MOCKINGJAY

I’m still reading the novel Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins and during my last post I left off after Katniss agreed to be the Mockingjay, which is the symbol of the rebellion. Katniss insists on going to training, to be equipped, and to become a soldier. They allow this even though everyone in command thinks that it’s too risky to send the symbol of resistance to war, secretly agree to not allow her fight in active battles. During this time Katniss decides to wander the underground district, but is accompanied by her “keeper”, Plutarch. While walking around the holding cell area, she hears screaming in one them and quickly goes over to find out who’s behind the door. The people behind the door end up being her old prep team from the Capitol and they are being tortured because they are believed to be traitors. Somehow Katniss convinces Coin, who is the leader in District 13, to acquit the prep team and release them to her. After this she learns about the war that is happening in the world outside and the horrors inside the district. 

Finally after weeks of training and recovery, command agrees to send Katniss to the areas under their control to make propaganda videos.  The first place she is sent is District 12, her home district. The Capitol fire bombed it and destroyed everything here after Katniss escaped from the Quarter Quell Hunger Games. She remembers the good times before the war started and gives a prewritten speech to rally the rebels. The video crew back home agrees that in the future her speeches should be from her heart and not prewritten by professionals. Next she is sent to the recently captured District 8. Her visit is thought to be unknown to the Capitol and she is just supposed to talk to the wounded and reassure them that everything is alright. This is not the case, because half way through her visit at the make shift hospital the air raid siren goes off. Katniss and the people accompanying her only have a few minutes to take cover before the first bombs are dropped. After the first wave of bombers she goes outside with Gale, her friend from district 12, and is able to shoot two bombers out of the air with her explosive tipped bow and arrow that was specially made for her. The cameras happen to be rolling during this to catch the Mockingjay’s display if bravery and heroics. Though Katniss isn’t hurt, the hospital is destroyed and hundreds of defenseless and wounded people were killed. This video is later used as propaganda, the lack of fear from the Mockingjay and emphasis on the cowardly attack from the Capitol strengthens the rebels. This video also angers the Capitol and a few days after Katniss returns to District 13, the air raid siren sounds. The entire district quickly and efficiently evacuated to fortified bomb shelters carved out of the rock hundreds of feet below the surface. Everyone survive the five day barrage of bombs, with damage only on the first few levels.

After the bombing command agrees that the prisoners in the Capitol must be extracted. If the rebels are able to get Peeta, who is Katniss’s “boyfriend”, and the other captives then President Snow, the Capitol’s leader, will have nothing left to use against them.  This mission is very dangerous, but is completed more easily than expected.  Everyone thought that it was too good to be true and in fact it was. The Capitol has brainwashed Peeta to think that Katniss is an evil murderer and to attack her when he sees her. It takes a few weeks in rehab before a change in Peeta is seen. I have just gotten to the beginning of Chapter 15 and commands’ new objective is to infiltrate and destroy the “Nut”, which is the Capitol’s last and largest military base. The “Nut” is located inside a mountain in District 2, the only district still under the control of the Capitol.