I recently took it into my head to re-read the Hunger Games series. I first encountered them two years ago, whereupon, though in the time I read them I enjoyed them, they became irrelevant in my mind for the most part. The Hunger Games was enjoyable but I found a bit forgettable. Catching Fire was the best of the three, so much that I actually re-read it later in the year. Words cannot describe the loathing I felt for Mockingjay.
One does not simply read the trilogy without getting pulled into the manic fangirling of Team Gale or Team Peeta. Lately, the rad thing to be is Team Katniss. I don't really discuss the books all that much, but I certainly had my own views formulated as I read them and watched the films. Now, two years later, I have thought long and hard about the concepts, the plot, and the relationships between the characters so that I can try to understand what I enjoyed about the series and what turned me off, and I think that the explanation is centered around these three characters: Peeta Mellark, Gale Hawthorne and Katniss Everdeen. The stories are deep, dark and tangible, but the characters weirdly less so. I had to stretch my mind to discover the logic behind their reactions.
Going through the instances in the stories are not enough. I went through the books in an unbiased mindset and psychoanalyzed the character strengths and flaws, decisions, and ordeals that make these three people tick, and hopefully have been able to formulate for you the reasons why I cannot be on Team Gale, Peeta or Katniss.
PEETA
The first knock against Peeta is the fact that he probably has one of the worst names ever given to a male in history. It makes you think of that flimsy, unleavened dough some people keep in the back of the fridge that your Mom makes you substitute for real sandwich bread. Every time I read "Peeta" all I can think is 'come on, Suzanne Collins really couldn't have come up with something a little more manly'? Maybe she wanted to stick with bread names since he's a baker's son, and names like Rye and Buck aren't ideal but they're sure as heck better than Peeta.
Then there comes the weird list of his abilities, which don't line up. Despite his reputation for being very strong (remind me again how lifting bags of flour makes you stronger than an average coal miner? Also, I thought he frosted things, not flour-lifted), he has a penchant for being remarkably weak. As Studio C's musical parody puts it "He throws large weights at whatever he aims/A power so special, never used it in the Games". Again, taking from the same song: "Fog almost killed him - Mag's gave her life for him. Monkey almost killed him - Morphling gave her life for him. Wounds almost killed him - Katniss risked her life for him. A REAL man's not afraid to let women die for him!"
Of course, this is the Hunger Games we're talking about. Chivalry is remarkably dead. Still, for someone who earned an 8 in his private training session, I sure as heck expected to see a lot more action on his part. Instead, we're treated to his nearly dying from Cato's knife, painting himself brown to hide in a riverbank until Katniss finds him, and spending more than half the games lying in a cave sick while Katniss works her butt off to keep him alive. After that, his strength seems to be really gone and he scares away wild animals, nearly kills himself (again) with Nightlock, and then forces Katniss to get injured by mutts when he falls behind because of his leg. Yes, he saved Katniss from the Careers by teaming up with them. Yes, he fought Cato to save her. Two marvelous episodes that were repeated even less in the second Games, because despite his rigorous physical training schedule that he, Katniss and Haymitch all go through before the Quarter Quell, it takes no longer than the gong for Finnick to have to save Peeta from drowning, for Finnick to have to save Peeta from the force field, for Finnick to have to save Peeta from Enobaria, for Finnick to have to save Peeta from the fog (resulting in Mags' death), for Finnick and Katniss to save him from the monkeys (resulting in Morphling's death), and for Finnick and the other rebels to save Katniss from the arena, because in effect it saves Peeta. It's what he wants.
True, it's odd that frosting cakes somehow translates into painting realistic tree bark on your skin. I don't know who would buy a tree-bark cookie. But despite Peeta's complete ineptitude at taking care of himself inside the arena, outside of it he shows that he's more than capable of saving himself and Katniss. It is Haymitch who puts him onto it, but Peeta carries it from there. His gift with words turns the crowd of bloodthirsty Capitol citizens into cheerleaders for Team Twelve. His capability to move people with a look or a touch is a rare gift that he develops and hones for the good of the people around him, especially Katniss. If there is one central thing to be said for Peeta, it is that his love for Katniss is more than romantic. It is what love is supposed to be: self-giving, all encompassing.
Peeta is one of very few morally blameless characters in the Hunger Games series, up there with people like Prim and Hazelle. Peeta is kind. He's no pacifist, but he doesn't kill unless he absolutely has to. He stands up against the Capitol to be "more than a piece in their Games" and he tries so hard not to lose himself in the arena and out. When he is finally forced to by trackerjacker venom, he struggles and fights to find his way back. He is not perfect, of course. He loses his temper with Haymitch, he is jealous of Gale, but he rises above it to be friends with Katniss despite her, in his eyes, cold betrayal at the end of the first book; he puts aside his feelings to help Gale when he is whipped, and to even make some friendly conversation, and he understands the concept of the greater good when it must be used in a morally proper fashion.
