Hunger Games: Ode to Peeta
So Hunger Games opens today and we'll be going to see it tomorrow (barring any earth shattering events) and I thought this would be a good time to write my "Defense of Peeta" post that I've been meaning to post since forever. (Or whenever I first read the books then went online. So. Yeah. Forever. *g*)
Only it's not so much a defense because people can like characters they like and dislike characters they like and that's cool and I'm really not out to change minds. But I really, really like Peeta. Like a lot. Have from the very beginning. And here is why. (Warning: I'm not rereading the books to do this because I'm lazy. So this is all from memory.)
It started with a clever author-trick and I'll admit that right up front. My absolute, bar-none, unquestionably reliable character-kink is a game-master. The character whose comfort-zone is about four steps ahead of everyone else and has three different variables ready depending on if the drink offered is coffee or orange-juice. (This is part of the reason I often like villains. Heroes are allowed to be idiots, God help us all, but not so much villains.)
Katniss (love her!) is a game-master. We see that as soon as she's thrown into crisis and she starts thinking strategy and work-arounds. And her assumption is that Peeta must be the same. So when he arrives at the train station looking like he'd just had a good cry, when he asks to work with Haymitch alone in strategy planning sessions, when he declares his love for Katniss in the interview sessions, Katniss figures he's playing a deep game. She defines him as a formidable game-master and therefore dangerous opponent. And I went along with her.
For a long while there, in the first book, I wasn't confident of Peeta's position and I didn't take his words at face-value and I adored him as a game-master. When all was revealed... I adored him even more! He was a game-master, just one playing a different game than what had been defined for everyone.
The author-trick was in painting Peeta per Katniss's view. She does get him wrong. He wasn't as cool-headed and carefully planning from the get-go as she'd suspected. He's crying in the beginning because he's pretty much sure he's going to die and doesn't see a way out. He's not good enough skill-wise to win and, being the youngest in an intact family, he doesn't have the same pressure to win as Katniss, who sees herself as her family's lifeblood.
But Katniss doesn't get him completely wrong. Peeta is smart enough to reframe the game into something he can win even if he dies. His defining statement (one that's in the movies per the trailers I've seen) is that he wants to die in a way that doesn't compromise himself. He's the first to set Katniss up as a symbol - something worth dying for - and hangs his gameplay on that. But I didn't think he did it out of love for Katniss. That he had a crush on her helped, no doubt. And, obviously love developed over the course of the trilogy. But I didn't see his behavior as totally selfless. He's trying to stick it to the Capitol in the best way he can, make himself count as himself.
My thought was that if we were supposed to see Peeta as someone giving his all for someone he loves (as Katniss does for Prim), he'd have been a volunteer as well. But he doesn't come into the games until the lottery offers up his name. And my sense was, he didn't make the decision to put his all into Katniss's survival until a good ways into the training period. His intelligence is in seeing that Katniss has a chance to win and hanging his flag on that. And his game-master skills are in making sure everyone watching sees the sacrifice he's making, thinks it's because of a pure, long-held love, and will therefore care when he dies.
That's why I love Peeta. I'll be curious to see if the movie-version plays the same way for me.
Only it's not so much a defense because people can like characters they like and dislike characters they like and that's cool and I'm really not out to change minds. But I really, really like Peeta. Like a lot. Have from the very beginning. And here is why. (Warning: I'm not rereading the books to do this because I'm lazy. So this is all from memory.)
It started with a clever author-trick and I'll admit that right up front. My absolute, bar-none, unquestionably reliable character-kink is a game-master. The character whose comfort-zone is about four steps ahead of everyone else and has three different variables ready depending on if the drink offered is coffee or orange-juice. (This is part of the reason I often like villains. Heroes are allowed to be idiots, God help us all, but not so much villains.)
Katniss (love her!) is a game-master. We see that as soon as she's thrown into crisis and she starts thinking strategy and work-arounds. And her assumption is that Peeta must be the same. So when he arrives at the train station looking like he'd just had a good cry, when he asks to work with Haymitch alone in strategy planning sessions, when he declares his love for Katniss in the interview sessions, Katniss figures he's playing a deep game. She defines him as a formidable game-master and therefore dangerous opponent. And I went along with her.
For a long while there, in the first book, I wasn't confident of Peeta's position and I didn't take his words at face-value and I adored him as a game-master. When all was revealed... I adored him even more! He was a game-master, just one playing a different game than what had been defined for everyone.
The author-trick was in painting Peeta per Katniss's view. She does get him wrong. He wasn't as cool-headed and carefully planning from the get-go as she'd suspected. He's crying in the beginning because he's pretty much sure he's going to die and doesn't see a way out. He's not good enough skill-wise to win and, being the youngest in an intact family, he doesn't have the same pressure to win as Katniss, who sees herself as her family's lifeblood.
But Katniss doesn't get him completely wrong. Peeta is smart enough to reframe the game into something he can win even if he dies. His defining statement (one that's in the movies per the trailers I've seen) is that he wants to die in a way that doesn't compromise himself. He's the first to set Katniss up as a symbol - something worth dying for - and hangs his gameplay on that. But I didn't think he did it out of love for Katniss. That he had a crush on her helped, no doubt. And, obviously love developed over the course of the trilogy. But I didn't see his behavior as totally selfless. He's trying to stick it to the Capitol in the best way he can, make himself count as himself.
My thought was that if we were supposed to see Peeta as someone giving his all for someone he loves (as Katniss does for Prim), he'd have been a volunteer as well. But he doesn't come into the games until the lottery offers up his name. And my sense was, he didn't make the decision to put his all into Katniss's survival until a good ways into the training period. His intelligence is in seeing that Katniss has a chance to win and hanging his flag on that. And his game-master skills are in making sure everyone watching sees the sacrifice he's making, thinks it's because of a pure, long-held love, and will therefore care when he dies.
That's why I love Peeta. I'll be curious to see if the movie-version plays the same way for me.