I’ll argue tomorrow that Katniss’ ‘Meadow Song’ is the theme of the Hunger Games trilogy and that the reference to it in the epilogue ties the finale into the series, but today I want to open a thread here about ‘The Hanging Tree’ and its multiple occurrences in Mockingjay. It is the heart of the finale and a key to its most profound and challenging meaning. Let’s look at the song, where it shows up, and what it means to Katniss before beginning that discussion.
‘The Hanging Tree’ has twenty-four lines organized in four stanzas of six lines each. The rhyme scheme is a-b-b, c-b-b. The stanzas are identical except for the third line which changes in each
Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out for his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run so we’d both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Katniss sings the song to Pollux the Avox on the trip she takes with Gale and a film crew to District 12 as part of their episode in the ‘We Remember’ District 13 propo-ganda campaign (chapter 9). The physical location of her singing is by the lake beyond the fence where Katniss and Gale had fought after Katniss’ return from the first Games about whether to run or stay and fight (Fire, chapter 7). The pair are angry with each other here, as well; Katniss is furious that Gale had not told her about the Peeta propo aired the previous night and he is upset that she cannot understand why he decided not to say anything.
‘The Hanging Tree’ is mentioned again in chapter 15 during Katniss’ time in District 2. Haymitch tells her that the rescued but hijacked Peeta recognized the song when his restoration team showed him the propo made with Katniss singing it. He remembered her father singing it in the bakery when he was a small boy. “It’s the first connection to you that hasn’t triggered some mental breakdown, Says Haymitch. “It’s something, at least, Katniss” (p. 219).
We hear the last verse of ‘Tree’ during the last battle inside the Capitol, when the Celebrity Squad has been caught filming a propo and hit with a manually activated “black wave.” Boogs is dead and Katniss has taken command. Peeta has just insisted their best next move is to kill him lest he kill another member of the squad because of his re-programming. He argues that leaving him behind isn’t an option either, if they care for him, because the Capitol will capture and torture him.
Katniss thinks (chapter 21, pp. 290-291):
Peeta. Back in Snow’s hands. Tortured and tormented until no bits of his former self will ever emerge again.
For some reason, the last stanza to “The Hanging Tree” starts running through my head. The one where the man wants his lover dead rather than have her face the evil that awaits her in the world.
Peeta insists on receiving a Nightlock pill, named for the berries he and Katniss used in their first Games. Katniss refuses.
The last time we hear the song is in Tigris’ sub-basement the night before the surviving five members of the Star Squad head out for the final push on the President’s mansion. Because Peeta is still “unpredictable,” Gale and Katniss urge him to stay behind and wait for the end of the battle in hiding. He agrees that he’s to much of a risk to stay with the group but decides “he’s going out on his own,” that he “might still be useful” by “causing a diversion” (chapter 24, p. 335).
Gale is worried about Peeta’s being captured and gives him his nightlock tablet. He has to assure Peeta that, if he is captured, he is capable of killing himself or that Katniss will kill him if he can’t manage it.
The thought of Peacekeepers dragging Gale away starts the tune playing in my head again…
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
“Take it, Peeta,” I say in a strained voice. I reach out and close his fingers over the pill. “No one will be there to help you.” (p. 336)
What does the song mean to Katniss? It’s important to her for a variety of reasons.
First, I think, and always is the song’s association with her father. He taught it to her on one of their days in the woods and she sings it “softly, sweetly, as my father did” (p. 122-123). She claims that the reason the song is “irrevocably branded into my brain” is because her father said mother “just wanted me to forget it” (p. 126). Something about her young daughter making nooses out of rope scraps bothered mom.
Dad liked the song, though, and before mom yelled at him to stop, he used to sing the song in shops. Or maybe just in certain shops, like the bakery.
Mother Everdeen had another reason not to like ‘The Hanging Tree,’ though. Katniss clues us in to this when she says she hasn’t sung it “out loud for ten years, because it’s forbidden, but I remember every word.” It’s against the law to sing the song so of course mom doesn’t want her husband or her daughters singing it in public. She gets enough healer business from the whipping post without having to treat her own husband’s back-become-mincemeat.
Given Katniss’ contrarian Mockingjay Abernathey-esque spirit, I’m guessing that the reason the song is illegal is probably why she has it written on her heart.
