Everlark and Everthorne - my thoughts
So, I was inspired by an ask on Tumblr to write a very long post about my Everlark and Everthorne thoughts and feelings.
It got long, very long, but I thought I'd post it hear too. Spoilers on all three books beneath the cut.
rinielle submitted:
With regards to Everthorne vs Everlark endgame, you highlight a paragraph in the book that in your opinion settles the debate… but that assumes that what Susanne Collins writes HAS to be agreed with. It assumes that a reader cannot think differently to the writer of a book, that because Susanne Collins feels that she wrote Peeta to be the one Katniss needs, that other people will feel that way too.
We’re supposed to agree that Katniss doesn’t need Gale’s fire, that she ‘needs’ Peeta…I don’t. I take issue with the idea that Katniss should ‘need’ any man, but you know that’s a whole other issues.
don’t think Katniss (at the end of the books) has real fire of her own like she claims, I think she is broken, I think she is tragic and I think she is settling. Reading the epilogue especially, I want to cry because she has become a shell who just moves through life with no real lasting joys. She has two children she never originally wanted, because Peeta wants them, and she spends both pregnancies terrified. I read the end of Mockingjay as being very much a sad tragic ending, not a happy one. Peeta doesn’t help her or bring her to life, he just allows her to continue as she is. There is no rebirth there is no goodness there is just the way things are.
My impression of Katniss and Peeta’s relationship has always been that it is highly unequal, at the very least in her mind… that she feels like he is too good for her, that others have often thought the same… but with Gale, it was always equal, neither was any better or worse than the other in either of their eyes. The dandelion and the bread should always, for me, have been treated less as Peeta saving Katniss, and more as him reminding Katniss that she can save herself. Which it often wasn’t, and that saddens me, and I often feel like I’m being told I should feel grateful to him, as Katniss does, for these things which, actually weren’t all that grand… yet when she is with Gale, who has helped her a thousand times, and who has looked after her family as his own, who has taught her different ways to hunt… I never feel I should be grateful, or that he is somehow above her because of this… because she does the same for him, because they are partners, because they are on the same page.
In the end, she still submits to this idea that she needs Peeta, and he lets her continue in that thought, not in a bad way, I don’t think he even realises what he’s doing, but it’s not good for her. Gale wouldn’t have let her be that way, and maybe there would have been arguments and hard times, but he would have been right there with her all the way, reignited the fire in her and she would have done the same for him… the last we hear of him he’s run away and got some fancy job… does that sound like Gale to you? They’ve both lost themselves completely by the end, and I wanted them either as endgame or at least working towards that end, because only they could help each other find themselves again. They who share so much, who know each other better than anyone
Thanks for posting your opinions on Gale/Katniss endgame. I do appreciate it, as I have been genuinely curious.
I hope you don’t mind me sharing my own thoughts. I’m not meaning to offend or anything - I just really like a good discussion.
Ok, so as to your first point, whether we have to agree with what Suzanne Collins writes? Well, I guess that is a personal preference, but I’ve always been a big stickler for canon. I might not always like what a writer does, or think it makes little sense, but ultimately the characters are their creation and so their ending is what they choose - THAT is the ultimate endgame. And to be fair to Collins, the progression of Katniss and Peeta IS very well laid out in the books IMO, and does make sense.
In terms of the point about not liking Katniss “needing” someone, I think it depends firstly on what you take by the word “need.” She doesn’t need Peeta like she needs to breathe, she won’t just die if he leaves, but she does need him to have a full, complete life. Maybe I’m just a bit of a romantic, but I do think when you find the right one, your life won’t be quite complete without them - that you do “need” them to feel whole.
And then there’s the situation they’re in. Peeta isn’t just any “man”, he’s a guy who’s been to hell and back WITH her. You can’t really compare her “need” for Peeta to say, a friend saying they “need” a boyfriend who’s a jerk, or someone who just doesn’t like to be alone and so “needs” a man.
And then there’s Katniss’ character too. Ever since her father died, her life has been consumed with trying to survive and keep her family alive. She has no time for luxuries of “want”, she only has time for what she “needs” to “survive.” This is how Katniss functions so I do think the use of the words “need” and “survive” are to represent Katniss’ way of thinking and how she has applied them to her relationship with Peeta.
