CATCHING FIRE Digital Reading Party discussion

1. How did Katniss’s participation in the Games change her relationship with Gale?

Gale has a more revolutionary mind, so to speak, and so he thinks that Katniss is becoming attached with the Capitol's ideas and that he will lose her to the enemy. That added, of course, to his jealousy towards Katniss' relationship with Peeta.

They used to be best friends, simple as that. But after the games, Gale turned bitter towards her, and their friendship was rocky and wasn't prepared to last.

I would have loved to see more back story on Gale. We have this guy who watched his best friend go to the Games (and didn't expect her to return) and promised to watch over her family in addition to his own. And when she comes back, he confesses his feelings to her only to get friendzoned. Definitely would love to get inside his head a little in Catching Fire.

Katniss and Peeta are best friends. But when Katniss came after the games with Peeta. Gale was a such bitter because of Katniss and Peeta's relationship. Gale confesses his love for Katniss. But it make him Sad and what Elena said he is FriendZoned.

To be quite honest, I don't think it's that simplistic as saying he was friendzoned.
Let's look at this from Katniss' point of view. She loses her father at a young age, her mother checks out into a major deep depressive episode, and she has a younger sister she needs to protect and feed.
She's been working at survival mode under the dictatorship of Pres. Snow and the Capitol.
She comes to ally herself with Gale, who finds himself in similar straits, as he lost his father in the same mine explosion and has three younger siblings and a mother to protect and feed.
They become hunting partners and friends due to their need to survive and that it is more efficient and productive to share knowledge and thus gather a larger yield from their hunting excursions. Also, they are able to watch each other's back due to the danger in the woods like the wild dogs, wolves, and bears. They are also able to take down and transport larger game like the deer which they couldn't do by themselves.

Had Katniss been left alone and never been reaped, she may have eventually ended up married to Gale. She is quite strenuous in her aversion to marriage and the resulting children due to having to grow up too fast to become the "breadwinner" for her family, seeing her mother thrown into deep depression and morning over the lost of her husband, and of course due to the ever present threat of losing your children to the Hunger Games.

Had Katniss and Gale never gotten picked for the Hunger Games, they probably would have married or they would have stayed best friends and/or hunting partners. We never really know what goes inside Gale's head.

We can only guess. Gale is a year or two older than Katniss. He is written as a bit of Lothario as he gets much attention from other girls in the school and the town. It could be that Gale never settles down, or assumes that Katniss will be in the wings waiting for him when he finally finishes sowing his wild oats. He also has had the conversation where he brought up having kids if they didn't live under the Capitol's rules, and that kind of hints at him broaching the subject with Katniss. She is quick to turn away from this idea, not wanting marriage or children. It foreshadows a bit that after the Capitol falls, as it does eventually, Gale could have seen himself with Katniss.

In some ways, I feel bad for Gale as his timing for the path of his life always seems off. He never makes a move to show interest in Katniss. It's always as if the Hunger Games, the Capitol, and the momentum of the revolution get in the way of what could have been.

When Catching Fire opens, Katniss has had a very life-threatening message delivered to her by Snow. Katniss, for much of the trilogy, is often working under the constant stress and adrenaline of pure survival. First the Hunger Games, then the threat from Snow to kill her family, then during the rebellion. She never has a chance to catch her breath, and never really has a chance to allow the higher levels of Maslow's needs to be even contemplated. She's too busy wondering if she or her loved ones will draw a next breath or where their next meal will come from.

Indeed, Peeta is already in love with her. Has been for years. Gale may have been harboring a major crush that could have matured into something more romantic. But our protaganist never gets the chance to really allow either of these relationships to organically unfurl the way they needed to due to the times and tribulations of Panem.

I do think we see evidence that Katniss feels very deeply for Gale. She is very protective of him, wanting them to escape into the woods after Snow's threats, and also when she faces down Thread to stop Gale's whipping. She is frantic during and after his whipping, falling asleep seated next to him, falling asleep holding his hand.

I think it completely changed their friendship. Katniss went through a horrible experience with the Games and Gale, no matter how hard he tried, will never understand what really happened. It eventually created a wedge between the two and their relationship was never the same.

I think that when Katniss and Gale's fathers died in the mine explosion they had to grow up really fast in order to survive and to help their families. I think they will always have that as a common factor and had brought them together in the first place.
After Katniss went into the arena the first time, she seemed to had to grow more survival and there she didn't have Gale there to talk to or anything, thus making it to where she didn't have to rely on Gale's help anymore even though he was helping her mother and sister on the outside.
To me, with Katniss being in the arena and not having Gale by her side everyday like she used to have, she started to come more around to finding out that she can count on Peeta and start to have feelings for him, more on the love side unlike her brother type relationship with Gale.
Gale having to watch what was going on with Katniss and Peeta in the arena made him think that he does love Katniss but not in a way that one day they will get married or anything but in that brother-sister love. To me when Gale kissed Katniss, he was making sure that he didn't have the romantic feelings for her and it was just sibling feeling and just having to help each other out with getting food and such.

Katniss going into the arena brought a sense of urgency to their relationship that didn't exist before.

First, while Gale had romantic feelings for Katniss before he went in the arena, he didn't act on them for a few reasons. He probably thought she was too young, probably sensed she wasn't ready for or wanting a romantic relationship at the time, and most importantly, thought he had time. When she goes into the games, he realizes he does not have time, and therefore - Carpe diem! states his intentions.

Second, while Gale, in Katniss' words was "born a rebel", the 74th hunger games radicalizes him further. He can no longer just be bitter and go on with his life, he is compelled to do something about it because it threatens Katniss' life directly. This puts him further at odds with Katniss before he gets whipped since she wants to placate Snow until that point.

The most important for me, is how Gale inspires Katniss to stop playing the capitol's puppet and inspire change. When Gale is whipped, Katniss realizes that if she continues to play along with Snow nothing will change, and innocents will continue to be hurt by the Capitol. By defying the capitol, she is giving the district citizens hope to have a better future without the Capitol. Without Gale she would have just been scared and played the puppet, but his strength inspires her.

Whenever Katniss would want to be with Gale or not after the Games, she had no choice. She couldnot choose him. She was supposedly crazy in love with Peeta. Even if she sheltered a deep love for Gale, she made the right choice not to be with him: it would only bring him, Katniss and Peeta in grave danger.
I think that's hard to understand for Gale, because I think he knows she loves him back. That's why he is so bitter. He's trying to cope.
He has always been in love with her, but only realised it when the green monster grew on his back.
Yes, she is the Capitols puppet, but what choice does she really have?