Ah, poor Gale! He is the hero of District 12 and of Katniss’ family for rescuing as many residents of the Seam as he did from the fire bombing, but the experience of seeing his community destroyed and Peeta being hijacked seems to have taken him around the twist. Gale winds up designing weapons and explosives that are as bad because taken from the same twisted playbook as the Capitol. Katniss’ final decision for Peeta rather than Gale because she did not need “Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred” seemed about right. We knew that Gale raged against the Capitol, but, if you were like me, you didn’t seem him embracing war crimes as in burying people alive needlessly or creating sequentially fused bombs to take out rescue workers to defeat his enemies.
Was that too big a jump for the man of the Seam or about right? Does it capture, in contrast with Peeta’s PTSD agonies, another side of how war changes those who fight them?
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I did not view Gale or Peeta as love interests for Katniss, but rather two very different ideals of sacrifice during a time of revolution – war. Gale represented a particular view on war, Peeta represented its opposing view. The overall message Collins was making was that there are no winners in war – everyone loses. She showed the downside to big governments with controlling interest. Katniss overall story goal was to survive it at all any cost while protecting the ones she loves – mainly her family. And most of the time she was clueless to the manipulations of others around her. Katniss didn’t even realize she was the symbol for the revolution until the end of Catching Fire. I doubt Collins was writing a romance novel. I viewed Gale as a political and social view that Katniss understood, believed in – Peeta represented a political and social view that was totally alien, unknown to her. If Collins would have ended the trilogy with the happy ending everyone wanted, it would have felt unreal, not authentic.
This is just the humble opinion of the wife of a military veteran who just retired after serving 30 years for this country in many war campaigns, a mother who lost a child in Iraq and who must now care for a daughter that just made it back from two campaigns in Iraq and who will probably need therapy, not to mention anxiety/depression/sleep medications for the rest of her life. She has witness many horrible things and is so traumatized that we pray daily for some sort of relief for her. And she’s only 24. She spent the last 6 years overseas. The last 3 in Iraq.
Sorry for getting off subject. I really love Ms. Collins work and find it extremely relevant in the world we live in today.
Gale hates nothing more than he hates the Capital, which is understandable considering everything they’ve done. But is it really okay to blame him for getting caught up in the war?
I’m tired of hearing everyone say that Gale isnt worthy for Katnis when it should be the opposite. Gale stood by Katniss through and through. He watched her kiss a boy she’d never shown any interest in and yet he was still there for her when she came back. Gale was with Katniss through her hardest time but she abandonned him in mis hardest time.
Gale should not be blamed for Prim’s death because he wasnt the one who allowed her on the front lines of a war when she was only 13 or 14 that was Coin. Gale designed the bomb but he didnt set it off that was also Coin.
Katniss went from the courageous selfless girl who volunteered for her sister at the reaping to a selfobsessed girl who lost her true self in the Games. Peeta once said, “If I’m gonna die, I wanna be myself. Show them I’m not just a piece in their Games.” Katniss agreed then went off the next day and pledged her love to a boy she didnt actually love.
Gale deserved better and more. He was a good guy and at the friendship between Gale and Katniss deserved a better ending. Katniss was great and a heroine away from the whole romance stuff. She became like every other wishy washy female in YA books. It was sad. At times I thought Gale deserved better than Katniss.
Let me start by saying I’m glad Katniss chose Peeta, because she’s right, it’s Peeta’s promise of rebirth that she needs, not Gale’s fire, and she ends up living a life of happiness because of it. But with saying that, part of me sympathizes with Gale, because it’s war, after all, and are there truly any rules to war? He hated the Capitol, for everything they subjected him, his family, and the residents of District 12 to. Not to mention attempting to take his best friend away to be murdered for their entertainment. Because of all this, he did whatever it took to stop the tyranny, even if it meant murdering everyone he deemed responsible. So when you look at it this way, his actions were very appropriate. They’d do the same thing to him, of course.
