The girl who caught fire

[exsequar]

I would like to talk about The Hunger Games.

It took me a week and a half to read the trilogy. It would have been a week, but my copy of Mockingjay (the third book) was stolen when I was a quarter of the way through it. Seriously! I got my friend's copy Saturday and finished a couple hours ago.

I expected to hate the ending, or at least feel dissatisfied. People spent all week making warning noises, cringing whenever the ending was mentioned, suggesting I have hard liquor at hand, looking at me almost pityingly. I assumed that it was done poorly, the ending botched and unsatisfying.

What I didn't expect was to love it.


I wasn't sure how to feel about the series until I finished it. I spent the whole thing waffling between the two parts of the story. On the one hand, it was an incredibly vivid portrait of oppression and rebellion and the innumerable consequences of war, both psychological and physical, cast through the lens of a nauseating manifestation of human-on-human cruelty: the Games. On the other hand, it was a slightly juvenile romantic triangle that at times felt clumsy and incomplete. I felt like the series couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be.

In the end, I knew. And the answer, unexpectedly, was what I didn't dare hope for. The ending was exactly as bleak and unforgiving as it needed to be to do any justice to the half of the book that sought to be a portrait of the very worst of humanity. There were no easy fixes. In the end, there was a peace of sorts, but Katniss and innumerable others had to give their everything to achieve it. In life, this is true - overcoming evil requires unimaginable sacrifice. It is only when the best of us stand up and take on that burden that anything good can survive to see the light of day.

I felt from early on, despite the teenie hysteria and "Team Peeta" and "Team Gale" nonsense flying about, that the question was never about them. It was always about Katniss and who she needed to be. It was about her coming to an understanding about herself and what was needed to complete her. I myself wavered back and forth with Katniss, at times craving Gale's strength and ferocity, at others Peeta's calming warmth, just as she did. She never intentionally "led them on" - and they both loved her truly and generously enough to see that. Gale's comment that "she'll pick who she needs to survive" was spot on, but not in the harsh way that Katniss interpreted it. It was said with love and a recognition that Katniss was deeply damaged, and it was not up to the men to decide what she needed - only she could choose the love that would keep her afloat after all she had been through. It's quite clear now that it was always Peeta, but I appreciate in retrospect how muddled and fumbling it all was, because Katniss's emotional journey was nothing but muddled, and needed to find its natural conclusion.

As for why I personally loved the ending, I have always favored the kind of storytelling that can rip out my insides and leave me gasping and bleeding and utterly raw. At the same time I need some kind of emotional closure or at least coherence to wrap my head around. I was terrified of several things: that either Peeta or Gale would sacrifice himself in a blaze of glory and Katniss would be left with the other, always wondering; that Katniss herself would die and the book would end abruptly with that; or that there would be some overly romantic resolution to the triangle that rose from the ashes of a successful rebellion. I thought it would be either ruthlessly, senselessly tragic or unbearably schmaltzy. Instead it walked the line gorgeously. It remained entirely about Katniss, her self-doubt and her fire. That sequence starting with Boggs getting blown up right through Prim's horrific death was an incredibly gripping, scathing climax. Sometimes final action sequences are too brief and unsatisfying; this one took an emotional and visceral rollercoaster that (intentionally) paralleled the drama of the arenas from the previous two books and left me breathless and STILL unsure where everything was going. The relentless march of death around Katniss, particularly Finnick's, kept the stakes exactly as high as they needed to be. The imaginative "pods" kept the horror at a shrill, appalling pitch. And Prim's death was exactly the numbing, unspeakable shock that needed to happen to lend everything the appropriate gravitas. Nothing, absolutely nothing was anything approaching easy. Katniss effectively lost her mother as well. Gale and Peeta survived, but somehow that only barely felt like a victory. In the end, the triangle resolved itself, settling into what Katniss needed, not taking center stage away from the true message of these books. And, for the most part, that is: people can and will inflict unspeakable evil on one another.

