#anger and that she needed peeta - the dandelion in spring who was gentle and loving

[marxistswiftieism]

was taylor intentionally thinking about katniss and peeta when she wrote the great war or was that just completely incidental in the way that it is literally them 100000%

[loving-jack-kelly]

im about to go to bed but im still thinking abt how peeta is so radical in the world he inhabits like. he enters the arena profession love for somebody he's supposed to be ready to kill. he's willing to die if it means her going home. he's willing to lie and lie and lie if it protects her and her family and his family, even if it isn't a lie to him it is to everyone else and he keeps it up. he chooses to be kind and loving over and over and over again even when his entire life, all the people around him, every circumstance he finds himself in, they all urge him to be cruel and hard and cutthroat. and he refuses. he always refuses. he fights to survive and for the survival of the people he loves but he says it right in the beginning, before the first Games even start, he refuses to let them change him. he refuses to become what they want from him. he chooses to be kind. he chooses to burn the bread and give it away even though it gets him hurt. he chooses to tell katniss to run even though it costs him his alliance. he would have chosen to die rather than katniss put herself in danger for his sake if she hadn't made her own choice. his kindness is what breaks him out of the brainwashing from the capitol.

katniss isn't kind. she's fierce and brave and strong, and kindness and selflessness don't come naturally to her. she'll do anything to protect and provide for the people she loves, but her world has shown her that survival is earned through hard work and suffering and being so tough that nothing can break in. that's what she knows. that's how she goes into the Games, knowing that the only way she might win is by being so vicious that nobody gets close to her, by showing everybody that she's spent her entire life fighting for survival and this is no different. it's hunting and it's what she's good at. and that's a smart move. it makes sense. their world is cruel and hard and painful and vicious, and so she chooses to be, to survive. it's strong and smart and leads her to success, but the choice itself isn't something radical. it's practical and barely a choice at all, that's how she needs to survive, and she refuses to die.

so to have peeta prove over and over again that kindness can be so defining, so important, that it can overwhelm the obstacles just as successfully as katniss's ferocity and willpower, that kindness can win. love can win. care and connections and refusing to let go of people even when it would be smart move, it can win.

and to have katniss realize that. she looks at peeta and she sees life saving bread in the rain, she sees a dandelion of hope in the spring, she sees this boy, this baker's son, who could have killed her, betrayed her, left her for dead a million times, and he refused to. he refused to let anything around him change the fact that he cared and he was kind. and of course he's angry and of course he fights because he, too, wants desperately to survive, but he can do that all and still be kind. and when it's over, he can let the anger burn out. he can be a dandelion in the spring, bright and fiery, but soft and gentle, too. and that's something, in this world, that is such a rebellious thing in and of itself. katniss is a product of her world, and peeta is a conscious rejection of it, proof that better is still possible.