Mockingjay Chapters 16 – 18

Back to Mockingjay.  I wish I had more images for these posts, but they don’t really have that many visuals that aren’t character specific.
As an aside, I did finally see Catching Fire.  I actually didn’t like it as much as the first movie.  On the whole, I didn’t like the costume design very much with the exceptions of Katniss’s parade gown, the wedding dress, and Effie’s butterfly dress.  I also thought Effie’s wigs looked horrible.  Especially the gold one.  It just looked cheap and if there is one thing Effie Trinket is not, it’s cheap.  We had more side characters to deal with this time, which meant we spent less time on them and so I didn’t care as much.  My residual affection from the book carried over some, but the movie didn’t seem to give me that much to work with.  I also found the decision to make Mags mute very distracting.  I assume they didn’t want to have to come up with an effective and sensitive way to mimic post-stroke speech patterns, but I just spent a ton of time trying to remember the book.
I could go on, but I don’t think it’s really worth doing a detailed comparison.

Chapter 16
Well, I was right, it wasn’t the guy on the ground who shot her.
Hey, Johanna!  I like Johanna.
And Johanna is dancing around the edges of a morphling habit.  I can’t say I blame her.  She seems solid so far though.
Wait… Katniss didn’t get hit by the bullet?  She had her spleen out?  Should that hurt this much at this point?  I haven’t had abdominal surgery so I don’t know.
And, sad moment to remember Cinna.
Snerk.  Johanna doesn’t like Katniss mostly for the reasons I didn’t like Peeta so much in the last book.
Hey, Katniss just said something truly insightful.  Gale’s preemptive strike thinking is the same kind of thinking that helped develop the Hunger Games.  Good on you Katniss.
Finnick and Annie are getting married?  That’s… kind of creepy actually.  She keeps being referred to as “the mad girl.”  If she actually is insane then she has diminished capacity and can’t give informed consent.  I haven’t seen her enough to know exactly how impaired her thinking is, but I’m still icked out.  I trust Finnick not to hurt her, especially since he’s been abused, but still…
And District 13 just keeps getting creepier.  They don’t have any entertainment or holidays.  That’s just disturbing.  They have been hidden for almost seventy-five years.  There’s no reason they couldn’t have celebrations of some sort.  It all sounds like the stereotypical Soviet model.
Ok, and some of my anxiety is relieved.  She’s “less mad than unstable.”  Still not great, but better.
The dancing is a nice touch, although I was expecting Katniss to sing.
Peeta worked on the cake.  I think that’s lovely, but I’m not sure.
“He frosted under heavy guard.”  That’s kind of an awesome line.
Hmm… The reunion with Peeta.  It’s harsh and it’s ugly, but it’s also more honest.  Most people aren’t going to be so overwhelmed by their love interest that they’d tolerate the waffling that Katniss did.  This is not to say that Katniss was at fault.  She wasn’t cheating on either guy or anything like that.  But most people would get tired of waiting for a decision.  That Gale and Peeta never did seemed a little contrived.

Chapter 17
Now they’re not letting her go to the Capitol because… why?  Is it wrong that I’m assuming Coin is planning to use her like Snow used the victors?
I like the bonding moment with Johanna.
The training sounds not that bad, but I couldn’t do it.  (I’ve actually just started trying to exercise.  I did 2.5 miles today and it took me over 40 minutes.  I won’t be storming the Capitol anytime soon.)
Finnick and Annie seem happy.  That’s nice.
It’s also nice to see Delly back and taking an active part in Peeta’s recovery.  I’m still worried something bad is going to happen to her though.  I don’t see many nice people surviving this book.
Guess who’s coming to dinner.  So, angry Peeta.  And then Gale admitting that he kind of hated Katniss when she was kissing Peeta.  Not surprising, but more bitter than I expected, I guess.
Katniss’s self-esteem issues are cropping up again.
Why does Johanna seem to be afraid of water?  I’m guessing something that happened in the Capitol, because I don’t remember a reluctance about the water in the Arena.

Chapter 18
I’m glad Katniss got into a squad, but does it seem too easy?
The Capitol as the ultimate Arena.  It works.
The military haircut doesn’t make much sense to me at this juncture.  They didn’t trim anyone’s hair before going into the districts, so why now?  For uniformity?  Which is also going to make Katniss stand out as much as the officers of yesteryear with big-ass plumes in their helmets.
And Joanna’s fear of water is explained.
The bundle of pine needles makes me like Katniss a little more.
What a shock, they’re putting the squad with Finnick and Katniss behind the scenes and on-camera.
How did the rebels take the train tunnels so easily?  It seems like the Capitol would be able to seal those.  Or am I just thinking that because they sealed in the movie?
Also, why hasn’t the Capitol used the nuclear option?
Coin sent Peeta in?  Well, I already knew she was a terrible person, so that makes sense.  As does Katniss’s downgrading.

And so we come to the end of Part II.  I’m curious about how it all ends up, but I’m not significantly invested still.