But the other message, the one that saves the story from crushing nihilism, is that from the darkness, a flower blooms. Peeta. The boy with the bread. Tortured, altered, suicidal. He finds his way back to the light. He is the flower in Katniss's darkness, as he was in the very beginning. Life - Katniss and Peeta's children, the grass in the Meadow - literally springs from the ashes. Katniss, who by all rights should be a mute shell, manages to find joy in holding her newborn children, in loving Peeta. And she is the one that gave the most, down to the deepest reaches of her soul. If there is hope for her, there is hope for all of us.

I thought the entire ending was genius. Katniss shooting Coin was a perfectly shocking yet logical ending. I personally didn't see it coming, but it also fell in perfectly with all that came before. And the death of Prim, while utterly brutal, was, as I said above, really the only way to hammer everything home. Prim was set up from page one as Katniss's compass, but she was also her blind spot. Her death (and, horribly and brilliantly, the revelations of Snow) cleared Katniss's eyes to finally see the whole truth and do what needed to be done.

There's no mistaking it. This is about as brutal of a series as I've ever read. It ranks right up there with A Song of Ice and Fire. The fact that this is a "young adult" series that has twelve year old girls screaming both boggles and irritates me to an extent, but if some of them absorb anything outside of the romance, then perhaps that is a good thing. It asks difficult questions and doesn't really pose any answers. It's violent, unrelenting, and told through the eyes of an extraordinary young woman who doesn't think of herself as anything special.

I'm really glad I jumped on this particular bandwagon. It wasn't anything like I expected, but what a hell of a ride. I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

I can't wait to see the movie. But every time I say that, and hear about the hysteria surrounding it, I get rather uncomfortable. It feels too much like the citizens of the Capitol getting all buzzed about their yearly Games. Of course we're not cheering real deaths, but this movie is going to be largely about a group of children killing each other. That is profoundly disturbing. My excitement is about meeting Katniss and all the rest, about seeing this terrifying dystopian future brought to life. I don't know how the last movie will remain PG-13/aimed at young adults, but I look forward to seeing what they can accomplish on the big screen with a story so huge, daunting, and important. And with such a kickass girl at the heart of it all.

Comments

[secondstar.livejournal.com]

I had issues with how she used the boys, and actually did not like Katniss all that much. The ending, to me, didn't seem to fit in the same world. Her going nuts, being all confined did not show strength in my eyes, and neither did her getting married and having children.

The entire time she had said she didn't want it, or them. And yet here we have an epilogue that is exactly that. Yes, the threat is gone, but to change completely? For a moment I was excited that maybe it wasn't about the romance after all.

I too, was bombarded with are you team Peeta or team Gale? which I did not approve of at once. I feel like Peeta was shoved down my throat. I liked him, I liked them both. But has a firey person myself, I think her reasoning for not choosing Gale was horrible. I feel for Gale the most. He was her best friend, and he thought he could be more and unrequited love is the hardest thing for me, and hits home.

It was very gruesome, I agree. Finnick's death really got me. I was listening at work, to the audiobooks and had to go to the bathroom a few times because I was crying and anyways. this comment is rambly and i am not sure that I even have a point.

I am excited about the movie, to see what they do with it, how they got it to stay pg-13. A lot of the extras are from my theatre's youth theatre so that is exciting! the "boy with the backpack" was slightly in our production of peter pan last season! good times :)

[feuervogel]

Katniss said she didn't want to have a child that would be raised in the same environment she had, with the constant threat of the Games hanging over their heads, because she wouldn't be able to protect them. So when Panem was changed and the Games were abolished, she changed, too.

I think to make the ending more satisfactory inasmuch as drawing a line between the ending and the epilogue there would have needed to be another at least 50 pages, if not 100. Which is beyond the usual YA page count (except Harry Potter).

She kind of pulled an Eowyn, in a way. They're both very damaged, if in somewhat different ways, and they have similar responses: fight, literally, to protect the people/country you love. They both find healing when the fighting's over in similar ways. Eowyn and Faramir recover from their shell shock PTSD the Black Breath together, and they both dedicate the rest of their lives to healing the wounds of war (in the gardens of Ithilien, and Eowyn studies the healing arts). Katniss and Peeta help each other recover (offscreen, unfortunately) from their PTSD, and they spend a good bit of time memorializing the horrors of the 75 years of the Games and helping clean up the mess.

