Okay. Let's hold each-other and wallow in the depths of our despair. I'm going on Tuesday. Which seems ages and ages away.

It probably will be, do not despair!
*sniffle*

If I do post spoilers, I'll make sure to warn eeeveryone ahead of time!

I'm not really into the costume thing either...but my friend really wanted to, and since I'm taking her (and buying the tickets) for her birthday, I thought I should.

I think she makes some good points, but I also think she's looking at it the wrong way. And a lot of what she says makes me think that she hasn't read the books, or if she did, she misunderstood a lot. This is going to be a long comment, but I'm going to address each of her points.
1. First of all, I don't think that Katniss and Peeta killed more people than the other tributes. She's forgetting about the bloodbath. Katniss killed Four people. Three of them were out of self-defence. Yes, it's bad that she wanted to hurt them, but she was trying to get home, to protect her family, who would starve without her. Peeta killed two. The second was an accident. The Careers killed at least eleven in the bloodbath, remember?

As for the mercy killings, these people don't have a God. They have different morals. To them, there is no afterlife, no heavenly rewards. So killing someone to stop a suffering they can't prevent, to them, is an extreme kindness.

2. She says the books were written in a way that we're supposed to enjoy their loss of innocence. That wasn't my impression. From what I read, we were supposed to mourn it. We were supposed to be disgusted by the necessity of the loss of innocence.

As for the fake romance, again, they have no God. They don't have morals like we do. (And let's not forget that Peeta wasn't faking a thing!)
To me, it was almost heroic how Katniss pretended to love Peeta, so she could get him home. He was a burden to her, and stuck with him, she was less likely to win, but she protected him in every way she could.

The lady says that this physical affection is supposed to mean nothing. But that's wrong. Throughout the series, even though Katniss tries to pretend it doesn't mean anything, deep down, she realizes that it does, and that using Peeta is wrong. As for the married bit, I didn't see anything wrong with them pretending that they were married. Rather, I applauded Suzanne Collins for making them married before they announced that Katniss was "pregnant." I liked how throughout the series, there is the attitude that "If we're in love, it means we have to get married, and if we get married, if means we have to have children." There wasn't any of the "We don't need to prove our love by getting married" nonsense you hear today.
I don't really have an excuse for Katniss kissing Gale, really. Other than again, they don't have the same set of morals that Catholics do. Which is essential, I think, in portraying a realistic other-reality.

3. Katniss does not remove herself of the guilt of all her killings. She tries, but she fails. She's haunted by her murders, for the rest of her life, in fact. I don't remember one instance where she directly blamed the Capitol for her wrongs. She blames them for plenty of other things, but not that.
And of course she plays along with the Games. If she were to openly rebel, her family and all her friends would have been murdered.

Sorry, had to make this into two comments!


4. No, she wasn't rebelling in the beginning. She was trying to save herself, and Peeta. And to me, it seemed that between the two of them, she was more concerned about Peeta. She went to the feast, knowing full well that it could kill her, remember? They threaten to commit a double suicide, but have no real intention of following through. It was a ruse, so the two of them could survive. Isn't that better than fighting to the death?
She didn't have a problem shooting that Capitol woman in the heat of the moment. But afterwards, she felt guilty about it. Not as guilty as I would have liked, mind, but still guilty.
And yes, Thirteen does drop bombs on innocents. But this is also portrayed as horribly, horribly wrong.

5. Of course the violence is graphic. Not overly graphic, at least not for me, but still graphic. And actually, I didn't think there was that much detail. But again, it is portrayed as an evil, evil wrong. By the way, the violence in the movie was actually not that gory, which was good. Yes. Yes it is making death and violence into entertainment. But it is not supposed to be a good thing.


Finally, the three questions: I don't really think Katniss or Gale are heroes. I've never liked either of them. But Peeta is. Peeta is completely selfless, and always trying to put the good of others before himself. The killing of sensitivity, again, is not supposed to be portrayed as a good thing. It's a bad thing. And no, it's not good to turn someone's death into entertainment. That is, essentially, the message of the entire series.


Whoo! Sorry for the long comment, I just wanted to make sure I addressed each point. Despite my arguments, I do still dislike Katniss a lot. I don't think she's a good person, or an entirely selfless person. But I do think she's a realistic person, broken by war.