sabrinasfeather

[sabrinasfeather]

Anon and OP absolutely cooked with this post!! Just wanted to add something in regards to Gale

To add to the point of Gale being empathetic, he saved around 900 people during the bombing of district 12, provided for his entire family (and Katniss’s/vice versa) and went on the very dangerous mission to save the survival victors of the Capital. He isn’t even rude to the Prep team like some people make it out. He was wondering why Katniss cared about them, not that he felt they should’ve been tortured. He legit helped her save them and was disgusted by their treatment.

It’s just very weird to me how some people just blatantly ignore this side of Gale, just because it doesn’t fit their narrative.

not to add to the gale discourse but like i lowkey hate fandom's desire to see gale's endgame with his own dandelion in the spring type of character (usually some blonde blue eyed merchant girl like delly and madge). maybe it's a pet peeve but I hate that fandom just accepts that katniss and gale are characters full of rage and hate and they need other characters to teach them to be civil, have empathy and peaceful (usually characters who are well-off and white). ofc not everyone who writes these ships replicate that dynamic but it's still very common. like i hate that fandom just accepts the assertion that peeta is the morally superior one. i know sc portrays it that way and katniss is filled with self-hate so it makes sense she sees it that way but really what makes peeta morally superior? the fact that collins doesn't really let him do anything of his own violation during the war??

anyways in saying that despite everything gale is probably one of the most hopeful characters in the book. he hopes from book 1 for a better life for him and his people.

actually you’re right it’s weird as hell that everyone sees Katniss and Gale (two characters of color) as full of rage and hateful and they apparently in fanon can’t figure out how to be empathetic, kind, and civil (traits they both already have but get ignored) on their own. and change is only possible if they’re in a relationship with a more affluent white person who then teaches them those things (again, traits they canonically already have). like what the fuck is up with that.

the reason that Peeta is portrayed as morally superior imo is two things. One, he struggles with his mental health and because this fandom is ableist as hell, that has a lot of people excusing him from any responsibility for his actions and just pitying him instead, seeing him as a pure helpless person who can do no wrong. And two, it’s absolutely what you said. He doesn’t do anything of his own volition. He doesn’t get his hands dirty, so to speak, during the war, and so Katniss views him as more morally pure than anyone who actually fought in it. a lot of that stems from Katniss’s own guilt and self loathing that echoes in the narrative, but it is pretty much uncritically accepted.

I agree that Gale is one of the most hopeful characters in the book! He is strong in his hatred of the Capitol from the beginning, yes, but he’s not just stewing. he’s making plans, he’s thinking about taking actionable steps. he has hope and drive based in his belief that things can get better.

[sabrinasfeather]

Gale fans, I just got an anon message on my post about how he’s the prim reaper. Should I A) ignore it or B) go on a in depth response with receipts to shut them up? Kinda leaning towards the latter.

[sabrinasfeather]

My unpopular Gale opinion is that I dont think he ever loses sight of who the real enemy is. And he makes plenty of mistakes but I dont think he lacks empathy or doesnt see human life as valuable. I know people argue that his actions regarding the Nut are heartless but a) i seriously doubt he was the first with the strategy to collapse the nut (no matter how collins frames it) and b) the nut was a military base, its existence aided in the bombing of hospitals, children and district 12. I think everyone would have preferred if there was a peaceful way or less horrible way to stop the Nut but there likely wasnt without even more severe loss of life (rebel troops going in would have also been a massacre and many had already lost their lives trying to get control of it). The point is that war is ugly. I hate how Katniss and by extension SC tries to argue that that kind of thinking (destroying the Nut) leads to thinking that supports the hunger games. Like there is a massive difference between the two and fandom runs with it to portray Gale as reprehensible.

I hate that fandom acts like Gale has not experienced death or loss because he wasnt in the arena. He experienced that on a much larger scale than Katniss with the d12 bombing, whereas Katniss sees murder and death in the arena on a smaller scale where individuals are at fault which explains why they both react the way they do in mockingjay. In saying that I really feel that Mockingjay does not give enough attention to the district 12 bombing as it should. I don't think it makes sense the victor's village wasnt bombed (it should have been the first thing). But except for Madge, everyone Katniss cares about seems to survive and Katniss even gets to keep family mementos and sentimental things. Obviously because she is the main character but I think it would have been more awful (and realistic) if they had been lost because frankly that is what happens during genocide. There is no warning and people are left with nothing. Its what happened to everyone else in d12. And i definitely hate that SC writes that some survivors thought it was good luck to be of free of d12 at last. I just think that would have been an insane thing to say after watching 90% of your people perish. Considering everyone likely lost someone during the bombing I'm assuming those survivors got sucker punched almost immediately.

