#katniss everdeen meta
acknowledging that mrs. everdeen fell into a catatonic depression after her husband died that complete incapacitated her can coexist with complete condemnation of her leaving her children to fend for themselves. i’m really freaking sickof the “she could have done something/ she could have tried harder” argument because that’s not how it works. at least not entirely. you are completely responsible for her actions, mental illness or not, but it is still an illness. the woman was sick. would you say the same thing of katniss when peeta is captured by the capitol? when she straight up tries to kill herself by self starvation? when she’s living in that house and doing nothing for months? no, you don’t.
katniss and her mother are mirrors of each other. when they both lose the one they love they completely fall apart. but mrs. everdeen’s choice of taking her medications and forcing herself to keep going (even though it takes a while) is completely ignored while katniss’ choice to keep going is celebrated.
an illness is an illness and both katniss and her mother have undergone severe trauma. it isn’t suddenly easier just because mrs. everdeen is an adult. trauma, ptsd, depression doesn’t discriminate. i completely understand katniss’ anger, and i have a post hereabout attachment theory in regards to her and her mother. it’s not fair that she had to provide for her family. but they live in a world where nothing is fair, where their lives are not fair, where they cannot get help for both sickness and starvation.
the point is that both of them are incapacitated, both of them suffer, and yet both of them make the choice to live. katniss doesn’t see that from her mother because she herself hasn’t experienced it yet. mental illness isn’t just feeling bad, it completely takes over your mind, your body, your life. you see nothing else. and for both of them to pull themselves out of that darkness, that’s full of so much bravery and hope. one of their choices isn’t better than the other. have y’all considered that mrs. everdeen’s taking of medication is her doing something? is her “trying harder?” just like katniss’ choice to live, as much as she doesn’t want to. that is her “doing something” and her “trying harder”.
both of them suffer. both of them become sick. both of them survive. that’s the whole point.
katniss everdeen is a literal minor who has been living in starvation her entire life and only her defense mechanism, her only feeling of actually autonomy is to close off and hide her emotions because she’s never had control of anything else. that’s not being a cold bitch. that’s literally a trauma response.
katniss and “where peeta’s children can be safe” is so wonderful because she stayed with him through the games, through the quell, through his hijacking and the psychological suffering that followed, stayed with him for twenty years into the epilogue. she loves and loved him that much for not only his children being safe became a reality, but also her children being safe. she lets herself have this wish. she lets herself accept what she wants. she finally feels safe enough in the world to carry children inside of her, to birth them, to watch them grow. her greatest desire is fulfilled and is expanded. finally, a world where their children can be safe. always.
part of the reason why i resonate so deeply to katniss figuring out her relationship with her mother is that she’s still a kid.
our parents are our firsts. first understanding of the world. first look of people. our first reference point. katniss mirrors her mother in a lot of ways, and she runs from that mirroring throughout the course of the story, often anchoring herself to her father because 1. love and 2. the mind makes a perfect image out of anything.
she wants stability, she deservesit, and she didn’t get that as a child with her mother. it personally just baffles me at times how the possibilities of their narrative (mainly from what i’ve seen in fandom at least) just stops at mrs. everdeen (frankly) screwing up in her choices and actions as a mother and “that’s it no more chances!”
katniss needs peeta. she needsfamily. to make her own. but not at the expense of letting the only one she, biologically speaking, has just fade into nothing. i don’t think that’s in her character at all. not for the long haul.
added thought: the way that we are never given mrs. everdeen’s first name. she’s either motherormrs. everdeen. often times that’s used as a way of stripping characters of their identity and agency. (daphne du maurier does this in her book rebecca, we never know the narrator’s first name nor does anyone address her by it).
in katniss’ mind (given she is the narrator) the box she has put her mother into is that of, frankly, being a bit of a burden. she flat out says she doesn’t care that her mother didn’t have medicine before when she got sick. granted this is a part of her anger and hurt, but it’s still interesting. it’s a way of distancing herself, a form of conditional proximity.
