From Hogwarts Professor Louise Freeman in Virginia:
The assembly of the Council of Victors to vote on whether or not to punish the Capitol with a final (yeah, right!) Hunger Games is a pivotal scene of Mockingjay. The obvious question we are supposed to ask is “Why did Katniss vote yes?” Was she still so bitter over Prim’s death and convinced that the Capitol was responsible that she would go along with the act of vengeance? Or did she instantly have an “Animal Farm” style realization that Coin was no different than Snow and give the Yes vote as her best chance to kill her? I have my own idea, but I can see how there would be differing opinions. It might be more beneficial to ask two other questions: 1) Why did Coin call for the vote? 2) Why did the other Victors vote the way they did?
Why the vote? Like burn unit-bound Katniss, we are missing a lot of details over how the transition to Coin’s administration occurred. But we can assume she reneged on the promised republic, with free elections. We are told later that a hasty election was held to elect Paylor as her replacement; since no election is mentioned for Coin, it probably didn’t happen and was not going to.
Coin takes full credit for the idea of the Capitol Children Hunger Games. But she has to admit that her newly formed government cannot reach consensus on whether to implement her plan, suggesting her Presidency is off to a shaky start. Knowing Coin, there must have been quite a bit of opposition for her to risk handing off the decision to the Victors. Who was the opposition? My guess is that much came from Plutarch; he was the one who told first explained the unfamiliar concept of “republic” to our heroes and, when asked what would happen if the revolution failed, quipped that next year’s Hunger Games would be “quite unforgettable.” The implication is that there would be no Hunger Games under a rebel government. He seemed tickled pick that Coin was dead on the ride to District 12. Paylor, if consulted, would also presumably have opposed the plan since there is no indication the Hunger Games continues under her leadership.
So, why did the Victors cast their votes? For the unequivocal No’s: Peeta, Beetee and Annie, we can take their reasoning at face value. They recognize the Games as an atrocity, unjustifiable under any circumstances and counterproductive to future stability. Peeta, who has always been the voice of virtue, reacts with pure moral outrage. Beetee,* master weapons designer, echoes that and provides a second, more practical reason; it’s more important to reconcile with the Capitol citizens than to continue to be enemies. This shows us that even those willing to create horrendous and “dirty-trick” weapons for the sake of winning a war will draw the line at intentionally targeting children as revenge. I think we are meant to hear Gale’s voice in Beetee’s, given their partnership. Annie also speaks for someone else: her dead husband, Finnick. I’ll admit this was one of the most touching lines in the book for me, to see the fragile Annie speak with such moral strength and clarity. We might have expected her to fall apart after Finnick’s death, or at the very least retreat into a Mrs. Everdeen-style depression. But instead, she speaks for the war widow, heartbroken but moving on to face the future with courage. Is there anyone who wasn’t delighted to learn that she and Finnick managed to conceive a child?
The unequivocal Yes voters, Johanna and Enobaria, seem to have different reasons for their votes, not surprising considering they are sworn enemies who have just promised to kill each other. Johanna, I’m afraid, has retreated to a state of near sociopathy, unable to empathize with anyone. Whether it was her loveless life before the Quell, her torture afterward or her drug addition, not even Katniss’s overtures of friendship and attempt to comfort with the scent of life-giving evergreens can restore a sense of compassion in her. She is now the voice of pure vengeance. Significantly, she’s the one who delights in the prospect of tossing Snow’s granddaughter into the arena, an image that evokes little Rue and Prim. Short of her own hijacking, Katniss could never support that.
Enobaria we don’t know much about, given that this is her first appearance since the arena, but our fanged, Career tribute is the classic opportunist: a sell-out like the District she represented. She looks out for herself with no care for whose side she is on. She had escaped torture after her capture, undoubtedly giving whatever information she had to be used against her fellow tributes. She lucked into immunity only as a result of Katniss’s deal even though she wasn’t the intended beneficiary. She changed sides and joined the revolution only when her own privileged District fell and it seemed the rebels could win. Now that Coin’s in charge, she’s on Coin’s side.