I want to print this ask out and frame it

YEAH. Yeah. Katniss and Gale have both suffered immensely but the way that they’ve experienced death and loss is markedly different. one of the things they initially connected on was the loss of their fathers in the same mining accident, and they had similar views and experiences of death. but then Katniss goes into the Games and that starts to diverge. for Katniss, killing is a deeply personal act because she had to do it in such close quarters and suffered so acutely. for Gale, he sees how callously and easily the Capitol inflicts a genocide by wiping out a district and he begins to see death and loss as something that can be done sweepingly to achieve an aim. I don’t think he sees that as a positive thing at all, but he sees how the Capitol wields mass death as a tool and he realizes (correctly, btw) that the only way for the rebels to prevail is to match their tactics.

and his approach makes sense. Gale watched a genocide. he was the only reason any of his people survived at all. the weight of that and the responsibility he was shoved into at max 19 years old is horrifying. he is the only reason D12 still exists. he is also the only reason the rest of the country finds out what happened to D12. and Katniss displays absolutely no understanding of how that would affect him, because she’s also extremely traumatized and stuck in quite a self centered mindset, but as readers we can extrapolate and think about just how much that would screw with his head. but of course this lack of sensitivity and thought also comes from SC, for the reasons you pointed out. the idea that some survivors would be glad to be free of D12…gross. I’m sure plenty of people had very complex feelings about it but who is glad to see their home burn, everything they know lost, and 90 percent of their people killed?

[sabrinasfeather]

Me when I see someone call Gale the Prim Reaper for the millionth time. It was never funny and it’s not even true:

[sabrinasfeather]

Our rocky ledge overlooking the valley. Perhaps a little less green than usual, but the blackberry bushes hang heavy with fruit. Here began countless days of hunting and snaring, fishing and gathering, roaming together through the woods, unloading our thoughts while we filled our game bags. This was the doorway to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other's key. ( @sangrefae )

𝗞𝗔𝗧𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗦 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗗𝗘𝗘𝗡 & 𝗚𝗔𝗟𝗘 𝗛𝗔𝗪𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗥𝗡𝗘 — (𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗥𝗡𝗘.)

[sabrinasfeather]

Not my usual post but I’m SO HAPPY Taylor owns her entire catalogue 🫶 She deserves it!!

[sabrinasfeather]

Do u have any silly gale headcanons we are in desperate need of gale positivity

YES most of them are to do with his siblings tbh.... #1 big brother gale like

he would give posy the world if he could and can never say no to her, so at times his hair will be an absolute wreck bc she insisted on doing it for him and he glares at anyone who says anything to him about it

if posy handed him a fake phone for him to answer he would 100% have an entire fake conversation, voices included

is something of an animal magnet. Animals just.... flock to him and immediately gauge that he passes the vibe check. rory in particular is mad about this bc hes the exact opposite and animals tend to HATE him

surprisingly good at impressions and doing silly voices too. only uses this skill for posy's bedtime stories

afraid of spiders. never says anything bc he has to deal with them anyway but it's important to know

along the same lines, he'll tease katniss for being squeamish and then turn around and be deathly afraid of needles

his favorite color is blue, like you see in flowers like columbines and forget-me-nots

keeps an extensive collection of bracelets and necklaces posy has made for him and wears them every so often. he's tried to make them for her too but she says that he "does it wrong" (aka doesn't use the brightest colors available)

really really prolific with dad jokes. i mean. the whole "look what i shot!" with the bread in the first book was just the tip of the iceberg. he makes it a goal to fill a certain groan quota with rory and vick

a mama's boy through and through

ive talked about it before but his hair is naturally flawless and he's infuriatingly oblivious about it. katniss wants to strangle him sometimes bc of it

taught every one of his siblings how to tie their shoes, including prim

used to collect ribbons and pretty pieces of fabric for prim when he'd see them. still has the habit, but now he just gives them to posy or keeps them in the bottom drawer of his bedside table

[sabrinasfeather]

I hate when people say “Prim Reaper” like that expired in august, of 2012! Those people are actually like arguing with brick walls 😭 It’s not even true like you pointed out so I don’t know why people still go with that narrative

fighting a “prim reaper” hunger games fan and you can clearly see that they had no media literacy

“uh actually gale was 20, so he wasn’t a child and was in the wrong” when the angry and destroyed character reacted in ways that are understandable

“he knew prim would be there and that the bombs would be there” …no? that’s why it’s a tragedy, he only helped with the concept, and he cared for prim when katniss was in the games, why would he willingly let her be killed?