We are not told in the narrative line why the song is forbidden though Katniss explains a good deal of it, most notably how the song’s four changing lines clarify in each stanza who is talking and to whom he is talking. ‘The Hanging Tree’ is the invitation in song of a murderer to his true love; the dead man asks the beloved “to flee,” by which he means to join him in death “at midnight in the hanging tree,” her wearing a “necklace of rope” alongside him.
Pretty gruesome, I suppose, but why would the Capitol make singing the song a punishable offense? Here’s my guess based on two popular songs from the 50s with related imagery.
You can’t talk about a ‘hanging tree’ song if you’re in my generation and not think immediately of Strange Fruit (If you haven’t heard the Billie Holliday anthem, you can listen to it here).
- Southern trees bear strange fruit,
- Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
- Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
- Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
- Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
- The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
- Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
- Then the sudden smell of burning flesh!
- Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
- For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
- For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
- Here is a strange and bitter crop.
More to the point of Ms. Collins’ reference, though, is the country-western song, ‘The Hanging Tree,’ that was the hit title song for a popular Gary Cooper cowboy movie in 1959. Here are those lyrics::
I came to town to search for gold
And I brought with me a memory
And I seem to hear the night wind cry,
“Go hang your dreams on the hangin’ tree
Your dreams of love that could never be
Hang your faded dreams on the hangin’ tree!”I searched tor gold and I found my gold
And I found a girl who loved just me
And I wished that I could love her too
But I’d left my heart on the hangin’ tree
I’d left my heart with a memory
And a faded dream on the hangin’ tree.Now there were men who craved my gold
And meant to take my gold from me
When a man is gone he needs no gold
So they carried me to the hangin’ tree
To join my dreams and a memory
Yes they carried me to the hangin’ tree.To really live you must almost die
And it happened just that way with me
They took the gold and set me free
And I walked away from the hangin’ tree
I walked away from the hangin’ tree
And my own true love, she walked with me!That’s when I knew that the hangin’ tree
Was a tree of life, new life for me
A tree of hope, new hope for me
A tree of love, new love tor me
The hangin’ tree, the hangin’ tree, the hangin’ tree!
This song is sung by a man who has at least been to a gallows of the make-shift, arboreal kind and is about true love and the re-union of the almost hanged man and his “own true love.” If you could graft in the message or spirit of Strange Fruit to this country-western setting, I think you’d have the heart of Ms. Collins’ ‘Tree’ and why it plays the role it does in Mockingjay.
Fruit is a poetic indictment of the lynchings of African-Americans in the United States. Though the photograph which is supposed to have inspired it was taken at a hanging of two black men in Indiana, the song is aimed about the practice as it existed in southern states. A Holliday signature, it became a Civil Rights movement anthem in the late 50s and 60s.
I suggest ‘The Hanging Tree’ of Mockingjay was also a “movement” song or anthem and that the meaning of the lyrics were not as important as what it may have come to mean to the rebel miners in terms of what caused the Capitol to make it illegal.
My best guess for what is means, the foundation of its use as a rebel tune, is that the “murderer” who was executed, the man on the tree singing for his love to join him, wasn’t a criminal but a revolutionary. His murders were not homicides committed in passion, then, but the shooting of Capitol Peacemakers or Mining Company thugs. His public execution was punishment, but, as important, an effective way to deter anyone thinking of joining the freedom fighter/terrorist’s cause. Capita l punishment, the death penalty, here is Capitol punishment, a means to make the districts fear the consequences of resistance more than they hate their masters.
In essence, ‘The Hanging Tree’ calls on the living who love freedom to join the martyred freedom fighter in putting this cause above concerns for their individual lives. It is an invitation to revolution, i.e., to risk death in the hope of a greater life. Mr. Everdeen isn’t singing it because it’s a simple catchy tune; he’s expressing his revolutionary beliefs as openly as he dares and asking others to join him. Mrs. Everdeen, it turns out, was right to be terrified by her husband’s boldness. It’s probably safe to assume that he and Gale’s dad died in a mine explosion that was set by the Capitol to kill men known to be plotting against the regime.
