I give into the fandom.

Oh snap, is this my 4th Hunger Games post in a row? I told you you'd be sick of it at some point.

Actually, the real reason behind the excessive Hunger Games fandom (besides the fact that it's amazing) is that I have been evading deep thinking lately, and so as a result, have allowed my brain to default to the easiest, most brain-free topic there is, which right now, would be the Hunger Games.

Not that it's a brainless, pointless series, but it's the kind of thing you don't need a lot of brain in order to process. If that makes any sense. Nothing like Shakespeare or Lewis or the Apostle Paul or anything, is what I mean.

Anyhow, I typically pride myself in not being obsessed with what everyone else is. I don't like screaming fangirls. I am not one of them. But this series was...absolutely amazing. So here we go.

!!!WARNING: if you have not read the books, PLEASE, for the love of reading a good novel, don't read this post!!! Perhaps, some other time, I will write a Hunger Games post specifically for those of you who have not read it, so as to use my persuasive skills as to convince you to do so.

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...there now. For those of you who are left...

First of all, I absolutely loved every minute of the Hunger Games trilogy. I don't really understand how people can "like the third book but not the second book" or something like that, because they all tell one story. You can't simply "like" one and not like the other. It only took me a timespan of....3 days to read all 3 books. It's been a painstakingly long time since I allowed myself to be completely lost in an alternate reality, and it felt really good to just curl up in a corner for hours.

Secondly, as far as I know, I am basically the only human being on the planet who is "Team Gale."

Yes, I'm sorry all you Peeta-lovers out there...I was rooting for Gale. After a long discussion with a friend on the matter, I have finally come to like Peeta quite well.

However, I just...really really hate perfect characters. Peeta literally has no character flaws whatsoever, and if that wasn't enough, he has like this unconditional love for a girl who deliberately shoves him around and loves someone else for a time. Even when he goes crazy, he's the one who's strong, he's the one who fights through it -- and it's not like it was his fault anyway.

I guess I'm just too firmly devoted to platonic love, and despite the fact that Gale only loved Katniss for 6 months, I feel like it was one of those moments where you just suddenly realize how much you love someone even though you've known them for forever. You know -- real lovers start out as real friends -- that kind of thing.

During the whole first book, I didn't get excited when Peeta and Katniss were kissing, but more of this achey sort of knot in the pit of my stomach for Gale as I imagined how awful it must have been from his perspective.

Given the amount of time that Suzanne Collins spent describing Peeta and the amount of time she didn't spend on Gale, I probably should have guessed Katniss would end up with him. But I'm just not that perceptive when it comes to reading books....

Anyways -- so despite how much I do really love Peeta now, part of me still roots for Gale somehow. He had this bond with Katniss that Peeta just didn't have. That best-friend love is something I will always fight hard for.

Thirdly, the whole series left me rather uneasy. I wanted just a few more sentences to know how Gale was getting on, whether there really was peace throughout Panem, whether the districts still existed to feed the capitol, if the capitol was a tyrannical terror to everyone, who mines coal now that District 12 makes medicine, and what in the world does District 13 do now? What type of government did they run, and was District 11 still a miserable place to live? Was everything still rural and run down or was it all modernized to be more like the Capitol and District 13? But perhaps that's the way Suzanne Collins intended it to be.

I was angry that Katniss was one of the ones who voted to have a final Hunger Games with the capitol's children. Seriously, I know she was losing her mind at that point, but had she really entirely forgotten why she was fighting this battle in the first place?

However, I do admit that it was entirely within her character, especially given that Prim had died. But I was annoyed that Katniss' love for everyone else was hinged on her love for Prim.

It actually reminded me a lot of Orual from Till We Have Faces -- in that her only reason for living was because of this overpowering love for Psyche. I guess I was just disappointed that Katniss' love for Gale was so thin that it would fade entirely, leaving nothing behind, with the mere prospect that his bomb could have been responsible for Prim's death.

Also, I didn't feel like Gale was so shallow as to simply move onto another district and probably be "kissing some other woman" so quickly. I won't sink his character so low that he would simply "move on" and forget Katniss like that. It was like Suzanne Collins had to get rid of him real quick so Katniss could be with Peeta, and that was the easiest way to do it.

However, I was very pleased that it didn't end "happily ever after." Despite how uneasy it made me feel, I was so glad that it wasn't a typical book. So many books end with this happy, all-is-right-with-the-world....but in reality, that's not the way it is. So maybe that uneasiness was intentional -- because that's the way it is in the world.

So yes -- I really liked the accurate picture it gave of the human condition and the whole political system in general -- that is: corrupt. That really, sometimes the only thing you can do in this life is not to let these things control or define you. It's never going to all work out in the world.

All in all, I think it definitely goes on my list of favorite fictional books. Even though it gave me this sense of despair at the prospect of the futility of the world in general...at the same time there's a renewed sense that fighting, even if nothing ever ends happily ever after...is worth it because of the people that you love.

So...fellow nerds? What have you to say? I long to hear your thoughts.