Catching Fire

“I have a problem, Miss Everdeen […] A problem that began the moment you pulled out those poisonous berries in the arena.”

President Snow’s visit confirms Katniss’s fears that her act of rebellion hasn’t escaped his notice, or his wrath. He speaks frankly to her in this moment and explains what she already knows: that when she dared to defy him during the last Hunger Games, she introduced dangerous ideas to the people of Panem. If he lets her get away with an act of rebellion, the people of Panem might follow suit.

“He took my face in his hands and kissed me.”

During her meeting with President Snow, Katniss remembers the moment a few months prior when Gale unexpectedly kissed her. At the time, Katniss was confused and upset that Gale changed the dynamic of their friendship. Now, however, facing President Snow and his accusations that she doesn’t care for Peeta like she led the world to believe, Katniss realizes that her kiss with Gale is extremely damning. She is overwhelmed with intense fear that Snow somehow knows about the kiss, and she knows he will interpret such behavior as a dead giveaway that her actions with the berries was not motivated by love, but by a true spirit of rebellion.

“Quiet the discontent and put the president’s mind at rest […] By proving to the country beyond any shadow of a doubt that I love Peeta Mellark.”

After talking to President Snow, Katniss realizes that she will have to work hard to convince not only him that she is in love with Peeta, but to convince the nation of Panem. If Katniss can pull this off, she will protect her family and friends and quell the rebellious ideas stirring in the districts. This mission consumes all of Katniss’s attention for the first several chapters of the book, and when it ultimately falls short of President Snow’s expectations, she must shift gears and think about running away to avoid the fallout of her failure.

“Hey, Peeta, remember how I told you I was kind of faking being in love with you? Well, I really need you to forget about that now and act extra in love with me or the president might kill Gale.”

In addition to being nervous about successfully convincing Snow and the nation that she is in love with Peeta, Katniss feels deep shame around the idea of taking advantage of Peeta’s genuine love for her. When Katniss rejects his love, she knows she has hurt him, and she hates the idea of continuing to hurt him. Katniss feels stuck in an impossible situation where no one will be happy or safe.

“This is the year of the Seventy-fifth Hunger Games, and that means it’s also a Quarter Quell [...] They occur every twenty-five years, marking the anniversary of the districts’ defeat with over-the-top celebrations and, for extra fun, some miserable twist for the tributes.”

The first mention of the Quarter Quell hints at what will come later in the book: a “miserable twist” to the annual Hunger Games. Katniss explains how the Quells come every 25 years and are meant to add extra levels of pain to the already-difficult process of the Hunger Games. We later learn that in one Quarter Quell, the districts were forced to elect which children would be tributes. During the second Quell in which Haymitch competed, the districts had to send four tributes instead of two. Although Katniss has no idea what’s in store for this upcoming Quell, she is not looking forward to being a mentor for the next group of sacrificial tributes.

Rue, who I didn’t save. Who I let die. I picture her lying on the ground with the spear still wedged in her stomach…”

Katniss has a vivid flashback to the Hunger Games very unexpectedly while observing her little sister. The flashback hits her so hard that she feels almost physical pain, and suddenly she is rocked by the reminder that she was unable to help her ally, Rue, in the Games. Katniss wrestles with survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of the 74th Hunger Games, and this moment demonstrates how sudden and pervasive her feelings of guilt and shame are. At any moment, Katniss can be reminded that she failed to protect someone she loved, or that she made a mistake that could have repercussions for her loved ones in the future.

“What will he think of this very public salute to the girl who defied the Capitol?” 

On their first stop on the Victory Tour, Katniss is taken aback when an old man salutes her on the stage after she talks about Rue. The man is immediately shot and killed, and Katniss is horrified at the thought that she might have caused another innocent person to get hurt by the Capitol. She wonders what President Snow will do and how he might react to behavior like this, especially since she is supposed to be stopping demonstrations like this during the Tour. The disaster in District 11 sets the tone for the whole tour and makes Katniss see that the rebellion is already beginning, and nothing she does will be able to stop it.

“And here in the Capitol they’re vomiting for the pleasure of filling their bellies again and again.”

