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Spoilers! Also, this is a totally subjective list. I really liked the trilogy overall, but what can I say? Everyone’s a critic, including me.
As promised, following up on my 10 Amazing Moments in the Hunger Games Trilogy, a post about what didn’t work for me:
1. Technology: I was bothered by what seemed to me to be technologically oriented inconsistencies in the world building. For example, Collins gives us the bread and butter of futuristic science fiction: the hover crafts, ingenious ways to kill people, computers, genetic engineering, advanced medical technologies like scar removal, burn treatment, cosmetic body modification, and memory altering, and push-button food. But there are no cell phones or internet. The omitted technologies would have provided one means for rebels to unite (just as they have, to some extent, in real life today), and thus would have presented a narrative challenge, but I felt it was very anachronistic, and kind of a cheat, to have people clustered around television sets a la the 1950s. (As an aside, the way the Capitol was rigged with death traps also made absolutely no sense.)
2. The absence of sexual desire: Katniss was unbelievably asexual for most of the trilogy, both from the her own viewpoint, and the way she was described. Peeta’s love for her is so pure, he only kisses her to save her life or heal her. And Gale is more interested in weapons than sex. These are teenagers! Yes, I get it that they are fighting for their lives, and, no I don’t expect them to be shagging during the Quarter Quell, but I found the juxtaposition of the voyeuristic superficial culture of the capital with the asexuality of the three leads very ominous. It got worse when I realized the only reference to overt sexuality was Finnick’s being whored out. As if sex is a Capitol thing, associated with excess and degradation. Kat can’t even refer directly to her own desire, describing it much like a nineteenth century virgin in a historical romance (“I feel that thing again.”). As Peeta says in Catching Fire, “You wouldn’t look at me naked in the arena even though I was was half dead. You’re so … pure.” Say what you want about Twilight: that woman got teenage sexual tension right.
3. The Quarter Quell: everyone who complained that this was repetitive was right. It’s the Hunger Games 2, but, like most sequels, not as good. I do think the introduction of the other past winners was interesting, but everything else was “been there, done that”. It was my least favorite part of all three books.
4. The love triangle: There was almost no sexual desire, but there was certainly a love triangle. How is that supposed to work? Well, it didn’t for this reader. I liked the three characters, and I believed they cared about one another, but I felt the triangle was not well developed. Peeta’s declarations of love were cringeworthy, and Katniss seemed not to want a romantic relationship at all. At one point, in Mockingjay, Katniss says, “I can survive just fine without either one of them”, and I felt that was the best and truest moment in the “triangle”. I felt that she did not care about her romantic life, and as a result, neither did I.
5. Prim: As a reader, I felt beaten over the head with Katniss’s love and admiration of her (“she’s inherited the best qualities my family has to offer.”). I know she was supposed to be a kind of foil for Katniss. Katniss is brittle, tough to like, etc., and Prim is sweet and friendly. Everyone, from children to adults to animals and birds, just loves Prim. They can’t help it! Prim represents a kind of purity Katniss has been forced to abandon once she killed (both animals and humans) to survive. But it was just too much “Prim the Perfect” for me. I felt Collins put way too much of Katniss’s motivation on protecting a character who was so one dimensional that she did not feel real. As a result, the moment when Prim was killed — tending to the children, of course! — in Mockingkay didn’t resonate with me.
6. Killing Coin: Not too much to say here, except that Collins’ use of the patented SFF/YA technique of ending a chapter with a cliffhanger was a fail in this case. I understand wanting to let the action speak for itself, but to have the arrow kill Coin, and then not give us anything from inside Katniss’s mind, or the reaction of the people assembled, but to just move on, totally undercut what should have been a very dramatic moment. Each arrow Kat let fly in the series — the pig in the Hunger Games, the dummy with Seneca Crane’s name, the arena in the Quarter Quell, the President — should have had increasing dramatic impact, but in fact had less.
7. Katniss’s inconsistent intelligence: Sometimes Katniss figured things out that I swear required superhuman intelligence, like what Beetee and Wiress meant by saying “tick tock” (that the arena is a clock), or how the landmines are set near the Cornucopia in The Hunger Games. But she can’t figure out that when someone bakes a Mockingjay into a cracker, or puts it onto the face of a watch, that maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with her show of defiance at the end of the Hunger Games?
