Peeta vs Gale: A Look in Panem’s Future

By chapter 2 in the first book, you should have seen it coming. That moment when Collins mentioned ‘the first dandelion of the year’ right after Katniss avoided looking at Peeta. You know, when she thought of the hours spent in the woods and then a bell rang in her head. She knew exactly how they were going to survive. That is a BIG deal. She was almost dead and was hoping to die. This moment made her hesitate to kill Peeta and was quite panicked when Effie picked him in The Reaping. This little bread tossing moment made her trust him.

Also it was her first connection with a person and decided that Peeta=dandelion=hope.

Meanwhile in Mockingjay, Gale had this prophecy. “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”

Very clever. She survived because of hope and hope is dandelion and dandelion is Peeta.

It’s funny how Gale wished that he could have volunteered in the First Games. He didn’t, of course because he had more important things to do; welfare of his family, Katniss’s family, etc. Let’s just imagine him volunteering for a second. Is there any chance that they would alter the course of the Games? Would they still have 2 victors? There’s a big chance that Gale and Katniss would be a strong ally from the very beginning. They might win too given the particular skills that they developed through out the years; trapping and hunting. Still this won’t change the fact that the nightlock berries were in abundance in the arena, Katniss might figure the same trick to save both of them. She’s smart and we know that she won’t be able to kill Gale.

There would be some problems there. Can you detect it?

Firstly Katniss won’t realize the big picture. She had a conversation on the roof with Peeta and he planted a seed in her thoughts about not wanting to be a piece in the Games. She might not meet Rue (who probably would be killed by the Careers anyway but her death would have gone unnoticed, insignificant, meaningless just like other tributes) because Katniss was in a stronger position. Rue’s death (in the book) was important because it made Katniss realized that Peeta’s words made sense. With an ally like Gale, she’d just kill without remorse and focused on going back home, to Prim. In the mean time, she’ll hate the Capitol more by the minute.

Then assuming that Snow went through the same road and put them both in the Quarter Quell, we can see that they would kill others, just like the first Games. They’re strong but they might have Finnick and the rest as allies and later rescued to District 13. It’s obvious that at this point Coin won’t resist keeping her nose out from their business.

Say Gale was kidnapped by the Capitol (it’s very unlikely but can we just imagine?) and was hijacked and sent back to District 13. Will he get better? We will never know. I think he’d be worse than Peeta and if we could replace Peeta with him, he would be the guy that will be by Katniss’s side. We can say that he would not try and invent bombs or ensnare a mountain. That’s just not his style. He will not even agree to any kind of violence and would serve as a better speaker to move the crowd.

Maybe. If he step up, put aside his timid self and open up to the crowd but I doubt it. He’d be the baker at District 13 or maybe won’t even make it there since all of his family couldn’t. He’d just die like the 90% population of District 12. His unrequited love burned with his ashes.

Too many probabilities! All bad ones!

Panem surely have uprisings because two rebels won the first Games but in the end, it’s Coin that would win. Unfortunately, Prim would live and so does revenge in their fiery hearts. They will agree on the next Hunger Games exclusively using Capitol’s children and the history repeats itself. This, of course will trigger another revolution in the future because it’s never fair to punish people with such barbaric act. The war would never ends.

And as for Katniss, there’s a possibility that she will end up alone, drunk as a skunk, unable to sleep due to recurring bad dreams. She won’t be able to forgive herself with all that killing. She never did. Even if she end up with Gale, it would be more of friends but there is no way in her right mind that she would have children with him. She even said it ‘was just a mistake’ in Catching Fire.

She would never be happy with Gale. There was too much hatred, blood and fire. Keep in mind from the very beginning that this book will not have a pretty ending but with Gale, the very reason the writer writing this kind of book is not being satisfied.

More war? More killing? More hatred? This will not do.

End of our long imagination. Back to the books.

Apart of me thinks that Gale wished to volunteer because he saw how much pain Peeta was in and that somehow got Katniss’s attention. Remember he used to make her felt guilty with this excuse? He is willing to be in such position of pain in exchange for Katniss’s love. He was even jealous when he saw Peeta’s antics, as if Peeta did that on purpose. I don’t think he ever understand the kind of love that Katniss and Peeta shared.

Who else would put Katniss first? Nobody had treated her the way he did, not even her own mother, not even Gale. Peeta won’t think twice to achieve this objective. He lied on national television, tortured, lost his mind. Everything he did was for Katniss. He even wanted Gale to be with Katniss, sacrificing his life and love at the same time. Do you know how much pain he was in, never been loved by anyone at all? Not even by his own mother? And who else would put Peeta first? No one except Katniss. Can you imagine how it must feel? He was angry at first and more frustrated by her determination. He thought that it was his job to die since he thought no one needed him. Both are committed to be dead just to put the other first. She is willing to be the Mockingjay to save Peeta. And why would you put yourself in such a position? Why die for another person without anything in return? All they knew that they had to protect each other, while awake or sleeping. I can think of no one more deserving of each other but those two.

Katniss subsconsciously thought that it was Peeta she always knew would be a great parent and vice versa. Why would you freak out at having baby with a guy while quietly enjoy pretending to be pregnant with another’s?

Because the boy with the bread gave her hope and she made it through the rain.

Can’t you see?