The Hunger Games is currently my favorite guilty pleasure. I read the first two books of the trilogy repeatedly for almost a week, and I can’t wait till Mockingjay comes out in August. When I first read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I was more involved in the action – the quest to survive, the violence and all that. On my second reading, I started noticing the romance. Lately, I’ve been noticing more of the humor. For such a dark book, there are portions that made me literally laugh out loud. You have to hand it to the baker’s son to always say something funny. Here are some of my favorite Peeta Mellark quotes from the first book.
“What about you? I’ve seen you in the market. You can lift hundred pound bags of flour,” I snap at him. “Tell him that. That’s not nothing.”
“Yes, and I’m sure the arena will be full of bags of flour for me to chuck at people.”
Then we move on to camouflage. Peeta genuinely seems to enjoy this station, swirling a combination of mud and clay and berry juices around on his pale skin, weaving disguises from vines and leaves. The trainer who runs the camouflage station is full of enthusiasm at his work.
“I do the cakes,” he admits to me.
“The cakes?” I ask. I’ve been preoccupied with watching the boy from District 2 send a spear through a dummy’s heart from fifteen yards. “What cakes?”
“At home. The iced ones, for the bakery,” he says….
“It’s lovely. If only you could frost someone to death,” I say.
“Don’t be so superior. You can never tell what you’ll find in the arena. Say it’s actually a gigantic cake —” begins Peeta.
“Really, is anything less impressive than watching a person pick up a heavy ball and throw it a couple of yards. One almost landed on my foot.”
Caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home.
Peeta hesitates, then gives an unconvincing shake of his head.
“Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what’s her name?” says Caesar.
Peeta sighs. “Well, there is this one girl. I’ve had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I’m pretty sure she didn’t know I was alive until the reaping.”
Sounds of sympathy from the crowd. Unrequited love they can relate to.
“She have another fellow?” asks Caesar.
“I don’t know, but a lot of boys like her,” says Peeta.
“So, here’s what you do. You win, you go home. She can’t turn you down then, eh?” says Caesar encouragingly.
“I don’t think it’s going to work out. Winning . . . won’t help in my case,” says Peeta.
“Why ever not?” says Caesar, mystified.
Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. “Because… because… she came here with me.”
“What’s going on?” says Effie, a note of hysteria in her voice. “Did you fall?”
“After she shoved me,” says Peeta as Effie and Cinna help him up.
“She’s just worried about her boyfriend,” says Peeta gruffly, tossing away a bloody piece of the urn.
My cheeks burn again at the thought of Gale. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Whatever,” says Peeta. “But I bet he’s smart enough to know a bluff when he sees it. Besides you didn’t say you loved me. So what does it matter?”
My foot has just broken the surface of the water when I hear a voice.
“You here to finish me off, sweetheart?”
I whip around. It’s come from the left, so I can’t pick it up very well. And the voice was hoarse and weak. Still, it must have been Peeta. Who else in the arena would call me sweetheart?
My eyes peruse the bank, but there’s nothing. Just mud, the plants, the base of the rocks.
“Peeta?” I whisper. “Where are you?” There’s no answer. Could I just have imagined it? No, I’m certain it was real and very close at hand, too. “Peeta?” I creep along the bank.
“Well, don’t step on me.”
I jump back. His voice was right under my feet. Still there’s nothing. Then his eyes open, unmistakably blue in the brown mud and green leaves. I gasp and am rewarded with a hint of white teeth as he laughs.
It’s the final word in camouflage. Forget chucking weights around. Peeta should have gone into his private session with the Gamemakers and painted himself into a tree. Or a boulder. Or a muddy bank full of weeds.
“Close your eyes again,” I order. He does, and his mouth, too, and completely disappears. Most of what I judge to be his body is actually under a layer of mud and plants. His face and arms are so artfully disguised as to be invisible. I kneel beside him. “I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off.”
Peeta smiles. “Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying.”
Within minutes of pressing the handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg. I tell myself this is a good thing and bite the inside of my cheek hard because my breakfast is threatening to make a reappearance.
“Katniss?” Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. “How about that kiss?”
I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can’t stand it.
“Something wrong?” he asks a little too innocently.
“You’re such a bad liar, Katniss. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long.” He begins to mimic me. “I knew that goat would be a little gold mine. You’re a little cooler though. Of course, I’m not going. He shakes his head. “Never gamble at cards. You’ll lose your last coin,” he says.
“Tomorrow’s a hunting day,” I say.
