Media Analyst & Character Analyst & The Devil's Advocate

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:

• The Capitol's biggest weakness is its dependency on the districts. The districts and the citizens in the districts supply the Capitol with raw materials, manufactured goods, food, clothing, weapons, technology, and labor. Without the districts, the Capitol would not really even be a Capitol because it would not be the head of anything. The Capitol tries to control the districts and act like the districts need them for government, but really the Capitol needs the districts for just about everything.
• The Capitol is not the all-powerful unbeatable super strong force that it pretends to be. Panem is very fragile because the Capitol tries to keep the districts under control by balancing instilling fear but avoiding rebellion. The two are very difficult to have one without the other because with fear comes opression which comes with hate which usually leads to rebellion. Katniss notices how fragile the whole system is when she taunts President Snow saying how he must not have things under control if "a handful of berries" can take down the country.

• One of the main themes of Catching Fire is that the Capitol is not invincible and has weaknesses even though it may seem without flaw. If you look closely though, you can make out weak points in the government and system. Suzanne Collins references the weak points or chinks in the force fields as a metaphor for the weak points in the Capitol. Betee points out a chink in the force field to Katniss and mentions that "ideally it'd be invisible" ( 229).Ideally, the Capitol's weaknesses would be invisible too, but you can make them out if you look closely enough. Katniss starts to see the Capitol's weakness in Catching Fire whereas in The Hunger Games, she believed the Capitol to be all powerful. In the end of Catching Fire, Katniss uses a chink in the armor, one of the Capitol's weaknesses, against them by blowing apart their precious arena which basically is like throwing gasoline in the fire of rebellion in the Capitol. She shoots an arrow into a chink to blow the arena apart, so she takes down a part of the Capitol by targeting its weakness which is a guide to the people of Panem to do.

• Another weakness of the Capitol is their failure to enforce the rules of the Games. The Games rely on every tribute wanting to preserve their own life above all else, so that the tributes will fight agaisnt one another and see each other as the enemy. In the Quarter Quell though, the tributes are not ordinary, they are vicotors. Every one of them has played the Games by the Capitol's rules before (except maybe Katniss and Peeta), and things did not turn out well for many of them. This time many of the tributes are going to unite instead of fighting agaisnt each other so they can beat the Capitol, the true enemy, not each other. The tributes have discovered who the true enemy is, and this discovery is a huge weakness for the Capitol.

MEDIA ANALYST:

• The fact that the citizens of the Capitol binge on massive amounts of delicacies and then throw it all up so they can eat more and stay thin is eerily similar to our society today. Talk of celebrities with eating disorders and weight gain and loss dominate the tabloids in our society. Magazine covers spout advice on dieting and tragic stories of girls who took dieting too far. Our society is filled with bulimics and bingers and annorexics, and the numbers are on the rise. Binging eating disorder and bulimia in particular draw a close parallel to the behaviors of the Capitol's citizens. They gorge to the point of pain and then throw it up and start again. Just like those in our society today, they want to indulge in food to the point of gluttony and then not bear any of the consequences and throw it all up, acting as if they never ate in the first place. It is wasteful and destructive and the cavalier attitude the citizens of the Capitol have about the whole process sends an ominous warning that maybe our society is headed towards this mental state where eating disorders become the norm and an accepted way of life which is a scary concept.

Image Detail

• Catching Fire is alot like the book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, in some important ways. First, the two main charcters are a young guy and girl, Todd and Viola, who are left on their own, and they grow close and start to protect one another. Todd and Viola's relationship resembles Peeta and Katniss' relationsip becuase Katniss and Peeta are both on their own as well and looking out for one another. They find it hard to tust anyone just as Todd and Viola do, so they mainly just depend on each other. In both books, there is an older male mentor figure that cares greatly for the kids. In Catching Fire, Haymitch is this figure who loves Katniss and Peeta and tries to keep them alive. In The Knife of Never Letting go, Ben, Todd's "father" figure, looks out for Todd and Viola as well. Neither Haymitch nor Ben are always there with the kids to protect them, but they are always looking out for them from whereever they are and trying to tdo all they can to help them.

Image Detail

• Catching Fire also resembles teh sequel of The Knife of never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, in some different ways. In The Ask and Answer, there are two conflicting parties vying for power over the world, both who use questionable methods to accomplish their goals. The same conflict is going on in Catching Fire. In the end of the book, Katniss discovers that Haymitch and Plutarch Heavensbee and several of the tributes and District 13 have all been working together undercover to bring the Capitol down. Whether or not this rebellious party trying to overthrow the government is better than the current government itself remains to be seen. These undercover rebels working with District 13 used Katniss and Peeta as pawns in their game just as the Capitol did with Katniss and Peeta. In The Ask and the Answer, Todd and Viola are ping-ponged back and forth between each side trying to decide which one is right. The supposedly good party that stands for freedom uses the same or worse methods than the supposedly evil party though, and Todd and Viola struggle trying to determine who they should help, just as Katniss and Peeta will struggle towards the end of Catching Fire and especially throughout Mockingjay with what the right people to support and fight for are.

