Yeah, Prim dies at the very end, not at the beginning—which I also had an issue with, because that was Katniss' worst fear realized, her greatest trauma, and we didn't even get to see the aftermath of that. It happened, and then there were two very short chapters after that, one of which was "so I married Peeta, and a few years later he convinced me to have kids, the end." It felt like, having set up protecting Prim as The Purpose Of Her Life, skipping the aftermath of Prim's death was very strange.
I think the explanation for Katniss' despair was supposed to be finding out that Thirteen was imperfect too (the leader of Thirteen, Coin, is not a very nice lady, and on top of that the book hates politicians always and Thirteen naturally does have some), but since that realization happened offstage, the impact was badly muffled. I might've bought her sleepy hopelessness better if I'd seen her realization that Thirteen was a bunch of haters, but I didn't. I heard about it after the fact.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-09-13 12:51 am (UTC)I think the explanation for Katniss' despair was supposed to be finding out that Thirteen was imperfect too (the leader of Thirteen, Coin, is not a very nice lady, and on top of that the book hates politicians always and Thirteen naturally does have some), but since that realization happened offstage, the impact was badly muffled. I might've bought her sleepy hopelessness better if I'd seen her realization that Thirteen was a bunch of haters, but I didn't. I heard about it after the fact.
I don't know.