I wanted her to pick Gale, and up until the part where she was never sure he didn't kill her sister, I was sure she would. But that bit of doubt, and that shrug from him implying he didn't know or it didn't matter because it was war, that would chafe and become a huge rift. But I felt that the romance was resolved well enough (I hate love triangles so much), because Katniss and Peeta had an understanding of how the other had been tortured and they could help each other heal. I didn't think it was particularly fair to Gale, but that whole what-if would make an uncomfortable point in a relationship.

Though I admit I'm glad I never encountered the whole Team Peeta/Team Gale phenomenon, probably because I'm ancient and also I avoid fandom.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I said this on Twitter, but to record it in a more permanent setting - the reason I don't feel slighted by missing that link between the end and the epilogue is that I felt it was emotionally right to have distance from Katniss and Peeta in that time. Like we were finally giving them their privacy, like we had been the Panem audience, riveted to our screens, and finally we were able to step away and give them their lives back. The fact that Katniss was in the public eye was such a fixture of the entire story - she was either literally on screen or having her movements watched pretty much constantly from the moment she stepped in for Prim. So while I would have liked to see Katniss and Peeta heal together, I'm happy for them (fictional characters that they are) being able to do it in private, in quiet.

Your analogy with Eowyn and Faramir is lovely and apt, I think. It's been so so long since I read LOTR that I can't really comment more than that. Your point that Katniss and Peeta spend a lot of their time remembering those they lost is a really lovely one - they don't ever truly forget or move on from the war, but they manage to extract some form of peace and closure from the rubble. If I read that book they wrote I think I would never stop weeping.

I actually felt like Gale was given short shrift, storytelling-wise, but not necessarily accidentally. There were a lot of scenes where Gale was present when something happened to Katniss, but sometimes he wouldn't even have a line, or she wouldn't acknowledge him besides recognition that he was in the room. Something between them broke when she went to the first Hunger Games. It's tragic and awful, but also understandable. I loved Gale in the very beginning, and initially felt he was inevitably for Katniss, but after everything she went through, and everything Peeta went through for her, I felt that they were right. I also felt that Peeta was the one who truly stirred Katniss to her deepest core. So many of their moments were unspeakably charged, whereas I felt like her energy with Gale was more of a childhood friend, deep and true but not necessarily passionate.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I have a completely different perspective on the whole series I think. I loved and related to Katniss through the entire thing, right to the end. The fact that she hadn't broken yet was the most remarkable thing - that it took her so long to go over the edge. Her breakdown felt horribly inevitable. The beauty comes in that she was able to pull back from that edge. That was her strength. That she didn't just disappear behind haunted eyes that had seen so much death and evil.

The important thing is why she said she didn't want children. She explicitly said it was because she could not stand the pain of knowing that her children could be taken by the Games at any time. She would never inflict that horror on herself or any children of her body. But the very fact that she felt so strongly about that meant that she would love those children with all of her being. In a world without the Games, she would be an incredible mother - loving and devoted. Her relationships with Prim and Rue highlight just how wonderful a mother she would make. The fact that she was able to create a world where it was no longer a curse to be a parent was her ultimate victory, and that she was able to take part in that world and herself have children without experiencing constant terror was poetic and beautiful.

I feel for Gale, I do. That was a harsh and unfair outcome - but it always would have been, either way. War is harsh and unfair. Had war and death and chaos not intervened, she probably would have married Gale and been happy with him. It's a true shame that didn't happen. But I also think that Peeta needed and deserved Katniss, and I do not begrudge them their (relative, still wounded) happiness at all.