Katniss, obviously, disagrees, which is amplified even more when Gale’s bomb plan, playing on human sympathies, is used to kill Prim along with a pack of innocent children. The killing of children, I think we can all agree, definitely crosses the line of what’s acceptable war practice and what’s not, even if it means winning or losing. Even Gale would agree with that statement. And that’s the thing, even though Gale made the plan, he intended it to be used on the enemy, not a pack of innocent children, and certainly not Prim. He told Katniss that much the first opportunity he got. But it doesn’t matter, because no matter what happens, Katniss will forever associate Gale with Prim’s death, and there’s nothing Gale could ever do to make up for it. The best he can do is let her go. Knowing how much love Gale had for Katniss, all the memories of his childhood that he had with her, and all the effort he put into protecting her and her family, that must have been one of the hardest moments of his life. He not only lost his love, he lost his best friend. All because he was doing everything he could to win a war that she was the leader of. You can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.
I’m not sure that Gale was changed as much during the books, but rather that he had an outlet for his anger at the Capitol through the rebellion. I still regard him as a hero and a generally good guy who did what he thought he needed to do for the rebellion. The death of the children and Prim were an unintended consequence, and I think the lesson there is that even when we make choices that seem for the best, they can have repercussions that were not planned.
I also do not believe that Katniss chose Peeta simply because Gale left and Peeta was the only one around as some have suggested. To me, Catching Fire portrayed the long, slow process of Katniss gradually falling love with Peeta for who he was, not just because Gale wasn’t around. Even at the beginning of Mockingjay, Gale is down the hall, and Katniss is kissing Peeta’s pearl. Did we really think she hadn’t made her choice?
I apreciate all of your commentsbecause Iwas really touched with the end of this novel.
I think the main theme of this book is survival, wasn´t it what Katniss lovd most her sister Prim? There wasn´t real love between guys and her before she almost los her sister in the hunger games. Everything she did was for the safe of her family, after the rough loss of her father. We can´t blame Gale for falling in love with her, because he was in the same situation as her, with no father and felt compassion towards her. There we go, so I was so sad with Prim´s death,I feel as if all the work Katniss had made for assuring a better future to her sister, was in vain. She bought her the lamb Lady, with all her savings, she haunted for her, she even offered as volunteer. She didn´t planed to be the Mockingjay, And if she would, then it was for fighting to lead a just district.
She didn´t planned to Fall in love with Peeta, it was him who was totally in love with her and saved her. Katniss would had killed him anyway if he wouldn´t had flirted with her, and Haymitch wouldn´t reconded them to stay as a team.
But veryone feel Loneliness, and we now the best way out, is love. She could afford it during the time she were with rue, caused it remind her from Prim. And then we know Gale was as family to her because he took care of Prim when she wasn´t there to help her. Many people tell me Katniss is not the Mom Type of woman, but I really think she does show love above all towards her family and the little ones.
When she won the hunger games her intention was to forget Peeta and go back to the real world of her district, but the unjustice the Capitol threw over the districts after the dark days seized her happynes, Presiden Snow was there to make her life impossible. And so she wouldn´t live happy when she knew her sister wasn´t safe. The last novel take us the only thing Katniss has for sure. A sister. We don´t know if friends and lovers would be there for us, but family does. When Prim dies, Katniss feels destroyed, because everything she has worked for is in vain. The burning is extinct, as president snow predicted. So is it fair for her?
We can´t blame either Peeta or Gale. She doesn´t need Gale anymore because she only needed him there with her for the survival of her and his family.
But Peeta, he loves her uncotrolably above all. He is there for her because he is optimist and can raise her of the deep bump she has burried herself after watchin her own sister, her own mokingjey fire burn and extint, the life wich scrumbles out of her hands. And she can´t d nothing, cause it is over..
I read Mockingjay straight through yesterday. I was disappointed by how Gale’s story finished. I think teh book needed ten extra pages to be honest.
To be honest I thought Katniss would end up with neither of them after she overheard their conversation in Tigris’ basement. I would have been very happy if that happened to be honest.
Peeta represented the good in the world. The righteousness that Katniss had been deprived of. I felt that they were made for each other.
Gale was more of a guardian. He protected Katniss and I think in a way she saw her father in him. If she had ended up with Gale I would not have been happy at all. She was never going to really. The war changed him and Katniss realised that he was becoming the person who did the things he had always talked about when hunting with her. After Prim’s death, her views of him were never going to change. I am unhappy with Suzanne Collins however for leaving Gale unfinished. He simply moved to 2 and got a job. There was no real final conversation between him and Katniss.
To be honest, I hated Mockingjay’s ending. The pacing was all wrong and there were too many loose threads.
