Do I need to say it? SPOILERS…
Also, this is a completely subjective list.
1. The Hunger Games: Katniss Won’t Be ignored
Katniss is in the Capitol for training prior to the Hunger Games. On the third day, she has a session with the Gamemakers. Readers are already impressed with Katniss’s devotion to her family and the hunting and bartering skills she’s developed since her father’s death. But this is our first taste of kick ass.
It’s excellent shooting. I turn to the Gamemakers. A few are nodding in approval, but the majority of them are fixated on a roast pig that has just arrived at their banquet table.
Suddenly I am furious, that with my life on the line, they don’t even have the decency to pay attention to me. That I’m being upstaged by a dead pig. My heart starts to pound, I can feel my face burning. Without thinking, I pull an arrow from my quiver and send it straight to the Gamemakers’ table. I hear shouts of alarm as people stumble back. The arrow skewers the apple in the pig’s mouth and pins it to the wall behind it. Everyone stares at me in disbelief.
“Thank you for your consideration, ” I say. Then I give a slight bow and walk straight toward the exit without being dismissed
Try not to compare it with the single arrow shot in Mockingjay. It’s too disappointing. Or to Kat’s writing of the Gamemaker’s name (Seneca Crane) on the dummy during her private session with the Gamemakers in Catching Fire : that one is too repetitive. This one is perfect, and her walking out without asking permission makes it all the sweeter.
2. The Hunger Games: The crescent moon of bread.
I know, I know. You think I should have put Rue’s death and Katniss’s wreathing her face and body in flowers. And yes, that is a heartbreaking moment. But what puts this lovely scene over the edge is that just when you think it’s over, and Katniss has returned to survival mode, a miracle occurs:
I’m about to haul my packs into a tree to make camp when a silver parachute floats down and lands in front of me. A gift form a sponsor. But why now? I’ve been in fairly good shape with supplies. Maybe Haymitch’s noticed my despondency and is trying to cheer me up a bit. Or could it be something to help my ear?
I open the parachute and find a small loaf of bread. It’s not the fine white of the Capitol stuff. It’s made of dark ration grain and shaped in a crescent. Sprinkled with seeds. I flashback to Peeta’s lesson on the various district breads in the Training Center. This bread came from District 11. I cautiously lift the still warm loaf. What must it have cost the people of District 11 who can’t even feed themselves? How many would’ve had to do without to scrape up a coin to put in the collection for this one loaf? It had been meant for Rue, surely. But instead of pulling the gift when she died, they’d authorized Haymitch to give it to me. As a thank-you? Or because, like me, they don’t like to let debts go unpaid? For whatever reason, this is a first. A district gift to a tribute who’s not your own.
I lift my face and step into the last falling rays of sunlight. “My thanks to the people of District Eleven,” I say. I want them to know I know where it came from. That the full value of the gift has been recognized.
This scene is so significant, I think, because it shows Katniss’ ability to create community. Community is the one thing the Capitol forbids most energetically, with everything from the separation of the districts geographically and economically, the barbed wire, and the Hunger Games themselves, designed to pit the people against one another instead of against the Capitol. Sure, Katniss can fight and kill and disobey with the best of them, but her real strength is her ability — really just by being herself — to unite people against the Capitol.
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