{"id":151,"date":"2011-01-17T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=151"},"modified":"2011-01-15T19:50:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-16T03:50:19","slug":"mark-reads-catching-fire-chapter-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2011\/01\/mark-reads-catching-fire-chapter-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘Catching Fire’: Chapter 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-first chapter of Catching Fire<\/em>, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Catching Fire<\/em>.<\/p>\n

IS THIS LIKE A REFERENCE TO STEPHEN KING\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S THE MIST<\/em> OR SOMETHING? Oh my god, I am seriously so confused right now. So the fog BURNS SKIN. Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Peeta kind of slow because of his collision with the force field? COLLINS, ARE YOU ABOUT TO KILL PEETA OFF? I fully believe she is prepared to do this at this point. THIS IS A COMPLIMENT. Also LOTS OF ALL CAPS.<\/p>\n

Finnick snaps awake instantly, rising to counter an enemy. But when he sees the wall of fog, he tosses a still-sleeping Mags onto his back and takes off. Peeta is on his feet but not as alert. I grab his arm and begin to propel him through the jungle after Finnick.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
So, I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get this at all. Did the Gamemakers just add more stuff to the arena this time? Is it smaller in size than usual? It seems there are a lot more toxic and fatal traps this time around. Maybe they adapted the arena in recent weeks once they knew Katniss and Peeta were going in to make it much harder than anyone anticipated. It seems that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the most logical conclusion to come to at this point: this arena is designed to increase the chance of Katpee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death.<\/p>\n
A terrible impulse to feel, to abandon Peeta and save myself, shoots through me. It would be so simple, to run full out, perhaps even to climb a tree above the fog line, which seems to top out at about forty feet. I remember how I did just this when the mutations appeared in the last Games. Took off and only thought of Peeta when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d reached the Cornucopia. But this time, I trap my terror, push it down, and stay by his side. This time survival isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the goal. Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is. I think of the eyes glued to the television screens in the districts, seeing if I will run, as the Capitol wishes, or hold my ground.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It seems that this subplot, of Katniss relinquishing protection of herself to save Peeta, makes more sense now than it ever has before. I love the idea that this, in an of itself, is a grand statement to the Capitol as well. People expect<\/em> her to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153persevere\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and stay alive, but choosing to keep someone else<\/em> alive is her way of asserting her own choices over those of the Capitol.<\/p>\n
Of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not really going to matter if Peeta is swallowed alive by poisonous fog<\/em>. Right? And this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t looking good. Peeta is nowhere near as nimble as Katniss is and things get downright ugly when a knot of vines of some sort catch on him artificial leg.<\/p>\n
As I help him up, I become aware of something scarier than the blisters, more debilitating than the burns. The left side of his face has sagged, as if every muscle in it has died. The lid droops, almost concealing his eye. His mouth twists in an odd angle toward the ground. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 I begin. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I feel the spasms run up my arm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S NOT FOG, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SOME SORT OF NERVE GAS.<\/em> Oh my jesus lord, this is terrible. Because now Katniss can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even lead him properly away from the fog\/mist. Finnick returns with Mags and tries to help carry Peeta too, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just too much. They only get ten yards before Finnick asks Katniss to take Mags while he takes Peeta. And this is when Finnick continues to prove what a BAMF (although a confusing one, which I will get to in a second) he is.<\/p>\n
Although my instinct is to run directly away from it, I realize Finnick is moving at a diagonal down the hill. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to keep a distance from the gas while steering us toward the water that surrounds the Cornucopia. Yes, water<\/em>, I think as the acide droplets bore deeper into me. Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so thankful I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t kill Finnick, because how would I have gotten Peeta out of here alive? So thankful to have someone else on my side, even if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only temporary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Is Finnick fantastic and amazing and probably one of the best smaller characters Collins has introduced? Absolutely. Are his actions unbelievably confusing? YES<\/strong>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get this: why is he so willing to help both Peeta and Katniss? Forgive me for being cynical, but I feel like there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a possible betrayal in Katpee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future. I seriously don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like this and I feel that in any other context, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be prone to trusting Finnick and believing this was genuine. But he knows that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to eventually kill Katpee, so why do all this now? To keep them from killing him?<\/p>\n
