The Hunger Games: Chapters 7-12

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

We will be discussing chapters 7-12 of The Hunger Games. If you haven’t read this far yet, worry not, as this thread will still be waiting for you.

Was there a particular detail or description that stuck with you? Let us know!

Remember to include spoiler tags though as not everyone would have read as far as you have.

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Basically, spoilers start here!

Okay, so Katniss is continuing her first person narrative and she's gone through all the Reaping and the going to the Capitol and encountered an entirely different way of existence (I was going to write 'life' but really, what they do in the capital, is that life or what? Since all of everything is Life, I guess it is but it just seems like a fakeness, a mockery...)

Chapter 7 shows Peeta and her going to the training center, and meeting the other Tributes. The training center is, quite literally, a place for quick training of skills which might be useful to survive in the games. It's also a place where the Games makers see what the Tributes can do, and perhaps plan their terrors accordingly. Katniss is tested ... and they give her no attention. So she shows a little attitude and shoots the arrow through an apple in a pigs mouth -- from which the Games makers are feasting. That definitely got their attention -- and I suspect the attention of President Snow.

So far it's been a District 12 thing - then Peeta asks to be coached separately. WHAT?! Betrayal? No. It turns out that Peeta is in love with Katness. And that turns into a larger betrayal (so she thinks).

Part II - The Games
Colour Katniss pissed. Letting everyone know she is pissed. All along, though, the pageantry of the Games continues on and she is swept along with it to Chapter 11.
And the GAME begins. So far this is a story of a girl stuck in a terrible situation and it's all mostly her-her-her. Understandable in many ways. Survival is the name of the game. But now she is expanding her awareness to those around her -- she needs to know who and what they are because she wants to live. She is also, for the first time ever maybe, struggling with the concept that someone might actually love her. Her. Her relationship with Gale is so nebulous in many ways. The shell in which she has encased her 'self' is not only starting to crack, it's starting to disintegrate. Add to that she is dehydrated, and feels she is about to die.

Then she finds water. And lives.

I'm actually starting to like Katniss now. I don't know why or how this happens, but it's happening. Also, even though there isn't much in the way of detail about other characters (because of the viewpoint of the narrator perhaps?) there is enough to see that things are not always exactly as those in control at the Capitol would like them to be.

[Bull J. Johnson]

One thing that got my attention was when Katniss talked about her teenhood in the forest with Gale. I wish they would of shown that it the movie. Just that screen alone could of added a great deal to the movie.

[Prof. Sky Alton]

I have the most meaningful comment ever to make....

I'm reading a UK edition for the first time and all the measurements are in metric. It's weird! Rue 'wouldn't tip the scales at 30 kelos'? Say what?

And now for a more serious one...
To be honest, I think it's unfair of everyone to be so hard on Katniss for reacting badly to what Peeta did in his interview. It was very presumptuous and manipulative (if not on his part then on Haymich's)-nobody should be put in that position, even in a dystopia.

I love the first bit in the arena, it's awesome to actually see how self-reliant Katniss is and also to see her looking out for herself, rather than carrying other people.

[Arianna Stonewater]

I don't know how much of this is actually spoilers, but to be safe, i hid it all!

I really liked getting more into what each of the tributes skills were. I remember wondering how each of these tributes would fair in the area, and it seemed pretty obvious who had been trained for this and who had not. I always thought it was really cool how skills from one profession (like Peeta's cake decorating) can translate into other careers/modes of survival.

Its really interesting how there are Career tributes who have trained for this moment and can easily handle the weapons. Then you have the tributes from the farther districts who are unskilled with the weapons, but the hardships they have faced also help them be contenders in the games, like Katniss.

The individual testing was when i first decided I really like Katniss. I thought this part was really well done in the movies, and a great way for her to get attention/stand out from the rest. They are used to eating little and doing whatever it takes to survive.

I love Cinna. I love all of his designs and spirit and personality. He is a great help to Katniss and I wish we got more of him.

Peeta's announcement to Caesar was not shocking, except maybe to Katniss. But I definitely think it helped Katniss more than Peeta. It made her likable, but it made him seem even weaker. It also put Katniss in a tough spot, because she misses the friendship and closeness she had with Gale (and she can’t have it here) but the friendship she now has to pretend to have from Peeta she doesn’t want, since only one of them can win anyway.

I appreciated Peeta's comment about wanting to show the Capitol they don't own him, and I wish this attitude had carried through the rest of the books more.

The beginning of the games was about what i expected, the Careers dominate while the weaker of the outliers die. I can't imagine what that first few minutes was like, but I did like the free knife Katniss got! I think that is cruel for the Capitol to announce everyone who has died, but also it makes it easier for those still alive to know who they should still be expecting or no longer have to worry about. Part of me thinks it would be better to not tell the tributes as then they will be constantly worried, not knowing who is out there, but i guess they are already suffering enough.

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Cinna is awesome. Just ... awesome. And courageous.

It's really good to be reading a book done so cleverly that I start out feeling compassion for the main character -- written 'I' first person, it's sort of in one's face what she is experiencing! ... but not really liking her much -- and to go from there to actually 'liking' her and understanding a bit more of why she is the way she is.

I'd not consciously realized, until reading what you two wrote, how very WELL written this story is. Not only is it a good story, it's very well plotted and conceived. And if it is written as I so often write, not knowing what's going to happen next until it happens, then the author has a very well organized imagination.