So, Katniss and Haymitch decide the vote. I’m of the school that another Hunger Games was as repugnant to Katniss as it was to Peeta. But Katniss had the stronger reaction. Peeta may have loudly voiced his opposition to the plan**, but Katniss knew immediately that she had to put a stop to it, even at the cost of her own life. Nothing had changed, Coin was the flip side of Snow, and she’s now certain that Coin, not Snow, deliberately killed Prim. There had never been any doubt in Katniss’s mind that War Criminal Snow must be executed: apparently Nuremgard-style prisons are as foreign to Panem as democracy. So now Coin, like Snow, must die, and a Yes vote is the way to make that happen. Does anyone think that Coin would have let Katniss into the square to fire the arrow had she voted against her?
Haymitch, as we might expect, understands what Katniss is planning. As others have noted, he answers, “I’m with the Mockingjay,” not “I agree with Katniss.” He recognizes that Katniss is again playing a role, presenting herself as something she isn’t and doesn’t want to be for the sake of her own revolution, but this time it’s her own, a revolt not just against Snow but against the tyranny he stood for, a tyranny now equally personified in Coin. Just as Snow tried to break Katniss via Peeta, Coin tried to break Katniss through Prim. Ironically, she came closer to succeeding than Snow but, even more ironically, with her Yes vote, Katniss fights back. And, with her trusty arrow and the skills taught to her by her long-departed father (skills she hardly needed for the 10 yard Snow target), she wins.
*Of all the Victors, Beetee had the best chance of being in Coin’s cabinet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “leave it to the Victors” idea was his, assuming he, Annie, Katniss and Haymitch would be majority No votes.
**Notice that he launches his final verbal attack against Haymitch in an effort to seal the vote. Though Katniss’s Yes probably outraged him more than anything else she’s ever done, he does not revert to his “Must kill Katniss” mode, or even respond to her. In case we had any doubt about it when he stopped her from swallowing the Nightlock, the man is cured.
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I have serious doubts that Katniss would have been level-headed enough to plot Coin’s execution like that. Given her self-proclaimed mental state throughout Mockingjay and her decrease in “synchronization” with Haymitch in Catching Fire, it seems very unlikely that she would have such foresight and clarity following Prim’s death, especially because after Coin’s death she lapses into attempted suicide. I don’t doubt Haymitch would be capable of such a scheme, but Katniss could not have come up with it on her own. She rarely seems to think that far ahead. I would argue that her decision to kill Snow instead comes across as a last-second decision, as when in that flash of insight she shot the CF arena.
I have long been a supporter of this position Louise, but you are much better at articulating it than I am. So it is no surprise that I agree.
The only thing I throw up for debate is the way Gale would have voted. He dehumanized his enemy to the point where he is outraged when Katniss takes up for her prep team that he sees as being tainted and the enemy because they are from the capitol. Beetee seemed a little more calm and calculating than Gale so I am not sure they are just so alike. Gale seemed to me to be laced with more fiery anger than Beetee. I am not sure how it would have influenced his vote and wether it would have generated a Johanna like response. Having never gone through the games seems to keep him from fully understanding the ramifications of some of his weapons.
One potential bit of hope is that he learned his lesson when his weapon was turned against the capitol children. We know he never intended it used as a weapon against Prim. What we don’t know is how he viewed it being used as a weapon against the capitol children hoping to lure in the capitol guards. For all we know he had approved it in that way never having expected that Coin would send in Prim and her medic group too. If we knew what he thought of that then we would know how he would vote in regard to the new proposed games.
I can see both Billie’s point and Louise’s, and want to propose a middle position based on my view of Katniss’s character – her on-the-fly actions tend to be in pursuit of a planned out end-goal. While I agree with Billie that I don’t think she knew *how* she was going to stop a new Hunger Games while voting yes, I do think she felt a ‘yes’ vote was the only way to stay in the arena, as it were, where she would be able to make moves that would stop a new Hunger Games. I am reasonably sure – particularly given the Capitol’s manipulation of the Victors post-Games which we learned about in MJ – that she did not trust Coin to honor a ‘no’ vote outcome. Killing Coin, then, remains a bit of an of-the-moment brainstorm – but the goal behind both actions is to stop any renewal of the Games.
