The Place Where I Love You
Katniss holds Prim, encircling her little sister in the safety of her arms, and sings. Of a meadow. Of a better world where Prim can be safe and loved. The meadow, to Katniss, is beyond life; no place in their reality could offer such peace. Yet, years later, she somehow finds that meadow. Both in herself, and in the real world that surrounds her. Grown upon years of death and suffering, both Katniss and her home find life, even when she may have preferred death.
The epilogue of both the films and the novels is bittersweet, but it is filled with a kind of hope. There may never be a free happiness to be found for either Katniss or Peeta, who have suffered so much, but there’s something else for them: comfort, safety, the knowledge neither they nor their children will have to face those horrors again. They find a kind of peace.
Set My Hands on Fire
Katniss Everdeen seems a cold character, often defined by her less-positive traits: her lack of empathy, selfishness, and anger. She is emotionally distant to all but a few—and yet, so many become endeared to her. The rare times she allows someone close, when she reaches out to them physically and emotionally, are meaningful; once she lets a person in, she will likely kill—or even die—for them. It’s only those she trusts not to burn that she will touch.
From the mine explosion that kills her father to the war she becomes a figurehead of, she finds herself protecting those around her, even the people who stoke her anger more than anything else. She volunteers for Prim, is willing to sacrifice her life for Peeta, stocks up on white liquor for Haymitch, risks punishment to help her prep team imprisoned in District 13, and on and on. Most of her life is driven by the need to keep those she can safe and secure, despite her fears of getting hurt or hurting others through her actions.
A Dandelion in Spring: The Power of Support
When I first read The Hunger Games at sixteen, I hated the book. As a young girl struggling with asexuality and aromanticism, I had been plagued by love triangles or relationship drama in almost every Young Adult novel I picked up. At the time, I was hyper-sensitive to hints of love triangles in stories, and so I severely misunderstood Katniss’ character, completely missing what was actually important in her relationship with Peeta: the support he offers her as someone who genuinely cares.
The narrow thinking that creates the idea of a female character needing to choose between two male characters is a serious issue in fiction aimed at young adults. While it’s a topic for another post, this does sometimes alter people’s interpretations of the series, creating kneejerk reactions like my own initial one, and it’s a trend that needs to be questioned.
Katniss is much more than her potential love interests, the entire series being about far more than her feelings towards Peeta or Gale. Trivializing any of the characters by their level of attractiveness or romance potential entirely misses the point. Katniss’ fluctuating relationship with Peeta is a driving factor within the series, and a large part of the woman she becomes.
