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moongirl-and-her-thoughts · 2 months ago

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idkkkk im not sure I just can't get on board with killing kids

@licorice-and-rum your character analyses are great, I feel like if anyone can reverse-analyse this its you

gale + why suzanne collins is sort of wrong

ok idk if any of this is right at all but here's the script of a video essay that i've been brewing with for the past 2 years and I guess I just want a second opinion

(this is long so buckle up)

PROLOGUE

Lets backtrack.

We all know that the hunger games is a morality play.

(um… whats a morality play?)

Shortly put, its sort of a way to explore the actions and consequences of people within the safety of fiction. That's about it.

Ms Collins’ father was a war veteran, and wanted his children to know the consequences of war. She’d look on her tv screen seeing images of the Vietnam war and knew that her father was there, however young she was.

Now, from what I know, which isn’t a huge amount, given that the british history curriculum is only so wide and isn’t able to cover the vietnam war, I don’t think it was a great war to fight in.

And a lot of ms collins’ views are sort of visible in a kids book that she wrote a long time ago. ‘A year in the jungle’. She speaks continually on how she’s afraid - afraid that her father will die. But there’s not much on who will kill him (and why would there be? Its a kid’s book. And yet… when you fight as an oppressor…)

She plays with the concept of a just war in the series. I’ve got an rs/pe gcse in a couple weeks in which this comes up (does this count as revision? It should…) First proposed by st thomas aquinas,

Just war theory is a framework of military ethics that attempts to determine when war is morally justifiable, encompassing conditions for going to war (jus ad bellum), conduct during war (jus in bello), and justice after war (jus post bellum).

There are a number of criteria required to fulfil in order to make a war a ‘just war’ - but, the queston ms collins proposes is, what are these criteria really? Who decides what they are? And how much authority do they have?

But here’s my counter question. Does it need to be a just war at all? Are the ethics of it more important than liberation?

But this is just ms collins, and my opinions. How does this affect the actual text, you may ask?

ACT 1: the old days

(to clarify, I will be making points about Gale’s character on a personal and ideological level. This may be a little bit confusing but, I swear, I have a point)

Well, Peeta is diplomacy and Gale is liberation at all costs.

We know this. Anyone with an ounce of media literacy probably knows this.

Gale grows up in the poorest area of district 12 - the seam. Gale’s father, much like Katniss's, died in a mining accident - the same mining accident, in fact. It's sort of trauma bonding for him and her - they end up sole providers of their families after that.

There is a clear distinction between the seam and merchant section that goes beyond wealth. Gale, Katniss and Haymitch are all ‘olive skinned’ with ‘dark hair’ and ‘grey eyes’. I think casting white actors in the film adaptation for almost all these people of colour does them all a huge disservice - that clear divide is now gone.

I can’t tell if Ms collins was trying to say something about the real world when it comes to this. Maybe she was. I haven't found an interview implying so but if there is one out there, please send it to me - I’d love to read it.

But Gale’s childhood is just as hard (if not harder) than the majority of people living in Panem. He is a CHILD, remember when a lot of this happens to him - and obviously, when you put a child through all that, they’re going to come out a different way to the way they began.

Even at the beginning of the text, Gale’s hatred of the capitol is very outward. Madge, the mayor’s daughter who’s not in the books, collects strawberries and he makes sure to point out that her chances of being entered are far, far less than his or Katniss’s.

(insert quote)

He probably knows deep down that she is a victim of this system too, but seeing her with an expensive bit of jewellery and being able to purchase freely the items that they have to forage for would undoubtedly be frustrating.

The ‘fire’ symbolism is there from the start. He is angry and rightfully so? This system has him at a disadvantage more than most and there is nothing he can do (right now).

Just to compare and contrast, Peeta grows up not exactly in luxury, but he’s comfortable. He may have had to ‘eat stale bread’ but he could eat. He didn’t have to take out tesserae. Him ending up in the games is meant to be a reminder that everyone has a chance of being entered into the games, even if some people’s chances are higher.

When Katniss is leaving, he says to her,

(quote)

And the fandom shits on him a bit for this, because they say ‘oh look how cruel and awful he was from the start’...

No?

What else are you saying to your friend as they leave to enter the hunger games? ‘Good luck yolo!’

No.

You tell them to play to their strengths - you reassure them, you tell them they have a fighting chance, especially in this case, because she does. He wants her to come back because she’s his best friend and they are kindred spirits, and if reminding her of this is what’ll get her back then so be it.