1.) I believe Coin called for the vote because she was seeking a scapegoat. Let the “beloved” Victors decide, thereby focusing dissention upon the yea-sayers, not herself, no matter how the vote carried.
Remember, the surviving Victors are a threat to Coin’s position of power-to-come. They can testify firsthand to the horrors of the HG arena, and they are survivors first and foremost. Coin’s manipulative powerplays have occurred in the safety of her command rooms. I believe Coin is actually intimidated by their presence, no matter what she appears to be at face value to those around her. She is looking for a way to undermine their importance in the eyes of the people who will be looking for heroes to follow during the rebuilding years.
One of the issues here is “accountability”, is it not? Coin has already dealt in deception when she did not step up and tell Katniss herself that she was the one to send Prim into the Capitol. Nor does Coin admit her part in the ploy to use the Capitol hovercraft to drop the parachute bombs KNOWING the rebel medics are with the children, specifically Prim. Now we see Coin’s inability to work with the government powers that be, choosing to not make a definitive decision herself and setting up the Victors to “take the blame”.
2.) I agree with you, Louise, on your assessment of the Victor’s votes. I was especially pleased…and maybe slightly puzzled…about Annie’s clearly spoken choice. I thought she would have been a basketcase…but we have forgotten how much time has actually passed since Finnick’s death and the security she has in knowing she is pregnant with his child.
One of the things that jumped out at me was that Coin said that the Victors decision would be announced to the nation. This sounds like whatever prior discussion was done in secret. Coin was either going to announce to the nation: “The Victors have decided to have a Hunger Games consisting of the Capitol’s children” or “The Victors have decided to execute all citizens of the Capitol.” There was simply no way that they would have been presented in a favorable light.
I also noticed specifically that Coin has no justifiable public motivation to hold the Games. District 13 never had to send tributes. They were never required to watch 23 children die on live TV year after year.
Would Coin have stopped at one Hunger Games? Why not 75?
Billie, I see your point and I agree that Katniss is not usually a think-ahead type of person, except when she’s hunting. Then she is perfectly capable of quickly concocting the best plan for killing her target, whether it’s to shoot immediately, lie in wait or lure into a trap. If she didn’t have those skills, she and Gale could not have taken out the enemy air fleet on their first day on the battlefield, with a minor adaptation of their goose-hunting technique.
Her rapport with Haymitch had been largely restored; recall that it was his comfort she wanted in the aftermath of Snow’s rose-petal assault, after they emerged from the bomb shelter. And , in the board room, she did have a little time to think, as Peeta, Beetee, Annie, Johanna and Enobaria take a few minutes to register their opinions.
It’s certainly open to interpretation, but I think, once Katniss saw Coin for who she was, Coin became like an animal she was hunting. Her Yes vote was a way of camouflaging herself until she had a clear shot.
The key line in this passage, I think, is “I weigh my options carefully, thinking everything through” (p. 378). There’s not much wiggle room there for Katniss not being very deliberate as to what she is doing as she casts her “yes” vote “for Prim.”
Haymitch, having just insulted her a few pages back, recognizes this answer is absolutely out of character and that she is onto something — and backs her vote to see where she’s headed.
And that the first person narrator doesn’t tell us what she’s thinking, e.g., “and that’s when I knew my arrow would find its home piercing President Coin’s temples,” only reflects her own awareness of the need for stealth. As Louise says, this is Katniss playing Diana and Artemis…
I totally agree with John. I was certain that Katniss knew what she was doing in that moment. She even says something about, “let’s see how well Haymitch knows me” (horrible paraphrase there) when she’s waiting for his vote. I felt like the old Katniss was really coming alive, and taking action, doing all she could to end the Hunger Games forever.
