The boy from District 1 dies before he can pull out the spear. My arrow drives deeply into the center of his neck. He falls to his knees and halves the brief remainder of his life by yanking out the arrow and drowning in his own blood. I’m reloaded, shifting my aim from side to side, while I shout at Rue, “Are there more? Are there more?”

For all I’ve been bitching about Katniss defaulting to murder, this doesn’t bother me.  Our human impulse may be to not kill, but one of the easiest way to get around that is to give the target a spear.  When we’re faced with something really scary, that’s enough to overcome the hesitation.  In some people.  It’s highly variable, but certainly a realistic reaction.  As is the way she stays on edge, looking around for a new threat, her nerves still firing.  The repeated question indicates a note of panic, which would certainly fit.

…until we keep reading and see that, no, she’s still got the same calm, clear, perfectly ordered thoughts and narration as she always has.  I really think part of the problem here is that the author doesn’t know how to write first person.  She treats Katniss as an impartial narrator, rather than letting us live in the head of a frightened teenage girl.  Katniss has to be cool enough to report everything going on around her, because Katniss has been shoved into the role of a third-person narrator.  She’s not allowed to be wrong; she’s not allowed to be confused; she’s not allowed to miss things.  In the end, it makes her look like she’s in these crazy situations and calmly assessing them.

One look at the wound and I know it’s far beyond my capacity to heal, beyond anyone’s probably. The spearhead is buried up to the shaft in her stomach.

Hey, guys, want to hear a really disgusting story?  If you don’t, skip to the next paragraph.  This one time, in Iraq, a guy I was deployed with had his guts fall out.  He caught something sharp that tore open his abdominal cavity and his intestines just spilled out.  However, he was fine, because the intestines themselves were still mostly connected.  It was literally just a flesh (and muscle) wound.  The medics put his guts in a plastic bag, taped it to his stomach, and told him to wait for a helicopter to the bigger base with a surgery theater.  He got bored, snuck out of the clinic, went to the chow hall, and started grossing everyone out by showing off his bag-o-guts.  Granted, he was pretty stupid to go walking around like that, but he was perfectly capable of it.

Your guts aren’t really connected to anything inside you except more guts.  There’s nothing holding them in place, in other words.  Now, that is both awesome and dangerous.  If you get injured there, you’re not likely to suffer much at the start.  It’s going to hurt like no other, but you won’t bleed out and you won’t die for several hours, because your guts aren’t really needed for immediate functioning.  They’re just needed for long-term stuff.  You can even live without a liver or kidneys for days.

The downside of all this is that it’s really easy to go septic with an abdominal wound.  There’s no blood flow to the area, so if something nasty (like gut juices) gets in there, your blood can’t carry it away and it just sits there and festers.  So, yes, a belly wound will kill you.  But it’ll take a long time.

Also, the capitol has magic medicine that can regrow burned skin overnight.  Right now, with our current level of medical knowledge, we can fix a wound like Rue’s given the right timeline and a bit of luck.  So I really doubt that a belly wound is “beyond” their capacity. 

Her hand reaches out and I clutch it like a lifeline. As if it’s me who’s dying instead of Rue.

“You blew up the food?” she whispers.

“Every last bit,” I say.

“You have to win,” she says.

So, here’s Rue.  She’s been speared in the guts.  Because this is the land of un-research, she’s going to die and she knows it.  Rather than have any thoughts or feelings for herself, rather than displaying any fear or regret or pain, all she does is tell Katniss to win.

This is what separates fridging from character death.  Rue’s death is not a natural outcome from her own story line.  This isn’t “Rue did a thing that caused her to die, and it’s the conclusion to her arc.”  No, Rue’s death is entirely focused on Katniss.  It’s there to motivate her and push her and further her story line.  Because Rue doesn’t have a character arc, and she barely had a character except to be the Perfect Victim.  Nothing about this death has anything to do with Rue.  A child is dying and still the book can’t help but make it all about Katniss.

Fridging is a big problem with female characters in media.  Naturally, making the death of any character be all about another character is problematic no matter what the genders involved are.  It would also be bad if Rue were a male and Katniss remained a female.  It’s just flatly insulting to take away someone’s life (in the metaphorical sense) like that.  But the simple fact is that it happens more often to females.  And that’s what pushes this from being “insulting to Rue” to “insulting to women.”  This book has consistently shoved women in two roles: victims or whores.  Only Katniss escapes, and that only through being an honorary male.  Here, Rue has not been allowed to have any non-victim traits.  She’s got a weapon, but her most defining skill is purely defensive and she never uses that sling.  She’s repeatedly described as being tiny, childlike, delicate, and vulnerable.  Her help is restricted to gathering and healing.  And now she’s being shoved into the ultimate of insulting female roles: the sacrificial lamb.  Because, apparently, unless we’re willing to be quasi-males, that’s all women are good for.  Oh, that and being stupid if we wear wigs.

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

“I’m going to. Going to win for both of us now,” I promise.