It’s not as if the other tributes, and even the capitol, don’t view them as animals. I guess this comes back to core questions of just war in a way - can you respond one way because your enemy has done the same? On a pure, philosophical level, no, I don’t think so. Ethically, it’s not the right choice at all.

But this is survival we’re talking about - the hunger games are known to strip children to their most basic, animalistic instincts. And there is something admirable about putting survival of your best friend over the people that are probably going to try to kill her.

I think when analysing Gale’s character, it’s important to keep putting yourself in his place, and that will really demonstrate how just because something is seen as ‘wrong’ on a moral standpoint, from a personal one, we can see he means no real ill-will to any of them, but he is prioritising the person that he knows.

If my friend was being sentenced to death, but there was a chance out of it - I would not care. I want her safe.

ACT 2: his relationship with Katniss

Katniss comes back, alive and… not so well. But this is where people start to dislike Gale’s character further. They say he is irritating with his intentions, that he feels as though he is entitled to Katniss’s affections.

In a way, yeah, I guess that’s true.

He is upset, when he sees Katniss with Peeta, because while he understands that she did what she did to survive,

[Then suddenly, as I was suggesting I take over the daily snare run, he took my face in his hands and kissed me. I was completely unprepared. You would think that after all the hours I'd spent with Gale-watching him talk and laugh and frown - that I would know all there was to know about his lips. But I hadn't imagined how warm they would feel pressed against my own. Or how those hands, which could set the most intricate of snares, could as easily entrap me. I think I made some sort of noise in the back of my throat, and I vaguely remember my fingers, curled tightly closed, resting on his chest. Then he let go and said, "I had to do that. At least once." And he was gone. Despite the fact that the sun was setting and my family would be worried, I sat by a tree next to the fence. I tried to decide how I felt about the kiss, if I had liked it or resented it, but all I really remembered was the pressure of Gale's lips and the scent of the oranges that still lingered on his skin. It was pointless comparing it with the many kisses I'd exchanged with Peeta. I still hadn't figured out if any of those counted. Finally I went home.]

I guess, from this passage, I see the dislike. He kisses her without any sort of permission and we're lucky that she seems to enjoy it, but she's so traumatised that I don't really know if she's in the right mind to consent to anything at all.

[Life in District 12 isn't really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it. Well, it's not hard for Gale. He was born a rebel. I'm the one making an escape plan. "I'm so sorry," I whisper. I lean forward and kiss him. His eyelashes flutter and he looks at me through a haze of opiates. "Hey, Catnip." ]

^^^EDITING ME SPEAKING - she does something similar? ?? i think this is a writing problem

[Someone they love. The words numb my tongue as if it's been packed in snow coat. Of course, I love Gale. But what kind of love does she mean? What do /mean when I say I love Gale? I don't know. I did kiss him last night, in a moment when my emotions were running so high. But I'm sure he doesn't remember it. Does he? I hope not. If he does, everything will just get more complicated and I really can't think about kissing when I've got a rebellion to incite. I give my head a little shake to clear it.

"Where's Peeta?" I say.]

[He takes a deep breath. "Look, Katniss, I've been wanting to talk to you about the way I acted on the train. I mean, the last train. The one that brought us home. I knew you had something with Gale. I was jealous of him before I even officially met you. And it wasn't fair to hold you to anything that happened in the Games. I'm sorry." His apology takes me by surprise. It's true that Peeta froze me out after I confessed that my love for him during the Games was something of an act. But I don't hold that against him. In the arena, I'd played that romance angle for all it was worth. There had been times when I didn't honestly know how I felt about him. I still don't, really. "I'm sorry, too," I say. I'm not sure for what exactly. Maybe because there's a real chance I'm about to destroy him. "There's nothing for you to be sorry about. You were just keeping us alive. But I don't want us to go on like this, ignoring each other in real life and falling into the snow every time there's a camera around. So I thought if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at just being friends," he says.]

Peeta also sees that maybe he was in the wrong for the way he spoke to her at the end of the first book, and apologises, which Gale never does. I don't know if I think Gale was wrong in that moment - I think he very easily could have been, and it's only luck that he wasn't. But this shows the differences in their characters and……..

Let's hear a bit more before I get back to my point.

Their relationship does seem to be a complicated one.

There is an extreme level of codependency, to a toxic level, that comes out of the strange trauma bond of having no one but eachother for 4 years. (funny how katniss keeps falling into relationships that revolve around trauma bonding).

