The running theme of the protagonists of each book not knowing what they're doing is so important to me. All of them, no matter how mature they are, are teenagers living in a world that doles out horrific consequences for their actions.
Katniss is never really sure why she held out the berries. Coriolanus turned on the Jabberjay without realizing that it would damn Sejanus to death. Haymitch blew up his arena and even after surgery assumed he would be publicly executed until Snow spelled out for him that his family would die.
People see these moments and ascribe things to them, especially with Katniss and Haymitch. People see the berries and think Katniss is flipping off the capitol, defiant and angry, instead of a teenage girl who has just gone without sleep, starving and been told she has to let her companion die. Katniss and Peeta themselves see Haymitch's force field trick and go 'ah-ha he was playing 4d mental chess and Tricked her' when in fact he was a scared kid who had just been disembowled and wanted to have some control over his last moments by dying out of the arena.
None of the three protagonists are politically savvy masterminds. They're teenagers. They're just kids