[sabrinasfeather]

Since I saw a take on tiktok that Gale would kill Katniss in the arena, I present you this paragraph from Mockingjay.

I start screaming for Gale. I can’t find him in the throng, but he will know what I want. A good clean shot to end it all. Only there’s no arrow, no bullet. Is it possible he can’t see me? No. Above us, on the giant screens placed around the City Capital, everyone can watch the whole thing being played out. He see’s, he knows, but doesn’t follow through. Just as I did when he was captured.

At the very end of the book, when Gale knew his relationship with Katniss was over, he couldn’t bring himself to kill her. The guy Katniss herself says “always has her back” is not going to kill her! I get not everyone has to like Gale, but so much Gale haters just make up stuff that isn’t even supported by canon. And Gales whole character is wanting to rebel against the Capital. It’s far more likely that if they were in the arena, Gale and Katniss would’ve tried to find a way out together.

[sabrinasfeather]

more gale art....... it just makes sense for him to have long hair tbh

[sabrinasfeather]

Gale Hawthorne. The Hunger Games (2012).

[sabrinasfeather]

Back on my "Madge lives and her and Gale get married" bullshit.

After Haymitch tells Madge about her iconic aunt in more detail than her mother was probably able to (grief, ya know? - or maybe just a different side of her than Madge's mother knew), Madge tells Gale and then they decide to name their first baby Maysilee "Maisie" Hawthorne.

[sabrinasfeather]

The amount of Gale hate and amount of people misunderstanding his character making me a Gale defender awfully fast. And I didn't even like that guy. Text under is rumbling and english not my first language, be aware before reading it.

Gale is as flawed as it gets. His trauma response of being a part of severely oppressed group is anger. I'm not blaming him for not wanting to show mercy or understanding for those who benefits regime that kills him and people like him. Gale is insufferable person I see it clearly. But he also still only 20-21? at the end of trilogy, abd honestly there isn't that much time to self reflection when all you do is trying to keep yourself and people close to you alive.

I think of moment between Gale and Madge, when he reacts with aggression even if he understands the divine between classes of people born from tesserae is just another tool to divide people.

There also a point where Gale a blamed by fandom because Coin used a strategy that he only partially helped to create? And as a person living in a country with a war in a full blast 40+- km away from my home, a double bombing isn't that rare or that original idea. People really would rather blame a guy who did strategy pretty gruesome but effective things from his hunter experience than blame a person in a power position that make it happen.

(it's also very funny when same people say Caesar Flickerman is a good guy)

[sabrinasfeather]

AND ALSO!!!!! GALE NEVER WOULD HAVE DONE A SINGLE THING THAT HE DID IF HE KNEW IT WOULD KILL PRIM. that boy's ONLY goal in life was to keep prim everdeen alive. he was the first person katniss went to when she got reaped to ensure prim was safe, and gale PROMISED that he would keep her alive and safe

gale adored her to death, and there is not a single thing he would have not done to keep her safe. he had no fucking idea that prim would be in the capitol, let alone what his bomb would be used for—that burden is strictly on coin and on coin alone. gale loved prim, he would have rather blown out his own brains than played even a Small part in her death

like i get it's so easy to not like him and gale frustrates me all the time, but that's only because i know what he doesn't. the dude is left in the dark for almost the entire series. he knows NOTHING, and katniss has never been the kind of person to offer anything up, especially not after all of snow's threats

"prim reaper" yeah ok whatever gale would have burnt district 12 down himself if he felt that would keep prim safe. he loved that little girl just as much as katniss did

[sabrinasfeather]

I don't understand people who like Coriolanus Snow but hate Gale

[sabrinasfeather]

Top 5 songs by my 5 favorite Artists

1- Sabrina Carpenter

Feather

Busy Woman

Smoke and Fire

15 minutes

Paris

2 - Taylor Swift

the lakes

The Albatross

right where you left me

Last Kiss

I Know Places

3 - Olivia Rodrigo

Pretty isn’t pretty

Lacy

1 step forward, 3 steps back

Happier

So American

4 - Lana Del Rey

Pretty when you cry

Mariners Apartment Complex

The Blackest Day

How To Disappear

Dark But Just A Game

5- Ariana Grande

Touch It

Goodnight and Go

Bloodline

The Light Is Coming

Side To Side

[sabrinasfeather]

gale is such an interesting character but unfortunately he was doomed from the start because he was written by a liberal white woman