In honor of the release of the most recent Hunger Games movie, we wanted to take a dive back into the 2010s and review some of the most famous heroes from the entirety of the series.

Katniss

For the most part, I enjoyed watching the character of Katniss on the screen. Her strong and confident persona was admirable for little girls to read or watch. One of my favorite parts about her relationship with Peeta is the fact that Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games series, swapped the stereotypical gender roles. Instead of the female protagonist being perceived as weaker and the male protagonist being perceived as “the fighter,” Collins made their personas the opposite.

Katniss manages to become a catalyst for her movement and is perceived as the symbol of the resistance. The female protagonist being such an influence in the politics of Panem is a great future even for a dystopian society. She also just has raw talent. She genuinely had the skill and passion to persevere through the games and go on to win them as well.

Peeta

A friend of mine told me that Peeta was essentially useless in the story and “was holding Katniss back.” I have to disagree with this statement. Although Peeta was not necessarily perceived as “a fighter,” he knew how to play the game and gave the audiences the entertainment they wanted. This managed to keep not only himself but also Katniss alive. No matter how much of a fighter the character of Katniss is, she did not know how to appeal to the people of the Capital.

Peeta can best be described as a short king. Even though he does not have much height, he still manages to capture the audience with his other qualities. He is quite the looker and as a huge Josh Hutcherson fan, I have truly embraced the character and I think, as readers, you should as well. It was a bit interesting that he did the whole face painting during the first games to blend in with nature. Honestly, I don’t know how he managed that because it was some beautiful art and blending work. If he was not in a dystopian world he could have become the next beauty guru. The bread boy added a lot of depth and made a great love interest for the story as he was not the stereotypical hero. 

Finnick

My my my… what a beautiful man. Of course, he does have qualities other than his looks, but it is a defining aspect of his character. He is kind, sweet, and strong and his love story with Annie Cresta, one of the former winners of the Hunger Games, is adorable. He just provides a great character in the story that aids Katniss in her journey in the quarter quell and the takeover of the government. It’s interesting to note that Suzanne Collins was not going to kill him off originally, but she decided it was a better ending for him. I believe that Finnick did not deserve this and should have lived, but he did die heroically and became a larger influence in Katniss’s passion to destroy Snow.

Gale (fail)

I have words to describe this character, and they are not pretty. I found him to be a constant nuisance and more useless than Prim’s cat. The books display him to be more caring and friendly, however, the movies do not leave room for audiences to feel much sympathy for him. He just seemed to be placed into the story to spice up the romantic drama for younger readers/watchers. By the end of the series in the Mockingjay movies (or Mockingslay, as I like to call it), Gale played a more important role in the development of the story. With Peeta captured by the Capital, Katniss spends more time with her “best friend”. In addition, Gale becomes a prominent figure in the rebellion army and plays a role in the death of Primrose Everdeen, Katniss’ sister. After her sister dies, Katniss finally cuts off Gale from her life (as she should’ve long ago). Unfortunately, Gale never gets a redemption arc and instead ends up going down the path of hate.

🚨SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD🚨

Snow

I did not expect to walk out of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes feeling sympathy for the infamous villain of President Snow, but alas I did. I suppose the point of expressing Snow’s story was to gain some understanding from the audience. Let me just say…Tom Blyth and Suzanne Collins did this perfectly. The slow descent of the character into the power-hungry president that is depicted in the original films was expertly displayed through Tom Blyth’s emotional acting range. Specifically, there is a scene in the woods of District 12 that encapsulates just who he becomes. After running from the District with Lucy Gray, he inadvertently confesses that he has killed multiple people. This confession terrifies Lucy Gray and causes her to run away from him. In a fit of anger, Snow lashes out and tries to find and harm her. Throughout the movie, Snow slowly begins to lose pieces of himself in a search for respect and power. It is not until one of the final scenes in the movie that audiences truly see that the “Coryo” everyone knew and loved was gone and in his place stood President Snow. 

Walking into the theaters I was expecting a hot character, but I was still thinking that I would dislike Snow. This was not the case. I REALLY tried to dislike him, but I knew that after the first scene of young and starving Snow and Tigris, I realized that I wasn’t leaving the movie theater with anything but an obsession for that man. I will also say that the buzz cut made the whole going crazy thing a bit hard to go against. I mean he is just too hot to hate. Also, I think it is interesting to note that he is a Taylor Swift fan as, in the movie, he accidentally confesses that he killed three people. To save his relationship with Lucy Gray, he decides that the best way to cover up his slip-up is to state that the third person he killed was his old self. Now, if you aren’t a T-Swift fan then you probably don’t know this, but one of her lyrics in the song “Look What You Made Me Do,” is “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now/Why? Oh, ’cause she’s dead.” I honestly just find this whole part funny because his lie wasn’t even close to being convincing for Lucy Gray and was probably a large aspect of why she ran away in the first place. 

Lucy Gray Baird

Walking out of the theater, I did not like this character. I felt that she acted irrationally at the end of the movie when she left Snow in the cabin and such action was the main trigger for his character to descend into madness. Since my viewing of the movie, I have adjusted my opinion of her character. While I am still of the belief that some of her actions were pointless and borderline annoying, I have begun to favor the character more. Oddly enough, two of the character’s best scenes, in my opinion, involve snakes. The first scene is, of course, her revenge against the mayor’s daughter, Mayfair, on live television when she slips the snake down Mayfair’s dress. Almost as iconic as Katniss shooting an arrow at ‘the apple’! My second favorite scene of Lucy Gray Baird’s would be her victory in the games when she is singing while snakes surround her body. This scene reminds me of another movie, yet I am unable to pinpoint which. Nevertheless, it is still a really powerful and emotional scene that is emphasized through Rachel Zegler’s incredibly talented singing.

I like how they added a bit more musicality to this book and movie. I feel as though the casting of Rachel Zegler was a great idea and her accent was supposedly accurate for the location of District 12, as it is in the Appalachian territory. It was hard for some to get over the strong accent, but I thought it added to the story and accuracy. Her singing was phenomenal and I think it developed her character. I think that her faith in Snow honestly comes from the whole traumatic experience of the Hunger Games and maybe her realization of how she didn’t know who he was. This was a catalyst for her escape from him. Although Milla does make a point about how she shouldn’t have run, I think that it makes sense because after he couldn’t find her near the lake, he started chasing her with a gun and shooting at her. So her choice was pretty justified in my opinion. 

If you guys haven’t seen any of the Hunger Games movies then I have to recommend you drop whatever you are doing and go binge them. They are worth the countless hours I have spent in my life watching them. Unfortunately, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes would have already left theaters by the time this article comes out, but it is worth catching a virus on your computer while pirating the film.