As for Katniss not having much fire at the end, and you thinking Gale could give it her back… Well, firstly, as much as I do like Gale as a character, I do think Collins shows quite clearly that Gale’s fire isn’t very healthy - “kindled with rage and hatred.” He is shown as hating the Capitol and very willing to take up arms against them. He sides with Coin quite frequently, is actually surprised by Katniss’ compassion for her stylists from the Capitol and is quite willing to sacrifice civilians of the Capitol - in District 2 and in the Capitol. I don’t mean to slate Gale here, his reasons are explained well and I do understand them, but Collins does make the point that Gale’s actions are not always morally right. So to say HIS fire is what Katniss needs, seems to miss this point…
Also, what really is “fire”? Is it her rebellious side? Her ability to survive? Her strength of character? I think it can mean different things to different people so whilst I do agree Katniss is broken at the end, I don’t think she has lost her fire.
And I don’t really understand the notion that Katniss is settling, as she makes it quite clear at the end of MJ that she loves Peeta. Even back at the start of the trilogy we find out how much of an impact he’s had on her life! She’s willling to risk and SACRIFICE her life for Peeta’s! She has a few nervous breakdowns because something has happened to him! She kisses him in a way she’s never kissed Gale! She feels safe in Peeta’s arms in a way she’s never felt safe before! I could go on with more examples, but there are so many moments throughout the books where we do see how much Katniss cares for Peeta - so I just don’t get why people think she is only settling? How can she be settling when she’s with the man she loves?
As for her remaining broken, I don’t understand this idea at all I’m afraid. There are so, so many references at the end of the book to Katniss healing. There’s symbolic ones like the District rebuilding and having medicine factories and the meadows regrowing. And there’s more personal ones, like them having the book holding their memories and them learning to carry on with their lives. Them finding purpose again, like Katniss hunting.
In fact, Katniss IS a broken shell when she first goes back to District 12 after the rebellion. She does just seemed to sit in her chair all day not really being sure of anything. But then one day it changes! One day, Katniss gets up and goes out into the meadows, out into the woods. She scrubs clean all the things that are still haunting her, like Snow’s rose. She pushes the past away and starts to learn how to live again. She finally lets the tears fall and the next day she calls her mother, eats properly and begins to start opening her letters…
It’s no easy road, she’s been through too much and is too badly scarred, but she tries and succeeds to a certain extent. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the day she does get out of that house and starts to rebuild her life, is the same day as Peeta comes back. The day he arrives and starts planting those primrose bushes is the day she starts to come back to life. And though she does still have those nightmares, she has Peeta to wake up next to and to help her chase them away. Something which Peeta has been helping her with since the Victory Tour!
So, I don’t mean to belittle this particular opinion of yours:
“Peeta doesn’t help her or bring her to life, he just allows her to continue as she is. There is no rebirth there is no goodness there is just the way things are.”
But I think Katniss’ actions from the day Peeta arrives onwards, to all the symbolism of rebirth in the last few pages, really do contradict it. I mean, the last few paragraphs of MJ says that what she needs IS the symbol of rebirth, the dandelion in the spring, and that IS Peeta! We’re told THAT connection right at the very start of the first book!
In terms of Katniss not wanting kids, and Peeta making her, well, I see nothing in canon to say either way how much pressue Peeta put on her. I do think though, given how much Peeta has sacrificed for Katniss before, he would hardly be likely to push her. In my headcanon, Katniss knew Peeta wanted kids and so she wanted him to have them, without Peeta ever really mentioning it much to her.
And I do think the book shows us that Katniss can’t afford to want kids! She’s too focused on survival and knows she couldn’t provide for them as she would wish. She’s too fearful of what may happen. And she was very, very afraid they would get reaped. Yet, she dreams about Peeta’s children and wakes up happy (and in the middle of the Quarter Quell I might add) and she’s very maternal with Prim and Rue.
So I don’t think that Katniss just didn’t want kids - but that she didn’t allow herself to want something she knew she wouldn’t be able to have and because of the fear it would cause her, living in the current oppression of the Capitol and The Hunger Games
I don’t think it was that Katniss really changed, or that Peeta really pushed her, but that the world around her changed. There are no Hunger Games now, so she has no fear of reapings. She can provide amply for her kids (the Capitol still seems to support them, and Peeta can bake, she can hunt.) So she doesn’t have these outside factors stopping her any more.
In fact, I think it’s a beautiful way to show how much the world of Panem has changed for the better - that Katniss does now live in a world where she can have children, a world where both her and Peeta’s children can be safe.
