Last time on the Hunger Games, Katniss demands the moon before she’s willing to help others and my least favorite characters showed up.

The stink of unwashed bodies, stale urine, and infection breaks through the cloud of antiseptic. 

Whoa wait, infection?

Last chapter they were described as beaten. Now, they’re not only hurt to the point of infection, but to the point the smell of pus and rotting flesh can be made out over all the rest? That’s quite likely fatal. We don’t even know if District 13 has the same level of magitech as the capital, and the capital couldn’t even save Peeta’s leg from a few hours in a tourniquet.

They shrink away from her as if they’re expecting her to attack them.

For answers, I cross to Venia, who was always the strongest.

…uh, okay.

They really have no characterization, so I don’t know what the book’s talking about here. The only thing I recall is the whole crying over Katniss thing, and I think it was the guy who made it the longest without breaking down?

She takes Venia’s hands, which are icy. I’d expect feverish given the whole infection thing.

We find out they were kidnapped.

“We thought it might be comforting for you to have your regular team,” Plutarch says behind me.

Asshole, why are you discussing this and not trying to get them unchained?

Anyway.

I suppose familiarity is a virtue, but Katniss wouldn’t want the team just because she knows them. On her best days she could barely tolerate them, and that was by completely tuning them out. To her, they were annoying animals who were sadly necessary as part of primping her for the pretty outfits. It’s obvious she’d prefer a non-capital team because every other word out of their mouth enraged her, rather like every other word of this book does me.

Which brings us to the meta here.

The team is here because the author decided they would be. Does she think we the reader want them, or does she want them? Which are these reoccurring familiar characters for? I wonder if it’s both – that she’s in love with these characters for some reason, so she thinks we do. The book characterizes them as idiots, of course, but at the same time it’s weirdly fond of them for being idiots – it dehumanizes them but uses that as an excuse for why they aren’t morally responsible for anything.

We’re told this was Cinna’s idea. This works on the most superficial level – Cinna made the decision but then wasn’t there to carry it out and see something like this didn’t happen. But Cinna knew Katniss didn’t like them, so he wouldn’t think it was incredibly important to do this. More importantly, unlike Katniss Cinna was presumably friends with them, yet he has them kidnapped from their beds on the off-chance it makes Katniss a bit more at home?

I see Cinna continues to have sociopathic disregard for the comfort of others. This is clearly not how I’m supposed to see him, but it is admittedly a consistent characterization, so it’s hard to say quite how much I should complain.

Katniss, ever a step or ten behind the narrative, doesn’t get it.

“Cinna requested this?” I snarl at him. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Cinna would never have approved the abuse of these three, who he managed with gentleness and patience.

Yes, but he’s dead. As I just said, it’s obvious how the book had things go – the rebels carry out Cinna’s plan, but he’s dead and not there to take charge of the kidnapped prep team.

Next, ugh. The book continues to treat them like they’re animals. Not even the bright, well trained kind but the sort that need constant supervision and an understanding owner who realizes you can’t expect much out of them.

She demands to know why they’re being treated as criminals. Seriously Katniss? You think chained half naked after being beaten and left to die of infection is how criminals are treated? The capital peacekeepers treat people better than this. At least they let them go after beating them.

Anyway. Turns out Plutarch had no idea about this, which does resolve my complaint last chapter. I was assuming Katniss was meant to discover they were chained up. Turns out, Plutarch knew they were here but had no idea of the situation, which is why he was going on about a surprise. He thought they were fine.

Well, sort of.

 “I was only told they were being confined.

And this didn’t raise a single flag to you? You didn’t bother seeing them at any time, these people you stole from their homes and families because you thought they might make Katniss just a bit more at home herself?

He wants to know why they’re being punished. So he, too, thinks that this is an appropriate way to deal with criminals and not the sort of thing that gets you UN resolutions.

“For stealing food. We had to restrain them after an altercation over some bread,” says the guard.

Okay, see, I can see this fine. People from the capital wouldn’t know that was a problem and I get the impression 13 isn’t so much strict as rigid – their culture is completely different and they don’t get outsiders wouldn’t know their standards. (That’s slightly odd considering they must be getting escapees, but those are probably a very small amount of their population, not enough to challenge the overall culture. It doesn’t seem they’ve made any real effort to get immigrants before this point, so only those who made it all the way by chance would be there.)

