Hello, good people of FF!
Here is the new chapter. It is shorter than the previous one and than the next one but it is one of my favorites. I had a lot of trouble writing it and I'm not sure I'm entirely satisfied with it. Well, I am, but you will see that the end is... well it might seem a bit rough, like a first draft or something. It is not the case. It is my way of conveying the confusion about the whole situation (you'll get it when you're done reading).
I will write another chapter about this character to continue to explore his POV but it will probably come way later, so be patient.
Last piece of info: I wrote this based on the movie more than the book. I just find this part of the movie so perfect and so full of something that is left unsaid that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to dissect it. I hope you'll like my take on this.
So keep the movie scene in ming while reading it. In fact, I suggest that you open a Youtube tab (Catching Fire - Tributes Interview) and keep it open while you read to replay the scene as you read.
I don't know when the next update is. The next chapter should be about Gloss but I'm not done writing it.
Enjoy!
Until next time ;)
They watched
Caesar Flickerman
Caesar knows he is one of the symbols of the Capitol.
Everyone in Panem knows who he is and what he does.
Nobody really knows who he is, though.
Caesar could tell you who he is, where he comes from, who were his parents, how his childhood was. He could.
But he won't.
This is not important.
And nobody cares anyway.
Nobody really cares about anything in the Capitol.
And they forget all too quickly who a person is and where she or he comes from.
Or even that this person is human altogether.
Tributes are not human. Not in the eyes of the Capitol.
And for a long time, not in Caesar's eyes either.
But it changed quickly when he became the Master of Ceremonies and main host for the Hunger Games.
One does not simply pretend that those children are not human when one has to shake trembling and sweaty hands with them.
In his long career Caesar has shaken his fair share of on-the-verge-of-breaking tribute hands. He has seen the fear in their eyes more often than not.
Caesar is rich. Tremendously rich. He could have stopped his career long ago but chose not to. Hosting is what he does best, there's no reason for him to stop.
And tributes fascinate him.
He knows that his fascination with them was morbid at first. Just a Capitol citizen thrilled to get so close to them.
It had changed when their humanity slapped him in the face.
The fascination stayed but it morphed into a less sordid interest.
He wanted to make them unforgettable to the world, just like every one of them was for him, if only just for a moment. Let them shine, those children whose light would soon be lost forever.
All but one.
Now, the Victors, those are the ones who truly fascinate Caesar. Or more exactly, the transformation from tribute to Victor.
Capitolites change almost everything about themselves. Even Caesar doesn't escape the norm. His body hasn't change for decades now; he makes sure of that. But someone might alter every single detail of his or her body and still wouldn't come even close to the complete and utter transformation undergone by a Victor.
And that fascinates Caesar.
It fascinates him to try and see the future Victor in each tribute. Who will make the jump? Who will come back and shake his hand again, this time maybe trembling but in a whole different way?
In his long career Caesar has shaken his fair share of Victor's hands. The thrill of it is like no other.
Even though those hands become mentor's hands, they always remain Victor's hands underneath the surface.
A Victor's hand has nothing on a Victor's eyes.
It's ultimately in the eyes that the transformation is the most profound.
Caesar likes to think he has a special kind of connection with the eyes of the Victors. He knows them all, all those same eyes of Victors. Yet each Victor has different eyes.
A part deep inside of Caesar is deeply afraid of those eyes.
Victor's eyes are eyes that have looked into the abyss. Eyes from which the abyss stares back into Caesar every time he shakes their hands, seeing deep inside him, in his core, and telling him so many things.
Victors make Caesar uncomfortable. Some more than others.
Because Caesar knows.
In his long career Caesar has gotten really good at reading people. It is part of his job, after all.
In his long career Caesar had observed a lot of Victors. He has seen them all: triumphant Careers, lost girls, angry boys, beautiful, ugly, smiling, crying, trembling, joking… No two Victors are the same.
On the surface.
Underneath the makeup and the acts, Caesar has learned to see the Victors for who they were and most importantly, who they are.
People one step away from their breaking point, from snapping and become something Caesar doesn't know how to define.
