Last time on Mockingjay, everyone agreed Katniss is really awesome and they all lied to cover up how she ran off and did her own thing. Then Haymitch threatened her with involuntary surgery and Peeta gave another interview.

Cressida asks me to record a few lines for a new Mockingjay propo.

So as long as it’s by good!Director, staged lines work fine. I’m just going to be glad that at least the good!Director now being pitted against bad!Director is another woman.

No one mentions Peeta all day, even Gale. Katniss gets more and more paranoid about why.

Poor Finnick, as if he doesn’t have enough problems of his own, is forced to reassure her that, hey, maybe Gale is trying to find a good time or private location. Hey, Katniss, how about you stop being a spineless lump and just fucking ask Gale?

replaying Peeta’s words in my head. “Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you’re working with? Do you really know what’s going on? And if you don’t…find out.” Find out. What? From who? And how can Peeta know anything except what the Capitol tells him? It’s just a Capitol propo. More noise. But if Plutarch thinks it’s just the Capitol line, why didn’t he tell me about it? Why hasn’t anyone let me or Finnick know?

Why would they want to?

First, this is your precious notboyfriend here who you were willing to murder twenty two other people and yourself for. They’re probably not tripping over each other in their rush to tell you he’s getting tortured.

Second, this is your precious notboyfriend here who you were willing to murder twenty two other people and yourself for. You are not rational about anything related to him. Even now you’re speculating on if Peeta is right despite the fact he’s obviously forced to say whatever the capital wants.

Proving my very point, she goes on to worry about Peeta.

Clearly, Snow did not buy the story that Peeta and I knew nothing about the rebellion.

Katniss did you seriously think that was the point.

There are two, and only two, reasons for Peeta to say that:

1) Discrediting the rebellion by saying you don’t actually support their cause.
2) Making it politically viable for Snow to leave you alive.

There is no 3) Actually convince Snow that you just shot the forcefield out because you were so confused.

And his suspicions have been reinforced, now that I have come out as the Mockingjay.

This is why I keep rejecting the idea Katniss is at all meant to be an unreliable narrator. No, the books are just that badly written. This is obviously supposed to be Katniss explaining what’s going on. This is not how you write a recap when the recapper is supposed to be distorting events. The author honestly thought that Snow, dictator of, apparently, the entire human race, was merely “suspicious” about the whole obviously-working-with-the-rebellion thing right up to the point she waves at the camera and says she shot down his planes, and then it’s just reinforcing his suspicions rather than proving them.

Peeta can only guess about the rebel tactics or make up things to tell his torturers. Lies, once discovered, would be severely punished.

And that’s why they have no motivation to torture him.

Whether or not Peeta was part of the rebellion originally doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t know much of their post-games plans, both because he was busy with the games and because they’d know he might end in capital hands. And whatever little he might know they’d assume he’d tell the capital and take precautions about. The most info they could get out of him was what plans the rebels are no longer going to try, and that can’t even be verified because he might just be making it up.

Like, say he says the rebels intended to put a bomb on a supply train. Well, if it’s true they’ll know Peeta knew so they’ll switch targets because the capital will beef up anti-bomb security when they find out. All that tells the capital is that the amount of security on the trains currently is an amount the rebels think they can handle, but who knows what other place with that security level is the new target? They have limited resources or else all places would already be perfectly secured and staffed, so pumping up the defenses on the supply train is putting it where it’s likely to be least useful.

They can’t even lower security in response and try to spread it out to the other places because that might get the rebels to switch targets back, and besides, they don’t know for sure there really was a bomb plan in the first place. Peeta could just make it all up because obviously any plan he knew is one that’s not going to come to pass now, so when it doesn’t happen, well, that’s what he said, isn’t it? It could even be that there was one and Peeta didn’t know about it, in which case lowering security just made things even worse.

In conclusion, torturing someone who wouldn’t know much information and who the rebel side knows you’re going to torture for information is kind of a colossal waste of time.

Katniss and Gale meet for breakfast and he’s got his wrist communicator thing again, so Katniss gets really snippy because no one ever offered her one. I want to say she’s being tsundere, but that’s not really it. She wants everyone to keep including her and she wants to keep being able to completely reject them when they do it, and the fact she’s making it clear she wants them to fuck off and die doesn’t mean they’re allowed to stop trying to include her.