As for her being terrified, I think it reflects how scarred she still is, which is very realistic imo. And I think it’s very natural for future mothers to be scared about it anyway, even when they’ve not been through anything like what Katniss went through. The phrasing of “a terror that felt as old as life itself” sounds like it may be meant to indicate this to a certain extent. And in the very next line, Katniss mentions the joy she felt in holding her. You say Katniss had no joy in the end, but she has it, there, holding her and Peeta’s daughter - and that’s just one example we’re given!
As for the inequality in Katniss and Peeta’s relationship, I actually think they’re VERY equal. Yes, each thinks far too highly of the other, but that’s not really inequality - and Peeta’s hijacking made her see that she had been putting him on too much of a pedestal. And even without their shared experience in the games and their ability to comfort each other against the horrors, they are very equal personality wise. They are just the right amount of different to work. They both give and take, they both make sacrifices for the other, they both “saved each other.” And they both help each other to heal and carry on in the end.
“The dandelion and the bread should always, for me, have been treated less as Peeta saving Katniss, and more as him reminding Katniss that she can save herself.”
I agree, and it’s a shame it wasn’t mentioned in the film. It’s the main reason I love that bread story! And it’s because of this that Peeta did become such a symbol of hope to Katniss. And THAT is yet another reason why it IS Peeta in the end, because he can make her remember that she can save herself, that there is always hope and that life can be good again. Gale just doesn’t have this same level of symbolism with her.
TBH, the way it’s shown in the book, it does focus as much on how Katniss learned to help herself as it did Peeta saving her. But we hear it from Katniss’ point of view and she feels indebted to him - unnecessarily so. Something which Peeta does tell her and therefore us readers!!!
And I would just like to add in here, that not only did Peeta save Katniss then, he saved her later too - because he did remind her that she can look after herself, which is how she managed to survive the Hunger Games.
And you mention Gale and Katniss as partners, and for me that’s actually why I think Peeta is the one right for Katniss. What Peeta did was purely out of selflessness - he didn’t seek to gain anything and even got a beating from his mother! What Gale did was join up with Katniss (after they’d been competitors for a good while), to help themselves. Sure, it was give and take, which is good, but Gale still did it initially with an aim of helping himself, as did Katniss. So they’re friendship always seemed based on mutual gain to me (although it did grow). Whereas Katniss and Peata became friends when she really didn’t want to - because she knew she may have to kill him! That to me shows a lot more about their compatibility than any debts or need to be grateful.
And Gale was rather pushy with Katniss at times - kissing her out in the woods in CF, guilt tripping her, such as the “you only notice people who are in pain” and being very unsupportive of Peeta at times. Compare that to Peeta who does everything he can to make it easier to Katniss, who actually tries to push her onto Gale (like with the locket.) And I know this in no way means Peeta “deserves” Katniss more than Gale, but I do think it goes to show the relative health of a relationship. Pushy Gale or patience Peeta to simplify the point a lot!
As for Gale at the end, well, “fancy job” was Greasy Sae’s description. As it’s in District 2, it’s not really a stretch to imagine it’s military related - something which would suit Gale.
“They’ve both lost themselves completely by the end, and I wanted them either as endgame or at least working towards that end, because only they could help each other find themselves again. They who share so much, who know each other better than anyone.”
But so much of what Katniss experiences, Gale just does not understand. He wasn’t in the Hunger Games, he wasn’t there when Prim died and when Katniss tried to kill herself after shooting Coin - but Peeta was.
Gale doesn’t know what it’s like to be used by the rebellion and the Capitol, to become the face leading a rebellion - but Peeta does.
Gale doesn’t understand what Katniss went through in those Games, the nightmares that come to her, but Peeta does. He’s been through it all himself and at the end, he has shared so much more with Katniss and understands her so much better than Gale ever could.
Gale cannot heal Katniss at the end, not really. Even without Prim’s death hanging between them, they had drifted apart too much, changed too much as people. In fact, one could argue that without the mutual need to survive, there’s not all that much they really do share now…
And Katniss herself reflects a number of times on how much her and Gale have drifted apart. In fact, she wonders if they would have drifted apart anyway, even without the Hunger Games and subsequent rebellion.
Anyway, I’ve gone on way longer than I intended. Hope you don’t mind, just sharing my opinion.
But going back to that first point - it does depend on how much you take on board canon or understand the books because as I’ve hopefully explained, at the end it can only be Peeta (and Haymitch too, he plays a part), who can truly heal Katniss. He’s the only one who really understands what she’s been through.
And he’s the only one who can give her hope for the future - for rebirth instead of destruction, and that life CAN go on, no matter how bad her losses.
Only Peeta can give her that - not Gale.
