Last time on Mockingjay, Katniss wandered around the ashes of her former home, thought clearly how she can’t think clearly, and explained she was refusing to help the rebellion but still willing to use her potential help as a bargaining piece to make them take her on dumb, resource-wasting outings. Peeta is still captured. Would that he’ll stay captured for the rest of the book. Oh, and Snow left her a rose.

We open this chapter with Katniss worrying about attack. I guess she’s more on edge than before thanks to the rose, but really, she was the one insisting on doing this over the objections of everyone else. It smacks of the book trying to dredge up extra sympathy. Also, Plutarch is there chatting with the pilot. Really? What exactly is he doing there, isn’t he an important guy in his own right? And if something does go wrong here, wouldn’t that mean they lose the both of them instead of just her?

She and Gale say some meaningless things as Buttercup is howling from inside the bag, which the narrative continues to try to sell as him being vicious and hateful. He’s stuck in a sealed bag. He’s not saying “I will rend out your eyes for this indignity!” but “I can’t breathe or move and I don’t know what’s happening, I’m scared.”

The issue of a reliable narrator is a big one to these books. It’s true that, technically, we do only see Katniss’ viewpoint, so it’s entirely possible we’re not supposed to agree with her much of the time. But the only time there’s narrative payoff for Katniss being wrong is when the narrative is really, really obvious about it, such as how very much Gale isn’t her boyfriend or interested in her at all whatsoever nope not in the slightest. In addition other characters tend to react as if this is the objective view, such as here where she and Gale are on the same page regarding Buttercup.

It also illustrates the general issue with how everything revolves around Katniss. Buttercup is the obnoxious pet her sister is inexplicably attached to, not a creature that’s behaving this way for a reason and deserving of consideration.

Instead, Katniss tells us that District 13 is about a week’s walk or 45 minutes flight from District 12.

We find out that the women from District 8 didn’t make it to 13.

That’s sad. It’s the first thing so far in the book’s litany of complaints and misery that strikes me as such, in fact.

Privilege is, or more accurately is intended to be, a big thing in this series. Katniss is treated as the ultimate underdog, but she’s actually had a lot of advantages.

We’re told she’s small and underfed compared to the kids trained for the Hunger Games, but all the other children were half starved and sickly too. And unlike Katniss, those other children hadn’t been poaching for food. They were hungrier and weaker than she was, had no way to feed themselves in the games and no knowledge of weapons to defend themselves. The same was true for the Seam kids usually chosen in her district. In fact, Katniss probably isn’t half as scrawny as she claims to be – poaching obviously feeds well enough that Gale ate well enough to be six feet at sixteen, and he had a larger family to feed than she did. That fits well with the fact Katniss apparently has a reasonable chest before the games. The oppressive government she complains about also leaves her alone. She has plenty of free time to hunt and no repercussions for doing so.

Consider the two from 8.

They’re a teacher and student, who both worked in the same factory after class because unlike Katniss’ district, you don’t have a free ride until you’re eighteen and you don’t have the option of a different profession. We can guess that, like most other districts, their fences were well-repaired and electrified rather than just broken wire, because they’re among the only ones to have escaped. Katniss had a book detailing every plant around and both time and opportunity to find them, and people in her district keep gardens and animals, while their closest connection to nature was what they saw during the Hunger Games broadcasts.

(There’s something similar at play with the girl Katniss insists is a stealthy clever fox – utterly reliant on the other children from food, she obviously never had Katniss’ experiences with the forest either. A great deal is made of her cleverness, but intelligence without knowledge is badly limited. We’re told she dies by outfoxing herself, certain the food is safe because she was good enough at people reading to know Peeta thought that, but she dies of hunger and desperation. Peeta was not particularly knowledgeable about plants, and that must have been obvious by how Katniss had to instruct him. He merely knew more than she did. Had the girl any of Katniss’ knowledge, she’d have likely made it.)

While Katniss was making excuses for why it’d be too hard for 12 to fight back, 8 fought back and paid for it. The two we meet lost their families and friends, stole a weapon and escaped all the way to 12 on their own, without knowing anything of what the rest of the world looked like or how to survive. And when we finally meet them, they’re starving to death, but because one of them can’t walk properly the other one is still there. The only time we’ve seen anything like that from Katniss it required both a romantic plot tumor and the certain belief that if she did leave the whole of her district would turn their back on her.

