Good afternoon my lovely readers, and welcome back to a series that I haven’t continued in a long time. The Hunger Games is one of my favorite YA series for many reasons, one of those being that I never tire of rereading them. I found this series deep in my drafts and realized I needed to keep going, and I feel motivated to do so now, so let’s get into it!
First and foremost, I have gotten a lot of new readers on the blog between my last Hunger Games analysis post and now. So if you need to go back and read the old posts to catch up so you know what we’re talking about, you can find part 1, part 2, and part 3 in these links respectively. Once you’re caught up you can come back to this post and we can launch into it! If you’re an absolute madman and just want to continue along without reading any of the earlier posts, that’s your business but know that I will be silently judging.
Chapter 16:
The chapter opens with Katniss having yet another internal conflict about the fact that both her and Rue cannot survive the games. I think one of The Hunger Games’ many strengths and standouts when put up against other YA literature is the simplistic yet hard rules for the games. In a lot of YA literature, the protagonist finds ways to save their friends through the power of magic or absolute nonsense, so ultimately there isn’t really anything to worry about. This doesn’t necessarily make those books bad, as an author can just as easily set up emotional or mental stakes, and there are many ways to do this sort of thing effectively. But the Hunger Games do have rules about district specific winning that can’t just be broken. We’ll discuss later what you’re all thinking of as an example of the hard and fast rules of the Games being broken, and why I consider this an exception to the rule, and ultimately a strength to the series as a whole. The point is, Rue and Katniss both can’t survive in this book, and even though we as the audience might have some idea as to what happens considering this is the first book in a series, we don’t know how it happens, and we don’t know how it might impact the other characters. Those emotional and mental stakes I was talking about earlier.
Katniss and Rue fall asleep, and they’re woken later by the boom of the cannon signaling someone’s death. They take the opportunity to count up who is remaining in the Games, which also gives the audience a quick catch-up since Katniss was stung by the tracker-jackers and was trapped in a hallucinatory coma for a few days.
The two characters discuss the Career tributes and their food supply, which they plan to destroy somehow to give themselves a fighting chance. Katniss mentions their food being out in the open “isn’t quite right” which gives the characters and the audience a clue about a later sequence of events. We get information on Rue and Katniss while they forage for food when we learn that Rue loves her younger siblings, is kind and considerate, and loves music. Katniss reflects internally that she “ranks music somewhere between hair ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness.” More characterization for Katniss, as she is a character who is defined by her logical thought process, her determination to survive at all costs, and her immense trauma making her value usefulness above almost all else.
Katniss and Rue begin their plan, and we only get scant bits of information as the scenes play out, interspersed with Katniss’ musings. Katniss spies on the Career tributes and notes their supplies and how they’re laid out. She notes that a boy from district 3 has been allowed to live and join up with the Careers, which is rare. The Careers are distracted by lots of smoke from a fire and move off from the camp, which is what Rue and Katniss rigged up as a distraction, and is Rue’s job in the plan.
Katniss is intelligent, but she isn’t inherently wily. Which is why the district 5 girl known as “Foxface” gives her the answer instead. District 3 specializes in electronics, so he reactivated mines from the metal plates the tributes rise up on and positioned them around the supplies. Foxface hops around them and steals food, and Katniss witnesses this and manages to deduce the truth. Katniss uses her own ingenuity and personal skills to destroy the supplies when she shoots a bag of apples with her arrows, sending the fruit toppling down onto the mines.
This scene shows quite the mastery of storytelling on Collins’ part, because we have several things compounding together that make sense to bring a scene to life. The district 3 boy being able to work with mines. The Careers going on the hunt for other tributes once they see evidence of their location, and not being concerned about it possibly being a trap due to them being a large armed group. Foxface taking advantage of the Careers leaving to steal food. Katniss using her ingenuity and survival skills to destroy the supplies. All things that make sense for the characters and the plot. All working together to make for a brilliant plot thread.
Chapter 17:
Katniss is blown back from the explosion of the mines, and she goes deaf (for now in both ears) from it. We as the audience have quite the pile of mounting tension at this point between Katniss’ new handicap, the Careers’ anger at discovering their supplies blown up, and the fact that Katniss and Rue are separated. Cato kills the boy from district 3 because there’s no real need for him anymore, and it is implied they assume it’s his fault that all the supplies were blown up in one explosion. Katniss deduces the Careers must think the attacker was blown up by the mines, but when night falls and the only two deaths are the District 3 boy and the boy from District 10 (who was the cannon that woke Katniss and Rue from their sleep) the Careers continue their hunt. Katniss decides to stay at the scene of the crime because the Careers wouldn’t assume the attacker would stay around.
