#katniss’ mother

[3lectra-he4rt]

“Haymitch this and haymitch that and blah blah BLAH!” This is not ABOUT haymitch! Media propaganda and many controlled by few are the themes. Also, if i want more of anyone it’s Maysilee (Haysilee the og starcrossed lovers). ANDD everyone forgets Katniss’ mother’s involvement! She was best friends with Madge’s mother and Maysilee. I’d love to get to know her more

[littlemarianah]

One thing that makes me extremely emotional is how Peeta is the maker. He makes food with water and flour, he makes art with paint.

And Katniss mentions how she can't create, how she needs Cinna to pretend that she's designing clothes. She is fire, and fire destroys, or transforms.

She has the bow, and its use is to kill. Killing is what keeps her alive throughout her life, she kills to eat, she kills to survive, she kills to end the war.

After the war, she has children and she says how difficult it is to carry them. Getting pregnant, producing life, being the maker herself.

I just think it's beautiful that with love and healing she is finally able to create, to make. She continues to be the fire, but it uses its transformative potential , the same as transforming dough into bread, and not its destructive potential.

[madeofjules]

Katniss when Peeta is likely going to be killed:

Katniss after Prim dies:

She really is just like her mother.

[tellmelater]

in another life

[thebubblesoutlet]

And when the world needed her the most, SHE RETURNED!!

[trobeds]

i know the hunger games isnt about romance i know it isnt a love story but. theres just something so beautiful in the way peeta is the personification of what it means to heal and he /is/ the dandelion and the bread and the hope that things can be better even if they wont be fixed. even if the nightmares dont stop he will still hold her. wake her up and tell her shes alive. shes safe. and when its over and done and theres no more saving or protecting or trying their absolute hardest to die if it means keeping the other alive, the horrors dont stop. but katniss will still find that comfort in peetas arms.

[softchouli]

[caesarflickermans]

Do you have any opinions on Mrs. Everdeen as a character, and the parallels/similarities between her and Katniss? She is seriously overhated and isn't given enough credit.

Common readings state Katniss is like her father, and Prim is like her mother. While this is true for appearance and profession, Katniss shares her mother’s emotional nature.

When we first meet Katniss, much of her idea of love and marriage is shaped by the grief of her own mother over having lost Katniss’ father. Mrs. Everdeen is described to be in a “blank and unreachable” state (THG, 1). Katniss is scared of the consequences of love, that being grief, that she prefers death over returning alone to 12 (THG, 25). During the nightlock moment, she recognises that she will never go home, as she will spend “the rest of [her] life in this arena trying to think [her] way out�� (THG, 25). 

Katniss’ willingness to sacrifice herself for Peeta’s life is a continued theme throughout all three books. Her wish to keep Peeta alive in the 75th Hunger Games presupposes her own sacrifice (CF, 13), and it is because she needs Peeta to live (CF, 24). She hopes that if she were to die, Peeta could live (CF, 27). When Peeta returns hijacked, Katniss has “accept[ed] deep down that he’ll never come back to [her]. Or [she’ll] never go back to him. [She’ll] stay in 2 until it falls, go to the Capitol and kill Snow, and then die for [her] trouble” (MJ, 14).

Following the 74th arena, Katniss’ aspiration to mend the relationship with her mother can be understood as Katniss having recognised that her mother had not been “equipped to deal with [what happened to her]” (CF, 3). This recognition does not come out of nowhere; if we look at her willingness to sacrifice herself for the life of another, Katniss has gained an understanding for why her mother fell into the crushing depression following Mr. Everdeen’s death (CF, 3). For the first time within the series, the parallels between them are directly brought about, as Katniss, too, has experienced a similar grief at the thought of losing, and eventually assuming she had lost, Peeta.

