Hello everyone!
LOL.
I'm actually pretty pleased with myself about this given the fact that I would normally take much longer breaks between reading a series, and this one I practically breezed through for some reason.
I must have really enjoyed reading about this weird ass future then!
But they're all here now, all three books, and all four movies, and nothing has ever felt as good as finishing something up like this.
Besides, it's taken us long enough, given everything, considering it would be three weeks to get it all done and all written up. Now that it's over and done with I can figure out my next book to read that maybe ISN'T all about gladiator-style games while I'm at it.
Before any of that, however, it's time to head back to Panem one last time.
Mockingjay has arrived, people, and she's ready to fly.
So after outsmarting the Capitol and ending up in the Hunger Games arena a second time around, Katniss decided to blow that second arena up, which worked right into the rebel plans as they airlifted her out of there, though the consequences for District 12 were severe - aka, there is no more 12 after President Snow bombed it.
But she's safely ensconced in District 13, which contrary to popular belief DIDN'T get bombed out of existence all those years ago, but reached a truce with the Capitol: they'll pretend they're dead and won't unleash their nuclear arsenal, which in combination of what the Capitol had left, would have destroyed the remainder of the planet.
So here they all are now, and Katniss takes to wandering about while trying to make sense of the post-explosion world, and come to terms with the fact that Peeta has been taken back to the Capitol instead of rescued.
For a while she can sort of just drift about, but then her sister Prim points out that, as the Mockingjay and the de facto face of the rebellion, she has a bit of say around here and should be able to ask for just about anything.
Which she does. She asks for immunity for the other victors that have been taken captive by the Capitol, and the chance to kill Snow herself, though for some reason everyone and their mother in 13 is like NO THOSE VICTORS ARE TRAITORSSSSSSSS.
Uhm, excuse me. You people do realize who has them captive, correct? So why would you think that ANYTHING coming out of their mouths is their own concoction, and not a desperate game to save their own skin from President Snow? For supposedly smart people, Coin (the leader of 13) really, really bugs me about this detail to be honest.
Especially after prompts start appearing on television with Peeta, in which he's trying to both protect Katniss AND call for a cease-fire.
How does anyone believe he's doing that on his own, and not because he's being threatened? How does that make him a traitor???
BUT ANYWAY.
Katniss, deciding she'll become the Mockingjay - which is basically just the same thing as before, getting ready by a team and whatnot to go film some stuff - finds out 13 can be just as cruel as the Capitol when she and Gale find her old prep team chained naked to a wall in a cell for stealing a slice of bread.
Shaken by this revelation - and the fact that Gale doesn't see the inhabitants of the Capitol as human, merely as some sort of filling for the Capitol that needs to be destroyed - she's having a hard time delivering in front of a green screen.
Haymitch has a crash-course of 'when did we all actually like Katniss' - and turns out it's all when she's making her own choices, doing things from the heart, not reading off scripted cards.
So off they go into District 8, ostensibly to visit a hospital (which they do), and ending up under attack from the Capitol (which they didn't plan, but apparently there had to be a reason that Katniss and Gale were carrying around their super fancy bows, so now they can shoot at hovercrafts with bows ... the mental imagery makes no sense, I know).
Not only that, but Peeta manages to get a warning out to 13 on air that they're about to be bombed, which allows everyone to save themselves - but also allows Katniss (with Finnick's help) to figure out just what Snow's doing to Peeta.
Translation: for everything Katniss does or says that doesn't align with Snow's agenda, Peeta gets hurt.
This effectively pushes her over the edge, and so the brass decides they'll get Peeta out, so their Mockingjay can function (like they couldn't have done this before ... ?).
But their troubles are only just beginning, because not only do they rescue Peeta and the others (Finnick and his love's Annie's reunion is one for the ages), they realize Peeta has been tortured with venom, his memories warped, and he's basically been programmed to kill Katniss.
So now Katniss huffs and tries to forget he exists - something she gets called out for later when Haymitch tosses into her face Peeta would NEVER have done the same thing to her - and tries to go about her days, hunting aboveground, shooting those promos, the likes, and the brass plans to take the offensive to District 2, the only one left that's allied with the Capitol.