8. The double bombing in Mockingjay: I had no problem with the killing of the children, because awful, awful things like that do happen in war. I also had no problem that Gale was (likely) involved, because I felt his character’s desire for vengeance and victory was fairly well developed beginning in book 1. The problem I had was the lack of attribution of responsibility. I am not saying that the bad guy has to suffer, or admit his/her crimes, or repent, or anything like that. But I think it is important that the reader, who is invested in this narrative, have a sense of closure about who did what. Leaving this question open (or sort of open) struck me as a copout. Not pursuing the question of responsibility for this atrocity suggests agreement with Plutarch’s pessimism about human nature, a pessimism that leads to amorality and atrocity. But Plutarch’s view is in stark contrast to Katniss’s, and this is her story more than anyone else’s. The author seems to want to have it both ways here, and I didn’t like the feeling that gave me as a reader.
9 and 10 and 11… . Too much left off the page Take Haymitch: Is he (a) a drunk in the grips of PTSD, way past the point of caring about anything? (b) someone who pretends to be a dimwitted drunk, but is in fact a shrewd plotter of the overthrow of Snow?, or (c) someone who started out as (a) but became (b)? I’ll pick (c) as his character arc, but I have to guess, because the text is not wholly clear on this. How about Katniss’s decision to support the new Hunger Games? Sure, I later deduce she must have been plotting Coin’s execution. But why not give us a little something more to go on? I think (7) above is another example of this, as is Snow’s death. Snow has been set up all along as a major antagonist, yet, at the end of the series, we are not even sure how he died. Gale just seems to fade out as well. Katniss may be enough over him at the end to refer to him the way one would refer to an old acquaintance (oh, he’s off in the Capitol, in some fancy job), but the reader isn’t. Katniss’s relationship with her mother is yet another example. Not only was the mother’s character one note, but she just sort of fades out at the end. I wish it felt like these omissions were deliberate, they just made the books feel unfinished in some important ways.
Feel free to share different — and maybe more positive — interpretations of any of these items.
Related posts:
As much as I liked The Hunger Games, I agree with every point you made here. I was devastated when she chose Peeta! I know he was the best choice for Katniss, but I just liked Gale better and to have him just dismissed at the end without any genuine closure really mucked up the whole series.
I gave the first book 5 stars, the second and third got 3 each.
I actually enjoyed book 2 the most, cuz I sort of expected what I was getting and wasn’t thrown by anything.
There is one flaw for me in book 1 that didn’t make your list and that is Katniss never had to make a really difficult moral choice inside the arena. With the way the book was set up, I’d expected a truly devastating confrontation between Katniss and someone she loves/admires, i.e., what would she choose if it was between she and Rue, etc.
And book 3 was in many ways a WTF read for me. I understand what the author wants to do, to show the madness of violent confrontation and the fact that often there are no good guys in war, but the way she went about it was completely hamfisted. Kinda like that anti-environmentalist book by Crichton–the whole thing was so message heavy there was very little room for enjoyment. And I am still bitter about Finnick.
And yes, Katniss’s asexuality was astounding.
I’m not sure I understand your reasoning on why Katniss’ supposed asexuality was a problem. Asexual teenagers do in fact exist, and many engage in romances without sex, so it’s not like it’s impossible. I agree with many of your other points though.
The way Cinna was portrayed as the greatest guy in the whole wide universe annoyed me no end. For one and a half books the guy does nothing to justify this. He just does his job very well, which is prettifying up Katniss before see goes to her almost certain death, and for some reason Collins seems hell bent on getting us, the reader, to like the guy.
And then when it turned out that he was helping the rebels the whole time, I groaned. Because that was another problem I had with the books; good people act nice, evil people act evil. There wasn’t much in-between.
The whole last third of mockingjay. My biggest gripes.
Character deaths for the sake of character deaths. Killing characters is not synonymous with meaningful storytelling. And if a writer (particularly a writer writing in first person) chooses to kill of characters close to the protagonist then these character’s deaths, and what comes afterwards, should be written in an emotional way. Collins didn’t do that. She just killed characters and relied on the reader’s prior attachment to said characters to give the scenes emotional weight. IMO A good character death scene should affect the reader/viewer regardless of what they know about the character.
Prim’s death made no sense at all. It felt like it was just there for shock value. Plus the character was such a Sue I didn’t care. Finnick I liked and was pissed that he was bumped off in a sentence and no one really seemed to get too beat up about it. Even his emotionally fragile wife seemed OK.
The raid on the capitol was padding at the expense of genuine plot development. Collins decided that her readers expected a big action scene near the end, so we got a long and often confusing sequence of characters making their way through a series of laughable Indiana Jones style death traps. All the actual plot was crammed into the last few chapters and felt half baked.
Collin’s made the old mistake of making it that when the one main baddie got killed everything got better. Coin’s regime is still in charge! Coin’s regime was prepared to run another hunger games and God knows what else! Knocking out Katniss (again!) and having everyone else fix everything up off-screen was a cop out. Also, it didn’t seem realistic that Katniss would be forgiven for making the choice that she did.
