katniss everdeen. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ex_striking429) wrote2014-12-30 12:13 am
ex_striking429) wrote2014-12-30 12:13 am
application (maskormenace)
〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Amber
AGE: 27
JOURNAL:fleetfoxes
IM / EMAIL: escapism @ gmail
PLURK: darach
RETURNING: Stiles Stilinski + Hal Yorke.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Katniss Everdeen
CHARACTER AGE: 17
SERIES: The Hunger Games (novels)
CHRONOLOGY: Mid-Mockingjay (just before leaving for the attack on the Capitol — movie-wise that's a few months after the end of Mockingjay Pt 1.)
CLASS: Reluctant hero.
HOUSING: Anywhere!
BACKGROUND:
Katniss' childhood was shaped by the culture of District 12. Her father was a coal miner from the Seam, the poor, dark-skinned underclass that did the dirty work of Panem. Her mother was paler and cleaner and wealthier: she worked in her family apothecary and lived a more comfortable life on the merchant side of town, up until she fell in love with and married Katniss' father. Together they had two children: first Katniss, named for the sweet potato that grows at the bottom of the river, and then four years later, Primrose, or Prim.
As a girl, Katniss' father taught her plenty about survival, because despite the feeling of community in District Twelve, many people were poor and there was often hunger. They would illegally duck the fence around the outskirts of the District and go hunting in the forest for game. Katniss learned how to swim and shoot and set traps and scavenge: her father taught her that so long as she could find her namesake, she would never starve.
When Katniss was eleven, her father died in a coal mining explosion, and her mother fell into a catatonic depression in her grief. After a month, the widow's allowance ran out, and Katniss was forced to take on the responsibility of caring for herself and her sister, lest their mother be deemed unfit and Katniss and Prim sent to a community home and separated. Despite the fact that Katniss quickly stepped into her responsibilities of getting Prim to school and cleaning the house, she was too young to take a job and with no income the family began to starve.
However the generosity of Peeta Mellark, the baker's son, gave Katniss a new hope for life, and she began to work to forage and hunt on her own. She met Gale Hawthorne, a boy about her own age who set traps in the forest to feed his family, and they shared skills and game and grew close. Katniss and Gale were able to trade or sell what they caught in town, to other store owners or the wealthier authority figures such as the Peacekeepers (the Capitol-assigned police force) and the Mayor. Despite leaving the district and hunting both being illegal, the town collectively turned a blind eye as even the wealthiest among them was poor enough to find it difficult to come by meat. Katniss' sister also had a goat which she used for milk and cheese to eat and trade, and in this way they survived until her mother recovered enough to start teaching Prim her trade. Right up until Prim's name was drawn as the female tribute for District Twelve — to fight to the death in the Hunger Games.
Katniss, having done everything in her power to make sure Prim's name was only in the draw once, immediately volunteers for her. She, along with Peeta Mellark, is parted from her family and shipped off to the Capitol with barely any time to say goodbye. Her mother promises she will not return to catatonia, and Gale promises he will continue to hunt game to feed her family as well as his own.
The tributes chosen for the Hunger Games have to catch a train to the Capitol. Katniss is angry and resentful knowing she's going to her death, and it's made worse by the fact that her fellow tribute, Peeta, is friendly despite the fact that they'll have to kill each other; the incredible luxuries granted her that mostly seem like waste to Katniss; the people congratulating her as though being chosen is an honor; and the fact that their mentor, former Hunger Games winner Haymitch Abernathy, is a drunkard who doesn't seem to have any interest in helping them. Katniss and Peeta, however, get Haymich's attention with their determination and resourcefulness, and he begins to think they might have enough of a chance at winning to be worth his time.
The rest of the lead-up to the Games is spent in a whirl of media and attention. Katniss is considered rural, and often treated as an object both by the teams of people put in place to make her beautiful for the cameras, and by the audience. Her stylist, Cinna, and his partner Portia, design Katniss and Peeta beautiful outfits that make them stand out to the crowd. She gets the attention of the Gamemakers, however, during her demonstration of skill, when she grows frustrated that they would rather eat and talk than pay attention to something that could mean life or death for her. Shooting the apple from the mouth of the pig they were about to eat nets her a score of 11/12, which in turn catches the attention of potential sponsors and rival tributes.
The most significant stunt, however, is when Peeta admits during in televised interview that the girl he's had a crush on all his life came to the Hunger Games with him. This kicks off a "Star Crossed Lovers" routine that captivates the imagination of Capitol audience. While Peeta is sincere in his affections for Katniss, Katniss thinks only of the fact that she will have to kill him, and mistrusts him because she assumes his actions have survival as their motive, just as hers do.
Once in the Games, Katniss' wilderness survival skills do her very well. She manages to survive the bloodbath at the Cornucopia-shaped supply pile where the tributes enter the arena, and manages to take a pack containing a sleeping bag, water bottle, some dried food, and night vision goggles — however while she sees a bow and quiver, she is unable to reach them. After a couple of days she even finds water. However the GameMakers, who control the arena and often change the environment to force things to be entertaining for the audience watching at home, set a large forest fire in the hopes of forcing the tributes to run into one another.
Katniss is struck by a fireball and her leg and hands are badly burned, and then has to flee from the group of athletic "Career tributes" who have banded together to hunt down the others. She hides in a tree, and Peeta, who has allied himself with the Careers, convinces them to wait her out. While she's up there, Haymich sends her a gift from her sponsors: medicine to heal the burn. Katniss also gains the help of the tiny young Rue, who reminds her of her sister. Rue points out that there is a nest of deadly Trackerjacker wasp-mutations in the branches of the tree. The smoke from the forest fire has lulled them, and Katniss is able to cut the branch and drop the entire nest on the Career camp below. She only takes three stings, but they cause her intense pain and hallucinations, and it's a struggle for her to take the bow and arrows from one of the dead tributes below and run away. She passes out, but Rue finds her again and treats her stings, and they form an alliance. Katniss and Rue then plan to destroy the Careers' food pile at the Cornucopia, hoping that because they're well-fed tributes from richer districts, the lack of supplies will kill them.
