What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

[Andreea]

The books prove that wrong, in the end.

Look at the Katniss before the Games, and at the Katniss after the rebelion. She was weaker than she had ever been in her entire life.

[Lani]

Well she was always strong and even in the end she still had the strength to survive. It made her stronger in a way that she was more resilient.

[Storm]

Also... Katniss clearly suffers PTSD.

[Ilana]

you also have to think back to the kidn of person that she was to begin with. yes she was already strong in the sense that she volunteered for her sister and then had to take a position of 'power' so to speak, but i think that she still had a ways to go and that's something that developed and was nurtured throughout the series.

[Kristen]

I don't think that's true at all.
After everything Katniss went through, it's pretty amazing that she is able to function at all. Let alone lead a fairly normal life.

If the events of the books had actually made her weaker, she wouldn't have given up her chance to kill Snow in favor of killing Coin. If she was weaker, she wouldn't have returned to her right mind at all after Prim was killed.
A person with PTSD, the way she does at the end of the book, isn't necessarily weak. It's an internal scar. External scars don't make you weaker. Why would internal scars be different? There's alot of other factors to consider.

Supposing the situation arose where Katniss was put in a similar situation as when she volunteered for Prim - say, defending her Children or Peeta - I'm pretty sure, she wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again.

I don't think the proverb is that far off actually. Sure, some people become bitter or give up in some way, but I think the majority of people who have had a truly hard situation, grow and become stronger as a result.

[AgCl]

katniss may have moped a lot and got so much more than a little bit crazy but that's normal human reaction when you're faced with something traumatic.

she's not weak, i think its a thousand times harder to make a choice, to go on with life after losing that someone/something, who is your very reason for living, than to decide to forfeit your life knowing you'd be saving that certain someone. At the end of the day its always harder for the ones left behind, than for those who've gone on.

Prim was Katniss' everything, so it was more or less a miracle that she held on to life. Well she did attempt suicide, but she recovered, though slowly and little by little. She didn't end up like those morphling junkies or even Haymitch. She was strong enough to be able to build a new life, a new family.

[[deleted user]]

Hey guys, i want to read this book so badly!

[Andreea]

Rachel wrote: "Hey guys, i want to read this book so badly!"

What stops you?

[Kristen]

AgCl wrote: "katniss may have moped a lot and got so much more than a little bit crazy but that's normal human reaction when you're faced with something traumatic.

she's not weak, i think its a thousand times..."


Technically, she attempted to kill herself, but it wasn't to escape her pain, it was because she believed that she'd be tortured and killed in retaliation for killing Coin. So I wouldn't even count that as a weakness.

[Izzy]

Well, I believe she was stronger when she was in the rebellion, and the only reason she was weak afterwards was because she almost died a lot, she had to kill a lot of people, and the one person she loved was just getting over the sickness that made him want to kill her...