#Katniss everdeen-Mellark

[mega-aulover]

So I wrote the Addendum to Igniting Sparks - About our favorite Toastbaby naming geese; thank you to @norbertsmom betaing, thank you for all you do...I named some of the geese after a couple of your beloved pups -

Willow Melody Jade Mellark -

Willow Melody Jade Mellark came into the world with a shout. Her little face was scrunched up with displeasure at being ousted from her warm comfortable home. Her hazy blue eyes sparkled with curiosity at the new world before her.

Although she had an abundance of grandparents, it was her introduction to the old, beaten Mentor that altered Haymitch’s life. The day she met her beloved Uncle Haymitch, her little mouth formed an ‘O’. A bond was formed between the two, it was so strong Katniss and Peeta named him her godfather.

Haymitch went home and threw out all of his liquor. He had lost so many children under his custodianship that to have one that would never face the Games gave him a sense of purpose. Although they named her Willow, she became known as Melody because of how much she sang. Katniss’s first born always had a funny song or whimsical tune. For Haymitch, Melody was the song his heart needed to heal his wounds.

As a Mentor, Haymitch began drinking when he discovered how helpless he was when his mentees unjustly died. Year after year, he watched countless faces struck in a sick parade of death enforced by a lone man. Katniss and Peeta’s child, or Toastbaby as Johanna called her, changed his life.

Melody brought happiness to all who met her. She was as strong and resilient as the Willow tree she was named after. Whilst her sweet voice, bright smile, and gentle nature spoke of her middle name, Melody. She was always humming, always making up silly songs which delighted her grandpa Haymitch.

Melody, like her father, began speaking before she turned one. Her first word was not ‘Da’ or ‘Ma’, it was ‘A-Mush.’ Haymitch was overjoyed, Katniss and Peeta were not. He bought her a Duck plushie as big as she was. Melody loved the plushie so much she wouldn't sleep without it. After some time Katniss and Peeta hoped her second word would be ‘Da’ or ‘Ma.’ Once more they were disappointed when she clearly enunciated, ‘quack.’

Then she stopped speaking all together and Katniss and Peeta were afraid that she was falling behind. Haymitch said there was nothing wrong with his goddaughter. That when she was ready to talk to them, she would. Katniss wasn’t sure, but she felt as if Haymitch knew something they didn’t.

Read The Rest HERE

[stephsycamore]

I think the most radical thing the hunger games does is tell young people that the most revolutionary thing you can do is have unconditional love for humanity. Katniss throughout the entire series is guided by a deep sense of compassion for the people around her. It is what causes her to volunteer, to bury rue, to mercy kill cato, its why she tries to save peeta, why finnick telling her to remember who the real enemy is works, and even though her compassion for the larger world falters when peeta is kidnapped, it comes back when she visits hospitals and asks for mercy for other victors and ultimately, it is love and belief in a better humanity that makes her kill coin. Through it all, she maintains an unfaltering belief in the fundemental goodness of humanity, which is diametrically opposed to dr gaul's and snow's worldview. Peeta is even more unwaveringly compassionate

So the series tells young people that the most revolutionary thing you can be is compassionate. Let compassion drive your politics. Let yourself believe in the fundemental goodness of people. And i think that's deeply important in a world that touts the superiority of pure reason or logic, to allow yourself to be guided by something as emotional as compassion. Katniss everdeen tells us that your politics should be rooted in compassion in a world that thinks detatchment or cynicism is intelligence and i think thats v cool

[hiddenvioletsgrow]

re-reading the end arena scene in the first hunger games book and i really don't think the movie did it justice. katniss and peeta are literally covered in blood (fresh and dried), and dirt. their hair is matted, peeta can't even stand on his own. they’re both almost skeletons. when they realize the capitols going to make them kill each other peeta throws away his knife but katniss has so much ptsd she almost shoots him without even thinking when she sees him raise a knife, and then panics realizing what shes doing even though peeta is almost begging her to let him die. he's so close to death that he knows even uncovering his wound (which he does) will be letting katniss win. when katniss comes up with the plan to eat the berries the berries are FULLY in their mouths, and they can taste them before the gamekeeper call it off. and peeta gives her a 'very gentle' kiss (in katniss's own words) before they eat the berries. peeta passes out the second they're on the helicopter and katniss is so feral they sedate her from behind after she’s done screaming for peeta

everything about this scene is absolutely tragic and horribly painful.

