It’s as if in an instant, a painted window shatters, revealing the ugly world behind it. Laughter changes to screams, blood stains pastel stones, real smoke darkens the special effect stuff made for television.

I think the worst part of all of this is that we’re 2/3rds into a book about a revolution and even the book admits that up until this point it’s all just been fake.  We’re 2/3rds through with this book and there’s been nothing real and brutal about it, it’s just filming and grand gestures made from a safe distance.   There’s been all this gruesome stuff in the background, but none of it gets the focus until he happens near Katniss.

Also, fake smoke is darker than real smoke, not the other way around.  Fake stuff has to be thick enough to show up on camera.

Also, bombs don’t generally make a lot of smoke, that’s fire.  An explosion is just an force and debris, so you’ll get a lot of dust and dirt in the air but not a lot of smoke.

Jackson’s barking into a field communicator, trying unsuccessfully to alert the camp to send medics, but I know it’s too late. As a child, watching my mother work, I learned that once a pool of blood has reached a certain size, there’s no going back.

Okay, but, Cynthia didn’t have a surgical theater or any good equipment.  People died from fevers and broken bones with her because she was so poorly equipped.  The first book couldn’t shut up about how useless she was, but then ever after that Katniss uses her mother’s herb shop as a standard.

Also, from what we can tell, Boggs lost both legs, but there’s enough there to put tourniquets on.  If you tie off the stumps and get medics out, of course he has a chance.  People live without their limbs all the time.  He could still die of shock or complications or injuries we don’t see, but it’s not an automatic given.

She did the same thing earlier with the hospital.  Katniss has this distressing tendency to just declare people beyond help and give up.  The book acts like this is a good excuse to pack up the plot and move on, but really, it seems like Katniss just sucks at figuring this stuff out, gives up way too easily, and then never learns better.  Just like with all her other “faults.”

I kneel beside Boggs, prepared to repeat the role I played with Rue, with the morphling from 6, giving him someone to hold on to as he’s released from life.

Fuck that bullshit, do something useful.

There’s just something so…passive about all of this that really bothers me.  She’s so easy about it, so accepting, and her reaction to all of this is just to…be there.  Like she thinks that’s her role.  Her most important contribution is stand around and be womanly and tragic while other people die, but heaven forbid she put in any effort or anything like that.  I think it’s that she fits this very stereotypical role of a woman around death – that of standing around and just bearing it and only being called strong if she can accept it stoically, but nothing else because their only job/ability is to comfort – and she fits it so naturally and so automatically that it implies that this is normal.  She’s a female, so this is her role, and there’s no thought or possibility of anything else going on.

It seems to be neither liquid nor gas, mechanical nor natural.

Well, thanks so much for telling us what it isn’t.  Very informative.

Deafening gunfire as Gale and Leeg 1 begin to blast a path across the stones toward the far end of the block. I don’t know what they’re doing until another bomb, ten yards away, detonates, opening a hole in the street. Then I realize this is a rudimentary attempt at minesweeping.

How do you not realize this if this is the whole point of everything you’ve been doing so far.  “We shoot at mines to set them off.  I didn’t realize what all the shooting was about until they set off some mines.”  What?

Also, the sentence fragments are getting out of control.  They’ve always been annoying, but in this section particularly it seems like they’re just thrown about with abandon.

There’s a loud snap of a trap as the pod triggers. Four cables, attached to tracks on the buildings, break through the stones, dragging up the net that encases Mitchell. It makes no sense — how instantly bloodied he is — until we see the barbs sticking from the wire that encases him.

These traps make no sense.  None at all.  We’ve got one that’s a bomb, one that’s a net, one that’s just bullets, one that’s black goo, it’s just a hodgepodge of such randomness that there’s no rhyme or reason to it.  The problem is that all of these are designed to do different things against different people.  The barbed net, that’s obviously no good against a group, but the black goo is only reasonable against a street full of people, so what gives?  Are there different levels of pods that can be activated?  If there’s a lone gunman wandering the streets, can they tell civilians to stay inside and turn on just the “catch people” pods?  And then they turned on everything for the army because why not?  But even then it makes no sense because there’s better ways to handle a lone adversary and crowd control and whatever else you need.  \~/

I don’t know why I’m thinking so hard about this, because it’s pretty clear that the book’s only frame of reference for combat is fucking video games. Ooooo, yeah, really showing the horrors of war there with your stupid shitty traps that only make sense in fantasy/showmanship.

I guess that’s what gets to me.  Too many people are claiming that this is a “war book” and people are believing that and reading this shit thinking “this is a war book” and really, no, it’s a fucking video game in written format.  The whole mess is misleading and devaluing of real combat and even if the book didn’t intend that (which it probably didn’t) then the book + the hype around it all ended up being that which is still bad.

Then footsteps pound down the hall as the black wave roars past the building. From the kitchen, we can hear the windows groan, shatter.

I don’t get this tar trap thing.  It’s so slow that people burdened by a legless man and a fighting captive (Peeta) can still outrun it, and it’s slowed down even more by buildings so they can hide from it, so really all they’re doing is destroying their own property for the sake over jack shit nothing. \~/

“Fumes!” Castor and Pollux grab towels, aprons to stuff in the cracks as Gale retches into a bright yellow sink.

YOU HAVE GAS MASKS.  \~/

Boggs forces the Holo into my hand. His lips are moving, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. I lean my ear down to his mouth to catch his harsh whisper. “Don’t trust them. Don’t go back. Kill Peeta. Do what you came to do.”