All of this being said, I'd say that Peeta's greatest virtue is also his greatest flaw, and that is selflessness when it comes to Katniss. As I re-read these books, I noticed how much he gives of himself for her. He quite literally is willing and nearly does give everything he possesses to her if she thinks she will even want it on a whim. Understandably he is in love, but he conspicuously lacks even self-esteem or, most of the time, an awareness for anything that needs to get done outside of Katniss' need. Sometimes I wonder, would Peeta have given bread to a different girl starving in the rain? Surely he sees many of them every day. It is because the girl is Katniss that he begins his trek of kindness, but as far as we can tell Peeta's real kindness only extends to Katniss herself. He never shows much interest in her family, or his own, or anyone else in District Twelve. He can be polite and nice, but not the Peeta we see around Katniss. Though most likely due to a shyer nature, Peeta's obsession with the girl on fire leaves very little room for anything or anyone else.
Haymitch always tells Peeta the plan - why didn't he tell him the major one in Catching Fire? It is because he knows Peeta's reactions will blow it, just as he knows Katniss' reactions, unless spontaneous, always blow everything. Peeta doesn't have to fake being in love with Katniss. Indeed, he finds numerous opportunities to make her uncomfortable by telling her so, even though he probably doesn't mean to. But the grand-scale plan here is a whole other level, one that Peeta can't handle.
So why am I not Team Peeta? I think that, in the end, of the two choices Katniss would certainly be happier with Peeta because he gives her everything. But I also think that a relationship only based around traumatic experiences and saving each others' lives is not one that will last. The blase and overdone love that could only fool the naive Capitol audience is a one-way ticket to heartbreak. Realistically, going by the way the two characters interact, Peeta represents all things after the reaping. He represents growing up and what that means to Katniss. And here's the catch: when Katniss is with the real Peeta, she is pampered by him. She is pampered by her prep team and pampered by the Capitol. Even in the arena, she gets her full quota of makeout scenes needed for a young adult trilogy. But when he is under the Capitol's poison, Katniss realizes that she can live without him. Despite her claims that she will never recover if he dies in Catching Fire, she has had to come to grips with the realization that death happens and you have to move on. And yes, she wants to save his life. But Peeta acts more like a dog who loves his mistress more than a young man who probably needs something in return. According to the epilogue, they live happily ever after, though damaged. They have each other to heal up. But from what I read, Peeta gave Katniss everything, and Katniss didn't give much in return. I do not think that Peeta understands Katniss. I think he worships her. And Katniss needs him for the hope he brings to her life, but it's such a one-sided relationship on so many different levels that, ultimately, Peeta can do better.
GALE
I am going to be honest: if I had to really pick a team from the options, I would be team Gale, because that is who I would choose if I were Katniss. But I am not Katniss, and Katniss can choose whomever she likes, which is why the whole "team" thing is stupid in the first place.
If Peeta represents life after the reaping, Gale represents childhood. Time and again, over and over, Katniss recalls that the only times she has ever been able to call herself happy are the times she spends with Gale. This is rare for Katniss. Gale is her best friend, and throughout all three books, right up until the last few chapters in Mockingjay, Gale is the one person who she will always run to when Haymitch and Peeta have failed her.
So what happened? In order to divulge Katniss' rejection of Gale for Peeta we have to go through more than parachute bombs, although we will get to that morally questionable moment soon enough.
First, Katniss' point of view. Her father has died, she is starving, and she meets a boy who is a man in her eyes. They bond over hunting, and I think one of the main reasons that Katniss went for Peeta was for the simple explanation that she and Gale are far too alike. Beyond physical features, they are both fatherless. They must grow up faster than any child should to take care of their families, and they both have hot tempers and cool silences when they fight. They find happiness in a way that only best friends can, and it is only after the Games that the friendship begins to corrode. Gale loves Katniss, but he's good at hiding it. Katniss loves Gale but in her constant state of Gale-or-Peeta, she does little more than lead him on hopelessly. In Catching Fire, she has decided. She will be with Gale because Gale means that she can move forward in life and be in a rebellion without having to leave her childhood behind. It is only after the Quarter Quell that she again begins to second-guess her decision.
Her conduct is not fair to herself and certainly not fair to Gale. In Mockingjay, his comparison to himself as the man in The Hanging Tree, "waiting for an answer", is absolutely correct. Katniss continually goes back to Peeta and then expects Gale to be there for her when she gets back. And he always is. But he is tired of waiting for her, and so he moves on to more pressing matters, like the rebellion. He still does not abandon her, however, and Katniss accepts this. Their friendship is a bond that is only broken when Katniss' last shreds of childhood - her sister - are ripped from her.