During the party at the Capitol at the conclusion of the Victory Tour, Katniss and Peeta are horrified and disgusted to learn about the widespread practice of throwing up food just so a person can continue eating. This scene is one of the most telling examples of the difference between the Capitol and the districts. It’s not just that the Capitol has more food than the districts: they are actively wasting it so they can continue to enjoy the process of eating. Katniss remembers watching children die in District 12 from starvation and cannot fathom the cruelty or disconnection from reality that runs amok in the Capitol.

“Plutarch has run his thumb across the crystal face of the watch and for just a moment an image appears, glowing as if lit by candlelight. It’s another mockingjay. Exactly like the pin on my dress. Only this one disappears.”

During the party at the Capitol, Katniss meets Plutarch Heavensbee and learns that he is the Head Gamemaker for this year’s Games. Although she wants nothing to do with him, she is polite, and at the end of their conversation, Plutarch flashes his watch at her. The mockingjay symbol for Plutarch isn’t just a fashion statement, but like Bonnie and Twill, he uses the moment to show his allegiance to Katniss and the rebellion. He also hopes that his watch will tip her off to the details of the arena, and Katniss recalls this moment at the end of the book when her group discovers that the arena is shaped and operating like a clock.

“My nightmares are usually about losing you [...] I’m okay once I realize you’re here.”

Throughout the novel and as their friendship progresses, Peeta becomes more comfortable with expressing his feelings to Katniss. He has never stopped loving her, even when she rejected him, and although Peeta has friends and family of his own, Katniss is the most important person to him. Peeta and Katniss turn to one another for comfort during difficult times, like when one of them has nightmares. As the story progresses, Katniss begins to develop similar feelings for Peeta, and when he is taken away from her at the end of the book, she feels as if she has lost Peeta, and a new type of nightmare has come to life.

“I can only be witnessing one thing. This is what President Snow calls an uprising.”

When Katniss witnesses the footage of full-scaled rebellion happening in District 8, she realizes that her acting on the Victory Tour didn’t fool anyone and that Panem is still on the brink of revolution. Because communications between the districts are tightly controlled, Katniss has little knowledge about what is going on in other parts of Panem, and her experience on the Victory Tour was the only indication that something was stirring throughout the districts. The footage is both terrifying and exciting as Katniss realizes that if it is happening in District 8, it could happen in District 12.

“They hadn’t counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to pass on its genetic code, to thrive in a new form. They hadn’t anticipated its will to live.”

The jabberjay and the mockingjay both hold significant meaning in The Hunger Games trilogy. Jabberjays were meant to be spies for the Capitol, but mockingjays symbolize the Capitol’s loss of control over their creations. The mockingjay becomes the most prominent symbol of rebellion throughout the series, and just like the Capitol cannot control the mockingjays, they are slowly losing control over the districts, and more specifically, over Katniss and the other victors.

“So it’s starting again? [...] Like before?”

After Gale is whipped, Katniss hears her mother and Haymitch talking about the old days when the Peacekeepers carried out similar acts of brutality. This cryptic question hints at a time when Katniss’s mother played a big role in treating those who were brutalized by the Peacekeepers. Based on Haymitch’s comments that a rebellion in Twelve would require everyone to get involved, Collins suggests to the reader that uprisings may have been attempted before but were suppressed by the brutality of the Peacekeepers.

“President Snow has been playing me for a fool. All the kisses and endearments in the world couldn’t have derailed the momentum building up in District 8.”

When Katniss learns about the rebellion in District 8 and how it was planned for months in advance, she realizes that her actions in the arena might have emboldened the districts, but the discontent was brewing long before she came along. She realizes that President Snow told her to convince him that she was in love with Peeta, not necessarily to squash the rebellions, but to keep her too distracted and afraid to further rouse the rebels in the districts.

“I have people on my side? What side? Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion? Has the mockingjay on my pin become a symbol of resistance?”

When Katniss meets Bonnie and Twill in the woods, they show their allegiance to her by flashing a flat piece of bread with a mockingjay on it. The mockingjay, they say, means that they are on her side, which leads Katniss to wonder what exactly she means to the people of Panem. Katniss’s assumption here is correct, although she does not yet know the full scale of how important she is as a symbol of the rebellion in Panem.

“On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors.”