Katniss and Rue split up — Rue will set smoky fires to draw away the Careers, while Katniss destroys their food. She sees that they've booby-trapped it with land mines, and shoots down a bag of apples that scatters and triggers all the mines at once. The resulting explosion permanently deafens Katniss in one ear (though after the Games the Capitol gives her an implant that restores her hearing.) She hurries back to Rue, but the little girl has been entangled in a Career snare, and takes a spear to the stomach. Katniss shoots the boy who threw it dead, and holds Rue until she dies. She sings a lullaby, and then garnishes Rue's body with meadow flowers in funerary tribute. As thanks, the people of Rue's District collectively put together their meager amounts of money to sponsor some bread for Katniss.
Just then, the announcement is made that there has been a change in the rules of the Hunger Games: if two tributes from the same district are the last survivors, then they can both win. Katniss immediately calls out Peeta's name in shock, and then flees for fear that she has given away her position. She finds Peeta camouflaged in the river bank, dying of a bad wound from a sword to the leg. Katniss nurses him back to health, and discovers the more she plays into the idea of loving him, the more sponsors send her things. Kissing Peeta gets her some soup, since he can't keep down the food she hunts, but she knows he needs medicine for his blood poisoning. The Gamemakers announce that at the Cornucopia there will be a backpack for each remaining district containing something they badly need. Katniss knows it's medicine, but Peeta doesn't want her to go and risk a fight with the other remaining tributes. She gets one last sponsorship item when she leaves their tucked away cave to go hunting: a vial of sleep syrup. She tricks Peeta into eating it and leaves him behind in order to go get the medicine.
Katniss gets the backpack, but has an encounter with Clove, one of the Career tributes, who pins and taunts her, says she's going to carve up her face and give the audience a good show. However she also cruelly makes fun of Rue's death, and the boy from Rue's district overhears and kills her. To honor Rue, he lets Katniss go "just this once", however he is later killed. Katniss has been injured by Clove, but manages to make it back to Peeta and inject him. Then it's his turn to care for her for a day or so, until they're both finally better. Unfortunately Peeta's survival skills aren't as good as Katniss's, and he picks them a poisoned berry called nightlock to eat. Unbeknownst to them, one of the other tributes has been stealing from their supplies, and the berries kill her. That leaves only the two of them, and Cato, the last and worst Career tribute. Katniss keeps the berries in the hopes that maybe they can trick Cato into eating them too.
Katniss and Peeta aren't given much more time — the Gamemakers dry up all the water, forcing them back to the lake for a confrontation. They decide to go while they're strong, but when Cato appears he is fleeing from a pack of mutated dogs, gigantic, wild things that were made from each dead tribute, and have fur the color of their hair. Horrified at this perversion, Katniss and Peeta and Cato all flee to the top of the Cornucopia, where the pack can't reach, and then fight. Eventually Cato falls to his death and after listening to the dogs eat him all night, Katniss shoots him and puts him out of his misery.
Katniss and Peeta think they've won the games. The dogs leave, and they climb off the Cornucopia and wait to be taken out of the arena. However there is another announcement: the previous rule change has been revoked. There can only be one victor. The star crossed lovers from District Twelve will have to fight to the death.
Katniss knows that if she kills Peeta, she will never be able to face anybody back home, but Peeta loves her, so they both refuse. Katniss realizes if there is no victor the Capitol doesn't get their spectacle, so she pulls out the nightlock berries and they start to commit a double suicide. However the announcer stops them and declares them joint winners.
This has lasting repercussions. Katniss had already displayed subversive, rebellious tendencies throughout the Games: now she is seen to have defied the Capitol and triumphed, escaped alive. In order to stay safe, she has to pretend to the media circus that follows that it was the act of an innocent young girl who would rather die than be without Peeta. She keeps up the deeply in love routine, and it isn't until the train ride home that Peeta realizes it was all an act. Hurt, they don't speak for three months. Elsewhere in Panem, other disenfranchised workers are following in Katniss' footsteps and starting to rebel against the Capitol. She is seen as a symbol of the revolution, enough that she nets a personal visit from the totalitarian dictator, President Snow. He implies that if she does not seem to be enough in love with Peeta, if she encourages further rebellion or is in any way less than a perfect symbol of Capitol power, then her family will be killed.
Despite this, Katniss and Peeta's Victory Tour visibly agitates the districts. They get engaged as a distraction attempt, and more Capitol militia are sent to the districts. There is a crack down on law, an electric fence is erected around District Twelve, and Katniss and Gale can no longer go hunting. Gale, who has been growing angrier and angrier at the state of the nation, attempts to stand up to a peacekeeper and is violently whipped in the square. Katniss interferes before he can be executed, but this in turn draws Capitol attention to the fact that tributes believe they are exempt from its rules. This is what causes the design of the Quarter Quell.
A Quarter Quell is a celebration that occurs every 25th Hunger Games, and it means the Games have some difference or significance to them. This one, it is announced, will be drawn not from the general population, but entirely from the victors of previous Games.
Katniss and Haymich are drawn for District Twelve, but Peeta immediately volunteers to go in with Katniss. They return to the Capitol, horrified at the idea that their lives are at risk once more. However every other victor that has been reaped as a tribute is also furious and quietly inciting rebellion. Victors are greatly beloved celebrities in the Capitol, and the masses are discontent to see their favorites, who have already triumphed, being forced into such brutality. Each tribute gives an interview appealing to cancelling these Games, and Katniss' stylist dresses her in a wedding dress that burns away to a mockingjay costume, a symbol of the revolution. Peeta caps off the interviews by the fake revelation that Katniss is pregnant, followed by all the tributes holding hands in a visible alliance of the districts. Everything is in agitation and there are riots in the Districts.