Image Detail

CHARACTER ANALYST:

• Katniss is very confused and indecisive about things. She struggles with determing what ther right thing to do is. She switches between trying to please Snow and calm the districts down to wanting to start an uprising herself and destroy Snow. One moment, she is sure that running away with her loved ones is the only solution and puts that plan into motion. The next moment, she is strongly deciced that leaving would be the wrong thing because it would never work and be cowardly.
• Gale and Peeta are both very honest characters. Gale cares about Katniss greatly, but when she makes him angry or upset, he makes no secret of his feelings. When Katniss asks him to run away with her and the rest of her loved ones, Gale is ecstatic because all he wants is to be safe with his family and Katniss. When she tells him of the uprising though, he quickly grows angry and lets Katniss know how dissappointed and disgusted with her he is because of her selfishness and cowardice. Gale is less upfront about his feelings for her, pretending he does not have them half the time and kissing her and telling her he wants to be with her the other half. Peeta is much more upfront about his feelings. His honesty is so direct that it even makes Katniss uncomfortable at times. Peeta casualy speaks of his love for Katniss and dependence on her for his sanity and existance like he is talking about the weather. His love is so certain and obvious that he feels no need to keep it a secret after its out. He tells Katniss that his nightmares are always about losing her, and she cringes with his honesty and her guilt for not reciprocating his feelings. Peeta was not always so upfront about his feelings though. He loved Katniss for years but never told her nor talked to her. Even after he professes his love for at the Games, he does not openly let Katniss see the truth in his words until they are on a team in teh Games. After that. its honesty all the way for him.
• Finnick Odair is a very interesting and mysterious character. His motives are very hard to figure out. Outwardly, Finnick appears to be one of the Capitol's lap dogs as Katniss would say. The citizens of the Capitol adore him especially for his dashing good looks. He also comes from the wealthier District 4, so he does not seem to be on the same opressed side of Katniss. Why would he have any reason to hurt the Capitol, when he is beloved and adored and pampered? One of the most disgusting aspects about Finnick is his casual affairs with multiple Capitol women. We find out later in the thrid book, that Finnick was used as a sort of prostitue by Snow and that it was not Finnick's choice to have affairs with the Capitol women, but Katniss does not realize this till later, so Finnick appears to be a scoundrel to her. Later in the arena though, Katniss sees a different side of Finnick. Finnick saves Peeta's life multple times in the arena risking his own frequently. This makes Katniss realize he is not as selfish and shallow as she beieved. Finnick also is very sweet and loving towards Mags, his district partner. He is very upset when she dies which shows that he does not care only for himsel. Katniss finds herself joking around with him and liking his personality, even though it is a playfully flirtatious at times. The biggest glimpse into Finnick's character though is when the Jabber Jays launch their vocal attack on him and Katniss. Finnick is in agonizing pain and cries and becomes catatonic and unreasonable when he hears the screams of Annie Cresta. We learn that Finnick is madly in love with her. She is a previous victor of the games who went mad after winning. The fact that Finnick loves some poor mad girl shows that he has substance. The fact that the Capitol's games made Annie so fragile and that they used her screams to affectFinnick lets the readers know that Finnick has just as much reason to hate the Capitol as Katniss does. The shallow Capitol loving FInnick is an act, and a real loving strong person lies underneath that will do whatever it takes to bring the Capitol down.

• Johanna Mason is a very interesting character. She won her first Games by pretending to be a sniveling little helpless coward, so the other tributes would not go after her at first. She ended up being an extremely talented murderer. Johanna was from the lumber district so she grew up weilding axes, a useful talent to have for the Games. Johanna is very smart and ruthless as she demonstrated in her first Games. In the second Games, Katniss meets Johanna and immediately dislikes her. Johanna mocks Katniss and makes her uncomfortable by stripping in front of her. Johanna is a very weathered character who has lost everything in life and cannot be bothered being nice to Katniss. What she can be bothered with is taking down the Capitol, who ruined her life. Katniss distrutst Johanna's motives when she allies with them, but Johanna doe not try to butter Katniss up or sweet talk her. She even argues and almost attacks Katniss on a few occassions. Despite Johanna's hostile and vicious nature, she does seem to have some human feelings under her tough skin. When the Jabberjays threaten to emotionally torture the tributes, Johanna knows she cannot be hurt because everyone she loved is already dead. This suggests that there was a time when Johanna was happy and surrounded by loved ones, but now in their place she has anger and revenge boiling. She helps the rebels save Katniss from the arena not even too concerned with herself. She is willing to sacrifice her life to take the Capitol down, so she knows her mission in the second Games is to save Katniss. Johanna does not always do this in the most gentle of ways, for example when she jumps Katniss and jaggedly cuts the tracker from her arm. Johanna is not a very likable character, but she is brave and has good intentions along with a dry sense of humor and a strength that is admirable.

Image Detail