But how exactly did they have opportunity to steal food? It seems it’s doled out neatly at every meal. Perhaps they tried to grab food from someone else’s dish, but that doesn’t seem like something you need to “restrain” anyone over. Breaking a rule and needing to be subdued are different things, and I can’t imagine capital people are skilled enough fighters that they’d have to be beaten up before they could be dragged to this cell.

Venia’s brows come together as if she’s still trying to make sense of it. “No one would tell us anything. We were so hungry. It was just one slice she took.”

It doesn’t make sense to me either. One of them took food so all of them were punished?

“This seems extreme,” says Plutarch., still tacitly endorsing the basic concept of beating people and then chaining them up without medical treatment as their wounds go septic, but thinking it should be applied a bit more sparingly.

“There were repeated infractions leading up to that. They were warned. Still they took more bread.” The guard pauses a moment, as if puzzled by our density. “You can’t take bread.”

Then why were they allowed anywhere near bread?

Really, this isn’t hard. If they disobeyed, and then continued to, which is what repeated infractions mean, then they should have been kept away from the food and fed separately. It’s not just more humane than waiting for them to break enough rules you can chain them up, it’s more practical, because it actually deals with the problem of them taking food.

There are sores on their wrists from the chains, so Katniss yells at the guard to let them go. It seems the chains didn’t allow them to even lie down properly and their legs are badly cramped. She takes them to her mom.

My mother was welcomed into the hospital, but she’s viewed as more of a nurse than a doctor, despite her lifetime of healing.

Mind you, her lifetime of healing was not particularly impressive. We hear a great deal from Katniss about all the things she couldn’t treat, and that her most precious treatments, when the herbs failed, were basic capital-produced drugs. We have no idea of her diagnostic skills, but she mostly treated people with obvious ailments. So yes, they really have no reason to view her as a doctor.

Plutarch and Fulvia don’t say anything, so Katniss decides it’s time to stir shit.

If they had no knowledge of the mistreatment, then what do they make of this move on President Coin’s part? I decide to help them out.

I feel like it should be pointed out we don’t even know Coin knew. Assuming this is how they normally deal with things, which the behavior of the guard strongly supports, it could have been anyone who gave the order.

“I guess we’ve all been put on notice,” I say.

“What? No. What do you mean?” asks Fulvia.

“Punishing my prep team’s a warning,” I tell her. “Not just to me. But to you, too. About who’s really in control and what happens if she’s not obeyed. If you had any delusions about having power, I’d let them go now. Apparently, a Capitol pedigree is no protection here. Maybe it’s even a liability.”

In sum, everyone is a horrible person.

I can’t quite tell if Katniss is supposed to be lying here. She’s obviously trying to upset them, and I can’t decide if she’s meant to be read as speaking the truth or trying to sow dissent because she wants Coin out.

Note how everything runs on important individuals.

Katniss isn’t saying that 13 functions this way and that’s bad. She’s saying the only reason people were hurt was to send a message to a few others – and on top of that, she still sees nothing wrong with this but for the fact it’s aimed at her. She attempts to appeal to others on the same selfish grounds, assuming they’ll care only so long as they perceive it as aimed at them too.

Next, she’s saying it’s bad because they’re not getting special treatment. Her entire point is the fact the person in charge of the government is not subordinate to them. They do not have the power to disobey the government on a whim.

Finally, Katniss is saying laws don’t exist. No one is upholding or breaking laws. If Coin does something, it’s at a personal whim, and if they go against it, it’s the same. There’s no consistency to treatment, each is a personal matter.

“There is no comparison between Plutarch, who masterminded the rebel breakout, and those three beauticians,” says Fulvia icily.

And Fulvia agrees with all of this save Katniss’ claim that they’re at risk. That things run on spite and whim rather than rules is apparently meant to go without saying. The conversation is about if they’re part of the protected group who avoids these horrors or if, terribly unfairly, they’re not given special exemption.

I shrug. “If you say so, Fulvia. But what would happen if you got on Coin’s bad side? My prep team was kidnapped. They can at least hope to one day return to the Capitol. Gale and I can live in the woods. But you? Where would you two run?”

It’s obvious from her phrasing she’s trying to bait them here, which is why I can’t tell if we’re supposed to treat it as true or not.

