My ability to kill at a distance is my greatest asset, but I know I’ll have to go right into the thick of things to get that backpack

What am I even looking at?

Katniss, if you can kill at a distance, then you don’t have to go into the thick of anything.  There’s two options here.  You show up, no one’s there, you go get the backpack.  If people show up after you, they have to approach over open ground, so you shoot them.  Option two: you show up, people are already there, you shoot them from a distance.  After they’re dead, you go get the backpack.  There is no situation here where you have a bow and have to run directly at a group of people without first shooting them.  Why do you keep insisting on not understanding the actual benefit of ranged weapons?

My family can either watch on that static-filled old clunker of a television at home

Why do they have a TV at home?  I realize it’s old and junky, but it’s a TV.  I’m sure I don’t have to point out the obvious, but…you can’t eat a TV.  If they’re starving, literally starving, there’s no point to spending money on a television.  Or in keeping it around instead of selling it for food money.  I’m sure it’s possible that there’s just no one to sell the TV to, so there’s no point in trying to get rid of it, but it’s very hard to tell since their whole district/economy is fucked six ways from Sunday.  There certainly are places in the world where they have expensive items and are still starving, simply because no one is willing to buy their gems.  Hell, it could be that the capitol just gives everyone a TV, since they’re so invested in making sure everyone watches “mandatory programming.”  But again, that’s not stated.  And to have any effect, it kind of needs to be. 

“We live in a fucked up society where luxury goods have no value and food is scarce” is a much different message from “we live in a super poor district and simply have no money (but still bought a TV).”

And, about that, if watching the games is mandatory (as Katniss says in the beginning) why would they even have the option of watching it at home?  If they’re at home, they could just…not turn the TV on.  Or not be in the same room with it, or any number of other things to simply avoid it.  The capitol really sucks at oppression.  It seems like they mostly just lucked into it.

Spirits must be running high in District 12. We so rarely have anyone to root for at this point in the Games.

I swear, there’s points in this book where I think the author just straight-up forgets what she’s writing.  Spirits may be high after watching 16 kids get murdered.  Spirits may be high after watching the surviving kids suffer from injury, illness, and hunger.  Spirits may be high after a whole week of being forced (sorta?) to watch a reminder of their own misery and impotence. 

And “root for”?  If you’re going to talk about high spirits in this context, it should be “hope for” as in “hope for a winner so we can get some extra food around here for a change.”  “Rooting” for someone implies more of a traditional sports attitude, not a fight to the death.

Gale’s not my boyfriend, but would he be, if I opened that door? He talked about us running away together. Was that just a practical calculation of our chances of survival away from the district? Or something more?

Yes, book, you’re so very clever, making a love triangle with a clueless girl at the center.  We get it.  Stop preening.

I remember the importance of sustaining the starcrossed lover routine and I lean over and give Peeta a long, lingering kiss.

I guess running out into a fight and murdering kids for his sake isn’t star-crossed enough.

Leave it to her to come up with such a clever and risky idea!

You know, as much as I love Nell and do think she is smart, it…wasn’t that great an idea.  As in, it shouldn’t have taken that much brainpower to come up with it.  Nell’s awesome, don’t get me wrong, but how smart do you really have to be to come up with “get the pack before anyone arrives and then run like a bat out of hell”?  It’s the obvious answer.

She’s cost me time, too, because by now it’s clear that I must get to the table next. […] Without hesitation, I sprint for the table.

So Katniss hesitates for a while…and then moves without hesitation. 

Words.  They mean things.

Anyone who beats me to it will easily scoop up my pack and be gone.

You have a bow.  If they try to take your pack, you can shoot them.  Idiot.

I keep moving, positioning the next arrow automatically, as only someone who has hunted for years can do.

I’m at the table now, my fingers closing over the tiny orange backpack.

Wait, wait, wait.  Let me see if I’m picturing this right.  Katniss shot Clove and hit her in the arm.  Clove stopped attacking to take out the arrow.  Katniss loaded up another arrow and…didn’t fire?  Just held it there while backing up to the table to get her pack?  What, is she just being polite? 

This is another reason we need to hear some of Katniss’s thoughts about the moral dilemma of killing another person.  If we’d had some of that, then this right here would make sense.  If Katniss had been shown as conflicted at all, it would make sense that she would hesitate to shoot someone who isn’t actively attacking. It would make sense that she’d think a wound is good enough to let her get away, that all she wants is to get away.  This scene right here is entirely possible.  We are, after all, wired not to kill each other.  It just doesn’t fit with Katniss’s earlier bullshit about how she’d gladly murder the fuck out of all the careers and not even hesitate. 