There is only one (1) thing I would change in MockingJay. I would have the pearl in the box of her belongings when she gets back to the house in the Villiage. She finds the pearl maybe in a ring display box that someone added so that it wouldn’t get lost, puts it out in the open in a place to be seen, e.g., mantel or container for keys by the door, whatever. Peeta starts coming over for meals bringing bread and sees the pearl has been kept. Gets the idea of putting it into a ring. Next we see them years later, on the porch, watching the children. Her voice over about how to deal with the nightmares, how she will explain to the kids. Then them holding hands…and the ring is on her finger.
With regards to Gale, I think his inexperience didn’t take into account collateral damage of war. He was looking to win, didn’t think of the costs. Typical, I think of the young and passionate.
It was also naive of Katniss to assume that her family did not need to be included on ‘the list’. She put the cat on there when prompted by Gale. They both made the assumption that family is/was off-limits. Coin saw that as a loophole and a way to control Katniss into submission by insanity. I think she was lucky to have any life at all, let alone one with Peeta and their children in her home district.
Ok so I want to say I am so glad Katniss and Peeta got back together. And I really could care less about Gale. Because think President Coin used Beetee and his bomb in the war. The bomb that killed Prim.
Gale finishes the story unhappy and somewhat lost but who really does much better. He deserved Katniss as she had said in Catching Fire something like “I am his. He is mine.” This spoke well to their unspoken devotion to each other. But times and circumstances changed the future together they could have had. I agree Collins should have let Gale have a parting and meaningful good-bye to her as he knew he was giving up on any future with her. I respected him for wanting what was best for her and wanting her to make her own choices. But any reader knew, Peeta had the gift of words and timing, not Gale. His exit was true to that. So instead we just have to imagine that Gale does as well as anyone could in district 2 and will be happy and satisfied later to know that Katniss (his friend and love) has survived in her own way.
I think Ms. Collins gave us a huge hint about what was going to happen to Gale if he got the chance to rebel. Two, actually, and they are both contained in the first book. First, he loses his cool with Madge when he and Katniss go to sell her strawberries. Understandable, maybe…until you learn that her family has been torn apart by the Games as well. Her aunt dies as a tribute and her mother is stuck in an incurable grief. Second hint, when he’s giving Katniss advice after the reaping and asks her how different killing people could be, really, from killing animals? Katniss learns this lesson up close and personal because she is unable to forget that they are people, whereas Gale allows his hatred and anger to blind him. Temper, temper, young and impetuous. I think, sadly, that it is a believable turn for Gale’s character to take, although not one that I as a human being wanted him to take. Personally, I would have preferred if he’d listened to Katniss and cooled his jets a bit, stopped to think a little more before he acted. But I didn’t write the story, Suzanne Collins did.
As for the people who say they don’t think Gale did anything wrong. Please review the Geneva Conventions and compare to the weapons Gale designs. Then reread two key scenes. The one in Special Weaponry when Katniss first learns about the double exploding bombs and Gale tells her they’re playing by Snow’s rulebook. Then the scene where they are cracking “The Nut” and Katniss objects to the plan because she’s “a girl from District Twelve, not President Snow.” Hint: blocking the tunnels to the mine is something Snow would do.
Finally, I offer a piece of personal history. Please do not crucify me. I spent a brief amount of time working in a job that entailed the designing and testing of bombs. One of the issues that weighed most heavily on me (and still does), was the fact that I would be involved in the design of something that has one purpose and one purpose alone: to kill people. Was it right? Was I condemning innocent lives to horrible grusome deaths with my work? Who would be damaged by my actions? I’ll never know. But these questions did guide both me and the people I worked with to question the devices we were creating. To make sure they did exactly what they were expected to do and no more.
But there’s a catch, see. The people who design the bombs are not the people who actually drop them. Or determine their precise use.
Chew on that a moment. You have to consider by whom and how your creations could be used. Because in the hands of a tyrrant, even the most benign of weapons (If such a thing is possible) can be turned into something horrific.
Gale clearly did not take these issues into consideration until he was faced with the possibility that he was instrumental in Prim’s death. It can be easy to say “Kill the Enemy! Destroy them at all costs!”
Until the enemy (or the collatoral damage) has a face and a name. But they always do, whether we realize it or not.
Sorry to be so grim with this post.
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