BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 14: The Girl Who Kicked The Killer Hornet's Nest

Last time, after a very confusing forest fire, Katniss was cornered in a tree by Peeta and the Careers. That night, mid-stand-off, she noticed Rue just chilling in another tree nearby. So what's the deal with Rue? She seemed so small and delicate and Prim-like at first, but then she got a Gamemaker score of seven, and now here she is showing up in the thick of it all! Also, her name seems like it would be SO EASY to work into a pun, and yet I don't have anything good yet! She's such a mystery! Anyway, Rue indicated that something was over Katniss's head. Peeta's motivation, you mean? Hahaha no it's a wasp's nest. WAIT THE HUNGER GAMES ARE TAKING PLACE IN THE HAMPTONS?

Chapter 14

I know what you're thinking: a wasp's nest is not very scary. Katniss will survive a few stings, right? Unless these are some kind of like, genetically engineered deadly super wasps with homing capability and hallucination-inducing venom. And what are the odds that they are those? THE ODDS ARE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT, BITCH! That's what you get for thinking a wasp's nest is no big deal. Let that be a lesson to you: never trust wasps. First Enron, now this! Okay I'll stop.

Yes, Katniss says the nest above her head holds a species of wasp created specially by the Capitol, who apparently weren't content with suppressing the proletariat with EFFICIENT killing methods like bombs and artificially intelligent fire. Variety is the spice of modern warfare, after all, so they invented these things, Tracker Jackers. Not the most fear-inspiring name, I know. I keep thinking “Buy me some peanuts and...” but Katniss is freaked. She also sees her only real chance at escape, and thus early in the morning she climbs closer to the nest and begins to saw the branch off the tree in order to knock it onto her sleeping pursuers.

Before that, though, two things happen. Katniss finds a box attached to a small parachute in the tree, her first gift from a sponsor: a salve to treat her burns. She quietly thanks Haymitch for what she assumes was an expensive and hard-won favor (“I just wanted to send you a bottle of bourbon, but everybody thought this was a better idea. I use it to treat the burning sensation on my balls. Fuck you.”-The note Haymitch probably included). Then she signals Rue and lets her know what's up. Rue disappears and Katniss hears rustling sounds and we realize she is leaping from tree to tree. LIKE A BOSS. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Rue am I right? YES (what?). Next I want to see her land on someone's shoulders and break his neck.

Unfortunately a few Tracker Jackers figure out what's up too, and Katniss gets stung on the knee and FACE while she makes the last few frantic hacks and sends the nest hurtling down on Peeta and the gang. And then shit gets MOTHERFUCKING CRAY CRAY. Most of the Careers (including Peeta) flee for the lake in a panic, but two of them get stung too many times to get away. One girl stumbles into the woods and dies and Glimmer only makes it a few feet. Katniss watches her “twitch hysterically on the ground for a few minutes, and then go still.” So I guess the question of whether or not Katniss will kill anyone has been emphatically answered!* Yikes! Those bitches are DEAD!

(*I guess I don't know why I thought she wouldn't. Because I grew up reading bloodless comic-books and just spent two years reading a toothless YA vampire novel? But anyway, I was surprised.)

Katniss returns to the pool where she was after the fire but then remembers the bow Glimmer was holding when she went down; she fears that when the Gamemakers have her body removed the bow will go with it and she'll lose her best shot at survival. She's feeling pretty woozy from the venom, but drags herself back to the scene using essentially the same instinct people use to get home when they're really drunk. But none of your friends' drunk stories compare to what's about to happen here: By the time Katniss gets back, Glimmer is a swollen bag of pus. And she's lying on top of the bow.

I try to roll over her body by pulling on one arm, but the flesh disintegrates in my hands and I fall back down in the ground.

OH SHIIIIIT! Katniss is like “am I tripping balls or what?” But the hovercraft shows up to collect the other dead girl and Kat kicks into high gear, yanking the bow free even after it gets tangled in Glimmer's fucking BONES. But it takes her long enough that one of the bad guys comes running back and she's too weak and drugged out to run away.

