Author's note: Although I intend Caesar's articles to comprise a series, I will post each piece as a one-shot rather than as a multi-chapter story. I'm not sure if I can keep the series going, but if I do come up with individual pieces for other characters (because there are several unsung heroes one can write about), I would want each one to stand on its own. Anyway, I hope you find pleasure in reading this!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.
We Remember: The Other Everdeen Girl
A series of vignettes for the unsung heroes of Panem.
by Caesar Flickerman -TV host. Model. Fashion critic. Writer extraordinaire.
These days, Everdeen is synonymous to the Rebellion, the Mockingjay, the Girl on Fire, the 74th Hunger Games. It's a name forever etched in our history books. Forever conjugated to Mellark. Or probably even Hawthorne, if you knew District Twelve well enough (but that's for another article).
It wasn't always.
There was a time it didn't even mean anything. In fact, it was often misspelled as "Evergreen" or "Everdene." Of course no one misspells it anymore, much to the ire of the real Evergreens and Everdenes who probably get tired of being mistaken for Everdeens. Then again, where's the harm in that? The Everdeen name is an honorable one.
But one must remember, the Everdeen whose face and spirit fuelled the Rebellion was not the only bearer of this name. Deep in the dark, dusty Seam sector of District Twelve, among its dark miner citizens, once lived a Primrose. With her blonde hair and blue eyes -a rarity in that part of the District- she was a bright little thing that lived up to her name. Indeed, she looked drastically different from her dark-haired, gray-eyed sister.
Panem first heard of Primrose Everdeen when at only twelve years of age, she was reaped for the 74th Hunger Games. Luckily, her fiercely protective elder sister Katniss volunteered for her, thus saving her life and launching Katniss' life-long relationship with the public. Since then, the younger Everdeen daughter had remained a good distance away from the limelight. Katniss had "[stolen] all the glory," as District Twelve's Hunger Games escort Effie Trinket once put it.
Due to her being spared from the Games, her role in the Rebellion is often overlooked, even dismissed. But what most people don't realize is that although Primrose, or Prim, failed to participate in the Games, it was the mere act of her being reaped, her almost-participation, that lit the first, albeit small, spark that eventually kindled a full-blown revolution.
When I first met sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen in the 74th Hunger Games' pre-Games tribute interviews, I didn't know what to make of her. Tributes often come with distinct personalities, enough to make them stand out to the audience and hopefully snag sponsors. However, in the case of Miss Everdeen, I found her as readable as a blank sheet of pleasantly scented paper. She looked stunning of course, with due credit to her undoubtedly talented stylist Cinna -who by the way is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the absolute best stylist ever in the Games (but that's for another article)- but she was beautifully and artfully masked. She was so painfully guarded that I, as her interviewer, put it upon myself to draw her away from her shell and introduce her to Panem.
The girl I drew out that day was unlike any I had ever seen.
Beneath the sparkly, fiery get-up and outrageously sweaty palms (my, was she nervous!), a deep, fierce smolder was brewing. She held back a lot of things, swerved a lot of questions, but there was one thing that she couldn't deny: her devotion to her little sister Prim.
In the course of the interview, I recalled to everyone the circumstances of her reaping, how she volunteered to spare her sister, and asked her to tell us a bit about that special little girl.
It was then that I saw, for the first time that night, a flicker of something in her eyes. Of life, of fire, or of sadness, I cannot tell for certain. But at the time, it was...incredibly moving.
Over the years, I've learned that it's the eyes that speak what lips or actions cannot. And in that moment, I bore witness to the breaking of her mask and found the chink in her armor, so to speak.
"She's just twelve. And I love her more than anything," she said.
And the whole of Panem held on to her every word as she swore to win for her sister.
Despite coming from one of the poorer Districts, she stood out, shone like a Career tribute-earning the highest training score in Hunger Games history, forging an alliance with District Eleven's little Rue (who at the time was the same age as her sister), shooting with the perfect aim of a trained archer, destroying the Careers' food supply to level out the playing field, saving Peeta Mellark.
