#rip Azure Barb i love angst and despair so you will always be a lesbian. to me

[she-took-the-heartland]

There are two very different but tangentially connected topics I've been thinking about: Covey lineage and homophobia in District 12.

We learn in TBoSaS that there are six remaining Covey members. There are three Baird cousins: Lucy Gray, Maude Ivory, and Barb Azure. There are two Clade brothers: Billy Taupe and Clerk Carmine. And there is the adopted Tam Amber.

Lenore Dove is confirmed to be a Baird whose mother died in chilbirth. When Haymitch finds the Covey graveyard, Lenore Dove's grave is next to Lucy Gray's and Maude Ivory's. This seems to imply Maude Ivory was Lenore Dove's mother.

"Clerk Carmine and her other uncle, Tam Amber, have raised her since her ma died in childbirth, seeing her pa's always been something of a mystery. They're not blood kin, her being a Baird, but the Covey look out for their own."

-SotR, pg. 8

From SotR pg 371 and 372

Since TBoSaS was released, it's been speculated that Katniss was descended from the Covey. So it isn't at all surprising to find that Burdock was also a Baird. Given that Lucy Gray is long missing/dead, and Maude Ivory is likely Lenore Dove's decesed mother, that leaves Barb Azure to be Burdock's mother.

"She [Lenore Dove] wasn't one of Burdock's Everdeen cousins, but I knew she had some distant ones on his ma's side."

-SotR, pg. 7

I remembered that in TBoSaS, Barb Azure is mentioned to have been dating another woman.

""She [Barb Azure] just started seeing a gal down the road," confided Lucy Gray when they were out of earshot of the house. "Probably glad to have the place to themselves for the day.""

-TBoSaS, pg. 430

This got me thinking more about homophobia in Panem, and I gathered as many references to queer relationships as I could find throughout the series.

In TBoSaS, we have the Barb Azure wlw reference which seemed to be socially acceptable in that time. Also in TBoSas, Coriolanus brings up a gay couple from the Capitol and does not express their relationship to be taboo:

"They had come to see Pluribus Bell, an aging man with lemon-tinted spectacles and a white powdered wig that fell to his waist. He and his partner, Cyrus, a musician, owned the shattered club and now made do by trafficking goods from its back alley."

-TBoSaS, pg. 32

It seems likely in the early history of the Panem, homophobia was not an issue in the Capitol or the Districts.

However, a few quotes from Katniss in Catching Fire and Haymitch in SotR lead me to believe at some point, homophobia was used to control District citizens specifically.

"That's when she revealed that he'd [Clerk Carmine] been together some thirty years with the fellow in town who replaces busted windows. They have to keep it quiet because loving differently can get you harassed by the Peacekeepers, fired from jobs, arrested even."

-SotR, pg. 13

By the 20th hunger games, 10 years after Barb Azure was seemingly openly dating a woman, Clerk Carmine had to keep his relationship with a man secret.

But there's no evidence that Capitol citizens are punished for same-gender relationships. It's hardly mentioned in the original trilogy, but it is implied that when Finnick was forced into prostitution with rich people from the Capitol, it wasn't just women who were paying for him.

"But ever since he [Finnick Odair] turned sixteen, he's spent his time at the Games being dogged by those desperately in love with him. No one retains his favor for long. He can go through four or five in his annual visit. Old or young, lovely or plain, rich or very rich, he'll keep them company and take their extravagant gifts..."

-Catching Fire, pg. 209

It's sad, but I think Suzanne Collins added these details to show that restricting the freedom to love who you want is another way of controlling the Districts. They are given freedom to choose who they want to marry... as long as that person is someone they can reproduce with to make more children for the hunger games.

Perhaps Barb Azure was bi, or more tragically, perhaps she was forced to assimilate, to marry an Everdeen man and have children. She always seemed to be the Covey member most tied to duty and responsibility.