And as a very minor aside, I do love the bread/fire theme between them the whole time - and that District 12’s marriage ritual is toasting the bread!
It got long, very long, but I thought I'd post it hear too. Spoilers on all three books beneath the cut.
rinielle submitted:
With regards to Everthorne vs Everlark endgame, you highlight a paragraph in the book that in your opinion settles the debate… but that assumes that what Susanne Collins writes HAS to be agreed with. It assumes that a reader cannot think differently to the writer of a book, that because Susanne Collins feels that she wrote Peeta to be the one Katniss needs, that other people will feel that way too.
We’re supposed to agree that Katniss doesn’t need Gale’s fire, that she ‘needs’ Peeta…I don’t. I take issue with the idea that Katniss should ‘need’ any man, but you know that’s a whole other issues.
don’t think Katniss (at the end of the books) has real fire of her own like she claims, I think she is broken, I think she is tragic and I think she is settling. Reading the epilogue especially, I want to cry because she has become a shell who just moves through life with no real lasting joys. She has two children she never originally wanted, because Peeta wants them, and she spends both pregnancies terrified. I read the end of Mockingjay as being very much a sad tragic ending, not a happy one. Peeta doesn’t help her or bring her to life, he just allows her to continue as she is. There is no rebirth there is no goodness there is just the way things are.
My impression of Katniss and Peeta’s relationship has always been that it is highly unequal, at the very least in her mind… that she feels like he is too good for her, that others have often thought the same… but with Gale, it was always equal, neither was any better or worse than the other in either of their eyes. The dandelion and the bread should always, for me, have been treated less as Peeta saving Katniss, and more as him reminding Katniss that she can save herself. Which it often wasn’t, and that saddens me, and I often feel like I’m being told I should feel grateful to him, as Katniss does, for these things which, actually weren’t all that grand… yet when she is with Gale, who has helped her a thousand times, and who has looked after her family as his own, who has taught her different ways to hunt… I never feel I should be grateful, or that he is somehow above her because of this… because she does the same for him, because they are partners, because they are on the same page.
In the end, she still submits to this idea that she needs Peeta, and he lets her continue in that thought, not in a bad way, I don’t think he even realises what he’s doing, but it’s not good for her. Gale wouldn’t have let her be that way, and maybe there would have been arguments and hard times, but he would have been right there with her all the way, reignited the fire in her and she would have done the same for him… the last we hear of him he’s run away and got some fancy job… does that sound like Gale to you? They’ve both lost themselves completely by the end, and I wanted them either as endgame or at least working towards that end, because only they could help each other find themselves again. They who share so much, who know each other better than anyone
Thanks for posting your opinions on Gale/Katniss endgame. I do appreciate it, as I have been genuinely curious.
I hope you don’t mind me sharing my own thoughts. I’m not meaning to offend or anything - I just really like a good discussion.
Ok, so as to your first point, whether we have to agree with what Suzanne Collins writes? Well, I guess that is a personal preference, but I’ve always been a big stickler for canon. I might not always like what a writer does, or think it makes little sense, but ultimately the characters are their creation and so their ending is what they choose - THAT is the ultimate endgame. And to be fair to Collins, the progression of Katniss and Peeta IS very well laid out in the books IMO, and does make sense.
In terms of the point about not liking Katniss “needing” someone, I think it depends firstly on what you take by the word “need.” She doesn’t need Peeta like she needs to breathe, she won’t just die if he leaves, but she does need him to have a full, complete life. Maybe I’m just a bit of a romantic, but I do think when you find the right one, your life won’t be quite complete without them - that you do “need” them to feel whole.
And then there’s the situation they’re in. Peeta isn’t just any “man”, he’s a guy who’s been to hell and back WITH her. You can’t really compare her “need” for Peeta to say, a friend saying they “need” a boyfriend who’s a jerk, or someone who just doesn’t like to be alone and so “needs” a man.
And then there’s Katniss’ character too. Ever since her father died, her life has been consumed with trying to survive and keep her family alive. She has no time for luxuries of “want”, she only has time for what she “needs” to “survive.” This is how Katniss functions so I do think the use of the words “need” and “survive” are to represent Katniss’ way of thinking and how she has applied them to her relationship with Peeta.