What scares Caesar is that he knows many of them are not on the not yet side of that line, that breaking point anymore. They are all one step away from it, but only a few are one step back from it; too many are already one step beyond.
Victors make Caesar uncomfortable because being directly into contact with someone so close to that line makes him question everything. From what has happened to them to make them snap, to what it means to be human.
Deep, deep, deep down inside, in a part of himself Caesar fears to acknowledge even exists, it makes him question the legitimacy of the Games. And deeper still, the legitimacy of a government that would not only condone them but encourage and strive on them. Caesar is not strong enough to ever admit this exists in him.
If he were, he would also admit this was part of the reason why Victors have always made him feel uncomfortable.
But never before had Caesar Flickerman felt as uncomfortable as now.
He really shouldn't feel this uncomfortable. He was in known territory: interviewing tributes before the Games, interviewing Victors, mentors, interviewing Gloss, who he had now known for years. Gloss, despite his size, has always been one of the Victors who made Caesar less uncomfortable.
Now standing on the stage he has worked on for years, Caesar feels as if a bucket of ice has been poured over him.
"-We're not going by choice."
One sentence.
One sentence is all Caesar needs to understand that these Games are, indeed, something no one has ever seen before and will never see again.
Caesar starts to suspect he will soon be happy about that.
Gloss, Victor of the 63rd Hunger Games, perfect District 1 tribute, Victor and mentor, volunteer for the third Quarter Quell, has just told the world that he is not going back into the arena by choice.
Caesar has always been fascinated by a Victor's hand and eyes.
But for the very first time in his long career Caesar is confronted by a Victor' smile.
Gloss' smile.
This is not the I-just-got-out-of-the-arena lower-case-victor smile. This is not the mentor smile. This is not the interview smile.
That smile is the sign that Gloss has just crossed the line.
A line Caesar hadn't even been aware existed.
Not the line between a tribute and a Victor. Not the line between sanity and insanity.
No.
This was the line between a Capitol Victor and a Hunger Games Victor.
The Capitol has crossed a line.
A shiver runs up Caesar's spine.
Underneath the makeup, Caesar Flickerman can see the edge of the razor sharp blade of that smile.
He is still shaking off the effects of that smile when Enobaria comes onto the stage.
For the first time Caesar sees her golden teeth as something else than a fashion trend she set up years ago. Not something more, something else entirely. Was it ever a fashion trend at all?
This woman Caesar is smiling to, this hand that Caesar is shaking, is a weapon.
Caesar knows he is successful in hiding his uneasiness from the audience but he can't shake the growing feeling that he is moving around on an unstable ground.
When Brutus, strong, imposing, victorious Brutus walks back to his seat, his back exposed to the audience yet still making him feel like a prey, Caesar Flickerman realizes that for the first time in his long career he doesn't run the show.
He tries grasping back tendrils of control but Beetee, in his nervous but soft voice, questions the legality of the Games.
Caesar realizes that the Victors are done playing.
For the first time in his career, in his life, the tributes are not the only ones playing. No, this isn't true. They have never played. The Capitol was playing. Caesar was playing. Tributes have never played. And now, these tributes, these Victors, have brought the arena here, onto the stage.
They have been forced back into the arena. They had decided that they wouldn't go in alone. They would bring the whole Capitol with them. And Caesar was just a lamb in a war of wolves. Only, he wasn't so sure who the wolves were fighting anymore.
This is not an unstable ground Caesar is walking on. Not even shifting sands. This is a slippery slope in a hail storm, and there is nothing Caesar can do to keep upright.
He tries to minimize the words but deep down he knows it is useless – and even deeper, he is not sure he disagrees with them.
He is relieved when Finnick arrives on stage. Finnick knows how to play by the rules. Caesar knows that the youngest Victor will allow him a small reprieve.
But there is just something in Finnick's expression. Caesar knows he's not going to have his reprieve. He recognizes the expression for what it is: Finnick is angry. Caesar knows that Finnick could easily smile for the camera. He has done so for years. And he does now. But his smile is not a smile. It's a smirk. It's a snarl. It's words bitten onto to keep from escaping. It's a shout camouflaged as a snigger. It's a Victor's smile that threatens to reveal itself.
