So one thing I've been thinking a lot recently, regarding His Dark Materials, is the way Lyra and Will's last kiss, the one with the doorway between worlds, parallels Marisa and Asriel's one in Northern Lights, in the sense that they are the complete opposite of one another.
Aside from the fact that they both happen in front of a portal, and that it is heartbreaking because neither of them would pass together thought it, think of this :
The odds have always been against Marisa and Asriel's relationship. First because she was married, and then the whole scandal and the shame that came after, and the hate and all that. There was not one time when the odds were on their side. Meanwhile, Will and Lyra's romance was written in the stars. They were tied together by fate, and so there was never any chance that they wouldn't be together.
And then comes the point where they are both standing in front of those gates, together, and suddenly there is nothing that's keeping Marisa and Asriel from being together. They have managed to get there on their own - now, they have the chance to continue together. Will and Lyra, on the other hand, are standing there for the sole purpose of the fact that they can't, after all, be together, even thought it was written in the stars and it was their destiny.
Marisa refused to go with Asriel because she doesn't dare to, or because she wants to find Lyra, according to either the book or the TV show. Asriel doesn't protest to that because he has a war to wage. They let each other go and missed the only chance they had at a fresh start because they loved other things more, because they would not put each other first.
However, Will and Lyra didn't want to join one another because their lives would be shorter, and their death would pain the one who survived, were they to live in the same world. They accepted that they couldn't be together, and let each other go, because there was no one else they loved more.
THIS
In the first book, Peeta is stung by tracker jackers, has the presense of mind to go back and find Katniss, shoos her away when Cato (who has also been stung) arrives, and gets severely injured but somehow not killed. (I think that's because both of them were hallucinating/willing to get out of there before their symptoms get worse).
He then proceeds to walk far enough for Katniss to have to track him for a while, find a good hiding spot close to a water source and camouphlage himself so well that even Katniss, a skilled hunter, couldn't find him. He did all that with a severely injured leg and three tracker jacker stings. He pushed the collapsing in hallucinations part for a long time. And then he stayed there for a week, infected, with no food, and didn't die.
In Catching Fire, Peeta gets electrocuted by the force field early on, and Finnick resuscitates him. He's young and healthy, and he wakes up, but electrocution alone would have left him painfully sore for a long time afterwards. All of his muscles would have contracted extremely hard and possibly spasmed when he was hit by the current, not to mention he was thrown forcefully back unconscious. I read a post a long time ago that described it as "feeling like he had the most brutal workout in his life". And then CPR is having someone literally pound on your sternum with enough force to get your heart to pump, multiple times. It hurts A LOT to be at the recieving end of it. And the muscle soreness takes days to go away.
Peeta literally spent the following days continually hiking, in the heat, with no water (until they figured it out), after all of that. He barely got any chance to recover, and a couple days later he was also taking turns with Finnick carrying Beetee on his back. Not to mention everything else that the others also went through. Oh, yeah, and he's got an amputated leg.
Talk about a strong constitution.
It's them.
i thought you would pretend you don’t know me or something. i’m not drunk. no? no.
Broke: "Katniss was only with Peeta because of their shared trauma of the Games and the events that followed. After what they went through together, there was no one who truly understood her like Peeta. But if Prim and Peeta had never been reaped, Katniss would have ended up with Gale/stayed single."
Woke: "The Games and the events that followed brought Katniss and Peeta together, but there was something special between them since the day with the bread. Katniss had a subconscious interest in him since they were 11, and after the reaping she couldn't help but fall for him due to their close proximity. The Games weren't her reason for choosing Peeta, but they were a catalyst for their relationship."
Bespoke: "The Games did more to hinder Katniss and Peeta's relationship than to help it. In fact, without the Games to complicate things, Katniss would have fallen for Peeta fast and hard. The Games and the events that followed were responsible for countless barriers to their love including (but not limited to):
1. Instilling in Katniss a distrust of Peeta that did not come naturally to her
2. Forcing her to act in love, regardless of the authenticity of her feelings, in order to survive
3. Broadcasting every moment they shared, no matter how intimate/private, onto every screen in every house in the country
4. Driving them apart due to the pain and confusion that followed the inevitable end of her "star-crossed lovers" act
5. Making their relationship a political tool of manipulation and oppression
6. Leading Snow to hold Katniss personally responsible for defusing the civil unrest within the Districts by means of their love story
7. Forcing them under threat of death to act in love for the rest of their lives, thereby taking away their agency and ability to choose each other out of real love or desire
8. Robbing them of a future together, even if they wanted it, by returning Katniss to the Games and ensuring the death of at least one of them
9. Traumatizing them in ways they'll have to deal with for the remainder of their lives
10. So many other things
The Hunger Games is NOT the story of how Katniss fell in love with Peeta due to or even during the Games. It's the story of how Katniss fell in love with Peeta IN SPITE OF THEM."
