{"id":86,"date":"2010-12-18T10:50:15","date_gmt":"2010-12-18T18:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=86"},"modified":"2015-02-07T21:09:59","modified_gmt":"2015-02-08T05:09:59","slug":"mark-reads-the-hunger-games-chapter-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2010\/12\/mark-reads-the-hunger-games-chapter-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Hunger Games’: Chapter 23"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twenty-third chapter of The Hunger Games<\/em>, Peeta and Katniss are kind of annoying, people die, and then everything is kind of confusing? Kind of? If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Hunger Games<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So I was talking to my friend Kripa on AIM and she decided there are only two names that logically make sense for us to use when referring to Katniss and Peeta:<\/p>\n

Peenis<\/p>\n

Katpee<\/p>\n

Both make me giggle wildly and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to continue referring to them as such because I am a mere child inside. Who has a problem with this <\/em>oh that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right not one of you do<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Every cell in my body wants me to dig into the stew and cram it, handful by handful into my mouth. But Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice stops me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We better take it slow on that stew. Remember the first night on the train? The rich food made me sick and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even starving then.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
When I first read this, I assumed he meant like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rich people food\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and I laughed.<\/p>\n
We each have a roll, half an apple, and an egg-size serving of stew and rice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Because I absolutely fail at reading comprehension today, for some reason I thought that she was describing the portion of food Haymitch sent them and I thought HOW ON EARTH ARE YOU GOING TO RATION THAT. Then I realized she was describing the actual ration.<\/p>\n
I swear I can do this.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What was that you were saying just before the food arrived? Something about me\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6no competition\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6best thing that ever happened to you\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember that last part,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I say, hoping it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too dim in here for the cameras to pick up my blush.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I<\/em> was thinking,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Scoot over, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m freezing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
PLEASE STOP THIS NONSENSE. NOW. Oh my god, I GET IT. Peeta truly likes Katniss, Katniss has no idea, and she is awkward. CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON.<\/p>\n
Also, where are the goddamn cameras<\/em>. SERIOUSLY. Where are they?<\/p>\n
I can feel Haymitch nudging me to keep up the act. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, since we were five, you never even noticed any other girls?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I ask him.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ok, even I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny the cuteness of this. Peeta sure does lay it on thick.<\/p>\n
If we win, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll each get a house in the part of town reserved for Hunger Games\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 victors. Long ago, when the Games began, the Capitol had built a dozen fine houses in each district. Of course, in ours only one is occupied. Most of the others have never been lived in at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this conjure up some pretty disturbing imagery? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m imagining a desolate row of houses built away from the Seam, out in a part of the District all to itself. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possibly think it would be pleasant to live there; your house would be a constant reminder of what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done to deserve it.<\/p>\n
Weird.<\/p>\n
Katniss brings up the idea of Haymitch being their neighbor, which is pretty hysterical, but it sort of does the opposite than what might be intended. I wanted to know more about Haymitch; his pervasive nihilism is interesting to me. Was he so fatalistic before he ever set foot in the arena? Or did he do something to win that caused his gradual slide into the lovable alcoholic we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve come to know?<\/p>\n
MOAR HAYMITCH, PLZ.<\/p>\n
Haymitch and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get along well in person, but maybe Peeta is right about us being alike because he seems able to communicate with me by the timing of his gifts. Like how I knew I must be close to water when he withheld it and how I knew the sleep syrup just wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t something to ease Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pain and how I know now that I have to play up the romance. He hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t made much effort to connect with Peeta really. Perhaps he thinks a bowl of broth would just be a bowl of broth to Peeta, whereas I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see the strings attached it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yes, but why<\/em>? Why does Haymitch have this kinda-sorta convenient attachment to you?<\/p>\n
I was pretty satisfied when the conversation turned to Haymitch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s victory in the Games. Maybe Collins did intend for the reader to head there after all. Katniss brings up a disturbing point:<\/p>\n
Maybe he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always a drunk. Maybe, in the beginning, he tried to help the tributes. But then it got unbearable. It must be hell to mentor two kids and then watch them die. Year after year after year. I realize that if I get out of here, that will become my job. To mentor the girl from District 12.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yeah, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even consider this. Perhaps Haymitch was fine after the Games, but the endless absurdity of mentoring kids to their death drove him to what he is now. Are the future books going to deal with Katniss having to mentor someone? I will say that I have about zero idea where this is going in the future and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty exciting.<\/p>\n
The anthem plays and Katniss is distracted by planning their rationing their food.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Katniss,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Peeta says quietly.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What? Should we split another roll, too?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Katniss,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he repeats, but I find myself wanting to ignore him.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to split one. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll save cheese for tomorrow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I say. I see Peeta staring at me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thresh is dead,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Peeta.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT????? WHAT THE FUCK<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/em>I push him away from the rocks and squint out into the dark, rainy sky. For about ten seconds, I catch a distorted glimpse of Thresh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s picture and then he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone just like that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Holy bejesus, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dead. Just like that? I suppose it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s realistic that Katniss couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have witnessed every<\/em> death. I guess that Thresh was built up to be such a robust character, from what little we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen, that I expected there to be some grandiose battle that ended his life.<\/p>\n
There may have. We won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. For now, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just dead. FUCK.<\/p>\n
I have to bury the real pain because who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to bet on a tribute who keeps sniveling over the deaths of her opponents. Rue was one thing. We were allies. She was so young. But no one will understand my sorrow at Thresh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s murder. The word pulls me up short. Murder! Thankfully, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say it aloud. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to win me any points in the arena. What I do say is, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6if we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t win\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I wanted Thresh to. Because he let me go. And because of Rue.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I actually believe this. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad to see Katniss express sorrow because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6well, she hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really expressed much in this book. But I do understand why this upsets her so. She hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been quite dehumanized yet, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad she hasn’t turned into…well, Haymitch? I dunno, Haymitch is pretty<\/em> awesome.<\/p>\n
