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⌈ Secret Post #2524 ⌋

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Just happy and endings.

/pithy

But in all seriousness, I never thought the Hunger Games was supposed to have a 'happy' ending, and I thought this was obvious - so you can imagine my confusion when some people started acting like it was a "terrible happy ending". She seemed to be marrying Peeta and settling down because she was seeking peace and stability, and any happiness would be an accidental byproduct of that, not a goal. For a lot of people, that's about as good as it gets and I can see why Collins would go for that angle.

I have seen people who had fought long and hard throughout their lives (if not violently/in wars), and I can't blame them for getting sick of fighting and wanting to just settle and be at peace, even if it's not the 'best' they could get out of life. And I say this as someone who fully expects and looks forward to spending the rest of her life 'fighting' in one way or another. (Maybe even I'll change and get sick of it, who knows).

I agree with many others on this thread that the trope of warrior women leaving behind the fight to settle down, marry, and have kids is overtired and would like to see something different. I'm not sure Hunger Games is the way to go about it, though, because, as many people have pointed out, Katniss never wanted to be a warrior, and settling down peacefully was what she wanted from the beginning. Going to war was, ultimately, her way of achieving that goal, even if it got distorted over the years due to changes in Panem and her life.

Edited 2013-12-01 01:28 (UTC)

This whole comment is excellent.

This is basically how I feel about Katniss at the end, too. It's not like she's "INSTANT in twu wuv with Peeta! Happy white picket fence family go!" (though maybe some younger fans might think this is what happened). She married Peeta because, well, of the few options she had, it seemed like the best one, she wanted the stability and knew that Peeta was good for her in that regard, and she clearly had feelings for him on some level even if they didn't match his for her. I'd like to think that over time she could heal at least a little bit, and come to have a loving relationship with Peeta, though it would take time and wouldn't be perfect, but that wasn't really the point of the epilogue and it's more headcanon that anything else.

One of the funny things to me was that so much of the Hunger Games was meant to intentionally evoke Classical society/medieval themes - i.e. gladiatorial fights to the death, strictly defined classes/paths of exploitation, "serfs vs nobles", etc....even the archery was meant to invoke this theme, as well as Katniss trying to drown a kitten when she was worried her family's well being would be compromised by it (this may seem barbaric by our standards, but that was an unfortunate move of pragmatism for much of human history).

Marrying for practicality instead of love is a part of all of that, but the fact so many people miss that is mind-boggling. Is it just because the whole "marrying for pragmatic reasons is soooo old-fashioned" mentality dominates so much that people don't realize it can be brought back to life in a futuristic context? Or is it that people don't realize how recent the idea of marrying for love really is and in how much of human history marriage was a purely practical matter that was separate from romance and love entirely? I thought this was obvious, that Katniss married Peeta because he was the best choice, not because she was in love with him, but apparently not. o.O

I was about to wade in and get all bitchy about the pithy bullshit of no happy endings in the real world...

...and then you went all thoughtful and said interesting things.

Good discussion. The best part of this entire thread.

That's my evil plan, use pithy subject lines to draw people in and then throw thinky thoughts at them instead. >:)

(no subject)

There are no such things as happy endings in the real world.

Re: There are no such things as happy endings in the real world.

Re: There are no such things as happy endings in the real world.

Re: There are no such things as happy endings in the real world.

Re: There are no such things as happy endings in the real world.