They accomplished everything without Katniss’ advantages. Katniss, for her part, isn’t even motivated to care about the rebellion by meeting them – she decides to help because her notboyfriend gets hurt so she promises to support his goals.

In every way they’re more heroic and better protagonists than Katniss is. But that doesn’t matter. All of their accomplishments and. backstory were just there to let them info-dump to Katniss about what an amazing person she is.

So of course Bonnie and Twill, the District 8 refugees who I encountered in the woods last winter, weren’t so far from their destination after all. They apparently didn’t make it, though. When I asked about them in 13, no one seemed to know who I was talking about. Died in the woods, I guess. is all the mention they really deserve. It’s not tragic that they’re dead, especially not after coming so far and being so close. It’s just a footnote. She met them and now they’re gone.

Besides, who cares about them when the hovercraft has reached 13 and Katniss can start talking about that?

The rubble isn’t smoking, the way the Capitol shows it on television, but there’s next to no life aboveground.

Of course it’s not smoking. The idea blocks of concrete spent seventy-five years burning is infinitely more suspicious than the fact there’s always a bird in the corner of the footage.

Not that what is going on makes much more sense. See, what happened was District 13 aimed their bombs at the capital and made an ultimatum about being left alone, which the capital agreed to as long as they didn’t announce their continued survival. Also, they now live below the surface because fuck if I know. The capital knows they’re alive, the capital isn’t bothering to use footage of the present-day rubble because apparently they really love the lighting on that one thirty-second film clip from seventy years ago, and obviously anyone who makes it this far is let into the underground compound anyway.

And being underground is not actually all that safer. If all development was underground as she says, the area’s been honeycombed and doesn’t even have normal structural integrity. Even normal underground bunkers are of debatable value in a situation where no one’s going to be able to come and dig you out. Place sounds like a death trap. The only possible advantage I can think of is that it hides what they’re doing from the capital, and even then, it’s just making them really suspicious about their plans. It’d be smarter to rebuild above the ground in limited amounts to pretend that’s the full population and that they’re satisfied with the agreement. This just makes it really obvious they’re plotting against the capital.

Perhaps the Capitol’s leaders thought that, without help, 13 would die off on its own. It almost did a few times, but it always managed to pull through due to strict sharing of resources, strenuous discipline, and constant vigilance against any further attacks from the Capitol.

Aside from that, though, they seem like pretty cool guys.

Katniss explains that everyone has to follow a strict schedule, which they have a machine write on your arm in ink. That actually strikes me as overly convenient for the plot – we’re told this place is all about conformity and standardization, so why would everyone have an individualized schedule? It also seems like a great deal of it is standard from how she talks – at the very least, apparently absolutely everyone bathes at the same time, right when the ink is set to begin breaking down. The main reason for an individualized schedule would be to stagger things like that. If you’re worried about capital attacks, not having everyone naked at the same time is a good place to start. And just on a practical level, it’s going to be hard on both the hot water and the water supply in general to have the population of an entire area turning on the tap at once. And everyone would need their own shower, too, which isn’t a particularly good use of resources.

Except for showing up for meals, though, I pretty much ignore the words on my arm. I just go back to our compartment or wander around 13 or fall asleep somewhere hidden.

I don’t even.

Is this just some sort of belief the author has, that authority is just inherently something to disrespect? Why is she doing this?

They’re so frugal with things here, waste is practically a criminal activity. Fortunately, the people of 12 have never been wasteful. But once I saw Fulvia Cardew crumple up a sheet of paper with just a couple of words written on it and you would’ve thought she’d murdered someone from the looks she got. Her face turned tomato red, making the silver flowers inlaid in her plump cheeks even more noticeable. The very portrait of excess. One of my few pleasures in 13 is watching the handful of pampered Capitol “rebels” squirming as they try to fit in.