How cool that you know people in the movie! I'm really excited to see it, I'll keep an eye out for the boy with the backpack :)

[(Anonymous)]

I felt almost exactly like you when I'd finished the series. I had no friends that had read it, and it was the nice librarian lady that suggested I give it try. So I tried. I can tell you this: that night, I did not get much sleep. I read until 4 AM, and then I fretted about the library not having the second book. When I read the end of Mockingjay, I had to call my mom and bawl in her ear for ten minutes before I was coherent enough to tell about great it was and how much she had to read it. It's just so, so right for the series, and can't really imagine it ending any other way. It's just. Augh. The greatness. I can only hope that the movie manages to catch all the feelings.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone! I'm exhausted today from staying up too late finishing the book and then crying for a while. I didn't cry as much as I sometimes do at sad books though - I think I had my analytical side on too loud, because so many people had told me they didn't like the ending and I was expecting to be dissatisfied somehow. I'm rather annoyed that people biased me that way, because if I had just let the ending wash over me I would have been even more swept up in the tragedy and poetry of it all. In any case, I agree that it truly achieved greatness. Major props to Suzanne Collins. I don't know HOW the same intensity will be captured without the movie being a true war film, but we'll see.

[measuringcups.livejournal.com]

I am a Mockingjay stan tbh. I can actually see why a lot of people don't like it, but I thought it was extremely refreshing that it ended like most war stories should end. It didn't romanticize anything that had happened during the trilogy. And I'm glad that she ended up with Peeta, even if I would have been happy if she would have ended up alone, mostly because nowhere in the epilogue did it portray her as fully healed or that she had changed to be something else only for someone else.

I think the biggest criticism people have is Mockingjay didn't feel like Katniss, but I disagree. Everything before Mockingjay is Katniss in a different part of her life where the Hunger Games exist and she has to be in them. In Mockingjay there's no District 12, no Hunger Games, and then there's the realization that she has no freedom in District 13 either. I don't see how that couldn't change someone.

And I don't think it was out of character like a lot do that they got married and had kids, because it took them so long to get to that place. Katniss never wanted to bring children into the Hunger Games world, but in the epilogue it's no longer that world. Plus, I think a lot of people forget how young she was in the books. It's not out of character at all for a lot of people, including someone like me, to feel really isolated from everything at 16 and then years later to feel differently. I really hate that people think she gave in and had kids, because I took it to mean that she was now in a place where she felt safe enough to love other people again, and to me that's the greatest thing the epilogue could have told us.

[feuervogel]

I agree with this comment entirely (and took a somewhat circuitous route getting to this in my own comment above).

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

*applause* This is everything I feel but failed to express in my post! It WAS a war story, and I think a lot of the disappointment comes from regarding the books as a love story. I feel it was an odd package to put such a grim tale in - a teenage love triangle - but in the end it wasn't *reduced* to that, as I so feared it would be.

I never once felt like Katniss veered in a direction that felt unnatural to me. She changed through the course of the story - of course she did. Any normal teenager would in that span of time anyway, and she is a teenager who goes through unspeakable trauma. That she emerges changed is unsurprising - it's the opposite that would have been surprising.

Everything about her having children - yes. I agree 100%. The only objection she ever had to having children was that she couldn't even handle the fear that they would be taken by the Games. The very nature of that objection says to me that she desperately wanted children - she would love them so intensely that the thought of their loss/harm was unimaginable, and thus the world where the Games existed precluded her having children. Despite Katniss's hardness and emotional distance at times, she was incredibly maternal - the way she loves Prim and Rue speaks volumes about her capacity to love and care for others. She was meant to be a mother. The gift she gave to Panem was a world where it was not a curse to be a parent anymore. She eliminated the first system that created the Hunger Games, and then when Coin proposed bringing them back, she emphatically prevented that from happening too. That was her greatest triumph. And the fact that she was able to also partake in this reward - a world where one can be a parent without being constantly afraid - is beautiful and poignant and important. In spite of the depth of her wounds, she and Peeta are able to heal one another and find that joy.

Basically I took the long way round to say exactly what you did. I'm glad I'm not alone in appreciating how the story was resolved!

[caithream.livejournal.com]

Nail on the head of everything I thought about the books when I had finished. It's actually been a while since I finished them though, and I actually wish I had reread them before the movie coming out on Friday! Oh wells. My far less coherent thoughts about it are here. As you can see in the comments, someone mentioned they hated the ending because of how bleak and depressing it is. But I'm like you; I like a devastating ending with just enough closure to make me feel good about closing the book. It's so much more real to life.

