#I feel more represented by Katniss in this context then SO many 'strong female characters' today. Woman are allowed to want children

[mellarked-katnisseverdeen]

Maybe a hot take....

But Katniss Everdeen having children and being married isn't agasint feminism. It's representing a kind of woman certein circles of feminism don't consider feminist.

Females wanting to be mothers and wives, and being extreamly HAPPY with that life is (or at least SHOULD be) extreamly feminist. JUST AS MUCH as woman wanting careers, or to be warriors, or leaders. The only way it's NOT is if it is potrayed one of these paths are the ONLY thing woman should want/can acomplish.

Katniss is able to choose the life that brings her joy and happyness as she works to heal. And that choice is backed up by many things in text that show that, given her own say in anything, she'd want a world where she can have these things.

That, to me, is FAR MORE feminist that half of the more recent "strong female characters" and I said what I said.

[enobariasdistrict2]

clove for the ask game!!!!!!

send me a character and i'll tell you:

my first impression:

so she was kinda just some random villain at first actually lmao, when i was reading the books i wasn't really as compelled by her because she was just some weird knife girl that kept trying to kill katniss

my impression now:

thanks to isabelle fuhrman's incredible acting skills that made her like this sweet but sarcastic vicious person who's a little bit unhinged, i adore her so much! she's my favorite knife girl character and i stand by her no matter what like that's not a villain, that's my favorite mean knife bitch who i love so much

favorite thing about the character:

i feel like i could list so many things. i love how much violence she is in such a small package and how she goes after what she wants with an almost feral single minded determination, as well as the sweetly sarcastic attitude she perfected in her interview with caesar. also her obsession with knifes is fairly cool

least favorite thing about the character:

tbh i honestly don't really fault her for it and was never particularly aggravated by it but i can see how her making fun of the death of a 12 year old child was a little off putting

favorite line/scene:

wanna blow lover boy one last kiss?... now, we're gonna kill you. -- and also her line in the interview about how she was the best at knives and could kill caesar from across the stage, isabelle put so much into that.

favorite interaction that character has with another character (i don't think anyone will be surprised by my choice if they've spent even 5 seconds on my blog):

cato kneels beside clove, spear in hand, begging her to stay with him. in a moment, he will realize it's futile. she can't be saved.

a character that i wish this character would interact with more:

hmm, i know climmer and cloveniss are popular options for female friendships and i would love both those dynamics but i feel like clove would get along very well with d4 girl? and i just want to know d4 female tribute better as well but luckily that's what good fanfiction is for

another character from another fandom that reminds me of this character:

hope mikaelson from legacies, specifically in s4 when she was in her no humanity era

a headcanon about this character:

it might look like she was reaped and just had the training to be prepared for her name being drawn at random but based on the career culture of wanting strong worthy kids to represent them, i think d2 would be a lot more intentional about who they send in and would inform the escorts as well as the tributes in advance of which tribute would go in which year, so clove knew she had been assigned 74th like at least one or two years earlier. there's also a Reaping brawl where anyone pissed off about not being chosen can fight the volunteer to take his or her place and clove had to fight off 3 different girls just to claim her spot.

a song that reminds me of this character:

vicious by bohnes, eat your young by hozier, as well as young god and hurricane both of which were written by halsey

an unpopular opinion about this character:

i think it's widely agreed in the fandom that she's slightly tougher than cato and more willing to strike him down regardless of her emotional attachment to him, so idk that her winning in between them is an unpopular opinion. however i do think there's no way her and cato knew each other beforehand - which might certainly be an unpopular opinion to clato fandom - in the context of being childhood best friends, probably at most training partners, because i firmly believe their bond grew specifically in the games and it was there where they felt connected and began to care about each other a little too much. (i'm not trying to be a bitch i LOVE all of the clato pre-games best friends AUs on ao3 and eat them up, i just think that canonically they didn't have an established relationship especially because the districts must have large populations).

favorite picture:

it's hard to choose but i love this one (ignore cato in the background he doesn't matter as much as my best girl):

she looks so pretty and dolled up and put on a sweet persona for caesar/sponsors but she's also annoyed and bored in a deadly, beautiful way at the same time!!

