Yes
She didn’t agree because she supported the decision. She agreed because it would make Coin no longer view her as a threat, thus giving her the opportunity to stick an arrow through her skull. And Haymitch said yes because he knew what Katniss was doing. Because they always communicated in that subtle way.
That was my impression anyway.
That’s what I took away from it, as well.
I just watched a 10am showing of the movie yesterday, and read the whole trilogy within the next 35 hours, so this is all fresh in my mind. Compelling stuff! Glad I didn’t read the books until the whole trilogy was out, though, because I despise cliffhangers.
There’s no secret alliance between Snow and Coin. Snow had barricaded himself with children because he thought it would cause the rebels to hesitate. And it very well may have done, except that Coin saw it as her opportunity to wipe out Katniss for good as a potential rival. She engineered Prim to be on the front lines, and arranged for her to be killed (along with the other medics and children) by the double bombs. There was no alliance, it was merely Coin capitalizing on an opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone–destroy Katniss, who was already mentally fragile from the demands on her as mockingjay and dealing with Peeta, and clear the path for the rebels to capture Snow. 3 birds, really, because she used a Capitol hovercraft to do it, thereby causing the survivors on BOTH sides to despise Snow more than they already did (after Finnick’s confessions). There would be a *universal mandate *for her to assume power. *That’s *what motivated her actions, not some weird pact between her and Snow.
This action (along with her subsequent desire to reinstate the Hunger Games in reverse) makes Coin, really, the most ruthless and despicable character in the book. She was a snake, just as much as Snow was. There could be no alliance between them, because he was standing in her way and could not be trusted any more than he could trust her. I maintain that Coin is more despicable than Snow because she did not LEARN from 75 years of oppression and famine and child murder. Moreover, it *explicitly states *in the book the reason Coin didn’t house Snow in a decrepit dungeon, and it has nothing to do with an alliance between them (bolding mine):
“I’d supposed he would be secured in the deepest dungeon that the Capitol had to offer, not cradled in the lap of luxury. Yet Coin left him here. To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it would be understood that presidents–even the most despicable–get special treatment. Who knows, after all, when her own power might fade?”
It’s also mentioned in the book that Snow would have escaped on a hovercraft, if he’d had one at his disposal. He didn’t, they were decimated when District 2’s “Nut” was taken out. So I hope we can agree, there was no alliance between Coin and Snow. Neither explicit *nor *implied. The book doesn’t support this conclusion at all.
If I may expound further on Coin’s character, I feel fairly confident that she didn’t despise Snow the way everyone else did. She maintained the appearance of despising him, but that and the mockingjay tactics were mere affectations. She’s the ultimate sociopath, who hated the current President only because he posed an obstacle to her ultimate power (the same way he viewed his own opponents through the years). She was cold, ruthless, calculating, and would have understood his reasoning quite well. The vote on the 76th Hunger Games, and the various statements from main characters about how she obviously viewed Katniss’s life as expendable, show that she was at least as ruthless and disgusting and as much of a user as Snow. Her initial declaration that the 76th Hunger Games (with Capitol children) would be the final Hunger Games was probably another lie. I think it’s pretty safe to say that, once she was installed as President, they would have continued as before–merely with a reversal of fortune. Getting the first Games restarted was the only difficult part. After that, it would be easy to whip up the populace into continuing them. And without intervention, the district peoples would have become infused with corruption of the former Capitol, allowing the cycle to continue back and forth into perpetuity.
Katniss shattered that cycle with a single arrow. It’s very poetic. And that’s why book 3 is so fucking amazing. It was definitely my favorite, and I’m glad she ended up with Peeta (even though I didn’t like him in the beginning). I agree the ending was far too rushed, though. To spend so many dozens of pages on Katniss’s mental deterioration, yet only 4 on the resolution (and a mere 2 pages on the epilogue regarding her decision to have children) was uncharacteristic of Collins’s writing style. A trilogy this massive with such a strong message deserves a proper ending. Maybe she’ll rewrite it one day.
Unlike a lot of other posters here, I really liked the way Katniss’s deterioration developed (Peeta’s, too). It was basically a treatise on PTSD. Anyone who expects a young heroine to become stronger and more hardened, no matter how much death they encounter (and worse, feel responsible for causing) has no idea how humans operate. Only a sociopath could possibly function that way… and even then, the most hardened sociopath would be put off by an end to the human race, because it would inconvenience them greatly. To expect Katniss to become stronger over time is to ascribe to her the characteristics of a robot. But Katniss wasn’t a sociopath or a robot. She was a fairly angry teenager who was forced by her father’s death and her mother’s inaction to grow up far too early. I admit, there were parts of the book where I was practically yelling at her for being so indecisive and immature regarding her feelings for Peeta/Gale, but then I reminded myself, *she was only 16/17. *And the entire series spans a period of less than 2 years. And for her whole life, she was stuck in a permanent state of hunger and want. If we go back to Maslow’s hierarchy, she was never given the chance to develop her Social self because she was stuck treading water for her Physiological needs. So the fact that she was immature and childish and indecisive makes sense, from a character development perspective.
Also, anyone who says she mischaracterized her mother wasn’t reading the same book as I was. Her mom completely gave up on life, due to depression. She was unable to work or earn money or food for her pre-teenaged kids, in a very grim city where even people who DID try very hard could still die of starvation. Given the circumstances of pre-rebellion life in District 12, there was no room for mental illness–the family would not have survived if Katniss didn’t do a hell of a lot of growing up, very fast. It’s quite easy to see why Katniss simultaneously loves, despises, and infantilizes her mother. To a certain extent, even people nowadays who have sub-par parents can understand this mindset–I am with her 100% there. Whether due to mental illness or self-absorption, Katniss’s reaction to her mother was totally justified and absolutely rings true, even in modern times.