I feel bad for Gale, I really do, but after everything that happened, it was Peeta or nothing. I honestly think that at the end of the book they psychologically needed each other just to be able to survive. And yeah, all that Team [whatever] crap is just... ugh. This isn't Twilight okay, please leave that shit at the door.

And because of how invested I was in this story, I still have heavy reservations about the movie. I'm sure it will be good, but I just can't see them being able to draw out the emotional depth I felt when I was reading it. Idk man idk. I'm seeing it on Friday, so we'll see, I guess!

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Oh yay! You are my homegirl. <333 I mean, our shared love for the Winchesters and their CONSTANT HEART-TRAMPLING is sort of a good indicator that we would both appreciate such a scorched-earth ending.

If I think about Gale too hard I do get really sad - they were each other's everything in District 12, and he basically lost her the second she volunteered for the Games. He suffered through watching her "love story" with Peeta, and without Katniss realizing it that was actually pretty real. (I would say that while Gale loved Katniss just as much as Peeta did, in the opposite direction Katniss's emotions were more romantic towards Peeta and more familial towards Gale. Would you agree? I think if nothing had changed, she would have married Gale and been happy, but ultimately Peeta stirs something deeper in her.) ANYway. Her and Peeta together was really the only ending, I agree. He was psychologically altered to fear and loathe her, and he fought through that just to be at her side again. How amazing is that? They really did need each other in the end, as they were really the only ones who knew what everything was like for the other - being in the arenas, the experience of tracker jacker venom, etc - and were therefore the only people who could heal each other's traumas.

I really hope you enjoy the movie! I'm hearing very good things from people who enjoyed the books the same way you and I did, so I'm hopeful! I'm going on Sunday!

[caithream.livejournal.com]

I would 110% agree with that statement! Gale for Katniss, I think, would be someone who she cares for deeply, in a familial way, as you said, but not as intimately and as psychologically deep as she does for Peeta. But yes, my heart still aches for Gale, because couldn't do anything but watch all of this happen. :(

I'm (fingers crossed) seeing it tonight! Hopefully I'll still be awake enough to write all my thinky thoughts, ha.

[figletofvenice.livejournal.com]

one of my main problems with the ending was, honestly, that prim didn't feel like a real person to me, and so I didn't actually care that much when she died. I understood the horror I was supposed to feel, but it just didn't effect me. all of the other deaths hurt much more - finnick's in particular, and rue - but prim is perfect. she isn't given the room or the time to really be anything other than katniss's perfect sister, and it just didn't seem plausible to me that anyone could really be that way. she was an archetype, a symbol, and ultimately, that failed for me.

I don't have a hate-on for mockingjay - I enjoyed the whole series. I mean, I read them in less than three days. but I was left emotionally disconnected from the huge climax. I did, honestly, want katniss to spend less time drugged up and useless, but I understand the point of that, too. it was prim's death that really left me cold.

if only that had had the emotion punch of peeta's "you love me - real or not real?"

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

You know, that's a very good point. I thought about how Katniss's mother (....did she have a name?) had maybe 5 lines in the whole series, and Prim wasn't much better. She had a couple scenes in Thirteen that started to give glimpses of an intriguing little girl, but you're right - she had no depth. I think my emotional access to Prim came through thinking of her like my own little sister, whom I love to pieces and is a similar age relative to me as Prim and Katniss. But you're absolutely right that Prim never hit the same emotional chords as Peeta, Gale (though somehow he felt sketchy too?), hell even Finnick whom I had really come to love. So I can understand why it fell flat for you. I do think Collins could have addressed that a bit better.

Man, the drugged up and useless part.... I was mostly thinking that it was about time the girl got some quiet. I spent most of the series wondering just when the non-stop barrage of trauma was going to reduce her to a quivering ball, and it took longer than I could ever have imagined. That she was ever able to function as a human being again was amazing to me.

Agh, that line! *clutches heart*

Okay so this comment has been sitting in a tab for over a day, feeling like it lacks a conclusion. I'm going to give it to you conclusionless! So there!