…this, right here, is a perfect summary of everything wrong with the book’s view of privilege. Katniss has no desire to see other people live decent lives, she just enjoys watching those who had more than she did suffer for it. She has no actual objection to waste: she throws away the cookies, she drops her dress and pin on the floor of the train when she changes and leaves them for servants to throw away, she stuffs herself with fancy snacks at the capital, she twirls around in dresses she’ll only wear once. When she hunts she doesn’t bother shooting the dogs because she can’t get a good price for them, and she throws away most of the meat on a carcass in field dressing them. And now she refuses to do any work – all she does with her day is sleep, laze about and show up for food.

But these other people, by virtue of being born somewhere else, lived easier lives than she did, so fuck them all. They deserve to squirm for the terrible crime of giving up their easy life to try to help her and the people like her.

I don’t know how long I’ll be able to get away with my complete disregard for the clockwork precision of attendance required by my hosts.

I imagine it’s less about being there precisely and more about refusing to do anything at all.

My mother and sister are home for18:00—Reflection , a half hour of downtime before dinner.

Perhaps we’re supposed to be shocked by how regimented this is, but really, 13 is shaping up to be pretty decent. As I mentioned above with Katniss’ refusal to work, time is a thing you can waste too, but it seems it’s important to them that people have a chance to breathe and relax.

 I empty my game bag and it becomes18:00—Cat Adoration

Okay, cute.

Prim just sits on the floor weeping and rocking that awful Buttercup, who interrupts his purring only for an occasional hiss at me. He gives me a particularly smug look when she ties the blue ribbon around his neck.

God damn the author does not know shit about cats.

A cat that will put up with being rocked like a baby instants after being dumped out of a bag, one it was stuffed into originally for making the mistake of letting someone pick it up now less – is a cat that has out-sainted saints. Cats are not monkeys, they don’t find rocking motions soothing. They are also just not extremely social animals, so normally a cat that’s scared or angry about someone is going to be too on edge to handle being touched. I hold my cats when they’re scared but you’ve got to be careful about that, because there’s a really good chance that they’ll startle and claw their way off your lap any second. And they really, really do not like things around their necks. They certainly have no concept of getting a ribbon tied on them being a sign of affection.

Gale’s communicuff begins to beep. It looks like an oversized watch, but it receives print messages.

More bad writing. I’m assuming that she means the messages show up as text, but it sounds more like the thing prints out whatever he’s sent.

Being granted a communicuff is a special privilege that’s reserved for those important to the cause, a status Gale achieved by his rescue of the citizens of 12.

This is a pretty common trope, and it’s far more grounded in reality than most of the things here, but it bugs me all the same.

Gale may have managed to rescue so many people because he’s a natural leader and quick thinker. Or, he may have rescued them because he was more familiar with the meadow and knew that running that way would be safer. He’s not necessarily important to the cause now. He may be considered a hero, but being considered one doesn’t make your input on war strategy vital.

Honestly, if it’s plot-required he has one of these, then fine. But it was a choice to say it’s a mark of how incredibly special he is, not a necessity, and as a choice there doesn’t seem to be any reason behind it. It’d make more sense for him to have one because he’s Katniss’ handler, in fact. She’d probably blow off whatever message she got just like she blows off her schedule, but it seems her pettiness on the matter is passive, and she’ll go along as long as someone’s watching her.

Anyway, they’ve been summoned to one of those meetings so they head there instead of dinner. This seems to contradict Katniss’ claims that 13 likes order for order’s sake – clearly they see no problem overriding the official designation for what a time block is supposed to be when something comes up. Really, they seem like practical, level headed people.

They’re going to be evil, aren’t they?

Katniss gets waved in to see something on the screen and grudgingly goes, certain it can’t possibly be of any interest.

his guest is Peeta.

A sound escapes me. The same combination of gasp and groan that comes from being submerged in water, deprived of oxygen to the point of pain.

This is pretty strong description, but then I tried to actually picture it and realized I had no idea what the book’s talking about here. Also, being unable to function or live without someone around is a not a wonderful romance, it’s psychosis.

Katniss expected him to be tortured, but he looks in awesome shape. That actually doesn’t tell us much given the capital has magic science, but honestly, they don’t have any need to torture him. It’s a waste of time.

