A Girl on Fire, a Boy with Bread

A few years ago, The Hunger Games trilogy took us all by storm – I remember studying for my ACT while the promos for the very first movie came out. I remember the conflict I felt when they split Mockingjay up into two movies. I remember feeling satisfied with the casting (though I know not everyone agreed with me), and I remember being swept up in the movies and loving every second of every one of them.

The premise of the trilogy is terrifying and seems so real. We are no strangers to tales of a dystopian country with a dystopian government that went too far, that stripped the people of too much. We are no strangers to civil wars and many of us in various corners of the world are only too aware of the manipulative tactics those in power can often stoop to in their manic efforts to control the masses.

It struck me a few days ago that Katniss Everdeen’s journey was resigned to bring her nothing but grief from even before it started. What else could come to a girl who found the courage to survive in a loaf of burnt bread? What else could come to a girl who hunted in the woods when hunting was illegal? What else could come to a girl who both loved and hated her mother more than words could explain, and far more than her actions could ever express? What else could come to a girl who volunteered for her sister in the Hunger Games not for fame or fortune, or even, admittedly, out of spite?

The truth is that volunteering as tribute had become a sport in the richer and well-off districts. To do so out of love when love and familial ties only go so far on reaping day was unheard of. People don’t volunteer for their loved ones in places like District 12. But Katniss did, and her tumultuous journey began immediately.

I am convinced that Snow would have been annoyed with Katniss the second she did this. She was breaking the status quo, and the whole purpose of the Games is to remind the District-dwellers that the status quo is sacred, not to be changed, not to be tampered with.

Katniss and Peeta went on to present themselves as a team at the Tribute’s Parade, and I am positive that this infraction did not go unnoticed by Snow. When Peeta told everyone that he was sweet on Katniss and when he joined the Careers to do whatever he could to set them off of her trail, Katniss was in for nothing but trouble. Because even if Peeta had lost his life protecting Katniss, the two of them would have violated one of the basic tenants of the games: ties of loyalty must break in the raging arenas of the Games. There is no way around it. For their ties to forge on was unheard of and, politically speaking, stupidly dangerous.

The Games seemed to be devised under a ‘Divide and Conquer’ mindset – throw the children of various districts into a barren arena and force them to battle to the death. Whoever kills your district’s children hails from a monstrous district; this turns the districts away from one another. If your own children kill one another, then they hail from a district with no morals; this turns the district on itself.

But Peeta and Katniss became allies – they told the whole country they loved each other, and in doing so they did the unthinkable: they showed that love can prevail in the face of the arena’s horrors. They showed that comradery can overcome even the most terrifying of Games. All the people needed to do was take a leap of faith, to show a little love.

I don’t believe that Katniss alone started the rebellion. I believe that the love she showed for her sweet sister, the love Peeta showed towards this cool, calculated girl, the compassion Katniss could not help but reflect back at the boy with the bread, their kindness started the rebellion.

I don’t believe that it was Katniss’ arrow shot at the force field, cupping the victors away from the outside world, that started a full-scale war. I believe it was her conviction that she could keep Peeta alive once more, that it was Peeta’s conviction that he could get Katniss out when she was hell-bent on leaving as nothing more than a corpse, that it was Haymitch’s love for these two strange, stubborn children, that it was Cinna’s belief that the fire he lent to Katniss would burn more than some synthetic fabric. I believe it was friendship, a desire for a better life, a burning need for a brighter future that sustained the rebels. Not a series of propos.

So as I walked out of that theatre the other day, I asked myself: what is the biggest truth of this story?

And I knew before my feet had even crossed the threshold of that auditorium. I knew that, for me, the truth of the trilogy was Katniss and Peeta. It was in their being together. It was in their love, for each other, for their friends, and for their family. It was in the support they found themselves giving to one another over and over again. It was in their initially grudging friendship with Haymitch. It was in the fact that whatever brought them together could not be destroyed in the arena. It was in that the rebellion, the revolution, the terrors of the old government, and the construction of the new one could not damage the kindness in their hearts, it could not destroy the compassion that brought them together. It was in the fact that caring in a time where no one cares can set so much in motion.

The girl on fire would have burned up and been reduced to nothing more than char and ash if the boy with the bread had not showed her kindness, if he had not showed her that a little compassion can go a long way. And that, to me, is the biggest truth of the trilogy.