#katniss x gale

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

Gale and Katniss

I said I'd make a separate post on this page between Gale and Katniss in my recap of ch. 9 of Mockingjay so here it is.

Our rock ledge overlooking the valley... 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. There's no District 12 to escape from now, no Peacekeepers to trick, no hungry mouths to feed. The Capitol took away all of that, and I'm on the verge of losing Gale as well. The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show in the spaces between us. How can it be that today, in the face of 12’s horrible demise, we are too angry to even speak to each other? Gale as good as lied to me. That was unacceptable, even if he was concerned about my well-being. His apology seemed genuine, though. And I threw it back in his face with an insult to make sure it stung. What is happening to us? Why are we always at odds now? It's all a muddle, but I somehow feel that if I went back to the root of our troubles, my actions would be at the heart of it. Do I really want to drive him away? ...I roll [a blackberry] gently between my thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, I turn to him and toss it in his direction. “And may the odds—” I say. I throw it high so he has plenty of time to decide whether to knock it aside or accept it. Gale's eyes train on me, not the berry, but at the last moment, he opens his mouth and catches it. He chews, swallows, and there's a long pause before he says “—be ever in your favor.” But he does say it. Cressida has us sit in the nook in the rocks, where it's impossible not to be touching, and coaxes us into talking about hunting. What drove us out into the woods, how we met, favorite moments. We thaw, begin to laugh a little, as we relate mishaps with bees and wild dogs and skunks. When the conversation turns to how it felt to translate our skill with weapons to the bombing in 8, I stop talking. Gale just says, “Long overdue.”

A few points:

Katniss and Gale's friendship is based on hunting for survival. There really is little else between them, even in terms of friendship, from what Katniss tells us in the books. And here as well, their favourite moments seem to revolve around things that happened with animals in the woods. Whereas her and Peeta laugh, talk about other things, have shared interests and mutual friends, paint and write together, hang out and chill together (like when she was injured/on the roof in CF), her and Gale's friendship seems to be confined to these woods and hunting. She is desperately clinging onto her friendship with Gale before the games but everything has changed, including their friendship, because they no longer have those same survival needs.

Not only is that glue of mutual need and survival melting away, but Katniss specifies that there's darkness growing in the spaces between them, not light. Something is deeply wrong with their friendship/relationship now. And it's not even got anything to do with the "love triangle."

She mentions they're always at odds now but then, in her classic self-hate way that we see so often in Mockingjay, she decides that it must be the things she's done and said. She surmises that she's driving him away by pushing back on his lies/coldness to her and she reaches out to him with the blackberry.

But he ruins it. And he highlights what the issue is in that last bit. It's him. He's more than happy, gleeful even, to cause damage and destruction and death with his skills in hunting. Katniss stops talking because it's not something she takes pride in - it's something that haunts her. All these deaths, capitol and district, haunt her. But for Gale, it's "long overdue." They are fundamentally at odds - politically, spiritually, morally, mentally. And it can be hard to hold onto a friendship when something that serious arises.

A little after this page, Katniss kisses Gale because she sees he's in pain and she says "we taste of heat, ashes and misery." If it wasn't clear that there's nothing romantic between them on Katniss's end, it's very clear that their friendship is also severely deteriorating at this point. He makes her feel small, he makes her feel rubbish - when he's been pushing 'romance' onto her and she's not reciprocated in any real way. He doesn't let her speak. Their partnership is so fragile.

Later on in the same chapter, we see district 13 interrupt the capitol broadcast of Peeta. And Katniss notes that as it happens, everyone is cheering. Everyone but her, Finnick and Haymitch, who are all concerned for Peeta. It's safe to assume Gale is amongst those cheering and that again is a big divide between them. Because the people who truly know and care for Katniss recognise how painful this is for her. They know how much Peeta matters to her, and they also love Peeta.

#gale hawthorne #katniss everdeen #the hunger games #mockingjay #katniss x gale #katniss x peeta #everlark #katniss and peeta

[starrrbakerrr]

I’ve been thinking about this moment a lot and how to interpret it, so I want to see what Tumblr thinks. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section or reblogs if you would like to elaborate!

Text for reference:

#the hunger games #catching fire #katniss everdeen #haymitch abernathy #madge undersee #gale hawthorne #gadge #everthorne #katniss x madge #katniss x gale #THG #hunger games #gale x madge #katniss #I’m mixed but leaning towards the second option #because that’s what Katniss states #but then she’s not a reliable narrator

[serpent-of-hope]

May the Love Triangle Be Ever in Your Favour

The Hunger Games is trending (for some unknowable reason) and as my favourite YA series, let’s honour that with a long rant about the series’ infamous love triangle

SPOILER WARNING: Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

IMO, one of the greatest triumphs of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is her masterful ability to make basic political science concepts and political theory not only palatable to a general youth audience but also making them entertaining.

Considering this, I want to take a deep dive into an aspect of the series that is less commonly viewed through a political lens: the love triangle.

One ugly reality of the Hunger Games is that our media ended up mirroring that of the Capitol in the promotion of the books and films. When the films first came out, I remember all sorts of merchandise available -  makeup, Mockingjay jewelry, tote bags, and my local bookstore had these massive cardboard cutouts of the characters with the captions "Team Peeta" or "Team Gale". The marketing teams followed the Capitol's playbook to a tee, centralizing the romance and showmanship over this story the core themes of inequality, poverty, and the abuse of power. 

So let’s do it, let’s reclaim the love triangle from the Capitol.

In my analysis, I see the "love triangle" as acting as a metaphor for Katniss's own struggle to determine her worldview and ideology within the context of the greater inter-district conflict she was forced into. I read Katniss as starting the trilogy favouring Gale. By extension, she favours his state-level utilitarian and militaristic ideologies emphasize individual security and power using no-holds-barred methods. Within the arena, Katniss is introduced to wider Panem, the concept of revolution, and Peeta with his personal ideology that advocates for individual agency towards collective action. His choices, as the boy with the bread and repeatedly acting to protect Katniss, also reveal an ideology that presumes it is the responsibility of individuals and states to protect and support others in their sphere in as pacifist a movement as possible with the end goal of collective welfare.

Through Catching Fire, Katniss is in the thick of the "Love Triangle," but she is also in the thick of determining how she will respond to the revolution: to run away, to play along and ensure personal security, or to become the Mockingjay and use her individual agency to incite collective action for the betterment wider society. By the third book, she sees both Gale and Peeta's ideologies in action and lands on her own ideology, becoming the Mockingjay and using violence sparingly to topple not one but two dictatorial regimes. Her new ideology most closely aligns with the things she learns from Peeta through the series, hence him being her final choice for love interest by the end of Mockingjay. From this view, the inclusion of the "Love Triangle" serves less as teenage-heartthrob fodder and more as a metaphor that allows a young audience to better conceptualize a shifting worldview in a conflict setting. 

This is not a brilliant new theory. I have seen similar ideas floating around online that address this theory. But I want to dive a little deeper into how we can conceptualize this theory using terminology from political science, connecting Peeta and Gale to Realism and Liberalism, the critical ideologies of International Relations.

First up is Gale and his connections to Realism. In the field of International Relations, Realism refers to a style of foreign affairs management that prioritizes the survival and self-help of the state over idealistic ideology or morals. This model encourages countries to prioritize their own self-interests by limitlessly amassing economic and military power under the assumption that all other states are also steadily accumulating their own power. In relations with other countries, a state using a Realist model of International Relations will take any and all appropriate steps to ensure their own security with little, if any, consideration for the morals or ethics of the action. This model effectively sets out that there are different moral codes for individuals within a country versus how a country should treat other nations, with the latter permitting any means of violence in the pursuit of the greater good. The sovereignty of an individual state is emphasized, with alliances only being considered in the case that a nation is too weak to be secure by its own power alone. In this context, security refers to the ability of the country to maintain its own nationhood and internal control by exercising its political, economic, and militaristic power. This model presumes that each individual state must act in the spirit of "self-help," looking only to their own internal ability to provide security or opportunity. Most notably, this model of international relations has been most predominant in unilateral political systems, such as a system in which the Capitol is the dominating political, economic, and militaristic force with no identified contenders.