I’m confident this is what Ms. Collins’ version of “Hanging Tree’ means because it is such a match for Katniss, the Mockingjay. She becomes the lightning rod for resistance to the Capitol when she sacrifices herself to save Prim at the Reaping and by her actions in the arena, most notably, her love for Rue and Peeta and her defiant willingness to die for her friend rather than conform to the Hunger Games’ rules. ‘The Hanging Tree’ is the Mockingjay’s song well before Katniss sings it to Pollux, a man who was tortured by the Capitol and would sing the song to the rebels if he could.
Peeta hears this song, and, though he is more than half-mad consequent to his having been ‘hijacked’ and reprogrammed, he identifies with its message and with Katniss. ‘The Hanging Tree’s call to death before demeaning slavery resonates in that remnant of the revolutionary artist’s soul left in Peeta and begins his revival.
Katniss thinks of this song twice after she sings it, both in the context of Peeta being in the Capitol and the dangers he faces. The first time, when Peeta asks for a poison pill, appropriately named ‘Nightlock” after the berries he and Katniss used to defy the Capital in the 74th Games, she remembers ‘Tree’ and refuses his request. The second time, he asks permission to “create a diversion” for the four of them going to the President’s mansion to kill Snow; she insists here that he take a Nightlock tablet.
What’s going on?
In the first instance, Peeta is offering to kill himself rather than be a risk or a burden to the surviving Star Squad. He wants the pill because he is afraid of being re-captured and tortured. It is not a hero’s death he is asking for but a coward’s suicide. This is not the message of the Mockingjay anthem, ‘Hanging Tree,’ so his request for nightlock is refused.
In the heart of the Capitol, though, after Katniss’ kiss, he has again become Peeta the Selfless Warrior sufficiently that he is thinking only of his friends and how he can protect and help them. He has no thought of the consequences of his actions in terms of the risks he is running for death or capture and torture. This resonates with ‘Tree’ so much that, in an echo of her decision in Games, she forces the nightlock tablet into his hand to protect him from being tortured if captured.
We learn in the final chapter that Peeta shadowed Katniss to the Mansion and was burned horribly in the same blast that killed Prim and made the Mockingjay a Phoenix, the girl on fire. Though she does not mention the song, perhaps it is Peeta who hears it after Katniss assassinates President Coin; he prevents her then from taking the nightlock tablet in her Cinna Mockingjay battle-suit for much the same reason that she would not give him the pill in his fear. The Mockingjay cannot die that way.
Why not? For that you have to go to the symbolism of the Mockingjay as the Phoenix and resolution of contraries.
(1) When a writer puts a symbol or a poem or story into the narrative line, it is a very good bet that understanding this image, poem, play, or prose piece is a key that unlocks the story-line. Think of Nabokov’s Pale Fire for an over the top example of imbedded poetry or of the ‘triangular eye’ symbol and ‘Tale of the Three Brothers’ in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As I explain in ‘The Seeing Eye’ chapter of The Deathly Hallows Lectures, Ms. Rowling is explaining via her characters’ attempts to understand the Hallows symbol and Brothers tale how to interpret the most important artistry and meaning of her book.
(2) Oddly enough, the meaning of that Hallows symbol — the bisected triangle enclosing a circle — was most profoundly explained in text not by Xenophilius Lovegood, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger (no relation), or even Albus Dumbledore. Harry shows us what it means when he buries Mad-Eye Moody’s magical eye in the shadow of the oldest oak tree he can find and carves a cross on the tree trunk (again, see Lectures). The tree is the heart of the symbol in Hallows as it is to the esoteric meaning of ‘The Hanging Tree’ in Mockingjay; as the country western tune puts it, the Hanging Tree is the “Tree of Life.”
A tree is an apt symbol of God and His relationship to the world because, like a tree, especially an ancient one,
- He is relatively immortal or timeless,
- His beginning is unknowable and invisible,
- He is a unity at His core or base
- that grows into a seemingly infinite extension at His periphery.
All traditional cultures, consequently, understand trees as natural transparencies through which any thinking person can see God, the Creator who brings everything into existence (see, for instance, Romans 1:20). ‘The Hanging Tree,’ from this understanding, is death to the individual ego and carnal concerns but the greater life and love available in God. The seeming contradiction of having to lose your life to gain it, of course, is at the heart of the teachings of the Galilean (see John 12:24-25 and Luke 17:33).