“I won’t be much help with that,” Peeta says. “I’ve never hunted before.”
“I’ll kill and you cook,” I say. “And you can always gather.”
“I wish there was some sort of bread bush out there,” says Peeta.
“Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did forever start?”
“Oh, let’s see. I guess the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair . . . it was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up,” Peeta says.
“Your father? Why?” I ask.
“He said, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,’” Peeta says.
“What? You’re making that up!” I exclaim.
“No, true story,” Peeta says. “And I said, ‘A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could’ve had you?’ And he said, ‘Because when he sings . . . even the birds stop to listen.’”
“That’s true. They do. I mean, they did,” I say. I’m stunned and surprisingly moved, thinking of the baker telling this to Peeta. It strikes me that my own reluctance to sing, my own dismissal of music might not really be that I think it’s a waste of time. It might be because it reminds me too much of my father.
“So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fell silent,” Peeta says.
“Oh, please,” I say, laughing.
“No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew — just like your mother — I was a goner,” Peeta says. “Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you.”
“Without success,” I add.
“Without success. So, in a way, my name being drawn in the reaping was a real piece of luck,” says Peeta.
Peeta wriggles back inside, his face lit up like the sun. “I guess Haymitch finally got tired of watching us starve.”
A disturbing thought hits me. “But then, our only neighbor will be Haymitch!”
“Ah, that’ll be nice,” says Peeta, tightening his arms around me. “You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games’ tales.”
“I told you, he hates me!” I say, but I can’t help laughing at the image of Haymitch becoming my new pal.
“Only sometimes. When he’s sober, I’ve never heard him say one negative thing about you,” says Peeta.
“He’s never sober!” I protest.
“That’s right. Who am I thinking of? Oh, I know. It’s Cinna who likes you. But that’s mainly because you didn’t try to run when he set you on fire,” says Peeta. “On the other hand, Haymitch . . . well, if I were you, I’d avoid Haymitch completely. He hates you.”
“I thought you said I was his favorite,” I say.
“He hates me more,” says Peeta. “I don’t think people in general are his sort of thing.”
“So do we hunt on empty stomachs to give us an edge?”
“Not us,” I say. “We stuff ourselves to give us staying power.”
“It was all for the Games,” Peeta says. “How you acted.”
“Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding onto my flowers.
“Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is what’s going to be left when we get home?” he says.
“I don’t know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get,” I say. He waits, for further explanation, but none’s forthcoming.
“Well, let me know when you work it out,” he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable.
UPDATE: You can also check out my favorite Peeta quotes from Catching Fire here and my favorite Peeta and Katniss moments from Mockingjay here.
Sunny Feels 
What will be the slogan for peeta?
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OHMYGOD. SHUT UP WITH THE “TEAM PEETA”.
LETS NOT MAKE THIS LIKE TWILIGHT PLEASE 😐 😐
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you’re right on that. Team Jacob vs. Team Edward is nonsense anyway. Bella is for Edward, and Jacob’s gonna fall in love with their daughter, Renesmee.
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Peeta is and always will be the best! He’s kind loving and constantly doing all he can to protect Katiness. Peeta Mellark all the way!!!!!!
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im trying to think of a possible argument 4 gale and cant come up with anything; he runs on hate, he doesnt mind killing people(occasionally on his own side) and hes just soo jealous all the time i can hardly ever find a part in the last two books wen i like him.
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“So, since we were five, you never even noticed any
other girls?” I ask him.
“No, I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you,” he says.
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Gale doesn’t think. He is hard-headed. He doesn’t care who he kills as long as his side is winning. He loved Katniss, is true but, again, he doesn’t think. Prim was in that wagon thing when he released the bombs. He didn’t think about it. Since the begining Peeta has been in my ♥. The best characters for me are; Katniss, Prim, Rue, Peeta, Cinna, Finnick, and Hymitch. I’ve always love them. I love Hymitch too 😉
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Okay Peeta is like breathtakingly perfect(as u can see i do crush on him!!!!<3<3<3<3!!)But dont u feel bad for gale? He has to watch his crush making-out with another guy she barley knows.But Peeta is all ovey dovey and that is hot. Iam soooo a peeta lover!!!!!!!!!!!
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i dont actually, he practicaly killed prim himself and he blew up the ‘nut’ even tho there were innocent people in there, he doesnt think.
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I just want to share this quote from Katniss, she said this in Mockingjay, it’s for those people who insist that Gale should be the one for the girl on fire:
“Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.”