[shinynewmemories]

No but the Hunger Games really said "what do you hate more- the atrocities or the people who commit them against you? Because like it or not there IS a difference. If you hate the people who commit acts of pure evil more than you hate the acts themselves, what will stop you from becoming just like your enemies in your pursuit of justice? What will keep you from commiting those very same acts against THEM when the opportunity arises? And what then? The cycle of pain and suffering will never stop. Round and round it'll go. Nothing will ever change. But. BUT. If you hate the atrocities. If you hate the vile, senseless acts MORE than you hate the people who did them to you. If you are able to see that evil is evil regardless of who does it... The cycle ends with you. No, you may never get justice. But you will never be responsible for making others, even your enemies, suffer the same crimes you have. The atrocities will never be committed by you, never by your hand. And that's the way you change the world. It's the ONLY way" and that's why I am sure it will never stop being one of the most relevant works of fiction ever created

[logicalbrina]

what makes Snow such a formidable villain within THG universe is that nothing he does was set in stone. there was no sense of inevitability about his actions and his brutality. Snow had enough perspective of poverty, capital cruelty, district hunger and not to mention his own arena experience’ and yet he actively chose at every moment to stray from natural goodness. its even more terrifying in the sense that he had the ability to care. Snow is not a mindless sociopath, he displays feelings to others such as sejanus, lucy grey and tigris but ultimately he will always choose himself. his ability to betray those he cared about in order yo advance himself makes him so much more than the stereotypical villain who is forced into his actions.

[cant-find-anyone-elseeee]

there was a moment when the people in the movie theatre and the capitol audience in the stands were laughing at the same things, having the same reactions to the games, to the deaths, to flickermans jokes, to the doctor's announcement...i wonder aren't we watching it for entertainment too

suzanne collins' books may exist in popular culture as "dystopian", but they have always been a meticulous and startlingly close social critique of our world. at what point does our own idolization of the movies and the books repeat that story? we watch just as the capitol audience does.

all dystopia eventually crosses a line from realistic futurism to current relevancy. how long will it take us to realize we've already crossed that line with these books? and the very people who need to realize this are the ones in that audience...real or fake, we're the same: consuming and consuming.

[agoddamnrayofsunshine]

I’m sure someone has talked about this before but one thing I absolutely love about tbosas is how Snow’s descent into villainy is never once presented as something that was inevitable

So many villain origin stories portray this idea of a person who tries incredibly hard to be a good person, who takes every opportunity to be kind and to better themselves, but are ultimately doomed to fail by the narrative. Their environment and their circumstances make it impossible for them to be a good person, and while this is effective from a storytelling point of view it’s not exactly accurate to real life

In real life there is always a point where a bad person makes the decision to do something bad, they make the decision to prioritise themselves, their own power, money or desires over someone else. That’s how real life dictators are made, they are presented with every opportunity to be good, and they purposefully choose to not take it

This makes Snow’s storyline so effective because he is given so many opportunities to do the right thing and yet, at every single turn, he chooses to serve himself instead, exactly like how real dictators are made

Snow, unlike most people we see in the capitol, is in a unique position where he could genuinely have the chance to understand and relate to the people from the districts. He, unlike his classmates, is poor and spends most nights going hungry, he witnessed firsthand the cruelty of the capitol when Clemensia was bitten by the snakes for nothing more than lying about doing her homework, when his sister was forced to sell herself on the streets in order to feed the both of them