I believe the model of realism offers a clear parallel to Gale's ideology throughout the series and Katniss's political ideology at the outset of The Hunger Games. At the beginning of the series, we find ourselves in a unilateral system. Both Katniss and Gale hunt because they believe that there is no higher power capable of helping them, meaning that they must rely solely on their own self-help to ensure their family's security and welfare. Their plans for defying the Capitol focus on their own safety and are within their personal power, such as running away. When we finally see Gale in full combat mode in Mockingjay, we see that his day-to-day ethics do not apply in battle and that he is willing to use all means necessary to secure his side's power. These methods include trapping civilians in The Nut and potentially being responsible for the trap that leads to Prim's death. 

 As a foil to Gale, we have Peeta, who models the ideology of Liberalism. Within the study of International Relations, Liberalism refers to a model of foreign affairs that views all citizens of all nations as deserving of fundamental rights and the expression of their own individualistic agency within the higher systems. It sees global power politics as an alterable construct in which war is caused by undemocratic regimes and a failure to balance power in the system. This model emphasizes collective over personal security, though there are disputes by proponents of liberalism regarding whether states have a responsibility to protect other nations from corrupt regimes within their borders or a responsibility to non-intervention in sovereign affairs.

The model of Liberalism is clearly demonstrated by Peeta throughout the series and by Katniss at the end of Mockingjay. Peeta recognizes the undemocratic processes that have lead to the Hunger Games. His primary objectives within the Games are to maintain some semblance of his own ethical code and to cooperate with other players for their collective security. Outside of the Games, we see him repeatedly work to support those in his sphere of influence, such as accepting personal punishment to give Katniss bread or donating some of his funds to Thresh and Rue. By Mockingjay, Peeta calls for a ceasefire and works for the most peaceful possible solution to the war. What Gale is to realism, Peeta is to Liberalism.

Throughout the series, Katniss's ideology shifts in the same breaths as we see her romantic affiliations shift. She starts the series with Gale and with an emphasis on her personal security. In the Games, her affections swing to Peeta, and with it, she finds herself seeking ways to maintain her ethical code in war and to work together with other players for their survival. In Catching Fire, we see her interest turn back to Gale as she works primarily for the security of her and her family. When she decides that joining with other Districts in a revolution is possible, we also see her love for Peeta flourish. In Mockingjay, we see her swing back to Gale momentarily as she launches attacks on the Capitol. Then, after firmly rejecting Gale and his plans for the Nut in favour of a less violent, direct approach, we see her align most closely with Peeta and his ideology through to the end of the book, where she topples two undemocratic systems to help ensure power is evenly balanced throughout the Districts. If we look closely at The Hunger Games, where every element of the book is perfectly designed to introduce YA readers to the fundamentals of Political Science, I have to believe this applies to the "Love Triangle," too.

Anyways, If you are interested in a complete analysis of the entire series, The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy edited by Leah Wilson, is a must-read as it addresses the deeper political, fashion, entertainment, and mental health themes of the Hunger Games.

#the hunger games #suzanne collins #thg #katniss and peeta #katniss x peeta #katniss everdeen #katniss #katniss and gale #katniss x gale #catching fire #the mockingjay #love triangle #political science #international relations

[-galeniss]

Seam Life

Friends to lovers in seven steps./Thorny road to Everthorne. (Interconnected little stories from a Katniss-never-goes-to-the-games alternative of the usual universe. Started as a tumblr challenge in 2015, rewritten & finished.)

#gale hawthorne #katniss everdeen #everthorne #galeniss #katniss x gale #everthorne fic #ficrec

[lvcygraybaird]

favorite hunger games passages [51/?]

#thg #the hunger games #mockingjay #mj #the hunger games: mockingjay #katniss everdeen #gale hawthorne #katniss x gale #everlark #katniss x peeta #peeta mellark #fhgp #thg book quotes

[vole-mon-amour]

Every time I start liking and understanding book!Peeta, i stumble upon some of his fans, both movies and books, and it's all gone. I mean, that's how having a fav works, being biased, but omg.

