gurin thinks about everlark

he’s a gentleman

deep in the meadow, under the willow

a bed of grass, a soft green pillow

lay down your head, and close your eyes

She’s shy and vulnerable and judgemental and inexperienced and embarrassed. She loves flowers (dandelions!) and pretty things and fashion and dresses. She would have music and singing in her life more if she wasn’t so traumatised and stunted. She has crushes and she’s very romantic, if we go by her own descriptions of Peeta and what she notices from her parents. She’s metaphorically (and sometimes literally inside her own mind) twirling her hair and kicking her feet and giggling any time she’s around him. She’s such maternal and protective instincts for Prim, Peeta, Rue and countless others throughout the series. She cares for people a lot and she values community and friendship and love. She wants softness, she wants cuddles, she wants her hair played with, she wants to look good, she wants to wear cute and fun things, she wants to be kissed and loved, she wants to go frolicking in fields of dandelions.

I really want to do a reading and analysis of Gale's character as upholding patriarchal values and expectations of toxic masculinity because this stuck out to me as I listened to the CF audiobook before bed last night. From chapter 1 of CF:

I think of Gale, who is only really alive in the woods, with its fresh air and sunlight and clean, flowing water. I don't know how he stands it. Well ... yes, I do. He stands it because it's the way to feed his mother and two younger brothers and sister. And here I am with buckets of money, far more than enough to feed both our families now, and he won't take a single coin. It's even hard for him to let me bring in meat, although he'd surely have kept my mother and Prim supplied if I'd been killed in the Games. I tell him he's doing me a favor, that it drives me nuts to sit around all day. Even so, I never drop off the game while he's at home. Which is easy since he works twelve hours a day. 

Highlighted the part that really made my ears perk up. There's something to be said about Gale's stubbornness and his pride, which is very similar to Katniss's but he always takes it another step. Whereas Katniss learns to accept others' help, to forge these connections, Gale doesn't. It's giving "I'm the man and this is my job." For someone who wants nothing more than to help keep his family alive, it's weird that he refuses any help.

At first I thought maybe he doesn't want her money because it's from the Capitol and he despises it that much but she says it's hard for him to even have her bring meat in from hunting. Which points to his pride. He wants to be the provider. The one taking care of her. And it leaves Katniss in a kinda tricky place. It's like she's walking on eggshells around him here - purposely not dropping off game at his house when he's there.

Compare that with Peeta (which as a reader, like Katniss, you end up doing when either of these two guys come up) and it's so different. We know Peeta is strong and smart etc. He's not a hunter but he's also still a provider (of bread). And he has his own pride too. But going through the Games, Peeta and Katniss have a balanced push and pull. She helps him, he helps her. She takes care of him, he takes care of her. When he's hurt, he lets Katniss help him. He's not too proud to try and do it himself. Same with Katniss. She lets him take care of her when she needs it. And this is something they learn from the Games, particularly Katniss; how to accept help from others. And we see her development in this over the course of the trilogy.

Gale is interesting in that I really think he is one of the characters in the books who really doesn't grow as such. In my mind, he's rooted in place in many ways. From his ideals, to his thoughts, to his strategies, to his actions, he doesn't really develop much. He has moments - but a lot of those moments are tied to wanting to apologise to or be better for Katniss (and still he comes up short). I'm thinking of the moment where he makes her feel bad for defending her prep team in 13 and then later tries to smooth things over in the canteen by being kind. I believe that's something he did only for Katniss. She's his motivation to be different (but turns out that's not enough still.)

I'll maybe build on this another time but this passage made me think of what he says when he sees Katniss after Prim's death. "Does it matter? You'll always be thinking about it... That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family." Instead of apologising for helping to create such bombs, instead of asking for forgiveness, instead of crying with her, instead of expressing his sorrow and regret at what's happened, this is all he's able to say. Which is odd to me. To not even try to comfort your supposed closest friend at such a time. To say that's all you had going for you? It's this relationship of transaction. 'I take care of your family and hunt with you so you should end up marring me.' I really don't think that's far from what Gale expected.

Also another very important line in CF which she comes up with completely on her own.

I drift off, I try to imagine that world, somewhere in the future, with no Games, no Capitol. A place like the meadow in the song I sang to Rue as she died. Where Peeta’s child could be safe.

When I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta.

peeta study from catching fire bc i’m a sucker for jhutch’s bread boy 🫶

Summary: A languid morning in the Victors’ Village months after the rebellion.

PEETA'S SKETCHBOOK, 1/?

— after being discharged from therapy in the capitol, peeta was advised to keep a journal or sketchbook of sorts to write his thoughts and experiences down.

not really knowing what to do at first, he decides to draw people and things that he sees outside his home in the victor's village; his mentor, haymitch, and his... friend, katniss, who are his neighbours.

After the Games he fought so so so hard to protect her, to keep her safe, unharmed, unhunted. Candlelight dresses and pink earmuffs and a room full of designs he made and gave her the credit for, just so people would see she was being harmless, at peace, vulnerable, just a girl. Dozens of wedding dresses, to fit what the Capital wanted from her, to give her stepping-stones toward a future…

And then they tore it all away from her. Because Cinna knew just as well as anyone else that there was no way for Katniss’s life to outlast the Games, even if she somehow survived. Even the few things a victor could try to hold on to, by the unspoken bargains of the Capital  - obscurity, conformity, a little space to breathe - Katniss no longer had a chance to win. They’d burned it all down in front of her.

And Cinna. Cinna responded with declarations of war. You won’t let her live? You won’t even give her the option of innocence, of youth, of vulnerability or happiness or peace? Fine then. I’ll show you what you’re making.

And he showed them an angry, unforgiving queen of flame. He burned away the wedding dress - what they told her to become, what they wouldn’t let her become - to show the Mockingjay left beneath the ashes. He designed her literal armor, still beautiful but made to take bullets and not just cameras, because there was no life ahead of her where she wouldn’t need it. He gave her nightlock.