#cf meta

There is quite a chunk of the fandom out there who compare Peeta to a jabberjay and I've always agreed with that. This whole passage jumped out at me in a completely different way this reread, I started noticing parallels to what happened with the jabberjays and what happened to Peeta. I'm going to try and go in order of this passage but know that we are time jumping a bit.

Peeta was turned against the districts by the Capitol and sent home loaded with lies in order to kill Katniss. When Coin figures this out, she essentially deems him a lost cause and decides that he will be left for dead, using him to kill Katniss which in any scenario will lead to his death.

Now the extinction in the wild is during squad 451's time infiltrating the Capitol, we see Peeta eventually overcome the mutt in him (with Katniss's help) and that's the real start of his recovery. It could include his time post war in the Capitol but I'm seeing the wild as a euphemism for war because we see him begin to protect her during that time and when she attempts suicide after assassinating Coin.

So how did Peeta turn Katniss from a mockingbird to a mockingjay? Let's break down that final paragraph. I used to associate that very last line (couldn't highlight, cropped too close) about not anticipating it's will to live with mockingjays but now I see it's meant in association with jabberjays as well. If you examine the sentence structures it's something within the jabberjay that they are passing on to the mockingjay. Peeta literally gives Katniss her will to live, over and over again by giving her hope, that's his genetic code. The very first time is with the bread. Katniss may have been a mockingbird initially but we see a rebirth of her as a mockingjay after Peeta gives her the bread. Katniss tells us she is giving up and ready to die right there against that apple tree (and how many times do we see this happen with Katniss only for Peeta to change that?). She becomes renewed and inspired to fight for her life by receiving the bread. She finds a way to carry on the very next day. The mockingjay symbol is fluid. I don't believe a symbol has to be fixed to one person and when talking about things we see that some symbols in the series often represent more than one thing or idea. Katniss is a mockingjay, Rue is a mockingjay, toastbabies are mockingjays, the people of panem are mockingjays. These are all people who were not intended to exist in the capacity we see them and that the Capitol believed they could stamp out their will to live or very existence.

So what's this about them mating and birthing a nation of mockingjays!? Well, what happened when Everlark pulled out those berries? What did they spend the whole Victory tour trying to do? Together Katniss and Peeta had sparked a nation of people determined to live. Peeta's genetic code is hope. He gives that to Katniss and in turn they produce a nation of mockingjays, ready to fight back. So even if you still don't believe Katniss is a mockingjay, she as a mockingbird and Peeta as a jabberjay still have the potential to create a nation of mockingjays.

The line about jabberjays having the brains to adapt to the wild had me thinking a lot. My interpretation is that Peeta grows up in not only an abusive society but an abusive home. He has one of the bleakest situations, the absence of parental love is mental starvation. We need love an affection to thrive. Physical harm inflicted by the person who is supposed to be your absolute safety warps your entire world view. Somehow Peeta is able to adapt to these things. We know he has struggles from it but it certainly didn't warp him the way Mr. Everdeens death and Mrs. Everdeens neglect warped Katniss.

Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire pg 159

Wow. Reliving this scene has me twisted. The first time I read this my frustration with SC blew it's limit. I just wanted to know what the hell Peeta said to her and I didn't think we would ever find out since how many freaking times up to this point did she do something like that. Cut to Mockingjay and all was (N O T) righted.

If you can, even if you are not rereading with us, take a moment to go back and reread this section from her drinking her tea all the way up to that last line.

I really feel that Peeta began to realize there was something more than friendship in her feelings. The level of security and comfort Katniss displays is paralleled only with Prim. He notices everything about her so there's no way this passes him up. Of course he still has confusion because she appears to have serious feelings for Gale and I'm pretty certain Peeta doesn't see himself as deserving of her (uuuh, now I'm thinking of the six months between and how he must have played that over and over in his head *sobbing* please ignore my emotional outbursts) but there's no way Peeta took this moment for granted. She puts his hand against her cheek and smells it. She's drunk on sleep syrup, no frickin way did Peeta not catch her whiffing him like a kitten. 