LOL at the Diana comment. When I first read the District 8 scene, the image of a gorgeously styled celebrity walking the aisles, shaking hands with the wounded, reminded of the late Princess Diana’s hospital visits, particularly to soldiers maimed by land mine, The “Diana, goddess of the hunt” image of her shooting down planes with flaming arrows a few minutes later is a nice contrast.
I very much agree with most of the analysis in this post.
What still does puzzle me however is Plutarch. It does seem that he may have been somewhat in opposition to Coin and yet at the same time it seems that he was one of the few in on the plan to bomb the children (as Snow says – the hand of a gamemaker was clearly evident, and Katniss also concludes that he must have known).
I’m split both ways. Can someone please post the section of the book where Katniss shoots Coin?
Because I remember her shooting Coin because Snow was laughing, and realizing that Coin is the new Snow at THAT moment – and didn’t she say that she didnt know how to kill Snow and what she was going to do at that moment?
I really really really HOPE that Louise is right. Cause otherwise I will know that the bitterness of Prim’s dying has made her into a new character, someone who can only partner with someone as deranged as Peeta, someone who isn’t the essentially G00D person that she was before. Only that person would vote yes without a plan to the contrary.
Thanks, too for you analysis and largely agree. I was disappointed in Katniss when she voted yes and remembered thinking ‘for Prim?’…then was intrigued by Haymitch’s reaction…the wheels turning in his head were almost visiable and I thought…what am i missing? Then when she killed Coin instead I reread the vote section and realized she had given us the clues with “for Prim” comment. I also agree with Lynn, however, that I think Gale would have voted for a new Games. He often stated things like ‘if I had a button that would kill them all, I would push it’ etc and I think Katniss’ understanding of his true nature led her to understand that Peeta was what she needed to survive.
I don’t see how anyone can think that Katniss made some blind decision at the last minute to shoot Coin instead of Snow.
“For Prim” is the key here. Because who killed Prim? Coin. Not Snow, who Katniss was going to execute anyway. If she wants revenge over Prim’s death, she already has it — she didn’t need another Hunger Games “for Prim.”
Also, why did Katniss go to the Hunger Games in the first place? “For Prim.”
Katniss is giving Haymitch a SIGNAL. He already knows that Katniss has discovered something terrible that needs to be sorted out, he just doesn’t know what. This response is so out of character that Haymitch picks up on it when Coin can’t, puts two and two together, and plays the game. It’s one kiss = a pot of broth all over again.
More evidence: Katniss is staring at the white rose when she votes… and what does she say to Coin? Can YOU make sure he’s wearing this. Because that puts Coin right next to Snow, in range of Katniss’ one arrow.
So why isn’t this all going through Katniss’ head during the vote? Because it’s supposed to be a surprise to the reader! It’s Collins way of creating suspense. It’s just what good writers do. What fun would it be if you already knew Katniss was going to kill Coin? That would make the actual event anti-climatic.
Lastly, I want to point out that the Coin/Snow choice also mirrors Katniss’ Gale/Peeta choice. What does Gale say to Katniss before he leaves her? “Don’t miss.” In other words, kill Snow. Take revenge. The fact that she kills Coin instead, with the one arrow she’s given, is the choice Peeta would make. She “misses.” I thought it was great writing, to show over and over again that she was choosing morality over revenge in the aftermath of the war.
Actually, the last thing Gale said was “shoot straight.” (Earlier on he had said “you won’t miss.”) Those statements can be anything from a meaningless encouragement to a loaded “kill the real enemy “. I’m curious how everyone interpreted it.
Oh, thanks PK9. I was wondering if I remembered it wrong, but I have the Kindle edition and it’s annoying to try to look up exact references that way.
I think your question is interesting. Just to clarify — I’m not saying that Gale intentionally told Katniss to shoot at Snow instead of Coin. He had no idea that the victors would have to decide on the future of the Hunger Games.