Yeah, I forgave her lack of interest in romance when she was fighting to survive (actually I was grateful. Few things are more irritating than someone thinking about boffing while running for her life), but it never really changed.
Everything you said is right. I still love the books. Not LOVE, but close enough.
@Sherry Thomas:
Yes! I expected The Hunger Games to have that. There was a moment, when she came face to face with Peeta, but they chose a solution that saved both, which the organisers actually accepted. I felt this defeated the whole point of the premise. Their solution reminded me of Spartacus in fact, but even in Spartacus, one wasn’t allowed to live after trying that solution because accepting it would mean the end of the Games (the solution was used again later, which finally helped to overturn the whole thing). I had expected this to happen in THG as well, but it didn’t.
So I assumed the organisers would punish both in the sequel Catching Fire by putting them in a game with them facing each other as opponents. While this didn’t happen, Katniss – if I recall correctly – felt the organisers were punishing both by putting them in for another round of the Games. It wasn’t same any more, though.
The Games are a means of oppression, and there is a strong suggestion that – like in Spartacus - the Games can be defeated if all come together as a unity, but in THG and CF, the government/organisers are allowing this hope to come through television. This is largely why Catching Fire didn’t work. I felt it amounted to nothing but a defanged and declawed monster that can be manipulated in the full sight of the government/organisers. I should read Mockingjay, though.
Forgive me for bringing back the ’90s: Word! Then again, we’re viewing Prim through Katniss’s eyes that sees Prim nothing but an idealised idol. The problem with first-person POV is that it tends to generate unreliable narrators.
Heh. I found Katniss passive in THG and CF, and I felt asexuality was part of that. Unless she was cornered or provoked, she was indifferent towards most emotions, actions and people except those she worshipped, e.g. Prim and their mother. When she did react, it was largely out of anger or fear. In a way she reminded me of Peter Pan. She didn’t want to grow up. She wanted things to remind the same and she resented being forced into a situation that she didn’t create.
I think the only time, out of all actions in both books, she took action was when Prim was selected as a tribute. Aside that, she did nothing but react to circumstances and actions. So in a way, many secondary characters seemed more ‘real’ than Katniss herself ever was to me. I joked to another reader that Katniss was a sociopath, but I’m not sure if I was joking.
Also, I don’t know if anyone noticed this, but this black-and-white definition – of making good, kind or noble people (Prim, the mother, Peeta, Finnick, etc.) blonde or fair, and flawed or violence-oriented people (Katniss, Gale, Rue, Haymitch, Cato, etc.) dark – made an uncomfortable read. I don’t know if the author was conscious of doing this, though.
All in all, while I enjoyed reading The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I was somewhat disappointed with both. It had this ‘could have been better’ vibe. I still can’t decide if it was because I had the wrong set of expectations or it was the stories themselves that did it. I think perhaps it has such a patchwork of influences – Spartacus, Battle Royale, The Running Man, etc. – that it was somewhat hard to get truly into the flow of each story. It still doesn’t stop me from recommending the first two to the others, though. I really must read Mockingjay soon for the sake of closure.
First of all, Love These Books (LOVE HG of course). But I totally agree with all of your complaints with the sole exception of Katniss’s asexuality. I can understand your “snort” at the idea but while I was reading it didn’t bother me, probably because of the survival thing and also it seemed accurate to her character (she didn’t notice that Peeta and Gale loved her, really?) and finally I was hoping to pass the books on to my ten year old and so was relieved that the sexual content didn’t set off my mommy radar (although I still cringe that I wanted to pass it on more than I wanted to shield her from the violence, oy vay, so hard to be a mother).
I agree with Sherry on Book 2. I had such low expectations and it did exactly what I expected it to do so I was fine with it.
Book 3 was fine. I was amazed that so many of my friends seemed truly upset by Rue’s death, she felt very flat to me as well and I was more upset about Finnick.
While I agree with a lot of the beefs brought up here I think it says a lot about the value and the excellence of the books that they rise to this level of being picked apart. Hmm, not sure I’m saying that very eloquently, hope you know what I mean.
@Neeley: Thanks for your comment! It will be interesting to see how Peeta is played in the film.
@Sherry Thomas:
This didn’t bother me that much. In Book 3, she does kill someone in cold blood, who is not attacking her. You’re right — she never had to choose between two loyalties. But I felt she did have to make a number of difficult choices. It’ s just that she made them the way a hero would (volunteering to take Prim’s place, threatening suicide).