As for Katniss not having much fire at the end, and you thinking Gale could give it her back… Well, firstly, as much as I do like Gale as a character, I do think Collins shows quite clearly that Gale’s fire isn’t very healthy - “kindled with rage and hatred.” He is shown as hating the Capitol and very willing to take up arms against them. He sides with Coin quite frequently, is actually surprised by Katniss’ compassion for her stylists from the Capitol and is quite willing to sacrifice civilians of the Capitol - in District 2 and in the Capitol. I don’t mean to slate Gale here, his reasons are explained well and I do understand them, but Collins does make the point that Gale’s actions are not always morally right. So to say HIS fire is what Katniss needs, seems to miss this point…
Also, what really is “fire”? Is it her rebellious side? Her ability to survive? Her strength of character? I think it can mean different things to different people so whilst I do agree Katniss is broken at the end, I don’t think she has lost her fire.
And I don’t really understand the notion that Katniss is settling, as she makes it quite clear at the end of MJ that she loves Peeta. Even back at the start of the trilogy we find out how much of an impact he’s had on her life! She’s willling to risk and SACRIFICE her life for Peeta’s! She has a few nervous breakdowns because something has happened to him! She kisses him in a way she’s never kissed Gale! She feels safe in Peeta’s arms in a way she’s never felt safe before! I could go on with more examples, but there are so many moments throughout the books where we do see how much Katniss cares for Peeta - so I just don’t get why people think she is only settling? How can she be settling when she’s with the man she loves?
As for her remaining broken, I don’t understand this idea at all I’m afraid. There are so, so many references at the end of the book to Katniss healing. There’s symbolic ones like the District rebuilding and having medicine factories and the meadows regrowing. And there’s more personal ones, like them having the book holding their memories and them learning to carry on with their lives. Them finding purpose again, like Katniss hunting.
In fact, Katniss IS a broken shell when she first goes back to District 12 after the rebellion. She does just seemed to sit in her chair all day not really being sure of anything. But then one day it changes! One day, Katniss gets up and goes out into the meadows, out into the woods. She scrubs clean all the things that are still haunting her, like Snow’s rose. She pushes the past away and starts to learn how to live again. She finally lets the tears fall and the next day she calls her mother, eats properly and begins to start opening her letters…
It’s no easy road, she’s been through too much and is too badly scarred, but she tries and succeeds to a certain extent. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the day she does get out of that house and starts to rebuild her life, is the same day as Peeta comes back. The day he arrives and starts planting those primrose bushes is the day she starts to come back to life. And though she does still have those nightmares, she has Peeta to wake up next to and to help her chase them away. Something which Peeta has been helping her with since the Victory Tour!
So, I don’t mean to belittle this particular opinion of yours:
“Peeta doesn’t help her or bring her to life, he just allows her to continue as she is. There is no rebirth there is no goodness there is just the way things are.”
But I think Katniss’ actions from the day Peeta arrives onwards, to all the symbolism of rebirth in the last few pages, really do contradict it. I mean, the last few paragraphs of MJ says that what she needs IS the symbol of rebirth, the dandelion in the spring, and that IS Peeta! We’re told THAT connection right at the very start of the first book!
In terms of Katniss not wanting kids, and Peeta making her, well, I see nothing in canon to say either way how much pressue Peeta put on her. I do think though, given how much Peeta has sacrificed for Katniss before, he would hardly be likely to push her. In my headcanon, Katniss knew Peeta wanted kids and so she wanted him to have them, without Peeta ever really mentioning it much to her.
And I do think the book shows us that Katniss can’t afford to want kids! She’s too focused on survival and knows she couldn’t provide for them as she would wish. She’s too fearful of what may happen. And she was very, very afraid they would get reaped. Yet, she dreams about Peeta’s children and wakes up happy (and in the middle of the Quarter Quell I might add) and she’s very maternal with Prim and Rue.
So I don’t think that Katniss just didn’t want kids - but that she didn’t allow herself to want something she knew she wouldn’t be able to have and because of the fear it would cause her, living in the current oppression of the Capitol and The Hunger Games
I don’t think it was that Katniss really changed, or that Peeta really pushed her, but that the world around her changed. There are no Hunger Games now, so she has no fear of reapings. She can provide amply for her kids (the Capitol still seems to support them, and Peeta can bake, she can hunt.) So she doesn’t have these outside factors stopping her any more.
In fact, I think it’s a beautiful way to show how much the world of Panem has changed for the better - that Katniss does now live in a world where she can have children, a world where both her and Peeta’s children can be safe.
As for her being terrified, I think it reflects how scarred she still is, which is very realistic imo. And I think it’s very natural for future mothers to be scared about it anyway, even when they’ve not been through anything like what Katniss went through. The phrasing of “a terror that felt as old as life itself” sounds like it may be meant to indicate this to a certain extent. And in the very next line, Katniss mentions the joy she felt in holding her. You say Katniss had no joy in the end, but she has it, there, holding her and Peeta’s daughter - and that’s just one example we’re given!
