I can tell that however much he denied it during the day, the aftereffects of hitting the force field have been significant.

Of course they’re significant.  He’s been injured enough to cause death.  The fact that he’s still moving at all just means he’s either a zombie or a magician.

He’s slow, much slower than usual. And the tangle of vines and undergrowth, which unbalance me occasionally, trip him at every step.

I look back at the wall of fog extending in a straight line as far as I can see in either direction.

So, in the last chapter, the fog had already reached them.  It was already causing blisters on Katniss’s skin while the others were still asleep.  Now they’re able to get out of the fog and get significantly ahead of it, even though Peeta is tripping on every step he takes.

Well, then, clearly this is not a fast-moving fog.  They could probably amble along and be just fine.

And yet they continue to run away from it as if it’s catching up to them. 

Book, you have to pick one or the other.  Either they’ve outrun it and therefore they’re faster than the fog and can continue on being faster, or it hasn’t reached them yet and is catching up to them.

Although my instinct is to run directly away from it, I realize Finnick is moving at a diagonal down the hill.

The fog caught up to them again when Peeta tripped and they had to change around who carries whom, and then they managed to pull ahead of it again.  While running at an angle.  They keep getting away from this very slow fog, only to insist that they can’t get away from the fog.  Pick one, book.

He’s trying to keep a distance from the gas while steering us toward the water that surrounds the Cornucopia. Yes, water, I think as the acid droplets bore deeper into me.

Okay…why do you think that?  What about your experience with nerve gas makes you so certain that water will be beneficial here?

I’ll grant you that washing the chemical off when you have a chemical burn is important, but it seems rather less important than getting away from the source of the problem.  Later we find out that saltwater is the magic cure for this brand of nerve agent, but that’s only worth changing direction for if she already knows that, which she doesn’t. 

Then Katniss falls over, and they sit there in one spot for long enough to have a conversation and deliberate what to do, all before the fog reaches them.  And yet the fog is right on their heels? 

Maybe it’s just a very polite fog and waits for them to get up every time they fall over.

Mags hauls herself up, plants a kiss on Finnick’s lips, and then hobbles straight into the fog. Immediately, her body is seized by wild contortions and she falls to the ground in a horrible dance.

And then Mags sacrifices herself. 

Poor Mags.  She’s essentially mute, she’s been treated like a burden this whole time (to the point of literally being carried everywhere), she’s contributed nothing to the group, and Katniss seems to view her as some sort of friend’s pet instead of an actual person.  And after being thoroughly dehumanized by the text, in the end, her final fate is simply to sacrifice herself for the sake of two boys and a boy stand-in.

It’ll end up a running theme in this book.  So I’m going to start counting now.  And Katniss counts, since even though she doesn’t die she still feels like it’s her “duty” to sacrifice herself for the sake of a man.

Sacrificial Women: 2

I take one futile step in her direction when I hear the cannon blast, know her heart has stopped, that she is dead.

That didn’t stop Peeta.

I follow Finnick until he collapses on the ground, Peeta still on top of him. I seem to have no ability to stop my own forward motion and simply propel myself onward until I trip over their prone bodies, just one more on the heap.

How extremely convenient that you didn’t trip and collapse until right outside the fog territory. 

Yes, it’s becoming thicker, as if it has pressed up against a glass window

The technological level of this world is really confusing.  I can sort of buy forcefields, as that’s just a fence made out of energy, and it’s within the realm of possible.  But here we have a forcefield that only stops one thing.  Katniss and the others were able to pass through it, and presumably air and animals and materials and everything that the people had with them, all that can pass through it.  It’s only the fog that stops.  They can figure out how to make a forcefield that only stops one single thing.  That seems like it would take some finagling. 

But they can’t figure out how to make a CGI image of ruins that changes over time, and instead they reuse stock footage.

I have never seen a live monkey — there’s nothing like that in our woods at home. But I must have seen a picture, or one in the Games, because when I see the creatures, the same word comes to my mind.

She did the same thing when she told us she was in a jungle.

You know, I’ve never been to a jungle before.  And there’s lots of jungle animals I’ve never seen before.  But if I got plopped down in a jungle and came face-to-face with a python, I wouldn’t waste brain cells thinking “huh, when I look at all these trees, the word ‘jungle’ pops into my head.  I must have seen a picture of it somewhere.”

