I read The Hunger Games trilogy last summer, but with the movie coming out soon, I can't get away from people talking about the books. Even my co-worker is listening to Catching Fire as an audiobook in the office this week. Katniss and her cohorts are everywhere!
I find that I've forgotten some of the little details as I listen to other readers recounting their reactions, but what I most definitely remember is the big question: Peeta or Gale? My office-mate said, midway through her audiobook the other day, that she just can't help but think Peeta would be a lousy lover. That set me off: I have what the internet likes to call a hateboner for Peeta, and I'm happy to whip it out and wave it around at the mere mention of his name.
I should preface this by saying that I know I'm extrapolating and at this point, I may even be making things up. Very few of my reactions come from the way Suzanne Collins actually described the baker's son. Regardless, the very first impression I had of him was as a doughy, dimwitted boy, not courageous and not clever. Not good enough, not smart enough, and gosh darnit, Katniss should not like him! Intellectually, I know this isn't how Peeta was portrayed; he was a gifted public speaker and quick-witted, too, saying all the right things to keep himself and Katniss alive. Intellectually, I know that requires both bravery and intelligence. I don't care - I put the boy in a box last summer, and he's not getting out now.
Gale, on the other hand, immediately struck me as strong, bold, and capable. He seemed an equal for Katniss, maybe even a bit of a challenge for her, most definitely not beneath her and every bit as likely to save her life as she would have been to save his. They were a good match for each other, and from the beginning, I wanted the book to conclude with their happily ever after.
While many people I know started out feeling the same way I did about Katniss' young men, lots of them came around to Peeta's side after all he and Katniss went through in the Games. I'm sure that's what Collins intended, and as a friend patiently explained to me: it was all about saving Prim. When Gale failed to do that, he lost Katniss. She's not wrong.
On the other hand, I don't think it had to end that way. Katniss could have grown up enough to grieve for her sister while acknowledging that Gale did the right, necessary thing. No matter how much she had already survived, she could have kept going (and yes, I can hear the most politically-correct denizens of the internet jeering, "Bootstraps! Bootstraps!" at me because I'm not falling all over myself in sympathy to her plight). Bootstraps, indeed! I don't curl up in a ball and hide from the world when life gets hard, and I don't want my literary heroines to do it, either.
My friends would say I'm wrong, that Katniss' choices are realistic, and that you can only expect so much of a person. So I admit that I'm projecting. If Katniss hadn't been the narrator, I probably would have accepted from the beginning that she's not me, and in fact, isn't even very likable. Because she was the narrator, I automatically put myself in her shoes and so I wanted her to make the choices I would have made. I would have chosen Gale. I would have had his babies and taken every political role I could get at the same time. I would have been logical and practical, and I would have used my status to make the world a better place. When I started the first book, I put myself in Katniss' place because I thought she embodied those traits. That was my mistake.
Isn't that just the wildest thing about literature? An author writes what is, for all intents and purposes, a great story. She gets it published, and then it's out there in the world, being consumed by the masses. And some of us, no matter how clearly we can see the path that justifies her conclusions, some of us are just not going to approve. Then we'll get ourselves worked up and take it all way too seriously, and pretty soon, we're ranting in our offices and posting things like this on the internet trying to explain why one fictional character was a better match than another fictional character for the leading fictional character.
Then we'll laugh at ourselves for caring so much. But only a little bit. Because really?! Gale was the one.
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