What I’m saying though is that from the author’s – Collin’s – perspective, she might have included it in the book to show Katniss’ choices again. Like Gale = revenge (a very clear association throughout the book) and Peeta = healing/mercy. In the same way, Snow = revenge and Coin = mercy (to the Capitol). Katniss is only given one arrow, and only given one heart. She only gets to choose one in the end. She chooses consistently.
The ‘shoot straight’ comment got my attention too. At first, I thought it was just a reference to a previous time Gale told her that (as I’ve lent out my books now I am also reference-challenged currently). But unknowingly to Gale and unintentionally, could he actually be encouraging Katniss to do some ‘straight shooting’ = ‘truth telling’…and shoot the actual threat?
I don’t recall any previous time that Gale ever told Katniss to shoot straight. This is Katniss Everdeen we’re talking about. Her shooting an arrow straight can be taken for granted.
Lor and PK9…perhaps Gale’s comment to “shoot straight” is another indication of the widening chasm that is developing between him and Katniss. Out of character for the old hunting partners yet very much in character for the man who recognizes he has lost Katniss’ heart forever.
Remember, too, they are on camera. Any comment Gale would make could be picked up on mic. “Shoot Straight,” would be an expected piece of advice given the fact that our heroine has been in major physical and emotional recovery since the firebombing. Perhaps the remark is more for the viewing public, less for Katniss…and especially for Coin, who has no clue to Katniss’ intent. Wouldn’t surprise me to find out that Coin had a direct feed on Gale via the communicuff and the line was open without his knowledge…
I agree that Katniss votes yes with the intent of killing Coin. However, I thought that not providing any explanation for the vote in a first person narrative was a weak point in the book. It always presents a big problem for an author when she wants to hide a key thought or point of knowlege of the viewpoint character from the reader. When I read this section, the lack of any explanation struck me as very problematic.
This theory certainly reads well with the text. My only remaining question is, why does Haymitch’s vote matter? If Katniss just needs to convince Coin that she’s on Coin’s side, then it doesn’t matter if the victors vote for the games or not. Yet Katniss seems to put a good deal of weight on whether or not Haymitch will back her vote. Is there some strategic significance to this, or is it just a relational support sort of thing?
Casey, excellent question! Why does Haymitch’s vote matter?
First of all, Haymitch is the oldest living HG Victor sitting around the table…and we find out later, the oldest HG Victor living, period. Katniss once alluded to the lack of respect given longevity/age-related appearance in the Capitol and how being a senior citizen/ one of the aged was regarded as something of an accomplishment in D12. Haymitch’s vote counts out of respect for his age and years of experience (especially with the Games).
Second, Katniss and Haymitch have history. Hunger Games history (Mentor and Tribute). Strategy history (Saving Peeta/Securing Sponsors). Unspoken communication history (Seeking water/Getting meds and food). Healing and understanding history (post QQ). Haymitch’s vote counts because Katniss has experienced the “right-ness” of her choices by the consequences of Haymitch’s responses in the past.
I’m sure there is a “Third” in this, but it escapes my thought at this time. Anyone care to add to the list???
Also simply the fact that Haymitch’s vote made it Yes 4-3. If he had voted No there would be no final (ha!) Hunger Games announcement and Coin would likely have had a conniption fit and imprisoned them all.
I completely missed that point! Thank you, Louise
And may I add that there WOULD have been an announcement of the 76Games…blamed on the remaining victors and incurring the wrath of the Capitol citizenry!!! I doubt imprisonment would have sufficed. Our surviving Victors would have been used for more demoralizing purposes to re-establish Capitol loyalties.
Interesting. So that assumes that it wasn’t really an honest vote at all, but merely Coin ferreting out who was loyal to her and who wasn’t. And that if Haymitch had voted down the games, she would have punished the victors as a group. I wonder if Coin would have had the popularity and power to do that at that point, though. Especially because Katniss was such a hero, and Coin already felt threatened by her.
PJ, I liked your point about Haymitch’s responses to Katniss’s actions being a measuring stick for her of their rightness. Under that theory, his vote re-enforces what she already suspected about Coin and goads her on to make her final shot at Coin instead of Snow.