Unbeknownst to Katniss, Haymitch is part of a revolutionary plot that involves rescuing Katniss from the Games, but it requires her alliance with several other Tributes. Katniss doesn't want to ally herself with these people who have known each other for years, and she doesn't want to kill them, either, though she's already going back into her survivalist mindset. This time, though, she doesn't intend to survive for her family: she intends to keep Peeta alive.
The last thing Katniss sees as she gets in the tube that will take her into the arena of the 75th Hunger Games is her beloved stylist, Cinna, being beaten and taken away for his mockery of the Capitol in his mockingjay design.
Katniss plays the Games, forming alliances despite her desire to strike out with only Peeta. In the process of competing, she begins to realize something is different. Haymitch's plot (as mentioned earlier) includes several notable tributes such as BeeTee, Johanna Mason, and Finnick Odair, working in conjunction with allies outside including the GameMaker of this particular Games, Haymitch, and the hidden District Thirteen, including its leader President Coin. It culminates with the Game dome being broken through, and several tributes escaping. Peeta and Johanna are left behind, captured by the Capitol, but Katniss is taken to District Thirteen, where her mother, sister, and Gale are all waiting, among many other refugees rescued from District Twelve. The District itself, and Katniss' home, has been firebombed to the ground in retribution for Katniss' rebellion.
Life in District Thirteen is quite different to what Katniss is used to — it is very underground, many resources are recycled, and everyone is expected to work equally in order to receive their share of those resources. It is also heavily militarized and monitored and everyone is scheduled and movement around the underground barracks is kept track of. Howver Katniss slowly begins to adapt to ordinary life despite her severe PTSD and her concern for Peeta.
She catches a Capitol broadcast of Peeta being interviewed by Caesar Flickerman, and immediately goes to see Coin and agrees to help the rebellion and stand as "the Mockingjay" in return for a list of demands (which includes a pardon for all tributes, outdoor passes for her and Gale to hunt above Thirteen, her sister be allowed to keep the family cat despite the general ban on pets, and for Katniss to be the one who kills President Snow.) The deal brokered, Katniss starts a new life, of training and shooting "props", propaganda film pieces that include staged combat.
During a filming of a prop, the hospital location is genuinely attacked by Capitol forces, and Katniss and the rebels fight back. Katniss goes off-script, but the result is so potent that it's decided they will shoot more genuine footage of her fighting in future.
Katniss watches another interview with Peeta where it becomes obvious that the Capitol have been brainwashing him in some way, since he's lost a lot of weight and verve. In a different interview, he attempts to warn her of an attack, and is punished onscreen. The warning means everyone in District Thirteen is in a safe bunker when they are bombed. Obsessed with the idea of Peeta being tortured in the Capitol, Katniss begins to break down.
It is at this point that a force, not including Katniss, is allocated a mission to rescue Peeta and the other captured victors from the Capitol. It succeeds, but when Katniss goes to see Peeta in the hospital he is rabid and insane, brainwashed into believing she is an evil mutt, and attempts to strangle her. While he begins to psychologically heal under Thirteen's treatment, it becomes clear that his hatred of Katniss has been planted deep. Unable to cope with the degradation of that relationship, Katniss asks to leave Thirteen, and is sent to Two to plan an attack on the Capitol. This is her canonpoint.
PERSONALITY:
Katniss' primary and defining trait is her determination to do what it takes to survive.
A lot of her personality originates in the responsibilities she was forced to take on as a child. She became an adult at the age of eleven and was forced to take on the parental role for her sister and grieving mother. As such, she has a deep-running motherly side, and wants to help and protect those who cannot helps and protect themselves.
When it comes to the people she feels responsible for, Katniss will do anything to keep them safe. Most of the time, particularly in the 74th Hunger Games where she knows her family will likely starve if she loses, this means surviving and getting back to them. However it can also mean willing self-sacrifice, such as her determination to have Peeta win the 75th Hunger Games at her expense.
This leaves her with incredibly grey morality. Katniss' objectively good actions often arise from a personal selfishness, while her atrocities tend to be done in the name of protecting someone else. Often in the heat of the moment she will do or say impulsive things that later take on more significant meaning than she meant them to, such as her stunt with the berries or her volunteering at the reaping to save her sister. While she has very little regard for the law, and has a hard time staying in touch with her feelings, ultimately Katniss is not an evil person and would not condone unnecessary suffering.
Katniss does very well under pressure, in that when she is flooded with adrenaline she is usually able to take the best course of action available to her without having to deliberate on it. This means she's a very good fighter, and combined with her excellent archery skills she can usually fire off an accurate flurry of arrows without having to aim or consider too much. When she does have time to plan, her strategies are usually cunning and outside the box, such as her thinking to destroy the Career food pile. She wins the Hunger Games with intelligence rather than brute strength, and later (after her canon point) she proves that while she may get people's motivations wrong, she's often capable of working out what their plans and strategies are likely to be.
Another primary trait of Katniss' is her lack of empathy. She is often confused by her own emotions and motivations, such as her struggling to realize that she genuinely has feelings for both Peeta and Gale. As she tells Finnick, people tend to know all her secrets before even she does. It doesn't help that she's also a bad liar.
Katniss isn't vocally all doom and gloom. In fact, she's the symbol of hope for a rebellion, and it's obvious she has some measure of idealism in her. But Katniss will always assume the worst about people, perhaps because she assumes people's motivations are the same as hers would be in that situation. For example, she believes Peeta is faking his feelings for her to get an edge in the Games because he wants to survive, which is her motivation for her interaction with those around her.
During the lead up to the Games, Katniss' tactic was to be herself for the media and let her "team" help present that as appealing. This is mostly because she didn't have a choice: while her ability to act before thinking while under pressure greatly benefits her in fight or flight scenarios, when it came to stage fright it means she can't think about what she's going to say before she says it. Fortunately Katniss has a deep-running charisma, and in her interviews was able to come off as charming and girlish despite her poor acting ability. In addition, while she says she has no ability to put her thoughts on paper, she is capable of giving deeply moving speeches when given the opportunity to speak from the heart.