Here are the possibilities.

1) Peeta didn’t know about the plan and who was involved. Torturing him will accomplish nothing because he has nothing to tell.

2) Peeta did know about the plan and who was involved. Torturing will accomplish nothing because it happened in front of a hundred cameras and everyone involved proved their guilt by disappearing, so he has nothing to tell.

Guilt and innocence are not the same thing as knowledge and ignorance. Peeta can be guilty as fuck and still not know anything useful. If they’d captured Katniss, all she’d have been able to tell them was that she realized Beetee had a plan to break them out and Haymitch was probably in on it.

Peeta is, of course, happy to chat with his best buddy Caesar. He gets a pass for this, though. It’s sickening to read and it’s done in the exact same buddy-buddy tone as before, but the delusion Caesar is sincerely a friend was Katniss’. Peeta made no similar statement, and we’ve been told before he’s a good actor.

And regardless of the lack of torture, Peeta’s in a pretty shitty position here. At least the Hunger Games had an end. He would go into them and probably die, or else he’d leave and go back home. Now, though? He’s only alive as a potential bargaining chip, one that only has worth as long as both Katniss lives and the revolution has teeth. They’re the ones who have him, so he has to play along, but he’s doomed either way – if he can could convince Katniss to surrender to save his life, Snow would just kill them. If he can’t, he’s a useless piece and he’ll be killed.

Of course, as the opening banter reminds us, Peeta claims not to care about being killed. They chat about how neither expected they’d ever be chatting again.

“It wasn’t part of my plan, that’s for sure,” says Peeta with a frown.

Caesar leans in to him a little. “I think it was clear to all of us what your plan was. To sacrifice yourself in the arena so that Katniss Everdeen and your child could survive.”

“That was it. Clear and simple.” Peeta’s fingers trace the upholstered pattern on the arm of the chair. “But other people had plans as well.”

This doesn’t seem particularly well scripted, honestly. They’re not interviewing him in the hopes he’ll say something interesting for the crowd. This is obviously for Katniss’ benefit since no one else cares about Peeta. So he shouldn’t be rambling trying to figure out the right way to say things for them, it should be provided.
But instead of such reasonableness, Peeta starts talking about the arena, the horrible oppressive jungle and the monstrous clock and the other tributes, clearly building to a “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense.

As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly.”
“It costs your life,” says Caesar.
“Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?” says Peeta. “It costs everything you are.”

This is all very dramatic, but contradicted by the last two books. Katniss has been murdering her way through people without any ill effects, and Peeta’s never seemed overly concerned either, for all Katniss claims he’s pure as driven bread.

A hush has fallen over the room, and I can feel it spreading across Panem. A nation leaning in toward its screens. Because no one has ever talked about what it’s really like in the arena before.

That, to me, strongly suggests the capital doesn’t want people talking about what it’s really like in the arena. Peeta is off script. This is why you tell people what you want them to say instead of making them guess.

Peeta starts getting upset. He says he had no idea what was going on, he was too distracted and they tricked him, and then everything went crazy after they were separated. And he argues Katniss had no idea either.

Caesar points out she did kind of blow the hole in the force field.

“She didn’t know what she was doing. None of us could follow Beetee’s plan. You can see her trying to figure out what to do with that wire,” Peeta snaps back.

He’s had weeks to think of an excuse, and that’s all he can do?

Here, I’ll play. Peeta should argue Katniss wasn’t trying to connect the lightning bolt and the force field, but substituting one for the other. The field obviously has a lot of energy in it. The fact the wires weren’t connected to the water any longer doesn’t actually matter – Beetee was knocked out and Katniss must have assumed he’d set it up so it’d work, because he was trying to do something with the cut wire.

(Incidentally, thinking about the plan it’s impossible to pull off. Beetee says the wire is more like a fuse, it incinerates as it carries the charge. The force field charge should have burnt out that end before the lightning could reach. Why on earth did she add that random bit about the wire disintegrating?)