[bluescreening]

Book Recommendations: Dystopias

A lot of people find dystopian fiction depressing. I actually find them uplifting, since it makes the real world seem a whole lot brighter! Well, I can’t promise that the world right now is actually any better than them, but we can dream. Here are some of the best. All blurbs written by me unless otherwise specified.

Also, this post deleted itself halfway through me writing it. Ah, the things I struggle through for you people. The reviews I painstakingly re-write. The show must go on.

The Handmaid’s Tale (and The Testaments) by Margaret Atwood - The Republic of Gilead is ruled by right-wing Christian extremists, and freedom for women is a rare commodity. Offred’s value lies in her reproductive ability, stolen from many other women by high levels of radiation. She must find a way to escape before she outlives her usefulness.

I know, I know, it’s typical, but hear me out (or scroll down for more original ones). This book is heartbreaking, it’s beautiful, it’s terrifying and most importantly it’s very applicable to modern society. I’m sure you’ve all heard people go on for ages about how it technically excels, but I want to talk about how Atwood never once falls into the trap of showing characters getting stronger by making them more masculine. Offred and the other female characters all embrace their femininity in different ways, and they are all strong while also being women, something many young adult writers seem to think is impossible. I expect nothing less from this great author. The Testaments went through the same prejudice as all sequels from reviewers, but I think it was wonderfully done and answers plenty of questions about Gilead and the world watching it.

Chaos Walking (The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer and Monsters of Men) by Patrick Ness - There are a couple of strange things about Prentisstown. There are no women, and everyone can hear each other’s thoughts. Even the animals. Todd Hewitt is the youngest one in town, and he’s determined to find out the secrets of his home.

Ah, Patrick Ness, the only author on the planet who can reliably make me cry. And hoo boy, is there lots of crying to be had in this series. Emotional turmoil ahoy! No but seriously, once you get over the way the main character’s accent is written (which made me pass by this book more than once) the story told throughout the series is deeply heartfelt, frightening and above all human. Topics from war to gender to segregation to what it means to be human are all covered in a way suitable for youngsters while also managing to be compelling and intense to adults. A slightly offbeat dystopia, but one with worldbuilding that cannot be scoffed at.

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) by Suzanne Collins - Panem is divided into 12 districts, who each provide cheap labour for the illustrious Capitol. Each year 24 children are forced to fight to the death to quell uprising in the districts. That is, untill Katniss Everdeen comes along to shake things up.

Everyone knows the Hunger Games. But if you’ve only watched the films, I strongly suggest you read the books. The media industry did what the Capitol did, and threw out the real story to focus on a romance that isn’t even real within the context of the books. If you have read the books, check out The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s a prequel, focusing on how President Snow got to be... like that. Despite mixed reviews I really enjoyed it, and it was very nostalgic for me, considering I was pretty much obsessed with Panem for several years.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Montag is a firefighter, but not in the normal sense. His job is to burn books, protecting the people from the knowledge within. A meeting with a teenager called Clarisse has thrown his worldview into disarray, and his wife is going insane.

This book is standing in for all my old dystopias - 1984, Animal Farm, We - for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I recently realised 1984 creeped me out as a kid because of how r*pey it was and I need to re-read and re-assess whether I like it or not. Secondly, because I think it’s really quite poignant in the current information age. We have access to the internet to co-ordinate, learn and educate each other. The sum total of all human knowledge is here. If we didn’t, would we be able to rebel as we do now? Or would we simply go along with what we are told, because we have never been told otherwise? Also, Ray Bradbury is a legend and is likely to pop up in my upcoming short stories list quite a lot. Bear in mind that this is a very thinky book so don’t pick it up as a light summer read, pick it up for introspection and criticism of censorship in our society.