Throughout his book, the three people he is closest to are Tigris (who dislikes the hunger games, is a rebel, and a victim of the capitol forced to turn to prostitution), Sejanus (who is originally from district 2, dislikes the capitol and knows he will never be accepted there, and also a rebel) and Lucy Gray (who is a victim of the hunger games, from district 12, and is also treated horribly by the capitol). These are all people who gave him an opportunity to realise the cruelty of the system he was in, a chance to directly confront his prejudices and see that people from the districts are just the same as him, and yet he still refuses to take the chance to change

He is given every opportunity, he’s sent away from the capitol to be a peacekeeper in the districts, he forms personal connections with people from the districts, he helps Sejanus perform funeral rites, and yet at every moral crossroads he comes to he makes the wrong decision. He didn’t have to become a villain, and yet he made the choice to do so anyway, despite every chance he was given

I think it’s a really effective portrayal of Snow as a character, and it’s a very effective villain origin story for the type of villain that Snow is. It never once excuses him from his actions because it highlights just how accountable he was for his actions

[nunyabznsbabes]

Katniss is like Lucy Gray this, Katniss is like Sejanus that, and yes fine that's all good and true and lovely but Katniss Everdeen is also a direct parallel to Coriolanus Snow and people NEED to start talking about this because it's driving me crazy.

Think about it: they both grew up poor and deeply vulnerable, losing parents at a very young age, with a matriarchal adult (Katniss' mother and Coriolanus' Grandma'am) who fails to provide for them emotionally and physically. They intimately understand the threat of starvation, even developing with stunted growth because of it, and their narrations in the books share a fixation on food. Throughout their childhoods, both experienced constant fear and suffered a fundamental lack of control over their circumstances. Because of this, they're inherently suspicious of the people around them. They resent feeling indebted to others, especially those who have saved their lives. They're motivated almost entirely by family and deeply connected to their communities. Both are used and manipulated by the Capitol, both are forced to perform to survive and despise every inch of it, both are thrown into the Arena and made to kill. Both have a self-sacrificial, genuinely sweet sister figure acting as their conscience. Peeta and Lucy Gray - performers and love interests with a fundamental kindness and sense of hope about them - fulfill markedly similar roles in their narrative. Both contribute to the development of the future Hunger Games, Snow throughout tbosas and Katniss towards the end of Mockingjay.

It's easy to ignore these similarities because, as mirrors of each other, they are exact opposites. Katniss is from District 12, viewed and treated as less than human; Snow is the cream of the Capitol crop, given the privilege of a name with social weight, an ancestral home, and the opportunity of the Academy despite having no more money than a miner from 12. Katniss has no agency over her life, and responds by being kind whenever she's able, while Snow justifies horrendous evils in order to continue his quest for complete control. Katniss does everything she can to protect her family; Snow does everything he can to protect his family's image as an extension of his own ego. Katniss loves her District and connects with its inhabitants on a meaningful level, but Snow is indifferent at best to his peers - the apparent "superior people" - and only engages with his community for personal gain. Katniss emerges from the Arena horrified at herself and the system, but Snow takes his trauma and turns it into an excuse to perpetuate the violence with himself at the top. Katniss cares for Prim until her death and then snaps at the loss of her little sister, while Snow survives on Tigris' blood, sweat, and tears and then torments and abandons her, presumably because she calls him out on his insanity. Snow actively adds to and popularizes the Hunger Games because of his vendetta against the Districts following his childhood wartime trauma - Katniss briefly agrees to a new Hunger Games in the pursuit of vengeance, but later stops them from happening by killing Coin and choosing a life of peace and privacy. Snow is obsessed with revenge, but Katniss empathizes with the Capitolites and does what she can to keep them from suffering. He exists in a cruel system and selfishly upholds it; she exists in a cruel system and works to dismantle it for the good of her family and community, at great personal cost. And Peeta and Lucy Gray are incredibly similar, but Katniss and Peeta forge a relationship of genuine love and understanding that shines in comparison to Coriolanus' obsessive projection onto Lucy Gray.

