Katniss vs Peeta

"Finnick knew then what Haymitch and I know. About Peeta. Being truly, deep-down better than us.” Thinks Katniss, heroine of The Hunger Games, after watching the bloodbath at Cornucopia in the Quarter Quell Hunger Games she participated in, realizing thast even though Peeta got everybody do join hands it didn’t have a lasting effect on the people “Finnick took out that tribute from five without blinking an eye. And how long did I take to turn deadly? I shot to kill when I targeted Enobaria and Glass and Brutus. Peeta would have at least attempted negotiations first. Seen if some wider alliance was possible.” She realizes that she and Peeta have different types of motivation, ways of thinking, and reactions and were not like each other.
Goals in Their First Hunger Game
In the Games Katniss’s goal is to survive and win while Peeta seems selfless and wants Katniss to survive. Her will to survive starts when she talked to Prim and Gale after the reaping. Prim assurs her that she had a chance to win by saying, “But you have to take care, too. You’re so fast and brave. Maybe you can win.” She asks Katniss to really, really try to win, so Katniss did. Because of Prim she would have to. Gale helps her think of strategies to use saying that getting a knife would be pretty easy but to really stand a chance, she has to get a bow, or make one herself if necessary as her ideal weapon is a bow. Then he helped her realize that she can win by assuring her that the game is just hunting and that she is the best hunter he knows. She says that, “The awful thing is that if I can forget that they are people, there will be no difference at all.” Then, the night before the games she said, “I can’t stop trying to imagine exactly what terrain I’ll be thrown into. Desert? Swamp? A frigid wasteland? Above all I’m hoping for trees,” continuing her mental preparation for the next day willing herself not to lose. During the games when she manages to get a bow and arrows, she says that they give her a new perspective on the games, that she is no longer prey that runs and hides. Now, if Cato breaks through the trees she will shoot not flee. She now stands a chance. Peeta, on the other hand, wants to stay himself and not become a ruthless killer. As he says the night on the roof, “I want to die as myself. I don’t want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I’m not. I don’t want to be a piece of their games.” Instead of how to win the games he worries about how to maintain his identity and purity of self. He also didn’t want to have the government control him. He wants to stay himself and die himself like an intelligent person ,not a survivor, a person that’s main goal is to live and doesn’t care what he has to do to achieve it. During the games he helps Katniss stay alive and didn’t change his goal. He joins the Careers to help mislead them about Katniss. Then, when the Careers kept Katniss up in the tracker-jacker tree, he stays awake all night and fought Cato to let her escape, getting cut and nearly dying. Even when he was lying in the mud bank he whispers her name in his sleep, while Katniss only thinks about him when he was with the Careers and when she learned that she could team up with him. He never turns into one of the killers in the games. The only people he kills were two girls. He kills one girl out of mercy and Foxface by accident, even so, he felt horrible that he had caused somebody’s death.
Personalities

Katniss has a very bold personality , temper, and a lot of spirit. She really shows her temper at her private training session before the games, "It’s excellent shooting. I turn to the Gamemakers. A few are nodding approval, but the majority of them are fixated on a roast pig that has just arrived on their banquet table. Suddenly I am furious, that with my life on the line, they don’t even have the decency to pay attention to me. That I’m being upstaged by a dead pig. My heart starts to pound, I can feel my face burning. Without thinking, I pull an arrow from my quiver and send it straight at the Gamemaker’s table." Instead of waiting for the Gamemakers to dismiss her, she walks out. Instead of hating her and giving her a low score, the Gamemakers liked her temper and spirit, it would make the games more interesting, and gave her an eleven, the highest score out of her group. As she said, “My spirit. This is a new thought. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I’m a fighter. In a sort of brave way.” Peeta on the other hand has a quiet more calm personality. He thinks deeply, behaves very intelligently, and gives hope to others. He gives hope to Katniss when he gave her the bread and showed her that life can continue. He decides to burn the bread and receive a beating to give the bread to her instead of the pig, something that could have resulted in a beating for him. He thought about everything thoroughly and clearly. He proves this to be true when he declares his love for Katniss in public. He had clearly thought this through when he first requested private training. He choose to not let Katniss find out about it and risks embarrassment and rejection when he could have told her his plan and have her risk embarrassing herself because she isn’t a good actor or liar.

Reactions
Katniss and Peeta also react differently to painful events. Katniss is more likely to destroy things while Peeta creates. When Katniss and Peeta came back from the Capital in the third book Peeta plants Primrose bushes by the house to relieve his pain. He grew something to remember Prim. His coming back and planting things also prompts Katniss to do things and not just mope around. Katniss, however, wasn’t calm like Peeta and threw the flower into the flames and smashed a vase to relieve her pain at losing her sister. Peeta also shows how he reacts to things after the first hunger games he started to paint as a hobby to get over his pain from the games. She hunts for food to get her mind off of what had happened in the games after she came back from the first arena. Unlike Peeta she wasn’t able to make something beautiful as a hobby. He decides to make things for fun. He also decides to make something to make the Capital feel the pain he felt by painting a picture of Rue for his second interview. Contrary to Peeta, Katniss hung Seneca Crane from a noose in her interview to surprise the Gamemakers and give them a warning.

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