What will break me into a million pieces so that I am beyond repair, beyond usefulness?

Because lord knows a “hospital” full of sick and dying bomb victims isn’t going to do it.  Nope.  Katniss will only be broken over the boy toy in her life. 

Even though Snow is in on the fact that their entire relationship was a lie.  But shhhhhhh, it’s shipper time, not logic time.

Inside the bunker, cooperation is the order of the day. We adhere to a strict schedule for meals and bathing, exercise and sleep

How is that different from usual?  You know, except for the fact that Katniss doesn’t have the option of blowing off said schedule this time.

Small periods of socialization are granted to alleviate the tedium.

Wait, why?  This would make sense if there’s some actual task to be accomplished and everyone is working, but if they’re all just sitting around, why make them stay apart?  And how would you even enforce that?  Bored people are going to find something to do, especially in times of stress, because the other option is going crazy.  They should have something to do down there, something social, even if it’s ultimately pointless, because you don’t want stressed out people to spend a lot of time just sitting around thinking about how stressed out they are.

This is how riots start.

I created this by accident a few years ago, during a winter blackout. You simply wiggle a flashlight beam around on the floor, and Buttercup tries to catch it. I’m petty enough to enjoy it because I think it makes him look stupid. Inexplicably, everyone here thinks he’s clever and delightful.

Our hero, ladies and gents.  She takes delight in making others look foolish, and also she hates cats.

I’m even issued a special set of batteries — an enormous waste — to be used for this purpose. The citizens of 13 are truly starved for entertainment.

First, if D13 is anything at all like what she describes, those should be rechargeable batteries, and also it doesn’t appear that anything else is going on that would require them.  Second, D13 has some sever inconsistencies in this regard.  They understand the need for socialization and downtime in order to maintain mental health, and they rank it as important enough to warrant space in the schedule and valuable resources, but at the same time they can’t figure out pets?  They can’t have a plan to keep bunker-bound people entertained?

Crazy Cat becomes a metaphor for my situation. I am Buttercup. Peeta, the thing I want so badly to secure, is the light. As long as Buttercup feels he has the chance of catching the elusive light under his paws, he’s bristling with aggression. (That’s how I’ve been since I left the arena, with Peeta alive.) When the light goes out completely, Buttercup’s temporarily distraught and confused, but he recovers and moves on to other things. (That’s what would happen if Peeta died.) But the one thing that sends Buttercup into a tailspin is when I leave the light on but put it hopelessly out of his reach, high on the wall, beyond even his jumping skills. He paces below the wall, wails, and can’t be comforted or distracted. He’s useless until I shut the light off. (That’s what Snow is trying to do to me now, only I don’t know what form his game takes.)

I had to reprint all of that because I am just floored at how bad that is.  At how baldly and indelicately this book decided to force its symbolism down our throats.  This is even worse than her explaining that Hanging Tree Song.  She honestly just…straight-up explained the metaphor. 

Did you really think we wouldn’t understand cat chasing light/katniss chasing peeta thing, or were convinced that it was just such a good metaphor that everyone simply had to understand it so we could admire your brilliance?

I think it’s the parenthesis that really send this over the edge for me.  They’re just so…patronizing.  She’s already explaining things, and then she feels the need to go ahead and explain things more, just in case I’m extra stupid. 

And it’s under the weight of this revelation that I truly begin to break.

After Crazy Cat, we’re directed to bed.

So by “break” you really mean “no change whatsoever.”

This strategy is very old news to Finnick. It’s what broke him.

“This is what they’re doing to you with Annie, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Well, they didn’t arrest her because they thought she’d be a wealth of rebel information,”

Wait, when was Annie arrested?

Book, you skipped a few steps, because we literally never heard about Annie being arrested.  He’s been worried about her, sure, but I figured that was just because no one knew where she was or what state she was in, especially with all the Districts openly at war.  When was she arrested and how do any of these characters even know that?  She would have to have been taken before the games started for Finnick to know about it, which makes no sense because the government didn’t know about the breakout attempt, or else someone would have had to tell him afterwards, which would have been nice for someone to tell us in that case.

“They know I’d never have risked telling her anything like that. For her own protection.”

Well, fat lot of good that did.

I know Annie is considered non compos mentis in this world (despite the fact that we merely have to take the book’s word on that; we never really find out if she’s incapable of making decisions.  More on that when she shows up) but let’s dissect the principle in and of itself for a moment, because it’s something that pops up a lot in fiction.

