My Tribute to this YA Couple
Couple: Katniss & Peeta from "The Hunger Games"
Le Moment: :"She Came With Me"
Now we're getting into life's questions. Why is the sky blue? How do you save a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico? (Never figured that out myself). But one thing I sure as hell do know is Katniss and Peeta are the pair to root for. Why? Because despite her struggles with trying to provide for her family after her father's death, she had a camaraderie with Gale that still seemed sisterly. If she never went to the Hunger Games, her feelings may have evolved more naturally, then she and Gale might have hit it off when she was ready. But outside of her sister, Katniss is very matter-of-fact and hardly emotional. But Katniss will undergo a change once she is fighting for her life in the arena because of a little girl named Rue and the boy with the bread.
LONG Rundown:
The nation of Panem is separated into twelve districts, where each district cultivates something for the main center of Panem, the Capitol. This is where the elite lives extravagantly at the expense and labor of the other districts. District 12, known for coal mining, is where the majority of their inhabitants are starving to death since most of the food that is made anywhere is shipped off to the Capitol or beyond any price anyone can afford. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen (played by a girl on fire, Jennifer Lawrence) is living on the fringe. She hunts with a bow and arrow outside the perimeters of the district to feed her family since her father had died in a mining accident. She hunts with her friend, Gale Hawthorne (played by a man whose family genes are blessed, Liam Hemsworth), who is also the provider for his large family of siblings and mother. But it comes to the day of the Reaping where a boy and girl between the ages of 12-18 are chosen from each district to compete in the annual Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games was started all because the districts felt the way the Capitol was ruling over them was all kinds of BS and had an uprising. But they were defeated, and for punishment, for the next seventy-four years, there's a yearly Hunger Games where their children would go into this arena to fight to the death until there's one victor. A yearly and painful reminder of "know your place" and "this is what happens when you want more than you deserve".
Luck would have it, this is the first time for Katniss's sister, Prim, to be in the Reaping, and Prim's name is the one that's called. Katniss wasn't having any of that, so she volunteers as tribute to take Prim's place. The boy chosen for District 12 is Peeta Mellark (played by the cutest pita bread ever, Josh Hutcherson), the youngest baker's son who is Katniss's age. Katniss has always been eternally grateful to him for tossing bread to her after her father had died and her family was starving. (You find out later that he'd deliberately burned the bread so that he could give it to her, but his monster of a mother found out about it and beat him for it.)
So now they both have to go to the Capitol to try and defend themselves in the Hunger Games. But before that, there was a reveal from Peeta that made me a fan of Everlark.
Le Moment: "She Came With Me" (And...more spoilers)
So apart from having to train to fight in this arena, each of the combatants is dolled up and interviewed by Caesar Flickerman. The last to go up after Katniss is Peeta, who is all charm and is at ease in front of the cameras and the audience. Caesar asks Peeta if there was a girl back home for him. After some prodding, Peeta reveals that there was a girl that he had a crush on for the longest time, but she didn't notice him until the Reaping. Caesar says that if Peeta comes back victorious then maybe he'll be able to have a chance with her.
That was all kinds of no because Peeta came with the girl he has feelings for. Yup, live in front of everyone, Peeta revealed his crush on Katniss. And she is mortified. She comes at him when he gets off stage, and Haymitch, their coach through these games, told her that him doing that made her desirable and more viable. She had gotten a high mark in her training, an eleven out of twelve now made her someone the Capitol would want to sponsor while out in the arena.
She will use the star-crossed lovers' aspect to win favor and sponsorships for her and for Peeta when she finds him injured. While she's pretending through most of it, Peeta's feelings for her are earnest and real. Recalling a day when they were little with her going to school and her singing a song that he knew he was a goner and had feelings for her ever since. But Katniss' own feelings are unlocked a bit for this, too, because she realizes she doesn't want to lose the boy with the bread. Not because she doesn't want to be alone in a death arena. She doesn't want to lose him.
Now throughout the remainder of the series, Katniss tends to yo-yo back and forth between Peeta and Gale. But she mostly leans on Gale a bit when Peeta is not there. But when it came to sacrificing her life to save Peeta, it was quite evident to me who Katniss truly cared for more at the end of the day.
Where to Find It:
Where can't you watch it? It's really everywhere you might have subscriptions. Hard to miss. But if nothing else, read the books if you haven't. They always give more insight than what the movies can explain. And may the odds be ever in your favor.
Read & Ship On. :)
Jazz
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