@EggSalad:
Now that you mention this, I agree. the others on the prep team received a lot of censure for being superficial and vain. But at bottom, although Cinna was more serious, he was doing the same thing they were — prettying Katniss up for the slaughter. Perhaps we are meant to read his revolutionary ambitions into his earliest creations? But then, that would minimize the effect Katniss had on him.
@EggSalad:
Yes, I agree with this, too. I found it very confusing as well. But I thought there were some good moments, like tigris, and the ground falling beneath their feet, with Gale clinging to a doorknob.
Yes, I should have put this on my list in the last item. Soemtimes the ignorance of the first person protagonist is really effective in creating suspense or getting you in the mind of that character. But too often, removing the action from Katniss — and thus the reader — just felt like a way of not having to actually write it.
@kate r:
I agree, and this is one reason I rarely read romantic suspense. But… it was like Katniss had no body. I just found it too asexual to be believable.
@Maili:
Oh this reminds me of something I meant to put in my first item but forgot. even if we accept there is no internet or otherwise reliable communication, we know they have good TV. And tape delays are not very sophisticated. Why on earth did they not run the HG on a 60 second tape delay? It’s not like there was a live audience that could challenge the official version of events. If the Gammy Awards telecast learned to do it after Bono said “Fuck”, I think an Evil Empire can figure it out.
On the punishment which the Quarter Quell is meant to me: that is a good point. If they are supposed to punish the District 12 survivors, then just pit them against each other. Unless the Capitol felt that would be pushing it too far? Kat and Peeta seemed to have audience approval.
Yes, I can see her sexual nonresponse as part of an overall depression, now that you put them together. As far as not wanting to grow up, I agree, but maybe we can put that down to the fact that real change has always meant really bad things for her in the past?
Actually, I didn’t notice this. I am not sure it holds up, though, because Rue was portrayed as perfection. I don’t know. Wonder what hair color Plutarch had? Snow? Coin was gray, IIRC. Hmm.
@Heloise:
My 11 year old son read HG and so did all of his friends. curiously, none of them were interested in Book 2, because, as they said “it’s just the same thing again.”
I can see the merit in your take on it, that Katniss is too shellshocked and survivalist to think about desire. But then, think of all the narratives that have people succumb to “animalistic” emotions, like sexual desire, when everything else is taken away. I didn’t want sex, just for Katniss to notice that humans, including herself, had bodies, that bodies are sexed, and that sex exists. But I read a lot of romance, where everything is hypersexualized so…
And then you have Collins saying, in a quote I used in my “ten amazing moments” post, that the HG are NOT, a la Sunnydale High, a metaphor for adolescence, but a metaphor for war, which I took to mean she was not interested so much in portraying teenage life, but interested in writing abut war.
Oh, absolutely! I’ve been working on a paper for an edited collection on the trilogy, which is one of the reasons I have read and reread these so carefully. I absolutely would not have signed up to write that essay if I didn’t think the books were worth a close look!
As much I loved your 10 Amazing Moments post, this way surpassed it. I agree with every. single. point. I loved the series. The first two books got 5 stars from me, but I had all of these issues with the series as a whole (the last book was a total let down for me). Thank you for posting this!!!
I agree with these points, but i don’t understand why Katniss chose for more Hunger Games for the Capitol to happen if she had to suffer through them herself. I really HATED that part. I LOVED the 1st two books but the last one was bad. Why did Collins make everyone die??? (Prim, Finnick, ect…)
@MILLY14:
My own view is that she planned all along to kill Coin.
I really liked the first book, kind of liked the second, and am disappointed by the third. The first book, I couldn’t put down although the Peeta/Katniss lovey dovey in a cave and hunting seemed to drag on. The second book was predictable and I think they didn’t directly put Peeta and Katniss in to a duel because the country bought the love story and that would upset too many people so the Quarter Quell was an easy way to eliminate them – and so obvious I saw old winners being thrown into the HG from the first mention of the QQ and the escape . The third book is a mess. I didn’t like the capitol being booby-trapped and the idea that the rebels couldn’t penetrate deep in the city but Katniss finally takes matters into her own hands and thinks she is going to miraculously waltz into the Capitol and approach Snow and kill him – what moron would even attempt that without some serious prep and intelligence gathering! Then the whole often confusing excursion comes to naught except killing off better characters. Also, she seemed to have felt the most wronged by Snow but so many had it worse, she could indirectly blame herself for innocent people’s death but her family and love interests were alive. So many had it worse e.g. Peeta’s entire family was dead, he was tortured and brainwashed beyond recognition and went through both HGs. Plus, the Capitol bombed your city and the rebels save but you have to spend forever deciding to be the Mockingjay.