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that is my fav quote wen she admits gale is not 4 her. ha team gale i win.
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I wish Peeta existed in real life. I wish we could somehow clone him. Everyone deserves a Peeta in their lives. ❤
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Hi! I think you should also include this one from “Catching Fire” : “Peeta, how come I never know when you’re having a nightmare?” I say.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror,” he says.
“You should wake me,” I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down.
“It’s not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you,” he says. “I’m okay once I realize you’re here.”
I just thought that was soooooo cute!
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YA! in the last book, Gale blew up the “Nut” and killed everyone inside! He doesn’t realize that all the people come back and haunt you like it does to Katniss. TEAM PEETA!!!!!! Gale is the fire, full of rage. Katniss has tons of that already. But Peeta, the flower in the meadow. Soft-hearted and full of kindness. She can’t survive without him.
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i luvvv PEETA any1 whos wit gale shud rethink their perspective on the book and maybe on life. i totaly agree wit u
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I agree with Rini & i_love_the_dandelion_in_the_spring! those are 2 of my favorite parts in the books! I hate when peeta starts screaming,”She’s a mutt! Don’t trust her! She’ll kill you! she’s a mutt!”. When he was highjacked. I love that their daughter has brown hair and blue eyes and their son has blong hair and grey eyes!
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I CANT WAIT UNTIL MARCH 23, 2012 WHEN THE MOVIE COMES OUT!!!!!
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me 2 but tha casting is kinda bad.
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I read a comment and why would Prim end up with Gale?! She’s 12! And she couldn’t anyways cuz she DIES!!! I started crying!
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i kno i cried wen prim died!!!! i luved her and she reminded me of my sista so that in a way made it worse.
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I,like a peeta luver, Lilly, am 11,too. My big sis’ turned me on to these books and i LLLOOOOOOOOOOOVVVEEE them soooo much! I read the whole series twice and I want to marry peeta so badly!!! But i feel sorry for Gale because he loves Katniss and he had to see Peeta and Katniss kissing…alot. HAHAHA!!!!
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Why can’t Peeta be REAL?!?! :’-(((. I love him! And no. I am future mrs peeta mellark. even if he isnt real….. i will love him forever! On the last book currently.
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I’m Team Peeta all the way!
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I think I’ve gone crazy. One day (Okay, many times) I imagined I was Katniss. In my room, I acted out scences that have with Peeta in them… all the romantic ones, haha. I am NOT guy crazy at all, and I was fantasizing being with Peeta forever. Oh, and people: Do NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT make this a Twilight thing (Team Peeta/ Team Gale).
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idk man thats kinda weird/: lol but i don’t judge you cause peeta is pretty flippin awesome!
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Don’t worry, I only fantasize when I am bored haha. But Peeta rules! I like Gale too, though. Again, People: DO NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT make this into a Team Peeta/Gale thing!!!
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i love PEETA!!!! tho he kinda ruined guys 4 me cuz hes sooo perfect!! thats tha expectations i hv 4 guys now so i ges i’m alone 4 life.
i ❤ u PEETA wish there was a PEETA 4 evry girl who appreciates u from tha beginng
i am team PEETA all tha way!!!
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i think we should include this quote i 4 some reson luv it
“You’ve got to keep them clean, otherwise the infection could spread and—”
“I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss,” says Peeta. “Even if my mother isn’t a healer.”
I’m jolted back in time, to another wound, another set of bandages. “You said that same thing to me in the first Hunger Games. Real or not real?”
“Real,” he says. “And you risked your life getting the medicine that saved me?”
“Real.” I shrug. “You were the reason I was alive to do it.”
“Was i?”
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possibly bcuz it is 1 of the first signs of the real peeta showing thru the tracker jacker venom.
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Really, is anything more impressive than watching a person pick up a heavy ball and throw it a couple of yards. Cause I can’t do that!
I’m in love with Peeta Mellark/ Josh Hutcherson
No teams please. Have nothing against gale or peeta lovers but dont turn this into twilight. Find some new way to express whose side your on like I did by saying, ‘Im in love with Peeta’ not, ‘Team Peeta Hehehe!’
viocing my opinion
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I have been obbsessed with peeta since they called him up for reaping and told the bread story. HE IS WAYY BETTER THEN GALE! Gale is the worst person ever. And i agree with the team stuff, dont make this into another twilight. And Josh Hutcherson is the BEST PEETA. Ive been obbsesed with JHutch forEVER, since Little Manhatten<33 I LOVE YOU PEETA<3
"So do you love me? Real or not real?"
