Several of the soldiers have automatic weapons

Are you sure?

See, this is what happens when the whole rest of the book has been a mess of craziness.  I don’t know if the author knows what an automatic weapon is or not if she can’t even get their farming techniques in the right century.  Especially when that phrase ‘automatic weapon’ has been so misused.  For the record, an automatic weapon is something that will produce a continuous spray of bullets for as long as you hold the trigger down.  A semi-automatic weapon is one bullet per trigger squeeze, but you don’t have to pull back the hammer between each one.  Most law enforcement will carry a semi-automatic, because you don’t want an oopsie to take out half the street. Or, hell, you don’t want an intentional fire to take out half the street if you were gunning for just one or two people. 

So am I supposed to take from this that the Peacekeepers are just that fond of overkill, or that Katniss/the author doesn’t know the right words for weapons and just goes for the most sensational option?

“What happened?” Effie hurries over. “We lost the feed just after Katniss’s beautiful speech, and then Haymitch said he thought he heard a gun fire, and I said it was ridiculous, but who knows? There are lunatics everywhere!”

 “Nothing happened, Effie. An old truck backfired,” says Peeta evenly.

Why lie to Effie?  The book is happy to paint her as an idiot with wrong priorities, but then it’ll have the characters lie to her and withhold information.  You can’t – well, shouldn’t – deride someone for not knowing something you lied to them about.  On top of that, give then information Effie has available (since people aren’t telling her shit) the idea that the shot came from a ‘lunatic’ in the crowd is perfectly reasonable.  They arrived in an armored truck, which is designed to protect the passengers from the outside, and they’ve got armed guards, suggesting that the people running the show expect a violent opposition from the crowd at some point.  Effie is reacting in a reasonably intelligent manner here.

But she wears wigs, so let’s call her stupid and lie to her.

Furthermore, if people are getting shot in the head for causing trouble, shouldn’t she know so that she can be on guard against causing any accidental trouble herself?

Two more shots. The door doesn’t muffle their sound much. Who was that? Thresh’s grandmother? One of Rue’s little sisters?

Probably, but don’t bother yourself to ever find out.  Just like you’ll never bother to find out if the surviving family members get your money.

After all, they’re not real people.  They’re just set dressing to give you more angst and let Peeta look good.

As far as I know, Haymitch has only been here once, when he was on his Victory Tour decades ago. But he must have a remarkable memory or reliable instincts, because he leads us up through a maze of twisting staircases and increasingly narrow halls.

Nope, I’m going to need a bit more than that, book.  If you’re going to imply that he actually went up to the top of the building on his first trip, then why did he do it?  What was he talking about back then that needed to be secret?  And instincts don’t lead you through a man-made building.  There’s no cheese that he’s smelling at the end of this maze.  ‘Up’ is not the new ‘North.’  It’s entirely possible for him to just look around, use his human brain to head for the most disused places in the building until he finds a good stopping point, but that’s not instinct.  And also, it would result in a lot more wrong turns and false starts/stops, not the direct beeline implied here.

So, really, what the fuck is going on?  Did you just get too lazy to come up with something good and just hoped no one would notice?

It’s a huge place filled with broken furniture, piles of books and ledgers, and rusty weapons.

o.O  Why? What kinds of weapons?  Guns?  Who would store guns in an attic?  Are they swords, leftover from some failed attempt to become a career district?  Weapons are not part of the normal bureaucratic detritus, so what are they doing there?

Although, in a better book, if the military were more integrated into the bureaucracy and therefore weapons did become normal detritus, that could be a good line.  Just mention it off-hand like she sees it no differently from ‘books and ledgers.’  Alas, we are not in that better book.

Peeta gets understandably mad that they didn’t tell him about the whole death-threat thing.

“You’re always so reliably good, Peeta,” says Haymitch. “So smart about how you present yourself before the cameras. I didn’t want to disrupt that.”

What the fuck even is that?  You don’t have to worry about Peeta acting like an ass, you have to worry about him acting outside the script.  Something which, as we saw last book, he’s prone to doing.  So, clearly, Haymich has no fucking clue what he’s doing, and yet we’re still going to take his word that Katniss has to marry Peeta.

Because I really screwed up today. What do you think is going to happen to Rue’s and Thresh’s families? Do you think they’ll get their share of our winnings? Do you think I gave them a bright future? Because I think they’ll be lucky if they survive the day!”

God, Peeta, not you too.  If the Capitol doesn’t want to give the families your money, they’ll just not give them money.  There’s no reason to think they’ll also shoot them all for no good reason.  And if you’re worried about the salute thing, clearly you need a reminder, but it was not spontaneous, they had it practiced and planned, you didn’t prompt or cause that.

“He’s right, Haymitch,” I say. “We were wrong not to tell him. Even back in the Capitol.”

If by ‘wrong’ you mean ‘mistaken,’ since at that time you both (reasonably) believe that he knew what was going on.

In fact…what was that line back in the first book…

“Remember, we’re madly in love, so it’s all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”

He was even prompting her on how to act according to the script, which he wouldn’t have thought to do unless he was in on the idea that it was a script.  Unless he actually said that because he thought she was in love with him and just didn’t know what to do with it?

Book, you fail so hard.

