I just finished reading the Hunger Games Series, and I can't decide if I like Mockingjay or not. If you haven't read the series, I'd stop reading this post, because I'll be giving away points of the plot. The first book, The Hunger Games, left me wondering what the next books would be about, after all, the official Hunger Games were over.. or so I thought. Upon finishing the series, I realize that they never really stop. Katniss is put back in the arena with Peeta in Catching Fire, and in Mockingjay, They both end up fighting the Capitol. But I think it becomes quite clear that they're "just another player in someone else's games." All around, there is death. It seeps under the doors, it's in the very air. In the Capitol, Katniss discusses how much deaths she has caused, and then, Prim dies. I think that was just savage. But it did make her reconsider who the real enemy was, Snow, Coin, Plutarch, someone else? I think the book really changed for me when Katniss meets with Coin and the other previous living tributes where they discuss "the next Hunger Games in an attempt to avoid wasting life." She realizes that nothing has changed. The reason she became the Mockingjay was to get back at Snow, to overthrow his rule and end the Hunger Games. So that's why I was really frustrated when she says "I vote yes... for Prim." It just doesn't make sense to me that she would say yes, and especially for Prim. Prim was kind, caring, completely innocent. She never said anything mean that I can remember, and always sought to help people. I don't think Prim would have wanted that... sending more kids to their death. I hate that she said that, after knowing the horrors of the arena herself.
It brings me to a point about the series in general. Looking back at how savage the series was, I have to ask myself, why would people want to do that to others. The author, Suzanne Collins, wrote the Hunger Games on the basis of Gladiator fights, which mirror the games greatly. It reminds me that people once did do that. It's so sad to know that people do kill others for the simple thrill of watching death, action and fights. We may have moved on from such gory entertainment, but then, the third book picks up the idea of war. Once in the Capitol, Katniss watches as innocent bystanders are killed, rebels are killed, blood is everywhere. It's so chaotic, there is no distinction between civilians, rebels and Capitol Peacekeepers. So many people loose their lives, and for what? To end the rule of the Capitol? It would only be taken over by someone who asked for a vote on having more of the very thing they were supposedly fighting against: a totalitarian government keeping control by killing children every year.
The ending of the series is very unexpected for me. I love "happy endings" but I honestly didn't expect one. Nor did I want one. I think ending it with Katniss ending up disheveled and broken would have left readers with a strong sense of the atrocities of war and the Hunger Games. And yet...
The sense of closure, of beginning to live again and yet never forgetting her past allows Katniss to keep living, and I found it beautiful that she regained at least a part of her former self, the one we met at the beginning of the series. She can never become who she was then again, but she comes out of the entire horrible process knowing that people don't always want war, that there is still some humanity out there.
I must say that Peeta made the ending bearable. I'm not going to lie, at first, I was very suspicious of Peeta. After all, he was positioned as another player against Katniss, and I didn't want Katniss to die, since she told the story. I actually thought his declaration of love for her was a set up at first. However, somewhere in the first book, I realized that he was sincere in his feelings for Katniss. I didn't like that Katniss took advantage of this in the arena when she did not feel the same way. In fact, I began to loathe her for it. Peeta, sweet Peeta, was only a piece in her own games. Katniss was only using him. In Catching Fire, it becomes clear that Gale also loves Katniss. What, a love triangle? :O On the one hand, Gale was strong, protective, and manly. But he was also, for lack of a better word, cynical. Filled with hatred for the people who put Katniss in the arena and killed his father, and made it nearly impossible to feed his mother and brothers and sister. He just wasn't Peeta. At least not to me. In the end, Peeta was the one who could save Katniss. He was thoughtful and kind to her. Even after being tortured and progammed to kill her, he comes to love her for her. Even after her assent of the Hunger Games after the rebels take the Capitol, when his own answer was a strong "no." Peeta's character was the voice of compassion and love that kept me from becoming disheartened. He was the one who realized that war killed actual people. It cost actual lives. For that reason, I was happy with the ending. It is possible to rebuild from the ashes, to overcome hatred with kindess and love. He embodies the idea of a song by a band I know well... "Love is the movement." It is the only thing that overcomes.
So now, I'm still at a stand-still. I still can't decide if the ending was right or wrong. But maybe there isn't a right or wrong ending... maybe the only ending that matters is the ending it has for me, which is deciding where I stand on the issues the series presents. I'm with Peeta... we could all use less war and killing in the world, couldn't we?
"What I need is the dandelion in the spring." -Katniss Everdeen
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