Katniss Everdeen

Katniss Everdeen
The Hunger Games trilogy character
File:Katniss.JPG Katniss as she appears on the cover of the UK edition of The Hunger Games
First appearance	The Hunger Games
Last appearance	Mockingjay
Created by	Suzanne Collins
In-universe information
Nickname	"Catnip" (Gale) "the Mockingjay" (the rebels) "sweetheart" (Haymitch)
Gender	Female
Family	Mrs. Everdeen (mother) Mr. Everdeen (deceased father) Primrose Everdeen (deceased sister)

Katniss Everdeen is the main character of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games series. Her name comes from an edible plant called katniss. Her father used to joke, "Find yourself and you'll never go hungry."

She and her family live in District 12, one of the poorer districts in the fictional world of Panem. Katniss' sister Prim is chosen for the Games but instead Katniss volunteers to take her place. She joins Peeta Mellark to be District 12's tributes for the 74th annual Hunger Games, a gruesome competition. With her hunting and archery skills, she becomes a contender, and sets off a rebellion when she and Peeta both live, though against the rules of the Games. She becomes known as "The Girl On Fire."

Origins

The idea for the trilogy was based on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, where fourteen young men and women had to be sent against their will to be devoured by the Minotaur, a cycle that didn't stop until Theseus kills the Minotaur. Collins said, "In her own way, Katniss is a futuristic Theseus."

Character background

Katniss and her family live in the futuristic world of Panem, previously the continent of North America. Panem is run by an all-powerful city called the Capitol, surrounded by 12 districts that each do specific jobs for it. The story starts in District 12, Katniss's home, the coal-mining district. District 12 is among the poorest of the districts, and Katniss lives with her mother and sister in the poorest part of town, the Seam.

Every year, as punishment for a previous rebellion against the Capitol, every district is required to send a male and female tribute, between the ages 12 and 18, into an arena to fight to the death. Although the ignorant Capitol citizens view the Games as an entertainment event, the districts take no pleasure in watching them and generally dread the Reaping, where the contestants (called tributes) are picked by lottery.

Katniss's father, a coal miner, was killed in a mine explosion when Katniss was eleven. Upon her husband's death, Katniss's mother went into deep depression and was unable to care for her children. On the brink of starvation, Katniss wandered into the richer part of town, hoping to steal some scraps from the garbage bins. The baker's son, Peeta, whom she did not know, took a beating from his mother for purposely burning some bread. He was told to give the loaves of bread to the pig but threw them to Katniss. Katniss took them home to her family, who had not eaten in weeks.

A few weeks after the incident with the bread, Katniss decided to go into the woods surrounding her district to hunt illegally and gather plants to eat, which was how her father earned most of the family's food before he died. There she met a boy named Gale Hawthorne. Together, they provide for both their families and develop a strong friendship.

Katniss's mother slowly surfaces from her depression and is able to return to her job as an apothecary, and Katniss makes an effort to forgive her. However, despite her mending relationship with her mother and strong friendship with Gale, Katniss remains adamant that Prim, her younger sister, is "the only person [she's] certain [she] loves"

In the books

The Hunger Games

Main article: The Hunger Games

At the District 12 reaping (when children from the ages of 12-18 are drawn to participate in the Games) Katniss's twelve-year old sister, Prim, is drawn as the girl tribute. Instead of letting her sister almost certainly get killed in the games, Katniss volunteers to take her place, thereby submitting herself into the Games instead of Prim. The boy tribute chosen from District 12, Peeta Mellark, is also Katniss' age. The two tributes are taken for training and public exposure to the Capitol, where they are coached by Haymitch, the only living winner from District 12. When they are given scores for their training exhibition, Katniss is surprised to get an 11 out of 12. During the public interview before the Games, Peeta claims to be desperately in love with her. Katniss doesn't believe he's telling the truth, but after being angry with Peeta she eventually plays along as a strategy to get sympathy from potential sponsors, so they will receive gifts during the game that could help them survive. Halfway through the Games a new rule is introduced: if both tributes from one district are the last two left alive, they can both be co-victors. Katniss immediately searches for and finds a seriously injured Peeta, and the two work together to become the last tributes alive. After their final competitor, Cato, is killed, the new rule is declared invalid. Either Katniss or Peeta must die in order for the other to leave the arena, with Peeta attempting to force Katniss to kill him. Because the Capitol must have a winner from the games to exhibit, Katniss suggests that they both eat poisonous Nightlock berries, and therefore die together. After placing berries in their mouth, they are hastily interrupted and both allowed to live. As Katniss Everdeen has humiliated the Capitol and its rules, Katniss becomes a political target and inadvertently starts a rebellion in the districts. Peeta is heartbroken and believes that Katniss was only acting as if she loved him in the arena, but Katniss herself is unsure of her own feelings towards both Peeta and her friend Gale.