The only reason Katniss didn’t shoot twice is because the author really wanted to write what comes next.

“I promised Cato if he let me have you, I’d give the audience a good show.”

I know the author wants me to hate Clove for this.  And I know it’s a really terrible thing to say/do.  I just can’t.  See, Katniss has been blathering on this whole book about how she has to play to the audience or else she’ll die.  For all I know, Clove is just doing this because she’s operating on Katniss-logic and thinks she has to or else the sponsorship goodness will stop.  Heck, she’s not been trained to hunt (for…some reason) so it’s entirely possible that she and Cato are subsisting on nothing but gifted food.  Which would mean she had much more reason to play to sponsors than Katniss does, since Katniss’s only needs are restricted to uber-expensive items.

Second, we don’t know what the “training” process these trained kids go through.  Clove has been raised for these games.  For either all or part of her life, she’s been told she has to go into an arena and either kill or be killed.  Of course that fucked her up.  I can be appalled at torture, but I can’t hate her for it.  I can hate the capitol that put in place a system that forced her to give up her sanity and childhood for the good of the district.  That’s pretty easy.  But Clove herself is just a victim.

“Forget it, District Twelve. We’re going to kill you. Just like we did your pathetic little ally… what was her name?

The only person who knew Rue was involved was Marvel, and he died at the scene.  Clove could have figured it out, since they announce who dies, but for all she knows, Katniss killed both Rue and Marvel.  The Knowing Powers are spreading…

Clove is scrambling backward on all fours, like a frantic insect

Animal count: 8

“You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?”

Why can’t Thresh talk right?

…both the tributes from District 11 are black.  District 11 is agriculture.  Thresh’s size has been emphasized all through this book, and now he’s being displayed as less than intelligent. 

He’s a large, brutish, animalistic black man working on a farm.  …yeah…that’s about as sensitive as your portrayal of women so far, book.

Speaking of women, Clove was badass and in control when faced with Katniss, but now against Thresh she’s helpless and crying and begging.  She’s still got a jacket full of knives that she could send into his throat, but all she does is cower and cry on the ground.  Because it’s all well and good to have women fight other women, but if you stick them up against men, they have to consistently displayed as the weaker sex.  Unless you’re Katniss, the honorary male.

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

I understand that if Thresh wins, he’ll have to go back and face a district that has already broken all the rules to thank me, and he is breaking the rules to thank me, too

Eh?  What rules?  Damnit, book, just a few chapters ago you said:

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.

And yet now there’s rules all over the place?  And what exactly is Thresh doing that’s against the rules?  Letting her live?  Well, then was Katniss breaking the rules when she let Rue and Nell live, despite having chances to kill both?  Were the careers breaking the rules when they let each other live and teamed up early on?

I know you want to be dramatic and special and shit, book, but you’re not making any sense.

“Clove!” Cato’s voice is much nearer now. I can tell by the pain in it that he sees her on the ground.

See, this is pretty heartbreaking.  Cato has no reason to be acting here, but he’s in actual pain at seeing her injured.  He knows this girl well, has probably been through whatever training they get together, and he’s been through all the same “should I be friends or not, one of us will die” stuff that Katniss was avoiding in the first part of this book.  He worked with her and alongside her through the first week of the games.  Just when things got to a point where they’d have to split up or kill each other, they got the news that they could go home together.  And he cared about her on some level, probably just a decent human level, and is distressed at seeing her injured.  He’s not playacting because he’s got some lover-story to tell.

But it gets worse.  Remember, the last time we saw Clove, she wasn’t dead.  Her head was dented, but she was breathing and moaning. Cato is now faced with the same situation as Katniss.  (Well, not really, since Clove dies soon, but for a moment that’s true.)  People can last a long time with head wounds, and the capitol has magic science.  It’s possible that he had the same thought I did: he’s on a deadline now, to kill everyone else before Clove dies so he can get her to medical help.

Cato kneels beside Clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him.

Fuck calling these two the villains, I want the story to be all about them.  And Nell.

fleeing like the wild, wounded creature I am.

Animal count: 9

I load an arrow, but Cato can throw that spear almost as far as I can shoot.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no.