Some of my reactions as I read chapter 24... I'll come back later to talk more seriously about things. Please feel free to read along with me and share your reactions and start some discussions, but please NOTHING that happens after Chapter 24. And only read this if you've finished Chapter 24!
This is not good.
Quit it, rebels! You're just killing everyone.
The girl in the yellow coat is gutting.
Gale! (Selfishly, very glad she didn't shoot him... no matter how it turns out!)
nononononononononono. Not Prim. Anyone but Prim. I'm walking away from this book for a bit. I can't do it.
Prim. Definitely did not see that coming. Pretty much anyone on the "mission" through the Capitol (which, for some reason, really made me think of _Aliens_ - maybe the underground bit?) but we left her safe at home.
ReplyDeleteYeah, maybe the reptilian things...
ReplyDeleteI told you... there was one thing I never would have guessed in a million years. That was it.
Again, she's the one who started it all. Saving her was the reason Katniss was in the Hunger Games in the first place. To lose her now? Devastating.
(Related to my comment and her reply on Ch. 4, but posting here b/c it's spoils stuff):
ReplyDelete"It's that lack of understanding that there could be people in the Capitol who are innocents too."
That's what I was thinking of when Plutarch did his whole bread and circus speech - the people in the Capitol aren't uniformly evil. Complacent, definitely and responsible, to some degree, but that doesn't make them automatically the enemy.
It goes back to that whole "remember who the enemy is." Reading about how lost the Capitol people seem when evacuated made me think about how they've been under control too. Sure, their lives were easier and they had so much more, but it's sadder because they didn't realize what they didn't have. Killing them simply because they lived in the Capitol wouldn't be right.
(Sorry for the length - so few people have finished and I'm a little desperate for conversation!)
That's ok Meredith, that's exactly why I did this! I knew I'd be driven crazy without people to talk to!!
ReplyDeleteI think some blame can be placed on the people of the Capitol. The fact is, they did watch kids killing each other and treated it as a game, bet on it and looked the other way. But the fact is that we know that there are people who DIDN'T look the other way... Cinna is probably the best example. That's why you can never make such blanket statements.
And even those who did turn a blind eye... cruelty is never deserved.
And maybe that's why we love Katniss... if she decides someone needs killing, she kills them. There's never a thought of punishment or torture. There's never cruelty, just necessity. And always the knowledge of the price she pays for taking the life. (although that is why Kat killing that one woman in her apt in the Capitol reeeeeaaally disturbed me... it didn't have the same consequence every one of her other kills did).
And thanks for being careful about spoilers! :-)