I Feel Like We Also Have To Consider The Context Here - Blog Posts

too often I see people take that final line as gospel: Katniss is a survivor, a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man; these things are technically true, but they are not what Katniss wants; she does not affirm Gale’s assessment of her, though many readers completely take it at face value that he’s correct; she is offended (she says it’s a horrible thing for Gale to say) that he doesn’t think love or passion will sway her decision; she’s so affronted by it that she wants Peeta to defend her, because Peeta would know (again, subconsciously, she is aware she loves him in a way that could, if he was more sure of her feelings, allow him to defend her approach to relationship), not really considering that Peeta hardly knows his own favorite color, let alone how to psychoanalyze his kind-of-girlfriend in this state

TLDR: Katniss isn’t unfeeling and her choice of Peeta isn’t just because he was the only one there; in fact, ironically, she is explicitly repulsed by that characterization of her