Prim being idealized I didn’t mind because we never actually get to know Prim. She finally pops up in the third book and can explain the situation to Katniss. Thought there were going to be more interesting conversations between Prim and Katniss once I found out Prim had gotten the brains but no. Prim’s death, I too felt like it was shock value. Collins needed something major at the end but pointless because as I said, we never really get to know Prim so the only loss is for Katniss.
Katniss being asexual I was ok with because she was trying to survive. The part that doesn’t sit well is I felt like I spent hours of reading her debate between Gale and Peeta. Would’ve been better and made her asexuality more believable if she spent most the time ambivalent and not thinking about it except when caught off guard and was surprised that she actually had emotions. Plus, after awhile wouldn’t they get frustrated with her and move on, they are 17! I was hoping they would – would’ve been more interesting if she was made jealous at some point.
I didn’t like Katniss, she was too clueless to those around her which made her selfish. Also ungrateful for all those who were willing to die for her. Maybe to Coin and Snow she was a pawn but to Wiress and Mags, she represented hope and Mags literally laid down and died for her. For someone who supported her family since she was a 11 after losing her father and hating her mother for her emotional weakness, she wasn’t very emotionally strong. You would think years of hunting would have given her more grit. I guess she was just a survivalist, you have to yank the hero out of her. I agree she never faced any real moral dilemma where I thought the first HG was going. I also hate that she never changed as a person, no growth just added trauma. Sure she was feral in the beginning because she hardly ever talked to people but by the end she should be able to start figuring out people’s intentions. I think the point of Johanna Mason is that Katniss and Johanna are the same but as Johanna quips she can’t be the mockingjay because nobody likes her and really no one would like Katniss either but as Haymitch said Peeta made her likable. By the way, she didn’t deserve Peeta!
I also found holes and many missing explanations. Finnick just dying on Katniss’s irrational suicide mission and he was probably my favorite character. Also little things like Thresh, he spares Katniss and we don’t know how he died – not even a passing mention when they have to watch the highlights of their HG. There was no real explanation if Panem did become a republic with Coin out of the way. Plus District 13 had been laying in wait to take over for 75 years and Coin was going to be a dictator like Snow, well she wasn’t alive when 13 originally rebeled and wanted to rule, what made her so power hungry? Also the girls she meet in the woods just get a passing mention that no one in 13 ever heard of them.
Many of you have my gripes exactly, but I do disagree with a few things.
I think it’s good that Snow’s death was so anticlimactic. It shows that Katniss might have learned that revenge and hate are things you need to let go of, not let eat you away.
Gale kind of faded away in a good way. We see how much he hates, how far he was willing to go, in the avalanche, and Katniss pretty much lets go of him right then and there.
Maili was right in comment number six…Katniss’ passivity often got to me as well. But I suppose it sort of resonated with me as well, as she was always someone’s pawn, and on some level she felt that and did whatever she could to break free when she saw the opportunity. So while she mostly just did what she was told and killed and fought and hid, she had her shining moments with the berries, and with the arrow in the clock, and with her decision to raid the Capitol and find Snow (however stupid that decision was. Which it was. Very very stupid).
I had the “Katniss is a bit of a sociopath” vibe myself from time to time. The logical analysis and breakdown of other people’s emotions, of the emotions that she “should” be portraying at any given time, the ease at which she thought of killing Peeta or Gale many multiples of times. I suppose the author was trying to convey that you have to think like that to survive in such a harsh environment, but sometimes it was just over the top. When she should be strung out with panic and fear, when it seems likely that she might accidentally kill someone from being bombarded with horrifying things pretty much nonstop, she’s making a rational checklist.
And oh, the bombardment. Could that many terrible things actually happen to anyone, even in war? Could anyone really be strong enough to handle it? I’m not certain. There were places in the story where I couldn’t force myself to care, because it was the hundredth wound, the thousandth slipping in a pool of blood, the millionth functionally nameless character to die.
Katniss’ lack of self-awareness was pathological. The post mentions the fluctuating intelligence, but I think it was more than that. In all of her mental analysis of situations it never occurs to her, absolutely ever, to think about how other people see her.
I agree also that it’s the secondary characters who are actually developed, while Katniss kind of remains flat, sadly.
Finnick’s death seemed just to be, as was said above, character death for the sake of character death. AKA one of the cheapest plot devices to ever exist.
There were so many lovely things in this series, but after reading everything it’s good to get the gripes off of my chest.
