#hunger in appalachia

[asongofryceandfire]

there is genuinely something so special about the hunger games with Suzanne adding in hunting. As someone born a woman who grew up poor in Appalachia hunting was and is still a large part of my life. it’s how i had meat to eat over winters as a child. Katniss still hunting in a world so destroying and so dystopia she still holds to the traditions of 100 years past hunting the same woods other girls did years before. learning what plants are safe to eat and actively going to look for them? another thing i and others in that area have done for millennia. her characterization is so real and so true to the poor Appalachian girls of today. in conclusion, she is the most real written example of poverty in appalachia country in recent years.

[mariigoldzz]

District Twelve, where you can starve to death in safety.

[bunnyshideawayy]

thg/district 12 having an Appalachian renaissance is very healing to my 13 year old soul who fought tooth and nail in this fandom to prove 12 was indeed coal mining country

[theknifegirlfromdistricttwo]

Small PSA, it is ham hock soup not ham hawk soup... Haymitch and the others are eating what is essentially a pig's ankle as it is an extremely cheap cut of meat used for it's flavor due to being so packed with collagen and connective tissues not a mix of ham and bird meat

[angrycommielez]

These are the songs I picture Katniss singing. Appalachian/mountain tunes, bluegrass and folk music, lullabies, old traditionnal songs her father may have taught her.

Songs about freedom, love, hard times and hope, living in poverty, death, prison, coal mines accidents, workers' strikes, natives and the land...that she could pass down to her children as well.

Credit for picture : Joanna Bush

[vergess]

ppl who were not a starving brown child living in a hostile appalachian mill/mine town simply cannot understand why Katniss Hungergames makes me go so insane

[an-old-lady]

I redid the cover of my favorite folk album as The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This is the kind of Old Time style that I imagined Lucy Gray's music as when I read the book. The Bowling Green album contains several traditional murder ballads, and I think the cover represents the genre as a whole rather than one song in particular. But when I read that scene in TBOSAS, this cover art popped into my head the same time I realized that "The Ballad" was a murder ballad. Chills.

[nessafayee]

All the best books have some tie to Appalachia (even better if it’s west/reg virginia): The raven cycle, aftg, demon copperhead, summer sons, these violent delights, the hunger games, like give me more recs!!!

[graciepasty]

Wyatt Callow. Sunrise on the Reaping (2025).

[gothicfairytopia]

Like the music in the new Hunger Games movie but not really know anything about folk/bluegrass/country? Here are some quick recs to get you started!

(This is not comprehensive and the genres here are a little whack, these are just songs I listen to as someone raised on good Appalachian vibes. Not necessarily from just Appalachian artists, particularly in the second section. Just think it’s nice that people are getting more exposure to folk + bluegrass!)

Protest Songs / Coal Criticism

(Hazel Dickens I would give you smooches.. also these are just the ones living in my playlists rn)

“You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” Patty Loveless

“The L and N Don’t Stop Here Anymore,” Jean Ritchie

“Coal Tattoo,” and I’m exercising my free will and linking the Hazel Dickens version

“The Yablonski Murder,” Hazel Dickens

“Coal,” Tyler Childers

“Trip to Hyden,” Tom T. Hall

“Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Loretta Lynn

“Devil Put the Coal in the Ground,” Steve Earle

Assorted Personal Favorites

(where my love for Sierra Ferrell is really on display)

“West Virginia Waltz,” Sierra Ferrell

“Across the Great Divide,” Nanci Griffith

“Blue Ridge Mountain,” Hurray for the Riff Raff

“Iowa (Traveling, Pt. 3),” Dar Williams

“Rhododendron,” Bella White

“Boulder to Birmingham,” Emmylou Harris

“Silver Dollar,” Sierra Ferrell

“Hands of Time,” Margo Price

“Lilacs,” Waxahatchee

“Way of the Triune God,” Tyler Childers

“The Dreaded Spoon,” Ricky Skaggs + Bruce Hornsby

“Preacher in the Ring, Pt. 1,” Bruce Hornsby

“The Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia,” Hazel Dickens

“Rocky Top,” The Osborne Brothers

“Do You Think About Me At All,” Bella White

“In Dreams,” Sierra Ferrell

[hxwthcrne]