If the knowledge is in Katniss’s mental lexicon somewhere, that’s fine.  She doesn’t need to explain the process of thinking of a word.  If she needs to explain anything, then she could easily say that they’ve been used in Games before.  If we need to be kept unaware of the fact that they’re dangerous, then she could offhand mention that in the Game where she saw them, they made for good eating.

But what no one needs to explain, ever, is the process of looking at a thing and knowing what the word for it is.  We’re older than 2.  We know how that works.

I take the monkeys for a good sign. Surely they would not hang around if the air was deadly. For a while, we quietly observe one another, humans and monkeys.

While you’re not familiar with monkeys, you should be familiar with animals.  And therefore you should know that any animal that just sits there and stares at you is either domesticated, or at the top of its local food chain and 1) not afraid of you and 2) probably carnivorous.  Either way, having any group of ‘wild’ animals stand around and stare at you is not a “good sign.”

And through the blue layer of water, I see a milky substance leaching out of the wounds on my skin. As the whiteness diminishes, so does the pain.

So.  These games are very unpopular, and Katniss assumes that the gamemakers are trying to just kill everyone fast and get it over with.  This theory fits pretty well with the fact that there’s a deadly forcefield around the place, instead of their usual “throw shit back” type of forcefield.  If anyone blunders into it, hey, good, the games are that much shorter.

And yet their nerve gas is completely and instantly cured by water?  They would have had to craft it to react to water that way, because that’s anywhere even in the realm of close to a natural reaction.  Are they trying to shorten these games or prolong them?  Or is the extra-deadly forcefield just a momentary bout of insanity, since it doesn’t even kill people entertainingly?

Or should we just not bother trying to figure out what’s going on?

Leave your brains at the door people.  Narrator Katniss will hold your hand and tell you what to think.

Although, really, it’s obvious what’s going on.  The toxic fog needs to be cured so they can move on to the next thing without any carryover, because like last book, once they’re done with one obstacle they need to be able to move on from it without any lasting consequences, forget all about it, and focus on the next ‘episode.’

Because logical cause and effect is for other books.  Clearly.

strip off my jumpsuit, which is little more than a perforated rag. My shoes and undergarments are inexplicably unaffected.

So we’re back to that whole sex vs violence thing again.  The book is perfectly happy to have her convulsing on the ground and writhing in pain, but heaven forbid her shirt be torn.

So I scoop up shaky handfuls and empty them on his fists. Since he’s not underwater, the poison comes out of his wounds just as it went in, in wisps of fog that I take great care to steer clear of.

I…just…so…

Magic?

Yeah, let’s go with magic.

Guys, not only does this completely fail to understand nerve gas, it’s pretty much on par with Peeta’s “I was injured enough to die, but I’m cool now” fiasco. 

If the chemicals are in your body and make half your face stop working, then they have damaged you and pulling out the chemicals will only stop further damage.  It won’t magically fix what they did while they were in there.

And also THAT SHIT DON’T STAY FOG ONCE IT’S IN YOU, SERIOUSLY, JUST GO WRITE FANTASY, DAMNIT.

We’re lucky no one’s attacked us yet. We could see them coming from the Cornucopia, but if all four Careers attacked, they’d overpower us.

Why does Katniss even have a bow if she doesn’t know the point of one?

I mean, she hunts with that thing, so she should be well acquainted with the idea that a clear field of vision is a boon.  I doubt she was shooting at deer around the trees, after all.

Then again, it wouldn’t be any more fantastical than that “in the body as a fog” bullshit.

What I find is that the longer I sit in the water, the better I feel. Not just my skin, but my brain and muscle control continue to improve.

Seriously, there’s some sort of magic going on here, because how the fuck did the saltwater get into your brain and fix shit?  After all, earlier she said “Parts of me are dead, or clearly dying” and yet now fucking water is enough for cure DEATH.  IT’S BRINGING HER DEAD TISSUE AND NERVES AND BRAIN CELLS BACK TO LIFE.

WHY IS THE STORY NOT ABOUT THIS FUCKING FOUNTAIN OF IMMORTALITY THAT THEY’VE APPARENTLY DISCOVERED, BECAUSE COME ON, WHY IS THIS AUTHOR NOT JUST WRITING FANTASY IF SHE WANTS TO PULL THIS SHIT?

“Let me make the hole first,” says Peeta. “You stay with him. You’re the healer.”

That’s a joke, I think.