And finally, the thing that I took to the internet to say in the first place, the author says FLESH entirely too many times! Like seventeen times a page in the action scenes. Buy a thesaurus! Ugh, it drove me absolutely nutty. (I know, of all the things to care about, right?)
@AngL:
I agree completely.
I agree that many had it worse, but I felt that Katniss’s rage was on behalf of many of those others, like Peeta, not just herself.
I agree with this. The scene when we meet them is such a great one. All I can try to say in Collins’s defense is that when living under a repressive regime, one of the things that gets taken away is knowledge.
@eiaboca:
I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.
Yes, you’re right. Again, all I can say in Collins’s defense is what you’ve said here, that she had to turn off her emotions because the need for survival got in the way. Think of situations where mothers have to leave their babies out to die because they realize they can’t feed them. No mourning, no funeral no big deal made of it. Or think of male heroes in similar settings. When they’re not rageful, lack of emotion is one of their most salient traits.
I agree that it made little sense. It just seemed so random.
Really? Hm. I have these books on the Kindle. If I have time I will do a Kindle word search and tell you exactly how many times “flesh” appears.
I have to say again that I agree with mostly everyone’s response to this post really.
Firstly I couldn’t agree more with #7. As I read CF a few days ago I thought that it was ridiculously unrealistic how she could solve the problems
I have to say again that I agree with mostly everyone’s response to this post really.
Firstly I couldn’t agree more with #7. As I read CF a few days ago I thought that it was ridiculously unrealistic how she could solve the problems that she was dealing with.
I also think that the epilogue was pretty utterly just a load of crap. I know some people may not like me comparing this to Harry Potter but I think it’s a fairly decent comparison. In the Harry Potter epilogue it’s a good twenty or so pages. It fairly decently covers practically everything such as who everyone married and what they do for a living after they defeated Voldemort etc. But with Mockingjay, we get two pages. Two freaking pages. The only thing that really covered was that Peeta and Katniss had two kids. We dont know their names. We dont realky know what they do when theyre finally adults. I personal would of liked to know what happened to Haymitch, Johanna, Gale, Effie, Annie etc etc etc.
Last but not least I think that it really seemed like a high school student trying to fit a really good plot and storyline that at least deserves 800 pages into 500 pages. Hopefully that makes sense but I guess what I’m really trying to get at is that it was just so incomplete and when I finished the last book I was just really yearning for a conclusion that covered everything that I was questioning.
Obviously Collins can’t satisfy everyone’s wants and expectations because everyone is different, but God… I think she could have done better with the last book.
Later comer to the books and I have to get this out before I explode.
I think the way SC treated the Gale/Katniss relationship at the end of MJ was insulting to both the characters and readers. To build up their relationship through three books and then have us all believe that the conversation about the bomb was the way they left it?
Gale and Katniss loved each other even if they couldn’t be together. There was no doubt about it. He helped her through the loss of her dad, the tough times in the Seam, took care of her family when she was sent off, saved her family after the fire bombing of 12, went to find Prim when 13 was bombed, stopped Boggs, etc. I know he would have given his life for her. When she went after Snow (talk about fire kindled by rage and revenge), there was no way he would leave her go alone – even if he was the only one that went. He loved her as unconditionaly as Peeta did, just in a different way.
SC could have added a few extra pages where Katniss is hunting and Gale finds her on their rock and they (and we) could have gotten the goodbye/resolution/closure that was deserved. I don’t see how SC can justify the way she ended up treating the relationship.
In my mind (and since there is nothing to really refute it) the way it went down was the Gale didn’t visit Katniss in the hospital or in 12 because of the immense guilt he felt over Prim’s death. He loved Prim to. He knew that Prim was the thing Katiss cared about most in the world and his bomb design was most likely responsible for her death. How do you deal with knowing you took away the most important thing in the world from the person you love?
I like to think though that eventually Katniss and Gale were able to mend their relationship. That they could exchange letters or talk on the phone or maybe even see each other once in a while. Rember, Katniss made that comment about him kissing other lips in D2 which leads me to believe she still felt something for Gale and that would be enough to mend the relationship.
@RickJM:
I’m glad you’ve found a place to vent! And I agree, this was not handled well at all. If I add in a lot of back story on my own, I can maybe excuse a few of the things, but I agree with you that his character was mangled in an attempt to conclude the series and cut off one corner of the love triangle.
Thank you Jessica. Glad to know I’m not the only one that feels this way. And thanks for having a place to let me vent, even if it’s a year and a half to late. I’m out of the target demo for these books so I don’t have friends to vent to that know what I’m talking about. It was nice to have a place to get that off my chest. Wish I could say I felt better now but I’m still just as ticked off as before. I think this one’s going to take a long time to get past.