Katniss toughs it out through the night, and in the morning her hearing has returned (mostly) in one of her ears. She finds Foxface laughing in the rubble from the Career supplies, but she hears something across from the woods, in the area of the arena with tall grass over a drop-off. This ends up being foreshadowing for Thresh, who is the male district 11 tribute.
Katniss spends the rest of the chapter searching for Rue, waiting for awhile in the place they were meant to meet up and then searching for her. She hears her crying out and rushes to her, knowing she may be running headlong into a trap. This is an important character moment for Katniss, because we see what she does value more than logic, more than survival. We’ve seen snippets of this in the book before. Her care and love for Prim. Her willingness to sacrifice herself to save her sister. To sacrifice everything to save her sister. And now, her willingness to sacrifice everything to save Rue, who reminds her of her sister. Katniss breaks through the trees just in time to witness Rue get stabbed with a spear.
Chapter 18:
The beginning of chapter 18 is a continuation of the powerful character moment we see involving Katniss. This is a character who up until this point has valued survival, logic, and usefulness apart from those few fleeting moments I mentioned in the previous chapter. But here we have a big moment where Katniss makes several conscious, continual, illogical choices. She stays with Rue, even though any of the other Careers could have heard their struggle. She sings for Rue when the girl asks, which is something that is not only illogical, but likely extremely traumatizing for Katniss because she stopped singing after her father died. Even after Rue is dead, Katniss takes the time to pick flowers and decorate Rue’s body with them. In her hair, around her body, covering the wound she received that killed her. She finally understands what Peeta was saying when he said he didn’t want to lose his humanity in the games, that he didn’t want to die not being himself, some monster created by the Games. And through the decorating of Rue’s body, Katniss, in her own small way, fights back against what the Games represent. She fights back against their belief that these are just pawns in a reality TV show, instead of real living children. And after Rue’s body is gone, Katniss takes time to grieve. She doesn’t hide or run or strategize. She faces her feelings head on and lets them wash over her. They consume her for some time, and they also consume the audience. We get to grieve with Katniss, which makes for a powerful moment in the book.
Now, why is it important and powerful that Katniss suddenly makes illogical choices? Illogical choices are often frowned upon in media. One side of the fence of critics likes to argue that illogical choices are never warranted in a narrative. The other side likes to argue that humans are inherently flawed in that they’ll sometimes make illogical choices no matter what. The truth of the matter, as with many things, is that the answer lies somewhere between these two takes. Illogical choices in a narrative are warranted, if they fit the characterization established. Katniss making a string of illogical choices works because Katniss will sacrifice everything for the people she loves, and she has come to love Rue. Rue who reminds her so much of the person that Katniss has already sacrificed everything for. Katniss is willing to give up her logical, tactical, survivalist mentality and burn everything down around her for those she loves. It’s a running theme in these books, and it’s something that is used against Katniss and used to manipulate her into doing what the characters in these books want her to do at many different points. It is in a way a fatal flaw for Katniss, but it is also one of her greatest strengths. And that is what makes her such a dynamic, well-rounded character.
During Katniss’ wandering, she is gifted bread from District 11 as a thank you for what she did for Rue. Now, this is an excellent example of one of my favorite writing tips. “You’re the writer. You want it to be relevant. Write it into relevance.”
Earlier in the book, we get a short description when Katniss and Peeta are in the waiting area before their presentation of their skills to the Gamemakers of the different types of bread made in each district. It’s short and sweet, something the audience would just assume is worldbuilding. But later in the narrative, when Katniss is gifted the bread by District 11, she knows where the gift comes from because of Peeta’s lesson. It fits in the narrative as worldbuilding, Peeta would know about bread being a baker’s son, and it contributes to a larger payoff later in the book. Multiple things at once.