But even then, this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t working in Finnick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s advantage. The fog begins to have adverse affects on him as well, and when Katniss collapses and can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t carry Mags, Finnick has to admit that he can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t carry him and Peeta at the same time.<\/p>\n
What happens next is so fast, so senseless, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even move to stop it. Mags hauls herself up, plants a kiss on Finnick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lips, and then hobbles straight into the fog. Immediately, her body is seized by wild contortions and she falls to the ground in a horrible dance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT THE FUCK??!?!?!?!?!!?<\/strong><\/p>\n
I want to scream, but my throat is on fire. I take one futile step in her direction when I hear the cannon blast, know her heart has stopped, that she is dead. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Finnick?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I call out hoarsely, but he has already turned from the scene, already continued his retreat from the fog. Dragging my useless leg behind me, I stagger after him, having no idea what else to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
MAGS, WHAT DID YOU JUST DO????? Did she seriously just kill herself to save the three of them? WHYYYYYYYYYYYY????<\/p>\n
OH GOD. Mags was my favorite of this set of tributes. COLLINS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done: written possibly the most harrowing scene yet, as we read about them stumbling and crawling from the jungle, their bodies falling apart as they move, and then this:<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my eyes playing tricks, or the moonlight, but the fog seems to be transforming. Yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s becoming thicker, as if it has pressed up against a glass window and is being forced to condense. I squint harder and realize the fingers no longer protrude from it. In fact, it has stopped moving forward entirely. Like the other horrors I have witnessed in the arena, it has reached the end of its territory. Either that, or the Gamemakers have decided not to kill us just yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
what the holy hell is going on<\/em>. So now there are\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6boundaries? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m inclined to believe that these aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t set in stone and are, rather, something controlled by the Gamemakers. Why give the tributes boundaries that they can escape from? Now they (sort of) know where the fog comes from, so won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. Stay out of it?<\/p>\n
We lie there gasping, twitching, our minds and bodies invaded by poison. After a few minutes pass, Peeta vaguely gestures upward. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mon-hees.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I look up and spot a pair of what I guess are monkeys. I have never seen a live monkey\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing like that in our woods at home. But I must have seen a picture, or one in the Games, because when I see the creatures, the same word comes to mind. I think these have orange fur, although that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to tell, and are about half the size of a full-grown human. I take the monkeys for a good sign. Surely they would not hang around if the air was deadly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
UM, NO. KATNISS. YOU ARE IN THE ARENA. As soon as I got to this, I thought, OH NOETRY, THIS IS BAD. <\/em>I doubt they exist as a food source to the tributes and everything<\/em> the Gamemakers put in the arena is intentionally. So why just drop in some orangutans? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T LIKE THIS.<\/p>\n
What I do like is that our three tributes don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t melt to death when Katniss discovers that the salt water in the center of the arena acts as an agent to draw out poison from their bodies. As she and Peeta take the time to undress and soak in the water, this imagery made me laugh:<\/p>\n
But Finnick backed away from the water at first touch and lies facedown on the sand, either unwilling or unable to purge himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but laugh at this, folks. Facedown in the sand? How does he even breathe? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, the idea that he has just given up and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care about a mouthful of sand is seriously hilarious.<\/p>\n
Seriously, though, I really adore the next scene because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if there has ever been one like it in the history of the Games. Katpee help Finnick detoxify, despite them being out in the open under moonlight, over the course of what seems like an hour. They drag him out to the water after slowly pouring it over him to see if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll go into shock or worse, and even stay with him while he detoxifies his head. The thing is, that makes sense for Katpee. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in their nature to help people and Katniss showed that she was willing to help people in the arena too. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still not sure why<\/em> Finnick would help them out, though.<\/p>\n