Vox by Christina Dalcher - Women are limited to 100 words per day, at risk of a near-fatal electric shock if they overstep. Girls are swiftly losing the ability to speak, read and write. Dr Jean McClellan is going to change that if it kills her.

One big criticism of this book is that it’s too similar to the Handmaid’s Tale. I have to agree to a certain extent, but there are some key differences that make it a worthy read on its own. The pace, for one thing, is a lot faster, with more action which might make it a great option if you haven’t got the patience for Atwood’s style. It feels a lot more like a typical young adult dystopia without losing any of the moral punch of HT. Also, it emphasises the importance of communication for rebellion a lot more than HT. I think its message needs to be said again and again, and that the stylistic and plot differences not only make it accessible for more people but also lend themselves to a more personal story. Let the reviewers whine. It’s one of my favourites.

The Broken Trilogy (Broken Sky, Darkness Follows and Black Moon) by L. A. Weatherly - Amity is a Peacefighter, charged with competing in dogfights with other regions’ representatives in lieu of actual war. But corruption has its teeth deep into the Peacefights, and there is a tanged web of espionage, rebellion and... astrology?

Yep, that’s right folks, this is a dystopia in which your star chart determines whether you live or die. Sure, it sounds goofy, but surprisingly enough it works extremely well as a premise, and who are we to talk trash about insane government officials? Amity is a deep, exciting character, and she’s joined by a really compelling cast including a secretive astrologer and Amity’s love interest. Unfortunately, the love story feels quite forced, but fortunately the rest of the story is so good you can struggle through. The first book is a slight trek to get into, but once you do, there’s a hell of a cliffhanger waiting for you. I shall say no more.

And that about wraps up my forays into dystopian fiction! As you can probably tell I’m obsessed so expect a second post when I’ve collected a few more. Might have to divide it into feminist and other :/

[amphtaminedreams]

To All the Characters I’ve Overly Identified with Before: Borderline Personality Disorder and Attachment to Fictional Characters

It’s been a month, and I’m still not over how Game of Thrones ended. I’m still not over the way that a character who, throughout the previous seventy something episodes of the show, was only ever ruthless towards people who were deserving of her wrath (within the context of westerosi justice because let’s not forget everyone’s favourite man of honour Ned Stark decapitated a young man for running for his life in the first episode), suddenly massacred a whole city in the penultimate episode. I’m not over the way that writers who spent the previous seasons showing that they were capable of translating the moral ambiguity of George R.R Martin’s characters from page to screen, got lazy and left us with a character whose actions became impossible to defend right as the show was ending. I’m not over the way that such a beautifully complex character who endured so much hurt and trauma was reduced to nothing more than a “crazy woman” by a couple of male writers in her final moments. I’m not over the fact that Emilia Clarke put her heart and soul into the character and did everything she could to bring Daenerys Targaryen to life for David Benioff and Dan Weiss to both literally and figuratively assassinate her.

I think those feels have been felt by a lot of Game of Thrones fans since the show ended. God knows I’ve watched enough youtube video essays and read enough articles and liked enough tweets reiterating the sentiment. Daenerys Targaryen was, in my opinion, the best character on Game of Thrones. I wasn’t angry because she didn’t end up sitting on the throne (though my boy Drogon made sure nobody else ever would either and I guess I can get behind that), I was angry because all the balance that made her character so great was thrown out the window in order to progress the story of her male counterpart and bring a show that probably could’ve done with another 2 seasons to an end. Dany has always had a dark side, she is the “fire” that the title of the book series refers to, but throughout the show, we’ve never seen her indulge that side to the point of no return. We’ve seen her wrestle with it and use it to exact punishment on those who deserve it when needs be, and that was part of what I liked about her. Not to go all feminist essay on anyone’s ass but we don’t usually get to see women in TV who are celebrated for their powers of intimidation, and I liked how prior to season 8, the narrative never made female characters like Dany or Arya or Brienne out to be monsters for killing people the same way that basically every single man on the show did at one point or another. I liked that sometimes she was a little excessive because it made sense, she did have “dragon” in her, and she still had lines she wouldn’t cross, clear values and principles; she fought for the innocent, for women and for children, and for freedom. On a personal level, I loved her because we watched her go from a lonely, scared and vulnerable girl to a strong, ambitious and self-assured woman and that was a trajectory I wanted to relate to.

