CONTAINS MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS.  

Last night I finished The Hunger Games trilogy, and not without an air of sadness in finally shelving the last volume in my Kindle’s virtual space.  My expectations were exceeded beyond measure with these books, so much so I already know I will rejoin the fray in the arena once more in the future with a reread of the series.   I’ve already reviewed The Hunger Games  book 1, so click the link if you’re looking for that, as this will mostly be about the second and third books.

Catching Fire begins where The Hunger Games left off: Katniss and Peeta return to District 12 victors of the games.  Like any victors’ duty, the two must tour each of the twelve districts, fitting their newfound celebrity status, and acting as a reminder of the control the Capitol exudes; because even after the annual games are over, the victors (even happy as their lives were spared through their winning) serve as a reminder to the people.  Yet right from the beginning of the book, Katniss is visited by Panem’s President Snow, who feels her and Peeta’s attempt at double suicide in the arena underminds the Capitol’s control, and made them look a fool at their own game.  Snow believes the unrest growing silently in the districts was born out of this act of defiance, and expects Katniss and Peeta to convince the people otherwise: that they really were just two star-crossed lovers, acting foolishly.   Yet the tour doesn’t work and, as the unrest grows, the announcement for the Quarter Quell takes place, which happens every 25 years.  This year’s turn of events, a spin on the original rules of the game, is that the tributes will be chosen from among each district’s remaining victors, an unprecedented move as the Capitol aims to show its citizens that even the strongest among them are no match for their power.

As a result, Katniss and Peeta find themselves back in the arena along with other victors, some of whom are well past their prime as they’ve been the only victors from their districts for decades.  Much like the first book, another arena match ensues, yet when the final eight tributes are left, Katniss and co.  break the force field surrounding the arena, and half of the tributes are recovered via hovercraft and whisked away to District 13, a District that was flattened in an uprising against the Capitol seventy-five years prior, but the people continue to live on in the subterranean network of bunkers, building an army and waiting for the chance to strike.  Lead by President Coin of District 13, they form the rebellion as the other districts slowly begin to revolt, and the turn Katniss into their Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion.

Mockingjay, the third and last book, begins with Katniss coming to terms with the fact Peeta has been captured by the Capitol, perhaps tortured or dead, and District 12 bombed to the ground.  Kat’s mother and sister, Prim, make it out alive with the few hundred refugees that comprise the remainder of District 12′s citizens, now living in shelter in District 13.  Katniss’s best friend Gale helps her realize she wants to, and more importantly needs to, be the mockingjay, the face of the rebellion.

Eventually Peeta is recovered from the capitol, although severely mentally damaged, and the rebels lead an assault on the Capitol and capture it.  Tragically, the President’s mansion is surrounded with children as a defence when they are bombed to death in the siege, a second wave of bombings killing the medics who rushed in to help, one of which being Katniss’s sister, Prim.  Katniss later finds out it was the rebels who killed the children and, when given the chance and a single arrow to publicly execute and already dying President Snow, she instead shoots and kills District 13′s leader, Coin, dead from her balcony.  With both presidents dead, Snow, the monster already in charge and Coin, the one who would take over to fulfill the exact same role, Panem holds a hasty election, and Katniss is allowed to return to what’s left of District 12 with a recovering Peeta and their mentor Haymitch, and slowly things being to start anew: districts rebuilt, food and supplies being shipped in and out of the districts fairly, and the establishment of a better Panem.  The afterword at the end gives us a glimpse into the future, twenty years after Katniss was the mockingjay, the girl on fire, the symbol of the rebellion.  She married Peeta and they have their own kids, who are educated in school about the dark days before where children were picked to fight to the death in arenas.  It gives the impression things worked out, but the scars still show, in both the characters and the District, of a past that will never fully heal.

The ending didn’t sit well with me, which is a sentiment a lot of readers seem to share, but I suppose it’s mostly due to the heavy reality of it, the less-than-happily-ever-after ending.   Yet at the same time I believe the point it makes is an important one:  happily ever afters never follow a war, no matter who won.  But with a little time wounds can heal, damage can be repaired, and life can take on some semblance of normalcy… eventually.    Katniss, once a hero, once the face of the rebellion, fades into the background as Panem enters a new era of democracy and begins to rebuild into a country with a more even distribution of wealth, power, freedoms, and food.    She and Peeta are all but forgotten, lost relics from a tortuous time, heroes for what they accomplished yet painful reminders of darker days.  Two people who will never be whole again thanks to the lives the lead, and killed.

Katniss’s decision to kill District 13′s President Coin came when the remaining victors, up to this point all fighters or supporters of the rebellion, were called in to a meeting shortly after the siege of the Capitol ended,  to settle a dispute.  Coin wanted to know if these victors thought a final hunger games should be held using the Capitol’s children as payback, as a reminder, as an exercise in power.  They put it to a vote, with the most shocking vote coming from Katniss, who said yes.  Personally, I want to believe the answer was born out of a ploy to still be allowed to be the one to execute Snow, therefore putting her in the position to really kill Coin, but it’s never spoken about again.  The leadership that follows does not hold another hunger games, never to be repeated, never again for children to pay the debts of their parents’ mistakes.

I found my own reaction to the bombing of the children outside the President’s mansion during the siege to be an interesting use of juxtaposition against the hunger games themselves.  I found my eyes welling up as I read, all those innocent children being killed needlessly, but that was what the games themselves were really about.  As you the reader (myself included) read the first book, you are cheering Katniss and Peeta on, you WANT them to win, and yet even our protagonists’ victory would mean twenty-two other child tributes would be killed needlessly in the arena.  We cheer them on, each other tribute death meaning one step closer to victory for Katniss and Peeta, and suddenly it hits you:  you’re no better than the citizens in the Capitol who also cheer for the kid they have bets on like a dog in a race, who don’t see the humanity in the grim battle royale, who view it well and truly as a game.  So what right do we have, as a reader, to view the games in the arena differently than the children lying dead in the streets from the bombing?  There is no difference and yet as a reader you may have felt very differently at these two points in the trilogy.  It may even be what triggers your disgust when the thought of a Capitol tribute hunger games, a final game or so Coin claimed, is even proposed.

Prim’s death was an interesting development.  The event that began everything was Prim’s name being drawn at the reaping as a tribute, to which Katniss stepped in to volunteer in her place.  She did it to save her sister’s life, and in doing so she won the games, triggered the rebellion, and became the face of hope for the poor and downtrodden.  And yet in the end it all wasn’t enough to save her sweet sister, who rushed in as a medic to help the innocent children who the secondary bombs went off.  Prim, a child herself but hardened by the hardship she endured, was killed anyways, and Katniss all but moved heaven and earth and it still made no difference in the end.

Ignore the fact this series is young adult, ignore the somewhat shallow love triangle that plays out secondary story arc, and ignore all of the other books on your to read list:  go read this trilogy NOW.  For all it is, beneath the story of a dystopian society the author has some very powerful points to make on humanism, war, society, and power.  It shows that leadership can change and the hardships of oppression remain. It shows how easy it could be to fall into a herd mentality, to turn away one’s own humanity to bear the gruesome realities happening right in front of you. It shows that people can always rebuild after war, but they build on the ashes of the fallen, and that’s not a fact that should ever be forgotten.  It shows that both people and society will always reflect the scars from what they’ve endured, and what is broken will never be quite whole again.  And it shows how if no one stands up for what is right, everyone loses.   Go, read this series now.

And may the odds be ever in your favor.