In the name of Primrose Everdeen, Katniss entered the arena and fought to survive. Even if it meant breaking all the rules.
In a moment immortalized in several works of art, Katniss procures a handful of poisonous nightlock berries and offers them to her lover Peeta in an attempt at double suicide, as if to challenge the Capitol.
And so it came to pass that against all rules, there were two victors that year.
It was a simple but symbolic act considered by many to be the first real and demonstrative act of rebellion against the Capitol. In fact, it inspired several other acts of rebellion primarily at the District level and eventually fueled uprisings.
So you see, the reaping of Primrose Everdeen set in motion a series of events which eventually gave rise to the success of the Rebellion. She had as much role in it as her famous (or infamous?) sister.
But what was it in little Prim that was so overwhelmingly powerful that it had the strength to rally a revolution?
Most people who knew her would say it was her compassion. Others would attribute it to her purity of heart. But there are others still that would vouch for her innocence. I think, therefore, that we can all agree that it was her inherent, incorruptible goodness that helped save us all.
The next we saw of little Prim since the Reaping was during the Final Eight tribute pieces created in order to better know the eight remaining tributes in the Games. In this segment of the Games, camera crews and journalists are dispatched to the remaining tributes' home Districts to interview their families, friends, and where applicable, significant others.
She was presented as the sweet, young girl who looked up to her older sister with much love and admiration. That was the first time we had heard her, the first time we were allowed to really see her. In mere minutes, she accomplished something it took her sister weeks to do: she had charmed a nation.
According to first hand accounts, when the TV crew arrived at the Everdeen home, little Prim was tending to a badly wounded mockingjay. Both wings were injured, bald patches abound on its body, and most Seam residents had even pronounced it dying, if it wasn't dead already. It was in such a bad condition that the everyone in the crew thought the effort was futile and such a waste.
But Prim proved them all wrong. In around three days' time, just as the TV crew was leaving, they managed to capture on tape the release of the mockingjay back into the wild. Thus we have that iconic video clip first seen in the Final Eight tribute piece for Katniss, the same one that was subsequently used in several other propos and documentaries.
Even at the tender age of thirteen, Prim had showed immense potential as a healer. This is most likely due to the influence of her mother, who was the only healer living in the Seam sector of District Twelve. In fact, when the Everdeen family lived in District Thirteen during the Rebellion, it was reported that Prim was in training to be a doctor -a promising career that unfortunately would be cut short by tragic circumstances.
The day the Capitol fell, she was on site. Many wondered how an underaged trainee was cleared to serve in the frontlines, especially without the knowledge of her mother. Sadly, this is just one of thousands of questions left unanswered by the short-lived Coin administration.
In a nationally televised event, we witnessed how the Capitol children were lulled into then-President Snow's mansion under the guise of protection and immunity, only to be massacred by Capitol hovercrafts bearing silver-parachuted bombs. Later, we would learn that these Capitol hovercrafts were actually under the control of the rebels. Immediately rushing to the children's aid were Peacekeepers and medical personnel from Thirteen, a team which included Primrose Everdeen herself. However, the bombing had only just began. With the real targets -the Peacekeepers- locked in place, the second wave of fire bombs were delivered. Everyone, may it be Capitol citizen or District rebel, within a twenty yard radius was devoured in flames. Few lived to tell the tale, but even fewer lived without lasting physical defects. Famous survivors include Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark.
In an ironic twist of fate, Primrose Everdeen died engulfed in flames -a Girl on Fire like her sister, but unfortunately not as lucky.
She was thirteen.
Some say her tragic demise was fate waiting to happen. Out of the thousands of slips in that glass bowl, how come it was her first and only entry that was drawn at the Reaping? The odds were certainly not in her favor. She cheated Death once when she was spared from the Games, and so Death came back a year later to claim her.
Nevertheless, her sacrifice will not be forgotten. Let her life stand as inspiration for everyone, that despite the dark nature of the human soul, there is place for goodness.
In celebration of our first quarter century of freedom from Capitol oppression, let us all take a moment to remember that there was once a young girl, so good and brave and selfless.
A girl named Primrose, the other Everdeen girl.