Catching Fire

As the Victory Tour begins, Katniss Everdeen is already miserable. Winning the Hunger Games has given her money and a house in Victor's Village, but it has also left her isolated from Gale Hawthorne, awkward with Peeta Mellark, and permanently under Capitol control. Her dread becomes immediate when President Snow appears in her home and tells her the truth: her threat to eat poisonous berries with Peeta was not seen everywhere as romance. In some districts it looked like defiance, and that defiance is feeding unrest. Snow says Seneca Crane has been executed and warns Katniss that if she cannot convince Panem that everything she did came from love for Peeta, Gale and both their families could die. Haymitch Abernathy confirms the trap is even larger than the tour. The Capitol will expect Katniss and Peeta to continue their romance for life, likely all the way to marriage.

On the train, Peeta apologizes for shutting Katniss out after the first Games, and they rebuild some trust. In District 11, however, the tour shows Katniss how dangerous her symbolic power has become. Peeta promises financial support to Rue's and Thresh's families, and Katniss speaks sincerely about both of them. The crowd answers with Rue's whistle and a three-finger salute, and Peacekeepers immediately execute the old man who begins it. Afterward Katniss finally tells Peeta about Snow's threats and the purpose of the tour. The pair perform their romance more intensely across the remaining districts, but Katniss can see that rebellion is spreading anyway. In the Capitol, Peeta publicly proposes and Katniss accepts, yet Snow's tiny shake of the head afterward tells her the performance has failed.

At Snow's engagement party, Katniss stops hoping she can satisfy him and begins thinking about escape instead. She imagines fleeing into the woods with her mother, Primrose Everdeen, Gale's family, Peeta, and Haymitch. At the same party, the new Head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee, behaves oddly and briefly shows her a watch with a mockingjay. Back in District 12, Katniss secretly sees restricted footage of an uprising in District 8, proving the rebellion is real. She tells Gale everything at the lake house, including Snow's threats, and urges him to run away with her. Gale admits he loves her and briefly agrees, but their deeper divide soon appears: Katniss wants survival, while Gale believes the districts should fight. Before anything can be settled, District 12's new Head Peacekeeper, Romulus Thread, has Gale publicly whipped for poaching. Katniss throws herself in front of the lash, Haymitch and Peeta help stop the beating, and Mrs. Everdeen saves Gale's life with Madge Undersee's morphling. Watching Gale suffer convinces Katniss that running will not end the Capitol's violence. She decides to stay and resist.

District 12 is then transformed by crackdown. The Hob is destroyed, the square becomes a place of punishment again, hunger worsens, and the fence is electrified full-time. When Katniss sneaks to the lake, she meets two fugitives from District 8, Twill and Bonnie, who describe how their district rose up during Katniss and Peeta's engagement broadcast and was brutally crushed. They also say many people believe District 13 still exists underground, and Katniss later catches the Capitol reusing old footage in a supposed live report from District 13. While wedding propaganda continues around her, Capitol shortages suggest rebellion has spread to other districts as well. Then the third Quarter Quell is announced: this Hunger Games will reap tributes from the existing pool of victors. Because she is District 12's only living female victor, Katniss knows at once she must return to the arena. Haymitch is selected as the male tribute, but Peeta immediately volunteers in his place.

Katniss breaks down, then makes one decision that shapes everything that follows: she asks Haymitch to save Peeta instead of her if it comes to a choice. Peeta, refusing to let despair take over, forces both Katniss and Haymitch into training. On the train they watch old Games footage, including Haymitch's Quarter Quell victory, and Katniss learns that Maysilee Donner, a friend of her mother's and Madge's aunt, died as Haymitch's ally. Haymitch won by using the arena's force field against the Capitol, which makes Katniss see him differently. In the Capitol, Cinna transforms Katniss's image from bridal spectacle into something severe and dangerous. She meets Finnick Odair, who flirts and says his true currency is secrets, and she is devastated to discover that Darius, the Peacekeeper who once joked with her and later tried to help Gale, has been turned into a mute Avox.