The big reveal of the third Quarter Quell makes the Capitol’s intentions clear: Katniss is a problem, and this Quell means that she will have to go back into the arena and face death once again. It also means that even if she survives, she will be facing Haymitch or Peeta as her competition. The Quell is meant to send a message to the districts: do not place hope in victors, because even the strongest among you cannot overcome the power of the Capitol.

“Victors have a special status, and if they appeared to be supporting my defiance of the Capitol, it would’ve been dangerous politically.”

While studying the past victors in preparation for the upcoming Quarter Quell, Katniss can’t help but notice that she didn’t meet any of the past victors during the Victory Tour. Haymitch explains that the Capitol does not want to show any hint of the victors uniting together, especially not with a known symbol of the rebellion. To see all of the victors together in support of Katniss could lead to big trouble for Snow and his plans to suppress the uprisings. This makes the act of the victors joining hands at the end of the Capitol interviews all the more dramatic, because this level of solidarity has not been seen since for generations.

 “They will be looking for some sign that their battles have not been in vain. If I can make it clear that I’m still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me…but not my spirit. What better way to give hope to the rebels?”

Katniss knows that the Capitol will likely kill her in the arena, and she decides that she is okay with dying as long as her death is meaningful. She knows that her power to fuel the rebellion comes from her ability to demonstrate a lack of fear of the Capitol. If she can show that she isn’t afraid of them until the very end, she will be able to die knowing that she did her part to keep the rebellion going and give the people of Panem the courage and hope to keep fighting. This also strengthens her resolve to protect Peeta, because she knows it is the sort of heroism that will keep her spirit alive after her death.

“Even the most Capitol-loving, Games-hungry, bloodthirsty person out there can’t ignore, at least for a moment, how horrific the whole thing is.”

After Peeta invents Katniss’s pregnancy for live television, the Capitol audience descends into mass confusion. The crowd is already hysterical at the thought of losing so many of their beloved victors to this Quarter Quell, and the idea of a baby being brought into the fray of the arena disturbs them even more. They have happily sent children to their deaths for the past 74 years, but they are now upset at the thought of a pregnant woman going into the arena, and they begin to question the entire idea of the Games, which distresses them to the point that they are inconsolable and cannot be subdued.

“You just remember who the enemy is.”

Haymitch’s final parting words of advice to Katniss come loaded with a warning. In the arena, it will be easy to assume that all of the other tributes are “the enemy.” However, in the final pages of the novel, Katniss is reminded that the real enemy is the Capitol, who placed her in the arena, tortured her friends and family, and killed countless people. These are the words burning in Katniss’s head as she shoots the forcefield at the end of the book and destroys the dome covering the arena.

“My refusal to play the Games on the Capitol’s terms is to be my last act of rebellion.”

Katniss is devastated by the attack on Cinna at the beginning of Part 3, and she struggles to get herself under control in the moments before the Games begin. She thinks of Cinna’s sacrifice, of his willingness to put himself in danger to send a message to the rebels and the Capitol. Katniss knows that she is powerless to help her friend now, but she commits to do whatever she can in the arena to give the rebels hope and play by her own rules.

“A clock. I can almost see the hands ticking around the twelve-sectioned face of the arena. Each hour begins a new horror, a new Gamemaker weapon.”

The discovery that the arena is meant to be a giant clock showcases the creativity and cruelty of the Gamemakers. During their private sessions, Katniss comments that the Gamemakers waste their talents and use their gifts for evil by creating the most horrifying traps for the tributes. What brings admiration and applause to a Capitol audience creates a deadly reality for the tributes, and Katniss is once again amazed at the level of thought and skill that goes into torturing the tributes in the most creative way possible.

“I put what was precious in Haymitch’s hands. And he has betrayed me.”

Katniss trusted Haymitch not only to keep her alive in her first Hunger Games, but also to protect Peeta like he promised. When Katniss learns that Haymitch has let the Capitol take Peeta, she is furious and feels like she will never be able to trust Haymitch again. She also thinks that she let down Peeta by trusting that Haymitch would keep his promise, and as someone who is typically a good judge of character, Katniss is shaken that she was betrayed once again by those who want to use her celebrity to further their own political aims.