Katniss’s reaction to Prim getting called is really well done.  You know, once the author gets done with a flashback, just in case no one understands the concept of ‘unable to breathe.’ 

Katniss’s volunteering for her sister is a nice way to introduce things, and I do like it better than having her be chosen outright.  There’s one little problem: it’s entirely reactive.  She just blurts it out, as an unthinking response to the situation.  In the last chapter, she thought there was nothing she could do if Prim got picked.  Here, BOOM, something to do drops out of the authorial aether.  Does this book think that it would somehow be less…impressive?  honorable? if Katniss had decided to volunteer ahead of time?  Does the act somehow magically be more selfless if it’s spur-of-the-moment?  Because, actually, people are more likely to run into a burning building if they see one, rather than if they’re sitting at home and hear about it on the news.  It’s pretty easy to jump to the defense of others as a knee-jerk reaction, and a lot harder to come to that conviction while you’re calm and safe.

So not only would it have been more heroic to have this option brought up in chapter one, it would have made Katniss into a more proactive character, instead of reactive one.

When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I’ll be marked as an easy target.

Because…even though Katniss assumes from minute one that she’s going to die, she still cares about being seen as weak? 

Possibly because they know me from the Hob, or knew my father, or have encountered Prim, who no one can help loving.

UUHG, book, why do you have to ruin everything?  Katniss’s act is unique because of the act itself.  Because she did a selfless thing and took her sister’s place.  This right here is turning it all around and saying that she’s being respected because people know her and like her.  As if it’s tragic that someone they know is going to die, but all those other kids before?  Psh, they were nameless seam kids, so fuck em.  It’s made clear that the non-clapping reaction is unique to Katniss, and also made clear that it’s because Katniss has friends, not because she did a surprising act.  Is this book expecting me to believe that all the kids that went before didn’t have friends and family members to love them?

At least, I don’t expect it because I don’t think of District 12 as a place that cares about me.

And this is why the above line I quoted isn’t Unreliable Narrator.  If she didn’t believe that people cared about her, then why the fuck would she believe that people are reacting like this because they care about her?  Either she’s crazy-fucked-in-the-head and can simultaneously think that she’s the center of attention and also uncared-for, or the author wanted to get out the ‘real’ reason somehow, and she twisted it into a ‘guess’ to make it fit coming from a first-person narrator. 

Haymitch plummets off the stage and knocks himself unconscious.

He’s disgusting, but I’m grateful.

He’s probably bleeding to death in his own skull, but whatever, it makes for a nice distraction.  Everyone knows head wounds aren’t serious, especially if you compound it with chronic alcohol use.

“What an exciting day!” she warbles as she attempts to straighten her wig, which has listed severely to the right.

Because why pass up an opportunity to comment on a woman’s looks, right?

enough to cover one month of grieving at which time my mother would be expected to get a job.

No, really, why was Mom not already working?  She had two small children to support, and we can surmise from the general shitiness of the situation that coal mining doesn’t pay terribly well.  So why were both parents not working?  She even has a marketable skill wither medicines!

I’d grown up seeing those home kids at school. The sadness, the marks of angry hands on their faces, the hopelessness that curled their shoulders forward.

The orphans are abused….for the lulz?  Really, why is this a thing?  I know the image of poor Oliver Twist is a terrible and familiar one, but it doesn’t make a whole heaping of sense.  It’s not like people can only care for their own children and anyone who works with not-their-own-children will just lose it and slap everyone.  And if you have a culture that cares enough about orphans to take care of them, well, then you have a culture that cares enough to take care of orphans.  Staff it with people who aren’t going to slap them.

Considering the state of the food situation, the fact that they care for them at all suggests that children are extremely important, enough to spare food for them when there is no extra. 

And why is Katniss so against going there?  Yeah, they aren’t fed much, but in this flashback, she’s almost dead from not being fed any.  “Not much” is still better than “none,” but this book assumes that letting your kid sister starve is still better than an orphanage.

Perhaps a bone at the butcher’s or rotted vegetables at the grocer’s, something no one but my family was desperate enough to eat.

“Death by starvation” is a common occurrence in your district.  Why is your family the only one desperate enough to eat perfectly good meat bones?

The baker’s wife is a shrill harpy who doesn’t even want people eating her garbage, despite the fact that she’s supposedly seen all those poor starvation victims, too.

A moment to take stock:

Katniss’s mom is useless, but her dad taught her how to hunt.

Gale supports his family, Gale’s mom can’t do shit without him.

On the reaping stage, the (male) mayor is calm and caring, while Effie is laughed at for being molested.

And now the (male) baker is a kind soul who sells them bread, but his wife is a bitch who slaps her children.

Because this book is feminist and don’t you forget it.

His mother was yelling, “Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!”

1) The starving people.  The starving people will buy your burned bread.

2) Why the fuck do you have pigs?  Pigs are farm-animals, not backyard animals.  They directly compete with humans for food.  They can’t graze, like goats and sheep.  Goats make sense, because humans can’t eat grass, so the calories in grass get converted to calories in meat.  It’s not an efficient conversion, but if you get, say, 100 calories out of eating a hunk of goat, that’s better than getting 0 calories from the grass that you can’t digest.  Pigs, on the other hand, eat people food.  And the conversion is still shitty.  So you get a 100 calories of pig-meat, but you have to feed the pig 200 calories of bread/fruit/veggies/whatever.  Just eat the whatever and stop wasting it on the pig.  The only times when pigs are efficient is when you have a lot of waste food (like on a farm) to feed them.  Then the pigs are eating something you couldn’t, and again, losing half the calories is still better than losing all the calories.

Why would he have done it? He didn’t even know me.

Because, by and large, people tend to not be complete shits to each other.  This author has missed the memo and made a world where people are complete shits to each other, and therefore stuff like this is exceptional. 

No, I’m serious.  Situations like the one being described, where everyone is in a crapy situation and on the verge of death?  That’s actually when people band together and share more.  It’s societies like ours where people tend to be a bit more stingy, and even then, we’ll still pass out money to someone stranded at a gas-station, or to a kid who is clearly and literally about to fall over dead.

The difference is that in societies like District 12, the majority of the population is at below-sustenance levels.  If they don’t band together, share, help each other, etc, then the whole society dies.  When your children starve before they reach adulthood, then everyone is uniformly fucked.  (This isn’t generally stated or understood directly, but it is translated into the morals and codes of behavior that make up that culture.)  And in our modern society, where the majority can survive to adulthood just fine, there’s less of a pressure to share.  Being selfish doesn’t result in dead people (at least, not dead people we can see), and therefore we’re more confident in keeping our own stuff.

Don’t believe me?  Then ask yourself why barn raisings went out of style.

Katniss should not be confused by the mere idea that people occasionally help other people.  This isn’t even a middle-class-brat fail, it’s just a basic not-understanding-other-societies fail.

Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won’t seem sincere if I’m trying to slit his throat.

[…]

Oh, well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do.

Katniss…those thoughts are right next to each other.  Why can’t you connect them?  Simply say “Thanks for the bread.  By the way, I’ll avoid killing you unless we happen to be the last two left standing.  Hope that doesn’t happen, though, ’cause I’d hate to kill you.”  Surely there have been instances of mutual-not-killing pacts somewhere in the previous 73 years?

But, no, instead we’re going to twist this ridiculous situation into being a central point of drama.  It could be cleared up with…with not even two seconds of logic.  She’s already thought the necessary thoughts.  She just needs to realize it.  Instead we get most of a whole book of her not realizing things she’s already thought of.

Also?  Remember that “there’s 24 of us” quote.  Because the book will promptly forget it.