"Real."
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Oh and i was like his age when little manhaatten came out, and then RV and all those movies. I was like aww hes so adorable<33 so dont hate on josh hutcherson. read the entertainment weekly, hes eexactly like peeta in every way.
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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THAT QUOTE!!!
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I ❤ PEETA MELLARK and gale and cato!!! ❤
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I wish i had my own peeta :c
</3
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In case you haven’t read Mockingjay yet, take my word for it-don’t read it, you’ll cry for months. I’ve read it last August and I’m still crying but also because I read all three right after the first,ask anyone who knows me, I was in a condition I would describe as almost dead because of Peeta and his(I won’t say and spoil it for you) situation. Okay? But I understand your pain so read if you want just be careful and let you tears pour out endlessly-it’ll help.Team Peeta is sooo hot!!!
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Another thing, If were all in love with Peeta we’re gonna have alot of broken hearts here.I hate KATNISS, she’s such a jerk yet she gets the hottest guy existing! PEETA-I love you!!!I so wish he were mine and after finnick and cinna died peeta and gale were the only people I cud choose and obviously I chose Peeta! Ugh the movie is gonna suck with hutcherson and what I find insulting is that we share the same birthday. Damn u Josh and team Peeta -love u forever!!you may go suck it Gale and Katniss.
PS excuse my rudeness and terrible writing please
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To all my fellow HG fans,
I wanna know how many of u think the movie will rock with hutcherson or with Alex Pettyfer??Vote below please! others are also available as in whoever you’d love as Peeta. I’m Pettyfer all the way! Sexy boy Peeta!but sexy boy Alex as Peeta is super sexy!! Yeah I know I’m reaaallllyyyu weird!!!but lemme know and no offense- I hate Josh he may go suck it!
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How do u hate josh????? Hes soooooooooooo super duper HOT and totally sexy!!!!!
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true
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Thx so much! Peeta is my fav character!
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Omg peeta is my fave charactr to
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I luv THG i hav red all the books!!!!! They r AMAZING!!!!!!! I think ebry one shood hav a chance to read them
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I LOVE PEETA!!!!!!!!!! OMG i wood not b able to live if he didnt exist!!!!!!! Team peeta all the way!!!!!!!
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I just want to say that i love peeta!!! ❤ also, gale stinks( sorry, im just saying) finally: a: i wish peeta wasnt fictional. b: if a was true, id want katniss to be with gale so i could be with peeta. im like an addict!!!!!!! ❤ ❤ ❤ LOVE PEETA!
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Peeta is foreva and nobdy can change that me and josh hucherson will forever get married and have little blond hair and blue eyed kids
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TEAM FINNICK!!! He’s hot. 🙂
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no, team Peeta, he is more hot than Finnick, and besides, if i were Katniss, I’d sock him! I think he should have saved Peeta from the capital’s clutch!
Peeta all the way!
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I have a double crush on Peeta, he is my fav. character! He is the love of my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
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He’s not going to be when the movie comes out (2, and 3) ROBERT PATTERSON IS GOING TO BE HIM!!!!!!!!!!! BLEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Seriously, people. Some of us like Peeta, some of us like Gale. Let’s get over it please.
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I Love Peeta! Gale and katniss have a lot in common, but he’s like her brother. Peeta and Katniss should be together! Wait, never mind, ME and Peeta should be together. (: Love ya Peeta<3
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peeta is amazing. I LOVE HIM!!!!! I missed him at he beginning of mocking jay ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
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TEAM GALE!!
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right right i hate when they hijacked him grrr
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Say the arena’s actually a giant cake..
– Peeta
Lol
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Peeta sucks, all he does is bake some cakes. When gale is starting to death trying to feed his family of 7, he is a man, someone who bakes bread and decorates cakes is not
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GALE IS BETTER FOR KATNISS THAN PEETA IS!!
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GALE GEALE GEALE GALE TEAM GALE TEAM GALE!!!!! NOBODY LIKES A SISSY
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How can you Like team Gale and then speel his name wrong!!!
Geale is not how you speel it last time I checked hahah!
PEETA ROCKs
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obviously your not a real fan if u dont know how his name is spelt tell me wats his last name?ha u wouldnt know little girl
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Well everybody get over it I am married to peeta he dumped KAtniss sorry everyone. GAle is a jerk so if you guys like Gale that ditches KAatniss in District 12 and stays there then fine Like a jerk then.