Gale has absolutely always been there for Katniss, but unlike Peeta, his love is not unconditional. And ultimately, I think it is that which finally causes her to choose the other, and it is because he knows he will not give up everything for her that Gale is able to take that decision from book 1 and swallow it with minimal bitterness. Gale loves Katniss deeply, but he also loves her family. He loves his family, and his coal mining friends, and the people in District 12. He loves his country, he loves the cause of the rebellion and ultimately, he loves the people of Panem. Katniss' growing discontent for his consultations with President Coin and Beetee in Mockingjay are because she is used to someone like Peeta, who will give her everything. Gale, rightly so, has more than one love, and unlike Peeta and certainly unlike Katniss, he will put aside his personal loves for the greater good of the entire nation.
Gale is a soldier. There's no need to go over the fact that he is physically skilled in nearly every way. And a soldier gives his life for his country. A soldier puts aside his own jealousy to help Peeta train for the Quarter Quell, to save him from the Capitol, to become his friend when he doesn't have Katniss anymore. And while a soldier and an Amazon like Katniss can certainly be best friends over mutual respect and even love, a romantic bond is not one that will last.
Gale's awkward ending is one, I think, that had more than one person confused, not least of all because Katniss' anger towards him is unjustified. Gale would never have authorized the use of parachute bombs on children, or on rebel medics. He may have come up with the idea, which on it's own is morally debatable, but it is clear from the start that he likes kids, especially Rory, Vick, Posy and Primrose. He doesn't let his siblings take tesserae and is unable to talk about it when starvation forces Rory to. He wants to see Prim's face when Katniss brings her the goat, and overall is a love of innocence and childhood, probably because he never got much of one himself. It is even confirmed that he didn't know if the bombs used were his. For all we know, he never meant to use them at all.
It seems to me that Suzanne Collins was getting far too much of a positive reaction to Gale when everyone was supposed to like Peeta more, so she tried to drop the literal bombshell of his lust for war. Unfortunately she had already set him up as a character, and psychologically his actions don't follow the personality she had already given him, which is why I can endeavor to explain all of this away.
Gale is not listed in the morally blameless because of his actions in the war. He is up there with Haymitch, Finnick and Cinna in the category of "best characters who have made some bad decisions". He designs weapons of cruel destruction, or "death traps" that will ensure bloody, if quick, ends to the war. But his seeming flippancy for human life and desire for revenge are, I think, overrated. For readers like us, it is so easy to point out the faults. Looking back on the atom bomb, it is also too simple to condemn. The atom bomb was wrong. Gale's traps are wrong. But in the heat of the moment, when someone has to make the difficult decisions, the end is that, well, someone does have to make those decisions. Gale is a boy who had his father and all comfort ripped from him at a young age, who had to grow up in harsh conditions and provide for his family, watching everyone he loved suffer. Even a dispirited man would want to do something for the cause, and Gale has more than enough reason to want justice. Justice, not revenge. It is not personal, it is for the whole country of Panem. The scene in the Nut with the fighting miners only confirms that Gale is right. Katniss has the bullet hole to prove it. But from the beginning, with his rants against the Capitol, Gale knew what needed to happen. He isn't content to lay down and let everyone walk over him the way Katniss and Peeta are, because he recognizes the need for everyone else who cannot fight for themselves. It is why he is prepared to run away, but when an actual chance of rebellion ignites, he must stay and help it, sacrificing almost definite happiness with Katniss. As a result, he saves 800 of District 12's citizens. Time and again, over and over, it can only be admitted that, about the war in general, Gale is right and Katniss is wrong. Coin is even right sometimes. War is never easy, and war is certainly never won by people like Katniss, who want to run off and find their own piece of perfect apart from the rest of the world. It's won by people like Gale, even if he has two decisions and both of them end in bloodshed. Remember that Katniss also began to develop a killer streak in the heat of the moment, both in the arena and when she was on missions with her squad. Gale is the Ender Wiggin of the Hunger Games, though regrettably far less complex and fascinating. He doesn't just win the battle, he wins the war, and he wins so thoroughly that the Capitol can't rise back up.
I am not endorsing Gale's bombs, or his disregard for human life. But Gale, unlike Katniss, has not suffered the arena. And Gale understands and accepts that in war, people die. He does not want to kill innocent people. Few people do. But he understands that collateral damage happens, and sometimes, you do have to think about the greater good. He just sometimes goes about it in the wrong way.