Katniss *asking* him to not go and then repeating that in the positive form of stay with me is peak vulnerability until the I need you beach moment. She's admitting that she wants him to be with her, if only in a general sense. We never see her ask others to be with her, she constantly attempts to maintain a facade around others and keep interactions to bare minimum. She thinks the danger of the sleep syrup lowering her inhibitions is to Peeta but it simply allows her to cross her own barrier and feel what she tries so hard not to. Katniss gets to experience her own emotions, still distantly, but it's an important stepping stone in her burgeoning awareness of her feelings for Peeta.

For #ToastedTHG @everlarkedalways asked us to compare and contrast the kiss in the snow with Peeta to the kiss at the fence with Gale. Buckle up Everlurkers!

Gale's kiss is an empty experience for her. A lot of her phrasing is void-esque:

"he took" || "i think" || "vaguely" || "he let go"

"he was gone" || "hole in the fence"

The kiss with Peeta is a full experience:

"catches me" || "into" || "full of" || "underneath" || "brings to everything" || "not alone"

Peeta's kiss is described viscerally but Gale's is explained dryly. During the kiss in the snow she becomes overwhelmed with emotion to the point of wanting to cry. After Gale leaves Katniss she has to think on if the kiss made her feel anything at all, and it didn't, she felt and feels absolutely nothing.  Not even resentment, even though she was completely unprepared for it. Which knowing Katniss, and that Gale supposedly knows how she feels about love and relationships, you would think she'd at least be ticked off. But she just feels nothing. That could be chalked up to her bad mental health except that she becomes emotionally overwhelmed by Peeta's kiss.

I think the most important distinction between these two kisses is the movement descriptor Katniss uses and how she uses it. She declares Gale's hands entrap her even though he isn't the one she is required to kiss. She describes the feeling of Peeta's kiss as steady. It's familiar, secure, stable. Peeta literally catches her and even though they slip and fall, he still cushions her from the fall. It's very metaphoric for their entire relationship through the series. There is a lot of togetherness in her language as well, "catches", "we" is used three times plus "our" and "underneath". That word "underneath" speaks to the experience being layered for her.

Gale's kiss is described as something that's all about him and his feelings, because he feels left out and wants to stake a claim whereas the kiss with Peeta is about him showing up for her, being in the show together despite how it might hurt him on a personal level. The kiss with Peeta is one paragraph and she uses the word me seven times! No words or phrases of being together are used when relaying Gale's kiss to the reader.

I've rechecked this several times and did so recently again as we go through Mockingjay because I'm wierd like that, every time I reread I feel compelled to confirm. Then @bookgirl318 sent me a message asking about it and since I've never made a post about it figured now was a good time.

At the very beginning of Mockingjay Katniss says it's been a month since the arena break out. A week before the first week of September Katniss asks Boggs what the date is. At that point Mockingjay has a timeline of about a week to a week and a half. So it's been almost seven weeks since the arena break out. They were only in the arena three days so I err on the side of seven weeks total at this point. Add another week for traveling from their districts and the whole tribute circus. That would be about the start of the last week of June. So my best guess has been mid to late June for the Reaping.

From June 1st to November 1st is six months. Katniss tells us the Victory tour is almost halfway between the Games. We know the tour lasts around three weeks so my best guess is the first, maybe start of the second week of November. This is confirmed by following the timeline of events in Catching Fire.

She meets Gale the first Sunday after her return from the tour, he's whipped. A whipping takes two to four weeks to heal. About four days post whipping she tells Hazel he will be able to return to the mines in a couple weeks. The mines actually stay shut down for two weeks and right after it reopens parcel day happens meaning January 1st, that puts the whipping around the first Sunday of December.

Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire pg 222