As Katniss drags herself through the day, we get her internal struggle with Rue’s death, her first direct kill, Gale and Peeta, etc. When night falls and the Anthem plays, an announcement is also given. This is where we get a “rule change” for the games, where if two tributes from the same district live, they can both win. The chapter ends with Katniss crying out Peeta’s name. This is yet another “illogical decision” she makes in the moment. But again, this decision fits her character. Katniss has spent much of the book beating herself up over never being able to repay Peeta giving her the bread. When he saves her from Cato by telling her to run during the tracker-jacker debacle, she feels even more guilt over not being able to repay the debt she feels she owes him, which is something that Katniss battles with throughout the series no matter who the person is. When the “change” comes about in the arena, Katniss’ desire to repay Peeta and her desire to survive coincide and can both be true for the first time in the book. She can have her cake and eat it too, which leads her to be overcome with joy and cry out his name.
Chapter 19:
Katniss sleeps, then begins tracking Peeta. Katniss’ thought process leads her to the idea that Peeta could not have survived without water, which pulls her towards the stream that leads through the woods in the arena.
Katniss makes her way down the creek into a new area of the arena, and finds Peeta camouflaged into a muddy river bank. This is a portion of the book that does tend to get some flack, right behind Katniss as a character. Peeta is characterized as the decorator of the cakes at his family’s bakery, which leads a lot of readers to believe that this skill alone is what allows him to camouflage himself in such a way. But Peeta’s characterization is a little bit trickier because we are exclusively in the head of Katniss through the books, and we don’t get to learn anything about Peeta after the games begin until this point, not to mention the fact that Katniss is confused about his intentions right up until the very end of the book. Later in the series, we get to understand just how creatively gifted Peeta is, how amazing he is at painting and his attention to creative detail. He’s caked in mud and water plants laying down by a creek bed. And I think the absurd nature of his behavior is honestly what saves him, because who in the world would do that?
The rest of the chapter consists of Katniss treating Peeta’s wounds and getting him to a cave where they can be hidden from sight and Peeta can recover. This is a portion of the book where Katniss has to face one of her fears. She discusses earlier in the book and now how sick and dying people, and people with severe wounds disturb her. We see more vulnerability in Katniss and the beginnings of banter between Katniss and Peeta. There are a few little moments that Katniss remarks on where Peeta is “good at this” pertaining to faking their mad romance in the face of the Capital audience and the Games. These moments make for an interesting bit of foreshadowing in that Peeta is good at faking his romance with Katniss because his feelings for her are real, which is one of the big conflicts in the last bit of the book and sets up a lot more conflict for later in the series.
The chapter ends with Peeta attempting to tell Katniss something (pertaining to if he ends up dying) and she cuts him off with a kiss. When she leaves the cave afterwards, the two receive a sponsor gift, and Katniss realizes that Haymitch is using positive reinforcement to encourage Katniss to give the audience what they want. Play up the romance.
Chapter 20:
The chapter continues Katniss and Peeta’s survival in the cave. Katniss discovers Peeta has blood poisoning, which is something that will kill him for certain if it’s not treated with strong medicine. Peeta asks Katniss to tell him a story, and she tells him the story about how she got Prim’s goat. More characterization for Katniss involving her love of Prim, and more worldbuilding and lore.
The trumpets sound and another announcement is made, pertaining to a “feast.” But this feast is for the one thing that each tribute really needs. So for Katniss, it’s medicine for Peeta. The two get in an argument, Peeta saying he’ll drag himself after Katniss yelling if she tries to go to the feast. She agrees to stay behind at first. But when she goes outside the cave, another gift from Haymitch floats by her. Katniss uses the vial of sleep syrup in the gift on Peeta by mixing it with berries and mint and making him eat it so that she can go to the feast and get Peeta’s medicine.
This is the beginning of another fast-paced scene and showcases Suzanne Collins’ excellent pacing in this novel. Katniss blowing up the Careers’ supplies and Rue dying was tense and fast paced, but we got a breather after while Katniss found Peeta and got him settled in. This style of writing stops the pacing from becoming stale, but it also doesn’t wear out the audience with constant action.
I hope you enjoyed this next chapter of my The Hunger Games analysis. We are nearing the end of the first novel, and my next post of this analysis will be chapters 21-27 because I don’t want to do a post that is only two chapters, so expect an extra long one next time.
Thank you so much for reading, and I also want to take this opportunity to thank you all for 1,000 all time views on this blog! That is a number I never thought I would reach, and I’m so honored to have people who enjoy reading my ramblings. I had hoped to have a platform to market my novels on once they were complete and it seems I have just that.
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Thank you again, and happy reading!
Writing My World 
Very much enjoyed! Thank you!
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