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There is this extreme level of codependence with this two, and I think we only truly see the extent of how deep it goes for Katniss when Gale is whipped. (on a side note, I think people that enjoy when this happens are genuinely insane. This is still a teenager, who was hunting to keep his family alive. Forget his relationship with Katniss, he is still a person.)

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He's whipped 40 times. A teenage boy, living under oppression, whipped 40 times. No, I don’t think it’s funny. It’s cruel, and so is a lot of the fandom response.

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And shes jealous. I guess thats the plain, teenage angsty way of looking at it - she’s upset for no real reason that Madge had brought medicine because she feels an equal level of ownership over Gale.

This isn’t to defend his own strangely possessive tendencies, it’s to show the depth of this relationship. Gale isn’t the one-sided, angry guy in love with a girl, its both of them equally strangely attached to eachother.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/127ebcb2812b8944054fd67a679b0921/38aed5d34b1a0637-0e/s1280x1920/a692e9739ba67ca76070003cce4dda206064e463.pnj

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He’s thrilled to run away. He wanted to leave before and now that he can, he can keep his siblings safe forever with his best friend/situationship? He’s happy, of course he’s happy, and Katniss is happy too.

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Not just about his family anymore, and this is a nice segway back to their ideologies. Gale wants freedom for everyone.

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And… crazy as it seems, is that not the ethical choice? To help everyone, if they can? He knows she can save people, she can be the symbol of a revolution if she so wished, but she wants to run away. It’s not wrong of her to want to run away - of course not. She’s traumatised and young and wants to be safe - but its not wrong of him to want a revolution.

He’s young and angry and rightfully so when he’s faced some of the worst that this system has to offer and knows that there are others like him - other prims, other gales, other katnisses that deserve to grow up happy.

This is where my opinions bleed in. I think wanting freedom and liberation were the only correct courses of action.

But, on a personal level, he’s rude. He’s a little bit cruel, honestly. He’s angry. All, in a way, rightfully so… but at the wrong person.

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And I guess this shows the extent, but also some of Katniss’s own dilemma.

She’s self-deprecating and selfish and this moment changes everything for her. She could be useful and she hates that she isnt, which is the wrong response - she’s traumatised and upset and of course she didn’t want to be the face of a revolution.

But, I think I’ve shown enough quotes to demonstrate that their feelings for eachother, as well as where Gale is coming from.

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INTERLUDE:

Before I get into Mockingjay, there are a few things I want to address.

On a completely objective, third-person level, Peeta is a much more agreeable person. Katniss picking him in the end isn’t the wrong decision, rather it’s the objectively correct one.

However, this isn’t a story about a love triangle, is it? No, Collins loves to remind people - its an allegorical tale about Katniss’s world view.

(2018 nyt interview)

So, I think, personally, that presenting one of the people in the story as ‘objectively nicer’ does defeat the purpose a bit. If we are meant to be judging them solely on the ideologies that they represent, then posing one as a better person than the other seems counter-intuitive.

Because, while I have sympathy for Gale, and honestly, a lot of empathy too, I have the emotional intelligence to understand that for Katniss’s mental state and this time in her life, Peeta is better for her. But that doesn’t mean I agree with the ideology that he represents, and this in itself could override the question that collins is posing:

Diplomacy, or liberation at all costs?

Well, the reader is not able to objectively make a decision. More on that later, but, at least for now, I think it’s important to note that we are not making a choice. We are guided to a choice that was honestly made for us from the beginning.

Back to gale.

ACT 3: Mockingjay part 1

To recap - he was born poor. He was born the oldest of 3 siblings, taking out tesserae to help feed them. He works in dangerous mines that could kill him, the same mines that killed his father every day. He was whipped, publicly.

And then his district is bombed.

Somehow, Gale saves as many people as possible - which, people like to say that he doesn’t save Peeta’s family on purpose, but it’s clear, if you ask me, that he saved people closest to him. People in the SEAM, where he was able to easily access them.

He experiences a horrific bombing. He is 19. None of those people deserved to die, and Gale knows this. So does Katniss, and its why she’s fighting.

[Prim … Rue … aren't they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?]

Gale is disliked because he wanted power. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing, unless you abuse it.

(below in italics is a brief recap of their relationship in quotations - skip if you don't need it lol)

["No, just blocked the doorway when he tried to follow you. His elbow caught me in the nose," says Gale. "They'll probably punish you," I say. "Already have." He holds up his wrist. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. "Coin took back my communicuff." Ibite my lip, trying to remain serious. But it seems so ridiculous. "I'm sorry, Soldier Gale Hawthorne."