And then all of a sudden, without any justification or build up at all, she’s a mass murderer of the same “downtrodden” people she always claimed to fight for. Fuck, I’m thinking. I literally watched that episode through my hands because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. When I say I cried on and off for about 3 days after I watched the final episode, I’m not exaggerating; I only need to see a screen cap now a month later or an interview with Emilia Clarke and I’m off again. It literally felt as if I was mourning the loss of a real person. But this isn’t the first time I’ve had this kind of attachment to a character. Daenerys Targaryen was probably just the last in a long list of women I overly identified with.

I’m not much like her at all really, I’ve burnt myself from taking the film off my microwaved lasagne and not moving my thumb away from the hot air in time (lmao), however, I think I saw parts of myself in her journey and traits that I wanted to have, thus, I latched on. Before Daenerys Targaryen there was Spencer Hastings and before her there was Cassie Ainsworth and then if we’re gonna throw it all the way back, there was Hermione Granger (and some other characters I was more mildly obsessed with along the way, Katniss Everdeen, Bree Van de Kamp and Cosima Niehaus, I’m looking at you). I still love all those characters now but when their respective shows or films were actually current, I was completely obsessed. I spent my 16th birthday at the Harry Potter studios on the outskirts of London with my family, forget birthday parties or meals out with my friends. I wished more than anything that I had 2 best friends that loved me unconditionally and I did my best to emulate that drive and intelligence and work ethic everyone associates with Hermione. I told myself I was just like her even though I lacked the confidence to put my hand up in all but one of my classes and last time I checked, was just trying to conquer GCSEs not fight an evil wizard snaked hybrid man or whatever Voldemort is.  I identified with the loneliness and the need for control that I saw in Cassie, and was like “oH eM GeE, tHat’s sO mE!” at Spencer’s perfectionism. When I was speeding for my exams (and then, unfortunately, for long after), I felt spiritually connected to that whole Pretty Little Liars arc where Spencer started popping adderall on the daily even though I could really only wish for someone to care about me enough to stalk me like A did and the worst possible outcome of my all nighter was not taking in enough content to bullshit my way through a 30 marker.

They would understand me, they would be my friend. They represent me. That was the baseline sentiment of my obsession. And I think that’s the borderline part of me jumping out. See, such a huge part of BPD is feeling unwanted and misunderstood and forgettable and really, deeply lonely.  Like it’s a kind of loneliness I think you feel like an actual person can never really fulfil because the (faulty and not necessarily reflective of reality) thought pattern is that they’ll lose interest and leave you sooner or later. Fictional characters are always there, until the show gets cancelled or the character gets killed off, at least, and then comes the completely disproportionate tidal wave of grief. They exist in a different world too, a one that feels a lot less dangerous (even if it’s actually way more dangerous, I mean I really wouldn’t last five fucking minutes in Westeros) and detached from the often chronically muted reality of BPD.

Then there’s the trouble with the sense of self, part and package of BPD for most, which facilitates, you know, thinking that a genius witch or, like, any character in skins (because in hindsight as great as that show was, WHY DO NONE OF THEM HAVE JOBS YET SEEMINGLY AN ENDLESS SUPPLY OF DRUGS AND PARENTS THAT NEVER SEEM TO CARE WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE!?) resembles you as a person in any way. Though I suppose I’m learning recently as I begin to reflect more on what I enjoy and value, I’ve never had much more than a vague idea of what my positive qualities are, so when I saw them fully realised in a character it was a treasure trove of mannerisms and traits and ways of carrying oneself to adopt. It becomes a mould into which you can squeeze the ball of meh-ness and uncertainty you feel you resemble. Now I’m realising that although it might take me a little more time and a lot more effort, it’s much more rewarding to become the very best version of myself, but back then, I suppose I didn’t recognise why I was doing what I was doing. 

