Capitol Portraits: Gale Hawthorne
Posted
March 7, 2013 by Carla in
Hunger Games Movie News
Our ninth Capitol Portrait comes to us straight from the Seam in District Twelve: Gale Hawthorne, ladies and gentlemen! Many of us didn’t think he’d get a portrait, so what do you think of this one?
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Aw. His face just breaks my heart.. :/
it makes no sense on so many levels… but I guess its good for promotional purposes
This. I mean, why is he even holding a rose, wasn’t it only a tribute thing?
i’ve heard people say that the rose is a symbol of those snow is “targeting” or “keeping an eye on.” it’s just speculation, though.
Sorry, I don’t buy that explanation. I’m sure Snow was “keeping an eye” on Cinna and Haymitch as well, but their portraits were totally rose-less. Honestly, it just seems like whoever worked on this portrait thought “we’re just doing this because we HAVE to market Gale, even though it really doesn’t fit”, threw their hands up in the air, and did half a donkey’s work on it. I’ll continue my rant in another post.
Ditto.
I was wondering also about the tribute chair.. Why is he getting one? If they wanted to keep it Seam-style, they might have given him a simple stool. I don’t see why he should share the plain wooden chair they reserved for the Quell’s tributes.
Of course they had to give him a portrait. Every important character needs a character poster right? Just like last year. If they would’ve given Gale no poster at all, or a totally different one, that would be weird in my opinion..
well, it’s not my explanation, i just read it somewhere and thought i would pass it on.
frankly, i’m still scratching my head about the roses, myself.
Boo team Peeta and why did he get a picture if the first place?
I just want to give him hugs!
me too!
I like how he’s dressed more plainly than everyone else. He’s not a tribute though, so why is he holding a rose?
I like it, but I just don’t understand why he is holding a rose…
And the Finnick portrait! AHHH <3
The rose mean the rebels all those who surrfured from the Snow.
Maybe the rose represents the people that will rebel against the Capitol.
Then why aren’t Haymitch and Cinna holding it?
Awww :3 He’s adorable!!! <3
I can’t explain why some characters are holding the white rose and some aren’t, but to me it symbolizes Snow’s “kiss of death” or something like that…
In that case, shouldn’t Cinna and Haymitch also be holding roses?
Like I said, I can’t explain why some are holding the rose and some aren’t…hopefully we can find someone to explain this to us!
Bekah12, not “I”…sorry ’bout that…glad to find someone who has the same basic thoughts as me!
Yes, was so hoping he’d get a portrait even if it doesn’t make sense that he does! It just screams Gale. The plain clothes, the expression on his face. I don’t really get the rose but I’m just happy we get to see him.
Warning: RANT follows!
Okay, I am very UNimpressed with this portrait. Forcing Gale into the same exact chair and shoving the exact same rose in his hand as the Tributes, when he is NOT a Tribute, IMHO, is just being lazy. Why not design a chair that would fit into the “rustic/savage D12″ stereotype I can see Capitolites buying into? Like a willow rocking chair, or maybe a tree stump with a crude seat cut into it, or something else stereotypically rustic.
Another problem is, this portrait shows us NOTHING about Gale’s fiery, rebellious side. (Unlike, say, Johanna’s portrait.) If you’re going to include the rose, why not have him actually snapping the rose in two, or even stomping on it? You could argue “oh the Capitol would never let him do that”, but really, the Capitol would never have bothered to paint a portrait of him in the first place. I can’t fathom any reason Snow would give Gale any media attention to compete with the star-crossed lovers storyline. (Yes, he is pretending to be her cousin, but there’s a pretty longstanding stereotype of “kissing cousins” and inbreeding among “rednecks” and “hillbillies” in the South and Appalachia, and I can easily see some astute Capitolites starting rumors.)
So if you’re already going against any canon plausibility for the sake of marketing, why not actually SHOW us something interesting about Gale? What about showing him actually having kicked the chair over, and stepping on it. Or, if that’s too radical, what about showing him sitting on the very edge of his seat, as a hint that he can’t sit all the way back in it, because his back still hurts from the whipping. (Actually, maybe that’s what they were TRYING to hint at by having Gale lean forward in the chair, but this is MUCH less foreshadowing than they gave us even in the Katniss portrait! Or the Peeta portrait, my favorite so far, which was chock-full of symbolism and foreshadowing, not just for CF, but for MJ.)
Satsuma-love it! You have hot the nail on the head regarding the issues with the Capitol poster of Gale!!
It’s great for him to have a poster but it needs to make sense and his being in a Capitol Shot makes no sense at sll !
