The Infiltration of the Capitol was a rescue mission staged by District 13 to liberate captured victors from the Capitol's underground prison.[1]
Background[]
The 75th Hunger Games ended abruptly when Katniss Everdeen fired an electrified arrow at the arena's force field, blowing it open.[2] A rebel hovercraft rescued her along with Finnick Odair and Beetee Latier. Soon after this, Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, and Enobaria were captured from the arena by the Capitol,[3] and Annie Cresta was abducted from District 4 to be imprisoned alongside them.[4]
Captivity in the Capitol[]
After the victors' capture, Peeta spent time in his quarters building card houses until he was brought out for an interview with Caesar Flickerman. Peeta recounted his version of what had happened in the arena and, presumably having been coached by the Capitol, called for the Second Rebellion to come to a ceasefire. This interview would not be aired on television for another several weeks; it reached District 13 at 18:30, after Katniss visited the bombed-out remains of District 12 for the first time.[5] Peeta, Johanna, and possibly Annie were held in adjacent cells. As part of their torture, they were forced to listen to each other's screams.[6] Johanna was starved, beaten, had her head shaven, and she was soaked with water and tortured with electric shocks. This caused her to develop a fear of water.[7] Darius and Lavinia, two Avoxes who had served the District 12 tributes in the Training Center, were also tortured alongside the victors; Lavinia's heart stopped instantly when she received a lethal electric shock, and Darius was beaten and dismembered for days before he succumbed to his injuries.[8] Peeta had not yet begun to undergo hijacking at this time,[9] but he was eventually subjected to injections of tracker jacker venom and exposed to upsetting stimuli in order to brainwash him into fearing Katniss, to the point where he would attempt to kill her.[10]
Peeta in his second propo in Mockingjay - Part 1.
By the time of his second interview with Caesar, aired four or five days after the first, Peeta had lost "at least fifteen pounds" and showed signs of pain when he moved. He'd also developed a nervous hand tremor, and he had bags under his eyes. This time, Peeta warned Katniss that the rebels were using her as a weapon, and urged her to find out what was going on.[11]
Peeta during his third propo.
Three days later, Peeta was made to recount war damage allegedly perpetrated by rebels in his final propaganda video for the Capitol, this time aired live. District 13 was able to break into the broadcast with their own propos of Finnick. After battling back and forth for control, President Coriolanus Snow asked Peeta if he had any "parting thoughts" for Katniss, and Peeta revealed that the Capitol was planning to bomb District 13.[12] The warning came ten minutes before District 13's own systems would have detected the oncoming assault, at which point everyone was already evacuated into a bunker deep underground.[10] Bunker missiles[13] hammered the district for three days, causing significant damage to its infrastructure. Anyone on the first ten levels of the complex would have been killed, but due to the timely warning, no lives were lost.[14]
The Raid[]
- "Covers will be blown. People may die. But keep in mind that they're dying every day."
- —Haymitch Abernathy to Katniss[src]
With Peeta and Annie in Capitol custody, Katniss and Finnick's mental and emotional states were greatly compromised. Fearing the loss of their most crucial propaganda assets, District 13's special forces launched a rescue mission into the Capitol— the first known rebel action to take place inside the city itself— aimed at freeing Peeta and Annie, as well as Johanna and Enobaria.[1]
The rescue was carried out in the last week of August, five or six weeks after their initial capture, by a team of seven from District 13. This team was volunteer-only, headed by Boggs and including Gale Hawthorne,[14] though the other five operatives are unknown.
District 13 special forces about to extract Peeta from his cell.
At 15:00, District 13 aired a series of propos in the Capitol as a distraction, known as an airtime assault. The most prominent was a damning exposé by Finnick of sexual exploitation and government corruption. During this time, the team and rebel insiders freed three of the victors from an underground prison. As a diversion, rebels detonated a bomb in a government building several miles away, then cut the power to the prison and distributed knockout gas through the vents. Gale received a wound under his shoulder blade, but three of the four victors were successfully recovered. The fourth, Enobaria, was presumed by District 13 to have been released by the Capitol at some point prior.[1]
In The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, the victors were rescued from belowground levels of the Training Center, and the rescue took place at night. President Snow outright told Katniss over a video call that he knew about the infiltration, but even once the Capitol's air defense system was back online, the team was able to leave without being shot down.[15]
Aftermath[]
Peeta in District 13, just before attacking Katniss.
The team and rescued victors arrived in District 13 around midnight. Annie was lucid and apparently unharmed, though bedraggled, naked, and only wrapped in a sheet when she ran to hug Finnick. Johanna was still unconscious from the knockout gas, emaciated and bruised with her head shaven. Peeta was just waking up and having his vitals checked by doctors when he attempted to strangle Katniss to death.[1]
Peeta was knocked out by Boggs, and it was revealed soon after that he had been hijacked for this exact purpose. That was why the Capitol had let him go; they intended to use him as a weapon against Katniss. Additionally, the night after the rescue, President Snow aired the live execution of Portia, who was Peeta's stylist, and his prep team.[10]
Recovery[]
Katniss had a brief hospital stay for her bruised larynx, and Gale spent some time recovering from his injury; upon his discharge, he and Beetee Latier devised death traps for use in the war, justifying it as using the same rulebook as Snow did hijacking Peeta.[10]
Johanna remained in the hospital, speaking with a head doctor she despised and receiving doses of morphling. She quickly developed an addiction to the drug,[16] and she battled withdrawals when she and Katniss trained as soldiers ahead of the Battle of the Capitol.[6] However, Johanna failed her last assessment when a simulated flood triggered a traumatic flashback to her torture, so she was unable to join the war effort as a combatant.[7]
Peeta strapped to a hospital bed, speaking with Prim, in Mockingjay - Part 2.
Doctors from District 13 treated Peeta, at first allowing him only the most innocuous visitors like his childhood friend Delly Cartwright.[10] However, progress undoing his hijacking only began to be made once Primrose Everdeen suggested using morphling to calm him and hijack him back, creating positive associations to repair his distorted memories.[17] Despite this, Peeta was not by any means cured when he was sent as an auxiliary member of Squad 451,[7] and after the war, he had to remain in the Capitol for several months receiving treatment from Dr. Aurelius before he was cleared to return home to District 12.[18]
Annie and Finnick about to kiss at their wedding.
Little is known of Annie Cresta's captivity or recovery. However, she and Finnick were able to have a wedding in District 13, and Peeta decorated their cake.[16] They were happily married[6] for a brief time before Finnick's deployment to the Capitol.[7] At some point between her arrival and his departure, Annie became pregnant with their son, and she sent Katniss and Peeta a photo of her little boy after the war.[18]
Trivia[]
- In Mockingjay - Part 1, Peeta was held on lower level 2C in cell P45, at the very end of a wing labeled R0:CTF:41P.[15]
- Haymitch told Katniss he volunteered for the mission, but that Boggs "pretended not to notice [him] waving [his] hand in the air."[14]
- According to Haymitch, Gale stepped up first to volunteer.[14]
- In the film, Haymitch said it was a team of six volunteers rather than seven.[15]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Mockingjay, Chapter 12
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 26
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 27
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 1
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 2
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Mockingjay, Chapter 17
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Mockingjay, Chapter 18
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 19
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 21
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Mockingjay, Chapter 13
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 8
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 9
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 10
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Mockingjay, Chapter 11
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 16
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 14
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 27