Not to mention shippers. 'Katniss never loved Gale, it was always Peeta." She grew up with Gale! Gale was her best friend before anyone else was, especially before Peeta. She was excited to go back from the Games and see Gale. And, despite you acting like it doesn't exist, it's VERY clear in the first and even second books.

I haven't read past that yet, but y'all are very annoying.

#thg #thg books #natisreading #katniss x gale #why am arguing over a teenager's book #i guess i just don't want to ship her with peeta. i just don't.

[idkjustletmescroll]

You know what we should normalize in YA fiction?

Love triangles that ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING TO THE STORY.

Like, the hunger games gets ragged on a lot for its unnecessary love triangle, but the boys represent katniss choosing a life of war and anger or a life of peace and hope. Gale=war, Peeta=peace. The boys are their own characters, and the love triangle does get annoying at times, but it still adds to the themes of the trilogy.

I found my Keeper of the Lost Cities books, which is what got me thinking about this in the first place, and wouldn’t it have been cool if shannon messenger went that route with fitz and keefe? Like, Fitz represents Sophie’s old life, the pressures other people put on her (and that she puts on herself), etc., with Keefe representing a new life for her and freedom to discover who she is outside of being a prodigy/moonlark, etc. I just wasn’t getting that vibe reading the books. (And I’m a big supporter of forgetting that Dex ever had a crush on Sophie. Platonic Sodex for life).

Also, Sodex is a stupid ship name, I’m sorry.

Idk I usually put down a book as soon as it shows signs of love triangles, so I don’t know many others, but yeah. Screw meaningless love triangles that only exist to add “tension” to a story that can’t stand on its own, thank you. :)

#love triangle #hunger games #katniss everdeen #gale hawthorne #peeta mellark #katniss x gale #katniss x peeta #keeper of the lost cities #kotlc sophie #kotlc fitz #kotlc keefe #sophie x fitz #sophie x keefe

[kitsune024]

Hunger Games Fanfiction

Monster by heathenpesticide (orphan_account)

| Part 1. Having Them Both | Part 2. Always |

A continuation and final installment of Having Them Both and Always. The attempt to subdue Snow has failed, and the rebels have retreated to Thirteen, but Peeta alone is captured in the City Circle. In order to avoid further torture and to protect those left in Thirteen, he accepts a bargain from Snow: replace Finnick Odair and sell his body to the Capitol. Explores Peeta's journey back to sanity as he struggles to rediscover his feelings for Katniss. The usual warnings apply: violence, torture, rape, substance abuse, self injury, language, and sex.

Chapters: 17/17

#heathenpesticide (orphan_account) #hunger games fic #katniss x peeta #katniss x gale #Assassin!Peeta #Tattooed!Peeta #RobotLeg!Peeta #haymitch x effie #Badass!Peeta #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #it's not tagged but read at your own risk #completed fic #ao3 fanfic #hunger games peeta mellark #hijacked peeta #bookmark series #hunger games

[ringtoned]

suzanne collins is such a genius... the cultural phenomenon of her series leading to the hanging tree house remixes, mockingjay being milked for two (bad) movies, the capitol-inspired makeup palettes, the halloween costumes, the explosion of the market for dystopia, the butchering of her characters and removal of disabilities, disfiguration, and racial tension + representation to sell more tickets, the extra gale scenes to fuel discourse, and the audience showing up to cinemas to watch what was pretty honestly marketed to them (the jacob vs edwardification of the symbolic love story and also to watch children fight to the death) it's just so ridiculously ironic i would say you can't write this shit, but she did write about it... in The Hunger Games published 2008

#thg #the hunger games #hunger games #suzanne collins #catching fire #mockingjay #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #everlark #katniss #peeta #katniss x peeta #gale hawthorne #haymitch abernathy #hunger games renaissance! #thg meta

[fantasybuff96]

I will never get over Gale’s stupid ass thinking that Finnick wanted Katniss at the beginning of Mockingjay, when the entire time that man was breaking down and longing for Annie. Like the whole reason Katniss and Finnick became close friends was their joined love and longing for Peeta and Annie who were both imprisoned in the capital together.

