The Hunger Games 3

"The doors have only just shut behind us when we're engulfed by the prep teams, who are nearly unitelligible as they babble out praise. As I glance around, I notice a lot of the other tributes are shooting us dirty looks, which confirms what Ive suspected, weve literally outshone them all. Then Cinna and Portia are there, helping us down fron the chariot, carefully removing our flaming kind of spray from a canister.

I relize I'm still glued to Peeta and force my stiff fingers to open. We both massage out hands.

'Thanks for keeping hold of me. I was getting a little shaky out there,' says Peeta.

'It didnt show,' I tell him. 'I'm sure no one noticed.'

'I'm sure they didnt notice anything but you. You should wear flames more often,' he says. 'They suit you.' And then hives me a smile that seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me.

A warning bell goes off in my head. Dont be so stupid. Peeta is planning how to kill you, I remind myself.  He is luring you in to make you easy prey. The more likable he is, the more deadly he is. 


But because two can play at this game, I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. Right on his bruise." (Collins_72)

These Games make the tributes paranoid about everything. Peeta has helped Katniss before and is being nice to her because he's madly in love with her and always has been, but she thinks he's just planning to kill her. He wants to get on her good side, get to know her, and then kill her using her weaknesses and knowing her strengths. It's sad. Peeta is the baker's son. He isn't a killer or a fighter. At least Katniss has hunted for most of her life. The second she gets put into the Games, she over thinks everything about what he does. 


And poor Peeta! this is a terrible situation for him. I feel so bad. He loves her and has to go into these stupid Games. All because of the Capitol and their entertainment. But what Katniss is thinking makes sense, at this point, she thought there could only be one winner, if either one of them won, the other would have to die. 


In this passage, Cinna told Katniss and Peeta to hold hands. This simple gesture manipulated everyone in the Capitol's mind. By seeing two tributes holding hands, they would suspect something was going on between the two romantically. This would be a whole new type of drama and excitement in the Hunger Games. By thinking this, people would want the two to live longer to see what they would do, so they could get more sponsors to survive.