I’ve always hated this sentiment.  How does winning help Rue at this point?  Katniss is going to do exactly what she was already going to do, but now somehow it’s…for Rue?  Damnit, she could at least promise to give money to Rue’s five younger siblings if she wins.

Believe it or not, there was once music in my house, too. Music I helped make. My father pulled me in with that remarkable voice—

Mom?  Mom, are you anywhere in Katniss’s childhood?  No?  Just there to be depressed in the background?  Yeah…

Rue’s eyes have fluttered shut. Her chest moves but only slightly.

Rue may have a spear sticking out of her belly, but it’s her duty as a perfect victim to have a pretty, mess-less death with no blood, no vomiting, no crying, and no snot.  And definitely no releasing the bowels.  Rue has to remain the perfect pretty girl-child right up to and past the end.

I cut Rue’s pack from her back as well, knowing she’d want me to have it

Because she’s been fridged, and that’s the role of fridged women.  To give shit to the main character.

Seriously, Katniss, how do you know what she’d want?

To hate the boy from District 1, who also appears so vulnerable in death, seems inadequate.

…and yet you were fine blathering on about how Glimmer was hideous as you raided her body and talking about you only almost felt sorry for Kriss.

It’s the Capitol I hate, for doing this to all of us.

Congratulations for catching up to where you should have been this whole time.

Really, for all the book wants this to be a big, dramatic, character-defining moment, I can’t help but rage at the fact that it took Rue’s death to get here.  And even more so that it took Rue’s death, not the various other death’s she’s seen in this arena, in games past, in the starving people in her own district.  I’m sorry, but I’m just not behind a character who fails to give a shit about dead people unless said people act like her baby sister.

Then I remember Peeta’s words on the roof.  […]

And for the first time, I understand what he means. I want to do something, right here, right now, to shame them, to make them accountable, to show the Capitol that whatever they do or force us to do there is a part of every tribute they can’t own. That Rue was more than a piece in their Games. And so am I.

Hm, but what could she possibly do?  Hey, what was that line a few paragraphs ago?

They’ll want me to clear out now.

Well, there you go, they want you to do something and you want to defy them.  And it even fits, since Rue asked you not to leave!  Heck, if you want to get really defiant, you’ve got a pre-built pyre nearby that hasn’t been lit yet.  Burn Rue.  If there’s something against cremation in this society (I don’t see why there would be, since space is limited and cremation is more sanitary) then she could at least refuse to let them have the body without taking it by force.

Slowly, one stem at a time, I decorate her body in the flowers. Covering the ugly wound. Wreathing her face. Weaving her hair with bright colors.

Instead we get…this.  She wants to hold the Capitol accountable for pain and horror so she covers the ugly wound and makes the perfect victim all pretty.  Katniss, really, what the fuck is wrong with your brain?  Why on earth do you think that making bloody death more palatable is going to “stick it to the man” and “show them that child murder is wrong.”  You’ve just made child murder pretty!

They’ll have to show it. Or, even if they choose to turn the cameras elsewhere at this moment, they’ll have to bring them back when they collect the bodies and everyone will see her then and know I did it.

They’ll have to show the perfect, mess-less child covered in flowers.  Oh…no?

And, really, why do they have to show it?  They’re running the show.  If they don’t want to show it, they won’t show it.  If they think that would suspicious, they can put the body down somewhere else, take off the flowers, and stage a retrieval.

“Bye, Rue,” I whisper. I press the three middle fingers of my left hand against my lips and hold them out in her direction. Then I walk away without looking back. 

…or they could just take the flowers off right here.  Since Katniss hasn’t done anything except exactly what her puppetmasters want from her.

Why the fuck are flowers defiant anyway?  Unless you’re placing them in the muzzle of a gun pointed at you, they’re just about the least defiant thing I can imagine.

“Good and safe,” I say as I pass under its branch. “We don’t have to worry about her now.” Good and safe.

This is probably the most insulting part of the whole debacle.  Rue is not “good and safe” you idiot, she’s dead.  Murdered.  Don’t brush that off as if it’s just a thing that happened, just a footnote to your own story, just a convenient shit move that the author pulled out to avoid having to write any actual moral dilemmas. 

Except I’d kill anyone I met on sight. Without emotion or the slightest tremor in my hands.

Yeah, and?  What’s changed?

My hatred of the Capitol has not lessened my hatred of my competitors in the least. Especially the Careers.

So, basically, nothing has changed.  You’re still going along with the capitol’s plans, making things easier for them, and hating on your fellow victims who had no choice about being put in here with you.

You are a fucking monster, Katniss, and I hate you.

This bread came from District 11. I cautiously lift the still warm loaf. What must it have cost the people of District 11 who can’t even feed themselves? How many would’ve had to do without to scrape up a coin to put in the collection for this one loaf?

Yeah, so, in a district where there are starving children, people have been collecting money to buy a single loaf of bread.  At an astronomical price, which means the same coins could have been collected to feed a few orphans for a couple months or something.  Meaning small children are dying in favor of this loaf of bread.  Which, in the long run, wouldn’t have even helped Rue that much.  Especially after Rue hooked up with Katniss and had plenty to eat.

