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1 year ago

While Peeta’s declaration of love for Katniss on national television was certainly in order to gain attention for both himself and Katniss, the deeper meaning to it is way more important.

Peeta, no matter how well he could play the audience, deep down resented the idea of the games. For him, the biggest slap in the face in the Capitol that he could give was to highlight the brutality of it on national television. This was very heavy-handed in his interview in CF, but it is equally a driving force in THG.

In CF, he put the focus on a family being broken up and destroyed, because he claimed he and Katniss were married with a baby she was carrying. But Peeta putting the spotlight on loss is a common element in his first interview as well.

Since he was distant with his family and had already been callously alluded to as good as dead by his mother, he was not going to point out how his family will be losing their youngest son. If you look at Katniss’ first interview, her role as the elder sister who needed to get back to her little sister was the emotional hook. Peeta could not have used his family in order to drive a similar sense of tragedy. Even if he could by lying, I don’t believe he could have brought himself to do that.

Then how does a boy who doesn’t think his family needs him, a boy who is certain he is going to die, make a statement to the Capitol? How does he contribute to the sense of tragedy? By sharing his longing for the one connection he wishes he had. While he didn’t force Katniss to respond to his declaration, what he did do through his interview and subsequent actions (teaming up with the careers to mislead them, staying up all night to watch over her when they have her trapped in the tree, getting her to run after the tracker jacker attack), was making it clear that when he dies, Katniss will lose out on someone that really really loves her. That is the tragedy, that even if she lives, she lost out. He, with all his love and all his best intentions would have made her happy, could have been happy with her, if not for the Capitol.

Knowing Peeta’s character, I am going to say that he even felt like he could make that declaration because he didn’t believe there were any way he could have survived the games. Both of them being alive at the end was obviously an unimaginable scenario so there was no circumstance in his mind where he believed Katniss would be forced to reciprocate.

People have this uncharitable assumption that Peeta did this to get Katniss to be with him, but the truth is precisely the opposite. The two of them being together only became a possibility after the rule change and Katniss coming to find him, and even then, Peeta was pointing out that while they might play the audience, they themselves know it’s an act. The reason he got confused and believed it was genuine later on was because Katniss risked her own life to save his and because on some level it was genuine and he could feel it.


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