A large part of her appeal in the Capitol was her prettiness. Katniss is a little confused by her own beauty. She doesn't really have time for it, and the Capitol's obsession with socialized ideals of femininity and beauty (such as hairlessness, thinness, youth and makeup) are direct opposites to her outer district culture (where being old and fat was a sign of prosperity and heath.) She has trouble realizing that other people find her attractive, and is very prudish about sexuality and nudity in a way that nearly no-one else in Panem seems to be. That said, she does have a deep down enjoyment of being allowed to get dressed up and look like a princess.
Katniss is only sweet when she's given reason to be. A lot of the time Katniss is too practical to be nice, and as she processes a lot of her emotions, including fear, as anger, she tends to be surly and scowling and sour a lot of the time. She's also very blunt, and will often snap sarcastically at people's weak points if provoked.
In addition, fighting for her life for days on end has left Katniss suffering from a nasty case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and is deeply avoidant of having to process her grief or take time to deal with her injured emotions in the wake of the Games. She is hypervigilant, always on the alert to danger, and when under a lot of pressure may see danger that isn't there. If she wasn't already made paranoid by her life outside the law, her PTSD only exacerbates it. While she mostly outwardly processes is as "anger", it's obvious that Katniss' PTSD is near crippling at times: she struggles with emotional regulation, and she is also occasionally triggered into flashbacks of the worst parts of the Games, such as when she hallucinates that she has shot a tribute she killed instead of the game she is hunting with Gale. She also suffers from nightmares.
Katniss hates showing weakness, also in an attempt to cope through controlling her environment. However, she will make some concessions for Peeta, the only person who she believes understands what she went through in the Games. Often they sleep together (chastely) at night in order to stave off nightmares. While Katniss initially misjudged Peeta, he has always represented to her a symbol of hope, of the possibility of survival. He has been immeasurably kind to her, and saved her life countless times, which she feels she can't repay. Katniss fails to understand that Peeta doesn't see it as a debt.
It's difficult for Katniss to separate her general need for human closeness in the wake of atrocity from her feelings for Peeta in general, especially when he so obviously cares for her. Even she isn't always sure when their fake relationship is a pretense and when it isn't, but she definitely considers him a very good friend. On the other hand, she also harbours a steady passion for her other best friend, Gale, who she is more sexually attracted to. This leaves Katniss divided as to who she loves, or who she loves more, but at the same time she is too practical and too frightened by the Capitol to spend time thinking about love. She often quashes these feelings, especially since she has sworn she will never bring children into this horrible world and risk losing them to the Hunger Games.
This may also have a lot to do with her relationship to her parents: Katniss dearly loved her father and was his favorite, though it seems over the course of the series that she has forgotten a lot of her time with him and done her best not to think about him. While she also loves her mother, she has never really forgiven her for abandoning the family in her grief, and doesn't trust her to look after Prim properly. Prim, on the other hand, is the most important person in Katniss' universe, her sweetest and most darling princess, and often her relationships with other young children are defined by the fact that they remind her of Prim.
While she is in the Capitol, Katniss is constantly disgusted by the sickening waste of their rampant capitalism, and this combined with the fear of her imminent death for the Capitol's entertainment puts her in a poor mood. At one point, Katniss realizes that back in District Twelve, she would require an entire days' worth of hunting and gathering and trading to be able to make even one bowl of the meal she can order at the press of a button. While she was taught a measure of civilized manners, the disdain Capitol citizens have for the starving poor makes her upset and angry. However due to a life spent living hand to mouth and planning her day around having enough to eat, Katniss always eats like she'll never see food again, and believes it's important to savor what she has. The way to her heart, or at least her friendship, is definitely through her stomach.
Her favourite food is lamb stew with plums, but orange juice reminds her too much of the drink they gave her just after she won the Games the first time. She bites her nails when she's nervous. Her favourite colour is green, probably because she deeply prefers the silence and solemnity of the outdoors to anything artificial or industrial. Despite her rural upbringing, she's capable enough with advanced technology but couldn't tell you how it works.
Though she often doesn't consciously realize she's doing it, Katniss is very good at charming the people around her in order to get what she wants. She seems to be a fairly good actress, fooling an entire nation into believing that she is silly schoolgirl levels of in love with Peeta Mellark. Though those close to her are aware of her more sour, unpretentious ways, and though she doesn't exactly have a silver tongue, Katniss' ability to make people care about her is one of her key strengths. On the other hand, often Katniss fails to read a situation or another person's motives correctly, as she assumes the worst. She has trouble empathizing with other people and seeing herself through their eyes.
However her physical strength is not to be scoffed at. Katniss' father taught her to provide for her poor family at a very young age. After he died, she became the sole provider. This has meant she is capable of: moving quietly; making a bow and arrows; shooting to kill with incredible accuracy and precision; setting traps; basic tracking; gathering roots and berries and other plants; spear fishing; and skinning and cleaning her kills. In order to win the Hunger Games, Katniss has to increase her survival skills. In addition to the combat training she does before both sets of Games, she gets better at making a fire, knot tying, camouflage, making fish hooks, finding fresh water, enduring intense physical agony and surviving malnutrition and deprivation. During her stay in District Thirteen, Katniss goes through rebel boot camp, where she is trained in the use of several firearms including machine guns and sniper rifles. She also learns about bombs, traps, ambushes, and military tactics.
Due to an injury in her first Games, Katniss' left ear is totally deaf. A Capitol implant restored it, but if it breaks or malfunctions she will be unable to directionalize sound.
POWER: I'd like to give Katniss the power of self-healing. Specifically I'd like to use Rapid Cell Regeneration from Heroes as the rules of how the power works. However I'd also like to nerf it a little and say that she will still definitely be able to die if her brain is destroyed or significantly penetrated, or if she gets a tumor, and she will still be able to feel pain.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
Test Drive Thread.
FINAL NOTES:
NAME: Amber
AGE: 27
JOURNAL:
fleetfoxesIM / EMAIL: escapism @ gmail
PLURK: darach
RETURNING: Stiles Stilinski + Hal Yorke.
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Katniss Everdeen
CHARACTER AGE: 17
SERIES: The Hunger Games (novels)
CHRONOLOGY: Mid-Mockingjay (just before leaving for the attack on the Capitol — movie-wise that's a few months after the end of Mockingjay Pt 1.)
CLASS: Reluctant hero.
HOUSING: Anywhere!
BACKGROUND:
Katniss' childhood was shaped by the culture of District 12. Her father was a coal miner from the Seam, the poor, dark-skinned underclass that did the dirty work of Panem. Her mother was paler and cleaner and wealthier: she worked in her family apothecary and lived a more comfortable life on the merchant side of town, up until she fell in love with and married Katniss' father. Together they had two children: first Katniss, named for the sweet potato that grows at the bottom of the river, and then four years later, Primrose, or Prim.
As a girl, Katniss' father taught her plenty about survival, because despite the feeling of community in District Twelve, many people were poor and there was often hunger. They would illegally duck the fence around the outskirts of the District and go hunting in the forest for game. Katniss learned how to swim and shoot and set traps and scavenge: her father taught her that so long as she could find her namesake, she would never starve.
When Katniss was eleven, her father died in a coal mining explosion, and her mother fell into a catatonic depression in her grief. After a month, the widow's allowance ran out, and Katniss was forced to take on the responsibility of caring for herself and her sister, lest their mother be deemed unfit and Katniss and Prim sent to a community home and separated. Despite the fact that Katniss quickly stepped into her responsibilities of getting Prim to school and cleaning the house, she was too young to take a job and with no income the family began to starve.
However the generosity of Peeta Mellark, the baker's son, gave Katniss a new hope for life, and she began to work to forage and hunt on her own. She met Gale Hawthorne, a boy about her own age who set traps in the forest to feed his family, and they shared skills and game and grew close. Katniss and Gale were able to trade or sell what they caught in town, to other store owners or the wealthier authority figures such as the Peacekeepers (the Capitol-assigned police force) and the Mayor. Despite leaving the district and hunting both being illegal, the town collectively turned a blind eye as even the wealthiest among them was poor enough to find it difficult to come by meat. Katniss' sister also had a goat which she used for milk and cheese to eat and trade, and in this way they survived until her mother recovered enough to start teaching Prim her trade. Right up until Prim's name was drawn as the female tribute for District Twelve — to fight to the death in the Hunger Games.
Katniss, having done everything in her power to make sure Prim's name was only in the draw once, immediately volunteers for her. She, along with Peeta Mellark, is parted from her family and shipped off to the Capitol with barely any time to say goodbye. Her mother promises she will not return to catatonia, and Gale promises he will continue to hunt game to feed her family as well as his own.
The tributes chosen for the Hunger Games have to catch a train to the Capitol. Katniss is angry and resentful knowing she's going to her death, and it's made worse by the fact that her fellow tribute, Peeta, is friendly despite the fact that they'll have to kill each other; the incredible luxuries granted her that mostly seem like waste to Katniss; the people congratulating her as though being chosen is an honor; and the fact that their mentor, former Hunger Games winner Haymitch Abernathy, is a drunkard who doesn't seem to have any interest in helping them. Katniss and Peeta, however, get Haymich's attention with their determination and resourcefulness, and he begins to think they might have enough of a chance at winning to be worth his time.
The rest of the lead-up to the Games is spent in a whirl of media and attention. Katniss is considered rural, and often treated as an object both by the teams of people put in place to make her beautiful for the cameras, and by the audience. Her stylist, Cinna, and his partner Portia, design Katniss and Peeta beautiful outfits that make them stand out to the crowd. She gets the attention of the Gamemakers, however, during her demonstration of skill, when she grows frustrated that they would rather eat and talk than pay attention to something that could mean life or death for her. Shooting the apple from the mouth of the pig they were about to eat nets her a score of 11/12, which in turn catches the attention of potential sponsors and rival tributes.
The most significant stunt, however, is when Peeta admits during in televised interview that the girl he's had a crush on all his life came to the Hunger Games with him. This kicks off a "Star Crossed Lovers" routine that captivates the imagination of Capitol audience. While Peeta is sincere in his affections for Katniss, Katniss thinks only of the fact that she will have to kill him, and mistrusts him because she assumes his actions have survival as their motive, just as hers do.
Once in the Games, Katniss' wilderness survival skills do her very well. She manages to survive the bloodbath at the Cornucopia-shaped supply pile where the tributes enter the arena, and manages to take a pack containing a sleeping bag, water bottle, some dried food, and night vision goggles — however while she sees a bow and quiver, she is unable to reach them. After a couple of days she even finds water. However the GameMakers, who control the arena and often change the environment to force things to be entertaining for the audience watching at home, set a large forest fire in the hopes of forcing the tributes to run into one another.
Katniss is struck by a fireball and her leg and hands are badly burned, and then has to flee from the group of athletic "Career tributes" who have banded together to hunt down the others. She hides in a tree, and Peeta, who has allied himself with the Careers, convinces them to wait her out. While she's up there, Haymich sends her a gift from her sponsors: medicine to heal the burn. Katniss also gains the help of the tiny young Rue, who reminds her of her sister. Rue points out that there is a nest of deadly Trackerjacker wasp-mutations in the branches of the tree. The smoke from the forest fire has lulled them, and Katniss is able to cut the branch and drop the entire nest on the Career camp below. She only takes three stings, but they cause her intense pain and hallucinations, and it's a struggle for her to take the bow and arrows from one of the dead tributes below and run away. She passes out, but Rue finds her again and treats her stings, and they form an alliance. Katniss and Rue then plan to destroy the Careers' food pile at the Cornucopia, hoping that because they're well-fed tributes from richer districts, the lack of supplies will kill them.