This is really a protagonist-centered view problem. The author thinks she’s obviously justified to act this way, and doesn’t allow anyone else to hold their own views or react.

It’s sort of like why it’s bad when you can tell if someone’s good or evil by if they like the protagonist, or put more accurately, by how people like or dislike the protagonist based on if they’re good or bad. The characters aren’t allowed their own thoughts or reasons. It doesn’t matter if they have every reason to like/hate her based on what they know. People aren’t allowed opinions of their own.

Katniss is the designated hero regardless of actual behavior. That qualifier is not simply a way to say she’s not behaving heroically. It’s that it flat out doesn’t matter. People are expected to treat her as Hero, instead of reacting to her individual actions. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of Boggs, who gets his nose kicked in but is fine with it.

Our eyes lock, and I realize how furious I am with Gale. That I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t see Peeta’s propo. That I feel completely betrayed that he didn’t tell me about it. We know each other too well for him not to read my mood and guess what has caused it.

Also, Katniss, stop doing the whole thing where you refuse to say what’s wrong.

Gale, rightly, says just that.

“Why didn’t you , Gale? And I did, by the way, when I asked you last night about what had been going on!”

So, it’s okay for Katniss to completely lie about not knowing, but wrong for Gale to not bring it up.

“I’m sorry. All right? I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to tell you, but everyone was afraid that seeing Peeta’s propo would make you sick,” he says.

“They were right. It did. But not quite as sick as you lying to me for Coin.” At that moment, his communicuff starts beeping. “There she is. Better run. You have things to tell her.”

Katniss is pretty awful.

For a moment, real hurt registers on his face. Then cold anger replaces it

Is Gale going to die? He’s just setting off all sorts of doomed flags. Wrong corner of the love triangle, not agreeing with her, and now daring to support that evil bitch Coin who doesn’t like giving Katniss the moon every time she asks.

Katniss considers that maybe this was mean, but quickly works up how justified she was and how it’s all their fault.

I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good. Lie to Katniss about the rebellion so she doesn’t do anything crazy. Send her into the arena without a clue so we can fish her out. Don’t tell her about Peeta’s propo because it might make her sick, and it’s hard enough to get a decent performance out of her as it is.

Yes, they personally sent you into the arena, and how dare they not want to deal with another month of temper tantrums from you.

Katniss isn’t really making a point about altruism vs selfishness here. It’s more Katniss vs other people. Things that aren’t done for her are bad. She never bothers with worrying about if she’s doing things for self-serving reasons.

Speaking of which, we find Katniss isn’t ditching work because today, work is showing up to get fussed over and filmed.

Because this is good!Director, they’re going to do unscripted interviews set in 12 because Katniss is just so awesome that saying the first thing to come into her head is better than reading any script.

my prep team dresses me, does my hair, and dabs makeup on my face. Not enough to show, only enough to take the edge off the circles under my sleepless eyes.

It’s not enough to show, it’s just enough to cause a visible difference in her appearance.

Plutarch’s brimming with satisfaction as he shows me the before/after effects of the first couple of propos. The rebels, who were barely maintaining a foothold in several districts, have rallied. They have actually taken 3 and 11—the latter so crucial since it’s Panem’s main food supplier—and have made inroads in several other districts as well.

I hate these books so fucking much, I really do.

Haymitch isn’t coming on their day trip because he’s not into charred corpses of people he used to know. Katniss is bitchy about this. The book seems to get that she’s being bitchy about this, but after the insects thing I don’t even trust that. She’s just not going to deal with any repercussions. At most, she’ll realize she should stop acting this way and then stop.

Anyway, Katniss has suddenly discovered fuck-giving and the sight of the place she was trotting around just a few days ago is suddenly traumatic.

They film for a bit, then break for lunch at the lake. Katniss shows the tongueless guy mockingjays.

Pollux whistles a few notes of his own. The bird answers him immediately. Pollux’s face breaks into an expression of delight and he has a series of melodic exchanges with the mockingjay. My guess is it’s the first conversation he’s had in years.

This is sweet but just raises a problem.