Katniss’ motivations here are murky as well. It looks like she’s considering some sort of coup, or else hoping to get the two sides to destroy each other. But the book skips over the why – Katniss just jumps right onto how this gives her opportunity to push the two of them.

She’s sowing dissent right as they gear up to defeat the capital, trying to get them to fight among themselves. Why? Has she decided 13 is worse than the capital? Because however inhumane that was, it still doesn’t touch the capital on its best behavior. Or does Katniss just hate anyone in authority that much?

At no point does Katniss raise the idea that this is wrong to do in general, not just to people she knows or as a threat toward her. She doesn’t think about what was behind all the other doors in that hallway.

Anyway, they refuse to be baited, saying they’re actually useful to the war effort.

“Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren’t,” I say. “And then we were very disposable—right, Plutarch?”

That was actually just pretty random, Katniss. Apparently they agree, because they don’t even bother responding. I mean, really, where do you begin? The tributes were a bunch of kids chosen by lottery. They were disposable from start to finish.

Then it’s time for Katniss to go hunting.

Guards open the well-oiled gates without comment. We would be hard-pressed to get past this fence on our own—thirty feet high and always buzzing with electricity, topped with razor-sharp curls of steel. 

God damn book, move on.

We already had hints that the capital and 13 aren’t that different. And this chapter’s now confirmed that. Drawing a minor parallel at this point is redundant.

And it’s dumb. They don’t need fences. Their “fence” are the doors leading to the surface. They might use a normal fence to mark boundaries and keep out animals, but there’s no need for one to imprison humans. People are only allowed above ground at set intervals, and they obviously have people constantly watching the area because they need to keep an eye out for a capital assault, as well as notice and take in any escapees from Panem. All the fence would do is pen them in if they needed to escape – it certainly wouldn’t stop attackers when those attackers are the capital.

We take off our shoes. Mine don’t fit right anyway, since in the spirit of waste-not-want-not that rules 13, I was issued a pair someone had outgrown.

As opposed to 12, where everyone bought new shoes whenever they wanted? Seriously, what the fuck is with the complaints here? It’s like Katniss has a set whining quota and it doesn’t matter how the situation changes. Back in the first book we’re told they only have a handful of clothes and they’re shared, with Prim wearing Katniss’ old ones and Katniss borrowing her mother’s dress.

Gale offers to clean the game

Ie, “be wasteful”. I hope when they get back the 13ers yell at them for throwing away perfectly good food.

Gale, being a sociopath who lacks a concept of empathy, is confused about why Katniss cares about the prep team. He thought they were sociopath buddies!

I open my eyes to see if he’s joking, but he’s frowning down at the rabbit he’s skinning. “Why shouldn’t I?”

It’s rare, but every now and then we have moments where Katniss acts like a normal human being.

Gale says because they spent the last year prettying you up for slaughter.

That is not true. It’s not even true in timeline terms, the quarter quell announcement came only three months before the games, and before that Katniss was expected to live a long and drug-addicted life. But more importantly, they were not in any way aiding that slaughter. The way he’s speaking here implies they were trying to get her killed or make her death more profitable – it’s an equivalent phrase to “fattening up for the slaughter”. But whether or not they did her hair up had no connection to the fact she was chosen. It’s not like if they hadn’t done that Katniss would have a chance of being missed and they wouldn’t call her in at all.

That they work as part of the Hunger Games is awful and suggests terrible things about them as people. But they’re not especially complicit by performing a nonvital function.

Katniss then explains her own terribleness in goodness’ clothing: I know them. They’re not evil or cruel. They’re not even smart. Hurting them, it’s like hurting children. They don’t see…I mean, they don’t know…

Blame hot-potato continues apace. These human beings are not of human intelligence. They aren’t smart enough to even understand cruelty. There’s no point in punishing them because they wouldn’t even realize what it was for.

Gale points out this is bullshit. Hurting children is what the capital does, and they damn well know it.

But they don’t view it the way we do,” I say. “They’re raised on it and—”

AND NOTHING. THIS IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT.

HUMAN EMPATHY IS INNATE. IT IS THE THING THAT MAKES YOU UPSET OTHER PEOPLE ARE HURT AND IT IS THE DEFAULT SETTING FOR YOUR BRAIN. YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE IT EXPLAINED TO YOU THAT PEOPLE BEING HURT IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD GIVE A SHIT ABOUT.

