Wrapping up Mockingjay

I’m headed to JordanCon this weekend where I hope to see Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, and Sam Flegal (he drew a zombie portrait of me once.  It was awesome!)  Pat is the writer guest of honor this year, which is pretty exciting.  I went last year and got to meet Seanan McGuire, who is one of my literary heroes.  I’m also in the art show again, so wish me luck on that.  I will have exciting pictures (if I remember to take any) on Monday when I come home.  But now, onto the end of Mockingjay.

Chapter 25
I was expecting the immediate reaction to seeing Prim die.  But instead, we get an opium dream and she’s back in a hospital.  This is not the emotional impact I was waiting for.
The description of the burn treatment is brief, but has caught my attention because I recently started another book called The Gargoyle.  Its protagonist is horribly burned and the book goes into loving (and nauseating) detail about the treatments he receives.  I can’t help but flash over to the horrible things he has to endure.
Katniss losing her voice is interesting, but I’m a little… jaded? about her injuries now.  It seems to mirror her temporary hearing loss in the first Arena.
Her mother is doing almost the opposite of what she did when Katniss’s father died.  She’s using work to numb the pain, rather than sinking into it.  Which seems to be what Katniss is leaning toward instead.
Unfortunately, there is no way or me to read the words “human torch” without immediately thinking of comic books.
Roses are almost never ominous in western mythology.  There’s Sleeping Beauty, of course, but that’s about it.
I like Paylor.  I hope she turns out to be one of the truly good guys.
Ah.  And Snow tells us that he didn’t actually send the parachutes.  Which tallies with what I thought at first, that Coin was the one who had Prim killed.
Gale’s traps.  Beetee’s traps.  Plutarch’s Games.  All brewed into a cauldron of hellfire.

Chapter 26
I wish her talk with Haymitch had gone better.  I like him even if he is drunk and abrasive.
Effie?!?  Except, why are her eyes vacant?  Ah, she was arrested too.  Poor Effie.
Katniss’s prep team is the only one left at all?  And all the stylists are dead.  With the implication that maybe the rebels killed some of them too.  These people just look better and better.
So, Gale at least semi-acknowledges that it might have been his and Beetee’s plan that killed Prim and all the other medics and children.
Coin wants to have a Hunger Games with Capitol children?  Of course she does.  And she wants the remaining victors to vote it into law because, coming from them, it might seem like justice rather than political maneuvering.
Why is Katniss voting yes?  I’m guessing there’s a plan and Haymtich is trusting her on it.
The moment where Katniss kills Coin instead should be dramatic, but I think I was expecting it.  Especially since she voted Yes for the Games.

Chapter 27
Why did they leave her alone to die or not if they were trying her in absentia?  Did they not care what happened to her?
Snow died at the same time.  Poetic, I suppose.
Paylor is the president.  That’s… satisfying I suppose.
And Katniss is “not guilty by reason of insanity.”  Will anyone know that Coin killed the children?
Katniss became her mother.
Poor Madge.  Although, maybe she was part of the rebellion all along.  Her pin started it all.
Buttercup!
And that’s the emotional punch I’ve been waiting for.
And some very oblique sex to round things out.

Epilogue
I find it strange that her children are just “the girl” and “the boy.”  It feels very distancing.
The book sounds like an interesting project, but is it just for Katniss and her family?  Or is it bigger than that?
I’m surprised Gale survived actually.