His hands still work fine and we know people are literate. In fact, next he scratches in the dirt that he wants her to sing to them. So why doesn’t he just carry a notepad and communicate by writing?

Katniss sings Rue’s song, then is all traumatized by that because today is Suddenly Katniss Feels Emotions day, so she decides to sing another song so the mockingjays will stop repeating Rue’s one.

Last time people wanted Katniss’ song, so here you go:

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

We’re reminded Katniss has a super awesome singing voice because that is so necessary, and also apparently she only heard this song once ten years ago but remembers every word. See, her dad was singing it when they were little kids and Katniss was all YAY ROPE NECKLACES and making them for her and her sister, and her mom showed up to be rightfully horrified.

my mother snatched the rope necklaces away and was yelling at my father. I started to cry because my mother never yelled

I really hate this kind of thing. It’s always like this in descriptions of parents.

People yell, okay? And sometimes that’s upsetting and if you’re a little kid you might end up crying. It’s not the mark of a good mother to be a soft-spoken doormat.

Katniss gives us a blunt litcrit analysis that I guess is the author telling us what to think. See, first the guy says to run, but then it seems what he really means was to run to him so they could die together, and she used to think that was incredibly creepy. Which is kind of funny considering how creepy Katniss’ relationships are…

Now, with a couple of trips to the Hunger Games under my belt, I decide not to judge him without knowing more details.

Wait no apparently that’s intentional.

Wow.

That is all kinds of awful.

Anyway, Katniss thinks that she can sort of see why her mom thought this was kind of a messed up song, and that she probably shouldn’t be singing it here.

Pollux has tears running down his cheeks because no doubt my freaky song has dredged up some terrible incident in his life.

Of course it turns out to be because Katniss’ song is just that incredibly awesome. This book is an ongoing lesson in how not to do humility.

Then they find their old meetup place, and Katniss thinks about how they were really only close because of mutual adversity. But that’s totally different from her romance with Peeta, which only existed during times of far worse mutual adversity.

Gale as good as lied to me. That was unacceptable, even if he was concerned about my well-being.

Of course, Katniss explicitly lied out of concern for her well-being, but that’s acceptable.

I take Cressida to the rubble of the bakery and ask her to film something. The only emotion I can muster is exhaustion. “Peeta, this is your home. None of your family has been heard of since the bombing. Twelve is gone. And you’re calling for a cease-fire?” I look across the emptiness. “There’s no one left to hear you.”

It’s that final bit that pushes it over the line.

The first bit seems honest. It sounds like she’s replying to him, and she’s making a good point.

The second is staged. It’s cheap.

There are plenty of people left to hear him. Not everything is about people you know personally. But more, it’s just so forced. It belongs in a soap opera. The book goes on and on about how wrong it is for something to be fake, and just as often, does just that.

Katniss goes back to her house yet again to get something for her mom. Why couldn’t she have just done this the first time when she was collecting items?

…oh. Because Gale has to follow her in so he can talk about The Kiss. How needed.

He starts getting upset and comparing himself to the guy in that song, Still waiting for an answer.. Uh, the corpse was doing a bit more than that. Also, he’s got tears in his eyes, so it’s makeout time.

Gale says he knew she’d do that. “Because I’m in pain,” he says. “That’s the only way I get your attention.”

Once again, this applies even better to her other notboyfriend.

That said, I will say that at least Katniss manages to keep kissing him without getting shamed over it, but it doesn’t mean much when the book happily excuses anything else she does that the other characters would get kicked around for.

On the flight back, Plutarch decides to talk about weapons that don’t exist any longer.

High-flying planes, military satellites, cell disintegrators, drones, biological weapons with expiration dates.

…what?

Brought down by the destruction of the atmosphere or lack of resources or moral squeamishness.

Okay, seriously, what?

First off, destruction of the atmosphere doesn’t work like that.

You could ruin the ozone layer or something, but if you’ve removed the literal air, and how the fuck would you even, then I’m pretty sure life just isn’t there any longer. I mean, the most basic result this would have is air pressure, lack thereof. Atmospheric pressure is in part because air is piled on top of air. Pull off the even the topmost layers and the bottom ones expand. And then you’re dead because you can’t breathe. Human lungs are not especially efficient, we actually have a pretty small livable range.