"Don't be, Soldier Katniss Everdeen." He grins. "I felt like a jerk walking around with it anyway." We both start laughing. "I think it was quite a demotion."

This is one of the few good things about 13. Getting Gale back. With the pressure of the Capitol's arranged marriage between Peeta and me gone, we've managed to regain our friendship. He doesn't push it any further-- try to kiss me or talk about love. Either I've been too sick, or he's willing to give me space, or he knows it's just too cruel with Peeta in the hands of the Capitol. Whatever the case, I've got someone to tell my secrets to again.

EDITING ME WANTED TO PUT THIS IN

I'm afraid of Gale's answer, but I ask anyway. "Why do you think he said it?" "He might have been tortured. Or persuaded. My guess is he made some kind of deal to protect you. He'd put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there's still a chance of leniency for you. If you play it right." I must still look perplexed because Gale delivers the next line very slowly. "Katniss…he's still trying to keep you alive."

They start to disagree near here -

"I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?" he asks. "No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion," I tell him. But this just makes him laugh. I have to let it go. There's no point in trying to dictate what Gale thinks. Which, if I'm honest, is one reason I trust him. "That doesn't seem very fair to the deer," I say. "Wouldn't be using it on deer, would I?" he answers. "I'll be right back," says Beetee. He presses a code into a panel, and a small doorway opens. I watch until he's disappeared and the door's shut. "So, it'd be easy for you? Using that on people?" I ask. "I didn't say that." Gale drops the bow to his side. "But if I'd had a weapon that could've stopped what I saw happen in Twelve…if I'd had a weapon that could have kept you out of the arena…'d have used it." "Me, too," I admit. But I don't know what to tell him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you.]

So the heavy dose of morphling administered after the whipping wasn't enough to erase that from his consciousness. "I didn't think you'd remember that," I say. "Have to be dead to forget. Maybe even not then," he tells me. "Maybe I'll be like that man in 'The Hanging Tree.' Still waiting for an answer." Gale, who I have never seen cry, has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over, Ireach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery. It's a surprising flavor for such a gentle kiss. He pulls away first and gives me a wry smile. "I knew you'd kiss me." "How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself. "Because I'm in pain," he says. "That's the only way I get your attention." He picks up the box. "Don't worry, Katniss. It'll pass." He leaves before I can answer.

"The majority of the workers are citizens from Two," says Beetee neutrally. "So what?" says Gale. "We'll never be able to trust them again." "They should at least have a chance to surrender," says Lyme. "Well, that's a luxury we weren't given when they fire-bombed Twelve, but you're all so much cozier with the Capitol here," says Gale. By the look on Lyme's face, I think she might shoot him, or at least take a swing. She'd probably have the upper hand, too, with all her training. But her anger only seems to infuriate him and he yells, "We watched children burn to death and there was nothing we could do!"

Well obviously thats going to piss people off.

the above quotes sort of show the deterioration of his character and relationship with Katniss. and now, here comes...

ACT 4: THE BOMB

This seems to be the nail in the coffin for why not only are we meant to pick Peeta for Katniss, but also the moment where we are meant to reject Gale’s ideologies.

But, before we get into the ethics of the bomb, let’s look once more at the life of a citizen in Panem, not from Gale’s perspective anymore, but yours.

You live in a world rapidly headed towards facism, where the lines between oligarchy and democracy have started to blur. Conflict surrounds you, every day you see that people are being killed, wrongfully, from the war in Ukraine to the genocide in palestine. None of these people deserve to die, you know this, but there isn’t much that you can do.

You might be rich, or poor - you might live in an upper-class neighbourhood, or you’re one of the rest of us - living in average conditions, average lifestyles, but at the whim of the government. Free market capitalism and neoliberalism are tyrants, and we are at their whim.

Or, you’re one of the Gales and Katniss’s of the world. Your parents cannot provide, you are being exploited and harmed, or you��re one of the people at risk of being affected by the conflict surrounding you. You know that not everyone in the country of your oppressor is the villain, but they might be silently complicit in yours and the surrounding people’s oppression.

When the united healthcare ceo was shot, no one was worried about your family. People were praising the supposed assassin. If you were one of them - congratulations. You might agree with Gale.

Katniss pleads to Gale that capitol citizens are unaware of the damage they are causing.