Katniss is bitter by the end of Mockingjay, and also slightly insane. Her friendship with Gale is broken, not, I think, because of the parachute bombs, because she knows that they were not his fault, at least not directly. They are Coin's. It is broken because seeing Gale reminds her that she can't go back. She can't go back to being innocent, and young, and happy in the way she was before. Without him, even with Peeta, Katniss misses what he brought to her life. It is why she waits for him by the rock, even though she knows he won't come because he is in District 2. It is why she is bitter about his job and assumes he has another girlfriend, because it is so much easier to be angry at and blame the ones we love rather than forgive them for what they cannot control. The fire of hatred and rage she says burn in him are the effects of hatred and rage at herself, turned inward and soothed only by Peeta's constant self-giving company. Katniss wants Gale back as surely as he wants her. Not in a romantic way, but in friendship. But as we know, Katniss is not the forgiving type.
Never, never can we say that Gale abandoned Katniss. It takes one cursory read to see that what happened was not abandonment, it was resignation. Gale understands Katniss better than anyone, even Haymitch, and he knows that she can never really be content with life when he is there because of the reasons described above. He always knew it, but he clearly also always hoped it would be different. When the final blows begin to fall, he recognizes that the odds were never in his favor, tells her goodbye and leaves before they both wish too much that he will stay. He can live without Katniss, and Katniss can live without him. They were always self-sufficient that way. Life will simply be more bittersweet than it was before.
KATNISS
I'm not sure that people are going to like what I say about the girl in fire. She has been labeled as a great feminist role model (who spends half her time getting rescued by boys) and in general as a heroine that people can look up to.
Here is exactly why I think that Katniss Everdeen is a bad role model: as a character, she has moments of real courage. She has times where she is selfless and giving and loving. She is strong and nearly self-sufficient. She is also overly sensitive, unforgiving, rash, temperamental, and ultimately one of the most selfish characters in the book. In short, the way that she reacts to her terrible situations is almost exactly how we would react. One of the things that makes Katniss so appealing is the level of relatability that she gives the readers. If my mother went into a coma-like state, leaving her grieving children to starve, I would be wary and find it difficult to forgive. I might get up the courage to take my sister's place in the Hunger Games, but I would be moody, scared and sensitive. I wouldn't want to be any crummy District 13's Mockingjay. I would feel betrayed by Haymitch in Catching Fire. I would probably want to kill President Snow, and I would feel haunted by those I had already killed.
But what makes a role model isn't that you can relate to them. It's watching them overcome their hardships and come out a better person on the other side. It's why we idolize Harry Potter and Aragorn. Not because they abolished their fear, but because they overcame it, and their other shortcomings. Katniss starts and ends the same way she always was. She doesn't understand the effect she has as a leader of the rebellion, and ignored it when people try to tell her. She puts her own needs before everyone else's. Absolutely anything she does it motivated by her need to save herself or someone she loves. Not the people of Panem. Not the innocent of District 13. If it doesn't help save Peeta, she won't do it, no matter how much good it gives other people. If it didn't include a benefit for her, it must have been a bad plan. If Haymitch doesn't tell her the plan, even though she has so obviously shown herself incapable of handling something of that precision and magnitude, she is once again a martyr. She leads on Gale and Peeta because of her own need for physical comfort. She can condemn Gale and the Capitol for their ruthlessness when she kills an innocent Capitol woman just for being in her way. She has no hope in humanity and hides herself away, an empty shell to slowly fill back up from Peeta's love. She is motivated to kill Snow by revenge, not justice. She can be right. Her ultimate act of sacrifice in killing Coin to end the Hunger Games for good is a redeeming end that is unfortunately overshadowed by the misery of the series in general. And in the end, she has no character development. All that comes out differently is that she is a colder killer and an emptier person. Which is not bad writing. It shows the horrible reality of the situation. It shows that something like this only ends in damaged people where no one comes out better. But never does it give a good reason besides her moments of courage and disregard for her own life that can be construed as selflessness for why she should be anyone's role model.
So in the end, I am not Team Katniss because Katniss does not deserve either Gale or Peeta. It sounds harsh but I think it's the truth. She went from a good, but not great person, to an okay person. It doesn't detract from her performance or the way Collins wrote her, it only detracts from the character herself. Perhaps the best way to end her section is with a little humor:
Studio C's Katniss' Song
To wrap up, I think I enjoyed the books more this time around, and I've always liked the movies. The style is a little too casual for me, with too many grammar mistakes and not enough depth, and there is too much focus on the romance rather than the actual problems. It's certainly no 1984 or Brave New World. It's not even Harry Potter. But for a YA series, it sure beats Maze Runner and Divergent. The concept is really very good. It is logical and follows the sick need for violence in gladiatorial Rome (notice all the Capitol citizens have Roman names) and I could see, in the distant future, the USA getting to a place like that. The plot is quick-moving, and characters interesting and realistic, even if I find it a little bit of a stretch that Panem stood the child slaughter for 75 years. And what happened to the rest of the earth? But these are small details.
So bye for now, and may the odds be ever in your favor!
-Rhian
