Katniss Fell in Love With Peeta During the Quarter Quell By then, they had gone through two games together. To Katniss, there was no one other than Peeta who could truly understand her nightmares and could protect her and soothe her. Losing Peeta made her see what she had failed to see.
Did Peeta actually have a crush on Katniss before?
Often, he would stare at her in school. Sometimes Katniss would make eye contact with him, only for his eyes to quickly flit away. During an interview with Caesar Flickerman preceding the Games, Peeta admits on national television to having a long-standing crush on Katniss.
When Katniss comes home to District 12, Gale immediately confesses his love for Katniss, and she realizes she might have feelings for him, too — but she can't explore them, because she has to continue her fake relationship with Peeta or else her entire family, including “cousin Gale,” will be killed.
In Chapter 9, as Caesar Flickerman interviews Peeta before the Games, Peeta reveals to Caesar and all of Panem that he's in love with Katniss. Peeta's revelation sets in motion the storyline of him and Katniss as ill-fated lovers that carries on throughout the Games.
Does Katniss Truly Love Peeta By The End Of The Hunger Games?
Why was Katniss so obsessed with Peeta?
Peeta Mellark served as Katniss' crucial confidant, seeing as he went through it all firsthand, not once, but twice. Despite the terror he faced, Katniss viewed Peeta as a symbol of comfort and salvation.
Katniss here's this and understands that even though she may not love Peeta (then) that it's one less person who has to die. (At least that's what I have always thought.) Katniss realizes that if she pretends to be in love with Peeta people will want the capitol to let them survive.
Katniss's focus on survival and her family's safety prevented her from fully considering romance, but her feelings for Peeta and Gale diverged in the end. Katniss ultimately chose Peeta because he understood her trauma and she didn't want to lose him, proving her love for him.
Gale does not marry anyone in The Hunger Games. He and Katniss talk about running away together and starting a new life in the wilderness, but they never officially marry.
Katniss Fell in Love With Peeta During the Quarter Quell
However, it wasn't until Mockingjay -- when Peeta got kidnapped by the Capitol -- Katniss realized how much she cared about him and that she couldn't live without him.
On March 23, 2011, Lionsgate began casting the role of Peeta for the film of The Hunger Games. According to The Hollywood Reporter, contenders for the role included Josh Hutcherson, Alexander Ludwig (later cast as Cato), Hunter Parrish, Lucas Till, and Evan Peters.
Katniss has just learned that Peeta has romantic feelings for her, and initially she feels she is being used. She becomes angry with Peeta as a result, going so far as to shove him over an urn of flowers.
It's only implied that they get it on via snuggling and other affectionate acts in close quarters — but if you have read the book, they really imply that they took their relationship to the next level.
Gale was responsible for creating weapons that would trigger a second wave of bombs to target first responders and combat healers. This invention potentially ended up killing Prim, but even if he wasn't directly responsible, Katniss found this tactic so abhorrent that she lost her affection for him.
After Prim's death, Gale leaves voluntarily because neither of them can avoid the matter of Prim's death having been caused by Gale's invention, with Katniss letting him go without a word. Katniss subsequently grows back together with Peeta, whom she finds she loves again now that he is recovered from his hijacking.
Remembering Snow's words, Katniss puts on a happy face for the cameras. She and Peeta embrace and share a romantic but playful kiss — their first in many months.
As Haymitch explains, Peeta does want to marry Katniss, but he wishes she wanted to marry him out of love, not just necessity. Peeta also gets angry because he feels like Katniss and Haymitch are constantly manipulating him.
During The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the three-fingered salute is still used as a gesture of goodbye, but also comes to represent the anger and grief people feel toward the Capitol at taking their children to be killed.
While, throughout the series, there's some chemistry between the two, nothing ever comes of the tension in Suzanne Collins' novels. Beyond the kiss, nothing happened between the two in the movies either.
While the Hunger Games film never talked about it, the Catching Fire novel explained why she could only communicate through hand gestures. Katniss briefly mentioned that a previous stroke could have caused Mags' garbled speech. However, post-traumatic stress disorder could have also caused her speech incapacity.
Although his feelings are genuine, he is hurt to discover that Katniss' were not entirely. He and Katniss become friends despite the fact that they are forced to use their fake romance to both placate and subvert the capitol during their Victory Tour and the 75th Hunger Games.
During the interviews for the 75th Hunger Games, Peeta lied about Katniss being pregnant to try to protect her from the Games, and Katniss later stated that she miscarried due to an electric shock in the arena to avoid further questioning.