Katniss and Rue split up — Rue will set smoky fires to draw away the Careers, while Katniss destroys their food. She sees that they've booby-trapped it with land mines, and shoots down a bag of apples that scatters and triggers all the mines at once. The resulting explosion permanently deafens Katniss in one ear (though after the Games the Capitol gives her an implant that restores her hearing.) She hurries back to Rue, but the little girl has been entangled in a Career snare, and takes a spear to the stomach. Katniss shoots the boy who threw it dead, and holds Rue until she dies. She sings a lullaby, and then garnishes Rue's body with meadow flowers in funerary tribute. As thanks, the people of Rue's District collectively put together their meager amounts of money to sponsor some bread for Katniss.
Just then, the announcement is made that there has been a change in the rules of the Hunger Games: if two tributes from the same district are the last survivors, then they can both win. Katniss immediately calls out Peeta's name in shock, and then flees for fear that she has given away her position. She finds Peeta camouflaged in the river bank, dying of a bad wound from a sword to the leg. Katniss nurses him back to health, and discovers the more she plays into the idea of loving him, the more sponsors send her things. Kissing Peeta gets her some soup, since he can't keep down the food she hunts, but she knows he needs medicine for his blood poisoning. The Gamemakers announce that at the Cornucopia there will be a backpack for each remaining district containing something they badly need. Katniss knows it's medicine, but Peeta doesn't want her to go and risk a fight with the other remaining tributes. She gets one last sponsorship item when she leaves their tucked away cave to go hunting: a vial of sleep syrup. She tricks Peeta into eating it and leaves him behind in order to go get the medicine.
Katniss gets the backpack, but has an encounter with Clove, one of the Career tributes, who pins and taunts her, says she's going to carve up her face and give the audience a good show. However she also cruelly makes fun of Rue's death, and the boy from Rue's district overhears and kills her. To honor Rue, he lets Katniss go "just this once", however he is later killed. Katniss has been injured by Clove, but manages to make it back to Peeta and inject him. Then it's his turn to care for her for a day or so, until they're both finally better. Unfortunately Peeta's survival skills aren't as good as Katniss's, and he picks them a poisoned berry called nightlock to eat. Unbeknownst to them, one of the other tributes has been stealing from their supplies, and the berries kill her. That leaves only the two of them, and Cato, the last and worst Career tribute. Katniss keeps the berries in the hopes that maybe they can trick Cato into eating them too.
Katniss and Peeta aren't given much more time — the Gamemakers dry up all the water, forcing them back to the lake for a confrontation. They decide to go while they're strong, but when Cato appears he is fleeing from a pack of mutated dogs, gigantic, wild things that were made from each dead tribute, and have fur the color of their hair. Horrified at this perversion, Katniss and Peeta and Cato all flee to the top of the Cornucopia, where the pack can't reach, and then fight. Eventually Cato falls to his death and after listening to the dogs eat him all night, Katniss shoots him and puts him out of his misery.
Katniss and Peeta think they've won the games. The dogs leave, and they climb off the Cornucopia and wait to be taken out of the arena. However there is another announcement: the previous rule change has been revoked. There can only be one victor. The star crossed lovers from District Twelve will have to fight to the death.
Katniss knows that if she kills Peeta, she will never be able to face anybody back home, but Peeta loves her, so they both refuse. Katniss realizes if there is no victor the Capitol doesn't get their spectacle, so she pulls out the nightlock berries and they start to commit a double suicide. However the announcer stops them and declares them joint winners.
This has lasting repercussions. Katniss had already displayed subversive, rebellious tendencies throughout the Games: now she is seen to have defied the Capitol and triumphed, escaped alive. In order to stay safe, she has to pretend to the media circus that follows that it was the act of an innocent young girl who would rather die than be without Peeta. She keeps up the deeply in love routine, and it isn't until the train ride home that Peeta realizes it was all an act. Hurt, they don't speak for three months. Elsewhere in Panem, other disenfranchised workers are following in Katniss' footsteps and starting to rebel against the Capitol. She is seen as a symbol of the revolution, enough that she nets a personal visit from the totalitarian dictator, President Snow. He implies that if she does not seem to be enough in love with Peeta, if she encourages further rebellion or is in any way less than a perfect symbol of Capitol power, then her family will be killed.
Despite this, Katniss and Peeta's Victory Tour visibly agitates the districts. They get engaged as a distraction attempt, and more Capitol militia are sent to the districts. There is a crack down on law, an electric fence is erected around District Twelve, and Katniss and Gale can no longer go hunting. Gale, who has been growing angrier and angrier at the state of the nation, attempts to stand up to a peacekeeper and is violently whipped in the square. Katniss interferes before he can be executed, but this in turn draws Capitol attention to the fact that tributes believe they are exempt from its rules. This is what causes the design of the Quarter Quell.
A Quarter Quell is a celebration that occurs every 25th Hunger Games, and it means the Games have some difference or significance to them. This one, it is announced, will be drawn not from the general population, but entirely from the victors of previous Games.
Katniss and Haymich are drawn for District Twelve, but Peeta immediately volunteers to go in with Katniss. They return to the Capitol, horrified at the idea that their lives are at risk once more. However every other victor that has been reaped as a tribute is also furious and quietly inciting rebellion. Victors are greatly beloved celebrities in the Capitol, and the masses are discontent to see their favorites, who have already triumphed, being forced into such brutality. Each tribute gives an interview appealing to cancelling these Games, and Katniss' stylist dresses her in a wedding dress that burns away to a mockingjay costume, a symbol of the revolution. Peeta caps off the interviews by the fake revelation that Katniss is pregnant, followed by all the tributes holding hands in a visible alliance of the districts. Everything is in agitation and there are riots in the Districts.
