Tributes were shipped in animal crates to the capital and aren’t pampered like they were in the later books - they’re not even fed :skull:

This is the first time tributes are paired with mentors who are students at the Academy in the Capitol

This is the first time they’re given sponsors and gambling is introduced

Snow and Tigres are cousins

The arena is the old ampitheatre in the capitol, they dumb the tributes in there and leave them to fight, they just remove the bodies after it’s done there’s no clean up

I really enjoyed it but the last 20 pages... wtf?! Once Lucy won the games I thought that she’d end up being killed by the Capitol or perhaps even in district 12 which would harden Snow and make him the person you see in THG, but no??

He’s kind and caring throughout the whole thing and then the last 20 pages, for absolutely no reason turns on the woman he loves (who also for no reason turns on him, DISAPPEARS and then you don’t even find out what happens to her either?!?!) he tries to kill her and then returns to the peacekeepers.

It’s just ugh, it’s so frustrating because it could have been done well, but it’s just makes no sense, it’s literally serving Daenerys Mad Queen.

Also if he was going to return to the peacekeepers so easily (because he finds and destroys the weapons) surely his motivation for running away with Lucy isn’t that strong anyway? I just don’t get it :fist: Also would have liked to have had more of an epilogue to see what happened between him and Tigris for her to end up where she does and clearly so distant from him.

I thought it was pretty evident that he was conflicted about his humanity and self preservation/self promotion. The author did a decent job of making the reader feel conflicted about this seemingly lovely young man's ideology leading him astray. It really speaks to the logic of capitalism over socialism in a way. How the justification for the Capitol, which all the followers of the trilogy see as evil, is indoctrinated in their youth. It's amplified by Snow's relationship with the Plinth boy and his own conflict over district and capitol. But we see Snow's decline down the "wrong" path as he he provides friendship only to the extent that it serves his own purpose.