Favorite Characters: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)

 

I can’t help it; I love Katniss.  Like Buffy, she’s one of those teenage girl characters I wish I’d had to sustain me through high school.  Not that much could’ve been done about it in this case, since she didn’t exist until after I finished college, but I digress.  Today’s post is about giving a little love to this flawed, fierce heroine.

 

Katniss is one of the latest to join the ranks of the butt-kicking Strong Woman (or rather, Teenage Girl) archetype, and she definitely falls in line with the associated tropes.  She has a natural affinity for archery and shoots wild game and enemies alike with deadly precision.  She’s small but strong, and what she lacks in bulk she makes up for in agility and sharp hunting instincts.  Whether she’s laying a trap or scaling a tree, she gets the job done.  Other tropes are less impressive but expected – she’s a gorgeous tomboy who has no idea that she’s beautiful, and she has no patience for “girly” things.  Yeah, it’s a bit rote and eye-rolling, but she makes up for it elsewhere.

 

Like all the best Strong Woman archetypes, Katniss’s most admirable qualities go beyond her lethal abilities.  She’s a survivor through and through, used to having responsibility on her shoulders.  Since her father died when she was young, she’s been holding her family together and keeping herself, her mother, and her younger sister fed in poverty-ravaged District 12.  Over the years, she’s nurtured her hunting skills and become a savvy black-market barterer, breaking the law for her family’s sake. 

 

I also love Katniss’s smarts.  First in the Arena, and later going up against the Capitol, she frequently faces conundrums and deceptions, and the careful way she works through them is fantastic.  One of her most memorable achievements in the first book is figuring out how to destroy the Careers’ stockpile of food, and I wish the movies had found a way to incorporate the way she discovers the unspoken messages in the gifts Haymitch sends her.  It’s so clever; she reads his intentions almost as well as she follows an animal’s trail.

 

Her most driving characteristic is her need to provide for and protect her sister Prim.  It’s what lands her in the Hunger Games in the first place, and it’s what keeps her going in the Arena – she’s worried that Prim won’t make it at home without her, and she’s determined to get backWhen she’s at her lowest and most wants to give up, she thinks of Prim watching her on TV and forces herself to continue fighting.  Though she’s often prickly and distrustful, her unselfish love for those she cares about, and her continual sacrifices on their behalf, is incredible.

 

Since I mentioned prickly and distrustful, it’s good to point out that Katniss is very believably flawed for someone who’s had to grow up quickly in a harsh world.  She tends to form unfavorable snap judgments of most people and is almost pathologically unable to believe that someone’s trying to help her.  She doubts other people’s kind observations of her and keeps them at arm’s length, and she frequently doubts herself as well.  She’s a pretty internal person, but despite that, she doesn’t know herself very well and wastes time trying to determine what she ought to want rather than what she actually wants.  It’s a real treat to watch her struggle and grow throughout the course of the trilogy – in the face of tremendous odds, she’s a hero and a fighter, and she surprises even herself with everything she’s capable of.