I should've grabbed people, I should've dragged them with me. Some of the kids I could've carried…

#HXWTHCRNE: indie gale hawthorne of the hunger games. canon-divergent. southern appalachian inspired. verses in red dead redemption 2 and old gods of appalachia. sideblog to @dcvium. (c)

[persephoneprice]

Plsplspls tell me the counties you’ve picked out for D12. From a geography nerd 💕

well grace i am so delighted that you have asked! fair warning- i’m quite biased on this as someone from the area!

so as we know appalachian is pretty expansive and covers quite a few states:

and comparing it to the panem map (which i think is from movies so not technically official. but whatever.)

i like to believe that d12 resides in the heart of appalachia. aka in kentucky or west virginia (or potentially virginia or tennessee).

in this area (where the circle is):

so essentially around the eastern kentucky/west virginia boarder.

i’ve narrowed it down (for my personal hcs) to three counties (+some fun facts!)

mingo county, west virginia

one of the poorest parts of west virginia

has a history of coal mining (including history with the WV coal wars)

the county was named after native americans

pike county, kentucky

one of kentucky’s largest coal-producing counties

largest country by land area and one of the most populous in the state

pike counties cut through project was the second largest in the world, only preceded by the panama canal.

buchanan county, virginia

has one of the largest mines in the state

is known for wrestling (peeta 👀)

the first one is my main pick for the location but i also like the second! the third is fine but i mainly like it for the wrestling connection!

[starrrbakerrr]

is anyone else so excited for the book, but really dreading the movie?

olive-skinned haymitch/seam isn’t a want, it’s a need at this point, but as they are expanding the visual universe and continuing casting white people in every district, it’s making it less canon that katniss, gale, haymitch and the seam are brown and that the divide between seam and merchant is apparent and noticeable. because to them (casting agents, director, etc), besides jessup and a couple extras, BIPOC people only exist in D11, not even in D10 which is located where Central America is today.

and this is no hate to suzanne because i really love the series and i will always support it, i just hate the concept of writing the book and lionsgate making a shit ton of money capitalizing off the world and lessons suzanne is trying to warn audiences. because for some reason the general public spent a good two months thirsting over a dictator and excusing his actions and abuse. and now it’s trendy for people to call zendaya and law roach “katniss and cinna” like katniss’s fashionable moments weren’t occurring under tragic circumstances. these people are the capitol citizens and should be gatekept from them.

there is so much potential for the book though and im still very excited!

[knowei]

I just wanna say, as a society, I am so glad we have all hive-minded together and agreed that Katniss is native

[fourohfourlifenotfound]

Do non-Appalachians know just how much of Appalachia is baked into District 12? I feel like it was really highlighted in SOTR

It's not just coal mines and katniss and bee balm and ham hock soup-- all real world elements that easily identify District 12 being settled where modern day Appalachia is.

The mist that Lenore Dove and Haymitch talks about at the beginning (that can hide someone?) is a reference to the blue haze that appears often in the Appalachians, from terpenes released by the trees scattering light. That's how the "Smokey" Mountains and the "Blue" Ridge got their names.

The Covey's music, too. The Appalachians have a rich history of music, starting with musical traditions originating from immigrants from Northern England and the Scottish lowlands. There are a lot of ballads that descend from ballads they brought over. Banjos were brought to the region by African-American slaves, and fiddle tunes were brought from Ireland and Scotland. Appalachian music is one of the influences of country, bluegrass, and rock n roll.

And the depiction of District 12 in the Capitol is familiar to me, too. The idea of them as uneducated filthy beasts calls to mind the classist hillbilly stereotype that arose when the region fell behind the post-Civil war technological and social progress. The hillbilly stereotype was popularized when people from the Appalachians and the Ozarks left the mountains during the Great Depression and more people saw them in more urban settings. It's a stereotype that's still around today; I see it when "southerners" are grouped together and called stupid and uneducated for the louder conservatives and how gerrymandering keeps the election maps red.

Just some food for thought, I suppose

[commanderpelia]

If you have shitty opinions about Appalachia you legally aren’t allowed to consume or enjoy the Hunger Games I just made my ruling it’s official