I have less than a minute to get my bearings. Then the gong will sound and the tributes will be free to move off their metal plates.

So…are there mines in the water?

Katniss doesn’t really think about that, she just takes it as gospel fact that she can’t jump off her little plate early. 

And really, that’s one of the more damning things about these books.  So many things are just taken on faith by Katniss, and the reader has no choice but to do the same.  (Or, you know, complain about it on a blog.)  She goes along with all sorts of stuff, never once evaluating the world around her or her actions or anyone else’s actions or …really anything.   The only times she does question things, those things are made out to be a big point, part of the plot, and they’re treated with boxing gloves instead of kid gloves.  It ends up looking, more than ever, like authorial puppet strings, since she can only be arsed to question the plot and none of this other stuff.

My refusal to play the Games on the Capitol’s terms is to be my last act of rebellion. So I grit my teeth and will myself to be a player.

Do I really need to say anything here?  

I catch a handful of water as it washes in and smell it. Then I touch the tip of my wet finger to my tongue. As I suspected, it’s saltwater.

No, honey, salt water has a pretty strong smell to it.  You shouldn’t need to pick it up and sniff it to tell.

It’s a longer distance than I’m used to, and navigating the waves takes a little more skill than swimming across my quiet lake at home,

The cornucopia is 40 yards away from her and all the 12 spokes are equal distance from each other.  That means that each little ‘wedge’ with two tributes in it has a 30 degree angle between the ‘spokes.’  Do the math.  At 40 yards away, the final ‘side’ of that triangle-wedge is only 12 yards.

And she’s only got to swim less than half that far to get to a spoke (since she’s sharing the space with another tribute.)  Like five yards.  Maybe.  And it’s longer than she’s used to swimming.

So, basically, her beloved ‘lake’ is more like a ‘puddle.’

Judging by that, I’m thinking the ‘waves’ she’s got to deal with are more like ripples, especially since where would the waves be coming from?  They’ve got the other beach/clock surrounding them, so they’re basically in a little salt-water pond there.

But yeah, if there’s some sort of wave machine at work to give them real ocean-ish waves, then she’s not handling that with ‘a little more skill.’  Swimming in waves is a whole different beast from swimming in a puddle.

but my body seems oddly light and I cut through the water effortlessly. Maybe it’s the salt.

 To my experience, when you’re swimming with a flotation device, you can tell.  Mostly because it’s not your whole body that’s “oddly light,” just that one part with a belt on it.  Kind of a hard thing to miss.  Unless your name is Katniss.  

There’s someone behind me. I’m alerted by, I don’t know, a soft shift of sand or maybe just a change in the air currents. I pull an arrow from the sheath that’s still wedged in the pile and arm my bow as I turn

“Behind her” is otherwise known as “the place with no weapons, thus by default full of unarmed persons.”  But that’s never stopped Katniss from being willing to murder someone before.  

Oddly enough, though, it has been enough to stop her from doing it.  I mean, she doesn’t make the decision to stop her, the narration does it for her.  So she’s being made into someone willing to kill at the drop of a hat, but the book refuses to embrace that and letter loose an arrow.  How much better a story would this be if Katniss killed Finnick and then afterwards found out that fucks up all sorts of plans?  She’s have to deal with actual consequences and guilt!  But the book won’t let her be anything except morally “right,” because consequences are for other books.

but somehow I know this isn’t the case.

That how being…magic?

Alright then.  Magic.

even though Haymitch is my mentor and trying to keep me alive, this angers me. Why didn’t he tell me he’d made this arrangement before?

Seriously, why didn’t he?  He had plenty of chances.  At the end there, instead of giving her a cryptic warning, he could have just been all “by the by, don’t shoot Finnick, we’ve got a plan.”

I get that they’re worried she’ll mess things up if she knows the plan.  (I think it’s stupid, but it’s their reasoning.)  However, she’s already been through one game where the rules were changed, and she just saw the other victors calling for a rule change in the interviews.  She doesn’t need to know the details to believe that there’s a similar thing going on here.  Why can’t they tell her “hey, there’s a thing in the works, so don’t kill these people and play it cool.”

She’s already proven that she doesn’t care if people keep secrets from her and that she’s rather shit at picking up on clues.

His trident goes whizzing over my head and there’s a sickening sound of impact as it finds its target. The man from District 5, the drunk who threw up on the sword-fighting floor, sinks to his knees as Finnick frees the trident from his chest. “Don’t trust One and Two,” Finnick says.

So, Finnick killed an unarmed man who’s only appearance so far in the book has been to highlight the fact that he can’t fight even if given the chance.  And then mentions that two completely different districts are the dangerous ones, with no mention of Five.  For all we know, that man could have been just poking around for some snacks with no intention of killing anyone.

Looks like Katniss found a sociopath buddy!

I shoot an arrow at Enobaria, who’s gotten in too close for comfort, but she’s expecting it and dives back into the water before it can find its mark.

See?  She’s trying to kill people just as soon as they get out of the water. 

These four classic Careers will no doubt have a prior alliance.

So, it seems the book has officially forgotten that 4 is a career district, too.  Or else made some sort of meaningless distinction between 4 and these ‘classics.’  Maybe 4 joined the career train recently?

I raise my bow, warding off any attackers from the Cornucopia, but no one seems interested in pursuing us.

That’s because they’re not sociopaths like you.  They’re probably just collecting weapons to defend themselves from your spontaneous murder spree.

With one hand he reaches into the water and scoops out Mags like she weighs no more than a puppy.

Book…stop it.  Stop comparing women to animals.  It’s really old.

And it’s not like you’re doing it to people, either.  We haven’t seen Brutus compared to a bull or anything like that.  It’s just the women being reduced to puppies and foxes and birds.

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

I make Finnick go second because even though he’s the most powerful,

You have a bow.

You can kill people before they get close enough to do anything to you.

Finnick’s only skill so far has been with a trident, which is not as good as a bow.

But he’s got the penis, so he’s the ‘most powerful.’

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

Besides, while he’s a whiz with that trident, it’s a weapon less suited to the jungle than my arrows.

She even admits it!  And yet still thinks he’s the ‘most powerful.’

Well, what did I think? That the victors’ chain of locked hands last night would result in some sort of universal truce in the arena? No, I never believed that. But I guess I had hoped people might show some … what? Restraint? Reluctance, at least. Before they jumped right into massacre mode.

OH, FUCK OFF YOU HYPOCRITE! 

SERIOUSLY, YOU WERE THE FIRST PERSON TO START SHOOTING AT PEOPLE.  AT MULTIPLE PEOPLE.  YOU EVEN HIT ONE OF THEM! 

This would be tolerable, barely, if Katniss would turn this thinking inward for just a second.  But no, she never does.  All she thinks about is how sad it is that those other heartless monsters couldn’t show a bit of restraint.  She never stops to think about or evaluate her own actions or realize that SHE FUCKING STARTED THE GOD DAMN BLOODBATH. 

Finnick knows then what Haymitch and I know. About Peeta. Being truly, deep-down better than the rest of us.

You’ve come to this decision about his ‘deep down’ betterness based on …?  

The people in this arena weren’t crowned for their compassion.

[…]

We need to be undercover when the others come hunting us tonight.”

Apparently they weren’t crowned for their brains, either, if this whole “hunting at night” thing is a regular occurrence.