Again, amazing. The post was interesting enough, then I got to the comments. Wow. You all made think of these books in a way which I hadn’t before. Thank you!
@Kitty: Glad you found it Kitty. I’ll have to put a link in the other post. And, yeah, the commenters make the post 100% better.
Thank you SO much for this post. I just finished MJ – I read all three Hunger Games books this past month. I agree with absolutely everything everyone has already posted, so there’s not much I can add to the discussion. I just really appreciate hearing that other people feel the same way I do, and actually reading how other people articulate things that I feel after finishing the last book.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed reading this series! However, something was a bit weird about her writing style. It was an amazing story, but I don’t know… I just felt really let down after finishing each book. I think that she was very skilled at building things up, and creating complicated relationships between characters, and also helping the reader to feel attached to these characters. However, when the plot would come to a head, or when one of the characters died, or anything after her effective build ups… it just fell SO flat for me. I felt that at the times in the books when I was the most pumped up I would get totally let down. The asexual nature of Katniss as well as her lack of self awareness bothered me as well. I also found it very strange that she could kill (not always easily, but she seemed to be able to rationalize kills with self defense, or necessity of the greater good even when it was unpleasant and disturbing) yet in MJ she would get SO upset with Gale when he wanted to destroy the “Nut”/Mountain. It just seemed unresolved/undeveloped. I don’t know, I thought it was off a bit.
I also agree that the Epilogue was a total joke. I am just really disappointed that I read the whole series and it seemed almost that SC got tired of writing the book or something. The last chapters were so jumbled and thrown together I was wondering if she had cracked open one too many bottles of wine while finishing it. I just think the ending of MJ was a total disservice to her series. She could’ve spent more time on tying up lose ends and explaining things. I too would’ve liked to hear more about what the characters I had become invested in were doing after the war was over. Despite all of this, yes it was very fun to read all three books, and I am looking forward to the films.
Thanks again for your post!
I’ve just finished reading the series twice and these are the first message boards that I’ve seen regarding the books, so reading everyone’s interpretation of different events has been quite fascinating.
I guess I have no real issue at all with the series, I loved it and I took a lot of things at face value (which I normally do when I read fiction) but for me all the pieces did seem to fit.
Katniss’s assexuality I did not find strange considering the bleakness of her upbringing and daily surrounds. To lose her father at such a young age and become the sole provider for her family is an enormous responsibility for one so young. She spent years honing her talents, but always feeling that she was a poor shadow of her father.
For pretty much the rest of the story she’s fighting to stay alive and wondering who she can trust and being thrust into the spotlight at the face of the revolution, a huge pair of shoes for a 17 year old girl from the Seam.
What Katniss was put through would turn any person into a broken train wreck and some of her detachment and lack of awareness (or caring) what others think are direct consequences of her experiences.
Lions Gate who are producing the Hunger Games series have already said that they are going to make four movies – does this mean there is a fourth book? Or will they present the 3 movies as per Suzanne Collins novels and a fourth movie “finishing” the story as per the fans demands? Its all pure conjecture at this point I guess.
I finished these books not long ago and I’ve been impressed at how the emotional reactions to the horrors of war have stayed with me. It was quite a haunting trilogy and I loved it.
I do, however, agree with this entire list, as well as with the “things that worked” list. I was so disappointed when we got up to Snow’s mansion, everything blows up, and the reader misses out on the whole climax. Ditto for the execution scene.
I also hated Katniss’ inconsistant intelligence, and generally inconsistant behavior. I couldn’t help but think, “you’ve got it!” when she worries that the hijacked Peeta can now see her for what she really is: manipulative, selfish, etc. At that point, I’d been feeling the “Bella syndrome:” why are these two guys so into her? I also really wished it wasn’t so black-and-white: Gale, eventually. was decidedly bad, or at least unsympathetic. Peeta was the opposite. Few people are that simplistic.
As far as Katniss agreeing to the continuation of the hunger games: I read katniss coming into that scene as being torn over whether she thought the rebels were responsible for the deaths of the orphans and Prim, or the capitol was. In that frame of mind, entering and hearing Coin’s proposition, especially when paired with the previous conversation about Gale’s invention, would confirm any suspicions I had about the rebel’s involvement. I would want to get out of that room alive and get rid of Coin, and the way Katniss did it would be the exact thought I would have, too.
I really didn’t mind the senseless deaths at the end. I thought it helped make the war more real: people die, even your best friends, and in the thick of the battle you just have to keep moving. Stopping to mourn means joining them. I do wish she’d revisited deaths like Finnick’s after the battle, however. Everyone seems to get over that pretty darn quick. I also couldn’t bring myself to care about Rue’s death. Most readers, I’d think, knew she was going to die as soon as they met her.