It is pivotal to recognise that Mrs. Everdeen’s depression due to grief, the one that left her “blank and unreachable” (THG, 1), is mirrored in Katniss when she grieves Peeta. Katniss becomes unreachable herself, refuses to speak, drink, and eat (CF, 27). It is Peeta’s hijacking that has Katniss become lethargic, with nothing to say and incapable of crying (MJ, 13).

Her previous reason to survive, taking care of her family, has been overtaken in her grief, much like Mrs. Everdeen “sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones” (THG, 1), as Katniss only learns about her sister’s fate afterward (CF, 27).

While much can and has been said about Mrs. Everdeen’s depression directly impacts her two children, Katniss’ depression in her grief for Peeta expresses itself in a similar lethargy. It is only Peeta’s return that awakens Katniss from the negligence she has applied to her own life and body, no longer withering away (MJ, 27).

While we have had three books to learn the intricacies of Katniss and Peeta’s relationship as well as Peeta’s character to trace Katniss’ grief over Peeta, we know fairly little about Mrs. Everdeen before her grief, Mr. Everdeen’s character, and their relationship. Unfortunately, this leaves fans with fairly little on Mrs. Everdeen other than Katniss’ frustration and anger. As this abandonment defines her on the first few pages, and the understanding occurs much farther in and is less plainly stated, it is easy to be blinded to the parallels between mother and daughter.

[hbpseverus]

Eileen Prince is very interesting to me, I wish we knew more about her and her relationship with Severus, but also her past. I would like to think they had a good relationship but realistically it was most likely strained because of the abuse she/both of them faced at home, she was probably for the most part emotionally absent. And maybe in a way there's a parallel between her and Severus. What if she resented her son because she couldn't help but see her abuser in him (and she hated herself for feeling this way)? The same way Severus would later feel about Harry? What if he inherited his mother's anger

[littlemarianah]

tw: pain, childbirth.

When I was pregnant the first time, my mother told me something that I never forgot. She said that babies show you who they are while still in your belly.

I didn’t understand what she meant until my daughter arrived at the 37th week of pregnancy. Barely premature. In medical terms, she was ready to be born, but I, the person carrying her, was sure she wasn't ready yet. Willow decided she wanted come out and made my uterus contract and my hips widen to get her out. Even though I begged her to give up the idea.

“Don't be in a hurry, you can stay there as long as you want.” I remember whisper to my own belly, already having painful contractions. After complaining so much about how tired I was of being pregnant, I was afraid that her rush to be born was because of me. But I was wrong, she was just curious to go out, looking forward to her freedom. I tried to warn that the world was much colder and much scarier than she could imagine, but she was determined.

Her birth wasn’t as bad as I thought, in reality. It was quick and it was painful. But the pain never scared me. I closed my eyes and didn't fight with my own body. I let everything happen and just let my mother tell me what to do. I don’t remember if I screamed or cried or moaned... Because every time a contraction came I left my body and only came back when it was over.

When I opened my eyes his blue eyes were there. Looking at me scared, trying to make sure I was alive. He was the only thing that comforted me at that moment, the only thing that kept me standing. It was Peeta's arms that held me through that long winter night. I couldn't sit or lie down without crying in pain. Standing, with my body resting on his, was the least painful position I found to face the contractions.

It was as if we were dancing a waltz, but the music was just my screams. At the end, when the sun started to rise, I swore I could hear the sound of birds. They sounded exactly like my father whistling birdsong. I wanted to tell Peeta what I had heard, but I was always distracted by the overwhelming pain and my moans, my mother's words and Peeta's heavy breathing.

He was silent the entire time. I was grateful I didn’t had to hear words of encouragement that wouldn't help me or stutters of pity. He knew I was capable, he knew I could handle it. Sometimes I searched in his eyes for the trust he had in me, to remind myself that I was able to do it. And I always found what I was looking for.

When I felt her coming out I bent down on my knees and pushed. I could feel the top of her hairy head with my fingers. The pain was absurd and I thought I was going to die from the horrible sensation that filled me. I screamed, so deep and loud that it came out all at once. Her cry made me realized that I had never been so close to life since the day I was born, born from the woman who held Willow for me. My mother was the first person who picked her up.

