Mockingjay

So I recently read The Hunger Games series, which is apparently the current Young Adult novel sensation. Spoilers for the whole series ahead, so, you’ve been warned.

The premise of The Hunger Games is that what was once North America is now Panem, a country made up of a Capitol and 12 districts. The people of the districts are more or less slaves to the Capitol, and every year, to exert their power, the Capitol takes a teenaged boy and girl from each district and pits these so-called tributes together in a televised to-the-death battle called the Hunger Games. The tribute from the poor, coal mining District 12 is Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to take the place of her sister, Prim. Katniss heads to the Capitol with her fellow tribute, Peeta (oh trust me, the names get better, there’s a kid named Glimmer). Then the book gets its “Lord of the Flies” on, mixed with Katniss being all emotionally conflicted since Peeta reveals he’s been loving Katniss from afar since childhood.

Next comes Katniss Beyond Thunderdome Catching Fire. Katniss and Peeta somehow survived last Hunger Games and now have a life of relative ease as victors. However, rebellion is abrewin’ in the districts, since it turns out that making 24 kids fight to the death each year for entertainment is not a great PR move (thought it gets very good ratings in the dictator demographic), and after Katniss’s defiant actions in the Games, she is becoming a (reluctant) symbol of the rebellion. She’s also having a little boy trouble. First, there’s Peeta, whose upset with her for pretending to return his feelings when they were in the Games. Then there’s Gale, Katniss’s hunky hunting buddy who kisses Katniss one day, and now Katniss is totally torn and stuff! But she really can’t think about kissing when she’s got a rebellion to incite*.

*actual line from book

It’s also time for the 75th Hunger Games, and every 25 years they make it extra malicious, such as doubling the number of kids sent. So this year, the tributes are chosen from past victors, which means Katniss and Peeta are heading back to the Games. Oh, and there’s a passing reference to fluffy carnivorous squirrels.

“You killed my father with your 4runner, prepare to die!”

Finally, there’s Mockingjay. A handful of tributes have escaped from the Hunger Games, most of the districts are in full revolt, and Katniss is at the thought-to-be-destroyed District 13, the center of the Rebellion forces. . . . and well let’s take a moment and look at the cover. Bright blue color, free-flying bird, speaks of hope and optimism, right?

However, if you turn the cover upside down, you’ll now see the bird is actually plunging towards a pit of spikes and sadness. This is how you, the reader, will feel by the beginning of the last chapter.

That center spike will pierce his heart.

Now onto my rants, which mostly pertain to the last 4 chapters of the book.  

If you've read this far, you probably don't care, but I’ll say it again, serious spoilers for Mockingjay.

* Finnick getting the “Whedon Death Treatment” [definition: when a popular, likable character is killed for no other purpose that to rip out the hearts of the fans]. Why, was he too awesome? Too happy to have his Crazy Annie back? Speaking of, while it was infinitely sweet that the Heartthrob Finnick loved Annie, the "why" is never really explained (“she snuck up on me” doesn’t cut it). And it won’t be explained because now he’s dead. But just when you’ve recovered from Finnick --

* Prim goes up in smoke: WHYYYYYYY?!?! I had to reread the scene just because I couldn’t believe Prim would actually be killed off. On the one hand, it fit the “War is Hell, War has no winners” tone of the book, and gave Katniss all the reason she needed to kill Coin (couldn’t Prim just getting horribly burned have the same effect?). However, it’s really hard to not feel a bit cheated by it. Everything Katniss did was to protect Prim, and Prim is ripped away from her at the last minute. It’s not quite the “Whedon Death” Finnick got, but it feels like it was done just to be shocking and to put Katniss through more hell (also to be the wedge that drives Gale and Katniss apart, see next point).

* Gale surprisingly doesn’t die, but gets a rather unceremonious ejection from the story, which is almost worst. This really sticks in my craw for some reason. Here’s Katniss and Gale’s last conversation (paraphrased):

Gale: "I know all you’re going to think when you look at me is how I’m sort-of-but-not-really responsible for your sister’s death."
Katniss: "Yup."

And with that, their relationship is more or less over. Now, I understand that, rational or not, she’s now associates Gale with Prim dying and for that reason she can’t be with him. But does his tenuous tie to Prim’s death really completely negate their connection and everything else they’d been through together? I would understand if Katniss felt he was too consumed by the rebellion, and yes, he did get a bit ruthless as the book went on, and buy into Rebellion’s ideology too much for Katniss’s taste, but a) war does tend to bring out the dark side in people and b) he was always on her side and by her side.

I just don’t like that they (as far as I can tell) never really talk again. That after the dust of the rebellion settled and some time passed, neither one of them attempted to reach out to each other. If their relationship really couldn’t survive Prim’s death, that’s fine, I still feel they deserved a little more closure. Dammit, Mockingjay, don’t make me turn to fanfic!

* The last chapter feels like a lot of “telling” and very little “showing”. Sure, Katniss says things like “Slowly . . . I come back to life” but there’s nothing showing us she still isn’t acting like a shell of her former self. Then she says “Peeta and I grow back together”. Great, but since he spent most of the book trying to wring Katniss’s neck, a little elaboration on the how they grow back together would be nice.

* The Epilogue: um, okay? Katniss gets a somewhat happy ending, but she seems so resigned to it all. She has kids, not because she wants to, or feels the world is a safer place to bring children into now that the Hunger Games are over, but because Peeta convinces her. And even then her children don’t seem to bring any extra happiness to her life. Though the epilogue is short, there’s a sense that she’s distant from her children, not unlike her own relationship with her mother (anyone notice she doesn’t reveal her children's names, much like her mothers name is never revealed?). It doesn’t feel right because she was such a survivor and fighter, and by the end it feels like she’s simply existing. Maybe that’s the point, that after going through so much, the girl who was on fire ended up burning out.

Despite all this, I did like the book, and the series overall, and clearly I really grew attached to the characters or else all this wouldn’t bother me. After the last few years of Twilight-mania, it’s nice that a series which is well written, has a well developed protagonist and also has, you know, a plot is now so popular. Bring on the movies!