Catching Fire

Main article: Catching Fire (2009 novel)

Katniss and Peeta go on the Victory Tour, which is a visit to each district by the winners, strategically placed in between each Hunger Games. Katniss becomes aware of an "uprising" occurring in several of the districts. In addition, President Snow is forcing Katniss to show that she is really in love with Peeta, and not with her "cousin," as Gale was pretending to be. Peeta even proposes to her, which she accepts, but Katniss supposedly did not impress Snow. Katniss is confused by who she really loves, Gale, who have been with her for a long time, or Peeta, the boy with the bread. When the Quarter Quell is announced—a special Games every twenty-five years that comes with different rules—the rule for this year's is that the tributes will be reaped from the victors who have won previous Games. District 12 has only 3 living victors: Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch Abernathy, a drunken mentor who won the 50th Games. Katniss is picked for the girls', naturally, and Peeta volunteers for Haymitch. On the way to the Capitol, Peeta and Katniss watch Haymitch's games, as it is the only recorded Quarter Quell, and discover that he, too, defied the Capitol as when he and another girl were the last left, he dodged an axe thrown at him by the girl; the axe flew into a force field over the side of the cliff at the edge of the arena, which he had discovered earlier. The axe was reflected off the force field and flew back, killing the girl and making Haymitch the winner of the 50th Games. In result, 2 weeks after being crowned victor, Haymitch's mother, brother, and girlfriend were killed due to the fact that he defied the Capitol by abusing the inner workings of the arena. Katniss and Peeta return to the arena, gathering new friends, but it turns out that several districts had planned to escape from the arena and use a stolen hovercraft to fly to District 13, which turns out to have not been destroyed after all. However, during this daring escape, Peeta is captured by the capitol and afterwards, Gale informs Katniss that District 12 was bombed, but her family is safe.

Mockingjay

Main article: Mockingjay

In Mockingjay, Katniss visits the underground civilization of District 13 and meets with the people and their leader President Coin after being taken to see the remains of district 12. Also, love triangle between Katniss Peeta, and Gale slowly unfolds in the book, forcing Katniss to decide whom she really wants to be with. She agrees to be the leader of their rebellion later on, as the Mockingjay, the face of the rebels. She finds out that Cinna has been killed, but the rest of her prep team unexpectedly shows up later; they prep Katniss for the cameras when she agrees to be the Mockingjay. She sees Peeta being tortured on live T.V. After a rescue mission in which a team from 13 brings Peeta back, she finds out his memories have been distorted by tracker jacker venom- a torture named hijacking. He now hates and wants to kill Katniss, believing she is a "mutt" made by the Capitol. Katniss becomes even more determined to kill Snow. She, along with a group of sharpshooters that include Gale, Peeta, and Finnick Odair (from the Quarter Quell in the previous book), sneak into the Capitol at the cost of several of their own lives, planning to force Snow to surrender. As they get close to the mansion, she finds bombs being dropped like parachutes by a hovercraft with a Capitol symbol on it into a group of children. She narrowly survives the bombing, but after the first bombing her sister, Primrose, who is a medical aid, rushes in to help. The bombs that was dropped before exploded a second time, and Prim is killed while Katniss escapes alive, but with some severe burns. Deeply grieved, Katniss refuses to talk. Meanwhile, President Snow is charged with several crimes, and per Katniss' request, she is the executioner. Before the execution, Snow tells Katniss that the bombs weren't his. She realizes that the attack method was identical to a trap Gale and Beetee had designed. Eventually, Katniss comes to the conclusion that this must have been Coin's doing. Coin bombed the children in order to trick the Capitol citizens into thinking that the government had killed their children, therefore winning the loyalty of the Capitol's citizens. Just before Snow's execution, Katniss turns her aim and kills Coin instead. She is later imprisoned and becomes a morphling addict, suffering temporary insanity. After she is released, she is taken care of by Greasy Sae from The Hob (District 12's black market) and Buttercup (Prim's cat) returns from District 13 by foot and the two bond over Prim's death. A little later, she sees a now- almost completely cured Peeta planting primroses outside her house, in memory of her sister. She realizes eventually that she loves him. Gale has a job in District 2 with Beetee and her Mother is working in District 4 as medical personnel. In the epilogue, more than twenty years later, she speaks as an adult. She has married Peeta and has two children, a boy with Peeta's blond hair and Katniss' grey eyes and a girl with Katniss' dark hair and Peeta's blue eyes- as Katniss eventually gave in after Peeta's 15 years of asking to have children. The Hunger Games are a thing of the past and is said by Katniss that it was taught in schools and that her daughter knows that she and Peeta competed in the Games, and she resolves to tell the son (the younger of the two children) about their participation in the Games soon.

