Peeta

Why I Hate Gale in The Mockingjay

March 3, 2015 by • Life at Warp 10, Marcy's Blog • Tags: , , , , , • 1 Comment

By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)

When The Hunger Games first became popular, readers were drawn into picking sides about who was the best match for Katniss Everdeen—Gale or Peeta. It never reached the level of Twilight’s Jacob vs. Edward debate, but any love triangle encourages people to pick sides.

I always felt like Peeta was the right match for Katniss, but I didn’t have anything against Gale. He seemed like a nice guy, just not the right guy.

When I watched Mockingjay: Part 1 in theater, one line sparked a lot of anger in my towards Gale. (And, I admit, I can’t remember if this line was in the book or not.)

Over the course of the movie, Katniss and the rebels in District 13 watched Peeta on TV. He encouraged the rebels to stop. He spoke out against the rebellion. It was clear the Capital and Snow were doing something to him as he began to visibly disintegrate.

But Gale had no compassion at all. He insisted he’d never say what Peeta had said. No matter what they did to him. He’d rather die.

It struck a nerve in me. I’ll admit that I’m not objective. One of my pet peeves is people who judge others that way. Gale had never experienced what Peeta was going through. He didn’t even know the full extent of what Peeta was going through. He saw one small aspect and felt justified in condemning Peeta.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t call wrong wrong. If someone is clearly doing something they shouldn’t, then we need to acknowledge that what they’re doing is wrong.

But life is much more grey than it is black and white. How many hours someone works, the clothes they wear, whether or not they volunteer, how clean their house is…I could drag that list out almost indefinitely.

We can’t know what’s going on behind the scenes in their life so we shouldn’t judge them. The older I get, the more people I meet who are struggling quietly and bravely with extremely difficult situations. They don’t publicize what’s happening. Maybe they’re private people, maybe they don’t want pity, or maybe they know—better than most—that everyone is struggling in their own way and they don’t want to add pressure to someone else.

I wish more people would show mercy and grace, rather than criticizing others when there’s no way they can know exactly what those people are going through.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

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The Missing Hunger Games Line

March 29, 2012 by • Behind the Scenes, Life at Warp 10, Marcy's Blog • Tags: , , , , , , , , , • 36 Comments

The Hunger Games movie posterEven though I loved The Hunger Games movie that released Friday, I couldn’t help but notice that the screenwriters left out one of the most important lines in the book.

The night before the Games begin, Katniss finds Peeta on the roof of their hotel, watching the Capitol celebrate.

Peeta tells her, “I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games.”

This makes no sense to Katniss. In the book, she replies by telling him to care about staying alive, and in the movie, she explains that she can’t afford to think that way. Although that particular line wasn’t in the book, it was a perfect addition because that’s the way things are in District 12, where Katniss lives. Thinking of what might be only leads to disappointment. You have no chance of bettering your situation, nothing you do changes anything significant, and the best you can hope for is to survive.

And that’s the best she hopes for from the Arena as well. Only one of the twenty-four who compete comes out alive. To Katniss, any expectation that something might change this year would be futile.

Yet it’s Katniss who, by the end of the book, thumbs her nose at the Capitol and forces them into allowing two winners of the Hunger Games for the first time ever. And over the next two books, it’s Katniss who, without even meaning to, ignites a revolution and changes her world.

She learns one person can make a difference.

I’m not sure whether the scriptwriters missed this theme running underneath all the books or whether they didn’t catch the line that brings out the deepest facet of it, but in Chapter 7 of The Hunger Games, Peeta and Katniss are arguing about which of them has the better chance of survival and of getting sponsors. Each believes it’s the other.

Peeta turns to Haymitch (their mentor) in exasperation and says, “She has no idea. The effect she can have.”

They left this line out of the movie, and without this line, part of the message is missing.

Not only can one person make a difference, but sometimes we make a difference in others’ lives without even knowing it.

Katniss didn’t set out to change the world. She just did what was right and change followed. She had no idea of the chain of events her seemingly small actions would cause.

It works the same way in real life.

When I was twelve, the boy who sat behind me in class would ask me to explain all our school work to him. I dreaded feeling that pesky tap-tap on my shoulder. When I finally lost my temper, he confessed—he couldn’t read. Somehow he’d slipped through the cracks, dismissed as either stupid or lazy, when he wasn’t either.

So I taught him (and felt guilty about snapping at him). At the time, I didn’t think it was anything important, but a couple years later, I overheard him telling a teacher how much I’d helped him and how much it meant to him.

I treasure that memory. So often I struggle with feeling insignificant and like nothing I do really matters, and that memory helps remind me that I won’t always know how something small I did positively affected someone else. If I hadn’t overheard, I would never have known I made a difference.

We’re not all destined to be famous leaders or world-changers, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making a difference in the individual lives we touch, sometimes when we least realize it, often just by doing the right thing. And that too is important.

Do you ever struggle with feeling like what you do doesn’t matter? Has someone made a difference in your life, probably without realizing it?

(If you’re looking for a movie review of The Hunger Games, Karen Rought at The Midnight Novelist has a mostly spoiler-free version, and Jessica O’Neal–the sexy little nerd–does a great job of analyzing the actors and the flow of the movie.)

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