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“My prep team. My foolish, shallow, affectionate pets, with their obsessions with feathers and parties, nearly break my heart with their good-bye.” 

This quote appears as Katniss’s prep team finishes her hair and makeup just before she does the tribute interview with Caesar Flickerman. It reveals the mixed feelings Katniss has about the team and the people in the Capitol more generally. Katniss feels consistently shocked by the superficial concerns of her team since her concerns, and those of everyone in the districts, are far more consequential. While her prep team worries about parties and how they look, Katniss worries about the safety of her family and friends and whether they have enough to eat. At the same time, however, Katniss knows her team genuinely cares about her, and she’s come to feel real affection for Venia, Octavia, and Flavius. She looks down on them for their shallowness, but she also recognizes that they’re just a product of the Capitol. They’ve never known the sorts of hardships that she and the people in the districts endure on a daily basis.

The quote ties directly into the theme of the ignorance of the privileged. At various times in the novel we see how the people of the Capitol live oblivious to the suffering of the people in the districts. The most notable example is the feast at President Snow’s mansion. On learning that people in Capitol make themselves vomit so they can continue gorging, Katniss’s thoughts turn immediately to the many people she knows are starving in her home district. She finds the thought anyone would waste food in such a way when others are in such desperate need appalling and insulting, because they show no regard for the suffering going on outside the Capitol that could be alleviated with the food they’re wasting. The Hunger Games themselves are another example of the ignorance that the privileged enjoy. It’s easy for the people in the Capitol to view the Games as entertainment because it’s not their children who are competing. They quite literally don’t know the anguish the Games cause for the families of the children who are chosen because they never have to experience it firsthand. Katniss’s quote acknowledges this sort of ignorance, but it also suggests that her prep team and the people in the Capitol more generally aren’t entirely responsible for it. They’re products of their environment. If Katniss didn’t take this detail into account, she most likely wouldn’t feel any affection for her prep team.

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