Does [Caesar Flickerman] know how crucial it is to get every word right from now on? He must. He will want to help us.

Katniss, why do you insist that random people are trying to help you when you have no proof?  Caesar is an actor.  He’s employed to make good television.  That’s all he’s done throughout the book.  He makes good television, and he makes child victims look like willing competitors.  There is absolutely no reason to think he is trying to help you, personally.

as misguided as Effie can be, she has a very keen instinct about certain things and must at least suspect we’re in trouble.

Effie isn’t a thinking person with a brain who can figure things out.  She’s just a woman who operates by “instinct” and “sensing” shit.

You know, except for the coal-to-pearls bullshit, we don’t even have much indication that she’s stupid.  She’s clearly working under pressure, as evidenced that she feels the need to apologize to thin air, and she worked hard to make sure Katniss and Peeta had the best chance she could give them, even before Haymich got off his ass.  We’re not really sure what good that did, because in the end everything was attributed to Haymich anyway, but at least she tried from the very get-go.  So, basically, all we’ve got for her “misguided” personality is that she…wears wigs and pretends to be cheerful.

And her character arc in this book isn’t very much of an arc.  She’s introduced by Katniss hating on her, but Katniss never actually cuts that shit out and realizes that Effie’s okay.  Basically, she moves from thinking Effie is a bitch, to thinking Effie is a bitch but we should forgive her for it.

After about ten minutes of this, Caesar Flickerman taps on his shoulder to continue the show, and Peeta just pushes him aside without even glancing at him.

Okay, I don’t care how many hard-core shippers are in that audience.  Ten minutes of watching someone else make out is just boring.

I’m practically on his lap, but one look from Haymitch tells me it isn’t enough. Kicking off my sandals, I tuck my feet to the side and lean my head against Peeta’s shoulder.

They’ve put her in an infantilizing dress, and now she has to be the weak, meek little girl next to big, strong Peeta. 

I get that they’re trying to portray her as “crazy in love girl” but…what, badass girls don’t fall in love?  It only counts as love if there’s traditional gender stereotypes involved?  All badass girls secretly want to be weak and protected and will revert to that when they enter a relationship?  WHY DOES KATNISS HAVE TO BE PORTRAYED THIS WAY IN ORDER FOR HER TO LOOK “IN LOVE”?

I feel so vulnerable in this flimsy dress. But I guess that was the point.

Yes, the point was to make you look small and weak, because only small and weak girls can do things out of crazy-in-love desires.  Or some shit.  God, this book fails so hard at gender.

My heart starts pounding and I have a strong impulse to run. How have the other victors faced this alone?

Indeed, how?  After 74 years, there hasn’t been one tribute that cries or tries to hide or run off stage?  Have they all been doped to the gills before now?

Of course, the previous victors didn’t have the Capitol looking for a way to destroy them.

Shut up.  The capitol loves you.  Look, there’s a whole crowd of capitol-people who just clapped after watching your teenage make out for ten fucking minutes.

Yeah, I know she doesn’t mean the capitol audience, but words fucking mean things and this author should learn to use them correctly.  She’s been using “the capitol” to mean the audience all up until now; she shouldn’t be allowed to change that definition at the drop of a hat and without so much as a by-your-leave.

There’s this sort of upbeat soundtrack playing under it that makes it twice as awful because, of course, almost everyone on-screen is dead.

Yes, that is creepy.  It’s also the first time in the entire fucking book that Katniss has thought of the ceremonies around the games as being “awful.”  And she restricts this thought to a single, throw-away line.  Before now, it’s all been about strategy or, sometimes, even considered a good thing.  Nothing about how all this pomp and circumstance is being forced on a bunch of kids who will soon be gruesomely murdered.

I seem heartless in comparison—dodging fireballs, dropping nests, and blowing up supplies

Heartless.  …Heartless.

That’s right, girls, if you attempt to save your own life rather than immediately descend into relationship angst, you’re heartless.

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

Besides, what was Peeta doing that was so special anyway?  Stay awake under the wasp tree all night?  How the fuck did that help her?

A wave of gratitude to the filmmakers sweeps over me when they end not with the announcement of our victory, but with me pounding on the glass door of the hovercraft

It made for good television, you idiot.  Stop thanking people for doing stuff that has nothing to do with you.

I keep laughing and thanking people and smiling as my picture is taken.

You’re such a good little puppet, Katniss.  Sure, fine, you think you have to be nice or else see your family murdered, but you’re so…good at it.  Not even a word of it being difficult, or even distasteful.

but then there’s a more insidious fear that the Capitol may by monitoring and confining me.