I only got diagnosed with BPD and started learning about it when it was 19, so all the years before that were pretty much spent unaware of the reasons why I had these quirks. As I “recover” (I suppose that’s the right word) and I get back into hobbies and spend more time with friends, I feel like I’m beginning to discover more and more of who I am. I’m starting to accept that there are positive things about me and plenty of things for people to like, right here in this world, not some fictional one.

I still love characters way too much and get overly attached and invested in TV shows but even that doesn’t necessarily have to be something to be ashamed of. When I’ve got into *ahem* discussions with people online about characters before, I’ve occasionally gotten the “why do you care so much, it’s not real life!” in response, and I mean, there’s definitely a point to be made if your passion for something is causing you to lash out at real life people with real life feelings. But when you’re not, when it can give you hours of discussion and entertainment and can drive you to make real positive changes in the world too, what’s wrong with passion? There’s nothing I love more than having a conversation with someone who I can tell really loves what they’re talking about, so why should I be ashamed of having the capacity to become deeply invested in things too? I think as long as it’s not taking over my life as I have allowed it to do so in the past, there’s nothing wrong with having passion for fictional things or for anything, for that matter. As long as it’s not something fucked up, like idk, white supremacy or Rick and Morty (JOKING). 

I don’t regret loving all the things I loved because being a huge Harry Potter fan for so many years did give me an escape when I absolutely hated myself and couldn’t find much enjoyment in real life. I hope that if I do have children one day, they’ll love it too, maybe not quite as much as I did but enough for it to give them all the joy it gave me, all the same. So in summary, yeah, fuck David Benioff and Dan Weiss (lmao, I’m joking, they’re just shitty original screenplay writers who could probably do with a class or two on how to write female characters), but also, understand before you make fun of someone for being overly invested in something that there’s probably a good reason for it and that, at the end of the day, they’re usually not hurting anyone. I’ll probably still be stanning Daenerys Targaryen and pretending season 8 episode 5 didn’t happen until the day I die. Let me live, okay?

Lauren x

[princessjaqulinechess1031]

My Peeta Mellark Essay That Is About What, Five Years Late To The Party? But Here We Are, Why Peeta is The Best Male Romantic Lead I Have Ever Read

My sister is watching The Hunger Games non-stop because she finally is old enough to read the books and wanted to see the differentces between the films and book series, and I’m now being sucked back to my middle school years where my whole personality centered around explaining why The Hunger Games is the best piece of modern literature.

I also remember being the only one that thought Peeta was even a worthwhile character, because literally everyone was like ‘he’s too helpless’ or ‘he sold out the rebellion in the third book’ (because of the brainwashing) and I remember just being very confused why everyone really liked Gale ‘Let’s Murder Innocent Civillains And Not Ponder The Implications of Our Actions’ Hawthorne. Like Gale is a great character but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking he gave a damn about the civilians in the Capitol that died (“If I had a button to kill every person in the Capitol, I would push it right now. No hesitation” I believe is the actual quote he used) and tried to apply a black and while morality upon a gray world. In fairness, I think Gale Hawthorne is ultimately a good person, if a really angry person.

And I just never understood why people in my life were so against Peeta until my brother said something about Peeta being emasculated by Katniss a few days ago. Literally the first thing I thought to myself is that Peeta would not give a damn if Katniss emasculated him — Peeta doesn’t care that Katniss is physically stronger or more survival oriented than him. Peeta is just so happy that Katniss even exists on the planet that he does not care about all that.

