

I, personally, feel optimistic that he’ll make a full recovery.”
“Do you?” asks Prim caustically.

So, let’s speculate on why Prim hates Katniss this much.

The easiest option is that Prim is just evil. Not exactly stellar characterization, but it works, especially in a story like this where everyone is evil for the sake of evil.

Another would be that things aren’t quite as Katniss described them. From what she says, she’s been impressively devoted to her little sister, but there are cracks in that story, chief among them the way Prim falls out of the story for the second book. We also know Prim doesn’t share Katniss’ resentment toward their mother (in fact, she’s repeatedly mentioned sleeping with their mother rather than Katniss) and that Katniss is constantly talking about killing her pet cat.

Then there’s the question of how much her sacrifices were really necessary. She thought that her family could get by without tesserae if she was dead, which begs the question of why she needed to take them while she was there when she apparently was the one bringing in most of the food. But then, if you look at the first book, she may not have been bringing in much. She and Gale eat a good chunk of their catch, trade for other food and eat that, and sell some for money. Only the remainder makes it back to Katniss’ family. They also feast on berries. And by all appearances, Katniss wasn’t sharing the money she gets much either – she controls the purse strings, not their mother. There’s scattered references to Katniss buying things, like Gale and her buying a cup of goat milk to drink, but the only time she buys something to bring home is the goat – which was not the selfless act Katniss views it as, much as Prim loved the goat.

And this is all from Katniss’ view. What could it have looked like from Prim’s?

Katniss was in charge of the family since she was younger than Prim, but she doesn’t respect Prim’s right to make the same sort of decisions she made, like taking tesserae. Prim isn’t good at hunting, and that seems to mean Katniss has banned her completely from anything to do with the forest, because it’s only Katniss bringing back greens and other plants. Her continued comments about killing Buttercup aren’t a joke – she tried to kill him originally and she’s killed other animals plenty of times, so Prim knows that one day Katniss might. Lady isn’t much safer. Sooner or later she won’t be fertile, and that means she’s not good for milk, just sausage.

And Katniss’ decisions haven’t been the best. She refused to let either of them into an orphanage, so they nearly starved to death, and she also made no attempt to rouse their mother so she could take care of them. Prim continued to deal with their mother while she was depressed, but Katniss seems to have jumped at the chance to take over. And Katniss isn’t the greatest provider.

Kids being substitute parents is always good for resentment even if they do nothing wrong.

By the time Katniss volunteers for the reaping, their relationship could already be poisoned. Prim could be grateful to be spared while not exactly grateful to Katniss. You can resent someone for martyring themself in your name without you ever asking. And of course Katniss ends up rewarded for it, with fame, money, and a boyfriend, and then proceeds to ignore her family.

So here’s Prim. A precocious girl, certainly cleverer than her sister. And here’s her sister come back, now even more important than before, and she’s all anyone can talk about. Even their mother, who used to just be Prim’s mother, is now slavishly trying to do nice things for Katniss, and Katniss acts like she’s just owed it while she’s stealing their mother’s attention. And they have everything they ever wanted, and all she’ll do is mope and complain, like she’s still trying to milk sympathy for volunteering even though she didn’t die! She gets to wear fabulous outfits and go to parties and she gets to pick anything in the world she wants to do as her job for the rest of her life, but even rich, Prim’s own prospects remain much the same.

And here’s Snow, who knows hate when he sees it. The deal’s simple – destroy her sister, and she and her mother get to immigrate. This would also explain how they made it out, despite almost all of the “well off” dying and despite the fact they lived far from Gale. It was easy to guess 13 had a hand in this, and easier to guess that they’d want to grab Katniss’ family for leverage. Prim is worth more as a mole than a hostage. And so Prim has been patiently waiting, fanning the flames every chance she gets.

Does this work? Well, not quite, but what we’re presented with doesn’t work either, and set up properly it’d certainly be a more interesting explanation for her behavior than Prim as a supernaturally empathetic Katniss yes-woman.

Patriach tells them to shut up, at least they got the guy out alive. That’s more than they can say for his stylist team, who just got their execution broadcast, and they’re pretty sure Effie’s dead too.

Put another way, the current balance puts Peeta’s life somewhere above the lives of five other people. Five people died because they rescued him, and more will follow one way or another. But the book doesn’t admit to this equation. Patriach is saying they should be glad Peeta is safe instead of killed, but the reason they were killed was because Peeta’s safe.

Also, Effie! Fuck you book.

Katniss, to her rare credit, is at least upset by being told a bunch of people are dead, even though she also doesn’t manage to link cause and effect.

Eventually, they have no choice but to sedate me.

No, Katniss. That was definitely a choice they made. Sedating doesn’t just happen and it isn’t just necessary.

People come in periodically to give me updates on Peeta’s condition. The high levels of tracker jacker venom are working their way out of his body.

So forget about being consistent with the first book, this isn’t even consistent within the chapter. We’re told the venom makes you associate whatever you’re currently thinking about/dealing with/etc with fear, yet he’s not getting triggered by the doctors or medical treatment despite being full of the stuff when he was brought in.