Is Boggs a mindreader, too?  How does he know all this?  And what does he know?  And why didn’t he speak up sooner?

You know what this really is?  It’s just a bullshit asspull that got dragged out to absolve Katniss of guilt.  Boggs has to die for her to go on her mission, but oh no, that might provide actual guilt and hardship and tough decisions for Katniss!  Let’s instead have the dying character assure her that what she was already going to do is totally okay, and absolve her of all guilt or responsibility so that she can go on being fucking selfish and stupid with no complications.  Because people may be dying, but it’s all about Katniss. |~|

“Count on it,” says Castor. “All the streets are covered by surveillance cameras. I bet they set off the black wave manually when they saw us taping the propo.”

Well, thanks for that confirmation that your “misinformation” team is even more fucking useless than we previously thought.  But hey, don’t let logic get in the way of your ~*~*~filming~*~*~.  \~/

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps. Of course, she thinks it’s hers. She’s second in command.

There is no “thinks” in there.  It is hers.

The way Katniss just automatically accepts her special treatment like this, the way it’s seen as right and natural instead of being what it is – a subversion – is probably the one thing I hate most about her.  If you’re going to get special treatment, at least admit that it’s special and don’t act like other people should expect it.

Why not tell them the truth? It’s as plausible as anything I’ll come up with. But it must seem like a real mission, not revenge. “To assassinate President Snow before the loss of life from this war makes our population unsustainable.”

From this point on, everyone who dies (in this group) is Katniss’s fault.  Jackson wants to get back to the larger group and to safety; they only follow Katniss because of her lies.  And even she knows that this is all bullshit, that she’s going out just for revenge, because she has to deliberately change her reasoning in order to make it sound acceptable.

Also, the whole mission is fucking ridiculous, because SNOW IS NOT ACTUALLY THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU TRY AND TELL ME THAT.  Fuck, we just saw one commander die and his second-in-command step in to take over; why do you assume that there’s not a similar system in place for the capitol?

Also, note: we have a female in a position of authority, but she’s only allowed to be competent when she’s second from the top.  When she’s actually promoted to commander, her authority and commands are directly ignored or open for debate.  The males who are in command just get obeyed, the female in command gets questioned.

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

Guns are pointed. Half the squad at Jackson, half at me.

People who point guns at each other in the middle of an argument should not be going into combat together.  The book tosses this line out there like it’s just an as-you-do sort of thing, but it’s a huge fucking deal, because the people you go into combat with are supposed to have your back and your trust.  They literally have your life in their hands.

Not that you could tell from this book, because in this book everything is one-for-all so that Katniss can go on her own selfish way, and if she were the only one doing that it would be all the more obvious that she’s a little shit.

Cressida speaks up. “It’s true. That’s why we’re here. Plutarch wants it televised. He thinks if we can film the Mockingjay assassinating Snow, it will end the war.”

Why?  Why are people so willing to lie for her and go along with her and fucking die for her?  Why?

There’s no time for fiddling around with the buttons, trying to figure out how to work it. “I don’t know how to use this. Boggs said you would help me,” I tell Jackson.

Hey, remember all those “preparations” that Katniss claimed she was making earlier?

Yeah, I don’t either.

A half-inch layer of the black goo has spread from the living room about three-quarters of the way down the hall. When I gingerly test it with the toe of my boot, I find it has the consistency of a gel. I lift my foot and after stretching slightly, it springs back into place. I take three steps into the gel and look back. No footprints.

Good god, so not only is this stuff slow enough to run away from, but you can walk on top of it, too? 

Worst. Trap. Ever.

A huge television screen, blank but glowing softly, occupies one wall.

They hide in another house that just happens to have a television that’s been left on.  Because there must always be a television on, how else could Katniss watch herself being awesome on TV? \~/

What on earth am I going to do with him? With the crew? With everybody, frankly, besides Gale and Finnick?

Say “hey, ten people is not a covert mission, please go away”?

Just as the complexity of the mess I’ve dragged everybody into begins to overload my brain, a distant chain of explosions sends a tremor through the room.

Because heaven forbid Katniss have to face her thoughts and actually consider stuff and think and shit.  That’s too hard.  Quick, distract her with explosions and the television!

Coverage continues from the courtyard behind the apartment where we took shelter. Peacekeepers line the roof across from our former hideout. Shells are launched into the row of apartments, setting off the chain of explosions we heard, and the building collapses into rubble and dust.

Two options here. 1) The video was cut together to make this all look continuous, the Peacekeepers showed up after the group left (which was several minutes later), and they bombed the building without bother to make sure that the targets were still inside.  2) The Peacekeepers arrived in a timely manner, saw the group leaving, and fired on the old building anyway because…reasons.

Either way, the capitol continues to be brain-fuckingly stupid. \~/

We watch as they play the footage over and over. Revel in their victory, especially over me. Break away to do a montage of the Mockingjay’s rise to rebel power — I think they’ve had this part prepared for a while, because it seems pretty polished — and then go live so a couple of reporters can discuss my well-deserved violent end. Later, they promise, Snow will make an official statement. The screen fades back to a glow.

All without even a whisper of confirmation or even at attempt to get it, because why bother with logic when you can chortle with glee over some TV tricks. \~/

I wonder if the internet is a thing in the capitol, because I imagine they’d have some really fun “news stories that the media fucked up” lists.