The girls are being interview on TV, with Gavril (apparently the one-and-only talk-show interviewer) asking them questions about the military statistics that America wasn’t studying a few chapters ago.

To be honest, I didn’t have an opinion about the number of soldiers Illea had, but now that I knew Celeste’s, was unwaveringly opposed.

And that is exactly why you are a blithering moron.  We’re talking about a god damn fucking war here, not what color to paint the parlor.  Thousands of lives and millions of dollars, dollars which could buy food and thus aren’t’ and therefore represent even more lives, and you’re making all your decisions based on some knee-jerk reaction about whether or not like some other opinion holder?

Her status as a Two made her consider herself a cut above the rest of us.

I hate you, America.  I hate your face.  How dare you sit there and judge this girl for judging you.  You are a hypocrite and a shallow, vain, petty, vapid excuse for a protagonist.  You decided that she was arrogant the first moment you met her, making a snap judgment without getting to know her, and all her actions since then have been either explainable through stress or just plain old not bad things.  Yet you’ve decided that she must be an arrogant prig who dismisses people, therefore you feel comfortable with dismissing her.

Even worse, America has already in this chapter admitted that barely got through her statistics report, didn’t understand it, and only remembers a few numbers.  She has no facts or understanding of the matter, so for all she knows, Celeste could be absolutely correct here.  But she hates Celeste, so she’s going to say the opposite just out of spite.

America gives the bullshittiest excuses for not increasing the draft, then suggests that the army be voluntary.  She says they’d get better performance out of volunteers than out of draftees, which is nice enough in concept, but still utterly stupid.  Remember, the army is one of the few ways to increase your caste number (soldiers are all Twos) and get enough money to not starve to death.  A volunteer army wouldn’t be full of patriotic people; it would be full of starving lower caste members who just want to eat.

This statement and the shock everyone else expresses also indicates that the army has been exclusively draft-driven before now.  Which means one of two things: either they had mandatory service before the war started, or they used to be a volunteer army and NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE VOLUNTEERED.

COME ON, BOOK, THAT’S THE POINT OF A DRAFT!  THEY INSTITUTE THOSE THINGS WHEN SOMEONE REALIZES “OH, SHIT, NO ONE’S SIGNING UP WILLINGLY BUT WE STILL NEED WARM BODIES!”

WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING ON?

“Well, I know this might sound a little modern, but what if it was open to women?” Kriss commented.

Celeste laughed aloud.  “Who do you think would sign up?  Would you be heading into the battlefield?”  Her voice dripped with an insulting disbelief.

Book.  Book.  Book.

YOU ARE SET IN THE FUTURE.  THE IDEA OF INCLUDING WOMEN IN THE MILITARY IS NOT A “MODERN” IDEA, IT’S  A PAST-FUCKING-TENSE IDEA WE’VE ALREADY GOT KICKASS WOMEN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

We’ve had women in the military for decades.  I know they’re only just now getting into combat positions, but women have been serving and fighting prominently in the current Middle East wars, and they’ve been serving in non-combat support roles in large numbers since WWI.  Women served before that in the Civil War, Revolutionary War, etc, on an individual or accidental basis rather than in an organized sense.  Women followed around the armies and did support roles, occasionally stepping into battles if need be because they were there and didn’t want to die/lose. 

What the hell kind of bullshit has happened to this setting that women have so severely backslid? We’ve done so much work clearing the way, and there’s been so many studies and experiments and proofs when it comes to female fitness in the military, so what the fuck happened?  You want to claim that all that research went the way of computers and history books?  Not so easy.  If we’ve got women in the army now, then that means that women must have been fighting against the Chinese and the Russians and the whatevers in those wars you were talking about last book, before Illea became a country.  You can squash reports if you want, but you can’t squash a whole heap of women with guns saying “get in the kitchen, did you say?  Come over here and tell that to my M-4.”  Illea is supposed to be a “young country,” so where’s the grannies saying “back in my day, I KICKED ASS”?

Well, onward.  Back in her room, America’s maids praise her for the volunteer idea.  Lucy talks about how devastating it was for one of her neighbors to lose kids, so a volunteer army would be better because…then no one would die?  If the implication is that no one would volunteer, then that’s pretty much an argument against America’s idea.

Maxon shows up and thankfully interrupts the idiocy, but only so they can talk about Halloween.  He wants to throw a Halloween party, but since all the books talking about Halloween are banned, what’s going to be his excuse for knowing what that is?  “Oh, um…I made it up!”?

And we’ll make an announcement, tell the entire country to celebrate.  Let the children dress up and go door-to-door doing tricks, like they used to.  Your sister will love that, yes?

Sure.  She’ll love being poor, having no money for candy, and going up to all her poor neighbors who also have no money for candy and getting no candy.  It’ll be awesome!

Ah, Maxon plans on inviting her whole family to the palace.  Well, so, May will get some candy, but her neighbors still won’t.

They flirt and make out for a while and America discovers all over again that she has squishy feelings for Maxon, because apparently she forgot or something.  She starts crying and tells Maxon that she wants him.  He gets all happy and they make out for a while, then he leaves.  So…the entire exchange meant…what?  She said “I want you,” but what does that mean?  We already know she liked him a lot.  Did she just accept a marriage proposal?  What?  And Maxon didn’t really have anything significant to say back; he just kissed her. 

So basically, the book tricked us.  It wrote a scene with all these big, sweeping emotions and grand statements and knee-melting kisses, but all without actually changing anything.  We have no new information, and the circumstances are exactly as before.