#thgmeta

but in mockingjay pt 1 (can’t remember if this line is in the books), peeta says: “First off, you have to understand that when you're in the game, you only get one wish. It's very costly.”

it’s so powerful because katniss’s original wish is just to keep her loved ones alive (why she volunteers for prim), and peeta’s is to never have the games/capitol change who he is fundamentally (the famous “I just don't want to be another piece in their game.”)

and at every turn in the narrative, the capitol denies them their original wishes. katniss’s family is threatened, gale is whipped near to death, peeta is thrown back into the games, her entire district is bombed, etc. and peeta gets hijacked, gets the indiscriminate kindness and wholehearted love he has for katniss stolen from him and replaced by hatred and fear.

-i have none

-these books are great

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*in fairness, the thinks here is a little caveat-y

Not to be callous at all but what does he think he has to offer her in terms of survival? Their shared prowess at hunting? Their Seam heritage? Maybe. Valid. It’s just that I find his phrasing interesting. He does know Katniss pretty well and I wonder if he knew ultimately where her heart lay before she even did. Discuss.

(Oh. One other thing I do find interesting about this scene is Katniss’s indignation at the implication that she would perform an unfeeling assessment of what her potential mates have to offer her. The media, as we have discussed many times, so often paints her as a calculating heroine but she’s genuinely put out at the thought that love or desire or passion of some sort wouldn’t influence her decision over who to spend her life with - it’s just interesting. Katniss Everdeen will tell you that she is unfeeling but the minute you agree with her, well. Poor girl, she breaks my heart in these chapters).

the biggest misconception that plagues the thg fandom: the end of the hunger games trilogy wasn't about who katniss loved the most. gale so much as said so.

"Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without.” 

from the beginning, it's obvious she loved gale a lot. they clashed because gale had a much more rebellious nature, and cared more for the people of his district more than katniss ever did (which was fine and completely in character; katniss was always much more practical and had a survival instinct that really came down to her, gale and her family). but she loved him a lot, and gale loved her back, because they were always good for each other and kept one another alive. 

this is expressed in a lot of ways, but what i thought was one of the more obvious was who made katniss safe to the point where she was genuinely happy. 

"Gale says I never smile except in the woods." 

who was always in the woods with her? gale.

“My spirit. This is a new thought. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I'm a fighter. In a sort of brave way. It's not as if I'm never friendly. Okay, maybe I don't go around loving everybody I meet, maybe my smiles are hard to come by, but I do care for some people.” 

self-explanatory. 

but then at some point in the trilogy, after the games, there is a shift.

"You're alive," I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that's so wide it must look like a grimace. Peeta's alive. And a traitor. But at the moment, I don't care. Not what he says, or who he says it for, only that he is still capable of speech.

peeta being alive made her happy. she is lost without him at this point because they had been so connected after the games she knows, like the games, she can't survive without him. she so much as says so in the epilogue:

They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much. The questions are just beginning. The arenas have been completely destroyed, the memorials built, there are no more Hunger Games. But they teach about them at school, and the girl knows we played a role in them. The boy will know in a few years. How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death? My children, who take the words of the song for granted: 

Deep in the meadow, under the willow  A bed of grass, a soft green pillow  Lay down your head, and close your sleepy  eyes  And when again they open, the sun will rise.  Here it's safe, here it's warm  Here the daisies guard you from every harm  Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true  Here is the place where I love you. 

My children, who don't know they play on a graveyard. Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I'll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won't ever really go away.  I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.  But there are much worse games to play.

her mind is still in the games. but as long as they have each other, they could survive. this is why katniss chose peeta in the end. because she and gale's dynamic had shifted, and she could no longer survive with him. even in the song she teaches her children and they sing, she equates safety with love.

the fact that katniss had children after she had been so brutally scarred by what had been done to other children (including herself), that she had said she would never have any herself if she lived in the same world who committed those acts to those children (which she did- remember when other characters suggested putting capitol children in a hunger games situation?), leaves the grossest feeling in my stomach. she is so scared she doesn't even name her children in her pov- only "the boy" and "the girl." she associates them with the games despite (or maybe because of) their naiveté, like the boy and the girl that would be chosen as tributes over 20 years ago.  

if peeta sucked up his whiny “katniss played me” attitude after the games

if katniss explicitly said “fuck off both of you with that wounded ego shit”

they could’ve been such a good power trio like gales fierocity peetas talent with words and katniss’s face could’ve been such a powerful revolutionary mix

but not only that

the friendship they could’ve managed after the end of the books could’ve been so good for each of them they could’ve all helped each other heal in ways that was probably lacking with just p/k together