The Girl Who Was on Fire (24 page)

The Capitol does this first by keeping many of the people in the districts on the brink of starvation. It controlled the food sources, outlawing hunting and forcing parents to sign over their children’s potential futures (and any sense of security or innocence that should come from being a child) in exchange for tesserae food rations. Only a privileged few outside the Capitol,
especially in the poorer districts, have enough money to buy goods from the baker and the butcher (and I imagine the candlestick-maker). And those few aren’t going to complain about the needs of the less fortunate for fear of losing their privileged status. The Capitol keeps the people hungry enough that all anyone has the energy to think about is how to feed themselves.

Second, the Capitol instituted public flogging and curfews, and trained dastardly “Peacekeepers” to watch the people’s every move in order to force them to keep their heads down for fear of punishment. It surrounded the districts with giant electrified fences to keep people from interacting with, or traveling to, other districts. Almost all forms of long-distance communication have ceased to exist throughout the districts, and what little is permitted (television propaganda, and the telephones in the victors’ mansions) is constantly monitored. It is also apparent that within the Capitol itself, and parts of the districts, the people are monitored by cameras so they are not free to communicate without reprisal.

The Capitol even instituted an “ultimate punishment” for major infractions: cutting out the offending person’s tongue, therefore making him or her unable to communicate—and in result unable to function properly within the community. The Avox is removed from his/her family and forced into a life of slavery. The ultimate punishment is ultimate isolation.

Considering all this, the Capitol may seem like a shining city on a hill for budding despots everywhere. So where did it go wrong? What was the fatal mistake that lead to its downfall?

There were two mistakes, actually: the institution of the Hunger Games, and allowing the existence of a teenage girl like Katniss Everdeen from a place like District 12.

When you first think about the concept of the Hunger Games, it may seem like the perfect way to instill ultimate fear in the hearts of district citizens. The Games were created to punish the districts for their original attempt at rebellion, and to remind them of the uselessness of trying to oppose the almighty Capitol. The districts must sacrifice their children, a most precious commodity in any community, to the Capitol’s sick idea of amusement. The mostly defenseless children are then forced to isolate themselves and fight to the death in an arena for mandatory public viewing on television—therefore symbolizing to the districts’ citizens the isolation and futility of their own lives.

The Capitol instituted the Hunger Games to create derision and strife among the districts by pitting them against each other and making them hope for the other districts’ children to be slaughtered instead of their own. But as Laura Miller from the
New Yorker
’s review of the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy points out, “the practice of carrying off a population’s innocent children and commanding their parents to watch them be slaughtered for entertainment—wouldn’t that do more to provoke a rebellion than to head one off?”

And that’s exactly what happens—eventually. It is over seventy years in the making, not a huge amount of time considering how oppressed the people of the districts are, but eventually (or inevitably) the Hunger Games play a major role in the demise of the Capitol. If it weren’t for the Hunger Games and the resulting “victory tour” of the winner each year, the citizens of the individual districts would know nothing about the other districts except for the propaganda they are taught in school.
The rest of the year, it’s almost as if the other districts don’t even exist, but during the Games, each district is given a human face (or two human faces). Often those faces are not friendly ones, considering that the tributes are fighting to the death. That the only time the districts’ inhabitants interact is when they’re trying to kill each other plays right into the Capitol’s calculating design. But the other tributes are human faces nonetheless—ones that could possibly remind the people that they are not alone—and that’s a big risk. Each district is given champions to rally behind—but if there was someone, or even a team of champions, who multiple districts could actually get behind, it would give the people a common bond, a sense of “community” to bring them together. And when that champion turns out to be someone who dares defy the Capitol—well, that’s all it takes to spark a rebellion.

The Capitol probably never thought a teenage girl like Katniss Everdeen could start an uprising with a fistful of berries—and she had no idea, either. But Katniss isn’t really responsible for what happens that last day in the Games. The Capitol is. After all, it created Katniss in first place.

Collins tells us in an interview with Rick Margolis in
School Library Journal
:

One of President Snow’s greatest mistakes, the one that led to the downfall of the Capitol, was his lack of attention to District 12. It seems as though the Capitol started out equally stringent in each of the districts (Katniss’ mother occasionally refers to much darker days in the past) but over time it became lax in 12. After all, 12 is the poorest, hungriest district, without even much hope of winning the Hunger Games to bring in more food rations. The poorer citizens in that district are relegated to the Seam, where they have almost nothing to look forward to other than living and dying in the mines. And as the most downtrodden of the districts, 12 was pretty much ignored by the Capitol. It wasn’t worth wasting precious resources on, such as electricity, so the fence was rarely a threat to anyone who dared go under it. It wasn’t worth wasting the best Peacekeepers on either, so after a while, the Capitol stopped caring to send disciplined and obedient Peacekeepers there. This fostered an environment where a black market could exist, providing a gathering place for the people to exchange goods and information. A place where a budding sense of community was allowed to grow—even between the
braver townsfolk who visited the market and the Peacekeepers who came for food and enjoyment.

At the beginning of
The Hunger Games
, most people in 12 are still too afraid to take advantage of the lapses of the Capitol’s judgment concerning their district, but out of this negligent environment comes an unlikely heroine named Katniss Everdeen: a girl with an uncanny (and often unwitting) ability to create a sense of community wherever she goes.