As for the inequality in Katniss and Peeta’s relationship, I actually think they’re VERY equal. Yes, each thinks far too highly of the other, but that’s not really inequality - and Peeta’s hijacking made her see that she had been putting him on too much of a pedestal. And even without their shared experience in the games and their ability to comfort each other against the horrors, they are very equal personality wise. They are just the right amount of different to work. They both give and take, they both make sacrifices for the other, they both “saved each other.” And they both help each other to heal and carry on in the end.
“The dandelion and the bread should always, for me, have been treated less as Peeta saving Katniss, and more as him reminding Katniss that she can save herself.”
I agree, and it’s a shame it wasn’t mentioned in the film. It’s the main reason I love that bread story! And it’s because of this that Peeta did become such a symbol of hope to Katniss. And THAT is yet another reason why it IS Peeta in the end, because he can make her remember that she can save herself, that there is always hope and that life can be good again. Gale just doesn’t have this same level of symbolism with her.
TBH, the way it’s shown in the book, it does focus as much on how Katniss learned to help herself as it did Peeta saving her. But we hear it from Katniss’ point of view and she feels indebted to him - unnecessarily so. Something which Peeta does tell her and therefore us readers!!!
And I would just like to add in here, that not only did Peeta save Katniss then, he saved her later too - because he did remind her that she can look after herself, which is how she managed to survive the Hunger Games.
And you mention Gale and Katniss as partners, and for me that’s actually why I think Peeta is the one right for Katniss. What Peeta did was purely out of selflessness - he didn’t seek to gain anything and even got a beating from his mother! What Gale did was join up with Katniss (after they’d been competitors for a good while), to help themselves. Sure, it was give and take, which is good, but Gale still did it initially with an aim of helping himself, as did Katniss. So they’re friendship always seemed based on mutual gain to me (although it did grow). Whereas Katniss and Peata became friends when she really didn’t want to - because she knew she may have to kill him! That to me shows a lot more about their compatibility than any debts or need to be grateful.
And Gale was rather pushy with Katniss at times - kissing her out in the woods in CF, guilt tripping her, such as the “you only notice people who are in pain” and being very unsupportive of Peeta at times. Compare that to Peeta who does everything he can to make it easier to Katniss, who actually tries to push her onto Gale (like with the locket.) And I know this in no way means Peeta “deserves” Katniss more than Gale, but I do think it goes to show the relative health of a relationship. Pushy Gale or patience Peeta to simplify the point a lot!
As for Gale at the end, well, “fancy job” was Greasy Sae’s description. As it’s in District 2, it’s not really a stretch to imagine it’s military related - something which would suit Gale.
“They’ve both lost themselves completely by the end, and I wanted them either as endgame or at least working towards that end, because only they could help each other find themselves again. They who share so much, who know each other better than anyone.”
But so much of what Katniss experiences, Gale just does not understand. He wasn’t in the Hunger Games, he wasn’t there when Prim died and when Katniss tried to kill herself after shooting Coin - but Peeta was.
Gale doesn’t know what it’s like to be used by the rebellion and the Capitol, to become the face leading a rebellion - but Peeta does.
Gale doesn’t understand what Katniss went through in those Games, the nightmares that come to her, but Peeta does. He’s been through it all himself and at the end, he has shared so much more with Katniss and understands her so much better than Gale ever could.
Gale cannot heal Katniss at the end, not really. Even without Prim’s death hanging between them, they had drifted apart too much, changed too much as people. In fact, one could argue that without the mutual need to survive, there’s not all that much they really do share now…
And Katniss herself reflects a number of times on how much her and Gale have drifted apart. In fact, she wonders if they would have drifted apart anyway, even without the Hunger Games and subsequent rebellion.
Anyway, I’ve gone on way longer than I intended. Hope you don’t mind, just sharing my opinion.
But going back to that first point - it does depend on how much you take on board canon or understand the books because as I’ve hopefully explained, at the end it can only be Peeta (and Haymitch too, he plays a part), who can truly heal Katniss. He’s the only one who really understands what she’s been through.
And he’s the only one who can give her hope for the future - for rebirth instead of destruction, and that life CAN go on, no matter how bad her losses.
Only Peeta can give her that - not Gale.
And as a very minor aside, I do love the bread/fire theme between them the whole time - and that District 12’s marriage ritual is toasting the bread!