For whatever reason, this is a first. A district gift to a tribute who’s not your own.

And then instead of getting their money back, they give it to Katniss, in what is again a first move.  I’m getting sick of the number of times “first moves” happen in this book.  Maybe if this were, like, the 8th game or something, but it’s been 74 years.  It’s just piling shit on to make Katniss look exceptional for being a capitol lapdog.

Really, I can’t harp on this enough, starving orphans are starving so that Katniss can have a single, unneeded loaf of bread.

That the full value of their gift has been recognized.

Bullshit.  The full value of that gift is starving orphans.

And that’s if it even did come from there.  Who’s to say that some sponsor didn’t just have a soft spot for Rue and want to give her bread from her home?  Katniss’s Mary Sue Knowing Powers means she “just knows” where the bread came from.

Tonight it sends me Rue, still decked in her flowers, perched in a high sea of trees, trying to teach me to talk to the mockingjays. I see no sign of her wounds, no blood, just a bright, laughing girl.

Perfect Victimhood means no guilt.

No, really, Katniss is getting off scot free with this and she shouldn’t.  Remember, Katniss spent all day sitting on her ass and eating fish before going to look for Rue.  Before Katniss found her, she’d been giving the “all is okay” song, which means she was just fine until shortly before that scene.  If Katniss hadn’t been such a lazy, useless lump of a protagonist, she could have found Rue and been there to help her out of the net/avoid getting netted/whatever.  Katniss really should be dealing with some guilt here.  But instead of being bogged down in that boring stuff, she’s having happy dreams about happy Rue.

I give myself a series of simple commands to follow, like “Now you have to sit up, Katniss. Now you have to drink water, Katniss.” I act on the orders with slow, robotic motions.

Depression is the only thing displayed halfway well in these books.  I think it was the author’s pet issue.

Out of all he might have chosen from. To me, this is a sign of extreme arrogance. Why bother to carry food when you have such a bounty back at camp?

When you will kill your enemies so quickly you’ll be home before you’re hungry? I can only hope the other Careers traveled so lightly when it came to food and now find themselves with nothing.

I really have no idea what’s going on here.  Is she saying it’s arrogant to have food at all, or arrogant to have so little food?  Is she mocking him for not being prepared or mocking him for traveling with a snack?  “Oh, this idiot carried a traveling snack!  How arrogant!”  Does that make sense to anyone else? 

I find myself wishing I could tell Peeta about the flowers I put on Rue. That I now understand what he was trying to say on the roof.

You know, they’re both equally stupid about the matter, so this is probably true.

I really think I stand a chance of doing it now. Winning. It’s not just having the arrows or outsmarting the Careers a few times, although those things help. Something happened when I was holding Rue’s hand, watching the life drain out of her.

Stop pointing out how terrible and obvious your fridging was, book.

Now I am determined to revenge her, to make her loss unforgettable, and I can only do that by winning and thereby making myself unforgettable.

This will work because…reasons?  What, is Katniss planning on starting a foundation in Rue’s name or something? 

I don’t know why I should even care about the boy.

Then I realize… he was my first kill.

You should care about Marvel because he was a person and a victim, you idiot.

And so were Glimmer and Sara, and you should care about them, too. 

I guess technically I’d get credited for Glimmer and the girl from District 4, too, for dumping that nest on them. But the boy from District 1 was the first person I knew would die because of my actions.

Bullshit.  You intentionally waited until morning and got stung yourself just so that the wasps would be fully awake and able to cause the most damage possible.  If you didn’t know that the deadly wasps would be deadly, then you’re a fucking idiot.

“How different can it be, really?”

Amazingly similar in the execution. A bow pulled, an arrow shot. Entirely different in the aftermath. I killed a boy whose name I don’t even know. Somewhere his family is weeping for him. His friends call for my blood. Maybe he had a girlfriend who really believed he would come back…

But then I think of Rue’s still body and I’m able to banish the boy from my mind.

Yup.  Entirely different.  She spends a second thinking (not even angsting, just thinking) about the kid and moves on.  I guess that only counts as different in that she never wonders if the squirrels have girlfriends. 

A rule change! That in itself is mind bending since we don’t really have any rules to speak of except don’t step off your circle for sixty seconds and the unspoken rule about not eating one another.

I guess the thing where you politely step aside and let the bodies be collected is just…good manners?

The news sinks in. Two tributes can win this year. If they’re from the same district.

You know, on the surface of this, I don’t mind it.  I would mind it a lot less if fucking around with the rules were more common, and so the exceptionalism is still grating.  But just the idea of shaking things up isn’t so bad.  It makes for good television, after all.

However, because of the “same district” part of the rule, it’s very clearly pointed at Katniss and Peeta.  The only other people it could possible apply to are Cato and Clove, but the book barely cares about them except when it needs a cackling villain.  So I read this here, and all I can think is “good god, Capitol, stop being such a shipper.”  Because, really, this is the plot of a bad shipfic right here.