This is one of those points in the storyline where the underlying themes become more evident. Katniss, while impulsive, was extremely calculating and manipulative–she says so herself.
She understood the big picture, Snow and Coin were basically the same. There was to be no change. The misery would continue, regardless of the leader. The Games were used to remind the Capitol citizens of who was “the enemy”. Governments have used this strategy for centuries. Without an effective enemy, people do no live in the appropriate amount of fear, thus making them hard to control.
Katniss understood that Coin was simply changing the name of the enemy. Perpetual demonization of the Capitol would allow for perpetual domination and subjugation of the population as a whole.
This is comparable to Orwell’s example’s in 1984 where every nation was perpetually at war with another–for no apparent reason.
In real life, it’s similar to the Cold War. The US had the USSR to demonize, and vice versa. This allowed freedoms to be restricted in the name of security. We see the same thing (to a larger degree) in post 9/11 USA. The name of the enemy has changed, but the tactic of dismantling freedoms as a means of “security” has remained the same.
Katniss understood this, at least to a point. She gave Coin what she wanted because if she didn’t she knew the whole cycle would start over again and nothing would change.
These are great points!
I also want to mention that when the “Star Squad” was told that they were not going to be doing a lot of real fighting, they were complaining. Then someone (Coin? Unfortunately, I lent my book out and cannot reference it) mentions that Katniss understands and agrees with this.
Katniss then thinks something along the lines of: “Actually, Katniss has no intention of staying with the Star Squad, but she shouldn’t look too eager”. It seems the same in the Victor’s conference except without the witty inner dialogue.
A good analysis of the vote! In addition to the reasons already stated, Katniss’ yes vote may have also served the purpose of arousing Peeta’s anger toward Katniss. When she voted yes, I couldn’t believe she would do that to Peeta (in addition to all the obvious, more important reasons the Hunger Games should not continue), and I imagined the disbelief and anger he would have been feeling. But since Katniss expected to die after assassinating Coin, confirming her negative qualities for Peeta would allow him to move on easier after her death if he did still have feelings for her. I know Katniss cared more about the larger issues than about romantic notions. Still, a possible bonus reason for voting yes that I thought might be worth offering.
On pj’s comment about Haymitch’s vote providing affirmation for Katniss- it says not long before the vote occurs that Haymitch is the only one Katniss can trust enough to talk to about her growing suspicions about Coin. They never got to talk about it because Haymitch offended her with his drunken comment. So the moment of the vote is her last chance to receive affirmation from Haymitch before she goes out and kills Coin, and herself. This idea gains even more strength as you pay attention to various times throughout the book when the special relationship between Katniss and Haymitch is mentioned. Perhaps Suzanne Collins made those mentions in order to clue us in to what was going on between them at the vote?
Ok, thanks for the great insight. My question now is- was there a final Hunger Game? I dont remember anything mentioned. Did it die with Coin? How did Katniss ensure the end of the Hunger Games by killing Coin? There was nothing more about what happened after except that there was a new president elected.
There are no more Hunger Games. Read the three big posts I wrote on the symbolism of the series for the reasons why.
A hint is the meaning of the new President’s name: Paylor. It means both “pale ore” or “pale orb”, i.e., gold, silver, or pearl, all of which are “solid light” or glory. We have resolved all contraries and arrived at the transcendent, illumined point. A Hunger Games isn’t possible under this regime.
‘Coin’ is not the real thing — gold or light — but money used as tokens or signs of this real value. President Coin is to Paylor what paper money or even hard coinage is to gold and silver…
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the analysis. Perhaps someone can help me with the following questions.
I still have a question as to what does it mean that Peeta reacted to Haymitch’s “yes” rather than Katniss’s “yes” vote.
One previous poster mentioned that Peeta’s lack of mutt anger towards Katniss meant he’s cured, but I would think if Peeta was cured he would respond to Katniss even though he probably knows her stubborness. I can’t believe Peeta would just let Katniss’s vote go without comment to her. What am I missing?