If this is supposed to explain why the hovercraft are within bow range, no. Lack of atmosphere is a factor in how high planes can fly, but, and this should be really obvious, planes can fly at atmosphere pressures humans can’t breathe in.

That’s why commercial flights are sealed and come with oxygen masks for emergencies. You will pass out and die otherwise.

Military satellites might be a resource issue, but they’re not that hard to get up. We know that the capital is capable of holding a giant screen in midair above the games, and they generally have a generally high level of technology, so launching a satellite shouldn’t be hard. They could probably do it easier than we could, in fact, as the forcefield technology is obviously capable of propelling something at high speed.

I don’t know what a cell disintegrator is, but it doesn’t sound all that hard. An awful lot of things destroy cells. Microwave radiation, for example. Even regular sunlight.

Drones are not a specific technology. They’re just a machine that’s controlled by someone not in it. We know they have machines and they have wireless capability. This is like saying you have guns but can’t make grenades.

Biological weapons with expiration dates? I can’t see that having anything to do with the atmosphere, it’s certainly not a resource issue because the capital is making biological weapons left and right, and I fail to see how moral squeamishness means they would prefer their biological weapons to be without expiration dates.

Also, I fail to see how moral squeamishness is even a thing given they’re okay with childmurder, torture wasps and humawolves.

And don’t think I missed the lack of chemical weaponry, book! Chemical weapons are highly effective and easily manufactured. If they aren’t in play, you need a very good reason why.

You can hear the regret of a Head Gamemaker who can only dream of such toys, who must make do with hovercraft and land-to-land missiles and plain old guns.

I refuse to believe the gamemakers were “making do” with anything. If he’s regretting the lack of the same resources as the capital had, fine, but we’re told these are things neither side has.

After breakfast, I ignore my schedule and take a nap in the supply closet.

Why?

I mean, really, what’s the author going for her? That she’s badass by defying them?

Anyway, they all meet up to watch television.

Beetee thinks he’s found a way to break into the feed nationwide,” says Finnick. “So that our propos will air in the Capitol, too.

I am pretty sure nothing that is said here makes any sense.

Anyway, so they turn it on and there’s Peeta. He doesn’t look good.

But it’s the look in his eyes—angry yet unfocused—that frightens me the most.

So he’s crazy now? Wonderful, the book has handled this topic so well in the past.

He starts listing off all the infrastructure damage that may or may not really have been caused by the rebels. Then they cut in with Katniss hanging out in the burned bakery.

Peeta’s back, distracted. He has seen me on the monitor. He tries to pick up his speech by moving on to the bombing of a water purification plant

So this is apparently a live feed? They don’t even do a live feed of the Hunger Games, but an interview with a guy who may be part of the rebellion is shown live?

Peeta’s face contorts in effort. “Katniss…how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one is safe. Not in the Capitol. Not in the districts. And you…in Thirteen…” He inhales sharply, as if fighting for air; his eyes look insane. “Dead by morning!”

This actually sounds really cool in a disaster sort of way. It’s like something you hear when the zombie hordes are approaching. But of course it’s not really that kind of thing at all. Part of the power of this kind of thing is when you’re not sure what might happen beyond that it must be worse than you thought, but here we have a relatively good idea of what abilities each side has to kill the other already.

It is interesting if Peeta was trying to warn her there. It also mentions his foot is tapping, which makes me think of code, but I don’t think he knows any.

Off camera, Snow orders, “End it!” Beetee throws the whole thing into chaos by flashing a still shot of me standing in front of the hospital at three-second intervals. But between the images, we are privy to the real-life action being played out on the set. Peeta’s attempt to continue speaking. The camera knocked down to record the white tiled floor. The scuffle of boots. The impact of the blow that’s inseparable from Peeta’s cry of pain.

This doesn’t make sense. If Snow wants the feed cut and for everyone not to see this, then why help him out trying to block the feed with Katniss’ face?

Our dramatic ending line is about blood on the tiles. Again, it all sounds cool in itself, but less cool in context.

This brings us to the end of the first section, THE ASHES. I wonder how much of it will matter? So much of last book’s first section didn’t. Next section will be THE ASSAULT which sounds promising.