But me and Peeta are happy togther!
haha LOL
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Peeta had a nightmare I could tell becase he tensed up and let me go.. Only when he woke up he relaxed..
Kylie: Are you okay
peeta: I am now that I know your here!
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omg ppl dont start with “team peeta, team gale” WE ALL KNOW WHO SHE ENDS UP WITH!
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we can do wat we want who r u to tell us what to do
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i LOVE Peeta.I actually cry myself to sleep everynight knowing ill never ever find someone like him.*sob*btw gale fans get the f*ck off this site.team Peeta all the way
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THERE ARE NO TEAMS.
Katniss was always going to end up with Peeta thematically from the moment you saw how Gale and Peeta were positioned around Katniss with their very different worldviews.That’s why this love triangle stuff and team stuff is dumb. There are no teams. Both guys represent something for Panem’s future. They are symbols not people. Whom Katniss picks and whom she turns her back on, that is the way Panem is going to go. Thematically, only one path makes sense. You know it’s true when even Gale/Katniss shippers say it (while wishing it wasn’t that way lol)
It can’t be Gale. For Katniss on whom the fate of Panem rests, Gale represents militaristic ideals, vengeance, and the past. Even his name reminds me of the soldiers from the Wizard of Oz adaptation (Wicked -circa1995) who were called the Gale Force.
For Katniss, Peeta represents hope, reconciliation, and a new type of future. Too many times, Katniss associates Peeta with hope in her life. Peeta is a homophone of pita which is a type of bread. Panem means “bread” in Latin. Peeta is constantly associated with bread in the books, and his fate throughout the books is tied to Panem’s fate. (falls in love with Katniss in Bk1 as the country falls for her, reaches out for supporting rebellion in BK2, and finally in BK3, he is tortured and a mental mess while the country is torn, chaotic and a physical mess. )
I ship Katniss and Peeta personally but the thematic stuff is great to explore. But taking a look at the story outside of the themes, Katniss changes. Peeta changes. Gale does not. He is the same person he was in the beginning. By the third book, Katniss was thinking of what Peeta would say to this in connection to the rebellion. Gale’s and her compatibility, if there was any, had fallen away completely. She changes to someone, and she always was this person but the experience of the games brought it out, who see the Capitol kids, the Capitol people as human like her. Gale’s opinion of the prep team and how Katniss tries to explain their humanity to him…and he doesn’t get it. To him, they are the enemy so who cares if they dies?. He has a very black/white view of life. Katniss doesn’t think like that. Even agreeing to one final Hunger Games, Katniss wasn’t agreeing to it. She was deciding to take Coin out even then because she realized that Coin is just another dictator in the making.
Her words before she says it, she thinks of Snow (and likely how they promised not to lie to each other) and most importantly, she thinks that it’s all a circle of people repeating the same actions. In conclusion, Katniss changes and she’s not right for Gale and with him.
As for why she’s right for Peeta and he for her is for another time. I am tired and I want to sleep lol.
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Thank you! My sentiments exactly, only I’m too lazy to write it down.
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sigh hes so cute i want a man like peeta
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peeta peeta peeta peeta
peeta peeta♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡# 1 cutest guy alive..to me…=^._.^= MEOW
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I love Peeta Mellark he is amazing and he always is there for katniss and he know he needs to help her win.
He is soo cute!! i am so TEAM PEETA! when i read the books i couldnt wait for the film and that was 2 years ago<3
me and my friend are obsessed by the books and the film! i cant wait for catching fire to come out in the cinemas!
PEETA MELLARK FOREVER<3 xx
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u can b a peeta fan without hating gail! i love peeta & am really happy that katness and gail r 2gether but all those ppl who saidthey hate gail? u r rly exagerating! katness and gail were best friends for a really long time before she even met peeta! she even sais in the book she loves both of them but the auther had to get rid of one of them so she did the whole thing with gail and prim…but you dont know if it was rly gails bomb at the end that killed her or the capitols and even if it was gails it was an accident! gail in the book is an amazing person and friend for katness and when she went to the hunger games he took care of her family making sure they dont starve getting them food! just cuz u like peeta dosent mean u have 2 hate gail! theyre both great friens for her with diffrent persunalities and views of life! i LOVE peeta but i like gail 2…there dosent have 2 b “team peeta” or “team gail” im for “team peeta and gail” 🙂
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you spelled gale wrong
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sorry….
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