Why I Hate Katniss

Yes, my blog title is making light of my husband's latest post on his blog. (You can click here to read it.) But unlike Stephen and the church, I actually do hate Katniss.
**Spoiler alert! This post may contain information you don't want to know yet!**

I finished The Hunger Games this morning. So over the weekend when you notice my eyes are all puffy from crying and my temper is just a little shorter, and when you find all the ice cream in my freezer is gone, you'll know what happened. Finishing that book was awful! And yet it really couldn't have ended any other way. Collins's message on human depravity is clear. She stays true to that message and doesn't feel the urge to deviate from it for the sake of an easy happy ending. (Although to be honest, any ending with Peeta is a happy ending! Girls, I know you're with me on that one.)

I'd like to start with a disclaimer that I don't usually read books that are as easy to read as The Hunger Games are. I prefer to stick with the classics. The Hunger Games was supposed to be my light read for the year. (Ha!) I'm afraid that I wasn't all too impressed with the execution. Collins's writing is simple and unimpressive. But the story is fabulous. 

All three books were permeated with a dark kind of irony that always intrigues me. It is true that the last thing you would expect to happen in the first book is what happens later on in most cases. For example, Peeta's undying love for Katniss dies. When Prim dies, Katniss tunes all the world out, just like her mother had done when her father died. All three members of the love-triangle survive all three books. (If it was ever convenient to Katniss for someone to die, it should have been Peeta or Gail.) In the end, Snow was not really the bad guy. He was a bad guy. But he was no worse than Coin. This is the biggest irony of all. Coin, not Snow, succeeded in finally killing off Primrose. Under Snow's reign, Katniss was given the opportunity to step up and save her. Under Coin's, Prim was sacrificed so that the Mockingjay could be put in a cage. And that's why I was so proud when Katniss took down Coin instead of an already-dying Snow. 

But the damage had already been done. Not to Prim or Katniss--although the damage to them was irreparable. The damage is done to the reader, because the reader now knows that it doesn't matter. Even if Katniss did defeat both blood-thirsty war-mongering leaders, the human race is hopelessly depraved. I think Collins's message hits home. It's very clear. No one walks away from these books thinking how kind the world is. Does she provide a solution to the poor, crying, ice cream-consuming wrecks that her literature leaves behind? I'm not sure. What do you think? The answer could have been the cease-fire Peeta called for all along. Would it have been better to continue to live in oppression? Was it worth the sacrifice? Or at the end of the epilogue when Katniss explains her survival to her children with her new game: counting the good things she's seen people do? Is the solution to the near-extinction of humanity (as known in Panem) simply to remember the good things in life? I don't know.

So down to the question: why do I hate Katniss? Her goal is obvious: survival. Not just in the games. Not just in the war. In every aspect of this book her only goal is the survival of herself and one other person: Prim. No one else matters. And of course there's nothing wrong with wanting the survival of herself and her sister. But she doesn't love anyone else. I'm especially focused on her relationships with Gail and Peeta here. Never once did she extend a kindness to either of them that was not for her own survival. That's not what love is. Love is others-focused. Katniss is Prim-focused and self-focused at first. By the second book she and Prim are no longer even really very close. Then it's Katniss first. And that goal justifies all means of using and abusing relationships with people who really do love her. That's my take. If you're not convinced, re-read the books through only Peeta's eyes. Or Gail's. Use and abuse. You'll see.