Me + Movie = Sheep

     I admit it.  I caved to the pressure.  I am a sheep, a lemming, and yes I jumped off a cliff because my friends did.  I read the Hunger Games Trilogy.  I had chosen not to because I was told it is too violent and Katniss changes, so why would the two guys want her anyway.  I don't like it when the protagonist changes in a detrimental way.  I chose to avoid the let down of the ending.  Then the movie comes out.  Trent wants to take me to see it and I cannot see a movie without reading the book first.  It happened with Harry Potter, it happened with Chronicles of Narnia (I had only read TLTWATW before), and it happened with The Lord of the Rings.
     As it turns out, these are some of my favorite books, but not so much the movies.  I don't know what to think about this new addition to the lemming parade.  I have not yet seen the movie, but I can't decide if I am looking forward to it or not.  Violence in a book is so different than seeing it larger than life with a soundtrack.  I still have trouble seeing the Shelob sequence in the movie, but in the book the mines of Moria was the scariest part for me.  There is a lot of nudity in the book and I DO NOT want to see it larger than life with a sound track.  I have enough trouble with my own nudity issues and seeing Katniss in front of her prep team being tortured by wax and strips of cloth with nothing on but an agonized expression is something I can do without.  I certainly do not want to see Gale get whipped in the second one.
     I could however, go in for some kissing, real kissing where they are both in love and can't help themselves.  But this is not the case.  She likes him and will kiss him because she loves him eventually, but not until a thousand pages later.  And then there is no sighing and no description of how she loves him so much now.  She is still a survivor, a damaged and wounded survivor who does almost anything for self preservation.  Maybe I missed the point.  She did not volunteer out of selfishness, but everything she did in the arena was based on survival.  She made Peeta think she kissed him because she loved him.  That is such a betrayal.  I wouldn't have kissed him to survive I would have hidden like Foxface or died the first day.  I would have been one of the nameless faces in the sky because I would have just stood on the battlefield disoriented and been taken out easily.  Maybe.  I would have never put it together I was supposed to manipulate my way into gifts.  I would have been outraged that Haymitch chose me and not Peeta, he was the one worth saving.  I would have taken his hand and run with him the first moment I got.  I am selfish that way, I guess.  I would have fallen for Peeta the moment I set eyes on him.  I would have been his best friend the moment he gave me the bread.  I would have craved his attention and his love.  But then, he wouldn't have loved me.  I guess he needed her fire and spirit.  I just wish her fire and spirit were more other-centric.
     When I read the book I fell in love with him immediately.  He would have been my friend, not Gale.  I just cannot relate to Katniss.  I don't understand her.  It just came to me in writing these last sentences.  Peeta is someone I aspire to be like a tall, handsome, strong, sensitive, charming, clever, loyal, GOOD man.  But I'm not.  I am a bipolar, weak, lazy, selfish woman.
     I just broke my own heart.  No compliments, please.  I do not need people to try to change my opinion of myself.  I just need to figure out a way to become the good things I want to be and change some habits.  I know that sounds a like Corihor's doctrine, but I am not excluding God from the picture like he did.  I need to stop wishing I could leave the house everyday and make a positive difference in the world like Trent does. I ned to focus my efforts on my children and home and not on myself.  I need to be thrilled with my lot in life whatever it is.  I've got some work to do.
     I need to stop craving people's love and letting that rule my actions.  Yes, I do not crave strangers approval, but the approval of those I admire most.  I do not want approval in the normal way.  I want a few "bosom friends" who love me with abandon and let me know they do constantly.  How selfish.  I guess that is why I have so much trouble with all my good friends moving away.  That is why I am so lonely in a crowd.  Ugg.  I hate that about myself.  I don't like being vulnerable and weak.  I don't like beeing needy.  Oh, well.
     I don't think that Katniss changed for the worse, but for the better.  She became human and compasionate.  That is why she chose Peeta and fell in love with him.  She didn't choose him because she couldn't survive without him, but because she changed in such a way as to be worthy of him and his sacrifices for her.  She offered up her life so that it could be better for all and did not choose to compromise herself like Gale did when he developed weapons of war that were used on children or when he killed almost everyone in the mountain.  He should have known better.  That is why he lost Katniss, he was always ruthless and she saw his true colors.  She knew that was not her true spirit and that the ends do not justify the means.  That is why she assasinated President Coin and didn't execute Snow.  She saw the true enemy of the people and took it out.  People who are just out for power should never be in charge.  The people who seek power because they need that tool to help people are always a better choice.  In the end she did not even seek the power people gave to her.  She became the mockingjay to help those she cared about.  Not for revenge, not because it was what people expected of her, and not even because she wanted a better life for herself.  She wanted a better life for all.  She knew that another Hunger Games was not the solution even though she voted for it.  She eventually realized revenge is no way for the new people in power to stay in power. 
     So do I like the book?  I don't know.  Did I learn a lot?  Yes.  Will I let Esther read it?  Not on your life.  Do I wish there was more happily-ever-after?  Yes.  Is that reality?  No, but that is why I read:  To escape reality.  I want to live in a world where husbands love their wives in wildly romantic ways and that people have children because they love each other and want to share that love with others.  I want all wounds to heal and make people stronger.  I don't want people to have to live with lingering effects that terrorize them everyday.  I don't want reality.