I think what it comes down too is what Peeta represents. Peeta is not the typical romantic lead — he is strong yes, but also very emotional and comparatively more privileged than Katniss (let’s not kid ourselves — Peeta was totally better off than Katniss and Gale at the start of the series, but he was NOT living in the lap of luxury that like some people would like to believe. He may have eaten everyday, but let’s not act like it was always fresh and hot food with dessert. No, he was eating what his family bought off Katniss and Gale — which was not always guaranteed food — plus stale bread.). Most romantic leads in these novels are traditionally masculine, with strength, speed, survival skills, and an inability to be charming or charasmtic or show any emotion, and more often than not an underprivileged or oppressed person in comparison to the more well-off or less restricted female protagonist (I.e. Cassia and Ky in Matched)

Peeta blows all that out of the water. He is strong (he is in-universe a great wrestler and he won The Hunger Games alongside Katniss, even if at the end he was being helped by Katniss, Peeta killed people and even took on Cato before he teamed up with her. One does not win the Games without some bit of strength), but he is also very emotional and compassionate. He’s not stoic at all — he wears his heart on his sleeve. He lets his emotions rule him. He ignores Katniss and pouts for six months before Catching Fire starts, but then he comes to her and tries to reach out to her, saying that this is a complicated situation and that he should have been more understanding of what she was feeling and why she did what she did. It’s also never framed like he has no right to be angry — he was led to believe that Katniss, the girl he was madly in love with, wanted to be actually be with him. This wasn’t malicious on the part of Katniss (or Haymitch, because he had a hand in this too) but it still happened. He had a right to be at least a little upset.

But the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day he came back to Katniss and recognized that it was survival. She never meant to hurt him and that this is a complicated situation. He was upset, recognized why he was upset, and realized that it was not Katniss’s fault. She didn’t owe him anything. After the Games, she didn’t owe him a relationship, even if they were pretending to be a couple. He was content to just be her friend through the shit-show that would be their new post-Games lives.

Compare this to Gale, who also pouts and is upset at Katniss after the Games. He too is madly in love with Katniss and thought that Katniss had fallen in love with Peeta. I’m not saying that Gale didn’t have a right to at least be saddened by this — thinking the person your in love with is in love with someone else is a heartbreaking experience, so yes, I do think Gale had a right to at least be mildly saddened by this revelation.

But the face is that: he was angry at Katniss about this. He was angry at her for choosing survival (pretending to love Peeta) rather than dying (going out on her own). Now, Katniss could have won the Games with or without Peeta and I think arguably Peeta could have one without Katniss if Haymitch had somehow gotten medicine to him in the arena via sponsor, but the possibility of him winning alone is not the topic of discussion. Gale was angry at her for loving someone else.

Gale had believed that one day he would be Katniss’s husband. That’s an unshakable belief of mine. From literally the first time we meet him, he’s talking to her about if she ever wants kids. That is classic ‘I want to get married talk’. This was his last reaping and he was about to enter the mines. He was gearing up to ask her to marry him at some point in the year following, based on my reading of the text.

And when Katniss showed up, ‘Boyfriend’ in tow, Gale was pissed. He thought that after everything that had happened Katniss was his. Without the Games, it’s entirely possible that Katniss would have married Gale eventually, even if I think personally that she never would have had kids or gotten married if the rebellion hadn’t happened. But you can interpret a future where Katniss and Gale getting married happens based on your reading of Katniss’s character.

The Games did happen though. Katniss was unofficially betrothed to Peeta and instead of being sad but supportive because she’s being forced into something she doesn’t want but has to go through with, Gale gets angry at her. Gale straight up kisses her one day and then ignores it like nothing happened, gets angry at her for keeping up the charade with Peeta to keep her family and Gale’s family alive (because Katniss deeply loved Gale’s family as her own, you can’t deny this fact, so Snow would target them).

He wanted her. He wanted to be here. And their’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be with someone, but there’s something wrong when you get angry at someone for either a)loving someone else or b) doing something to keep themselves from dying.

This sounds like I’m bashing on Gale, so I do want to say that I do genuinely think that Gale is a good person. I think he wants things to be fair and just, that he wants everyone to be given a fair shake. I honestly don’t think he minds working hard, he never complains about the actual work just the quantity of it and the proportion to what the workers get in return. If he worked his ass off and got a fair shake in return, like equal treatment, safe working conditions, and actual payment that could take care of his family, I don’t think he would have a problem.