Here we have a clear example of how not telling people stuff doesn’t actually help them.  The book doesn’t seem to realize that it’s doing that, because it carries blithely on as if Finnick just made a reasonable statement, and it also never criticizes any of the other secrets, even though it continues to display the consequences.  Keeping Peeta out of the “kiss for peace” plan didn’t help him act right, keeping both of them out of the breakout plan just meant they weren’t in position at the right time, and keeping Prim and Cynthia in the dark…okay, didn’t do anything bad, but it wasn’t helpful either!  And yet everyone keeps doing it as if it’s going to help, without realize that they’re kind of fucking up.

Because keeping secrets from someone does only one thing: it stops them from being able to make decisions about their own lives.  If a situation is bad and you keep that a secret from them, they have no idea how to act, what to avoid, when to run, who to hide from, when to keep their mouth shut to not piss off the angry government, etc, etc.  Nor can they decide “I’m willing to take that risk anyway.”  It disempowers the person being lied to and removes the ability to choose.  It relegates the person to the position of a child, someone who can’t think and judge and have opinions and control their own lives.  They can’t participate in the danger, but neither can they participate in their own safe-keeping.  They are made helpless by their supposed “loved one” and forced to be entirely dependent without even their own knowledge.  They’re a thing, to be protected but never consulted, to be hidden away but given no agency.

In order to pull off this trope, it has to be handled very carefully.  All other options have to be cut off in order for this to be acceptable, and even then it should be a hard decision. If Finnick couldn’t tell Annie about this because of her mental health, he should have at least told someone else, so that someone could watch out for her and get her out of dodge if it looked like the capitol was going to come in and be all capitol-y.  Instead he’s just like “nope, I’m going to leave you there in complete ignorance and give you nothing by which to protect yourself.  But that’s okay, it’s because I love you!”

Someone has finally broken out the coffee — although I’m sure it’s viewed only as an emergency stimulant

So…does this world not have caffeine pills?  You can artificially create that stuff, and there’s other substances that are stimulants as well.  The coffee plant, on the other hand, requires very specific climates in order to grow, and “underground” isn’t one of them, so where are they getting coffee from in the first place?  Why would it be considered an “emergency stimulant” when you can make stuff that’s a lot easier to procure and works better?

“We need all four of you suited up and aboveground […] You have two hours to get footage showing the damage from the bombing, establish that Thirteen’s military unit remains not only functional but dominant, and, most important, that the Mockingjay is still alive. Any questions?”

Yes.  Why can’t you film Katniss belowground?  Why can’t you use the belief that you’re crippled to surprise the capitol with the fact that you’re not?  Why does anyone need to be aboveground for this when all your military capabilities are deep below ground?

Finnick sloshes some cream in my cup [of coffee] and reaches into the sugar bowl.

So they use coffee only as an “emergency” stimulant, but they’ll still waste cream and sugar on it?  Either suck it down or take a caffeine pill.  This book wants us to believe that these people are ‘extreme’ in their conservation, but it consistently fails to apply that in any sort of cohesive manner.

As I turn to go suit up as the Mockingjay, I catch Gale watching me and Finnick unhappily. What now? Does he actually think something’s going on between us?

Emotions!  What could they possibly be?  As we know, the only emotions are shipper emotions, so if Gale is having emotions, they must be shipper related!  He can’t possibly be upset that the two people with a tenuous grasp on reality (supposedly) are hanging out together and feeding their mutual delusions.  Nope, the only emotions are shipper emotions.  And selfishness. 

That one didn’t get much. A few backup generators and a poultry farm,” says Boggs. “We’ll just seal it off.”

Except you’re so short on supplies that you’ll only feed people exactly what they need to function.  The loss of an entire poultry farm should be a huge deal, because you can’t get that food from elsewhere, since every other part of the country is tied up in war efforts.  (Other option is that they’re short on supplies because they were sending what they had out to the war efforts, which now they can’t use those chickens, but the end result is still the same: when you’re strapped for resources, don’t blow off like destroying a few is no big thing.)

“How much of an edge did the boy’s warning give you?” asks Haymitch.

“About ten minutes before our own systems would’ve detected the missiles,” says Boggs.

“But it did help, right?” I ask. I can’t bear it if he says no.

“Absolutely,” Boggs replies.

Except as we know from reading the actual chapter, everyone except Prim and Gale were safe well before that time, and even those two were well below ground by ten minutes prior, so they would have most likely survived. 

God, book, this isn’t that hard.  Making it a much closer call would have even upped the clichéd drama, which is something we know you love doing.

Peeta might have saved them. Add their names to the list of things I can never stop owing him for.

Oh.  Great.  This bullshit lives one.

I don’t know what the problem is at first and then I see the ground strewn with fresh pink and red roses. “Don’t touch them!” I yell. “They’re for me!”