But I digress, because this is all pointless. Snow knows Katniss did it, and he wouldn’t care if she didn’t. This whole song and dance is meaningless. Peeta isn’t going to be able to convince the government with this display, and even if he could get popular support against officially killing her, they’d just find her body killed by crossfire or a rebel member who didn’t want her taken alive or whatever.

Peeta starts ranting about how this wasn’t planned.

And was it part of her plan for Johanna to nearly kill her? For that electric shock to paralyze her? To trigger the bombing?”

On first read I thought that meant they don’t think Johanna is with the rebellion, which is ::::D because Johanna, but if Johanna wasn’t in on the plan then Johanna attacking her wouldn’t prove anything about Katniss being out of the loop. But the whole thing here is confused. Johanna had to dig out the tracker regardless of if Katniss was in on the plan or not. I suppose hitting her upside the head was less necessarily, but they don’t know if Johanna really hit her or if it was part of Katniss playing dead, or done in the hopes of getting the tracker out with a minimum of unnecessary sound and movement. I mean, I am in theory very in favor of not having trackers stuck under my skin too, but that doesn’t mean I’d be able to hold still while you dug one out with a knife.

Peeta is more willing to blame Haymitch, though. That’s very mildly interesting given Haymitch did nowhere near the number of incriminating things Katniss did, so it really seems better to go with the idea everyone’s innocent. Admit people near Katniss were with the rebellion and they could have recruited her. Insist everyone else was innocent and she couldn’t have been in on the plan even if she wanted to be. Also, it’s just sort of assholeish given Haymitch isn’t a bad guy. I suppose it’s not too big of a deal since Haymitch is safely in 13, but the same could be said for Katniss. I suppose he might be bitter Haymitch left him to get kidnapped by the capital, but I’d think he’s bright enough to figure out they tried to get him as well.

Incidentally, Katniss says Haymitch has been detoxing somewhere because 13 prohibits any form of alcohol. I’m not sure that’s actually such a great idea – alcohol is pretty high in calories and you can make it from junk you’re not eating – but I can see them willing to make that sacrifice in return for avoiding drunkenness. They’re living in constant fear of capital attack and in close quarters.

That topic done, Caesar moves to the war and asks Peeta’s thoughts. He shares them.

stop for just a moment and think about what this war could mean. For human beings. We almost went extinct fighting one another before. Now our numbers are even fewer. Our conditions more tenuous.

I suppose this could mean the numbers last chapter were intended to be terribly low, but they still don’t work.

First, are were supposed to assume America is literally the entire world now? Because while the series of unspecified disasters may be unspecified, we can reasonably assume that anything that destroys all infrastructure is going to hurt more in places that rely on it. When each village has its own crops, a disaster that strikes one kills one. When one place is feeding everyone, anything that breaks the supply chain means everyone starves.

Now, perhaps they just don’t realize there’s anyone beyond them – why other countries leave them alone is a bit of a mystery, but maybe they don’t care enough.

Next, the birth rate is too high. They’re doing a great job of repopulating. The original disasters were very long ago. Assuming that’s what Peeta means, the country should have easily gotten their numbers back up by now. If he means the last rebellion, unless that took out the majority of the population it wouldn’t have been that big of a setback. In fact, even if it did. They’re breeding like rabbits now.

I guess inbreeding could be a concern, but the point at which you can whip up humawolves on a whim is the point at which you stop worrying about a few recessives. In fact if they’re worried about depopulation they could just clone more kids.

And if things are that bad the capital should be encouraging births because you can’t rule if there’s no one to rule, as well as gene flow between districts to keep genetic diversity.

Also how does Peeta even know about this? History is obviously not a big thing in Panem.

Music plays them out, and then there’s a woman reading a list of expected shortages in the Capitol—fresh fruit, solar batteries, soap.

…and this makes even less sense. You don’t give your enemies a list of how good a job they’re doing.

his undeniable complicity with the Capitol now that he’s called for a cease-fire
…
Behind me, I can hear the accusations against Peeta building. The words traitor, liar, and enemy bounce off the walls.

Well. That’s a bit unreasonable.

I mean, he’s a prisoner. You can have moral feelings about how he shouldn’t go along with them, but anything he says at this point is obviously under duress.

