Favorite Characters: Finnick Odair (The Hunger Games)

More so the books than the movies – while Sam Claflin does a fine job playing the role, Finnick gets a bit of the supporting-character-in-a-book-adaptation short shrift in the films.  I still like him, but with everything going on, the movies can’t quite provide the screentime necessary to get into the interesting facets of this character (Some spoilers for Catching Fire/Mockingjay.)

Image, media, and controlling the narrative all play important parts in the overarching world of The Hunger Games, and Finnick demonstrates these elements beautifully.  From his first Games (which he won at age 14,) people have been captivated by his no-one-is-actually-this-gorgeous-except-in-books-where-you-fill-in-the-details-with-your-imagination good looks.  He was showered with every gift he could possibly want in the Arena by his besotted sponsors, and ever since, he’s had a reputation as a lusty pretty-boy who breaks hearts all over the Capitol. 

But that’s just the image of Finnick.  In the Arena, his good looks helped him get what he needed to survive, but that doesn’t mean the victory was handed to him on a silver platter – like every other competitor in the Games, he was a child forced to attack and kill other children to stay alive, and he proved himself both lethal and highly capable at a very young age.  In the intervening years, though he’s earned a reputation as a shallow playboy, he has in fact become the personal property of President Snow, who sells Finnick to any wealthy Capitol citizen eager to pay a handsome price for the pleasure of his forced company.  He does this because, if he refuses, Snow will kill everyone he loves.  And, just like people in the Districts have to watch their children die in the Games every year and act like it’s event television, Finnick has to be sexually abused for someone else’s profit and pretend he enjoys it.  As he plays the part of the seductively beautiful plaything, he quietly gathers whispers and secrets from the beds he shares.

With these misperceptions dictating who people think Finnick is, what’s behind the sultry smiles?  Who’s the young man that Katniss actually gets to know, first in front of the cameras and later away from them?  (Side notae – the strong friendship that gradually develops between Katniss and Finnick is one of my favorite parts of Mockingjay.)  Well, he’s an excellent fighter and a fine strategist who’s instrumental in keeping Katniss and Peeta alive during the Quarter Quell.  While everyone who pays to sleep with him deludes themselves into thinking they have his heart, he’s in fact in love with a young woman from his District – a former Victor like him, one who suffered major psychological damage from her own experiences in the Arena.  Finnick’s a smart, shrewd guy, and it’s only when Annie is in danger and he can’t protect her that he hits his breaking point. 

In his own way, much like Katniss, his most driving instincts are protective.  When Annie is trapped in the Capitol, his inability to help her cuts through him, so much so that the strong, confident Victor can barely function.  He looks after Mags in the Quarter Quell, even though her age and frailty make her an obvious liability, and is grieved to lose her.  And when Peeta has undergone torture and brainwashing, Finnick acts as a sort of surrogate caretaker, standing up for Peeta against the others and helping him sort through his altered memories to figure out what he can trust.  When you think of the initial impression drawn of Finnick – ruthless in the Arena, pleasure-seeking in the Capitol, and out for himself in all things – it’s clear that there’s much more to him than meets the eye.

Relationship Spotlight: Katniss Everdeen & Finnick Odair (The Hunger Games)

 

(It's surprisingly hard to find a picture of these two besides the production shot

of the so-called "sugar-cube scene" from Catching Fire - oh, shippers....)

 

Maybe this is my aceness coming through, but when it comes to The Hunger Games, I’m not particularly invested in the so-called Team Peeta or Team Gale.  Mostly, I just wish both guys would realize Katniss has a lot on her plate trying to stay alive and overthrow oppressive regimes, and she really doesn’t need them making her feel like a shrew for not falling into their loving arms.  While I enjoy her fine with either boy, I greatly prefer Katniss’s interactions with loads of other characters.  This one isn’t necessarily my favorite (it’s hard to beat the warm fuzziness of Katniss and Cinna,) it’s pretty rich and infinitely readable.  Note – I can’t even start to explain these two without spoiling the central plot of Catching Fire, but I’ll avoid major details from Mockingjay.

 

When they first encounter one another during the lead-up to the Quarter Quell, Katniss and Finnick both misjudge each other.  She thinks he’s a shallow, slutty product of the Capitol, trading sexual favors to vapid citizens for pretty much anything he wants.  He in turn thinks her star-crossed-lovers bit with Peeta in the last Games was nothing but a stunt and doesn’t realize the complexity of her feelings.  Their early associations in the Quell are excellent to read, because they’re thrown into an alliance despite a near-total lack of trust.  Through a good chunk of their first day in the Arena, Katniss is trying to figure out when and where to murder him, and Finnick casually holds his trident in an attack stance while talking to her.  There’s electricity in the air as they circle each other while making a show of playing nice.

 

Over the course of the Quell, however, they start to edge toward the oddly profound comradeship that ultimately grows between them.  With Katniss’s small size and Finnick’s much-talked-of pretty face, they’re both easy to underestimate in the Arena, but they prove themselves to one another in strength, intellect, and valor.  And beyond this grudging respect for one another’s abilities, they begin to know each other.  Finnick isn’t the promiscuous heartbreaker he purports to be, and Katniss isn’t the girl who bats her eyelashes at Peeta for the cameras’ benefit.  Finnick starts to come around sooner than Katniss, of course.  She’s practically allergic to trust, and even as she slowly loosens up, she never fully lets her guard down; at the first hint of uncertainty, she’s ready to believe the worst of him.

 

Both, though, are put through the ringer, and it’s when each is brought low that they really come together.  In Mockingjay, broken by the events of the previous book, they’re one another’s unstable shoulder on which to lean.  They grope unsteadily through extreme circumstances at one another’s side, each pushing through the heavy weight of their own despair and panic to provide what small comfort they can to the other.  Some make untrue assumptions about their relationship, mistaking their closeness for heat, but these people don’t get it.  Because they can’t; in this book, Katniss and Finnick are victims of the same cruel mind game, and only someone experiencing the same torture can offer any understanding.

 

In this way, through this new, painful kinship, they really and truly become friends and allies.  They muddle through their shared trauma together, cling to, lose, and regain hope together, fight together, and strategize together with mutual respect and solidarity.  This affinity between them is lovely, and it’s made so much more interesting by the long journey both of them take to reach it.