The waiting begins. Peeta takes first watch while Katniss composes herself, saying goodbye to Thresh in her own way, and finally drifting to sleep. Peeta wakes her in the morning, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a particularly interesting passage Collins writes when Peeta admits that despite living in a family of bakers, he still had to eat stale bread.<\/p>\n
I always assumed the shopkeepers live a soft life. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true, Peeta has always had enough to eat. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something kind of depressing about living your life on stale brea, the hard, dry loaves that no one else wanted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy to see Katniss make this distinction, that even though Peeta was privileged over her, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean he is well off himself. They both suffered in their own way. And in this sense, I guess it is sort of impossible for me to ignore that their suffering in the games would ostensibly lead them to feel closer than before. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the possibility of a Katpee relationship is inauthentic. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s totally possible. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just forced in a way that is frustrating and unsatisfying.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I allow myself to truly think about the possibility that I might make it home. To fame. To wealth. To my own house in the Victor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Village. My mother and Prim would live there with me. No more fear of hunger. A new kind of freedom. But then\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6what? What would my life be like on a daily basis? Most of it has been consumed with the acquisition of food. Take that away and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really sure who I am, what my identity is. The idea scares me some.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There are two interesting things at work here. First of all, I have sort of forgotten to really think about the name of this thing: the Hunger Games. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Capitol literally using hunger to oppress people, to exploit their need for sustenance in order to stay in power. And to the people of the Capitol, hunger is such an outlandish concept to them that\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6well, what else could they make of it? They turn it into a game.<\/p>\n
Katniss\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sudden identity crisis is also an extension of Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s existential freak-out on top of the Training Center. How does one maintain their identity when people seek to homogenize it, to turn it into something of their design? THESE ARE THINGS I ENJOY MORE THAN AWKWARD MAKE OUT SESSIONS.<\/p>\n
I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never marry, never risk bringing a child into the world. Because if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one thing being a victor doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t guarantee, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safety. My kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 names would go right into the reaping balls with everyone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. And I swear I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never let that happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Kind of a scary thought, no? That for six years of your child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life, they could be taken away and murdered on live television. Also I will also never marry or bring a child into the world FINALLY I CAN RELATE TO YOU KATNISS<\/em>.<\/p>\n
A scarier thought, though, is when they finish eating the rest of the food Haymitch sent them. Katniss says they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just hunt to get more food, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6um\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Peeta still hurt? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this an incredibly bad idea?<\/em><\/p>\n
It is. It seriously is. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an idea that they have to follow through with, though, because there are only four tributes left. Are they just going to wait in the cave until Foxface and Cato die? No, mostly likely not. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure the Gamemakers would devise a way to flush them out of the cave, actually, so their best chance is to just keep moving.<\/p>\n
That proves to be pretty difficult too, though.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I realize we have a problem. Navigating the rocky terrain with a bad leg\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwell, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re naturally going to make some noise. But even on the smooth bed of needles, Peeta is loud. And I mean loud<\/em> loud, as if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stomping his feet or something.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Which is a great way to alert sneaky Foxface to your presence or, even worse, make it easy for Cato to find you. And Cato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a particularly patient person.<\/p>\n
It presents a problem because, even though she convinces Peeta to take off his boots, he is still noisy. She still hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t caught a single thing. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no real easy answer to this and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad Collins doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allow Katniss to find an easy answer. She can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hide Peeta and she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t send him off on his own. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a burden to the hunt, but she also can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t risk losing him when both of them could win.<\/p>\n
They decide that she should hunt on her own, but not too far away, while he looks for roots to dig up so they can eat. Like her plan with Rue, Katniss teaches Peeta a short, two-note whistle he can use to communicate that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ok.<\/p>\n
OH EXCEPT THAT PEETA DOESN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T SIGNAL KATNISS AT ALL AND SHE FREAKS OUT AND ALMOST PUTS AN ARROW INTO HIM. For once, Peeta is the dense one. Turns out he got distracted by berries along the stream<\/em>. Which is almost cute, but dude pay attention<\/em>.<\/p>\n
They start to bicker (YOU GUYS AREN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN MARRIED, STOP IT) about the lack of signal when Katniss notices that part of the cheese is missing. She accuses Peeta of eating without her and I genuinely expected them to lapse into some sort of silly argument that distracted them and got one of them caught or hurt or killed. But when Peeta swears he was only picking berries, Katniss decides to analyze precisely what Peeta was picking.<\/p>\n
And they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t normal berries. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re nightlock.<\/p>\n
Just then, the cannon fires. I whip around, expecting Peeta to collapse to the ground, but he only raises his eyebrows. The hovercraft appears a hundred yards or so away. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s left of Foxface\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amaciated body is lifted into the air. I can see the red glint of her hair in the sunlight.<\/p>\n
I should have known the moment I saw the missing cheese\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WHAT WHAT. WAIT. WAIT. I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T GET IT. WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED. HOLY SHIT.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Climb. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be here in a second. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll stand a better chance of fighting him from above.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I stop him, suddenly calm. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, Peeta, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your kill, not Cato\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What? I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even seen her since the first day,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How could I have killed her?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In answer, I hold out the berries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I LITERALLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS. WHAT THE FUCK. HOW DID HE DO THAT. WHAT. WHAT.<\/strong><\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the twenty-third chapter of The Hunger Games, Peeta and Katniss are kind of annoying, people die, and then everything is kind of confusing? Kind of? If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Hunger Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,488],"tags":[28,24,27],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hunger-games","category-the-hunger-games-novel","tag-katniss-everdeen","tag-mark-reads-the-hunger-games","tag-suzanne-collins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","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=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}