My second point of confusion has to do with Gale and Peeta’s conversation while inclosed in Tigress’s cellar. Peeta wonders aloud about who Katniss will choose between himself and Gale. I find this passage somewhat out-of-character, and I’m wondering what I’m missing.
I find it rather amazing that Peeta considers himself in the running. Are we supposed to believe that Peeta’s cured because Peeta sees himself as a possible mate for Katniss? Ironic, perhaps? since Peeta is chained to the stair supports so we have to assume he’s not cured but he thinks his in the running. There’s no indication that Gale finds Peeta’s comment odd.
Perhaps the author needed to move Katniss forward and this scene sets that up, but it seems somewhat disingenius on the author’s part. So what am I missing?
Thanks,
Sam
All I can give you is a surface analysis. John will have to provide a deeper one. I think that Peeta is not cured here but that he is fighting his way back. So we are seeing a process that is in the partway point. We are seeing him come back to himself. He is kind of waking up from a nightmare to who he is when he has his flashbacks. He is trying to remember things and his memories are there (of things like kissing Katniss and them both trying to keep each other alive in the quarter quell) but also what is planted from the capitol.
The reason I think he is confused is that Katniss had just kissed him rather than leave him to die like he requested. The kiss goes with the genuine memories vs the ones from the capitol. He is confused here in his conversation with Gale and kind of searching for meaning. We only hear the end of conversation.
As for his not being mad a Katniss, he might have been inside. But he also knows that her sister just died and she is reactionary. The mutt side would have expected her to vote like that anyway. But it seems that Haymitch’s takes him more by surprise because of his expectations of him. Plus, Haymitch’s vote is the last one and turned the tide in Peeta’s mind. It was the one that would result in a continuation of the games if Katniss hadn’t killed Coin.
But these are just my opinions.
I think those are good questions that I don’t know the answers to, but this was my thought on Peeta not being mad at Katniss about the vote. I think hew was mad, but that Haymitch ended up getting a lot of the anger he felt toward Katniss. Haymitch gets to be the middle man when either Katniss or Peeta does something that seems inexplicable and bad to the other at the time. (Like Peeta saying he liked Katniss during his first interview, or Katniss keeping Peeta in the dark on President Snow’s visit in CF). Haymitch always seems to know what is really going on but never tells, and ends up taking some guff for it.
And, ever since that post about rings and ending at the beginning of the story, I’ve looked at that scene as an almost repeat of the post-bread burning Katniss and Peeta at school scene in Hunger Games (where they can’t even look at each other), or Peeta and Katniss showing up at Haymitch’s house at the opening of Catching Fire (where they can’t even look at each other). Despite all their history, it seemed like they were embarrassed or shy around each other. It’s like they’re starting at the beginning of their relationship all over again.
Wow! Just Wow! I can believe all the things wrong with this post and the comments that follow. Too many for me to go through them all.
The biggest problem is the assumptions that are being made with out facts being able to back them up. The biggest one being Coin ordered the bombing. We don’t know. Katniss doesn’t even know that (and instead of trying to find out who killed her sister she runs away). If you read between the lines, you can make a circumstantial case but there is no absolute proof.
“But we can assume she reneged on the promised republic, with free elections.”
- Why can we assum this? The United States formed in 1781. Washington was elected President in 1787. Until then, the President was appointed by Congress.
We don’t know how much time has past. It’s perfectly reasonable to think that Coin could have been named interim president or even elected president.
“Does anyone think that Coin would have let Katniss into the square to fire the arrow had she voted against her?”
- Why not. Again, no evidence that there were conditions to her getting to kill Coin. Seemed pretty much set in stone. Coin might have save Snow for her but there’s nothing that leads us to beleive that she would not get to kill Coin even if she voted ‘no’. Katniss was the Mockingjay. It was expected she would kill Snow. I don’t see how Coin could have backed out of it.
My point is if you want to call this a discussion, you need to look at everything. You cannot just ‘assume’ things.
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