Originally, when looking back at the text of the first Hunger Games book, I was tempted to say that the first act of community in the novel (after Katniss’ father died) that helped Katniss become the kind of person she was before she was even reaped for the Hunger Games, was when she formed a hunting alliance with Gale. Instead of fending for themselves, they worked together to share the burden of feeding their loved ones. The “glue of mutual need” bonded them together, and they created not only a community—giving among each other—but the strongest form of community that exists: a family. But what dawned on me after rereading all three books in the trilogy again, was that the first “act of community in the face of tyranny” that was the catalyst for who Katniss became as a person was an act of community she was the
recipient
of—rather than the creator of. It was the incident involving “the boy with the bread.”

After Katniss’ father died in a mining accident and her mother went crazy with grief, Katniss and her sister, Prim, began to starve to death. Without their father to hunt, trade at the Hob, or provide income for the family, it looked like all was lost. In the downtrodden Seam, there was no one who had food to spare, and no one Katniss knew of who would have been willing to spare it if they had it. As Katniss tells us, because of
the oppression of the Capitol, children die of starvation daily in the Seam. But just when Katniss was about to give up, to sit down and die like the Capitol would have wanted her to, Peeta Mellark, the baker’s son, saw her need and decided to give what he could. He risked a beating from his tyrant of a mother by burning a few precious loaves of bread and then gave them to Katniss instead of throwing them out like he was instructed. This small act of kindness, of true community, was what helped bring Katniss back from the dead—and back to her senses.

With her hunger lessened for a moment, she was able to realize that she could buck the system, too—defy the Capitol—and slip under the non-electrified fence in order to hunt for her family. There she used the descriptions in the book her father created documenting plants that were safe to eat—his attempt at communicating his knowledge to his family before he was gone—to find food and medicine. There she formed the hunting alliance with Gale that kept both of their families alive and healthy, found enough hope to help her mother slowly recover from her depression, and learned to survive—and to kill. She became somewhat of a small hero to her district even before she was a tribute for the Hunger Games. She provided meat for the privileged in 12, as well as for the starving. She procured herbs to heal the sick, and she befriended the Peacekeepers as well as the ruffians. Around her, small shoots of community began to thrive.

And that was the Capitol’s fatal mistake. Allowing Katniss to become, well, Katniss. Where was the hand of tyranny to crush this early uprising that consisted of a teen girl and her bow? Where was the electricity to keep her out of the woods? Where were the brutal Peacekeepers who should have beaten the spirit out her?

Yes, the Capitol, through its lapses in District 12, created Katniss Everdeen. The girl who cares enough to volunteer for
the Hunger Games to save her sister. The girl who promises to try to win so she can return to her family and bring food to her district. The girl who unwittingly captures the love of her prep team and stylists, who then turn her into the “girl who was on fire.” The girl who
befriends
Rue (rather than just making an alliance out of convenience like others in the Games before them), an opponent from a rival district who another tribute might have killed without regard. The girl who proves that friendship by caring for Rue as a sister and placing flowers on her body when she dies in order to rebuke the Capitol’s Gamemakers—an act that inspires District 11 to do something that has never been done before: send a gift to a tribute who isn’t from their district. The girl who shows a nation that its members can work together rather than feel isolated from each other. The girl whose partnership and “romance” with Peeta gives the districts champions to really root for and feel connected to. The girl who creates a community bond within and between the districts. The girl whose defiance at the end of book one makes her and Peeta the symbol of a partnership—one so strong that President Snow will stop at nothing, including altering Peeta’s memories, to try to destroy it—that can be formed to defy the Capitol. The Capitol created the girl who becomes the Mockingjay.

The girl who incites a rebellion that topples the government.

The problem with allowing a sense of community to spring up in an otherwise oppressed society is that once it has started to take root, it’s almost impossible to stamp out. When President Snow sees what one girl and a trick with a handful of berries
can do (make the Capitol look foolish and weak and incite uprisings among the people) he scrambles to stop the effects. He goes straight for the heart of Katniss’ community, starting with invading the privacy of her home. He threatens her family if she doesn’t try to help undo the damage that she has caused, then sends in terrible Peacekeepers to torment the citizens in order to force them back in line. The Hob, the community center, is burned to the ground, the fence is re-electrified, and the promised prize rations of food for District 12 are purposely spoiled. Seeing the suffering of her community, Katniss tries to do what President Snow asks. She tries to calm the rebellion, but as President Snow informs her, her efforts are too little, too late. Rebellion is spreading.

But really, it is President Snow who is doing too little, too late. At this point, it seems like anything he tries to do to squelch the feeling of community only fuels it in most of the districts. He even goes as far as to force Katniss to model her wedding dresses for the nation, only to announce that same day the show airs that Katniss, Peeta, and past victors are to be forced back into the arena. This should have broken their spirits, shown that not even the victors are safe or powerful, but it only serves to enrage the people more. And it gives secret rebels, such as Plutarch Heavensbee, the opportunity to manipulate the Games in order to further the cause of the rebellion. Although her involvement in Plutarch’s plan is unwitting at first, it is still Katniss’ uncanny ability to not only create a community, but a family, around her that fuels the ongoing uprisings. Katniss again blurs the lines between alliance and friendship by choosing to ally herself with people who seem supposedly weak (such as Beetee, Wiress, and Mags) because she cares about them, and many of the other contestants rally around Katniss because they know that she’s the Mockingjay—the symbol of the power of
the people to bond together and take down the Capitol. These unlikely friends are slowly welcomed into Katniss’ everexpanding family.