I have only seen the first movie so my only experience was with the marketing rather than the film portrayals, but rereading the books as an adult and remembering how I interacted with them as a middle schooler definitely had me critical of how central the love triangle was to the cultural conversation surrounding the series. itās certainly an important element in the novels, mostly in that it represents two different potential character arcs for katniss. when the films and even the books were being marketed, however, the focus shifted to the aesthetic and surface-level emotional appeal of the love interests rather than the central conflict to katnissās character. which like, I donāt expect a more nuanced approach from marketers who clearly just saw an opportunity to make money off 12-year-olds. the unfortunate factor is that 12-year-olds are absolutely capable of literary analysis, but they are also highly impressionable and so a lot of otherwise keen readers, myself included, did end up overly focused on the superficial aspects of the āpeeta vs. galeā debate rather than engaging with the text more meaningfully. sorry to write an essay in your inbox! I am unfortunately obsessed with this series.
no apology necessary!! i love an essay š©¶
i was also of a similar age seeing the movies as they came out (i read the books around 8/9 and was 10 when the first movie premiered), and my memory of the marketing/cultural conversation is very limited (i have maybe three clear memories of interacting with the series as a kid and one of them is crying over prim in an outback steakhouse), but i completely buy that much of the reception of both the books and the movies was very very shallow!
which sucks because rereading as an adult i find myself loving the love triangle as a plot point, even beyond the ramifications for katnissā arc/further development. i love the way the love triangle serves to underscore on one hand how much she is a teenager and on the other hand how much she is unable to be a teenager. katniss is 16/17! sheās so so young! itās so so normal that sheās wrapped up in romantic considerations, that she has crushes on boys, that she doesnāt know how to communicate with them; and itās so so upsetting the way that weaves into the theft of her childhood as a continual theme. she should be able to figure out her feelings for peeta in her time and on her terms, but her autonomy is stolen and sheās corralled into this relationship where she has to remain for the rest of her life. she canāt choose peeta and she canāt choose to leave peeta. and even outside of the capitol controlling her, on an interpersonal level, everyone involves themselves in her private life and leaves her no room to ever make a choice (the scene where coin casually asks if katniss wants them to start presenting gale as her new loverā¦). the romantic drama is arguably the most normal part of katnissā time as a teenager and itās still stolen and corrupted and made public property because katniss cannot be a teenager and cannot be or belong to herself.
i donāt know!! itās good. itās good writing. and it is so sad that the conversation is/was āwhich boy should katniss chooseā and not āgrowing up under an oppressive government denied katniss both adolescence and autonomy and her relationships with peeta and gale are fundamentally formed in those traumatic circumstancesā etc. etc.