We do, however, have to compare Gale to Peeta, because within in-universe he is compared to Peeta by Katniss. So we have to talk about the two together, because they are entwined as characters. We hardly ever see them interact on page, the only time they interact one-on-one (that we get to see, as in not in Catching Fire where Gale helps them train) is in Mockingjay, where they are on the same squad.

That infamous conversation where they talk about Katniss has to be menitioned here. Gale and Peeta seem at least friendly with each other, discussing who she’ll eventually choose to be with. They eventually agree that she’ll pick who she can’t survive without.

This conversation is one of the most important from a character stand-point. From this, we learn that neither Peeta or Gale begrudge the other for loving Katniss. Why is this so important?

Because we had previously seen Gale being angry with Katniss about possible being in love with Katniss, we can glean that Gale blames Katniss for not loving him. (Which isn’t true, I firmly believe that at least before Prim’s death that a small part of Katniss honestly was in love with Gale, even if the part of her that was in love with Peeta was much larger.)

Gale is angry with Katniss for loving someone else.

At this point, I’ve talked about Gale for the last five minutes and you’re probably wondering when I’ll get to my point but I’m getting there.

So now we have to couple the fact that Gale is angry with Katniss about this with Peeta’s reaction to Katniss kissing Gale after the whipping post.

Peeta is upset, yeah, but he’s not angry with her for kissing Gale. Gale has been her best friend since forever and surely somewhere along the line Peeta had assumed that she was with Gale. When she kisses Gale, Peeta doesn’t act prissy or act like he in any way deserves her. He is her friend and a partner in this post-Games life. He doesn’t get upset with her, actually continues being her friend and visiting her in the aftermath.

Peeta is best romantic lead I have ever seen because he doesn’t care about being her romantic lead. He loves her deeply so much that all he wants is for her to be happy. Several times he seems ready to step aside if it means letting Katniss be happy.

But we have to talk about the elephant in the room.

The kids.

In the epilogue, Katniss says that after fifteen years she agrees to have kids with Peeta. Many people have interpreted this Peeta pressuring her into having them, but with the context of the series as a whole I interpret this not as a giving in but as Katniss decieding to have one too. Peeta, based on everything we know about his character, would be totally content to have a life with just Katniss, but he is also an independent person with thoughts of his own, he would have brought up that he wanted kids to Katniss. But this part of the epilogue is so quick and it’s never really explained, being the ending, so it’s fair to interpret this in a more negative light than the conclusion I came too just because we only get a recap of fifteen years pre-kids and not the scenes, so we don’t know how it went down.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with my middle school friends not looking Peeta and wanting Katniss with Gale. And this wall of text has probably lost it’s point at least twice at this stage of this informal essay. So, I’ll digress.

I think the fact the Peeta is the exact opposite at what we have come to expect out of our male leads. He’s mature with his feelings, kind and compassionate, more feminine, and just genuinely a nice guy. He’s not demanding love or sex from Katniss. He just wants her to be happy.

Gale is who we have been programmed to see as the male lead, strong and tough and gritty and traditionally masculine. Theirs nothing wrong with these traits inherently, being a feminine man or masculine man is not better than the other. But the fact that Gale is preferred over Peeta is I think of reflection of what he expect out of media — the ‘strong’ man gets the girl while the ‘weak’ one is alone.

Now, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not here to attack people for liking Katniss and Gale together as a couple or for disliking Peeta as a partner for Katniss. But after sitting here, writing this out, I can’t help but reflect on the fact that Peeta is one of my favorite characters. I really enjoyed him and reading him and watching him, and I don’t really think I can forgive him being pushed aside because he is the ‘gentle’ one.

Now, The Hunger Games is a series about politics, oppression, slavery, war ethics, the ramifications of warfare, and the effect of trauma on a personal and social level. At the end of the day, it’s not about romance or a ‘will they/won’t they’. I love this series and it forced me to look at the politics of my world with a keen eye.

But I still love Peeta Mellark and I will defend him to the end.