That’s a joke the same way that “go make me a sandwich” jokes are a joke.  As in, still highly fucking insulting.  Especially since, oh yeah, Katniss is totally the healthier and more capable of the two, so if anyone’s going to strike out alone for a project, it should be her.  But instead Peeta’s all “lol, you’re a girl and girls do the healing, so I’ll go do the physical work, you just sit right there, sweetie.”

You know, just like he was all “lol, I totally forced you into pretending that we’re lovers so make sure you kiss me really good” in the last game.

Peeta’s jokes are nasty.

“Peeta,” I say as calmly as possible. “I need your help with something.”

“Okay, just a minute. I think I’ve just about got it,” he says, still occupied with the tree. “Yes, there. Have you got the spile?”

“I do. But we’ve found something you’d better take a look at,” I continue in a measured voice. “Only move toward us quietly, so you don’t startle it.” For some reason, I don’t want him to notice the monkeys, or even glance their way. There are creatures that interpret mere eye contact as aggression.

Uh, that’s all well and good, but are you assuming the monkeys speak English?  Is there a reason you can’t tell Peeta ‘keep your eyes on the ground because you might set off the monkeys right above you’? 

I get that people tend to look up when you say “don’t look you,” but that’s just because you haven’t told them why.  People are curious and want to know the reasons of things, especially when the warning they get is really vague.  If you instead are specific and say “Hey, there’s a medusa face over your head and looking up will kill you,” then odds are really good that they won’t do it.

And in this case, she’s not even going that far, because she never tells him that there’s a threat or even to not look up.  He could follow her instructions to the letter and still look in the trees just because there’s a fuckton of monkeys up there and surely they’re making some amount of noise.

No, Katniss has instead decided to lie her ass off because…fuck it, magic monkeys speak English.  I guess it’s no worse than magic saltwater cures DEATH.

He’s just five yards from the beach when he senses them. His eyes only dart up for a second, but it’s as if he’s triggered a bomb.

See?  This wouldn’t have happened if you’d warned him.

Also, Katniss and Finnick already looked straight at these things, so why is it only Peeta that sets them off with eye contact?

Leap impossible distances from tree to tree. Fangs bared, hackles raised, claws shooting out like switchblades. I may be unfamiliar with monkeys, but animals in nature don’t act like this. “Mutts!”

No.  If you are unfamiliar with monkeys, then you are unfamiliar with monkeys, fullstop.  You can’t spontaneously declare that you know how far a monkey can jump.

And if you’re going to go the rout of “animals in nature don’t act like this,” then you should have brought it up when hundreds of them were just sitting in the trees and staring at you silently.  That’s a hell of a lot more unnatural than attacking.

I throw my knife at the oncoming mutt but the creature somersaults, evading the blade, and stays on its trajectory.

Magic monkeys laugh at physics.

Weaponless, defenseless, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Peeta, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won’t make it in time.

So.  These three are literally surrounded by hundreds of monkeys, and all the monkeys are trying to attack.  But Katniss can pick one single monkey out of the crowd and realize that it’s about to attack Peeta, and then she can spend a whole page narrating to us why no one can stop the monkey, all while it’s…apparently flying through the air like Superman.  I guess.

Really, it’s the middle of a frantic fight.  We do not need to hear about every single little thing that’s going on to understand that he’s about to be attacked.  She could just as easily glance over and see that he’s about to bitten, and just not have time to react.  She could have all the weapons in the world and just not have the time to bring them to bear on an attacker that’s at the wrong angle.  That’s a thing, and it’s a thing that makes a lot more sense than “the monkey changed directions in midair and then stayed in his jump so long that I had a chance to scream and think and then run.”

Magic monkeys!

The insane morphling from District 6 throws up her skeletal arms as if to embrace the monkey, and it sinks its fangs into her chest.

First of all, she’s not insane.  Nothing we’ve learned about her gives credence to the idea that she’s insane.  She’s an addict, fine.  Addiction is not the same thing as insanity, and also, nothing she’s done has been insane.  She’s been shown painting herself during training, but fuck it, so was Peeta.  The fact that she decided to play with paints and draw flowers does not mean she’s insane, especially given the circumstances.  She could have just as easily thought “I’m going to die anyway and I don’t care anymore because, seriously, fuck the amount of shit the Capitol has piled on my head, so I’m just going to do whatever and relax.”  That’s a hell of a lot more sane than Katniss has been so far.

Second:

Sacrificial Women: 3