Tim Schock wrote on the Peeta thread a comment I thought worthy of greater attention and further exploration than it would receive there. He suggests that Peeta was right about Coin and District 13 in his interview statements to Caesar Flickerman and that Katniss only comes to appreciate his seemingly traitorous insights after Prim’s death and the Mockingjay’s conversation with President Snow in the Rose Room. Mr. Schock equates the fictional Snow and Coin with the real-life Presidents Bush and Obama, which equation will no doubt offend partisans of left and right; please keep your comments focused on the question Was Peeta Right? or they will be deleted. Here is the original Schock comment:

From Steve Barkmeier, some challenging thoughts on the story relationship of Buttercup, Primrose Everdeen’s cat, and Primroses’ sister, Katniss:

Prim’s cat, Buttercup, doesn’t have many appearances in the first two books of The Hunger Games trilogy. However, his involvement comes at key points in the series. In addition, he plays a pivotal role in Mockingjay. I believe that Buttercup serves a purpose in the series as Katniss’s alter ego and points towards Katniss’s relationship with herself throughout the series. [Read more…]

Last week, in Mockingjay Discussion 15: The Hanging Tree, we covered some of the fascinating symbolic possibilities for the haunting song Katniss sings to Pollux, primarily to distract the mockingjays from singing Rue’s four-note tune, but which echoes throughout the novel.   “The Hanging Tree” also connects to real ballad types and actual ballads. Understanding the different types of ballads and where “The Hanging Tree” fits can add to our understanding of the way Collins uses music in general and this evocative piece in particular.

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Three quick questions for serious readers of Mockingjay, the finale of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, a week after its publication:

(1) How many times have you re-read or re-visited this story after your first reading?

(2) Has your thinking about the book or series changed in major ways in that time? minor ways?

(3) Mockingjay was clearly meant to be a knock-out blow kind of reading experience. Did you find it a powerful or painful blow? A painfully powerful head shot?

Thank you in advance for sharing your answers to these questions — and for joining us here for our discussion of the Panem Saga’s closer (Here is a collection of the 25 HogPro Mockingjay posts). I hope to post tomorrow on the literary alchemy of Mockingjay; see you then for the allegorical and anagogical artistry of the book with some thoughts on how it did and didn’t work!

In some of our recent flurry of fabulous conversation, someone mentioned that Collins ought to do a follow-up “whatever happened to…” book rather than a prequel. I know many readers were thrilled when J.K. Rowling filled in gaps about characters, such as Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom both getting married, just not to one another.  Of course, Collins may be in no way inclined to do any such thing, but it might be interesting to speculate on the fates of a few characters, based on what we do see in the text, and I’d love to see what everyone thinks of these theories (or chime in with some of your own).

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