The “tree” of this song, in one word, is the Cross, the “murdered three” is a not-so-opaque reference to the three who were murdered by the state at Calvary, and the criminal calling his beloved to take up his cross is Christ.
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” (Acts 5.30.)
“And we are witnesses of all things which he [Jesus] did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 10.39.)
“And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.” (Acts 13.29.)
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness” (Peter 2.24.)
This is the Mockingjay’s song because sacrificial love and death to one’s ego is the most radical and revolutionary politics that no regime, the World, can tolerate. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Just as at the beginning of Games, when Katniss sacrifices herself to save Prim, she offers herself as a sacrifice at the end of the series to save all the Prims who will die in the revived Hunger Games if Coin lives.
Katniss, in having embraced the Pearl of Great Price in Fire, the example and teaching of Peeta the Christ figure, and committing herself to die for him becomes the sacrifice that redeems the world in Mockingjay; she answers the call of Christ on the Cross and becomes a “murderer,” executing President Coin, knowing it means her death, which, of course, means her greater life with Peeta as Christ.
This is why he intervenes at the assassination to prevent Katniss’ death. She answers the call of the man on the tree, her beloved, the light and life of the world, to join him, a sacrifice prefigured in Fire by “the lightning tree” that is her means of transcending the fallen, murderous world of the arena if she is willing to die to herself and confront “the real enemy.” Mockingjay, throughout which she and Finnick are making nooses from rope pieces as Katniss did as a child on hearing the ‘Hanging Tree’ song, is the story of her preparation to die to self and join her beloved on the tree.
I offer for your consideration that this sacrificial love and means to transcendence is also the meaning of Hunger Games that resonates most profoundly in the hearts of Ms. Collins’ readers, who with Katniss, have the message of ‘The Hanging Tree’ if not its words within them.
As I said in the beginning of this post, though, there is another Hunger Games song that, unlike ‘Tree,’ is in all three books, a song Katniss also learned from her father. Tomorrow I hope to explore the meaning of the Meadow song and how it, too, opens up the meaning and, consequently, the popularity of these books.
Your comments and correction, as always, are coveted.
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I consider myself to be an intelligent person. I have been an avid reader for most of my life, and have always found books to be meaningful, passionate, though-provoking and just plain emotional. I have always been able to understand the hidden meanings and questions throughout books; even ones that I might find a bit far fetched. That said, while reading Mockingjay, not once did I find any kind of “religious” tie-ins.
This is not to say, that they aren’t there. I have read your other articles and I agree, there are a lot of similarities between stories and characters in the HG series and the Bible. Though, in all honesty, I think you are seeing what you want to see. I don’t think that those similarities were intentional. They seem more like things that you went out of your way to match. Maybe “out of your way” is a little too harsh. I feel like you saw something that reminded you of the Bible- and went with it. Just because two things kinda-sorta seems the same, doesn’t mean it actually is. A carrot and orange are both orange, and they both are edible, but that doesn’t make them the same thing.
I think religion was left out of the book for a reason. I think adding it would have had a negative effect on the book. If the capital was religious- bad message about those who are religious. If the districts were religious- it makes people who live without religion in their lives seem like bad/heartless people. Either way, a portion of her audience would have been offended. Yes, it probably would have added a whole new level to the book- but not one I think would have had a positive effect. Everything would have taken on a whole new meaning, and it would have been way more complex in an unappealing way- this is why I think Collins didn’t INTENTIONALLY add it it.
“I think it’s a mistake to read my and several others’ comments as “there’s no Christianity mentioned, thus there are no Christian themes.” That’s not exactly what we’re saying. Everyone is, of course, free to interpret books any way they like. There are a lot of universal themes and tropes in literature. Christianity uses just as many of these as any other faith or culture, and anyone is going to relate familiar themes to what they know best or are most familiar with.
What we’re saying is, just because you see a parallel to Christian themes, that doesn’t mean the author intended that parallel. To be honest, I really, really doubt Suzanne Collins intended religious readings of her books. The Hunger Games trilogy is a pretty straightforward commentary on war and reality TV, and the way that we treat human suffering too much like a game.”
