It takes a while to explain the situation to Peeta. How Foxface stole the food from the supply pile before I blew it up, how she tried to take enough to stay alive but not enough that anyone would notice it, how she wouldn’t question the safety of berries we were preparing to eat ourselves.

Most of this is stuff she’s already explained the first night they were together again.  The only new shit is “she snuck up and ate your accidentally deadly berries.”  Why does that take “a while” to explain?  It’s pretty self-evident.

“If they fooled Foxface, maybe they can fool Cato as well. If he’s chasing us or something, we can act like we accidentally drop the pouch and if he eats them—”

That’s not really how humans work.  Nell was fooled because it was clear that Peeta intended to eat those berries.  We’re basically primates; we learn by imitating others.  We’re naturally inclined to think that what other people eat is, indeed, edible.  But a dropped bag of berries is suspicious, especially if they’re dropped right in someone’s path.  It’s really, really hard to make that look accidental.  Plus, a pouch doesn’t necessarily indicate that they’re food.  He could assume Katniss is using them to coat her arrows in poison.

In fact, why doesn’t she? 

When the food’s cooked, I pack most of it up, leaving us each a rabbit’s leg to eat as we walk.

I will never, ever understand why she doesn’t just eat her food.    This is not how starving people act and this is not how traveling people act.

It dawns on me that I haven’t been very nice to Peeta today. Nagging him about how loud he was, screaming at him over disappearing.

Nagging?  NAGGING?  Katniss, stop it.  He was scaring away game that you need in order to not starve, and he disappeared in the middle of childmurderdeath games.  You weren’t nagging, you had valid complaints and fears.  Furthermore, you tried several times to compromise on the noise thing, and even lied your ass off to pander to his ego rather than tell him that he sounds like a drunk elephant. 

But Katniss’s role as the girlfriend is to be perfect and supporting and quiet, and if she ever takes the lead and is more competent, then she has to pay for it by “feeling bad” for “nagging” him all day.

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

The playful romance we had sustained in the cave has disappeared out in the open, under the hot sun, with the threat of Cato looming over us. Haymitch has probably just about had it with me. And as for the audience…

Priorities, Katniss.  Focus on the killer that’s gunning for you.  He’s alone, you have a bow, he’s the last one you need to kill, and after that the games are over.  You hardly need to pander to sponsors at this point.  You doubly don’t need to do it with romance.

But instead of caring about the guy trying to kill you, you’re going to focus all your attention on how you’re being forced into a submissive girlfriend role, aren’t you?  Ugh.

I suggest we walk back in [the stream]. Peeta’s happy to oblige

When Katniss knows what’s a good idea, she has to “suggest” it, and Peeta has to magnanimously grant her the favor of deciding how they should travel.  I mean, it’s not like she’s the more competent woodswoman out of the two or nothin- oh, wait.

I keep my bow loaded, both for Cato and any fish I might see

While not technically wrong, the number of times she walks around like this makes me wonder if the author knows what “loaded” means for a bow.  It means that both of her hands are busy, which makes travel more awkward and possibly means that she’s keeping tension on the string, which could very well damage it.  I mean, this is a magitech bow so it might not, but we’ll never know.

[Cato] probably has had a special hatred for me ever since I outscored him in training.

So, Cato’s been a pretty stock villain so far.  He wasn’t shown to be gunning for her especially at any point.  At the start of the book, they were just hunting kids in general, not Katniss specifically.  The only times they came across each other were by chance.  After the food got blown up, Katniss was one of the last kids left alive, and even then he went after Thresh instead of her.  I mean, it’s possible he hates her more than Peeta, sure.  She did explode his food and drop a wasp nest on him.

But hates her for outscoring him in training?  We never got any hint of that.  We don’t even know what his score was, so we can’t tell if he was second-best, and we never heard about him being particularly gung-ho over the scores.  The book just wants some sort of “arch nemesis” feel for the climax, and rather than take care of that in the editing process, it’s just inventing bullshit out of the thin air with only four chapters to go.

I think of his ridiculous reaction to finding the supplies blown up. The others were upset, of course, but he was completely unhinged. I wonder now if Cato might not be entirely sane.

???

You blew up his only means to eat.  And, sure, he killed John after that, but…I don’t even know why John was still alive at that point, so killing him after he was doubly useless doesn’t really indicate “unhinged.”

Book, what are you even doing?  Why do you need to make Cato into a big bad?  You’ve already created childmurderdeath  games.  Why must you make a villain as well?  Aren’t the games themselves enough for you?

And if you must insist on doing this, fucking edit, stop retconing within the same book.

He hasn’t said it, but I don’t think Peeta felt good about killing her, even if it was essential.

Katniss is unsure about whether or not someone feels bad for accidently murdering another person.  She seems vaguely confused by this, as if just because it was necessary, Peeta shouldn’t feel bad for accidently murdering another person.

Leaving the cave has a sense of finality about it. I don’t think there will be another night in the arena somehow.

Magic Mary Sue Knowing Powers.

And this one was completely gratuitous, too.

“You’re right. They’re driving us to the lake,” I say. Where there’s no cover. Where they’re guaranteed a bloody fight to the death with nothing to block their view.

Where…you have a bow and nothing to obscure a straight shot.

Really, Katniss, come on.  You have a bow.  Please stop forgetting what that means.

I feel almost as if it’s the first day of the Games again. That I’m in the same position. Twenty-one tributes are dead, but I still have yet to kill Cato. And really, wasn’t he always the one to kill?

Twenty-one innocent children are dead, but no one gives a fuck about them, just Cato.  Because we’ve arbitrarily declared that he’s the only one that counts, even though we forgot to set it up properly when some foreshadowing might have actually been good for something.

Also, twenty-one innocent children are dead, but Katniss feels just like she did on day one.  Not affected by those deaths at all. 

Now it seems the other tributes were just minor obstacles, distractions, keeping us from the real battle of the Games.

Let’s play a game, readers.  It’s called “come up with a line more insulting to the other tributes than this right here.”

…well, I just lost.  Can’t think of a thing worse than saying that a child’s death is nothing but a “minor obstacle.”

Katniss, you’re a monster and I hate you.

I frown at the shrinking sun. “We don’t want to fight him after dark. There’s only the one pair of glasses.”

And also you have a bow.  Oh, phoey, I’m just repeating myself now.

“He’s got some kind of body armor!” I shout to Peeta.

Oh, no, body armor!  Oh, if only Katniss were skilled enough to shoot through a squirrel’s eye and therefore could easily hit Cato in the head…

Seriously, she’s inhumanly accurate with a bow and the gamemakers don’t even give him a face shield/helmet.  They’re not even trying to hide the fact that they want Katniss to win.

So, I’m guessing this was what was in his backpack at the feast.  But the announcer said that each person “desperately needed” something.  Why, back then, did Cato “desperately” need body armor?

And why didn’t Clove get sent anything?  Was she just sitting back, chilling, saying “nah, I’m good”?  Poor Clove.  I miss her already.