Ooooof course.  Because when have we ever passed up a chance to hammer in the fact that everything revolves around Katniss.  Bombs being dropped?  Lives endangered by the loss of equipment and resources?  Thousands of man-hours worth of damage done?  Vital war-time jobs disrupted?  God-knows-what going on in the other districts while D13 is unable to provide support?  Not tragic enough.  Let’s make it all about Katniss.

Technically, there’s no evidence that the bombings were for Katniss, and all of those other consequences are still valid.  But the way the book refuses to focus on them, the way the book always brings it back around to talk about Katniss and focus on Katniss and revolve around Katniss makes you associate those things with Katniss.  It’s not just her being selfish, too, the universe is making sure to include things that bring the focus back to her.  So we’ve got all this damage and disruption, but we’re not allowed to focus on it, we’re only allowed to focus on how it affects Katniss, and everything around her supports this. Someone throws flowers out the window as a message to her, and no one around her every says “uh, yeah, but what about all of this?”  She’s utterly selfish and self-focused, and then her selfishness is validated.  And because of this, the reader is sneakily led into accepting that viewpoint as well, because it’s not directly stating anything, it’s just having a devastating bombing raid and then focusing on Katniss.

I’m so tired, so wired, and so unable to keep my mind on anything but Peeta since I’ve seen the roses. The coffee was a huge mistake. What I didn’t need was a stimulant. My body visibly shakes and I can’t seem to catch my breath.

This, and her subsequent break-down on camera where she repeatedly tries to say a line only to choke up and then start crying, are some pretty good stuff.  It’s a nicely depicted break-down, and I appreciate it.

EXCEPT for the fact that we never got to see anything like this before.  Loss of an entire district?  War?  Seeing that “hospital”?  Nearly everyone you know is dead?  Trauma from two games?  Well, that wasn’t SHIPPER EMOTIONS and as we all know, only SHIPPER EMOTIONS count.  Everything else warrants nothing more than a little bit of recalcitrant napping and selfishly making demands before you can be bothered to put on a costume.

I think what pisses me off most about the entire Hunger Games franchise is how good it could have been.  If more care had been taken with Katniss’s actions before now, if she’d been cracking all along and this was just the final straw, this could work.  If she was under a lot of stress, having little episodes here and there, but mostly holding together.  If she was having trouble, but her stuff was all recorded anyway so they could just edit together from the takes when she was doing fine, so that the final product looked like she was strong, but now she can’t even do one good take.  If she’d been using Peeta as some sort of talisman, thinking “I have to do this for him, so we can get him out of there” and then realized that “for him” is actually causing him harm.  If there had basically be anything except having her break-down entirely based that god damn romance angle, this would be so much better.

But no.  Shipping is of highest value, and the one thing that can break Katniss is penis-related.  Because she’s a girl, and as we all know, a girls worth is all kinds of tied up in her man.

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

trying to force air down into my diaphragm.

Also, this.

And then I cross some line into hysteria and there’s a needle in my arm and the world slips away.

Also, the willingness of this book to drug her for every little emotional outburst is…really, really disturbing.  Katniss isn’t allowed to deal with her emotions, usually because she doesn’t have any, but whenever the book can’t get around having her be emotional, they’re drugged away.  It’s almost like she’s being punished for daring to feel things.  “Oh, no, she’s having those icky girly feelings again, cut that shit right out, Katniss.”

They’ll drug her over the weirdest shit, every time she has any expression of emotion that isn’t macho and aggressive, and it…it really does feel like the book is saying that those kinds of emotions are bad.  It’s wrong to cry, it means there’s something wrong with you, here, have some drugs so that you’ll stop having any emotion that isn’t either manly or shippy.  The sort of emotions that are traditionally designated as “feminine” emotions, the kind of things that are usually attributed to “weepy girls.”

The book is actually punishing Katniss for being feminine.  Any time she acts that way, it’s chemically suppressed or erased.  Which is not only incredibly insulting to say, but it’s also a horrible thing to do for a person and just about the farthest from helpful.  And we’re holding this book up as a feminist tome and telling people that Katniss is a role model, and this is the message they’re getting from that.  “If you have emotions (except manly or shipper emotions) then something is wrong with you.  ‘Dealing’ with them is not an option.  Here, fix yourself with drugs.”

“Because it’s costly. But everyone agrees this is the thing to do. It’s the same choice we made in the arena. To do whatever it takes to keep you going. We can’t lose the Mockingjay now.

And by costly, he means people are going to die for this.  All so that Katniss can have her toy back, because she’s just so important. 

We’re officially in reruns.”

So, so important.  She is the only propaganda thing ever.  There is nothing else they could use that is or even might be inspiring.  She’s it.  She’s that important.  There is nothing else in the world that could ever inspire anyone ever, only Katniss, and that’s why Katniss has people literally dropping dead to give her stuff.  |~|