^This is exactly how I think about it. I’m not saying that the themes aren’t there- just that they aren’t intentional. It is up to the reader to decide what they take out of any book, but I don’t think it’s right to call someone “mistaken” simply because they don’t believe there were any religious parallels.
“And, if this is what happens when a society completely erases faith in God, then it’s a very strong endorsement of our need for faith.”
^I don’t see how you came up with this at all. Most all the horrors, mass/murders, governments, rules, policies, amendments, of our world have been based on a religious belief. The church has killed thousands of people in the “name of God” or for not following “God’s laws”. Countries are at war because of their significant religious differences. Praised scientists/anthropologists/writers/philosophers that we think of today were scorned, thrown in jail, ridiculed and banished simply because they didn’t believe in what the Church did. This is nothing against faith or religion, I’m simply retelling our world’s history. Pretty much everything in our history has been BECAUSE of religion, not lack-there-of. I’m just defending this “god-less” nation in the HG series. Their horrible tortures and disgusting “games” they came up with are not due to a lack of religion. Seeing as how religion is not mentioned for the characters at all, we DON’T KNOW their affiliations- meaning you cannot argue that they are, OR are not religions (leading to my point that you cannot assume that these games are a direct consequence of no faith).
Next, addressing the “Jesus” characters. I get it- people who sacrifice themselves for another person are considered pure and good like Jesus was when he sacrificed himself for our sins. However, this does not conclude that every character in a book/movie/tv show that shows some kind of compassion, is “Jesus”. Katniss sacrifices herself for Prim- that makes her Jesus. Peeta protects and sacrifices himself for Katniss- that makes him Jesus. Prim sacrifices her safety in order to medically help injured persons, leading to her death- that makes her Jesus. Cinna relays a message in Katniss’ clothing, knowing he would be punished, he “sacrificed” himself for this message- that makes him Jesus. Mags sacrifices herself so the rest of her group could get away from the red mist- that makes her Jesus. Ok people, not everybody in this book can be Jesus. Take it one step further. The story of Pocahontas, she sacrifices herself in order to save John Smith (according to legend)- this makes her Jesus. Bella in twilight cuts/sacrifices herself in order to steer trouble away from Edward- this makes her Jesus. Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast sacrifices herself in replacement for her father- this makes her Jesus. In the popular TV show 90210, a character sacrifices her educational future by taking the blame for something she didn’t do, saving someone she loved from being expelled- this makes her Jesus? ALL of these characters cannot be Jesus. Showing characteristics of compassion, love, selflessness etc… doesn’t automatically mean the author/writers are intentionally drawing comparisons to Jesus. Those are HUMAN characteristics that people find, not just “religious characteristics”. SURE, in all of those stories, there are similar qualities- but that doesn’t mean it was intentional to make them “Christ-like”. I understand that Peeta is “resurrected” in a sense- he was injured, then became better or he was hijacked but was brought back from that horrible mind-set… but why couldn’t the author have just meant “hey, his wounds are better because of the ointment and medicines Katniss gave him” and “He has returned to his original state of mind!” not…”Christ has returned!”. It’s a little far-fetched in my opinion. All of the characters are heroic in their own way, they are all misunderstood by others- but that doesn’t mean they all are like Christ.
I don’t think religion is a focus in this book series. Sure you can find it, you can find faith anywhere you look, which is a quality in people I envy. However, just because you can find it, doesn’t mean it was intentionally put there. Haven’t you ever played a Word Cross puzzle and found accidental words that aren’t on the list of words-to-find? The maker of that puzzle wasn’t trying to add that word, he wasn’t trying to send a message- it was just seen by people who were looking for it. People draw from their experiences, and I understand that- what people want to take out of a book is the beauty of literature! Each person can take something different out of the same book. That being said, you cannot say “this is what the writer meant”, when in all honesty, it is based on opinion and opinion only. Only the author knows what they truly meant.
