#thg series

[maybemacdc]

I need you

[isolde-illustrates]

The cool thing about Katniss not telling the names is that it's almost like she needs to protect the identities, like how she didn't want to show the Capitol her true life. Haymitch didn't realize that he needed to be covert about his life until too late, and Katniss is protecting what little she can.

She also just doesn't care about small details because Katniss is a very task oriented person and thinks practically, so if that's not needed to get the information across, she doesn't feel the need to speak about it.

Suzanne Collins is such a great author for these intentional changes in her writing style.

the difference between Haymitch and Katniss's narration is so funny. Haymitch would give us everyone's social security number if he knew them, while Katniss wouldn't even tell us her mom's name.

[hekar1]

"Even though she's rich, she's not trying to cozy up to the Capitol people. We're all equally beneath her."

[maluceh]

songbird, mockingjay and dove

[ofsilentwinds]

just having the stark realization that the failed act of rebellion was 24 years before katniss volunteered. that begs the question of whether or not there were more attempts. did johanna suffer the same fate as haymitch? did the capitol lie and say she was hidden the entirety of her games because she was given a similar (failed) assignment from beetee? did they have to erase countless hours of footage? edit things to make it seem like she was never where she actually was, simply hidden away from the chaos? how many mockingjay figures did they cycle through before landing on katniss? how many did they cycle through before the revolution actually began?

[twelvebooksstuff]

Oooo yes!!!

Maysilee’s final poster wasn’t her death, it was her pin being the face of the rebellion 25 years later.

[triassictriserratops]

there's something very sneaky about the fact that Suzanne Collins specifically chooses Prim to be the character that says this to Katniss, in these exact words. Earlier in the book, Finnick says something on a similar vein to Katniss and it would have made just as much sense for him to reiterate the idea. But having Prim, instead, convey the message that killing Peeta is the only way left to hurt Katniss - diabolical of Suzanne. Because, yes, that WOULD be true. If Snow wasn't the only enemy. If there wasn't the other side of the coin. Katniss, Prim, and everyone else presume that the only person left that can be used against Katniss is Peeta. But that's not true and Coin knows it. She knows that she has the only other person she can truly hurt Katniss with - Prim.

[wolfish-chan]

It’s all fun and games laughing about Haymitch over sharing and Katniss under sharing in comparison until you realize Haymitch is trying to remember all the fine details of everyone he will never see again and Katniss is trying to protect her remaining autonomy by keeping those details private

The difference in their trauma responses being shown from the very start of their narratives guts me

[batcavescolony]

Katniss's Narration vs Haymitch's Narration

[teddywidogast]

hey guys btw haymitch sent katniss and finnick bread from district 4 when they were grieving mags in catching fire just like mags sent haymitch and maysilee ham hock soup from district 12 when they were grieving.

[diamondsunbursts-and-marblehalls]

Sunrise on the Reaping changes the whole game. Suddenly, Katniss isn't the chosen one anymore, or the only person who can make the capital pay for what they have done. She's just a girl with a long list of grievances, coming from a long line of people with even longer lists who have been trying to make them pay for years.

She finds her victory standing on the backs of hundreds or thousands of people who came before her. All pushing for the same goal, all guided by the same anger and grief and the need to go out on their own terms. The same things that caused Katniss to reach for the poisoned berries for her and Peeta in the first place.

When Katniss gives her "fire is catching" it echos the same purpose the districts have had for centuries; honour the dead, make the capitol take responsibility: Sejanus with the breadcrumbs, Reaper; who covered his dead with the capitol flag, Haymitch running with Louella to make Snow face what he'd done, Haymitch running again with Lou Lou, Katniss covering Rue in flowers, Peeta painting a mural of her for the gamemakers, so when the last stand finally comes she has all of her living allies behind her, but not only that. It's like Haymitch said: "Those 31 allies I boasted of to the head game maker? I can feel every one of them at my back"

She has every person who suffered at the hands of the capital, every person who was abused, every person who was reaped too soon, every person who died, standing at her back and in the end I think that's what gave her the strength to finish the fight.

[incubationformadness]

Sorry but the Haymitch's dynamic with his final two tributes. will never not fuck me up.

Katniss: He hates hates hates her for being the same as him. He can communicate with her because she is the same as him. He's her mentor, of course he cares about her. He should be a father figure to her but he's too stunted by his own trauma so they exist like teenage allies in the never-ending arena which is a victor's life. He wants to keep her safe but she must also be a pawn in the rebellion. She makes him make promises he cannot keep. She is all that he could have been and he is all that she might be.

Peeta: The sacrificial lamb. The one Haymitch knows he can't keep. The boy who is better than the rest but must be condemned to die time and time again. Who demands that Haymitch saves Katniss, as Katniss demands that he saves Peeta, but Haymitch could not save Maysilee, or his family, or his girl. Everyone Haymitch has ever lost compressed into a single body and placed beside Katniss, so he is forced to look at her as his mirror.

[the-orange-superfan-account]

Best character, 10/10 opinion, no notes.

Peeta Mellark is orange approved! 🧡

-🍊

[allofnypeaches]

I love a lot of things about the hunger games trilogy, but by far my favorite part of reading the books is how suzanne collins manages to use katniss' unreliability as a narrator as an advantage that improves the reading experience instead of limiting the readers' interpretation of the facts. I think about how when reading other first-person narrated books I am always conditioned to perceiving things the way they are presented to me by the narrator, without me even realizing it, and how that - obviously - reflects how every story has multiple sides to it and whatnot. but the hunger games, despite having a very biased narrator, manages to paint us a picture that is wider than katniss' view somehow. I haven't fully figured this out yet, but I think it's a combination of the following things that make this possible;

#1: Katniss, although very young and at times naive and blinded by fear, survival instincts, propaganda and most of the time just sheer confusion because of all the information that is kept from her, is very skeptical of everything. she rarely ever takes things at face value (even when she should, like when peeta shows his feelings for her), and is always questioning, pondering the different motives behind things, the possibilities and outcomes of what could happen if x thing meant y instead of z. and yes, her hypothesizing is often inconclusive - which is very understandable for someone in her situation - but it invites us to question things and hypothesize about them on our own, and through context clues that she may sometimes miss or misinterpret, we are sometimes able to piece together entire puzzles of the narrative before she does, and that is simply delightful to experience, while simultaneously not spoiling anything either, because it makes us anxious to see how and when she will realize what we already know.

a few examples include, but are not limited to :

- realizing that Peeta is madly in love with her before she even considers that possibility

- realizing that Madge genuinely likes her, as well as her entire family, and that they're actually friends before she admits this

- seeing through Gale's words and knowing he has romantic feelings for her before that ever crosses her mind

- thinking that the people in 12 are definitely looking out for her and Prim in any way they can (with their extremely limited resources and freedom) before she gets suspicious of that fact

- realizing how much of a symbol of hope and rebellion she is to Panem before she is told so (that's the most obvious one though)

- comprehending her mother's reaction (or lack thereof) to her father's death before she can see past the resentment in catching fire

- seeing that Gale brings out the worst in her at times, and seeing that he's constantly pressuring her when she's already holding the weight of the world on her shoulders, and how that makes him a bad friend, who, by the way, doesn't see her as a friend at all especially after the first games

- piecing together how terrible Coin is and how she needs to be eliminated just as much as Snow for the war to end before Katniss fully accepts that reality (she is the least oblivious to this one)

- realizing that Squad 451 don't actually believe that Coin gave her a mission in Mockingjay, but they're following her anyway because they want to, long before they tell her that

- watching her fall in love with Peeta, develop deep feelings of love and desire for him, while she is always either excusing it as something else, or too confused/oblivious/naive to see it

#2: the characters around Katniss never seem one-dimensional because of how empathetic she naturally is. because of how much she treats everyone like multi-faceted human beings as complex as she is, we are invited to wonder about those characters' feelings very deeply, and to interpret their actions accordingly, which greatly diminishes the potential for mischaracterization if the person reading actually exercises at least 1% of their critical thinking. this also goes for the system that she lives in, the culture she grows up in and the overall symbolism of things throughout the books. because of how well everything is presented, we don't need Katniss to tell us straight up how manipulative, coniving, dirty, cruel and tyrannic the government is, we can see this time and time again, in small and big things, from her odd description of things she's never seen/tried before showing us how isolated the districts are from eachother and how precarious their living situations are, to her talking about how traumatic her father's death was for her making us wonder if it was actually an accident. she doesn't have to connect the dots for us to wonder about the limited genetic pool of district 12, or about her father's extensive knowledge, where it came from and why he passed it all down to her, why he documented it in a book. it's like there is always a door open into the lives of others, into the things they believe in, into what the past of what that world was like, and if you're just willing to go through that door, the universe within the books greatly expands.

and that is all extremely intentional, too. Suzanne is trying to tell us that it is always worth it to look past our own lenses, to question things, to not be susceptible to manipulation and propaganda, to look beyond what we are shown and see the world, and the people in it, for what they truly are instead of always being limited by our own perspective of things. it's just so beautifully and masterfully written, and it will never stop being relevant. that's why these are my favorite books ever.

[potterprotego]

there is some kind of twisted irony in the knowledge that, in Karniss and Peeta’s first games, Katniss was analyzing and scrutinizing Peeta’s every move under the lense that he was nothing but an enemy- someone who’s job is to kill her. Even in moments where she cared for him, it was always combated with a firm “no, I can’t care for him. Only one comes out. His job will be to try and kill me, and mine will be to kill him.”

and Peeta never, not once, thought that about her. His goal was always to protect her.

but after the quarter quell, after everything for Katniss became protecting Peeta, it is now Peeta who analyzes Katniss’ every move under that lense of “it’s her or me. Her job is to kill me, so I have to kill her first”, even while having to fight with himself over moments where he cares for her- where she seems to care for him.