EVERYONE IS RAISED ON THE HUNGER GAMES. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT THEY EXIST AND EVERYONE SEES WHAT THEY ARE.

THAT THE PEOPLE OF THE CAPITAL DON’T CARE MEANS THE PEOPLE OF THE CAPITAL DON’T BELIEVE ANYONE ELSE IS A PERSON. THEY HAVE MADE A CHOICE TO DO THAT. IT IS NOT A CHOICE DONE IN IGNORANCE. THEY ARE NOT UNAWARE OF THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS, THEY SIMPLY DO NOT CARE. THEY DO NOT EMPATHIZE. OTHER PEOPLE ARE TOYS TO BE USED AND DESTROYED FOR ENTERTAINMENT.

YOU CANNOT SAY THEY JUST DIDN’T KNOW BETTER. PEOPLE ARE BORN KNOWING BETTER.

…

We’re told Gale has finished skinning the rabbit. You know, I was giving it the benefit of doubt a minute ago and just said cleaning the game was wasting food, because it’s possible to do so without skinning. But one should never assume the book won’t pick the worst option, so no, they’re not just throwing away food but also the furs, because it’s not like those could be used for anything.

Anyway. Gale is flabbergasted she’s really trying to defend them. It’s not a shock to anyone who’s spent the last two books in her head hearing this nonsense, though. I guess they really don’t talk much or else she’d have said something like this before.

I struggle to find a logical position. “I guess I’m defending anyone who’s treated like that for taking a slice of bread. Maybe it reminds me too much of what happened to you over a turkey!”

I think it says a lot that she’s actually struggling here. And while what she says here indeed is the right answer, it’s obviously not the real one. She doesn’t care about “anyone” treated like that, since she asks no questions if anyone else is. Also, we continue with the idea that it’s not wrong to have cells to chain people up and torture them, just wrong to do it over bread.

Still, he’s right

Yes, Katniss is already wondering where her random outburst of not being a horrible person comes from. I’m tempted to skim through the books and see how many of these she has, actually. I’m guessing I wouldn’t need both hands to count them all.

I should hate them and want to see them strung up.

…for what?

Gale is right that saying they’re not to blame is bullshit, and I’m sort of hoping that this is authorial opinion and we’re finally seeing an end of the hot potato game. But that’s for being part of the capital, the people who order the games, not for doing the makeup of doomed kids. But just as Katniss only cares about them in the first place because she knows them, it seems like the only reason she thinks she could hate them is because they were personally involved with her experience with the games.

But they’re so clueless, and they belonged to Cinna

I hate these books so incredibly much.

Then Gale continues to speak reason.

I don’t think Coin was sending you some big message by punishing them for breaking the rules here.

Yes, that makes sense.

She probably thought you’d see it as a favor.

Wait.

Wait what.

So Gale’s counter theory is not “the government of 13 enforces the rules” but “the person in charge did it under the impression you wanted to see them suffer”.

They head back. Katniss tells him the prep team cried when she was sent back in, which is interesting because she had nothing but contempt and insults for that at the time, and said what they were really upset about was that they wouldn’t get invited to the fancy parties any longer.

Then Katniss and her family go to the big assembly. Prim points out that they’re all looking bad from the pox that they were hit with, but Katniss says she has no sympathy to spare. Finnick is there too, and we’re told he’s gorgeous because that’s really what I want to hear is the first thing on her mind when she sees someone mentally ill.

He’s at least lucid enough to ask why they’re here, and she says it’s for the announcement about how the tributes should be pardoned.

“Oh. Good. Because I worry about that with Annie. That she’ll say something that could be construed as traitorous without knowing it,” says Finnick.

Oh jesus christ. Seriously? I’d like to say that since he’s obviously not all there his worrying is part of his generally psychosis, but I doubt it. So 13 is apparently the sort to respond to words with murder despite that making no sense. Despite the fact that there’d be nothing treasonous left to say once the other side’s gone.

Katniss, in another show of decency, reassures him that yes, nothing to worry there, and rushes off to Coin to tell her to add another name to the list.

“Oh, the mad girl. That’s not really necessary,” she says.

Thank you for that glimmer of sanity, Coin. Yes, it really isn’t. She’s just a random innocent person.

“We don’t make a habit of punishing anyone that frail.”

THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE FUCKING SENSE!