Naturally, Katniss weasels into the mission, once again seeing just how much Gale doesn't see the loyalists as anything more that cannon fodder, while she's horrified they mean to seal off the mountain inside which is the military arsenal - along with the people handling it.
Really, that's the whole contention point between the two in the entire book, if we're being honest: Gale raving how the Capitol needs to be razed to the ground (the people in it don't even deserve anything as simple as a chance at life) and any loyalist must die (so what if they were coerced? They're still fighting for Snow, that makes them guilty, who cares their families may be in danger!), while Katniss is horrified that any miner would want to trap other people in what's essentially underground, and that people should be given the benefit of the doubt.
Of course this often gets her back into the hospital, wounded, but that's beside the point since she's done some pretty amazing things up until now (tried to say hi to Peeta and nearly got strangled, tried to save a loyalist and got shot by one of the rebels instead, saved Buttercup, the family cat and brought him back to Prim, etc.).
And as they celebrate Finnick and Annie's wedding - and Peeta is released into the general populace, shackled and guarded, though these come off once he's done decorating Annie's cake - there's something else in the air besides elation the war is almost over.
They're marching on the Capitol.
And Katniss needs to train if she wants to tag along.
So train she does, with Johanna Mason, another tribute rescued from Snow's clutches, and the pair of them actually push themselves to get to the point they want, which is onto the infiltration teams, except the one Katniss is assigned to will ... not really be fighting, but shooting promos in the Capitol, as per usual.
Katniss and Finnick are both annoyed with this, but they also notice just how the Capitol's been designed, something the others haven't: it's another Hunger Games arena, so they're basically their most valuable assets.
Despite the fact that nobody wants them to actually fight, but as the saying goes, life happens when you're making other plans; not only does Coin drop Peeta off into the group (which, considering they don't know if he's cured or not, is a MASSIVE liability, and everybody's pissed), their plan gets completely derailed when the Capitol strikes back, and their team members start dying when everything turns into another battle for survival (also note: no, Peeta is NOT cured as at one point he actually tries to kill Katniss again).
Escaping underground, the gang is followed by muttations specifically made to target Katniss, and at this point we lose Finnick, something I'm still grieving to this day, but the others (what's left of them) manage to find refuge in a retired stylist's shop until they can move on to try and take out Snow.
Oh yeah, didn't I mention? After the death of their squad leader, Katniss sort of makes up this mission from Coin that nobody believes, but everyone believes in Katniss enough to tag along with her, so now they're practically almost there. Separated, to try and cover more ground, Katniss arrives alone and sees the box of children that has been set up like a last resort sort of defense before the President's mansion, and sees Gale's trap unfurl.
See, Gale has been designing traps all book long, focused on causing the maximum amount of death, carnage and damage, and the one thing he was always adamant about was using instincts against people.
So for example, if you bomb an area, medics are going to rush in ... it's their instinct.
Then you bomb the area again for good measure.
This is exactly what happens, only with one difference: Prim is also on scene, and Katniss watches her die.
Whatever affection she may have ever felt for Gale will now forever be tainted by this, even though he wasn't the one who sent her in of course, but even he recognizes that the one thing he always had going for him was taking care of Katniss's family when she couldn't, and now he's effectively killed one of them even if he didn't pull the trigger.
Besides, even Katniss is starting to admit they're NOT actually that compatible, given they're too alike, and his thirst for blood, his inner fire, might be even worse than hers, because from her experiences (and PTSD from them) she's learned not everything is black and white. The shades of grey are too many to count.
Especially when she runs into Snow in his sanctuary/prison, and he explains he was actually going to surrender right before the bombing ... so he wasn't the one who sent the bombs to begin with.
Katniss eventually puts two and two together, and even though she SEEMS to agree with Coin that they should hold one last Hunger Games with the Capitol children as retaliation (something Haymitch agrees with her about, but it's obvious he knows her and knows she's up to something), she takes her position to publicly execute Snow in that square the next day - and shoots Coin instead.
