BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 26: I Wanna Be Sedated

Last time, Katniss and Peeta won the Hunger Games. And it was a fucking bummer. Previous entries can be found in the directory.

(We’re almost done, by the way, so I feel comfortable announcing that our next project, after our usual bullshit interlude, will be BLOGGING LOOKING FOR ALASKA, by John Green. At some point soon I will probably be reading Catching Fire and writing briefly about it, too. Maybe.)

Chapter 26

A hovercraft shows up overhead and brings Katniss and Peeta aboard. Peeta’s in pretty bad shape, and once they’re on he’s rushed by a group of paramedics.  Katniss is instinctively terrified of them and freaks out; they shove her into another room and she’s forced to watch through a glass door while they operate. There’s a running suggestion in this chapter that Katniss isn’t quite ready for civilization again—she’s too animalistic, too raw. That’s fine, but I sort of feel like the preceding text doesn’t do much to back that up. Sure, living in trees and killing people is not exactly normal behavior, but there was never a suggestion that Katniss was even BEGINNING to lose her grasp on her own humanity.

Peeta’s heart stops twice while they work on him and Katniss thinks of the doomed mine victims her mother used to try and save. She sees her “rabid, feral, mad” reflection in the glass just as they start to move Peeta somewhere else and really lets loose, slamming herself against the glass (I’d say good luck, Jennifer Lawrence, but I bet she can handle that shit) until someone jabs her with a tranquilizer.

So you’re expecting Katniss to be brought to some kind of throne or something, right? She’s the victor, where the fuck are the spoils? Instead the Capitol begins a careful re-assimilation process—and the degree of sinister intent is sort of hard to gauge. Kantiss wakes up naked (hot) in a bed, tied down around her waist (HOT). She realizes that her skin has been cleaned and her nails have got did, and when she’s inspecting her hair she discovers that hearing has been restored in her left ear. Cool, right? That redheaded Avox chick brings her food, but it's only a small portion of some clear broth. And when she tries to wriggle out of her restraints (still hot) she is drugged and immediately passes out again.

Oy, the drugging. This is like, the most standard sci-fi thing ever, right? I mean, I used the random-drugging and resultant loss of passage of time in a sci-fi story I wrote in the eighth grade. Go figure. But it works well enough. Katniss wakes up, sees that her scars are fading, hears a man yelling, passes out. And so on.

A couple days or hours later, Katniss wakes unrestrained, finds her clothes, and is released into a hallway that leads her to Effie Trinket, Haymitch and Cinna. Hey guys! Katniss surprises herself by running into Haymitch’s arms first—one of the more interesting things Collins has accomplished in this book is making Haymitch a major character despite the limited amount of time he’s actually around. He’s sort of the most identifiable and understandable character in here. Or is that just my alcoholic, jaded self connecting that dot?

Apprently they don’t talk about anything very interesting though—I mean, Katniss hears that she’s to be reunited with Peeta on live TV but that’s about it—because next she’s whisked away to be dressed for the ceremony.  Cinna’s latest concoction is a subtle number, a yellow dress that is reminiscent of candlelight. Katniss starts to sense that something is up, because rather than make her look like a hot mamacita this dress emphasizes her girlishness.

Next, Katniss waits on a platform to the stage where she'll meet up with Peeta and have a kind of exit interview. Haymitch shows up and gives her a hug, and when he does he begins quietly and quickly warning her in a whisper. The Capitol is pissed that Katniss showed them up--they're "the joke of Panem" now. He tells her that her defense has to be that she was "madly in love" and not responsible for her actions.

On the one hand, this is kind of a fun idea. Collins is showing how love can be crassly exploited and used to hide all kinds of behavior. On the other hand: ENOUGH ALREADY. Katniss asks if Peeta knows and Haymitch says he's "already there." Katniss wonders if that means truly in love or strategic enough to know without being told. ENOUGH ALREADY!

(The Hunger Games trailer was in front of Breaking Dawn pt. 1, a movie from which large portions of mental intrigue were cut due to unfilmability. Will that be the case for the Is He Or Isn't He aspect of the Will They Or Won't They in THG? Or will they just show two characters watching the games on TV going "She doesn't know how much he really loves her!")