And then, of course, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mags. I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand what happened there. Why he essentially abandoned her to carry Peeta. Why she not only didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t question it, but ran straight to her death without a moment\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hesitation. Was it because she was so old that her days were numbered, anyway? Did they think that Finnick would stand a better chance of winning if he had Peeta and me as allies? The haggard look on Finnick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face tells me that now is not the moment to ask.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I am trying to piece this all together and I feel that this is certainly something Collins wants us to pay attention to. Maybe Mags realized that this whole thing was absurd and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hesitate to walk into the fog. Hell, she still is straight not giving a fuck. Only now she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dead. ::sadfaces::<\/p>\n
After Finnick heals inside the salt water, enough to be able to swim around, him and Katniss head to Peeta, who is busy trying to make a hole in a tree for the spile. Aaaaaaaand I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m proved right about one of my hunches. (FINALLY.)<\/p>\n
I touch Finnick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arm and he follows my gaze upwards. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how they arrived so silently. Perhaps they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all been absorbed in restoring our bodies. During that time they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve assembled. Not five or ten but scores of monkeys weigh down the limbs of the jungle trees. The pair we spotted when we first escaped the fog felt like a welcoming committee. This crew feels ominous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
SEE. THIS IS NOT GOOD. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING. Katniss warns Peeta that he should probably come to them, and quietly, so as not to alert them any more than they already have.<\/p>\n
He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just five yards from the beach when he senses them. His eyes dart up for a second, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s triggered a bomb. The monkeys explode into a shrieking mass of orange fur and converge on him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I LITERALLY CANNOT HANDLE THIS ANYMORE. <\/em>This arena is more dangerous than any I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve known from these books AND IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S NOT BECAUSE OF ANY OF THE TRIBUTES<\/em>. WHICH, BY THE WAY, WHERE ARE THEY<\/strong>. We haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard or seen from another tribute in way too long. I cannot figure this out and it is frustrating me.<\/em><\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen any animal move so fast. They slide down the vines as if the things were greased. Leap impossible distances from tree to tree. Fangs bared, hackles raised, claws shooting out like switchblades. I may be unfamiliar with monkey, animals in nature don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t act like this. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mutts!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> I spit out as Finnick and I crash into the greenery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
OF COURSE THE GAMEMAKERS DESIGNED THEM. Oh hell, why does it seem there is just one threat to Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life after another? This is CHAOS. And seriously, Collins is so fantastic at writing scenes like this.<\/p>\n
In the eerie light, I bring down monkey after monkey, targeting eyes and hearts and throats, so that each hit means a death. But still it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be enough without Finnick spearing the beasts like fish and flinging them aside, Peeta slashing away with his knife. I feel claws on my leg, down my back, before someone takes out the attacker. The air grows heavy with trampled, the scent of blood, and the musty stink of the monkeys. Peeta and Finnick and I position ourselves in a triangle, a few yards apart, our backs to one another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I wish she would do this more often, to actually show<\/em> us what is going on, because she is really quite fantastic and providing us the details to build the scene in our heads. And this scene in particularly is so overwhelming that what happens next completely blindsides me. As Katniss runs out of arrows and asks for more from Peeta, one of the mutts takes the opportunity to leap at Peeta.<\/p>\n
Weaponless, defenseless, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Peeta, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make it in time.<\/p>\n
She does, though. Materializing, it seems, from thin air. One moment nowhere, the next reeling in front of Peeta. Already bloody, mouth opened in a high-pitched scream, pupils enlarged so her eyes seem like black holes.<\/p>\n
The insane morphling from District 6 throws up her skeletal arms as if to embrace the monkey, and it sinks its fangs into her chest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT THE FUCLSDA FALFHASD AS;DFKHJ;KALSDFJ <\/strong><\/p>\n
ASD;FLASDHF;ASDLF AJKADLS;FK;LAJA<\/strong><\/p>\n
!@#$@^#%$% 23$ 321324 !1!!1#@$!<\/strong><\/p>\n
What the hell is going on???? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now TWO PEOPLE in one chapter who have sacrificed themselves to help Peeta or Katniss.<\/p>\n
Oh my god, shit isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even real and yet shit is so goddamn real<\/em>. Oh holy shit, guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the twenty-first chapter of Catching Fire, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Catching Fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,5],"tags":[32,28,33,24,27],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catching-fire","category-hunger-games","tag-catching-fire-2","tag-katniss-everdeen","tag-mark-reads-catching-fire","tag-mark-reads-the-hunger-games","tag-suzanne-collins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}