in my next life, I would like a chance to be soft - and not get belittled
or shamed
or dismissed
or laughed at for that.
i would like a chance to be bold and loud, bright and boisterous, and covered in glitter, in kisses from those I love - from head to toe - in sunlight, to get so free and unrestrained that all little parts of me would get a spotlight in this world at least twice
(one of them for this life, where I am lost and scared, and empty, always empty)
I would like to live unafraid.
- sure of my place, of my wants and dreams, of my words.
- not trying to reach out to everyone and thinking that I am healing some part of myself that wants being held and cherished, being seen, known, and remembered.
it would be such a nice life.
but in this one
i can't afford to be soft.
as brilliant as it is that this seems to be one of lucy gray's songs that was lost to time, how much do you think snow would have lost his shit if katniss had sung "pure as the driven snow" to peeta in one of the arenas
once the quell starts, every kiss between katniss and peeta is so soft and natural. a light kiss before parting for the quell (cf, 75). another one as a greeting in the arena (cf, 77).
and, like almost everything katniss and peeta do in the quell arena, it is reminiscent of a married couple. two people who know each other so intimately and deeply that kisses and affection become a part of their routine.
and after the intensity of the beach scene, their relationship takes on a new softness, returning to that married-stage with a new reverence.
and so when katniss takes peeta's face in her hands and kisses him before they split up at the end of the quell, it parallels the kisses that peeta gave to her before the quell began (cf, 105). the ones that acted as a reassurance that they would see each other soon. the ones that promised reunion.
but, of course, the rebellion had other plans. and katniss and peeta never did get a reunion kiss.
and so, at the beginning of mockingjay, katniss is left sitting on her bed. rocking her body as she rolls the pearl between her lips. still waiting for her reunion kiss. weeks later. trying to sooth herself with the memory of peeta (mj, 32).
and that is what makes it even more tragic when katniss runs to kiss peeta after his arrival in district thirteen. because it seems like she will finally get the reunion that she has been waiting for. the one started with the kiss under the lightning tree that begged to be resolved (mj, 152).
but it didn't resolve. because her peeta doesn't show up. and instead of a soft kiss, she get bruises.
so, she is still left holding onto the pearl, trying to remember the boy with the bread (mj, 168). the one that she feels is so far away from her. the one still in snow's grasp.
and katniss gives up. she wants nothing to do with the stranger that bares her beloved's face.
but when it truly seems like she might lose her precious boy with the bread forever in the winding capitol tunnels, she leans down and kisses him fully (mj, 267).
and this kiss is not like everlark's soft, routine kisses. or their empassioned kisses like the beach scene.
instead, the kiss hidden deep in the capitol tunnels is one that solidifies the two lovers together. one that is begging him to stay with her. one that is pleading for him to not let snow take him away for good.
it is a kiss meant to remind peeta of who he is. and who katniss is. and who they are. a kiss that is meant to say everything that they don't have time for.
a kiss that signals an ultimate, long-awaited reunion.
he is also very much alive.
can't convince me otherwise
Thinking again about how Suzanne esentially subverted the "beloved famous man that is actually a horrible person in real life" with Finnick, who is the complete opposite of that.
Finnick has this whole image costructed around him by the people that abused him for years: the Capitol's darling, their golden boy, the sex symbol of Panem, the man that has countless lovers but leaves them constantly and doesn't look back etc. And you would expect, initially, to meet a man that retains at least a part of that persona in his day to day life. But Finnick doesn't, not even one bit.
You see instead a man that is deeply in love and completely devoted to the one woman he quite literally adores, a man that protects Mags, his old mentor and his mother figure, as much as he can, a man that wouldn't leave Johanna behind, a man that gathers whatever strenght he has left to speak publicly about the abuse inflicted upon him at the government's hands; the opposite of what the Capitol's media and reputation made him out to be.
Ppl rlly be complaining about the decision to cast Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, saying that he's "too hot" to dislike him when that's exactly the whole point of the saga — to make you forget about the cruelty of everything and focus only on the "pretty side". And that's literally panem et circenses.
Agh I'm so mad💀
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