Katniss decides she can’t deal and it’s time to leave. Coin says she’s not dismissed, but when someone touches her arm she bolts. She’s referred to “soldier” during this, which, given Katniss doesn’t seem to have decided if she’ll help yet, suggests that 13 has a mandatory draft system, where everyone’s in their army, instead of the voluntary-but-encouraged thing I was assuming. Of course, it could just be Katniss did agree to join and she’s just being a brat about actually doing anything.

Gale meets up with her later with a bloody nose. Turns out he blocked the door so no one could follow her.

He’s lucky he just has a bloody nose. I mean, I can see why it’d be good to let Katniss get out of the room and have some time to think, but there’s just this constant disregard for how the place works, or society in general. Things shouldn’t have escalated to physically getting in their way in the first place. Places should run on agreement, not force, because the fact one person is physically capable of stopping another is not a valid method of making decisions.

“Who are these people?” I say.

“They’re us. If we’d had nukes instead of a few lumps of coal,” he answers.

“I like to think Twelve wouldn’t have abandoned the rest of the rebels back in the Dark Days,” I say

Oh bull fucking shit, 12 abandoned the rebels this time around. While all the other districts tried to fight back and paid with their lives, the people of 12 didn’t because it’d be too dangerous if they did it. People who know how to sew shirts are so much better suited to fighting peacekeepers, after all. And let’s not forget Katniss herself, who has repeatedly tried to abandon everyone else to save either her family or her notboyfriend. By comparison, abandoning everyone else over to save a whole district is downright moral.

Gale does not point this out, but instead just says it’s really impressive they’re alive and all. This, and not the fact 12 was willing to abandon people this time around and Katniss damn well knows it, is what convinces her to stop hating quite so much on 13. Somehow thinking about the fact they managed to survive ends up on the fact 13 is going after the capital now in a display of terrible paragraph organization, but at least that makes her approval marginally more sensical. Forgiving them for the past because they’re going to blow up your enemies now works.

Gale is less approving of Peeta’s actions.

Most of the rebels will dismiss what he said immediately, of course. But there are districts where the resistance is shakier. The cease-fire’s clearly President Snow’s idea. But it seems so reasonable coming out of Peeta’s mouth.

No, it really doesn’t.

These people are fighting an enemy with every advantage, who already crushed them brutally once within living memory and has been firebombing the current uprisings, who spend most of a century killing their children for sport. They are not thinking about the survival of the human race, because they’re not even thinking of their own survival.

This is why brutal overreactions are not actually a good way to run a government. You push people enough and they’ll snap.

Katniss wonders why Peeta said it at all. Gale brings up the obvious possibility of torture, duh, but he says it’s probably Peeta trying to protect Katniss.

 He’d put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there’s still a chance of leniency for you.

And while indeed it’s in character for Peeta to be willing to get everyone else killed for her, it doesn’t make sense here.

Katniss will not be left living. It doesn’t matter what deals he makes and promises he gets. She has caused too many people too much trouble. The only way Katniss would be left alive is if Snow prefers to keep his enemies imprisoned and miserable instead of just plain dead.

Also, he’s not speaking to Snow when he talks, he’s speaking to her and perhaps the rebels in general. You don’t let the captured rebel try to convince your own people, and you don’t let him give his side of events in public unless you approve of it.

She, though, finds this plausible, but in a rare show of morality, realizes she doesn’t want to get to be left alive if it means being alive to watch the Hunger Games for the rest of her life. I was hoping for this to be followed by a revelation that this is how the rest of the rebels feel, which is why saying she won’t help because she doesn’t want to risk getting more people killed is wrong, but no such luck.

She knocks over a bunch of pencils with her sudden emotions and tries to shovel them back into the box in a rush.

The stupid sticks won’t go in the box and I snap several in my frustration.

Crumpling paper: portrait of fat excess.
Destroying a box of pencils: fine.

It’s almost impressive the many ways Katniss finds to be hypocritical.

Still, though, Katniss had made her decision. She’ll be the Mockingjay, with the Capital Letter and everything.

As dramatic ending lines go, it’s not much of one. No one was really entertaining the idea she wouldn’t.