Catching Fire
By Suzanne Collins
"I know Haymitch will be up for hours. He doesn't like sleeping when is dark out."
This is my favourite book in the series. The tone and theme of the series cement itself in rebellion and revolution, bringing us a bigger picture of the sentiment towards the Capitol in other districts.
When Katniss says"We are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope", talking about the victors. Although not in the book, in the first film when President Snow is talking to Seneca Crane, he explains that hope is a dangerous thing. It seems he was right. Perhaps the announcement of the 75th Quarter Quell was the moment when President Snow lost his grasp on the delicate balance of hope—dooming his tyrannical reign.
In my opinion, Snow's demise started at the interview for the Quarter Quell. Even the victories in support of the capitol felt betrayed and spoke out about the injustice they felt was being committed. Snow also undermined the relationship between the capitol residents and the victors. Snow assumed that the capitol residents would feel too bloodthirsty to care or empathise with the victors. But unlike past years, these were not strange faces, but rather people they met or wanted to meet. People, they maybe spent time with or betted on. A bond was already created and solidified, which sparked in the people of the Capitol a sense of empathy towards the victors. And that is when Snow undid 75 years of carefully panned alienation towards the people of the districts.
After Peeta shows Katniss the locket and they kiss, katniss goes to sleep. But just before she does, she imagines a place and time without the games, without the Capitol, where Peeta's children can grow and be happy. (Spoiler alert?!) At the end of the third book, she does get this. She never allowed herself to believe she would be there too. One is because she's determined to send Peeta home and at this point in the games that means she needs to die. Second, because she does not feel like that type of happiness will find her.
Even though she does not imagine herself in this scenario, this marks a change in Katniss because she does dare to imagine a better Panem that serves everyone equally and where safety is not just a hope.
I find I always have a soft spot for the tributes of District 11. In ‘A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ was Reaper, in ‘The Hunger Games’ it was Rue and Thresh and then in ‘Catching Fire’ Chaff. Suzanne always infuses these characters with a gentle but radical kindness; an unmovable sense of right and wrong. If Peeta wished to not be a pawn in the games, these are the characters that show us how to.
I think this is also the most important book in the trilogy because it shows Katniss, but also the reader, that the feeling she has had about the Capitol is not dissimilar to how others feel. While most of the population tries their best to remain un-hostile, outwardly at least, towards the Capitol. The reason she only dares to whisper discontentment with her situation in the safety of the woods is the same reason the people of 11 don’t steal food regardless of how hungry they are, and why they never heard of any rebel activities in other districts. Because of fear. But when President Snow took away the only hope of safety, the victors, he showed that no one in all the districts had anything to lose. What they had perceived to be safety was only a frail allowance made by the Capitol to separate people even within their own districts. It remains me of the Arabic saying “even the meekest worm with turn”
“The sun persists in rising, so I make myself stand”
As I’ve said many times before, this was a major formative piece of media for me, and I do believe this series, and especially “Catching Fire” remains an incredibly relevant and needed book.