During training, Haymitch orders Katniss and Peeta to seek allies. Katniss distrusts most of the victors but is drawn to Wiress and Beetee from District 3, to the elderly Mags, and eventually to Finnick. In her private session she hangs a dummy labeled Seneca Crane, while Peeta paints Rue's flower-covered body. The Gamemakers answer their defiance by giving both of them 12s, which makes them obvious targets. At the interviews, Cinna is forced to put Katniss into a wedding dress chosen by Snow, but he secretly turns it into a black feathered mockingjay gown during her twirl. Then Peeta tells the audience that he and Katniss are effectively married and that Katniss is pregnant. The victors end the night holding hands in a line of solidarity. The Capitol cuts the broadcast, and the next morning Peacekeepers brutally beat Cinna in front of Katniss just before she is launched into the arena.

The new arena is a circle of water and jungle built to favor strong swimmers. Katniss reaches the Cornucopia and gets a bow, then trusts Finnick after he shows her a bracelet from Haymitch. Finnick rescues Peeta from the opening bloodbath, and Mags joins them as they flee inland. When Peeta hits a hidden force field, his heart stops, and Finnick saves him with resuscitation, sealing the alliance for the moment. The four learn that the arena is a domed structure with force fields above and around them, and Haymitch sends a spile that helps them find fresh water inside the trees. Then the arena's timed horrors begin. A poisonous fog attacks them, and Mags sacrifices herself by walking into it so Finnick can carry Peeta to safety. Soon after, monkey mutts swarm them, and an unstable female morphling from District 6 throws herself in front of Peeta and dies. Johanna Mason then arrives with a wounded Beetee and a traumatized Wiress, who keeps repeating, "Tick, tock." Katniss finally understands: the arena is arranged like a clock, with a different danger in each section at each hour.

The group verifies the pattern at the Cornucopia, but the knowledge brings only temporary advantage. The Careers attack. Gloss kills Wiress, Katniss shoots Gloss dead, and Johanna kills Cashmere. The Cornucopia spins, disorienting everyone and scattering the alliance. Later, in another section, jabberjays torture Katniss and Finnick with the voices of Prim, Gale, and Annie Cresta, the woman Finnick loves. Peeta comforts Katniss afterward and gives her a locket containing pictures of Prim, Mrs. Everdeen, and Gale, making clear that he still intends to die so she can return home. Katniss, meanwhile, realizes that her feelings for Peeta are no longer only part of an act. Beetee eventually unveils a plan to run his wire from the lightning tree to the beach so the midnight strike will electrocute Brutus and Enobaria.

When the trap is put into motion, the wire is suddenly cut. Johanna knocks Katniss down, slashes open her arm, and leaves her bloody and confused, making Katniss think she has been betrayed. Climbing back toward the lightning tree, Katniss finds Beetee unconscious beside a knife wrapped in wire near the force field. She realizes the real plan may have been to send lightning into the arena's shield itself. As Finnick and Enobaria close in and Peeta calls for her, Katniss remembers Haymitch's last warning to remember who the real enemy is. She ties Beetee's wire to an arrow and fires it into the weak spot of the force field just as lightning strikes the tree. The surge blows the arena apart.

Katniss wakes on a hovercraft and at first thinks the Capitol has captured her. Instead she learns from Haymitch, Plutarch, and Finnick that District 13 is real and that a rebel plan has been unfolding around her. The Quarter Quell arena was used as cover for an extraction. Many of the victors who seemed to be protecting Peeta were actually working to keep Katniss alive because the rebellion needs her as the Mockingjay. Johanna had not betrayed her; she had cut out Katniss's tracker and drawn enemies away. But the rescue did not save everyone. Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria were taken by the Capitol. Furious that Haymitch used her and failed to save Peeta, Katniss attacks him and then collapses into grief. Gale finally appears, wounded but alive, and tells her that Prim and Mrs. Everdeen escaped. His last news ends the book on full war footing: after the arena was destroyed, the Capitol firebombed District 12, and District 12 is gone.