So, yeah, Katniss is Lucy Gray haunting Coriolanus. But I bet you anything that eighty-something year old President Snow looks at her, the girl on fire, bright and young and brilliant, emerging from a childhood of starvation with a relentless hunger for success, a talented and charming performer helping her win the Games, and he sees the ghost of his own past. And that's why he's so afraid of her! Because if he sees himself in her, then he's up against his own cunning, his own talent for manipulation, his own charisma, his own genius. He's up against the version of himself that he once wished to be, with the nightmare army of his childhood at her back and her star-crossed lover at her side, spewing Sejanus' truths in his own voice. This isn't to say that Katniss ever achieved the level of power and agency that Coriolanus did during her time with the rebellion, but it is to say that Snow was taken down by what truly terrified him - his own morality, come to finish the job.

[ivysos2001]

I think it’s kind of funny how coin (who obviously wanted peeta rescued from the arena instead of katniss) doesn’t see what an absolute nightmare he would be for her to deal with if she left katniss in that arena

Like she thinks katniss was hard to deal with/manipulate/control after she left peeta behind? Peeta would’ve had her whole district eating out to the palm of his hand before she even realized who she was dealing with. She thought katniss was too single minded/stubborn about her focus on saving peeta over the revolution itself? He would have been her absolute nightmare (and I adore him for it)

[thequietesthing]

Suzanne Collins was really pissed when she saw all those edits of Snow as ‘daddy’ and whatever other bullshit after the TBOSAS movie, sat down at her laptop again and started typing “let’s see if you get the message now when HE KILLS 47 CHILDREN”

[whenthewallfell]

these two are completely unhinged and i love that for them

[ringtoned]

suzanne collins is such a genius... the cultural phenomenon of her series leading to the hanging tree house remixes, mockingjay being milked for two (bad) movies, the capitol-inspired makeup palettes, the halloween costumes, the explosion of the market for dystopia, the butchering of her characters and removal of disabilities, disfiguration, and racial tension + representation to sell more tickets, the extra gale scenes to fuel discourse, and the audience showing up to cinemas to watch what was pretty honestly marketed to them (the jacob vs edwardification of the symbolic love story and also to watch children fight to the death) it's just so ridiculously ironic i would say you can't write this shit, but she did write about it... in The Hunger Games published 2008

[fromevertonow]

Suzanne Collins is one of the few contemporary writers who realizes the importance of names in her stories and the significance they bear. They add so many layers to the story, additional meanings that otherwise would not have existed.

The original trilogy:

Katniss: named after a plant of which you can eat the roots. Her father taught her where to find it and told her that “as long as you can find yourself, you’ll survive” (quote may be a little bit off, but it’s from one of the early chapters in THG). Additionally, the leaves are in the shape of an arrowhead, referencing her skills with the bow which her father also taught her how to use.

Peeta: literally bread lmao. But bread is one of the basic nutritions humans need, a little bit goes a long way to keep you alive. Peeta’s presence in Katniss’s life also kept her alive, literally and figuratively—the burned bread he threw her in the flashback and their complicated relationship.

Primrose: a plant with medicinal purposes, even more significant in light of her work as a medic in Mockingjay.

Gale: literally means “strong wind” and considering that in every encounter with Katniss he’s caused some reaction, he pulls her into directions she maybe initially doesn’t want to go in. Additionally, his name also represents his determination and steadfastness in his beliefs.

TBOSAS

Lucy Gray: named after William Wordsworth’s poem “Lucy Gray” which is about the titular character of the poem who got lost during a blizzard. She literally got lost in snow. Rachel Zegler sang this poem in two parts on the original soundtrack of the movie. When Snow asked who the girl in the song is, Lucy answers that she’s a mystery, just like her.

Snow: aside from the obvious snow references, I think his name is most significant in relation to Lucy and the poem. The only one who knows what caused her disappearance is Snow. He is the reason that Lucy is gone. But her traces in the snow are still visible. He will always remember her because the memory of Lucy has manifested itself in every part of his life.

