One afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was. But he only says, “You know, I think this is the first time we’ve ever done anything normal together.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Our whole relationship has been tainted by the Games. Normal was never a part of it. “Nice for a change.” (p. 162; Kindle Edition).
Yes, I agree with idea that once Katniss starts to get to know Peeta, her feelings do evolve at a reasonable pace, all things considered. And that's part of the thing: I'm not into Everlark because "aw, he had a crush on her since he was five" and any of the other rom com tropes that Collins deliberately invokes. No, I like them because they do bring a peace and steadiness to each other. Katniss talks a lot about what Peeta does for her, but clearly she had a reciprocal effect on Peeta, if they can somehow manage to joke and have tender moments while staying alive as well as their few domestic scenes like the above.
I think that Katniss's recognition that they can have these nice, quiet moments together even without the immediate pressure cooker of the games, Snow, etc., is also important in terms of setting up the idea that they can work for the long haul, even when they're not seemingly thrown together by chance.
I tolerate the Gale aspect of the love triangle because I also like that it wasn't a given that of course a girl would fall in love with the first guy that she kissed, especially since Collins deliberately included that both Peeta and Gale had at least kissed other girls. And Peeta's infatuation may have started in kindergarten, but I would argue that he had a much more realistic conception of her after their first games, and he still loved her. And so maybe, in a way, his first love had been cast aside, but it was replaced with something more substantive and based on real knowledge of her. So that's another realistic aspect that I like about the love story. Plus, while people do deny it, Katniss and Peeta are really, really into kissing each other, and I think that that connection is also important to emphasize in the books
One other thing that I also appreciate is that her attitudes are not just about Peeta but, as you mention, really learning to work through her fears of losing people period. I mean, it's pretty incredible given where Katniss was at the first book that she had the emotional fortitude to ally with Peeta after losing Rue (even in view of her admission that there was a certain political calculation). But the thing is that when Katniss says things like:
That it’s no good loving me because I’m never going to get married anyway and he’d just end up hating me later instead of sooner. That if I do have feelings for him, it doesn’t matter because I’ll never be able to afford the kind of love that leads to a family, to children. And how can he? How can he after what we’ve just been through? I also want to tell him how much I already miss him. But that wouldn’t be fair on my part. (Kindle Locations 4668-4673).
and
The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful of poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. The trouble is, I don’t know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment. (p. 118, Kindle Edition).
I think that the reader is meant to find these to be incredibly sad statements that a 16/17 year-old girl thinks that she has to renounce love so utterly just to get through her life. And yet, these aren't trivialized by the author, but real things that Katniss has to address before she can really exercise her freedom to decide what she truly wants from her life.
Ahahaha, I am so with you on not being in it because he's-had-a-crush--on-her-since-he-was-5-how-cute trope. In fact, that's normally the kind of thing that would turn me off from a love story, and I think a testimony as to just how well SC pulled off subverting the trope. But yeah, it's how well they balance and strengthen each other that draws me to the pairing as well.
They also remind a lot of Wall-E and Eve in Wall-E, and I think both stories and relationships have a common theme of remembering our humanity by loving each other. When Wall-E came out in 2008, I fell in love with because of this, and it had a similar, if smaller scale, effect on me that THG did. This is another reason I love them, because their love story isn't just about being some cutesy love story about two teens, it actually goes a LOT deeper than that. Their love story is about why love is so important, and how much we need others in our lives in order to fully live and embrace our humanity. That's why I think those passages you highlighted about Katniss feeling she had to renounce love are so powerful. That's exactly what President Snow wanted them to feel so that he could maintain his power.
There's such a strong psychological component to these books. As melodramatic as it sounds, Panem reminds me a lot of my former job, unfortunately. The administrator of the hospital is a sociopath who ran the place by bullying, belittling and dividing the employees against each other. Why he was like this is a whole can if worms I don't feel like getting into, but one reason (of many) I think I was so drawn to them is because I felt isolated and like I had lost my humanity because I had been subjected to such a hostile authority figure who had power over my life in terms of having a paycheck. Even bigbigbigday commented to me once how ironic it was that the admin decided to plant white roses out front of the hospital one day, that's how bad it was. Being unified can be a very threatening thing to people like that, who seem to want to strip others of their humanity. And they do exist.
One afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was. But he only says, “You know, I think this is the first time we’ve ever done anything normal together.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Our whole relationship has been tainted by the Games. Normal was never a part of it. “Nice for a change.”
(p. 162; Kindle Edition).
Yes, I agree with idea that once Katniss starts to get to know Peeta, her feelings do evolve at a reasonable pace, all things considered. And that's part of the thing: I'm not into Everlark because "aw, he had a crush on her since he was five" and any of the other rom com tropes that Collins deliberately invokes. No, I like them because they do bring a peace and steadiness to each other. Katniss talks a lot about what Peeta does for her, but clearly she had a reciprocal effect on Peeta, if they can somehow manage to joke and have tender moments while staying alive as well as their few domestic scenes like the above.
I think that Katniss's recognition that they can have these nice, quiet moments together even without the immediate pressure cooker of the games, Snow, etc., is also important in terms of setting up the idea that they can work for the long haul, even when they're not seemingly thrown together by chance.
I tolerate the Gale aspect of the love triangle because I also like that it wasn't a given that of course a girl would fall in love with the first guy that she kissed, especially since Collins deliberately included that both Peeta and Gale had at least kissed other girls. And Peeta's infatuation may have started in kindergarten, but I would argue that he had a much more realistic conception of her after their first games, and he still loved her. And so maybe, in a way, his first love had been cast aside, but it was replaced with something more substantive and based on real knowledge of her. So that's another realistic aspect that I like about the love story. Plus, while people do deny it, Katniss and Peeta are really, really into kissing each other, and I think that that connection is also important to emphasize in the books
One other thing that I also appreciate is that her attitudes are not just about Peeta but, as you mention, really learning to work through her fears of losing people period. I mean, it's pretty incredible given where Katniss was at the first book that she had the emotional fortitude to ally with Peeta after losing Rue (even in view of her admission that there was a certain political calculation). But the thing is that when Katniss says things like:
That it’s no good loving me because I’m never going to get married anyway and he’d just end up hating me later instead of sooner. That if I do have feelings for him, it doesn’t matter because I’ll never be able to afford the kind of love that leads to a family, to children. And how can he? How can he after what we’ve just been through?
I also want to tell him how much I already miss him. But that wouldn’t be fair on my part. (Kindle Locations 4668-4673).
and
The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful of poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. The trouble is, I don’t know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment. (p. 118, Kindle Edition).
I think that the reader is meant to find these to be incredibly sad statements that a 16/17 year-old girl thinks that she has to renounce love so utterly just to get through her life. And yet, these aren't trivialized by the author, but real things that Katniss has to address before she can really exercise her freedom to decide what she truly wants from her life.
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They also remind a lot of Wall-E and Eve in Wall-E, and I think both stories and relationships have a common theme of remembering our humanity by loving each other. When Wall-E came out in 2008, I fell in love with because of this, and it had a similar, if smaller scale, effect on me that THG did. This is another reason I love them, because their love story isn't just about being some cutesy love story about two teens, it actually goes a LOT deeper than that. Their love story is about why love is so important, and how much we need others in our lives in order to fully live and embrace our humanity. That's why I think those passages you highlighted about Katniss feeling she had to renounce love are so powerful. That's exactly what President Snow wanted them to feel so that he could maintain his power.
There's such a strong psychological component to these books. As melodramatic as it sounds, Panem reminds me a lot of my former job, unfortunately. The administrator of the hospital is a sociopath who ran the place by bullying, belittling and dividing the employees against each other. Why he was like this is a whole can if worms I don't feel like getting into, but one reason (of many) I think I was so drawn to them is because I felt isolated and like I had lost my humanity because I had been subjected to such a hostile authority figure who had power over my life in terms of having a paycheck. Even bigbigbigday commented to me once how ironic it was that the admin decided to plant white roses out front of the hospital one day, that's how bad it was. Being unified can be a very threatening thing to people like that, who seem to want to strip others of their humanity. And they do exist.
Reply
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