This prompts confusion and complete chaos, during which Snow himself dies, but Katniss and Haymitch are whisked back to District 12 after her tribunal's over, and Plutarch is actually incredibly pleased how it all turned out.
Oh and nobody's really going to miss Coin, so Katniss did them all a favour but they can't publicly admit it. Since Coin's the one to blame for Prim, and for trying to get Katniss killed anyway, that's that, and Katniss can start trying to put her life back together in 12. That's not even much of a life (sitting in front of a fire and eating two meals a day doesn't count) until Peeta arrives from the Capitol, too, and some sort of rhythm establishes itself again.
You might also be wondering, but what about Katniss's mother? Well, after her younger daughter's death she decides that her older daughter isn't enticement enough to go back and try and be a family, so she abandons her to set up hospitals and teach people in District 4. Gale gets a fancy job in District 2, but other survivors of 12 slowly start trickling back, because this is home.
Meanwhile, Katniss and Peeta slowly start rebuilding their relationship (playing the 'Real or Not' game which helps Peeta figure out what's what), and eventually rekindle the embers that have been flaring up since their very first Games.
Years later, with their two children playing in the Meadow that is actually a mass graveyard for those who died during the rebellion, Katniss reflects on all that's happened, how she's never going to be fully healed, how her PTSD still causes her to have terrible days some days, but Peeta's sunlight and his innate goodness have helped her at least find a modicum of peace in this new world of theirs, with the arenas destroyed and memorials erected.
And while her children play, she thinks that she, too, plays a game almost every day: the game of naming things she's thankful for when things get tough, things that are good and kind and make her happy.
Because eventually, both her children will have to learn about the role their parents played in the liberation efforts, the past - they have that book of memories where they note and draw things down, like the fact Annie had a baby after the war, a last memory of Finnick - but she also notes that it's okay.
After all, there are much worse games to play.
And with that, the trilogy comes to an end. It's not the best that's ever been written, but it's sufficiently gruesome and shocking that it gathered an audience of millions around the globe. Katniss is actually never a LIKEABLE character, but others around her make her that way, particularly Peeta. The fact that Coin was turning out to be just like Snow, that 13 was waiting for the other districts to exhaust themselves before stepping in, was just the icing on the cake really. Those Hunger Games cinched it for Katniss: she wanted someone who would ACTUALLY want a better world.
Turns out the one hastily elected afterwards is a former victor so she'd know exactly how to feel about any more Games.
It IS a good book about dealing with PTSD, however, because I remember at the time it was the first to actually address how Katniss (and the other victors or tributes) just aren't exactly right anymore after going into those death arenas. And how it'll stay with them forever no matter what they do, but also how their views on the world, the people, and the decisions made change over the course of time. Because like it or not, they have a vastly different experience from everybody else, especially with the people in the Capitol, and so them championing not to kill everyone is very understandable.
Of course that means it's also understandable why Gale, as someone without that direct experience, would want everyone in the Capitol dead, but I've finally managed to nail down just what it is I don't like about him: it's not his possessiveness over Katniss (he and Peeta actually talk about their relationships and decide it's Katniss's problem post-war), not that it's winning him brownie points, but it's his willingness to be like the Capitol government in retaliation that's disgusting. By applying their own measures, he becomes more like them, the very people they're trying to fight.
And given his only lacking experiences are the Game arenas themselves, that's disturbing, since he's always been like that and always been presented as that kind of character.
Well, anyway, he's off the stage as soon as Prim dies, and we get to see Effie for one last time before Katniss heads out to finish everything. And I have to say I'm suitably impressed with Katniss when she recognizes who ACTUALLY needs to die, so I'm happy she gets a sort of happily ever after with Peeta.
Everyone deserves some measure of peace, after all. And while the writing in these books may not be award-winning, it's still evocative enough to make you think, and wonder.
And hope to HEAVEN that nothing like this ever happens in any actual future.
xx
*image not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment