When is the final goodbye?

Page 374-"I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go."

SPOILER ALERT! So Katniss and Peeta have both won the Hunger Games! Well, thanks to the little "stunt" Katniss pulled with getting Peeta to kill himself and trying to kill herself with the berries. All throughout the games and during the arena, Peeta has played (or truly been) the star-crossed lover boy from district twelve. Katniss, has not. Not until she found out that both tributes can win. Once she knew that, she found Peeta, nursed him back to health and kept the romance up between the two. But the Gamemakers didn't like that stunt they pulled so they have had a watchful eye on them. So the romance "act" between them has continued. Only Peeta didn't know it was an act till they were back on the train and Hyamitch said something.

This is the last line from the book. It really makes me think about how Peeta and Katniss have grown so fond of each other on camera. But will this love-fest or friendship last off screen? Peeta is angry at Katniss and only offered his hand for the cameras, much like he did when they were upset at each other and only being affectionate in fron of people or camera. But how many times has Katniss worried she would say goodbye but turn out that she wouldn't have to truly say goodbye. Now, she mentions that she will have to finally let go. Let go of what? The feelings for Peeta she thinks doesn't exist? The "love" she shared with him? Or truly himself, and have it go back to the way it was, as if they didn't even know each other?

How many times can you say goodbye to someone for them to only come back into you life? Or if you keep thinking every goodbye will be your last? But Katniss really means something here. She knows that things that happened on camera were for camera, or almost entirely for it. And she can't stop thinking about Gale. She knows that Gale will unintentioanlly drive a wedge between her and Peeta. But letting go of him? Of the bond they have aquirred together or the romance-fake or real- will be left at the doors of the train or even was left back at the capital.

Even being with someone who you once cared about doesn't mean you arent "dead" to them. Especially when you are in a relationship, no matter how long you keep up the act, the final goodbye was when the words that left your/other persons mouth saying we shoudln't/can't be together. No matter how much time you spend with them. The final godbye should have been when your feelings crumbled for the person. But does that happen. Can you just keep saying goodbye, and not wanting anything to re-occur? Katniss has said goodbye to life and Peeta many times before-or tried- but will this be her final goodbye. Will district twelve tear the tributes apart when it should have brought them closer? Will this be the end for Katniss and Peeta, stepping off this train for a final time in fron tof cameras?

Love- The death of People

What is it about love that draws people together? A bond between friends and family? Something more? What happens when you truly love someone? Will you fight to the end of the world for them? Care and treasure the special bond you have? Indulge yourselves with each others care and love forever? Be true to them? What if you do all the possible things to make your relationship and partnership work, but something still goes wrong? What if you lose the other half of your cookie, your oreo, the love of your life? What happens then?

SPOILER ALERT! FOR ALL PARAGRAPHS! Katniss, the main character in my book The Hunger Games (Book #1), lost her father when she was eleven years old in a mine explosion.  Her mother was so devastated, it was like Katniss and her sister primrose lost their mother too. Their mother's spirit was like sucked into a black hole of emptiness and there was no way to escape. Well, it wasn't like she tried. Their mother sat back and watched as her kids starved. It was like she forgot how to live.

It's understandable to go into depression or denial when someone so very dear to you is lost forever. But it's so easy to go so deep, you can't get out. Like a maze or a labyrinth, it's hard to get out, but so very easy to get lost. Their mother was lost, for a very very long time, but she finally found her way out. She escaped and came back. But while she was "gone" Katniss became the "parent". I understand what it feels like to lose someone dear, but i promise you won't be the only one grieving and you can't let the depressiona dn denial maze and come and take you away from everyone else that loves you!

When Katniss volunteered to go to the hunger games instead of Prim it was loving and thoughtful.  Prim's name was put in the ball just ONCE but she was picked at random. Katniss jumped in front of her little sister before Prim reached the steps to stop her and volunteer. Prim wouldn't let her go but Katniss's friend Gale pulled her away and let Katniss go the the podium. Gale didn't want it either, but he knew that there was no other choice unless he wanted to let Prim go to the hunger games.

Love will make you do strange things. Thoughtful things. Caring things. Crazy things. But all are rooted in compassion and love for the other person(s).  When Katniss was saying her goodbyes to Prim and her mother, Katniss repremanded her mother about the "leaving" thing years ago. She told her that she can't leave Prim alone now because there is no Katniss to step up. When the baker said his goodbye, he told Katniss he woul watch out for Prim, and Gale promised too. It's not like they were saying "well, this is it, i'll never see youo again" but when it comes to the hungergames, i guess you have to keep that in mind. Don't let love (whether for a friend, family, or something more) blind you for the negativity of life. Just because you think there is only happiness in the world, doesn't make the bad go away. Love just prevents you from seeing it. And if you're taken by suprise, much like Katnisss' mother was, you might be sucked into the maze of depression and denial, don't let that happen

"You're going to treat me, Doc. Cure me. Fix it so I don't have to kill anymore. You're going to set me free."

SPOILER ALERT. When Harold Gund impersonatated Erin's sister and then abducted Erinfrom her home late one night , first thoughts always lead to, What does he want? Why impersonate Annie, and then drive around with me in the back duct taped and tied? Erin is a pychologist who specifically speacilizes in patients with fire fears or problems because of her ongoing fear of the flame itself because of an incident when she  was younger. Now held captive in somesort of basement in an empty house, Erin talks with the abductor and finds out the heart of the problem. Harold has a compulsion disorder of some sort where he kills only women. He has killed three so far, all by setting them on fire. He doesn't even realize when he goes out to buy the equipment that he starts to get this compulsive feeling to kill. He doesn't want but he won't tunr himself in. He told Erin she has to cure him or she will become the fourth.

This quote kind of reminds of what a four year old might say to their mother or father. "Fix it Daddy." "I need help Mommy." It's kind of like showing Harold's weak side. He's ths strong and vicious abductor but when he says this, it's like a cry for help. It is a cry for help. He's showing himself as a person and not cold-blooded. There's something about this quote that just got me. like, when he says "You're going to set me free". When he says that, it makes me think that he is bipolar. That he is being trapped much like the victims he kills and then instead of burning he just suffers. He suffers everytime he kills a woman and finally realizes what he does. Let's say for a minute that he is bipolar. That he is a victim and yet a murderer in one. But most murderers are victims in someway so what makes Harold so different. To me, it's his cry for help. It's like he's eing controlled. He definetly has a disorder, i think. And Harold is also different because he doesn't realize what he bys until it's to late. That he kind of puts himself in a trance and is a puupet to it's master. Except the master of Harold, is his brain. The brain is gentle and loving but yet deceitful and cunning. It can play tricks, much like a magician. But the brain isn't magic.

"Fix it so I don't have to kill anymore". That's Harolds cry for help. That's him making his SOS. He's just a puppet in the show. But he's a puppet and puppet master all tryin gto be the victim and the killer. Many people have hidden SOSs' or ries for help. But many people even thought the signs may be clear, they ignore it. If they don't know the person, who gives what goes on in that persons life, as long as it doesn't affect theirs. But people with that attitude, tend to in the end, are the ones that need help. That need someone to lean. Most people should just look the other way like they did to them, but some are different. They see help and help. They don't walk by it. When opportunity knocks, people take it, but when people are in troubel and need help, they jut walk away, not giving a second glance back. Erin is different. She helps others, so i have a strong feeling. Erin will survive and get help form those who got helped by her. Returning the favor is what it's called. Returning the favor is what more people need to do , be like Erin

Memories

I noticed memories have been coming up now a lot in the mystery/serial killer books i've been reading. All of Michael Prescott books and now other authors have female main characters that have a past dealing with the person they are after or have ties to a person that is extremely similiar to their childhood horror. In On the Edge of Darkness, Laura to go back to the home of the          and from where i am in the book, the man (Mr.        ) was shot and is different in someway. Not just emotionally  but also physically. And it affected Lara dramatically because she remembers little bits of the conversatiion and details from what happened.

It makes me realize how much memories impact us in a negative or positive way. I have been looking at this memory idea for a while now and at different angles. With The Giver, i was just saying how we need choices because then we can't lead our own lives if we don't have one. In class my classmates and i did projects on socal action and some projects had choices in them and i commented on them. And now, in this book about how it affects us. Especially with cops and agents, it either motivates them to get the case solved and help whoever needed it or scared because they have already gone down this dark path and something happened to them. But it's not just cops that memories affect, it's regular citizens to. If you have an abusive past, sometimes people become aggresive or see it and get flashbacks of their childghood.

No matter how deep we may bury a memory, we only need one thought, one action to make the memory resurface. And most of th etime, when it's a memory that gives us fear, once we face it and find the cause of why the memory has come back and fixed it, we bury the memory again and sometimes even though it's in our head, we don't remember it again. If it's not remebered rigth away, it's soemhow resurfaced. Not all always but most of the time with our memories that's what happens. And then all these officers and agnets then have these fearing memories that puch and movtivate them to find out th ekiller or abductor or this or that and face 'em,stop them. 

Diseases

In the book Riptide by Michael Prescott, the whole main point of plot of the book is based on the frequent topic of schizophrenia. The main character Jennifer has a brother with schizophrenia. Her father had schizophrenia and her grandfater. In the book, she found a diary of  women hater/killer "Jack the Ripper" who would kill only women and would cut them open and disbowel them. She is psychologist in the police force and she distingushes the crimminals behave and actions due to the writing and hard evidence found. While reading the diary she discovered Edward Hare-Jack- also had schizo. After Richard was born, her father took a gun and comitted sucide. Jen was nervous that Richard would become violent and soon act like the other two in her family. But she discovers that Richard never does kill, but when he was paranoid, he did get violent and that scared Jen at first. But she realized as violent as he may get, he won't kill.

I think Prescott chose a character close to the m.c. to have this dibilitating disease because he wanted not only to let the plot thicken but also to warn his readers about this disease. How schizo is not something that you can just brush off. It can be potentially dangerous and risky. Some cases are mild, not all are bad but some can be dangerous. You can't always be sure that someone with schizo isn't going to be dangerous. Especially if they don't take their pills, like Richard stopped taking his when he started to feel paranoid. That's when he started to get violent. He went from a mild case b/c of the pills to a dangerous case where he had Sandra at knife point. Of course he didn't kill her or hurt her but i bet that if he had gone longer without taking his pills or if something else freaked him out, he might have just killed her. You can never know for sure how dangerous or mild a case of schizo may be, no matter what a doctor says.

I think the whole point of adding in a dibilitating disease like schizo was to warn readers and thicken the plot but to also show that over all, all emotional based diseases might be dangerous and you shoudl be cautious around whoever has something like that. Not saying that you shoudl treat them like babies, but just always keep in the back of your head that this person has a disease and that it may be dangerous. But it's not with all disease-Breast Cancer for example, how does that pose a threat to other in a harmful way? I mean diseases like schizo, i know there are some like schizo but i can't think of the names. I also think that someone close to him, a female figure in his life, was hurt either emotionally by a disease or person, or physcially by a person. All his m.c.'s so far have been female and bothered and attacked by male figures. Maybe he witnessed or knew someone with any problems like that, or there was no connection and he just wanted to write about it. But point being, diseases are nothing to brush off and hold off on, some can be harmful to others or even yourself.

Sacrifices

There are a couple of things in Litte Girl Gone by Brett Battles that caught my attention. Sacrifices is one. Like when Sein was going to trade herself  for her daughter, Elsye.  The kidnappers (really from Burma government) wanted that. They figured they would get the women out of states and kill her. Logan realized what was going to happen and put a stop to it. He realized what point of freeing Elsye was good for her.  The gov. officials would get who they wanted and would shut her up forever. Now, Elsye would be motherless. How would that be good? When Sein first thought of the plan, it sounded good. Heck, it would even sound good to me. But, the result, the consequence Elsye would still be paying for. She would lose her mother and blame herself for being kidnapped, and probably do what Sein did when she lost her mother. Step into the empty shoes her mother once had on. Sein reminds alot like Logan actually. Logan  goes to war alongside his brother-in-law Carl. But Carl gets shot and sees a litte girl run into the cross fire and demanded in his shallow breaths for Logan to go after her. He reluctantly does and brings her back to her family and returns to Carl.  But Carl dies a few minutes after. Logan found out that the little girl also died later on due to a bullet that landed in her abdomen.

The difference between these two characters were the results. Sein and Elsye both lived while Carl and the little girl died. Either way Logan would have probably lost Carl. But that little girl, the little girl who Elsye reminded me of. She didn't mean to be born, but when she was, she was  in the "cross-fire" between her mother and the Burma Government. I think that's what pushed Logan so far to save Elsye and her mother. Carl knew he would die if Logan left him, he sacrificed himself for the little girl, much like what Sein wanted to do. He went after them because he pictured Carl "on" Tooney. He knew saving Elsye can't make up for hte little girl who died, but i eased his mind. Evenm though it was a different little girl, Logan truly saved a little girl,-she survived.

There was also something about what happened at war with Carl, the little girl and Logan. Everyone had blamed him for Carl's death. Trish walked out on  him and he lost his job. Many people acted as if they saw Carl die. Nobody but Logan saw him slip away. HE is the only one with a mental picture of that. Nobody cared if he was hurting just like everybody else, they only added onto his burden. He wondered about all the ifs, what if i didn;t go after the girl, what if i left Carl and i got shot, what if... In a sense he hid that from everyone. His doubts, his what ifs, his guilt. Nobody would listen to him anyway. They judged and fibbed about what they heard. There were two parts from the war story. Logan's, and what people believed, or wanted to believe. There were two sides of feelings to the story. Logan's and the people. Sometimes people judge without knowing all the facts. Someone is tough and hardcore. You assume they're bad and mean. Don't judge until you know BOTH sides from a story and know which is truth and lie. Don;t be like the people who didn't care about Logan, who didn't take the time to sit down and listen.