Unbeknownst to Katniss, Haymitch is part of a revolutionary plot that involves rescuing Katniss from the Games, but it requires her alliance with several other Tributes. Katniss doesn't want to ally herself with these people who have known each other for years, and she doesn't want to kill them, either, though she's already going back into her survivalist mindset. This time, though, she doesn't intend to survive for her family: she intends to keep Peeta alive.
The last thing Katniss sees as she gets in the tube that will take her into the arena of the 75th Hunger Games is her beloved stylist, Cinna, being beaten and taken away for his mockery of the Capitol in his mockingjay design.
Katniss plays the Games, forming alliances despite her desire to strike out with only Peeta. In the process of competing, she begins to realize something is different. Haymitch's plot (as mentioned earlier) includes several notable tributes such as BeeTee, Johanna Mason, and Finnick Odair, working in conjunction with allies outside including the GameMaker of this particular Games, Haymitch, and the hidden District Thirteen, including its leader President Coin. It culminates with the Game dome being broken through, and several tributes escaping. Peeta and Johanna are left behind, captured by the Capitol, but Katniss is taken to District Thirteen, where her mother, sister, and Gale are all waiting, among many other refugees rescued from District Twelve. The District itself, and Katniss' home, has been firebombed to the ground in retribution for Katniss' rebellion.
Life in District Thirteen is quite different to what Katniss is used to — it is very underground, many resources are recycled, and everyone is expected to work equally in order to receive their share of those resources. It is also heavily militarized and monitored and everyone is scheduled and movement around the underground barracks is kept track of. Howver Katniss slowly begins to adapt to ordinary life despite her severe PTSD and her concern for Peeta.
She catches a Capitol broadcast of Peeta being interviewed by Caesar Flickerman, and immediately goes to see Coin and agrees to help the rebellion and stand as "the Mockingjay" in return for a list of demands (which includes a pardon for all tributes, outdoor passes for her and Gale to hunt above Thirteen, her sister be allowed to keep the family cat despite the general ban on pets, and for Katniss to be the one who kills President Snow.) The deal brokered, Katniss starts a new life, of training and shooting "props", propaganda film pieces that include staged combat.
During a filming of a prop, the hospital location is genuinely attacked by Capitol forces, and Katniss and the rebels fight back. Katniss goes off-script, but the result is so potent that it's decided they will shoot more genuine footage of her fighting in future.
Katniss watches another interview with Peeta where it becomes obvious that the Capitol have been brainwashing him in some way, since he's lost a lot of weight and verve. In a different interview, he attempts to warn her of an attack, and is punished onscreen. The warning means everyone in District Thirteen is in a safe bunker when they are bombed. Obsessed with the idea of Peeta being tortured in the Capitol, Katniss begins to break down.
It is at this point that a force, not including Katniss, is allocated a mission to rescue Peeta and the other captured victors from the Capitol. It succeeds, but when Katniss goes to see Peeta in the hospital he is rabid and insane, brainwashed into believing she is an evil mutt, and attempts to strangle her. While he begins to psychologically heal under Thirteen's treatment, it becomes clear that his hatred of Katniss has been planted deep. Unable to cope with the degradation of that relationship, Katniss asks to leave Thirteen, and is sent to Two to plan an attack on the Capitol. This is her canonpoint.
PERSONALITY:
Katniss' primary and defining trait is her determination to do what it takes to survive.
A lot of her personality originates in the responsibilities she was forced to take on as a child. She became an adult at the age of eleven and was forced to take on the parental role for her sister and grieving mother. As such, she has a deep-running motherly side, and wants to help and protect those who cannot helps and protect themselves.
When it comes to the people she feels responsible for, Katniss will do anything to keep them safe. Most of the time, particularly in the 74th Hunger Games where she knows her family will likely starve if she loses, this means surviving and getting back to them. However it can also mean willing self-sacrifice, such as her determination to have Peeta win the 75th Hunger Games at her expense.
This leaves her with incredibly grey morality. Katniss' objectively good actions often arise from a personal selfishness, while her atrocities tend to be done in the name of protecting someone else. Often in the heat of the moment she will do or say impulsive things that later take on more significant meaning than she meant them to, such as her stunt with the berries or her volunteering at the reaping to save her sister. While she has very little regard for the law, and has a hard time staying in touch with her feelings, ultimately Katniss is not an evil person and would not condone unnecessary suffering.
Katniss does very well under pressure, in that when she is flooded with adrenaline she is usually able to take the best course of action available to her without having to deliberate on it. This means she's a very good fighter, and combined with her excellent archery skills she can usually fire off an accurate flurry of arrows without having to aim or consider too much. When she does have time to plan, her strategies are usually cunning and outside the box, such as her thinking to destroy the Career food pile. She wins the Hunger Games with intelligence rather than brute strength, and later (after her canon point) she proves that while she may get people's motivations wrong, she's often capable of working out what their plans and strategies are likely to be.
Another primary trait of Katniss' is her lack of empathy. She is often confused by her own emotions and motivations, such as her struggling to realize that she genuinely has feelings for both Peeta and Gale. As she tells Finnick, people tend to know all her secrets before even she does. It doesn't help that she's also a bad liar.
Katniss isn't vocally all doom and gloom. In fact, she's the symbol of hope for a rebellion, and it's obvious she has some measure of idealism in her. But Katniss will always assume the worst about people, perhaps because she assumes people's motivations are the same as hers would be in that situation. For example, she believes Peeta is faking his feelings for her to get an edge in the Games because he wants to survive, which is her motivation for her interaction with those around her.
During the lead up to the Games, Katniss' tactic was to be herself for the media and let her "team" help present that as appealing. This is mostly because she didn't have a choice: while her ability to act before thinking while under pressure greatly benefits her in fight or flight scenarios, when it came to stage fright it means she can't think about what she's going to say before she says it. Fortunately Katniss has a deep-running charisma, and in her interviews was able to come off as charming and girlish despite her poor acting ability. In addition, while she says she has no ability to put her thoughts on paper, she is capable of giving deeply moving speeches when given the opportunity to speak from the heart.
