Hunger Games Chapter 25

The creatures are...*drum roll please*...MUTTATIONS! Like wolves, but with back leg balance and bendable wrists. Wolverinas? I always wonder here why *all* the wolves went after Cato -- was their main purpose to drive him to the Cornucopia when the drought didn't work fast enough? But I digress.

Katniss remembers she's part of a team and turns back to help Needy McPeeta, but Peeta tells her to keep climbing. The ridged Cornucopia is blisteringly hot from the sun. Katniss gets to the top and loads an arrow to fire at the exhausted Cato, but at the last second Peeta's cry distracts her (and prevents her from having to make a single proactive kill in the whole book...).

Peeta makes it up, and together with Cato P&K focus on the Mutts, who upon closer inspection are sporting a variety of hairstyles. When a blond wolf leaps up, Katniss realizes why its green eyes look so familiar -- they are Glimmer's eyes (man, those lower districts have such strange names. Nothing like plain old "Katniss.")

Katniss shoots Glimmer-wolf in the throat, then K&P recognize Foxface.2, backpackboy.2, and -- the smallest mutt with huge brown eyes and a district 11 dog tag woven out of straw -- Rue.2. K&P wonder how much of each real person is in these creations (and I wonder if we really needed this kind of curveball at the climax of the book...), when Cato regains his breath and grabs Peeta in "some sort of headlock."

Katniss is afraid to shoot lest both Cato and Peeta fall over, but then Peeta X's Cato's hand and she takes the hint and fires an arrow into it. She grabs Peeta just in time, and Cato tumbles into the wolf pack, where a strangely melancholy, existential brawl ensues. K&P are just waiting to hear the cannon, but come nightfall, it still hasn't come.

The thing is, Peeta's bleeding, and even after Katniss wraps the wound with her sleeve and inserts an arrow into the knot, it's still bad enough that K&P need to win soon if he wants to survive. As the temperature drops, Katniss wonders why the Mutts won't just kill Cato, and Peeta reminds her that it's the viewers at home -- this is "the final word" in entertainment (something of a pet phrase for Katniss). She reflects that these are the worst hours of her life, and yes, she knows that's saying something.

Katniss yells to keep Peeta awake, knowing she'll go INSANE if he dies. They track time by watching the moon, which gives way to another day -- another day in which Cato is still kicking. Barely. Katniss takes her last arrow back from Peeta's tourniquet, leans over the edge of the Cornucopia, and locates the "hunk of meat" (grossest food imagery in the book?) that used to be Cato. He seems to be whispering "please." Katniss shoots him in the face "out of pity" (thus absolved?) and the canon goes boom.

But when they're still not declared the winners, K&P decide they must need to give the hovercraft room to claw the body. So after the Mutts go back into the ground (in what I consider a missed opportunity to say more about their drives/desires), K&P risk the trek to the lake, opening Peeta's wound again. Once there, Katniss retrieves the arrow that bounced off Cato's body armor.

Alas! Even after the body is taken, K&P are greeted not with a victory announcement, but with a reversal of the previous teammate rule. *Wanh wanh*

Peeta says it's not surprising and pulls out a knife, prompting Katniss to cock that last arrow and aim. But Peeta was just going to throw his knife in the lake (duh! what else?), and Katniss is ashamed for doubting him. Peeta wants her to shoot him so he doesn't die like Cato, but Katniss wants him to shoot her so he has to go home and live with it ("no you hang up!"). Katniss clearly thinks survivor's guilt would be worse than death.

Finally, Peeta gives Katniss an idea when he says "We both know they have to have a victor." Katniss pulls out those Poison Berries and tells Peeta to trust her. He makes sure they hold the berries out for everyone at home to see, then they stick them in their mouths in slow-mo. Just as the berries pass their lips, a frantic Claudius Templesmith declares them both winners of the 74th annual Putnam County, er, Hunger Games.