There’s evidence to support this. The Capitol’s seal on the hovercraft, the lack of any attempt to blow the enemy out of the sky, and their long history of using children as pawns in their battle against the districts.

Two things about this whole section.  First: there’s a weird sense of the CSI effect here, where there’s very little consideration given to motivations and circumstance and a bigger emphasis placed on trying to get hard evidence.  Which is especially irritating here when the evidence is murky already.  “How do we know if this was as it appeared or faked?”  Well, obviously not judging by what you saw, so why are you even covering that?  Instead consider who would actually benefit from it.  (Although that approach is muddied by the fact that no one would.)

Second, this is a very isolated and awkward event to be harping on.  Part of the problem I have is that this part is clearly trying to go for the whole “oh, no, both sides are so terrible, even the supposed good guys are doing horrible things, gosh, isn’t war so terrible” line, HOWEVER, this sort of dilemma should have been present throughout.  Hell, we saw rebels a few chapters ago gunning down small children because they couldn’t aim very well and didn’t care.  But instead of going for these smaller examples, the book created this huge event to harp on, but in doing so it had to make this big, showy, awkward thing that’s painted in neon and doesn’t fit.  And when you can’t have your moral messages attached to things that fit, I end up going “well, did you ever consider just not doing that?” instead of “damn, war be hell and shit.”

I can’t get a message of “war is bad” if all you’re giving me is “war done badly.”

Children are precious to 13, or so it has always seemed.

Since when?  That was never anything we saw or heard about before now, and the fact that they put people in the army at as soon as they reach adolescence certainly doesn’t lend credence to that claim.

Snow’s lying. Manipulating me as he always has.

Actually, Snow has never manipulated you.  Showing up at someone’s house and point-blank saying “help me with this because of these reasons right here that I will lay out for you in crystal-clear terms” is not manipulation.

Then there’s the fact that Snow made no escape attempt, when I know him to be the consummate survivor.

First, you have no proof that he didn’t make an attempt, just that he didn’t make a successful attempt.

Second, the man drank poison on purpose and ruined his health for the sake of gaining power; that’s not what a “consummate survivor” does.

Man, this really is the chapter of “let’s just declare things out of the blue because reasons.”

What’s irrefutable is that she’s done exactly what he said. Let the Capitol and the districts run one another into the ground and then sauntered in to take power.

So, what, was D13 not helping people this whole book?  Because I was under the impression that they were aiding in the war effort, but I suppose, looking back…that’s not actually clear.

The problem here is that Katniss has never really bothered to report on what D13 has been doing this whole book, so all we get to see is Katniss being sent into the fighting in D8 and D2, and the fact that everyone was keeping up with where the fighting was heaviest and that they could easily and openly fly her in suggests that they were actively participating, but we’re never told that.  On the other hand, we’re never told that they aren’t.  If they’ve been abstaining from the actual fighting until it was captiol-taking time, Katniss sure has been curiously complacent with that fact.  On the other-other hand, this book is such a hot mess of confusion that by this point I really have no idea what’s going on.  I’d believe either option at this point: that D13 has been isolated and Katniss doesn’t care, or that they’ve been participating and Katniss doesn’t care.  The only thing consistent in this book is that Katniss has zero fucks to give about anyone.

Although what’s not irrefutable is the “let the capitol run the districts into the ground.”  That suggests that both districts and capitol were potential opposition for D13, rather than just the capitol.  If D13 had come out and said “hey, three square meals a day for all,” no one would have opposed them.  There was no need to let the war cut the districts because 1) they were already hamstrung by all the oppression and 2) there’s no evidence they would have resisted D13’s form of government.  Using the districts to wear down the capitol is much different than trying to weaken both of them because they’re both a threat.  (And of course they’re going to use the districts for that, because as we covered, they’re not big enough to take on this war alone.  It had to be all or nothing.)

Victory was already in her grasp. Everything was in her grasp.

Except me.

It is honestly impressive how much Katniss will make everything in the world all about her.  Now she’s even making the senseless deaths of children as some sort of personal attack.

If Coin really wanted Katniss out of the way because she’s a threat, she could have just had her quietly shot and then said “oh, the peacekeepers did it.”

But for all that, someone very high up would have had to approve putting a thirteen-year-old in combat.

…actually, this sort of thing did happen, and it generally happened a low level.  Because high-ranking brass aren’t part of the recruitment process for individuals.  Does this book just assume that all leaders are micromanagers to absurd degrees?

Or that only the evil leaders are?

He comes to with a gasp, slashing blindly with his knife. Apparently, the end of Snow’s reign didn’t equal the end of his terror.

Why on earth did you think it would?

The problem is that psychological scars like the ones Haymich has (and Katniss should have) are just that: scars.  Injuries.  If you break your arm, it hurts, and it takes a long time to heal, and that’s not because someone is constantly punching your broken bone.  If you take your arm away from whatever broke it, you’re still injured until you have the time and proper care necessary to get better.  Haymich’s anxiety and paranoia is not dependent on external threats, just like your broken arm is not dependent on a 24/7 vice-grip.

I wonder if that’s why Katniss’s constant whining was deemed necessary?  Because the book assumes that once you’re out of danger, you’re supposed to get better, therefore Katniss must have always been in the worst danger ever to keep up the required levels of brokenness?

