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Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
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Erika, Dream Thief
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Feb 25, 2012 08:29AM

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I think she was really brave in the first book, but kinda annoying in the second & third. I didnt think she changed very much between the end of the first book and the end of the last book.... But I still liked her as a character.



This girl has the weight of the world on her shoulders. She carries the fate of her district, of her family, and then in many ways the fate of Panem, and yet she forces herself to keep her chin up, walk with her head held high, and face her fate head on.





Agreed! In general I guess I liked the first book better than the last two.


I dont think she was a bitch, and I dont think she was intenionally leading either one on. Imagine loving gale but having to choose peeta to save themselves. Its not so black and white. Peeta was her friend, and try as she might to love him more than thst for everyones sake it just wasnt possible.

How would you feel being seventeen years old- knowing the date of your country and your people rests on your shoulders- and the man you love is being tortured by the Capitol? It's it's a big job for just one person to handle- let alone a seventeen-eighteen year old girl who deals with everything that KATNISS goes through. I feel like it wouldn't be a very believable series if KATNISS didn't show some sort of weaknesses and whatnot throughout the series. The books would not have been as realistic as they are. I completely love the Hunger Games trilogy with a burning passion!! I also got my boyfriend into the series as well- well the movies- I still have to get him to read the books if he will lol! But anyways KATNISS Everdeen is one of my absolutely favourite, inspirational, strong, independent, kickass characters I have ever read!!

I love Katniss! I feel that aside from Tris, Katniss is probably one of the strongest lead female roles I've read about in a long time.

Anyway, I think she's a long overdue character. Aside from Hermione, the mainstream YA bubble has had a stark lack of strong heroines for a long time. At least a lack of the sort of strength Katniss has. She's not the typical female protagonist who, despite initially promising qualities, requires a male protagonist to prop her up and show her the way. Even Tris, to some extent, draws her strength from Four. Contrastingly, Katniss displays a rare independence unlike any contemporary heroine I've read. Her character should be closer to the heroine norm than it is, but it's still encouraging to see the overwhelmingly positive response she has received as a strong, feminist role model. J-Law may be on her way to Watson status.
So Katniss? Yeah, she's pretty neat.



I'm hearing this comment a lot lately. Honestly I think we should be grateful that women are finally being treated as equals and give the same representation as male characters. I hardly think that's something to complain about.

Yeah! Loving the katniss love!

Woohoo! You really just said everything I wanted to say!


Yes, I agree! It really felt like her reactions to her circumstances, both sensory and psychological, were very warranted and organic!

It's boring for a lot of us, plain and simple. I feel like I'm reading the same character over and over again, just in a different book.



This is a good point. My brother was also saying this about her.
A lot of people would say that it's refreshing because that just means she isn't perfect, but I honestly thought it made her seem robotic and one-dimensional. Like she was incapable of feeling anything. It was those little displays of vulnerability (like her weakness for her little sister and Rue) that actually made her seem interesting to me.

However, I was annoyed by her attitude to romance, and her whining. By book 3 I just felt that the author should have given her a bit of a break. Made her smile occasionally, that kind of thing. After all, we have to associate with the main character, at the end of the day if we don't actually like them then who cares what happens to them, and I just found by the end I didn't much like her. Pity... So in summary, Katniss in book 1 - fab. By book 3, who cares?!?






Thank god for fanfiction. I read a nice one that filled the whole between the last chapter and the epilogue and pictured the emotional journey necessary to heal and end up being married and having a family. Honestly I identified more with the Katniss in that story than with the one in all of the three books.
So, that is the end of my little rant. Sorry, I always needed to talk about that. xD

Second book: stereotypical, more or less, but still cool.
Third book: absolutely unconventional because she's turned into a pawn without her own will.


However, what amazes me is that by the end of the series this character is a failure, yet many laud her as a hero.
Katniss' goal throughout the series was to save her sister--first from the arena and then from the government. Yet her sister was killed, and by the side Katniss was working with. She failed.
Because readers know this is a dystopian, we see overthrowing the government as the big victory and win, but that wasn't what drove this character's core--at least not in my reading of it.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the series and Katniss. But I'm more impressed at how Collins captured hearts with this failed character.