Characterization

Appearance

Katniss is sixteen years old (later described seventeen in "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay") and is described as having long, black hair, usually in a braid, gray eyes, and olive skin. These traits are common in the Seam, the lower class miners of District 12. She is small in stature and light for her age, being one of the smallest tributes in her games, but due to her outdoor life, she is strong for her size. She also may have a Southern accent. (When Suzanne Collins reads Mockingjay's first chapter, she talks in a Southern accent when Katniss is talking or narrating). Katniss is not very image conscious, for example her hairy legs, as pointed out by Venia, one of her stylists. In the first book, her hearing in one ear was destroyed because of an explosion caused in the arena, but it was fixed in the Capitol in the end, as were all of her other major and more minor injuries including the erasing of any scars. Before entering the arena the first time, Katniss had many minor scrapes and cuts, and her outward appearance was very much imperfect. However, after she won, they were repaired by the Capitol doctors. Most notable about her appearance and demeanor however was the image she unconsciously projected, as noted by her co-tribute Peeta.

Personality

Collins has described Katniss as being an independent survivalist, lethal, but good at thinking outside the box. Katniss's past hardships (her father's death, mother's depression, and near starvation) have made her a natural survivor, and she will endure hardship and hard work to preserve her own life and the life of her family. She has shown she will protect those she loves, no matter the cost to herself, as shown when she volunteers for the Games to save her little sister Prim, or when she shields Gale to keep him from being whipped, even when it meant a lash for herself. Because the majority of her time before the Games was spent keeping herself and her family alive, she does not understand many social cues and is often ignorant of other people's emotions, such as when she doesn't recognize Gale's hints at his growing affection for her. She has no experience with romance or love other than that of her family, and doesn't believe she wants it. She plans never to be married nor have children that would grow up subject to the reaping. In Catching Fire, Katniss struggles to understand Panem political issues as she has had very little education or experience of politics. She also gradually realizes that there are more important things than survival and decides she is willing to die for Peeta and the rebellion.

Skills

Katniss is a highly skilled archer, hunter, and trapper, having learned these from her father and Gale, honed to keep her family from starving. She uses her archery to score an 11 (out of a possible 12) during the pre-games judging. She has been well educated on the edible, medicinal, and poisonous plant life of District 12. She also has a good singing ability, also from her father, although she is reluctant to sing since his death. Along with that she is also a very skilled tree climber. She is a logical thinker.

Possessions

Katniss has a gold pin picturing a mockingjay, which was given to her by her friend, Madge Undersee. After she wins the Games, it becomes a symbol of rebellion between the Districts, and a symbol of Katniss herself, as her actions were never meant to exist. However, many ignorant Capitol citizens still use it as a symbol of fashion, a remembrance of Katniss's exciting Games. Katniss also receives a pearl along with a golden locket engraved with a mockingjay containing a picture with Katniss, her mother, her sister Prim, and Gale from Peeta during the Quarter Quell in Catching Fire. She is later seen throughout Mockingjay keeping the pearl close to her as a prized possession.

Critical reception

Katniss has received mainly positive reviews. Stephen King says in a review for The Hunger Games "our heroine is Katniss Everdeen (lame name, cool kid)" before adding, "once I got over [her] name...I got to like her a lot." Francisca Goldsmith said, "Although Katniss may be skilled with a bow and arrow and adept at analyzing her opponents’ next moves, she has much to learn about personal sentiments, especially her own." Publishers Weekly says that, "It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likable." The Cleveland Plain Dealer stated in a review for Catching Fire that "Katniss in a pensive mood seems out of step with the kick-butt assassin," before adding that her loyalty and kindheartedness were enjoyed. John Green of the New York Times called Katniss a "memorably complex and fascinating heroine". Katie Roiphe, also of The New York Times, said that Katniss in Mockingjay was "a great character without being exactly likable. [She] is bossy, moody, bratty, demanding, prickly", and commented that this is what makes many recent literature heroines likable. Entertainment Weekly compared Katniss to Bella Swan from the Twilight Saga and said that "unlike Twilight's passive, angsty Bella, Katniss is a self-possessed young woman who demonstrates equal parts compassion and fearlessness".

Movie

Actresses Lyndsy Fonseca and Kaya Scodelario have expressed interest in the film and received scripts in October 2010. Chloe Moretz is also interested in the role of Katniss.