Coriolanus: named after the Roman general (and also the titular character of Shakespeare’s play), Coriolanus wanted to attack Rome and become its ruler. He was scorned and celebrated by the people, only to be later exiled from the city by them. In TBOSAS, Coriolanus is the star pupil at the Capitol’s academy but sent into exile to the districts after he won the Games with Lucy through cheating.

Volumnia: Coriolanus mother who played a part in his ascent to power. In TBOSAS, she almost serves like a mentor to Coriolanus, teaching him how to think in terms of power.

(Edit) Sejanus: a roman soldier who was betrayed by the roman emperor Tiberius, just like the future president betrayed him.

(Edit) Plinth: got this info from here, but it was too good not to include here. A plinth is a base for a statue or vase to stand on. After Sejanus’s death, all of the Plinth fortune was given to Snow for being such a good to friend him. It was this money that skyrocketed the Snow family from poverty to filthy rich. The Plinth money was the foundation upon which Snow built his power.

There are so many other names that have historical (mostly Roman and Greek) connotations—Plutarch, Seneca, Cinna—but also regular names like Trinket and Beetee bear meanings that represent the character beautifully.

Names are important. For any lover of literature or (aspiring) writers, please look closely at them. They can shape your story into something unique.

Feel free to correct me if I’ve said something wrong. I know there are many names missing, but I can only add so many examples ✊🏻😔

[let-me-sleep-or-die]

Yeah Katniss Is Lucy Gray’s greatest revenge on snow

But Peeta is how she haunts him. 

Katniss is Lucy’s anger. She’s the retribution. 

Katniss is fire. Katniss used her songs as a warcry. As a call to arms. 

Katniss is the fight. 

Katniss is the revenge. 

Peeta is Lucy’s kindness.  He’s the reminder. 

A boy in love with a songbird. A boy obsessed with with a victor from twelve. 

Peeta is the good that Lucy was. Peeta believes in that fundamental kindness Lucy gray did. Peeta is her memory. The reminder that Snow crossed that line into evil. 

Even after being high jacked, peeta warns people. He tells them to flee the danger. Run like Lucy did. 

Peeta knows how to hide. He can disappear in the woods. 

Just like Lucy did. 

Peeta is charismatic, someone the capitol fell in love with, like they did with Lucy. 

Peeta is the memory. 

Katniss was there to end Snow, to stop him to make sure everything he built was burned. 

Peeta was there to torment him. Be the ghost of Lucy. Make sure Snow was in pain over the woman he lost. 

[odairfilm]

In the epilogue of Mockingjay, Katniss only refers to her children as 'the boy' and 'the girl'. We never learn their real names. Throughout her life, Katniss has never really been allowed privacy or the ability to make many of her own decisions. Whether this was caused by the living conditions of the Seam and having to constantly provide for Prim and their mother, or by the fact that she was forced into the scrutiny of the public eye when she was reaped/volunteered and became the face of the rebellion- The Mockingjay.

So then all of this passes, she and Peeta are living together in District 12 in the Victor's Village, and they are finally allowed to choose how they want to live. After 15 years, she decides that she's ready to have kids. They can be raised in a safe environment with no Games, no threats. So the one choice she makes at the end is to keep their names from us, the audience. The one thing that gives us our identity before anything else. The one thing that, essentially, makes us who we are (also Suzanne is so meticulous with picking names throughout the series, so it would be special to Katniss and Peeta). She decides that that's only for her and her family to know.

We, who have literally seen every inch of her life from the reaping up until now, are being told that no, we don't get to see parts of her life without her permission anymore. And it always makes me so emotional. Like yes! Take back your life! Rest. Live. Love. But on YOUR terms and no one elses.

(I posted this on my TikTok acc @narniachrons as well. It wasn't stolen, I swear!)

[deanlenzart]

do i smell like roses to you? id in alt.