My legs immediately stopped working. I fell into Peeta's arms and he placed me on our bed. In the same bed we had made Willow.

My mother brought me the little baby in my arms. She was so hot and the air was so cold that all I could do was hold her against me and cover her with a cloth so she wouldn't freeze. While I cried nonstop, so much so that I couldn't even welcome her.

It was Peeta who said it "Hi little girl” for me. As he stroked her hairy, bloody head.

Such a powerful cry for such a small girl, I thought. We were still one, united by a cord and soon it would have to be cut without me being ready. Separating us forever and leaving my baby alone in such a dark world.

[sanjarka]

i'm gonna start being mean. if you have enough understanding for katniss's depression then how are you calling katniss's mom selfish for her response to her husband's death. you do understand what catatonic depression is right? you understand that she didn't purposely abandon her children?

[thesweetnessofspring]

One thing I can't get over is that canonically, Katniss calls her mom "Mother" like some sort of repressed upper class Victorian child.

[casslcfrr]

ok but can we talk about how both katniss and snow have a dead father who was extremely important to them and how for katniss being similar to her father (more than to her mother or prim) symbolizes love and connection to her roots and how for snow it means embracing hate and cruelty. suzanne collins the woman you are

[bodega-catto]

The only character that I think truly deserves the title of “MOTHER” is Katniss Everdeen let’s be for real. Her kind, sacrificial nature. The braveness on each of her acts. The caring way in which she looks out for the weak. Her first response is always to caress instead of hurt. Yet she’ll bite the strongest when met with force.

[softchouli]

[flying-ham]

one of the greatest tragedies of the hunger games series is Mrs. Everdeen. She both begins and ends the series dealing with tremendous loss, and instead of holding on tighter to those that remain, she allows herself to succumb to the pain and loneliness of her own mind.

At the beginning of thg, katniss describes the depression her mother sunk into after the death of her father. She says that, "my mother was locked in some dark world of sadness, but at the time, all I knew was that I had lost not only a father, but a mother as well," (thg). Katniss struggles to reconcile the mother she currently has with the one she remembers from the age of 11. She cannot ever fully trust this woman again as, "I can see is the woman who sat by, blank and unreachable, while her children turned to skin and bones. I try to forgive her for my father’s sake. But to be honest, I’m not the forgiving type," (thg). Because Mrs. Everdeen could not cope with the loss of her husband, she very nearly lost her two daughters as well. Thus, Katniss and her mother's relationship became permanently altered, only really beginning to improve by catching fire and mockingjay.

Even as Katniss and her mother's relationship blossoms and improves, she still does not feel that she can fully share with and rely on her mother. In Mockingjay, Katniss tries to protect Prim and her mother, saying "It's automatic. Shutting Prim and my mother out of things to shield them," but quickly realizes even Prim can no longer fully rely on Mrs. Everdeen when she tells her, "'You could tell me, you know. I'm good at keeping secrets. Even from Mother,'" (mj). Even prim, sweet innocent prim who cries when Katniss cries, cannot fully rely on her own mother anymore.

By the end of Mockingjay, it is revealed that Mrs. Everdeen has left Haymitch to take care of Katniss back in District 12. Katniss quickly understands what this means as Haymitch explains, "'She's helping to start up a hospital in District Four. She wants you to call as soon as we get in.' My finger traces the graceful swoop of the letters. 'You know why she can't come back.' Yes, I know why. Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. But apparently not for me," (mj). Katniss acknowledges her mother's trauma, but also understands the hypocrisy of it, as Mrs. Everdeen ultimately lost two daughters in the bombing instead of one. She could not cope with the loss of prim, and so she gave up on Katniss as well, the same way she nearly lost the girls after Mr. Everdeen died.