Catching Fire

Peeta is a 16-year-old boy and the other victor from the 74th Hunger Games. He is one of the main protagonists of the series, and one of Katniss’s two love interests. Although Katniss and Peeta didn’t know each other very well at the beginning of the first book, their friendship grows and strengthens throughout Catching Fire. Peeta is in love with Katniss, respects her as a person, and complements her fiery personality with his own calm, cool, and collected demeanor. He is a source of comfort for her and an excellent public speaker who knows when to turn on the charm, and when to be honest. Katniss states that “Peeta’s the good one, the likable one. He can make people believe anything” (30), and when Katniss worries about not playing to the cameras enough, she can rely on Peeta to sell their love story to the public.

Despite his silver tongue and strategic charisma, Peeta is widely considered a good, trustworthy person by everyone who knows him, and even Katniss’s mother calls Peeta “the very model of what a young man should be” (32). He is a gentle soul with a talent for making people feel safe and comfortable, so much so that he was considered an easy target at the beginning of the 74th Hunger Games and Katniss felt like she had to protect him. Even when Katniss feels like she isn’t supposed to want Peeta’s presence and comfort, she still craves it and “the steadiness that Peeta brings to everything” (42). Haymitch even tells Katniss that “[she] could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him” (178), because Peeta is so good and kind and concerned with looking out for her.

However, Peeta can be moved to passionate anger, especially when he is lied to and mistreated. He lashes out at Haymitch and Katniss for keeping information from him because he thinks it means they consider him “too inconsequential or stupid or weak to handle [it]” (65), foreshadowing Katniss’s later response to the plan to rescue her from the arena. Peeta knows that people tend to underestimate him, and despite his friendliness, he can be manipulative when he wants to. He tries to convince Katniss to stop trying to save him in the arena by showing her pictures of her family and Gale, and he intentionally whips the Capitol crowd into a frenzy by lying about Katniss being pregnant. Katniss knows that there is more to Peeta than meets the eye, and one day while she is watching him concentrate on a drawing, she notices that “His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him” (161).

When Peeta is left behind in the arena at the conclusion of Catching Fire, Katniss is moved to intense rage and deep depression. She and Peeta have been through so much together that she can’t stomach the thought of anything bad happening to him, and in her delicate mental state, she begins to hate him for succeeding in getting her to safety while he is left behind to face the wrath of the Capitol. Peeta thought only of Katniss’s safety right up until the very end of the novel, and this adds to Katniss’s burden of shame and guilt.

Haymitch is the victor of the 50th Hunger Games and Katniss and Peeta’s mentor during the 74th and 75th Games. Most of the time, “Drunken, cranky, confrontational Haymitch” (33), isolates himself from others. Haymitch’s alcoholism is a direct result of his trauma from surviving the arena, and like Katniss and Peeta, he suffers from nightmares and hallucinations and “always sleeps with [a knife] clutched in his hand” (14), even 25 years after the Games he competed in. When Katniss and Peeta uncover footage from the 50th Hunger Games, it is revealed that Haymitch’s smarts and resourcefulness won him the title of victor. His guilt is primarily rooted in his failure to save his fellow tributes, especially Maysilee Donner, who was also from District 12.

Haymitch has a mind for strategy, and his intelligence and capacity for espionage help get Katniss out of the arena alive for a second time. Haymitch is antisocial, yet he has plenty of friends and allies amongst the past victors, and he uses these connections to help orchestrate a rebellion with Plutarch Heavensbee. Haymitch is secretive when the situation dictates, but he can be starkly honest when Katniss or Peeta need a reality check. Katniss may not always like Haymitch, and she calls him “dreadful,” but also says that “Haymitch is my family now” (177), so she considers him someone who must also be protected and cared for.

Despite his grumpy demeanor, Haymitch cares greatly about Katniss and Peeta, and he worries about not being able to save them from the wrath of the Capitol.

Haymitch was forced to be a mentor to District 12 tributes for 25 years after his victory, which means that he has internalized 25 years of watching children that he cared about being killed, and he felt helpless to stop it. Haymitch understands that once a child is chosen at a reaping, their torture never stops, even if they do win. In Catching Fire, Haymitch transforms his despondency into action by becoming a crucial figure in the rebellion, even as he violates Katniss’s trust by keeping the rebellion a secret from her, despite her central role in his plans.

Gale is Katniss’s childhood friend and second love interest in The Hunger Games trilogy. Katniss calls Gale her “best friend, the only person I’d ever trusted with my secrets” (26). Like Katniss, he lost his father five years ago in a coal mine explosion, and he is now the main provider for his family. Katniss and Gale’s friendship was forever changed during the course of the 74th Hunger Games when Gale had to watch Katniss pretend to fall in love with Peeta as a strategy to gain viewer sympathy. Katniss acknowledges that “it was nothing but painful for Gale” (9), and that there is “no going back” to the life she had with Gale before the Games.

Gale is depicted as a proud, rebellious young man with a lot of built-up anger towards the Capitol. Katniss believes that “Gale’s already so angry and frustrated with the Capitol that I sometimes think he’s going to arrange his own uprising” (33). Although Gale and Katniss come from similar backgrounds and share similar responsibilities, Katniss is focused more on survival, whereas Gale is focused on exacting vengeance against the people who have made his life difficult.

After she wins the Hunger Games, Katniss offers to help Gale provide for his family, but even though she has “more than enough to feed both our families now [...] he won’t take a single coin” (5). Gale believes that he should be able to provide for his family without any help. This is ironic, because Gale and Katniss used to hunt together throughout the years and share their game without any arguments. Gale isn’t refusing Katniss’s help by turning down her money: he is turning down the Capitol’s currency. Gale doesn’t want to accept anything that he didn’t have to earn through hard work. Gale’s stubborn pride may be motivated by community solidarity, but it also makes his and his family’s life harder.

Gale’s jealousy towards Peeta and his behavior following the Games are confusing and shocking to Katniss. When he kisses her in the woods and claims that he “had to do that. At least once” (27), his actions hint more at exerting a claim to Katniss than genuine romantic affection. Collins leads the reader to wonder if Gale would have behaved like this if he hadn’t watched Katniss act out her romance with Peeta for the cameras. Whereas Peeta always harbored affection for Katniss, Gale’s behavior is more reactive. Katniss implies that the experience was more confusing and upsetting than anything else and afterwards, Gale “acted as if the kiss had never happened” (27), which further hints that the act was more of a statement of control than motivated by genuine love.