Part 2, Chapter 17:
"'Let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin, Cato,' I think. 'Let them begin for real.'"
So Katniss blew the Careers' whole operation sky-high, and now her equilibrium is all screwed up because one of her eardrums blew out. Things are not looking good for our heroine...but she still manages to get to safety before the Careers return and realize what has happened. Fun fact: huge explosions around the halfway point in the game? Must be quite common, if you get what I'm referencing. But yeah, Cato kills the most worthless character left at this point (although we still don't know yet who was killed earlier in the day, aside from the fact that it's not Katniss/Rue/Cato/2 Girl/1 Boy/Foxface, which leaves 10 Boy/Peeta/Thresh as possibilities. Given that it was an off-screen kill and two of the three unknowns have names...I think you can make an educated guess as to who is dead. >_>
Lo and behold, District 10 Boy IS killed, which leads me to my rant. Over half the tributes are ignored by Collins in her writing. Half. And that's fine, because most of them are killed early and are what can be considered cannon fodder. Fine. But the characters we're aware of are the Career pack, specifically Cato/Glimmer/2 Girl, Foxface, Rue/Thresh, Katniss/Peeta and District 10 Boy. Collins CLEARLY puts enough effort into the story to give us some semblance of characterization for District 10 Boy, who I shall refer to as Gimpy from this point on. Gimpy gets mentioned as shy and reserved and having a bad leg, so you would ASSUME that he would be somewhat more important to the overall story than other characters.
But no...he gets less focus than District 3 Boy, District 8 Girl, arguably District 9 Boy...and honestly, he makes it to the final 10 with a gimpy leg. Yet he's killed off-screen? That just annoys me from the perspective of someone who feels like he should've gotten SOME content of some kind. Honestly, I feel like Collins had plans to include him as a bigger character, which she easily could done. Like, have Katniss as the leader of the Misfits Alliance with Gimpy, Rue, and hell, throw Peeta in there too. I don't know how else to describe it. Like, it just bothers me that we're given info about this character than none of the other nameless tributes receive, and yet he winds up being a complete afterthought.
Anyway, the Careers go hunting and we once again get some survival stuff with Katniss, but then...the return of Foxface! Honestly, I just picture her standing in the bombed-out wreckage, pointing at it and laughing, because that's just such a comical image to have. The fact that, in the midst of death, she's able to laugh about the misfortune of the spoiled Careers...it makes me happy. But anyway, more survival for Katniss, which all kinda blends together for me at this point. But then...
RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUE! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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Captain Tracy Mombaro and Agent Mirasuke Inhara: Two of the toughest, hottest furrs you'll ever meet.