(Chapter 13): I sit on the ground, a few yards from the blaze set off by the fireball. My calf is screaming, my hands covered in red welts. I'm shaking too hard to move. If the Gamemakers want to finish me off, now is the time.
I hear Cinna's voice, carrying images of rich fabric and sparkling gems. "Katniss, the girl who was on fire." What a good laugh the Gamemakers must be having over that one. Perhaps, Cinna's beautiful costumes have even brought on this particular torture for me. I know he couldn't have foreseen this, must be hurting for me because, in fact, I believe he cares about me. But all in all, maybe showing up stark naked in that chariot would have been safer for me.
The attack is now over. The Gamemakers don't want me dead. Not yet anyway. Everyone knows they could destroy us all within seconds of the opening gong. The real sport of the Hunger Games is watching the tributes kill one another. Every so often, they do kill a tribute just to remind the players they can. But mostly, they manipulate us into confronting one another face-to-face. Which means, if I am no longer being fired at, there is at least one other tribute close at hand.
I bathe the blood and ash from my face. I try to recall all I know about burns. They are common injuries in the Seam where we cook and heat our homes with coal. Then there are the mine accidents. A family once brought in an unconscious young man pleading with my mother to help him. The district doctor who's responsible for treating the miners had written him off, told the family to take him home to die. But they wouldn't accept this. He lay on our kitchen table, senseless to the world. I got a glimpse of the wound on his thigh, gaping, charred flesh, burned clear down to the bone, before I ran from the house. I went to the woods and hunted the entire day, haunted by the gruesome leg, memories of my father's death. What's funny was, Prim, who's scared of her own shadow, stayed and helped. My mother says healers are born, not made. They did their best, but the man died, just like the doctor said he would.
As a product of a corrupt government authority, Katniss is forced into a life that she did not choose - merely a pawn in a chess match. And because of the rebellion of those in a previous generation, she is thrown into a battle because she wanted to save her sister. By an act of good, she receives a fate she doesn't deserve. But what someone "deserves" doesn't mean much to President Snow and the government. They stand on the side that is "forced" to put on these hunger games in order to keep the peace and keep rebellion from bursting out. An unjust power lays on their shoulders and they play god - deciding who lives, and who dies.
As Katniss recovers from burns from the fire set on her, she comes to the place that she seems to come to often - "if the Gamemakers want to finish me off, now is the time." She reaches the end of her rope, like we all have at times. In those moments, it seems like life throws everything it can find at us, and we've reached the end: surrender. And what comes next is all too familiar... a glimmer of hope. "I hear Cinna's voice, carrying images of rich fabric and sparkling gems. 'Katniss, the girl who was on fire.'" The reason she's all in this, it all flashes before her, as it does to you and me in these times. And the attack is over. The "Gamemakers" of our life show mercy and in Katniss's case, it's only because they don't want her dead... "not yet anyway." This character of benevolence is so twisted, a sick game they play to exude their power. "The real sport of the Hunger Games is watching the tributes kill one another. Every so often, they do kill a tribute just to remind the players they can." This reminds me of a girl in my philosophy class in high school. She believed that there is a god, but that this god is a sadist - that he concocts a "game" that we call life, and manipulates situations in our life to create pleasure for himself. Basically... it's like the computer game Sims. This whole idea of the Hunger Games runs in line with that belief in a sadist god - that someone decides what happens and sets us up for failure or success, but at our expense, not their own. It's a giant hand of god reaching out from heaven, but only to move the chess piece to his advantage: selfish, unjust, carelessness. But with Katniss, she exercises choice in the midst of pain, she chooses the opposite action that the gamekeepers would; she chooses self-sacrifice, mercy, wisdom, and selflessness... despite herself. This is powerful stuff. As she exudes all of those qualities, she becomes a healer to many because she is a healer of one, little does she know: "My mother says healers are born, not made." But yet through this hope, there is still the reality of an enemy, and although the healers "did their best, the man died, just like the doctor said he would."
Katniss is placed in a position with touch decisions; however tough, there still are choices available to make. She still has that power of choice, she has the power to give life to others by being a sacrifice. She can't lose, because she doesn't give in to the power of the enemy by abandoning her morals because she is "forced to" by being in the position she is in! And, probably because the author wanted a good story, she prevails through that adversity and impossible situation, starting a revolution in the later books to come.
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