Ryan wrote:
I don’t see how you came up with this at all. Most all the horrors, mass/murders, governments, rules, policies, amendments, of our world have been based on a religious belief. The church has killed thousands of people in the “name of God” or for not following “God’s laws”. Countries are at war because of their significant religious differences. Praised scientists/anthropologists/writers/philosophers that we think of today were scorned, thrown in jail, ridiculed and banished simply because they didn’t believe in what the Church did. This is nothing against faith or religion, I’m simply retelling our world’s history. Pretty much everything in our history has been BECAUSE of religion, not lack-there-of. I’m just defending this “god-less” nation in the HG series
Two quick points about this earnest but almost completely upside down view of history and literature:
(1) The writer certainly is “re-telling history.” The atrocities of the twentieth century are a record of socialist and communist regimes slaughtering believers, from the German National Socialists killing Jews and Christians (8 million) and the Soviet Communists killing Russian Orthodox Christians (60-80 million) to the pogroms, killing fields, and re-education camps of Mao and Pol Pot; to think that “Most of the horrors and mass murders of the world have been based on religious belief” reflects the worst kind of ignorance and arrogance or just an absence of education of any kind. To follow up this nonsense about belief being the cause of all evil with an off-hand “nothing against religion” tells us the writer is living an unexamined life, i.e., despising believers as the fount of inhuman cruelty while s/he feigns a position of tolerance. Get a mirror.
(2) As bad as this poster is on history, s/he is worse on literature. A good or great book doesn’t mean what you like; it’s not just a projection screen of the individual’s beliefs, if it can certainly be that. To restrict meaning and content to ‘what I get’ or, worse, ‘what I imagine the author intended’ is to divorce the text in question from its roots in English literature, which, as much as it may shock this secular fundamentalist, is a Christian game, start to near finish. Reading Collins’ work in denial of its Christian content because it can be read and enjoyed without grasping this content consciously is a celebration only of deliberate blindness.
This website is not evangelical. It is, however, dedicated to exploring the power of popular literature in light of its artistry and meaning, both of which, given the tradition of English letters, means exploring Christian content. If you’re not up to that, “oh, well.” But spouting off nonsense about history and literature that is insulting to Christians and dismissive of the obvious and not so obvious in traditional literary criticism is unacceptable. Share your thoughts on like-minded, conventional thinking websites, which are legion.
Ryan, maybe you should consider this: http://ow.ly/52ZW7.
Also, you might enjoy the Flowers in the Attic discussion at Forever Young Adult, which is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.
Just finished the series today, and came across these commentaries. I must defend Ryan here and say that I don’t think he meant to say “all evil stems from religious beliefs,” but rather that a good majority of war and violence stems from religious battles and disagreements. Look at the current state of the Holy Land, which is still being fought over by the Muslims, Jews, and even some contemporary Christians. I’m not try to offend, fact is fact. And of course religious beliefs are going to shine through an author’s work. It merely takes a bit of logic that our beliefs are going to reflect our literature.
A wise English teacher of mine once explained that understanding the Bible, or at least the more common stories and themes therein, is crucial to understanding every single piece of English literature ever written, because, like it or not, most of Western culture is built up around the mythos of that book. Every piece of Western literature has Judeo-Christian themes, because all of Western society is built upon a Judeo-Christian worldview. It’s buried deep within us, and there’s no real sense in denying it. Whether or not you personally believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ or the existence of God is irrelevant — our culture (and thus our art) is, for better or for worse, built upon Christian themes.
………..Lets just say….nice.
When she said it was “forbidden” I was under the impression that she meant it in a “mom said no” kind of way… Not literally illegal. Just my 2 cents
I didn’t think there was a way to take the Hunger Games as “straightforward”. Collins includes so many layers of meaning and artistry, I just can’t see how anyone could fail to take it as such.
I had the same impression as Patrick.
I’m totally on board with the allegorical symbolism in the trilogy, but I don’t find Katniss’ assassination of Coin to be in line with dying to herself or uniting herself with Christ-Peeta.
I think the ending would have been far better if she had skipped the vote over the 76th Hunger Games and went straight to the execution of Snow. I think the ending would have been far better if 1) Coin announced the 76th Hunger games to the crowd; 2) Katniss shot Snow as planned; and 3) Coin simultaneously fell to her death shot by Gale (to atone for Prim’s death). This would have been a nice parallel with Peeta’s symbolic offering of himself so Katniss could have new life with Gale as shown in the locket (in book 2). Instead, we have an unredeemed, unrepentant and disinterested Gale going off into the sunset and shell-shocked and exiled Katniss and Peeta uniting by default at the end of book 3.
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