#stupid Gale #finnick odair #annie cresta #peeta x katniss #everlark #odesta #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #Gale is the worst #gale hawthorne #finnick x annie #peeta supremacy #finnick should have lived #friendship #love #bonds #mockingjay #THG

[little-lynx]

underneath my scars

My only one My smoking gun My eclipsed sun This has broken me down

My twisted knife My sleepless night My winless fight This has frozen my ground*

———

But what you did was just as dark Darling, this was just as hard As when they pulled me apart*

———

You knew the hero died so what's the movie for?*

———

Stood on the cliffside screaming, "Give me a reason" Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in Don't want no other shade of blue but you No other sadness in the world would do*

Hoax by Taylor Swift

#the hunger games #hunger games fanart #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #gale hawthorne #lynx hunger games #lynx thg characters #little lynx x taylor swift #hunger games x taylor swift

[sincerethoughtsblog]

Snow gives his lover a rose and then kills her, fast forward years later, he gives Katniss roses to tell her he’s going to kill her lover. Suzanne is a genius.

#katniss and peeta #katniss and gale #peeta and katniss #katniss everdeen #katniss and rue #katniss x madge #katniss mellark #the hunger games mockingjay #the hunger games catching fire #the hunger games #the hunger games peeta #the hunger games movie #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the ballad of songbirds and snakes movie #thg mockingjay #thg catching fire #thg rp #thg fic #thg haymitch #thg finnick #thgedit #president snow

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

Correct me if I’m wrong but through the entire hunger games trilogy, the only person to literally say the words “I love you” is Gale.

Katniss and Peeta don’t ever say these words to each other or to anyone else (like Prim, Mrs Everdeen, Haymitch etc.). I think Katniss at one point in book 1 says she’s sure that Prim is possibly the only person she loves. Peeta says he knew when he was a goner for her in the first book and because they’re “playing” at love, Katniss from then on talks about how Peeta loves her. There’s a bit towards the end of the first book, right as Katniss is thinking of the poison berries, where she talks about Peeta talking about how much he loves her but we don’t actually hear him say it, she just recounts it in her sort of daze. But neither of them say the words “I love you” to each other (or others).

But yet, we know at every turn that Peeta and Katniss love each other and care so deeply about each other. They don’t need to say the words because it’s understood, often through actions and also Katniss’s internal thoughts. We also can tell that they love the people around them, their families, Haymitch, Gale, Finnick etc. We don’t need to hear them say they words “I love you” to know that they love these people and each other. And at the end of Mockingjay, the “You love me. Real or not real?” moment let’s us know that Peeta is not asking her to say those words to him. He’s asking her to confirm something he already knows to be true.

#everlark #peeta x katniss #katniss x peeta #katniss and peeta #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #the hunger games #Like I’m sure Gale is the only person to say those words #which is really interesting #it’s not even used by Finnick and Annie but yet we know #We know that most of the characters are motivated by love during the rebellion #For their loved ones for their districts for humanity #correct me if I’m wrong #But I really wonder why that is #because I would argue that Gale is someone who is motivated the least by love and the most by hatred and a need for revenge #Finnick odair #primrose everdeen #haymitch abernathy

[finnicks-elbow]

#the hunger games #catching fire #mockingjay #president snow #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #tbosas #peeta mellark #katniss everdeen #coriolanus snow #thg #gale hawthorne #everlark #lucy gray baird #lucy gray x coriolanus #iz #mic

[-galeniss]

ficrec

Grayscale by sinking815

In District 12, it's hard to see under all the dust and haze. And if you do see past the gloom, it's a place of monochrome misery and dull routine. But Gale learns there can be beauty in those shades of gray... 

(an old everthorne gem, finally available on AO3)

#everthorne #galeniss #gale hawthorne #katniss x gale #everthorne fic

[lvcygraybaird]

favorite hunger games passages [61/?]

#thg #the hunger games #mockingjay #mj #the hunger games: mockingjay #gale hawthorne #katniss everdeen #katniss x gale #thg book quotes #fhgp