I'm helpless as the first hunter crashes through the trees, spear lifted, poised to throw. The shock on Peeta's face makes no sense to me. I wait for the blow.

That's an unfortunate rhyme, but Peeta drops his spear and hisses at Katniss to run. She's like “OK now I'm legit tripping balls,” but she DOES run, and takes shelter in the woods. She's somewhere near Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the venom begins to take hold. And then shit gets very “Un Chien Andalou” on us:

The world begins to bend in alarming ways. A butterfly balloons to the size of a house and then shatters into a million stars. Trees transform to blood and splash down over my boots. Ants begin to crawl out of the blisters on my hands and I can't shake them free.

And somebody points to Katniss and says “it is hers.” And she says “what's mine?” and they say “WELL WHAT IS?” But seriously, you guys I didn't know there was going to be a drug sequence in this book! I hope “White Rabbit” plays over this scene in the movie version.

Stray Notes & Questions

• So that last part is when the venom REALLY kicks in, but how much do you think it affected Katniss's perception of everything else? Was Glimmer really as gross and swollen and disintegrated as we heard? Was Peeta really there? I mean, of course Peeta was really there but will Katniss think so?
• Do you think this was an interesting tack to take, writing-wise, or was it sort of cheap? There are only so many ways you can drag out the mystery of Peeta, and I sort of feel like this was one of the better options. But generally speaking, confusion based on being drugged is a pretty irritating device.
• In New Moon, Bella puzzles over the mystery of what Jacob is long after it is totally clear and obvious to everyone reading along, even the ten-year-olds who should not have such an evil piece of misogynist trash in their dumb little hands. But contrary to what some of you have anonymously implied, I DON'T think the answer to The Peeta Question is obvious at all. Yet. I mean he clearly is helping Katniss, but whether it is because he has a crush on her or because he's involved in a bigger political plot or because he's doing it so he can double-cross her in the end, I don't know. All of them are equally plausible. Or maybe it's something else. And that's great!
• Film adaptation question: There's obviously some question as to how gory this movie can be. Do you think the hallucination stuff helps or hurts the movie, MPAA-ratings-wise? Do you think the filmmakers can/would get away with more if they played it up as a nightmarish dream with less realistic effects/gore? Context matters a lot. You can show a penis in an R-rated movie but not an erect one. I know that doesn't seem like it applies here, but it sort of does.
• Friend of the blog Suzette just asked something interesting. What would be a "no homo" for feminism? "No femmo" was her suggestion. I proposed "no gyno." And would it work like no homo where you accidentally say something that sounds feminist or would it be the opposite? Like you accidentally say something sexist and then say "no gyno" (in this case invoking misogyny more than anything else). Like if you had a female friend who was a chef and she was unemployed and you said "she needs to get back in the kitchen. No gyno." Would that work? Got a better word/set of rules?
  
• On that note, I just found this Tumblr about why gay activist Dan Savage is horrible. It's kind of the self-destroying shit I've been fruitlessly and stupidly lecturing the queer community about for years, right? I mean, Dan Savage does some good. A lot of good if you fear the political ascendancy of Rick Santorum like I do. If he's committing some kind of new age faux-paux by suggesting that people who have sex in 2011 should be OK with oral sex (SEEMS LIKE A REASONABLE REQUEST!) well, I don't think it really warrants creating an entire website to attack him. There are much more horrific people out there to attack, activists! You're doing it wrong! Also, the sidebar on the site reads like a parody of modern liberal insanity: "Fuck No, Dan Savage was created to showcase the cissexist, sexist, sexualist, monosexist, classist, racist, sizeist, and ableist douchebaggery of Dan Savage, of "It Gets Better" (for privileged queers only) fame." SEXUALIST is a thing now? Anyway, my question is does anybody have a little more background on this?