Uh, you mean you actually had a point in this book where you didn’t realize this was going on?

And I think, Oh, Caesar, if only that were true. But actually, President Snow may be arranging some sort of “accident” for me as we speak.

He’s the leader of an oppressive regime that routinely murders children on live television.  He won’t need an accident.  He’ll just have you executed.  Hell, he could say you did the berries thing purposely in order to incite a rebellion and you’re being executed for treason.  It doesn’t have to be true; we’re talking about an oppressive regime, after all.

Caesar Flickerman is wonderful, teasing, joking, getting choked up when the occasion presents itself.

I hate you more every time you do this, book.

I think the real excitement for the audience was watching you fall for him.

Bullshit.  These two were being forced together even before the announcement, and at no point after that did they spend any real amount of time together.  He made his declaration, then they were in the games the next day and she had nothing to do with him.  Then halfway through the games *BOOM* make-out time.  What “falling”?

Caesar pulls out a handkerchief and has to take a moment because he’s so moved.

He’s an actor.  I hate you, book.

taking in the metal-and-plastic device that has replaced his flesh.

Peeta’s leg injury consisted of a bit on his calf.  It was a flesh wound, nothing else.  He lost a lot of blood, but blood can be replaced.  The bone wasn’t broken, and the wound didn’t have time to develop any sort of infection that might necessitate amputation.

This place has magic science that can make human/wolf hybrids, but it can’t fix a dog bite on someone’s leg.  Heck, even with our current level of medicine we can fix muscle and tendon damage.

“It’s my fault,” I say. “Because I used that tourniquet.”

Mmm, yes and no.  Yes, if you cut off blood flow to a limb, the limb dies.  That can happen very fast.  It’s also really hard to achieve that with a tourniquet unless you know exactly what you’re doing, and also once they took the tourniquet off, he was still able to hobble around on that leg like it worked almost fine.  We used to say in first aide classes that if you put on a tourniquet, be prepared to lose the limb, but we also used to have worse medical science than we currently do.  Right now, currently, we can fix a limb that has been tourniquet-ed.

And the capitol can grow huma-wolves, but they can’t grow Peeta a new leg?

I just bury my face in Peeta’s shirt. It takes them a couple of minutes to coax me back out

So…Katniss is supposed to be a Strong Female Character, right?

I begin transforming back into myself. Katniss Everdeen. A girl who lives in the Seam. Hunts in the woods. Trades in the Hob. I stare in the mirror as I try to remember who I am and who I am not.

I was not aware that Strong Female Characters have so little sense of self that they can forget the basics of who they are.  I know this is supposed to be some big symbolism moment, but Katniss has been so malleable throughout this book, so open to changing for the whims of the plot, that it falls incredibly flat.

Gale. The idea of seeing Gale in a matter of hours makes my stomach churn. But why?

Because you’re in a love triangle and the book thinks it’ll play better if you remain terminally stupid.

I only know that I feel like I’ve been lying to someone who trusts me. Or more accurately, to two people.

And this part is just plain disgusting.  The book is trying to play off relationships as being more important than fucking survival.

“What’s he mean?” Peeta asks me.

“It’s the Capitol. They didn’t like our stunt with the berries,” I blurt out.

“What? What are you talking about?” he says.

“It seemed too rebellious.

Really?  Peeta had no clue that defying the capitol was rebellious and maybe dangerous?  I know he was in love for real, but does the book expect me to think that that’s a good excuse for this willful blindness?  Just being in love should not make him ignorant to the painfully fucking obvious.

“So, what you’re saying is, these last few days and then I guess… back in the arena… that was just some strategy you two worked out.”

“No. I mean, I couldn’t even talk to him in the arena, could I?” I stammer.

Retcon time.  What happened before the arena was clearly a ploy.  Peeta did it to make Katniss look better.  Fine, he was really in love with her at the time, but they even talk about how it was a plot to make Katniss look better.  He can be really in love and also use that really in love to help Katniss out.  There’s no reason he has to be clueless here.  And there’s even less reason why he should think that Katniss wasn’t acting at the time.  Even if he believe she really did care for him, there’s no reason to think she wasn’t at least aware of the cameras all around them.

“One more time? For the audience?”

Peeta finds out she didn’t really love him all that time, that she was just acting, and his response is to pressure her into more fake relationship shit.  For god’s sake, he could at least back the fuck off a little.  It’s not like it’s mandatory that they make out every second of the day or else someone will think they aren’t really in love.

Well, whatever, the book is finally over and I can move on to some romance that doesn’t force the female character into it with threats of death.  Horray!