Do we like them?

Do we like Peeta Mellark?

A character from The Hunger Games (2008–2010)

Our score: 9 out of 10. Yes, we'd back him. He's kind, brave and quick with words, and he stays decent in a story built to make people cruel.

Peeta is the baker's son in poor, coal-mining District 12. Each year the Capitol forces districts to send two teenagers to the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death. When Peeta is chosen with Katniss Everdeen, he goes into the arena knowing how unlikely survival is.

He is warm, thoughtful and a gifted speaker, and he has quietly cared about Katniss for years. Study guides describe him as someone willing to sacrifice himself for her. He also thinks hard about the game itself. He wants to keep his identity and not be turned into a monster by it, and he plays to the cameras to improve their odds.

Across the trilogy he is the story's moral anchor. He is not a natural fighter, but he is brave, loyal and emotionally honest, and these are the qualities that set him apart from the people running the Games. Katniss is the sharper survivor, but he is the one you'd want beside you when things get dark.

Later in the series the war puts him through terrible ordeals. Even so, the books keep returning to his core decency, and that is why he scores so high.