The Hunger Games is a popular book series that is about a tyrannical government that forces children to murder each other to show their unstoppable power after one of the districts tried to rebel . I want to make it perfectly clear that The Hunger Games is a story about government overstepping their boundaries and taking things too far. It’s about war.

This. Is not. A love story.

With the recent movie franchise the media has taken to spinning the films to be about the love triangle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta. The media is exemplifying part of the problem with the Capitol in a sense, because in the books the Capitol makes a big deal about Peeta and Katniss’ relationship, but anyone who read the book actually knows the only reason they’re even together after the games is because President Snow forced them together after the games to quell the rebellion. The only reason Peeta is alive is because Katniss didn’t want to deal with the backlash of killing someone from her own district. Not love.

I am unable to discount the fact that there are romantic entanglements involved in these novels and movies (more so in the movies than the books), but that is not the point. The romantic love stories in the series are there to make things more interesting for the audience, but it’s not the central plot of the series. Katniss has never fought for romantic love. She fought for the love of her sister; she is fighting to survive for her sister. She is trying to escape from the murderous clutches of the Career Tributes and the Gamemakers controlling the arena itself.

One defining moment of both the movie and the books is the scene with the Nightlock at the end of the games. What’s going through Katniss’ head is not I can’t live without this boy. It’s actually How can I go home without him? The district will shun me. It’s only in the next book that any semblance of actual love for Peeta comes through to the surface for Katniss. They stay far away from each other when they are not anywhere near cameras. The only person really affected by it is Peeta, who actually loves Katniss. She is unaffected by it until finding out she must go into the games again. The overthrowing the Capitol part of the series seems to be on a back burner in the book, but really throughout the entire book an plan was set into motion to escape the Hunger Games and officially start the rebellion.

Katniss is the symbol of a rebellion. She is the Mockingjay. She is not some girl who just wants to be in love and have a family. Previous to the first book she never, not once, wanted to have children, and she never wanted to subject her children to the Hunger Games.

Long story short, Katniss Everdeen doesn’t care about her love life; she is independent, a provider, a fighter, a caregiver, and a completely fierce person who don’t need no man. Peeta is the equivalent of a superhero girlfriend. The romance is there, but it’s there to amuse people, it is not the actual point of the series.