The Hunger Games has the FUNNIEST arranged marriage of all time btw. Katniss realizes she'll have to marry Peeta and she's obviously upset so Haymitch tries to comfort her by saying "you could do a lot worse" and Katniss is like "well DUH of course I could do worse than Peeta he's the best & handsomest person on the face of the planet but that's not the POINT I want to be able to choose for MYSELF". Then she goes and chooses Peeta anyway lol. Comedy gold I tell you
The scene in catching fire where Katniss goes to Haymitch to make him promise to protect Peeta only for him to say that Peeta was just there asking the same thing for her is heartbreaking and beautiful and tragic and all that
but its also hilarious because it gives us a very clear metric for the difference between Katniss and Peeta's emotional bandwidth. At any given moment, she's about 45 mins behind whatever realization he just came to. And they're gonna end up in the same place, at the same conclusion its just gonna take her an extra sec to get there give her a minute
Reblogged
“peeta’s love for katniss is unrealistic!” “why would peeta harbor a crush since kindergarten?” “he didn’t even know her!”
I feel like we forget that peeta’s initial introduction to katniss is through his father telling him that he wanted to marry mrs. everdeen. here’s this little boy with an abusive mother, two older brothers to live up to, and a general feeling of “my family doesn’t really need me.” but katniss’s family? two loving parents and a close relationship with her little sister? how easy would it be for him to project his own wishes onto her? in another life, that might have been HIS family.
so when mr. everdeen is killed, peeta witnesses that fantasy family fall apart. he has to watch as katniss struggles to hold her mother and sister together when they can barely survive. by the time he tosses her that loaf of bread, she’s already a shadow of the girl he’d once idealized.
and then katniss volunteers to save her little sister? when peeta’s older brothers don’t do the same for him? for peeta to be thrown into a death trap with this girl who he’s attached himself to since kindergarten? yeah I would fall in love with her too.
also! I was talking with @evermarch last night about how it's not unlikely that Otho may have told Peeta about the time he was almost killed at a reaping (or could have even been reaped himself, the way someone else was immediately after). And how a well-timed punch may have just saved his life.
the Mellark family is intrinsically tied to the Everdeens through the stories Otho chooses to share with Peeta.
porn and smut novels have genuinely ruined some of your guys’ perception of love because what the fuck do you mean katniss and peeta had no chemistry together? what do you MEAN their relationship came out of nowhere?
peeta was one of the first people to give katniss real hope! he gave her the bread because he is a genuinely kind person and would have done it for anyone, but also because he had a massive crush on her and literally yearned for like ten years! katniss showed the same love for him when she stuck by him even when all the rebels thought he was a traitor! she begged haymitch to save him over her!
even when she’s pretending to be in love with him so they can survive she still finds herself enjoying his company and likes to be with him because their romantic relationship is built first and foremost on their FRIENDSHIP. they understand each other like no one else does, and saying it’s trauma bonding is literally insane because peeta is the one who says “okay, maybe this whole lovers thing is driving a wedge between us and we should be friends before we consider how we actually feel about each other” and KATNISS is the one to initiate the kiss on the beach!
like not every ship has to be based on sexual chemistry or an immediate rapport. real relationships take time to build. katniss and peeta were constantly reevaluating their feelings and wondering how much of it was really just a show but they always ALWAYS loved each other in some capacity.
also the choice between gale and peeta is completely necessary. it’s not just some lovestruck teenage girl choosing a boyfriend, it’s the symbol of a revolution who’s been traumatized by war trying to choose if she wants to choose peace or war. peeta is the dandelion in the spring! katniss is his north star! everlark is canon and married with children!
#also can we not demonize gale for the sake of the love triangle#like he’s literally a teenager and a child soldier who watched his district get bombed#and was whipped in a public square within an inch of his life#war makes people do things they never would have! remember who the real enemy is!#the hunger games#everlark#katniss everdeen#katniss and peeta#peeta mellark#thg fandom
So I re-read the hunger games (first book) and something's confusing me. Did Peeta think that Katniss was truly in love with him when they were in the arena? Did he believe she was being real with him? Because I thought he knew pretending was the strategy. Isn't that why he confessed during the interview before the games started, why he wanted to be coached by Haymitch separately? During the games when they reunited and found the cave, Peeta even said to Katniss "hey remember you're supposed to be in love with me". He also said that Katniss is a bad liar. But at the end of the book, he didn't know about the plan and he was hurt when Katniss confessed she was pretending. So what happened there?