Regardless, I really loved these books. I don’t think any other book I’ve read recently as been able to make me feel the horrors of war as acutely as this one did, and I think Peeta’s change was a big part of that. It is so tragic but it moves the book forward in such a compelling way, and would suffer without it. I do think that was a genius bit of writing.
I’m so grateful for the chance to read others’ reactions. I’m a middle-aged mom of teenagers, but I know almost as many grownups as teens who have read and love this trilogy. I read all three books in one week.
I share the feelings expressed by many here about the jumbledness of Book 3. In fact, my tremendous unease with the irresolution/incompleteness of “Mockingjay” is precisely what drove me to the Internet tonight in search of others’ reactions! (Yea, Google!)
One thing I don’t see addressed in either this post or the earlier one (the 10 positives) is how HUGE in all three books is the whole stylists/makeup/staging/television obsession. The styling and prepping just goes on and on and on. It goes completely over the top in Book 3, when Katniss is prepped and posed even for actual street battles.
It got on my nerves — until I considered that that may be by Collins’ deliberate design. She is trying to make us think about:
- how warped is our obsession both with others’ and with our own images; (hello, facebook!)
- how easily manipulated (by ourselves and/or by others) those images are;
- the way that constant posing for cameras eventually brings on a kind of spiritual claustrophobia, and to be unable ever to get away from prying eyes is itself a form of captivity;
- the way media can actually destroy our empathy and feelings of connection with other people instead of facilitating them;
- the way image-based media cannot help but condition us to be tuned in more to style than to substance;
- the hugely important role of propaganda in tyrannies and in wars; (I love that the rebels call their televised spots “propos”)
- the inevitable tendency of image-based media to actually, deeply CONFUSE us as to what is real and what is not real. In that light, it’s hugely significant how the question “Real or not real?” keeps getting repeated in Book 3. Indeed, the book ENDS (minus the epilogue) with Peeta saying “You love me. Real or not real?” and Katniss answering, “REAL.”
i agree with every point. all in all most of the characters were dull especially those introduced in the second and third book. for me, the only one that actually stuck with me was finnick, just becuase he was the most sane and honest one.
like every book made for teenagers these days, the main character has less selfestime than a piece of cheese. however compared to bella from twilight, katniss is a role model, she is strong and independant and like most girls until their 40′s clueless about love.
someone needs to tell susan collins how to end a series. you cant end a trilogy in 20 pages or less, its not fair to the reader. so many questions left unanswered, like what happened to the other districts, was the new president good at her post, what happened to gale? etc.
you cant just dismiss a main character that she spent talking about for half the trilogy, considering how every action she took would affect him, etc by saying ” he is in district 2, he got some fancy job there”.
nice review !
dissapointing ending for an awesome trilogy…!
I completely agree with some of your points you’ve stated above, even though I actually did enjoy the books. I feel like with these types of books ignoring plot lines like, the lack of internet and communications is a good way to go about them because in the end it will only annoy or bother you.
The statement you said about Prim I agree with so much. I kept telling my friends who were also reading the books of how much I disliked Prim’s character. I also felt like she was too perfect and Katniss’s love and admiration of her was just so annoying. Every move or word Prim said was just made out to golden. When she died not only did I feel it was so anti climatic but easy to get over.
Now going with the anti climatic part, what the hell was that ending! After Prim died it all felt so rushed, I almost felt like I accidentally skipped a couple of pages from where the chapter ended. All the build up to get to the capital was just a waste because we never even get to go inside the mansion! The whole mission was to get snow and we never even get to hear about the capture. Everything was just at the end was just quickly mentioned and never explained. I was so mad because I really did enjoy the book and I was looking forward to the ending. I didn’t like how we were just sort of left in Katniss’s depression for most of it, which was very repetitive. Also Coin is killed and the snow some how dies. No explanation of how, why or what happens next. We never truly learn what happens to the capital or key characters. I am so annoyed that Gale is just briefly mentioned. He was such a main part of the book and we don’t even get to see what happens with him and Katniss. I like that she ended up with Peeta but I still feel like there could have been more there just like a defining moment. Idk. Also I hate when Authors just kill people to kill people. When she killed Finick so casually and then barley any emotional response came afterwards, I was so annoyed. He was a likable character and honestly his death served no purpose. It happened and then it was done, thats it. Thank God she didn’t kill Gale or Peeta or Katniss. Even Annie who is supposed to be an emotional wreck seemed pretty ok.
All and all I like the ending was rushed and it could have really been amazing!