"It's more complicated than that. I know them. They're not evil or cruel. They're not even smart. Hurting them, it's like hurting children. They don't see…I mean, they don't know…" I get knotted up in my words. "They don't know what, Katniss?" he says. "That tributes - who are the actual children involved here, not your trio of freaks are forced to fight to the death? That you were going into that arena for people's amusement? Was that a big secret in the Capitol?"

But what about us, today? We're living in, far from the worst times in history, but far from peaceful. We see propaganda on the news every single day. The deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians are barely given coverage while the US claims that the atrocious events taking place there are all in self-defence.

But we're not stupid. There are people that claim to think that the situation is 'complex' and 'difficult to understand'. But no one respects them. We don't infantilize them. They're adults that are being wilfully ignorant.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Attributed to Edmund Burke, including by John F Kennedy in a speech in 1961. Burke didn’t say it, and its earliest form was by John Stuart Mill, who said in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Thanks to Andrew Marshall.

Therefore, I don’t think Gale was wrong at all. Acting as though they are just too stupid, or too propagandized to realise that the killing of children every year is wrong is ridiculous. Every person that allowed those games to happen without speaking up is just as guilty.

I want to rapid-fire some arguments and the counter arguments for the sake of time.

Gale killed prim!

No, he invented the bomb, with Beetee.

Same thing!

No, beetee helped invent the bomb. And Coin fired it. By this logic, the inventor of the gun is responsible for all gun crime ever.

(I got that from a reddit post lol)

But, but, he killed someone else’s prim! And he wanted to do that.

Well, that’s a bit more complicated. Gale wanted to be free, at all costs.

Let’s go back to you, in panem - sorry, I mean, you, today.

You have a weapon that could ensure that everyone suffering today would be safe. Some may die, but the majority will survive. Their children will survive, in a better world than the one today. The catch?

Well, some innocents may die. Some. Not all, not everyone, but you’re sacrificing a few lives for a better tomorrow. They might not all be innocent at all, no, but some are.

You cannot guarantee that you are not killing people that deserve to stay alive.

So, what do you do?

If you’re going to do it, pull the trigger, then once again, congratulations. You’re like Gale - like me. I think I would do it. I don’t think you’re meant to want to, as the reader, but thinking about it from the perspective of someone in Panem, someone who can prevent suffering, its completely alright.

Gale says himself - if he’d had a weapon to stop what happened in 12, he’d have used it.

I guess this is full circle for him - he can save people now, and with the weapon that he and Beetee designed. Not just him, by the way.

[At some point, Gale and Beetee left the wilderness behind and focused on more human impulses. Like compassion. A bomb explodes. Time is allowed for people to rush to the aid of the wounded. Then a second, more powerful bomb kills them as well. "That seems to be crossing some kind of line," I say. "So anything goes?" They both stare at me - Beetee with doubt, Gale with hostility. "I guess there isn't a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being." "Sure there is. Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta," says Gale.]

Now, we're back at the topic from the beginning. Just war. Is this ethical, in any situation?

That's hard to determine. I'll pull up 3 ethical systems for us to judge them by, to help us a bit.

Kantian ethics, utilitarian ethics, and situation ethics. Immanuel believed in right and wrong, nothing more, nothing less. The world is black and white with no space for gray. Well…. By that logic, Gale is wrong, Katniss is wrong, Peeta is wrong. They're all villains in this situation because they committed murder.

Utilitarian ethics? Simply put, the action that guarantees the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. Well, the problem with this, is that it all depends on if the districts have a bigger population than the capitol. If the districts have more people….

Gale is right. In his ideology, he will save future generations, today's people, everyone, at the cost of the lives of a few. But it also justifies the killing of innocents, which, technically, defeats the point of a just war.

(just war critera)

But, who decides what is right and wrong in war? No one, not really. There isn’t really a way to quantify how much murder was okay.

I guess that brings us to the last ethical system I wanted to bring up. Situation ethics. Determined on a case by case basis. In this case, was the killing of hundreds okay? It did guarantee the safety of future generations. (keep in mind, this is about the murder itself in the context of intention - Coin sanctioned that, for power. She wasn’t doing it for freedom. Gale was)

I think, personally, that it comes down to this:

Does it matter if its ethical or not? Because, in hundreds of years, people might look back on someone like Gale, they’ll study these oppressive, awful systems, and wonder, how did we end up in that situation? How did we get out?

It was help from a bomb?

