There are howls coming from Hunger Games fandom that Ms. Collins left the rails of her story in the series finale and wrote something of a treatise about war rather than the heart-warming Young Adult romance we got in Games and Fire.

I understand that response. But Ms. Collins did not leave her story formula when writing Mockingjay. In fact, the critical things that happen before and in the Games and Quell arenas happen in Mockingjay‘s story line as well. She is telling us that this “real world” slaughter of innocents and the “artificial world” nightmare of children dying in the Capitol’s Hunger Games don’t differ except in our seeing one as acceptable and the other as unacceptable.

Here are the formula story points of Games and Fire that are hidden but echoed in Mockingjay: [Read more…]

For discussion point number 13, let’s take a look at the President of this brave new world dystopia, President Coin. I think her name has at least four meanings. [Read more…]

When we meet Katniss in District 12 as Mockingjay opens, she is recovering from her concussion and having a hard time staying clear about who she is and what she’s about. It’s bad enough that she has to repeat a mantra of sorts about her life-identity essentials: My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old…

When we meet Peeta after his rescue, he’s gone to the place-of-no-maps. Having been ‘”hijacked” by Capitol brain washers, his memories have been modified and the process has left him either convinced that what is not-real is real or hopelessly unable to discern the difference. He has been transformed into the mutt-ation shadow-monster of the Peeta we know from Games and Fire, who was something of an Unconditional Love and Meaningful Aesthetics incarnation. His solution is to trust those around him rather than himself and to ask them in his confusion if any given perception he has is “Real or Not Real?”

This struggle of the story’s two central protagonists is the central theme of Mockingjay and is the heart of Collins’ critique of war, of television, and their intertwining in news coverage of armed conflict. [Read more…]

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: The Spiritual Allegory’ On Katniss as a Soul Seeking Perfection and on Iconological Reading

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: ‘The Literary Alchemy’ On Literary Alchemy and Peeta as Postmodern Christ

‘Unlocking Mockingjay: Katniss’ Apotheosis’ On the Alchemical Arena and Katniss’ Perfection in the Inner Sanctuary

The first 30 threads from the morning after Morningjay’s publication are here in one convenient location. Every one of the threads has Mockingjay information in it and assumes you have read the book. This is your only SPOILER warning! (nota Bene: The first ten threads were started the first morning post-publication and reflect a hurried first reading.)

Mockingjay Discussion 1: Team Peeta?

Mockingjay Discussion 2: District 13

Mockingjay Discussion 3: War and Television

Mockingjay Discussion 4: The Pearl Plot?

Mockingjay Discussion 5: The Three Sure Things

Mockingjay Discussion 6: Series Continuity

Mockingjay Discussion 7: Gale Hawthorne

Mockingjay Discussion 8: Blood and Roses

Mockingjay Discussion 9: The Assassin

Mockingjay Discussion 10: Predictions Scorecard

And more posts from the first three weeks post-publication:

Mockingjay Discussion 11: Review Revue

Mockingjay Discussion 12: Real or Not Real?

Mockingjay Discussion 13: President Hillary Coin?

Mockingjay Discussion 14: The Hunger Games Formula

Mockingjay Discussion 15: The Hanging Tree

Mockingjay Discussion 16: Katniss’ Meadow Song

Mockingjay Discussion 17: Books vs. Broadcast

Mockingjay Discussion 18: Harry Potter’s Shadow

Mockingjay Discussion 19: Shadows of Twilight

Mockingjay Discussion 20: A Children’s Book?

Mockingjay Discussion 21: What the Votes Tell Us

Mockingjay Discussion 22: Ring and Mirror Composition

Mockingjay Discussion 23: What Have I Unleashed on My Students?

Mockingjay Discussion 24: So Whatever Happened to…?

Mockingjay Discussion 25: A Week Later

Mockingjay Discussion 26: Getting to the Ballad Roots of ‘Hanging Tree’

Mockingjay Discussion 27: The Meaning of Prim’s Cat and Kat-niss

Mockingjay Discussion 28: Was Peeta Right about the Revolution?

Mockingjay Discussion 29: Is Mockingjay an NRA Advertisement?

Mockingjay Discussion 30: Hunger Games and the Lord of the Rings

Thank you in advance for reading and contributing to the various threads of this discussion!

Please note this thread and post were started in August, 2010, when Mockingjay was published. For a look at Hogwarts Professor articles that discuss the whole series at length go here and for discussion leading up to and about the Lionsgate film go here. Be fore-warned: Writing on this two year old thread or any of the ‘Mockingjay Discussion’ Points will not be seen by many readers.

The Peeta story arc took a dramatic turn in Mockingjay as Ms. Collins revealed Mr. Mellark as less the Christ figure of unconditional love on whom Katniss depends (see chapter 14, p. 195) than a shattered post-traumatic shock survivor that has been used and abused by equally brutal partisans in the Panem war. That we get a “happy ending” (?) with Peeta and Katniss raising a family in District 12 is not cause of celebration but for agonizing reflection about the broken lives wars leave in their wake, most obviously in the lives of the surviving soldiers.

My question for discussion is what do you think of the several Peetas we see in Mockingjay — the heroic resistor of his hijacking that saves District 13, the mutt-tation Peeta that is rescued, the recovering Peeta who with Katniss becomes a fire-mutt phoenix at the war’s end? Is his chrysalis and transformation under torture and during his struggle to regain his memory allegorical? Political commentary? Or is he a Christ figure?

Ms. Collins closes Mockingjay with these notes that suggest he is (chapter 27, p. 380):

What I need [to survive] is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.

Your thoughts?