Mockingjay

Katniss Everdeen wakes in District 13 after the Quarter Quell to find Panem in rebellion, Peeta Mellark captured by the Capitol, and District 12 reduced to ashes. When she returns briefly to the ruins of her home, the devastation makes her feel responsible for the deaths and for the war Snow has unleashed. A white rose left by President Snow in her old bedroom turns the visit into a personal warning: Snow still sees her as his enemy, and Peeta is still his leverage. Back in District 13, Katniss watches Peeta appear in a Capitol interview, alive but urging a ceasefire. His plea convinces her that there is no return to the old order, so she agrees to become the Mockingjay only after forcing Alma Coin to grant public immunity to Peeta, Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta, and Enobaria, to protect her family, and to promise her the right to kill Snow if he is captured.

Katniss quickly learns that rebellion does not mean mercy. She finds her prep team, Venia, Flavius, and Octavia, imprisoned and abused in District 13 for stealing bread, which confirms her suspicion that Coin rules through fear as well as discipline. The rebel leadership tries to turn Katniss into a polished propaganda figure, but scripted speeches fail. Haymitch Abernathy realizes that Katniss is only persuasive when she is unscripted, so she is sent to real war zones with a camera crew led by Cressida. In District 8, Katniss visits a hospital full of wounded civilians, and her mere presence gives them hope. When Capitol bombers deliberately destroy the hospital, Katniss disobeys orders, fights beside Gale Hawthorne and Commander Paylor, and then delivers a furious on-camera denunciation of Snow. The resulting propo becomes the rebellion's breakthrough, because it captures something genuine rather than manufactured.

As the propaganda war expands, Katniss returns to District 12 to film more material. There she sings 'The Hanging Tree,' and Beetee later hijacks Snow's broadcast to spread rebel messages. But the Capitol answers with more appearances from Peeta, who is now visibly weakened and eventually warns that District 13 will be attacked. His warning proves true, saving lives during a Capitol bombing of the underground district. In the bunker, Katniss realizes Snow is not keeping Peeta alive out of mercy; he is using him to torment her and keep her emotionally broken. When Katniss later collapses during another propo, unable to perform while Peeta suffers, Plutarch Heavensbee authorizes a dangerous rescue mission. To help cover it, Katniss gives a heartfelt broadcast about how Peeta once saved her life, and Finnick Odair exposes Snow's abuse of victors and his use of poison and coercion to keep power.

The rescue brings back Annie, Johanna, and Gale, and apparently Peeta as well, but the reunion becomes a nightmare when Peeta attacks Katniss and nearly strangles her. Beetee explains that the Capitol has hijacked Peeta with tracker jacker venom, corrupting his memories so that Katniss feels to him like a deadly muttation. Katniss is shattered further by news that Portia and Peeta's prep team have been executed. Delly Cartwright is briefly able to reach harmless memories in Peeta, but not the bond he had with Katniss. Meanwhile, Katniss discovers Gale and Beetee designing bombs that wound first responders and then kill those who come to help. Their trap-based logic horrifies her because it sounds too much like the Capitol's way of thinking.

Katniss is sent to District 2, where the war has stalled at the Nut, the Capitol's mountain stronghold. Gale proposes using avalanches to seal the mountain and bury its defenders. Despite Katniss's moral objections, a version of the plan is used, and many inside are trapped. The tactic wins the district but deepens Katniss's sense that the rebels are becoming capable of Capitol-style cruelty. She later prevents another massacre by speaking directly to survivors from the Nut and calling on both rebels and District 2 to recognize the Capitol as their real enemy; she is shot during the appeal. While recovering, she clashes again with Gale over the morality of what they have done. Finnick and Annie's wedding briefly restores some hope, but Katniss's meeting with Peeta shows that although fragments of his real memories are returning, the hijacking has permanently changed how he sees her. Determined not to be left behind, Katniss trains with Johanna until she qualifies for the Capitol mission.

In the Capitol assault, Katniss joins Boggs's Squad 451, only to learn they are mostly a Star Squad designed for propaganda, not frontline combat. The Capitol itself has been turned into a giant arena of hidden pods. Johanna breaks down during training because water and electricity trigger memories of torture, while Peeta is unexpectedly added to Katniss's squad by Coin, making Katniss suspect her own side may want her dead. Boggs later confirms that Coin now sees Katniss as a political threat. As the squad advances, Peeta begins trying to sort his memories through a 'real or not real' process, and Katniss starts helping him distinguish truth from hijacked terror. Then Boggs is mortally wounded by a pod explosion, transfers control of the Holo map to Katniss, and dies warning her not to trust the others, not to go back, and to do what she came to do. Faced with chaos, Katniss lies that Coin secretly sent her to assassinate Snow, and the remaining squad follows her deeper into the Capitol.

The mission quickly collapses into survival. A black tar-like wave, active pods, and Peeta's relapses nearly destroy the group. Capitol broadcasts falsely report them dead, cutting them off from District 13. Guided by Pollux through underground tunnels, the squad is hunted by lizard mutts while trying to reach the surface. Messalla dies in a lethal light pod, Jackson and Leeg 1 stay behind to hold back the mutts, and Finnick is killed during the retreat. Katniss destroys the pursuing creatures with the Holo's self-destruct, then reaches the Capitol streets with only Gale, Peeta, Cressida, and Pollux. The survivors take refuge with Tigris, where Katniss confesses that Coin never gave her assassination orders. The others admit they knew or guessed, but followed her anyway because killing Snow had become the purpose of the mission.

Disguised as refugees, the group tries to reach Snow's mansion amid the Capitol's evacuation. The city is filled with crossfire, pods, and civilians used as cover. Peeta separates to serve as a diversion, and Gale is captured after Katniss helps him reach what seems like shelter. Katniss reaches the City Circle alone and sees children penned around Snow's mansion as a human shield. A hovercraft marked with the Capitol seal drops silver parachutes among them. When the first wave explodes, rebel medics rush in, and Katniss is horrified to see Primrose Everdeen among them. A second explosion kills Prim and burns Katniss badly. In the aftermath, Snow is captured and Coin takes control. Mute with grief, Katniss clings to the promise that she will execute Snow, but when she confronts him in his greenhouse prison, Snow claims he did not order the parachute bombing. He argues that Coin had more to gain, and Katniss cannot ignore that the weapon resembles the double-explosion trap Gale and Beetee designed, or that Prim should never have been so close to the front.

Coin then confirms Katniss's worst fears about power by proposing one final symbolic Hunger Games using Capitol children. Peeta, Beetee, and Annie oppose it, while Johanna and Enobaria support it. Katniss votes yes 'for Prim,' but she does so to keep Coin unsuspecting. At Snow's public execution, Katniss raises her bow as ordered, then shoots Coin instead. Snow dies in the chaos, laughing as the regime collapses. Peeta stops Katniss from taking her nightlock pill, and she is arrested, but the new government under Commander Paylor eventually spares her on the grounds that she is psychologically shattered. Sent back to District 12, Katniss lives in near-total emptiness. Her mother remains in District 4, Gale takes a post in District 2, and the bond between Katniss and Gale quietly ends. Buttercup's return finally breaks Katniss's frozen grief over Prim. Peeta later comes home as well, plants evening primroses in Prim's memory, and helps Katniss create a book of the dead with Haymitch. Over time, hunting, baking, memory, and shared endurance become a form of healing. Katniss and Peeta build a life together, and when he asks whether her love is real, she answers that it is.