Remake me to Beauty Base Zero. No wonder Octavia’s crying. It’s an impossible task. […]Flavius performs some beauty miracle on my hair, managing to even out the front while getting some of the longer locks to hide the bald spots in the back. My face, since it was spared from the flames, presents no more than the usual challenges. Once I’m in Cinna’s Mockingjay suit, the only scars visible are on my neck, forearms, and hands.

So by “impossible” you really mean “not impossible by any stretch of the imagination”?

And what is with the hatred of wigs in this book?  Half her hair is burned off, but we still need to have her with her natural hair anyway, because heaven forbid she wear one of those fakey-fake fucking wigs!

“They say Plutarch and Haymitch had a hard time keeping her alive,” comments Venia under her breath. “She was imprisoned after your escape, so that helps.”

It’s quite a stretch. Effie Trinket, rebel.

What are you talking about?  The capitol was imprison-happy and killed everyone that the book could think of just for shits and giggles, so why would anyone assume she was arrested for rebellion?

“We’re the only prep team still alive. And all the stylists from the Quarter Quell are dead,” says Venia. She doesn’t say who specifically killed them. I’m beginning to wonder if it matters.

You can stop wondering: it does. If the capitol killed them, that’s nothing new and also it’s over because that government has been overthrown.  If they were killed post-takeover, that’s a big deal, because it’s still going on.

“Was it your bomb?”

“I don’t know. Neither does Beetee,” he says. “Does it matter? You’ll always be thinking about it.”

This book is declaring a lot of things to not matter…  Which is…really weird.  Of course these things matter. 

I got it.  I know why this is pissing me off.  It’s the anti-war angle.  It’s because I’m looking at this and thinking about it from the context of the anti-war message that everyone praises.  Because when you pull something like this, it comes off as saying “bad things happened, so the circumstances don’t matter, because it’s bad things.”  And god that’s so reductive and simple.  There’s no discussion of actual morality going on here, no talk of cost-vs-benefit, no wondering about “acceptable losses” and where the line gets drawn with that, no.  It’s just “everything is bad, full stop, and that’s all that matters.”  And that’s just so ridiculously simple, as well as ignoring a lot of bigger issues.  Like “is this going to be ongoing?”

I mean, there’s a big difference between killing someone in self-defense and killing someone for shits and giggles and declaring that it doesn’t matter is pretty short-sighted.  You can say that it still sucks, you can say that it’s still traumatic, you can say a lot of stuff, but saying that it doesn’t matter isn’t one of them.

Also, Gale apparently has no fucks to give on the matter of whether or not he participated (roundaboutly) in the death of someone he knows and likes, because all that matters is the fact that Katniss  will be thinking about it.  He has no thoughts on the matter except ones that revolve around her.

I want to call him back and tell him that I was wrong. […] Forgive him. But since I can’t, I’ll just have to deal with the pain.

Man, talk about your lack of agency.  She can’t do anything for herself, even talk. 

Now, I really wouldn’t mind this if Katniss had been a better character thus far.  You don’t have to be all-agency all-the-time, and of course some things are going to be out of your control, especially in a very emotional moment like this one.  But 1) this matter is never revisited, she apparently just leaves it at that and 2) when a character can’t manage any agency in a story, I have a tendency to point out all the chances they did have and passed on.  Not because I think they need all of them to be good, but because I’ve got nothing else to work with and I’m pissed about it.

Enobaria smiles at Johanna. “Don’t look so smug,” says Johanna. “We’ll kill you anyway.”

What has Enobaria ever done?  Like…ever?  She keeps getting painted as vaguely bad for no reason at all.

However, the suffering in the districts has been so extreme that these measures appear insufficient to the victims. In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenship. However, in the interest of maintaining a sustainable population, we cannot afford this. […]So, an alternative has been placed on the table. Since my colleagues and I can come to no consensus, it has been agreed that we will let the victors decide.

And this bit here blows all comments about Coin’s “eviltude” regarding the final games out of the water.  Because the book is presenting it as the lesser of two three evils.  She has the option of only killing a few people, killing a huge ton of people, or having a civil uprising on her hands which could do untold amounts of damage to the country’s stability.  (Which, in turn, would kill people.)

This is why the book’s “does it matter” approach is such bullshit.  Because the circumstances do matter.  Killing children for entertainment is much different from killing children to prevent the deaths of massive numbers of other people.  You can still argue that it’s a bad thing and they should look for peaceful approaches and maybe keep that only as a last resort, but the difference still matters.

The arguments that the other victors make are actually pretty good and I like them.  I’m not saying you can’t argue against this ‘final game’ plan reasonably.  Of course you can, and should, and the characters do.  I’m just saying it doesn’t make Coin evil.  (Hell, she’s even letting it go to vote.  Even before she brought it here, she had to be accountable to her “colleagues” who were in disagreement.  She’s trying to fill the needs of the people while still working with a government that has checks and balances on her own individual power.  That doesn’t scream “abusive despot” to me.)

I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.

But fuck that.  Fuck the fact that this may have been Coin’s idea, but only because she was reacting to the demands of everyone else.  No, let’s just kill her.  Let’s just murder the fuck out of her like that’s actually going to change one single goddamn thing.  Hell, everything is her fault anyway, right?