Well, maybe he was a villain in someone’s story for inventing it, for wanting freedom regardless of all other factors - maybe he’s a villain in Katniss’s story, in a tragic, twisted way. But he wasn’t the villain. His actions have saved so many - is he in the wrong? Really?

[We stand there, face-to-face, not meeting each other's eyes. "You didn't come see me in the hospital." He doesn't answer, so finally I just say it. "Was it your bomb?" "I don't know. Neither does Beetee," he says. "Does it matter? You'll always be thinking about it." He waits for me to deny it; Iwant to deny it, but it's true. Even now I can see the flash that ignites her, feel the heat of the flames.And Iwill never be able to separate that moment from Gale. My silence is my answer. "That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family," he says. "Shoot straight, okay?" He touches my cheek and leaves. Iwant to call him back and tell him that Iwas wrong. That I'll figure out a way to make peace with this. To remember the circumstances under which he created the bomb. Take into account my own inexcusable crimes. Dig up the truth about who dropped it.]

That's the end of them. 6 years of friendship, gone. In my mind, when I read that, I didn’t mourn Prim - not really. We didn’t even know her. I did mourn the loss of that friendship though. I think she did too. But there’s nothing to be done.

So, in the end, Gale makes choices. From an ideological standpoint, the majority of the fandom that thinks that Gale’s choices would never be wrong - I don’t think so.

I think, when we come down to what we believe in, to making a difference, liberation at all costs is the answer that most of us would pick in the face of decades-long systematic oppression.

Now, back to Collins.

The presentation of gale, in the my opinion, was intentional. He is meant to be seen as frustrating, chasing the girl and hurting people for freedom. His personality taints the actions that he makes - arguable, a lot of what he does is justified, until the end.

To make katniss choosing a partner, and a life ideology, more of a fair thing - I think you’ve got to present both people as reasonably okay people. Gale, as a person, while I agree with his ideology and in fact many of his actions, is objectively more toxic as a person than Peeta.

It means that, when I say I’m ‘team peeta’ in a way, i've chosen his beliefs, because collins chose them. They’re what she believes, in her own work, which in a way is completely okay.

She wrote the ending she believed in, because it’s her book. But,

This is meant to be a morality play - we as a reader should be less influenced by the writer. in my opinion, (yada yaya yada), the better ending would have been something like this:

I inhaled slowly, lifting the bow. Snow in front, coin behind, but in the moment, I could hardly tell who was who. I thought I saw someone out of the corner of my eye flip a coin. Two sides. One coin. The noise around was overwhelming - I heard cheers, I heard people murmuring, I heard screaming. It seemed to crescendo in my mind, utterly consuming me.

Coin’s eyes glinted, brighter than I’d thought possible in a human being. In a strange moment, they reminded me of the bejewelled accessories of many a capitol citizen. I exhaled, lifting the bow again.

And shot straight.

Does this read as really bad fanfiction? Of course it does. I’m not an experienced, award winning writer - the longest thing I’ve written is…. (no you’ll never know and im not telling you).

The point is, I don’t think Katniss should have made a choice at all. I think that should have been left up to the reader. And, collins isn’t as intelligent as the fandom makes her out to be.

‘She only writes when she has something to say’

Does she? Really? With all her media literacy, she didn’t speak on the current atrocities in gaza at all. Not that she has to, but with all her books preach, you’d think that she would.

‘Reading isn’t political’ stfu.

In the end, this is my opinion. But to summarise -

Gale isn’t a bad person. In fact, he has the right idea a lot of the time. He is often presented negatively, which I think can sway the reader, but I don’t think he’s in the wrong. Just because his character isn’t written to be the right choice for Katniss, doesn’t mean he is the wrong ideology.

And even if he is the wrong one, I think that choice should have been left up to the reader. A better version of this book wouldn’t taint the readers’ choice with his less than agreeable statements, rather, we’d be allowed to make that choice for ourselves. Collins’ views shine though more often than not, which is alright, but it means that her books do not pose an important question that we must contemplate - they are well-crafted works of fiction that explore ideas, but ultimately tell you what they believe are right.

The fandom holds them to the highest standard, but personally, I believe that there is an integral flaw in them conceptually.

But ultimately, this is all my opinion - if you disagree, please let me know! I love good-natured, philosophical debate. pls dont send me death threats. tyyyy for reading this mammoth of an essay.

#idk #the hunger games #gale hawthorne #anti gale hawthorne #suzanne collins

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