I haven’t thought much about this. How it must have looked from Peeta’s perspective when I appeared in the arena having received burn medicine and bread when he, who was at death’s door, had gotten nothing. Like Haymitch was keeping me alive at his expense.

Yes, and?  Did either of you expect something else?  Peeta was a bad bet when he was injured.  Giving him medicine would have been a colossal waste of resources, since it’s expensive and he still would have been vulnerable afterwards.  Also, he was kind of shit at survival even after he got better.  So of course Haymich sent stuff to Katniss, who delivered a better bang for your buck.  But more to the point, yes, that’s how the games work, you live at the expense of other people. 

That theme, somehow, got lost in the first book.  There wasn’t very often a sense of “me instead of them,” it was always “me versus them.”  I think, mostly, this was due to the fact that Katniss never saw the careers as victims as well, nor did she see the Capitol/game makers as an enemy.  So she never had to think about her own life coming at the expense of others; the others were just Bad Guys that deserved to die, or else they were just tragic losses like Rue. 

This place is not a larger version of District 12. Our fence is unguarded and rarely charged. Our Peacekeepers are unwelcome but less brutal. Our hardships evoke more fatigue than fury. Here in 11, they suffer more acutely and feel more desperation. President Snow is right. A spark could be enough to set them ablaze.

So, you’ve finally admitted that your home is not the saddest sack of sadness in the country, to be ridiculed by everyone else?

The really weird part is, that whole “District 12 is the worst” part isn’t even in Katniss’s own head.  Multiple characters agree with her, even going so far as to say that Katniss’s origins add to her legend because no one expected District 12 to do anything awesome.  She’s being completely Reliable Narrator about the reputation of her home, and yet at the same time, notices that pretty much everywhere else is worse.

Well, nothing about the book has been consistent so far.  I really should stop being surprised at stuff like this.

The prep team seems oblivious to the events of the day. They’re all excited about the dinner.

Yes, because YOU KEEP LYING TO PEOPLE.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Cinna and Portia know, but there seems to be an unspoken agreement to leave Effie out of the bad-news loop.

Is it because you told them, or is it because they are the Good Fashion People, and as such they have Magic Knowing Powers?

Are you deriding Effie because she doesn’t have Magic Knowing Powers?  Is that it?

“I don’t like the way we’ve been treated. Being stuffed into trucks and barred from the platform. And then, about an hour ago, I decided to look around the Justice Building. I’m something of an expert in architectural design, you know,” she says.

 “Oh, yes, I’ve heard that,” says Portia before the pause gets too long.

 “So, I was just having a peek around because district ruins are going to be all the rage this year, when two Peacemakers showed up and ordered me back to our quarters. One of them actually poked me with her gun!” says Effie.

[…]

Effie looks so distressed that I spontaneously give her a hug. “That’s awful, Effie. Maybe we shouldn’t go to the dinner at all. At least until they’ve apologized.” I know she’ll never agree to this, but she brightens considerably at the suggestion, at the validation of her complaint.

All of my hate, book.  All of my hate.

See, this passage is such a mess of Effie-bashing.  There’s that ‘pause’ that makes it sound like Effie isn’t an architectural buff, but honestly, it’s not like we’ve seen her be a failure at…you know, liking something.  It’s just there to make her sound stupid again, when we have no reason believe she doesn’t know about buildings.

Then there’s her complaint.  Which, by the way, is “I was kept in an armored truck designed to prevent outside attacks, then denied the information and access needed to do my job, then threatened with a deadly weapon.”

Fuck yes, that’s upsetting and awful.  But sure, Katniss, treat her like she’s an airhead and overreacting.

But hey, at least we’ve got a female Peacekeeper.  I guess that’s something?

And then we go into straight-up summary of the rest of the tour, not even getting descriptions of the rest of the country.

But in others — particularly 8, 4, and 3 — there is genuine elation in the faces of the people at the sight of us, and under the elation, fury.

This would have been nice to see.  Yes, it would have taken a lot of page time.  Though, frankly, I’d rather spend my time viewing the start of the rebellion than rehashing Katniss’s makeup routine.

And I know that there’s nothing I could ever do to change this. No show of love, however believable, will turn this tide. If my holding out those berries was an act of temporary insanity, then these people will embrace insanity, too.

So the book does understand this concept, it just treats it like a surprise?

When Effie brings it up to me, I think, Good. Maybe it will get back to President Snow.

Katniss, Snow doesn’t care if you’re sleeping together, or even ‘sleeping together.’  He has no fucks to give for whether or not you’re actually in love.  He didn’t come to your house saying “be in love with the boy,” he said “act in love because somehow that will stop a rebellion.”

Back in our old quarters in the Training Center, I’m the one who suggests the public marriage proposal. Peeta agrees to do it but then disappears to his room for a long time.

I would just like to point out that at no point in anything has anyone tried to force Katniss into getting married.  Snow didn’t bring it up, no one in charge hinted that she need to do that.  This is an idea that originated with Haymich, and then she just ran with it. 

Did I do it? Was it enough? Was giving everything over to you, keeping up the game, promising to marry Peeta enough?

In answer, he gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

You know, maybe Snow really does hate her and just wanted to fuck with her mind this whole time, drive her crazy with worrying.  It’s kind of stupid and petty, but it’s no worse than the idea that he honestly thought teenaged make-outs would stop a rebellion.