A large part of her appeal in the Capitol was her prettiness. Katniss is a little confused by her own beauty. She doesn't really have time for it, and the Capitol's obsession with socialized ideals of femininity and beauty (such as hairlessness, thinness, youth and makeup) are direct opposites to her outer district culture (where being old and fat was a sign of prosperity and heath.) She has trouble realizing that other people find her attractive, and is very prudish about sexuality and nudity in a way that nearly no-one else in Panem seems to be. That said, she does have a deep down enjoyment of being allowed to get dressed up and look like a princess.
Katniss is only sweet when she's given reason to be. A lot of the time Katniss is too practical to be nice, and as she processes a lot of her emotions, including fear, as anger, she tends to be surly and scowling and sour a lot of the time. She's also very blunt, and will often snap sarcastically at people's weak points if provoked.
In addition, fighting for her life for days on end has left Katniss suffering from a nasty case of post-traumatic stress disorder, and is deeply avoidant of having to process her grief or take time to deal with her injured emotions in the wake of the Games. She is hypervigilant, always on the alert to danger, and when under a lot of pressure may see danger that isn't there. If she wasn't already made paranoid by her life outside the law, her PTSD only exacerbates it. While she mostly outwardly processes is as "anger", it's obvious that Katniss' PTSD is near crippling at times: she struggles with emotional regulation, and she is also occasionally triggered into flashbacks of the worst parts of the Games, such as when she hallucinates that she has shot a tribute she killed instead of the game she is hunting with Gale. She also suffers from nightmares.
Katniss hates showing weakness, also in an attempt to cope through controlling her environment. However, she will make some concessions for Peeta, the only person who she believes understands what she went through in the Games. Often they sleep together (chastely) at night in order to stave off nightmares. While Katniss initially misjudged Peeta, he has always represented to her a symbol of hope, of the possibility of survival. He has been immeasurably kind to her, and saved her life countless times, which she feels she can't repay. Katniss fails to understand that Peeta doesn't see it as a debt.
It's difficult for Katniss to separate her general need for human closeness in the wake of atrocity from her feelings for Peeta in general, especially when he so obviously cares for her. Even she isn't always sure when their fake relationship is a pretense and when it isn't, but she definitely considers him a very good friend. On the other hand, she also harbours a steady passion for her other best friend, Gale, who she is more sexually attracted to. This leaves Katniss divided as to who she loves, or who she loves more, but at the same time she is too practical and too frightened by the Capitol to spend time thinking about love. She often quashes these feelings, especially since she has sworn she will never bring children into this horrible world and risk losing them to the Hunger Games.
This may also have a lot to do with her relationship to her parents: Katniss dearly loved her father and was his favorite, though it seems over the course of the series that she has forgotten a lot of her time with him and done her best not to think about him. While she also loves her mother, she has never really forgiven her for abandoning the family in her grief, and doesn't trust her to look after Prim properly. Prim, on the other hand, is the most important person in Katniss' universe, her sweetest and most darling princess, and often her relationships with other young children are defined by the fact that they remind her of Prim.
While she is in the Capitol, Katniss is constantly disgusted by the sickening waste of their rampant capitalism, and this combined with the fear of her imminent death for the Capitol's entertainment puts her in a poor mood. At one point, Katniss realizes that back in District Twelve, she would require an entire days' worth of hunting and gathering and trading to be able to make even one bowl of the meal she can order at the press of a button. While she was taught a measure of civilized manners, the disdain Capitol citizens have for the starving poor makes her upset and angry. However due to a life spent living hand to mouth and planning her day around having enough to eat, Katniss always eats like she'll never see food again, and believes it's important to savor what she has. The way to her heart, or at least her friendship, is definitely through her stomach.
Her favourite food is lamb stew with plums, but orange juice reminds her too much of the drink they gave her just after she won the Games the first time. She bites her nails when she's nervous. Her favourite colour is green, probably because she deeply prefers the silence and solemnity of the outdoors to anything artificial or industrial. Despite her rural upbringing, she's capable enough with advanced technology but couldn't tell you how it works.
Though she often doesn't consciously realize she's doing it, Katniss is very good at charming the people around her in order to get what she wants. She seems to be a fairly good actress, fooling an entire nation into believing that she is silly schoolgirl levels of in love with Peeta Mellark. Though those close to her are aware of her more sour, unpretentious ways, and though she doesn't exactly have a silver tongue, Katniss' ability to make people care about her is one of her key strengths. On the other hand, often Katniss fails to read a situation or another person's motives correctly, as she assumes the worst. She has trouble empathizing with other people and seeing herself through their eyes.
However her physical strength is not to be scoffed at. Katniss' father taught her to provide for her poor family at a very young age. After he died, she became the sole provider. This has meant she is capable of: moving quietly; making a bow and arrows; shooting to kill with incredible accuracy and precision; setting traps; basic tracking; gathering roots and berries and other plants; spear fishing; and skinning and cleaning her kills. In order to win the Hunger Games, Katniss has to increase her survival skills. In addition to the combat training she does before both sets of Games, she gets better at making a fire, knot tying, camouflage, making fish hooks, finding fresh water, enduring intense physical agony and surviving malnutrition and deprivation. During her stay in District Thirteen, Katniss goes through rebel boot camp, where she is trained in the use of several firearms including machine guns and sniper rifles. She also learns about bombs, traps, ambushes, and military tactics.
Due to an injury in her first Games, Katniss' left ear is totally deaf. A Capitol implant restored it, but if it breaks or malfunctions she will be unable to directionalize sound.
POWER: I'd like to give Katniss the power of self-healing. Specifically I'd like to use Rapid Cell Regeneration from Heroes as the rules of how the power works. However I'd also like to nerf it a little and say that she will still definitely be able to die if her brain is destroyed or significantly penetrated, or if she gets a tumor, and she will still be able to feel pain.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:
Test Drive Thread.
FINAL NOTES: