Extra Nate: Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Introduction
And we’re baaaaaaaaack! It’s Extra Nate! The BEST and only blog to a podcast about books starring a guy named Nate. Season 6 of Words About Books! How crazy is that? We’ve been doing this for one global pandemic, two major US-adjacent wars, and three presidental terms and we’re still going strong! For this season of Extra Nate I think I’ve decided to say something specific about the book and expand on one point or another. Before I had just basically reiiterated my points on the book that I expounded on in the podcast itself. You can (and should) just listen to the podcast if you want to know about the book and what I thought about it and what my rubric choices were. Extra Nate is for the conisseur who wants even more Nate in your ears, eyes, and nostrils.
I wanted to talk about the problem with second acts of a three-act structure as though I am qualified to talk about such things. I’m a failed-English-major-turned-healthcare-professional so what I’m about to talk about is through the lens of a layman who has been exposed to and absorbs media. I guess to highlight my issues I’ll talk about a “second act” that I think did it right vs. the Hunger Games: Catching Fire that failed. It’s Star Wars. Obviously. I’m going to talk about Star Wars.
Of Course It’s Star Wars
Star Wars doesn’t really need an introduction, does it? It’s so ingrained in the cultural zeitgeist that Disney paid George Lucas the GDP of a medium sized country in order to obtain the intellectual property rights to it. Still, I want to talk about it, and this blog is basically only for me (and Ben, I guess) so I’ll give broad strokes. The first film was a perfect stand-alone film but with plenty of room for growth. Luke leaves his humble beginnings and begins to learn The Force. Han is a smuggler only in it for himself who decides to put his faith in his friends. Leia… well she doesn’t have much of an arc in this film but she’s not just a damsel in distress. The conflict is that Grand Moff Tarkin, the film’s major antagonist, has a super weapon and he’s going to blow up the rebels. Darth Vader is here as the muscle. He captures Leia at the beginning, seemingly kills Obi Wan Kenobi, and challenges Luke in starfighter combat in the finale. Vader survives but Tarkin and his Death Star do not. The film ends in a way where it’s clear the heroes have scored a serious blow to the Empire while leaving room for expansion of the universe if the movie ever got a sequel. The movie has a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. You don’t leave the theater feeling cheapened that the Empire didn’t fall or that Vader escaped.
The Empire Strikes Back is the second act in this three-act trilogy. This is what a second act needs to do and why it’s so hard. The first act (the first movie) set the stage, introduced the general conflict and the characters and wrapped up its story. The second act is then given the difficult task of taking those ideas and expanding on them. Han, Luke, and Leia have all gone on adventures between movies and they have grown and changed while still having to maintain their core personality. The second act ALSO has to, and this is difficult to do, tell its own story while ALSO setting up for the third act/movie. This means the second act has to both jump off from the first movie and climb to the third movie AND still try to be its own story with its own beginning, middle, and end. The ending is always hard to stick but Empire does a great job at it. The movie sees the Rebels getting small victories: the transports on Hoth manage to escape, Han evades the Empire and safely makes it to Cloud City (until he doesn’t), Lando defects, and Luke and Leia manage to escape Vader’s trap. All the while still getting their shit pressed in: Hoth is a one-sided battle, Han and Leia are on the run the entire movie, Han gets frozen, and Luke gets physically and emotionally scarred. Just like the first movie it’s clear there is more to be done and that this war isn’t over yet. There’s actually somewhat of a hopeful note as Luke and Leia stare out at the galaxy while Lando and Chewie take off to look for Han. The heroes are at their lowest point, but they’re going to rally and the stakes have been raised for the final act.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire Comparison
So let’s look at how The Hunger Games does it. Its first act, the book in this case, involves a self-contained story with a satisfying ending that’s open-ended enough that you can have a sequel or you can end it here and it’s fine. In the book Katniss and Peeta both survive the Games but they’re physically and emotionally scarred. Their stunt in the arena has drawn the ire of some very powerful enemies. This could be the only book in the series, much like Battle Royale in fact, and it would be fine. You feel satisfied with the conclusion and don’t feel like this book is just ending with “now buy the next book, idiot.” The Heroes are victorious and the major villain of the book, Cato, is defeated. Yes, Cato is the major antagonist of that book. The Capitol is obviously the series villain but Cato is positioned as the major thing between Katniss and Peeta getting out of the Games alive. He’s cunning, the most powerful, and he leads a group of “bad guy” tributes.
What does the second book need to do? Well it needs to build off their victory in the Games, have its own satisfying story, and build to a book 3 where presumably the Capitol will be defeated once and for all. To get there… I’m not going to lie it’s going to be really difficult. Honestly there maybe should have been a time skip of a year or two in order to build this revolution, but I concede it’s not necessary. What does this book do? It sets up a major villain: the new police chief whose name I don’t remember. I don’t remember his name, because he’s ultimately not important. He shows up, cracks down and oppresses the people, then the book goes into a Second Hunger Games and we never see him again. The Second Hunger Game kind of feels like an ass pull and feels like the author maybe didn’t know what to do with the 75th Games nor how to advance the plot in an organic way. The book really has a sense of being somewhat its own book and somewhat its predecessor and it doesn’t seem to have an identity of its own. Worse, it doesn’t really build to the third book. Ben maintains that we have to read the third book to really be able to judge this one and I disagree. Sure, things in the third book might make President Snow’s weird actions make sense (or not) but nothing the third book does will change the fact that the second book’s ending was essentially “stay tuned for the next book.”
The ending was the big sticking point for me. The book already faltered with the Second Hunger Games but it really did not stick the landing. It had the “Pirates of the Carribean 2” ending problem where it was just set-up for the finale. Nothing was really resolved. The stakes weren’t raised either, not on a personal or emotional level. Sure District 12 gets firebombed but that’s off screen. Peeta is captured, which isn’t great but it was also less emotionally impactful as it too happened off screen. Katniss herself didn’t really take a loss either. There is no personal stake or showdown between her and President Snow or whomever. The revoultion she could have (and should have) been building this entire book is assembled, off screen, by minor characters. She’s supposed to be the Face of the Revolution, but she doesn’t even know the Revolution is an organized force until the end of the book. This book has a beginning, a middle, and then a reset, then it fails to stick the landing on the ending. It’s unsatisfying to read and either the 3rd book is going to be good, in which case this will be the standout “mid” book, or the 3rd book will struggle to get going because the 2nd book didn’t set it up enough. I’m curious to see which, I suppose.
What Would I Do Differently?
What would I do? Again I’m no expert and it’s easier to critique a work and make suggestiosn on a work than to create a work. I’m going to spin off some ideas, again because this blog is really just for me and nobody is reading anyway, but know that I’m don’t think I’m a better writer than Suzanne Collins.
I would do one of two things: have Katniss be a mentor to another Hunger Games combatant OR set it from the perspective of Gale.
Katniss as a mentor would be interesting. She, Haymitch, and Peeta would have to train 2 tributes knowing full well that they both can’t survive. The whole “lovers” trick can’t work twice. So it brings up a lot of ethical and moral questions. It also pits the three against each other if they decide to focus on different tributes. Maybe the tributes themselves don’t like each other. It sounds like it could easily be an interesting story and it puts Katniss right in the Capitol where she can interact more freely with Snow and set up some personal antagonism with him. It also introduces two (or more) new characters that we get to know who can be part of the finale. It takes the ideas set up in the first book and expands on them without rehashing them (Katniss as mentor, rather than as tribute). She could also start conspiring with some of the other tributes or tribute mentors and she can worm her own way into the rebellion. In this scenario the rebellion still exists as it did in the actual book, but Katniss doesn’t find this out at the very end during a “see you next book” event, she organically figures it out over time. The ending to the book could be her figuring out a way to bust out her tributes (and some of the other “good” ones) just like in the original book, but this time it’s her initiative. It’s something she does rather than something that happens to her. During the process of busting them out, something can go horribly wrong and someone close to Katniss can die (Haymitch, Peeta, Gale, whatever) at Snow’s hand. We set-up some stakes here and up the ante on a personal level going into the finale.
The other option I thought of was to set it from Gale’s perspective. Why Gale? Because he was basically a non-character in the first book. It’s clear that Katniss ends up with Peeta because Gale isn’t a real person. Setting it from his perspective could fix that. The plot could be him starting the rebellion against the Evil Overseer. We’re going to (spoilers) find out that in the third book the Capitol has mind control. Why don’t they use that on Katniss and Peeta then? Use them as spokesmen for the Capitol. They defied the Capitol, but they did so for love. That’s the story we’re going to shove down everyone’s throats. And you know who they love even more? The Capitol baybeeeee! Instead of moving to Winner’s Row (or whatever its called) they move to the Capitol. They’re positioned as sell-outs. They won and got rich and famous so now they’re on Team Rich-and-Famous. They’re here to sell you on the idea that the Capitol isn’t really that bad or whatever. Gale think it’s bullshit and he has to find a way to infiltrate the Capitol, figure out what’s going on, and break Katniss and Peeta’s mind control. The Overseer can hunt him down as this happens. Katniss can take back over as main character for the second half of the book or take over for book 3. But now we’ve raised personal stakes and we’ve made Gale an actual person. Someone could actually conceivably be Team Gale and thus we can sell “Team Gale” merch.
Anyway what was the point of this? Again I just wanted to get this off my chest. I wanted to analyze how I think this book has already failed as a Book 2 and it’s going to be hard for Book 3 to jump off from Book 2 after it failed in so many ways. Again, it’s not a bad book, but it could have been so much more than “mid”. Oh well. Thanks for reading if you stuck around this long. I plan on doing more blog posts that are more free-form thought exercises like this and you can’t stop me.