A team of specialists works long hours designing a strategy for his recovery.

I’d just like to remind everyone of the District 8 hospital, that didn’t even have the people on hand to remove corpses, let alone do such fancy medical treatment as changing bandages. And yet we have an entire team of people sitting around trying to figure out how to fix Peeta – Peeta, who isn’t even currently upset now that Katniss is out of sight and who can be treated at leisure, if at all.

“Katniss, I know this whole thing with Peeta is terrible for you. But remember, Snow worked on him for weeks, and we’ve only had him for a few days. There’s a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to you. Don’t give up on him.”

Is it possible she could be right? That Peeta could return to me?

“I have to get back to the hospital,” Prim says

And she leaves to let Katniss just stew on that.

Thirty seconds later Katniss can’t take it and she’s out and ready to run into new trouble.

She finds Gale and Beetee working on snares, and Beetee apologizes for taking him away from her so much.

Since I’ve spent most of my time in 13 disoriented, worried, angry, being remade, or hospitalized, I can’t say Gale’s absences have inconvenienced me.

I think the crowning glory of this sentence is “inconvenienced”. It’s not simply that Katniss didn’t notice, but it isn’t a matter of missing him or anything. It’s a matter of being inconvenienced by him not being there when she wanted him. This is how you’d talk about someone borrowing your raincoat.

But I let Beetee think he owes me

“…because when I see a situation, I think, how can I be the worst person possible.”

But what they’re doing isn’t exactly snares. It has to do with what Gale was saying about catching hummingbirds, exploiting their instincts to scare them into the trap. Only with people.

While this does explain why that conversation was shoehorned in earlier, it doesn’t change how forced it was. Sometimes it’s better to not include foreshadowing or setup than do it this badly.

Did anyone watch the Hulk movie? Not really great. But I saw a deleted scene for it where they’re looking at one of the treated frogs and it suddenly goes off onto this bit about emotional trauma. All very pertinent stuff to the movie. Not even written all that badly, especially considering the general quality of the movie. Except that they apparently could not write a decent transition to it. It was all “so this frog NOW LET ME FORESHADOW THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING”. Now, cutting that scene didn’t save the movie, but it made it less bad than it would have been.

Anyway, so like Katniss, Gale has decided it’s time to hunt the most dangerous game, MAN.

He and Beetee are planning stuff to take advantage of how people react. One is the same thing as the hummingbirds, scaring them into a trap. Others are more advanced.

focused on more human impulses. Like compassion. A bomb explodes. Time is allowed for people to rush to the aid of the wounded. Then a second, more powerful bomb kills them as well.

That’s kind of clever.

Katniss is naturally horrified by the idea of taking advantage of people’s better nature to kill them, but I don’t know.

There’s issues to be raised in how they’re treated, and certainly, bombs followed by more powerful bombs is going to sow fear, but standard warfare involves sticking mines in the ground people walk over, which does the same. What I care more about is where these bombs are getting dropped. Ethically, there seem to be a lot more problems with killing people, even soldiers, who may not have a choice in being drafted. There are also issues in how you’re killing them and what you’re doing to them. I think types of death (quick and clean vs slow and horrible) outrank this, as does stuff like torturing people.

They’re already sending bombs. This is just making the bombs more effective. It’s not even particularly cruel. There are already existing situations in war where an attack on one person/area heralds more. If someone’s shot and you rush out to help them, you’ll get shot too, or one bomb hitting can be the target others aim at. I mean, for example, if they took captured soldiers and crucified them to encourage the other soldiers to charge the area to save the guy. That would definitely be taking advantage of people’s better nature. Just going in to get wounded people can be done for practical reasons. It’s awful, but, let’s face it, so are regular bombs. Katniss starts talking sarcastically about how there’s not a rule book for unacceptable treatment of people, and you know, exploding a bomb in their face would definitely be in that book. Or, hypothetically, shooting a flaming arrow into their craft so they burned alive. I would bet Gale has a number of plans that involve exploiting the psychological factor of fire and explosive arrows hinging on the fact they’re terrifying because they do horrible, horrible things to the human body.

Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta,” says Gale.

Wow, it’s like there’s some sort of comparison being drawn here between 13 and the capital! Also it’s like the comparison is complete bullshit, because Snow a) tortured Peeta b) for no real reason but that he could. Gale is planning to trick people to getting blown up. Not even noncombatants, just people of some sort. That’s just normal awful.

But we interrupt this comparison to get another Millstone update. They’re trying something new and clearly they need Katniss there to watch every step of the process.

Okay, so remember how I was complaining about reusing the same characters? The plan is for Delly to talk to Peeta. You may not recall Delly as the girl who Peeta said the redheaded slavemute looked like to explain Katniss recognizing her. Katniss then said, Delly Cartwright is a pasty-faced, lumpy girl with yellowish hair who looks about as much like our server as a beetle does a butterfly.

Katniss is a bit nicer this time around.