[candidlily.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the same way about the final book and the ending, though I never put it into words like you have. In everything I've read from various people since finishing the books, I feel quite glad that I read the books in a vacuum - I only started and finished them last month, but I managed to forget any opinions I'd read prior, so I didn't have anyone else's opinions on my mind as I worked out my own. That was good. I have a bad habit of taking into account what I've 'heard' when I go into a book or movie, and that doesn't necessarily mean I'll agree with it, but it always makes me look for that thing more than I would otherwise. It's why I get so obsessive about avoiding spoilers.

All that said, my point in bringing it up is - I was so surprised to learn that such a great number of people hated the ending (specifically the epilogue), because I found it quite fitting and well-deserved. I had no problem with the romance and its presence at varying points in the story, and I was rooting for Peeta, but I don't think I'd have been unhappy if she had ended up alone or with Gale. It was about the experience, for me, and I wanted Katniss to come out the other side more content, in a world in which she could live her life without fighting for it. And the epilogue did that. The whole series was about Katniss fighting, and then she was able to stop. I liked that.

I'm really excited for the movie for the same reasons I'm excited for any movie adaptation of a book I've read - I want to see how they portray the various aspects in a movie format, especially in this case when the book has a first person POV. There were several points when reading where I would pause and wonder how they might convey Katniss' insight to the viewer in a movie. And I feel great about the cast and the cinematography I've seen so far. I thought the stories were very compelling, and I'm hoping the movies will be so too. I see your point, though, that there is a lot of death and destruction. I just think my excitement for the movie has to do more with how much I enjoyed the story, what it represents and makes me think about. (And I'll admit there are shallow reasons, because I am quite attracted to the leads. :P) I'm hoping the movies will pull it off - I've heard good things so far! - and maybe even convince a large group of people to read the books as a result.

[pau494.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that the romance aspect of the books was the least relevant. As it should be! There are kids *fighting to the death* Some girls at the cinema today were ooohing during some scenes that Katniss shared with the boys and I was like "Really? REALLY? That's the important thing here?" I was kind of annoyed by the romance-y bits when I was reading but I always took a moment to put into perspective the fact that Katniss is SIXTEEN. She's sixteen and her life has been a continous hardship and she's thrust into this absolutely terrifying situation. She doesn't fully understand what she means to the people of the districts most of the time, she's fighting for her survival and those of the people she cares about. On top of that she has to deal with two boys that love her, and she loves them back.

I think the series is fantastic in the sense that it pretty much puts you in the place of one of the spectators during the games, much like the people in the Capitol and the districts; as a reader you know that what's happening is brutal, and yet I was practically cheering when Katniss survived and Cato died. Isn't that awful of me?

I loved that the third book was so different, that it brought to light that District 13 wasn't a solution, just another government wanting to use Katniss and furthering their own purposes. I was left dissatisfied because I wanted to know *more* about the world and how they rebuilt their lives.

I was completely surprised by Katniss shooting Coin, but I was at peace with their ending. The fact that it took Katniss *years* to even think about having children is heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. That she did it for herself and for Peeta, who was able to find his way back to himself after what they did to him. It most certainly wouldn't have been the life she would have had if she hadn't gone to the Games, but it's a life she deserves, a quiet, happy life after all the death and destruction of everything they once knew.

Having seen the movie, I honestly believe they did a great job. The world-building is so good, it was gripping right from the start. The reaping scene was gut-wrenching, and Jennifer Lawrence is astounding as Katniss. I was unsure how they were going to do it since so much of the narrative takes place as Katniss's thoughts, but I could read every single emotion on Jennifer's face, it was beautiful and tragic to watch. And they've expanded the world outside the Games, Donald Sutherland in particular was chilling. And while less explicit, there is no shortage of violence. I'm eager to read your thoughts when you see it!

[humdrumtown.livejournal.com]

I am taking a moment to soak this in because this, what you've described, is exactly how I read the books.

I'm going to just sit and stare, shell-shocked, because everyone else either made a big deal about one of the boys or did not like the ending. THANK YOU.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

Awww YAY! *high five* I'm really glad I'm finding (smart, awesome) people who see the books as I do. I think their trappings as young adult novels set a lot of people up to expect the wrong things. I guess we were just the kind of receptive that Collins was hoping for.

You are SO welcome! :D