@satsuma . I agree with you . Who is that Gale? He looks like a lost puppy. I know he isn’t yet the District 13 Gale. But he is supposed to be fiery even before that. He reminds me the Gale who was watching katniss kissed Peeta on tv and sadly pout.
i agree with you on most points, but there are things that also make this not so easy for them, IMO, that had to be taken into account.
it’s true that gale having a capitol portrait at all doesn’t make sense in the context of this marketing strategy. that was a fail on their part, i’d say. however, gale is a pretty darn important character in the series, and if he got a character poster for the first movie (when he was barely IN it), they definitely couldn’t leave him without one for the sequel, where he has a bigger role. the fact that he had a poster at all definitely boils down to pure marketing for a movie.
now, on one hand, when i saw the clue i hoped they would at least try to make his portrait DIFFERENT from the rest, to symbolize that “one of these things is not like the others,” if you may. giving him a “victor” chair wasn’t really necessary (though i didn’t want him to get a different chair either– he’s D12, for god’s sake, basically a “riffraff” in the eyes of the capitol, so if he had been standing up, for example, no chair at all, that would’ve been fantastic in my eyes). but they gave him the same chair, and the rose symbolism, if there even is one, gets muddled by his presence.
on the other hand, if they were going to stick to their capitol portraits marketing scheme either way, they really couldn’t have shown gale’s fiery personality at all, because his fiery personality is treasonous– plain and simple. he’s in a completely different situation than johanna is, and i think it’s a little unfair to expect the same from both portraits. as some of us were discussing in the johanna post, her defiant personality is treasonous as well, but there is no way snow can “forcibly erase” johanna’s feisty side, because the capitol already saw it during her games, and loved it. the capitol knows no such thing about gale, and the last thing snow wants is to incite more rebellious behavior, especially from/in twelve. hence, seemingly “harmless” gale.
while i like the poster in general (his expression seems very “i just want to get the HECK out of here and away from these crazies” to me, and i love that), i agree that they could’ve done better. i also think it’s not that easy to get it “right” with gale, he’s a tricky one, so personally i’m willing to cut them some slack on this one. i think it’s one of those things were you either go: “well, they already messed it up so they might as well drop the pretense and give us a gale we WANT to see” or “well, they already messed it up so they might as well add in as many true-to-the-book details as they can to compensate.” very divisive, of course, but personally i’ll take gale any way i can get him.
Hi Carla, thanks for the feedback! I totally understand why they included Gale in the portrait series, even though his depiction doesn’t fit “Capitol” or “Couture”. I am resigned to that at this point.
However, the main issue I have with Gale’s portrait, is what it seems most other fans do as well; the use of the tribute chair and rose in the portrait. The rose more than the tribute chair. Also, while we could try to explain away how rebellious Johanna looks, or how Katniss’s wedding dress looks too much like a Mockingjay already, to have realistically slipped by Snow, using what we know of book canon, I must concede that some of it is a stretch, or “fanwanking” (I hope that’s not too vulgar a comment for this site!)
Even Beetee, who did NOT have a fiery reputation in the book, and seems to have won his Games in the same cool, calculated manner he designs death traps against the Capitol in MJ, looked more rebellious in his portrait than Gale did. Although on second look, I do see the veins bulging in the hand Gale is using to hold the rose, and I suppose that’s meant to be a subtle sign of anger.
One reason I was so disappointed, is because this portrait was revealed right after the Peeta portrait, which as I mentioned already was chock-full of symbolism and foreshadowing, not just for CF, but for MJ. So, while I didn’t really expect an extremely rebellious, chair-kicking Gale, I did expect to see a TAD more of his personality, than what we got. For example, instead of showing him with a rose, what about showing him fumbling with a pair of gloves that look like they’re designed in the Capitol, obviously about to take them off? That would have been a great nod to the “lake scene” in the book, in which Gale does exactly that with Cinna’s gloves.
Gale got portrait, too? Didn’t make any sense to me. Like, Capitol or Snow would bother about him. He just fake-cousin for Katniss. Or, will they make another portrait from Katniss’ family also? Then, this just about what are sell.
I’m not really complain or hate Gale. But, yeah whatever..
Guys, they’re passing these off as “Capitol Portraits” but these are movie promotion, first and foremost, that’s why Gale has a portrait. He’s main character. These are just like the posters for THG, with the profiles of everyone.
That said, he really shouldn’t be holding a rose.
Sorry fan girls but I must say that Gale shouldn’t have to have a portrait. It only would have made sense to make a portrait If it would be the whole family of Katniss on it. Eribody on one portrait!
This is only for the fans and it ruined the idea of that is capitol propaganda.
The “Capitol portraits” thing is mainly promotional, so i guess i doesn’t have to make sense.. Like Emily said, it’s just movie posters, same thing as side profile pics last time.
Why shouldn’t Gale have a portrait? He’s becoming more important all the time (saaay Mockingjay?), so we can’t forget about him now.
And i love the portrait. It’s probably my favorite one. Gale looks like he’s suffering. Suffocating anger and all other emotions, leaving him look “a bit worried”.
(Ok plus, hot guy…)
i do think that he looks REALLY uncomfortable. i think that’s my favorite part about this one, because gale WOULD be massively uncomfortable (like you said, trying hard to swallow all his emotions) if he were ever put into such a situation.
