District 2 is a large district, as one might expect, composed of a series of villages spread across the mountains.

Why would I expect that?  You’ve told me very little about it at all, besides saying that for whatever reason they’re favorites of the capitol.

At the center of the district is a virtually impenetrable mountain that houses the heart of the Capitol’s military.

Oh, let’s go ahead and have a drink for this, since we all know what’s coming.  They haven’t gotten really stupid with this yet, but we’re getting there.  \~/

The Nut was established directly after the Dark Days, when the Capitol had lost 13 and was desperate for a new underground stronghold.

Why?  Tell me why, book.  Why do they need, specifically, an underground stronghold?  What’s the point?  Are they defending against mole people?  What is the point of having an underground military base when you own all the bombs?  Because despite what you seem to think, underground bases really aren’t all that hot.  They’re extremely vulnerable, not extremely safe.  They cave in, there’s limited exits, and all resources have to be imported, so it’s really easy to cripple them simply by hitting all the doors.  Plus, large-scale underground construction is difficult, dangerous, and impractical.  At best, you’ll have some underground storage, especially for explosives and dangerous materials, and maybe you’ll have some shelters that will be used only during an attack, but not a whole base, that’s ridiculous. \~/

But inside were vast cavern-ous spaces where slabs of stones had been cut, hauled to the surface, and transported down slippery narrow roads to make distant buildings.

Wait.

What?

What?

What?

Book…what?  Are you confusing a mine with a quarry?  You don’t take building stones out of a cave.  That makes no sense.  You use a quarry for that, because then it’s just a giant hole in the ground and you can take out huge chunks of stone without worrying about the ceiling collapsing on you.  Underground mines are narrow tunnels, full-stop, because CAVE INS ARE A THING THAT HAPPENS, YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS, YOU TALKED ABOUT THEM ALREADY IN D12.

While every other district has now wrested control from the Capitol, 2 remains in its pocket.

Each day, I do whatever I can to help. Visit the wounded. Tape short propos with my camera crew.

So, everything is taken except for this one place?  Then who are you taping propos for?  Apparently no one is still fighting you guys except this one mountain with easily-collapsible doors, so who’s seeing these propos?  Are you sending them into the Nut?  What kind of stuff are you filming to try and sway them?  Got anything?  Nope?  Just leaving it at that?  Fine.

Outside of Prim, my mother, and Gale, how many people in the world love me unconditionally?

According to this book…literally everyone.

But what’s the use? It’s gone. He’s gone. Whatever existed between us is gone.

Damn you give up so easily.  No one’s even trying to talk her out of this or reassure her, she’s just wallowing in this conviction that one single failure means that it’s over and broken forever and ever.  But, of course, this isn’t the case and we all know that Peeta gets ‘better,’ so really this feels like the book is just trying extra, extra hard to convince us so that we’ll be ‘surprised’ when he shows up again later.

It’s not working, because it’s too sudden and melodramatic.

Back in 13, Peeta’s rehabilitation continues.

THIS IS ONE PARAGRAPH AFTER YOU DECLARED HIM GONE FOREVER.

“Bring up the distorted memories of you and then give him a big dose of a calming drug, like morphling.

Because it’s not like there aren’t hoards of injured people around who could use that ‘big dose.’  \~/

but they expect me to give a couple to whoever I’m staying with tonight,” I say. “For keeping me.”

“Isn’t the honor of the thing enough?” he says.

“You’d think,” I reply.

OMG ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?  YOU THINK YOU’RE SO SPECIAL THAT YOU UNIRONICALLY BELIEVE THAT YOUR VERY PRESENCE IS AN ‘HONOR’?  There’s no hint in any of this that they’re being sarcastic or snarky, and then they move right on along without so much as a smirk or a rolled eyes. 

I’ll never compete with that. No matter how much pain I’m in.” He spins the feather between his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t stand a chance if he doesn’t get better. You’ll never be able to let him go. You’ll always feel wrong about being with me.”

Yeah, but, this is a bad thing.  Always being attracted to whoever is in the most pain isn’t healthy.  It’s terribly unhealthy, and it makes someone ridiculously easy to manipulate.  Instead of helping her grieve and get over Peeta, though, Gale’s perfectly willing to just keep using that against her.

“What’s going on in your head?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper back.

“Then it’s like kissing someone who’s drunk. It doesn’t count,”

Thank you Gal–  Wait.  Count?  It doesn’t count?  And here I thought you were trying to be respectful of her rights and feelings, but no, you’re just saying that you don’t get to ‘win’ because it doesn’t ‘count’?

Damn, you were so close to saying something good.

“So, you never kissed any other girls?” I ask.

“I didn’t say that. You know, you were only twelve when we met. And a real pain besides. I did have a life outside of hunting with you,” he says, loading up with firewood.

Suddenly, I’m genuinely curious. “Who did you kiss? And where?”

OMG how long is this going to carry on?  Take a drink for the romance break, and let’s skip to after they’re done arguing about kisses. \~/

leading a raid on the main entrance of the Nut

So…you’ve actually been just…what, running straight at the most fortified part of the damn thing?  Like, the one tactic that we’ve known forever is about the worst thing you can do?  This isn’t misunderstanding tactics; this is failing to understand tactics in the first place. \~/

all I can think is: What did the Capitol do to [Lyme] after she won?

And once again it always comes back to the games.  Everything circles around to the games, because that’s the central part of this book, even though it shouldn’t be.  There’s a war going on, there’s so many different flavors of pain and oppression, and it should be that the games is just one of many things, all stemming from the same source.  But the way this book is structure around the games, it makes it seem like those are central and everything else just kind of came about as a side effect.

talk keeps returning to a strategy that has been tried repeatedly — the storming of the entrances.

Seriously, why is this even on the table?

“Is it really so necessary that we take the Nut? Or would it be enough to disable it?”

“That would be a step in the right direction,” says Beetee.

If that’s ‘in the right direction’ then why hasn’t it been your intention the whole time?  Why have you been going on for hours and days and weeks about storming the front door if you just want it disabled?

In fact…is it not disabled already?  We hear about how fortified it is, but are they able to get anything out?  Keeping them in place and unable to keep fighting is good enough.  That accomplishes the objective.  It’s not permanent, because you have to keep them there, but if none of the other districts are fighting anymore, do you really the manpower?  Can’t you just keep them under siege?  Why is siege never discussed?  You can starve them out!  \~/

Trap the dogs inside or flush them out.”

“We’ve tried bombing the entrances,” says Lyme. “They’re set too far inside the stone for any real damage to be done.”

Well thank you for that completely useless comment, Lyme.  Now, about trapping them inside…

“So you’re suggesting we start avalanches and block the entrances?” asks Lyme.

No, really, I want to know, how was this not the very first thing you did?  How did you not just arrive and say “hey, let’s block everything off” from the get-go?  How was this not obvious?  \~/

This is the entire point of a siege.

Block those vents and you’ll suffocate whoever is trapped.”

What part of “force them to come out” did you not understand?

I would say it makes no sense for rebels this stupid to have been winning thus far when they can’t even figure out a simple siege, but then, I’ve seen how dumb the capitol is, so…