If you mean you don’t make a habit of punishing people who are mentally ill, which incidentally is a very good policy, then you use the term “unwell”. “Frail” means you avoid punishing people who couldn’t withstand it, also a good policy if one that begs the question of why you need to punish anyone that way. There’s no suggestion Annie is frail enough to be unable to withstand punishment.

Also, we know Finnick is worried because he’s worried Annie will say something inadvertently bad. But what does Coin have against her? Why is she saying Annie won’t be punished because of frailty and not by virtue of not having done anything wrong? Annie wasn’t even one of the people involved in the last game. I still don’t know what they have against those tributes either, but whatever it is, it doesn’t apply to her, she’s just a regular tribute. Does this mean that all of the tributes are considered collaborators with the capital by virtue of being victims of the capital? How the fuck does that make sense?

I think of the scene I walked in on this morning. Of Octavia huddled against the wall. Of how Coin and I must have vastly different definitions of frailty. But I only say, “No? Then it shouldn’t be a problem to add Annie.”

That doesn’t follow. That may be because apparently there’s some unknown definition of frail involved here that seems to have some mental component but not exactly one. I think Katniss is saying frail as in unable to stand being brutalized without finding it traumatic, but the point of brutalizing people is to do that, so it makes no sense to say it’s a punishment only done to people mentally strong enough to shrug it off.

Also, she just said Annie wasn’t even on their radar as needing any special protection. Given that the special protection here is done as a pardon, and by extension the statement they’ve committed a crime bad enough to be killed without that pardon, letting her stay off the list doesn’t seem a bad idea.

Coin calls the audience to attention and tells them I have consented to be the Mockingjay
.
What does that even mean?

I know that’s how they’re talking about it in behind the scenes terms, but the whole reason they have to use her is because she is the mockingjay. She’s supposed to be a figurehead by virtue of what she already did.

I can’t help but wonder if this ties into the Chosen One nonsense that was all over the last book. It seems to be acting like Mockingjay is an actual title, like Grant Wizard, with actual powers needed for the war.

provided the other victors—Peeta, Johanna, Enobaria, and Annie—will be granted full pardon for any damage they do to the rebel cause.

Well, at least we have a glimmer of what the crimes are. This is still quite awful, since everyone on that list is a prisoner and any statements are obviously under duress. Meanwhile,

In the rumbling of the crowd, I hear the dissent. I suppose no one doubted I would want to be the Mockingjay. So naming a price—one that spares possible enemies—angers them. I stand indifferent to the hostile looks thrown my way.

And rightly. As I’ve said each time this comes up, it’s sick she’s using the fact she’s necessary to force them to give her special treatment.

 “But in return for this unprecedented request, Soldier Everdeen has promised to devote herself to our cause. It follows that any deviance from her mission, in either motive or deed, will be viewed as a break in this agreement. The immunity would be terminated and the fate of the four victors determined by the law of District Thirteen. As would her own. Thank you.”

See, bad idea to stick Annie on there.

Of course, this is a bad idea in every direction.

The whole of this is treating the pardons as a price. It’s clear they’re not being pardoned because they deserve it but as payment to Katniss, which is about the worst way to handle this because it makes it clear the people involved are undeserving. Then, because it’s still possible to treat the pardons as a reasonable request done because she made a good point of it being deserved, the book doubles the error with the second paragraph saying it’ll be removed if she steps out of line.

If the pardons are wrong, then the fact Katniss is forcing it is terrible. If, on the other hand, the pardons are right, then rescinding them would be terrible. The setup has ensured that everyone, regardless of opinion, is pissed off at the idea and the fact this entire thing is solely a matter of political bartering and has nothing to do with justice.

And like empathy? Perceptions of justice are also one of those hardwired things.

The only way this makes sense is if Coin really, really hates what Katniss is forcing her to do here. I’m frankly sympathetic – I find the idea of punishing them at all insane, as I’ve said, but people on both sides seem to agree they’re doing something requiring an official pardon to avoid death. In that case, yes, Katniss is grossly abusing her power to get special treatment for a few people, and it’s right to try to set things up so there’s a chance to avoid fulfilling the demand.

So. In conclusion, everyone in this is a horrible person without redeeming value and I want the story to end with everyone being nuked. I bet the radioactive mutant cockroach society that follows will be an improvement.