Like someone said, this seems a bit like lazy marketing to me. You make a whole concept of Capitol portraits and then put Gale in there. I think that Gale should have his own movie poster, but they should’ve at least made it look a bit different than Victor portraits. Or not release it as a Capitol portrait, but release it later in some other batch of posters or promo material. But this was just easier to do marketing-wise so they just made Gale this poster (btw, it’s not a bad looking poster at all, quite opposite, it just doesn’t fit the concept). For me it would make more sense if they’d made star-crossed lovers poster within the capitol poster series than this. If you’re making it look like capitol propaganda, then put on it something capitol people are obsessed about. Also, I personally would like to see that kind of poster
there won’t be anymore chances for them to release a gale poster, though. these are THE character posters, just as the side-profile ones were for the first movie, and they can’t very well leave gale without a character poster.
I wish that they only did a bit differently then, different chair, without rose, whatever. Though I guess that most people who will see the movie won’t notice those details anyway. Only the people like us posting here will actually go and compare who has a rose and who hasn’t and if the poster fits the concept.
Having a Gale poster is understandable from a marketing perspective. But having Gale in a victor’s chair holding a white rose is a major failure. It doesn’t differentiate Gale from others and diminishes the significance of being a victor/tribute.
I do like that they made everything simple. Nothing glamorous. That’s the way Gale should be.
I have nothing against Liam Hemsworth. I think he is a wonderful and humble person for someone in Hollywood and a good actor to boot. However, when I look at this picture, all I see is Liam, I don’t see Gale. There is nothing in his eyes or his posture that defines him as Gale. His brow is raised almost in a questioning look, and his leaning forward gives off a sense of defeat. It’s not so much the chair that bothers me, but the rose, that really bothers me. I’m sure the rose symbolizes something other than what we all think it might, but it is the one thing all the primary tribute characters have that associate them with one another so for him to have one seems misplaced. Just my opinion of course.
I totally agree. When I look at all the other posters…well, honestly, except for Finnick’s, I can lose myself in the character completely. When I look at the Gale poster, I see “Liam playing Gale”. Also, the poster could just as easily be of THG Gale, since it doesn’t contain any subtle allusions to his character arc in CF. I’m sure THG Gale would also have been uncomfortable in the Capitol, and been clenching his fist around Snow’s rose. I do suspect that Gale sitting forward in the chair, instead of sitting back in it and letting his back touch the back, is meant to be a subtle reference to his whipping, but I think it’s just TOO subtle for my tastes.
sorry gale girl fans out there but i think gale should not hav a rose. i think they should hav made capitol portraits and disrict 12 portraits or the hob portraits. this way it separates the capitol people to the 12 people. dont get me wrong i lik liam but i DO NOT lik gale…. go peeta (loved his portrait!)
BOO TEAM GALE, HES JUST SO UGLY!!!!!
I don’t mind that Gale has a poster, it just helps remind that he is an important character, even if it won’t truly show until Mockingjay. But just to make it different from the other tributes, he shouldn’t be holding a rose. Too confusing. But that’s the only thing I would change.
Gale is the biggest character fail so far in this franchise. From what we saw in HG and now in this portrait, Liam is not right for Gale. He doesn’t have any of the out-of-control fire that Gale HAS to have. His one subversive line from the movie was delivered without seriousness at all, and in this portrait he seems sad and heart-throbby, like he’s trying to look hot for a magazine, instead of angry. As someone said, he looks defeated.
As everyone has said, when marketing the characters, Gale is tricky to handle. Yes, these are promotional movie posters for the public. But the marketing team is fully aware of the pressure from the fandom to do the books justice. (We know they’re trying when we see the bits of symbolism and canon in the portraits.) So why set up this scenario of Capitol-made portraits (with Tributes in the same chair holding roses) if they’re just going to break it with Gale?
I suppose the only explanation is that these aren’t meant to be put on by the Capitol. Though all of the marketing/ social media outlets associated with this movie post as if they ARE what they’re names suggests (all the district FB pages speak like they ARE the districts, the Captiol FB page speaks like it IS the Capitol, Capitol Couture acts like it IS a Capitol magazine) they end up posting things that break character for promotional purposes.
It’s a complete fail on their part, and a big disappointment to the millions of fans who make this thing successful. A marketing rep or someone needs to release a social media statement regarding all this. Everything looks really cool, but some of is just too off (Katniss’s dress is way to Mockingjay-y to get by Snow).
Who’s Gale?
This is for the people that don’t think Gale deserves a poster. Obviously he needs one because in the book Catchkng Fire, he becomes a much more important character. This book is where Gale confesses he likes Katniss. He’s important and needs a poster. And he’s holding a rose because he’s one of Katniss’ lovers. Anyway, I love the poster. It’s great!!
“And he’s holding a rose because he’s one of Katniss’ lovers. ”
Unless you’re using the word “lover” in the old-fashioned meaning of “suitor” or “one in love”, he’s not. But anyway, how does that make sense as an explanation? Are Finnick, Johanna and Beetee also Katniss’ “lovers”?
*Catching
I think that the rose stands for a symbol of who all in the books knew about the roses and who all could have possibly had the same experience with the roses. Or maybe even made a mistake that they thought no one else would see. Like katnis in the woods with gale and the kiss.
I wonder how the portraits may relatively to the movie more than rather the books! Did any one think about that