And only then come Finnick's words. They're perfectly camera safe. They're a goodbye to his one true love.
They are a threat. A promise.
The soft words are the deafening sound of Finnick's leash being torn to shreds by the very cage he is forced back into.
Fortunately for Caesar the next few Victors are easier to handle. At least verbally. Caesar can't shake the uneasiness the Victors of District 6 inspire in him with their morphling-distant eyes.
Johanna Mason's yells of hate and anger shouldn't have surprised Caesar. He should have expected her to do something like that. She has always been fiery since her Games. But Caesar is shaken up nonetheless.
Her anger shakes him because in that moment he is without a doubt that had she been holding her ax, Caesar Flickerman would be bloody pieces on the glowing stage.
Woof and Cecelia break Caesar's heart. Caesar feels disgusted with himself as Cecelia thanks her husband for the happiness and the three children he has given her and whom she will never see again, who will be forced to watch as their mother is killed in a circus.
Woof's body and mind have started to break down after years and years on living. He is barely able to get through his interview because of his failing ears. Caesar feels less than human for participating in the masquerade that sends this old man to his death. He should be allowed to finish his life in dignity, not covered by layers of makeup trying to hide his wrinkles. Mags was easier to face. At least she had chosen to be there (Caesar refused to think about her reasons or how wrong it was that this was even possible).
The next interviews are a breeze compared to the rest. Even Chaff's drunkenness. Caesar is used to that. He can work with it. He is even glad for it. He embraces the stability of this known territory before the hurricane that it sure to be District 12's interviews.
And a hurricane it is. Caesar tries, he tries to diffuse whatever explosive has just been armed by the smoke and flames and black and feathers. But he knows, deep down, in his bones, at his very core, Caesar knows that it is too late. As Katniss Everdeen spreads her wings for the world to see, he knows the game is over. He knows that the Mockingjay has set the world on fire. And really, he should have expected it. Was he not the one to nickname her the Girl on Fire?
Caesar dares not turn to watch the Victors' reactions to the flight of the bird. He suspects he heard a bark of laughter or two, and sharp intakes of breath. No, these are not intakes of breath, these are sharp relieved sighs.
When it is Peeta's turn, Caesar is relieved. He knows he shouldn't feel hopeful, that until now hope has been futile. But he also knows that Peeta is finely aware of what he can and cannot tell. Caesar has always liked Peeta. That kid, no, man, is even more skilled than Caesar is at moving the crowds. Caesar knows that Peeta knows just how dangerous and explosive this situation is. Surely, he will try to diffuse it.
Only he doesn't. He doesn't diffuse it. He doesn't disarm the bomb. In fact, he makes it explode and adds shrapnel to it.
In the roars of the Capitol crowd Caesar hears the cries of war of Panem.
When he sees the Victors join hands and stand, Caesar is swept by emotions. Before him stand 24 Victors, 24 tributes and Victors of the Hunger Games. They have always fascinated him but in this moment, this fascination crystallizes in something more. Or maybe is shattered. He isn't sure.
Caesar has always fancied himself as having a special kind of bond with the tributes and the Victors.
As 24 of them face him now and face the world, Caesar finds them glorious, magnificent and terrifying.
The Capitol forgets that tributes are human.
Caesar now understands that these Victors are indeed not human, but they are not less than human. They have become something beyond that. Something beautiful and terrible. Powerful beyond his comprehension.
In his bones, Caesar knows that these Games are going to change the world, that these people, who have been changed so deeply by the Capitol, are going to change the world.
When the lights of the stage go out, Caesar feels terrified. He is alone in a room plunged in the darkness with killers who have nothing to lose. What is more terrifying is that this is true both literally and figuratively.
Caesar has always been fascinated by tributes and Victors, by how they were changed by the Games.
Caesar has always been good at reading people.
Caesar has always been in control of the crowds.
Caesar has always been many things.
But now, for the life of him, Caesar couldn't tell what he is or what he feels.
He is lost.
What had just happened?
In that moment, Caesar Flickerman only knows one thing: the Victors are done playing the game.