Delly’s a bit thinner than I remember, but she was one of the few kids in District 12 with a couple of pounds to spare. The diet here, the stress, the grief of losing her parents have all, no doubt, contributed.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t go without calling the poor girl fat.

I’m not a hundred percent sure that was intended, since this series is never good at consistent treatment of setting, as we learned when Katniss chucked food out the window.

A couple of pounds to spare should, in context, just mean Delly was a normal, healthy weight, unlike the rest of them who had nothing to spare due to being starving. But the District 13 diet is apparently good for keeping people at a healthy weight, which we know because the 12 people are on boosted rations to get up to that point. Katniss says the diet here – that is, even more food than the 13ers eat normally – is a factor in her losing weight, so she must be overweight.

In the series’ defense, it doesn’t constantly comment on the appearance of female characters. But it certainly focuses far more on them, and far more negatively, than the male ones.

Katniss asks how she’s doing and Delly is teary. I mean, dead parents, loss of almost everyone she knows.

“But everyone’s really nice here in Thirteen, don’t you think?”
Delly means it.

Of course she does. Everyone is really nice here. They were rescued, clothed and fed, and now they’re being educated for real and have the potential to end up with any job they’re qualified for.

“Katniss was always so amazing, I never dreamed she would notice me,” says Delly. “The way she could hunt and go in the Hob and everything. Everyone admired her so.”

The book sort of waffles on if this is Delly’s viewpoint or if Katniss really is that awesome, since the book has made it painfully clear that Katniss’ view of her lack of awesomeness is one of the few things that she is an unreliable narrator about. This is sidestepping the relevant part, which is that Delly is pretty worshipful here. I think I support this over Peeta – Peeta fell in love with her because she’s got a pretty voice, while Delly has listed things she’s actually done and seems to admire her as a person. Also, Delly is the only potential love interest who hasn’t decided that it’s best to just randomly kiss someone, and since the most we can say about homosexuality in this book is there hasn’t been an explicit statement it doesn’t exist, I feel relatively sure she’ll continue to not violate Katniss’ space in that respect. The fact Delly seems like such a nice person means I’m not sure it’s right to inflict Katniss on her, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction for Katniss. And Katniss does seem relatively decent toward love interests even if she’s otherwise sociopathic.

Katniss reminds us that hey, Delly appeared in book one, as if the reuseal is something to be proud of.

Delly goes in and tries to talk to Peeta without mentioning that 12 burned down and by the way his whole family’s dead. Peeta is having none of it. He knows it’s gone and it’s Katniss’ fault.

“Because she’s lying! She’s a liar! You can’t believe anything she says! She’s some kind of mutt the Capitol created to use against the rest of us!” Peeta shouts.

You know…it would kind of explain things.

Katniss’ personality oddities, the way her characterization changes on a dime for the sake of the story. About the only flaw in this is just that she’s obviously not doing so to Snow’s tune. But, say, sleeper agent by 13? Totally plausible. Or someone from the capital looking to supplant Snow.

Not only does he hate me and want to kill me, he no longer believes I’m human. It was less painful being strangled.

Oh, shut up Katniss.

Prim was wrong. Peeta is irretrievable.

No.

Just as it was wrong to say Peeta had enough value to be worth multiple human lives to rescue, it’s wrong to say Peeta is worthless just because he won’t make out with you.

“I can’t stay here anymore,” I say numbly. “If you want me to be the Mockingjay, you’ll have to send me away.”

This whole thing kicked off because Katniss said she wouldn’t be THE MOCKINGJAY unless they got her millstone back. Now, apparently, she doesn’t need Millstone and all her wailing about being broken without him turns out to be a matter of dramatics. You know, little as I would like to read about Katniss sitting around being a useless mess, at least it’d be following the plot to its logical conclusions instead of just dropping things whenever the author gets bored.

Now she picks something new to be dramatic about and insists she can’t bear to stay so close as in the same city as him.

Because that’s what 13 is. An entire city. Levels upon levels that stretch out across the district. Peeta is in one room of a city, and she’s throwing a fit and demanding they send her to the capital so she’s not too close.

Also, Katniss is the girl who cried mockingjay one too many times. Apparently she could have sucked it up and dealt with Peeta not being around, so I’m betting that if she was an ordinary person and not someone with a city at her beck and call, she’d be able to deal with this just fine too.

Unfortunately, that’s not the book we’re reading, so Haymitch says that they can’t send her to the capital yet, they still haven’t beaten 2. See, the plan is to take all the districts, then the capital, for no discernible reason. It made sense for ones like 11, which was feeding them, but 2’s main job is granite. Okay, they’re producing some weapons as well, but it seems like it’s easy to just cut them off from the capital and leave them for later. In fact, that seems like all the more reason to want to do that. We’re just doing it this way because the author likes the idea of taking all the districts first.

So instead she’s going into 2. That’s our dramatic ending line. Book, she has explosive arrows and can shoot planes out of the sky. There is no suspense here. She’ll be fine.