"What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. It isn’t enough, what I’ve done in the past, defying the Capitol in the Games, providing a rallying point. I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution." - Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
But further thoughts on it. I was walking home and the line when Katniss says “I make a list in my head of all the good things I’ve seen someone do. Every little thing I can remember,” struck me.
In the edit, the first Good Thing we see is Katniss volunteering for Prim. But I wonder if Katniss still views herself as bad. I wonder in the years that she and Peeta grew back together how long it took her to grow back to the little girl who went to the cabin by the lake with her father? How long did it take before music finally became something permanent in her house again? How long did it take for her to meet that little girl again and feel peace and not the chaos of war and death?
I like to think that Peeta wakes up one night to her whispering this list, and he realizes it’s only things others have done. So he starts to add the Good Things she’s done for others.
It's a long shot, it's suicide maybe, but I do the only thing I can think of. I lean in and kiss Peeta full on the mouth. His whole body starts shuddering, but I keep my lips pressed to his until I have to come up for air. My hands slide up his wrists to clasp his hands. "Don't let him take you from me."
Peeta's panting hard as he fights the nightmares raging in his head. "No. I don't want to . . . "
I clench his hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me."
His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. "Always," he murmurs.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow.
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow.
Lay down your head, and close your eyes.
And when they open, the sun will rise.
“You’ve no right to starve people, to punish them for no reason. No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they’re not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn’t give you that right. Having more weapons doesn’t give you that right. Being from the Capitol doesn’t give you that right. Nothing does.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes