lenore dove’s soul

She is not this manic, dream pixie girl. Her character very much shaped, flawed and real. Haymitch is able to oversee and ignore her “flaws” because he’s a 16 year old teenage boy who is madly in love with her, but it is not hard for us readers, to look between those lines and see how fleshed her character really is.

She is seen to act before thinking, making rash decisions which aren’t the best for her wellbeing. She is way too emotional, feels too many feelings and has too many thoughts and she doesn’t know how to articulate them into words because she’s an introvert and she fears her words being lost in translation.

She only reveals her unfiltered, (sometimes) dark thoughts to her loved ones, and often enough she does it by using metaphors so she can still backtrack incase she gets misunderstood because she still feels like her thoughts could be a burden to the people around her.

She is not a “Lucy Gray Rip-Off”.

Lucy Gray was a born performer. She loved to be on stage, she loved performing for her people and knew how to get the crowd on her side, how to keep them entertained.

Lenore Dove doesn’t sing in front of people. It makes her uncomfortable. She’s not a “Born Performer” nor does she know how to control a crowd, at least not in the way Lucy Gray did.

She’s a rebel. She’ll only use her voice when she realizes she absolutely HAS to. She’ll use it when she’s mad, and sad, and in despair.

She’ll go against the rules at any given time, especially when it comes to protecting her loved ones. She doesn’t realize nor care about any consequences at the time, she only acts because she’s in pain and wants to avenge her people.

She’s a sixteen year old girl who dreamt big in a world where dreaming was a luxury and not something many people can afford.

In spite of her dark, burdened thoughts, she had still kept her innocence and was able to dream of a world without the reaping, she had hopes that one day that dream could become a reality, no matter how crazy it sounded to others.

Lenore Dove loved life, and she loved her people. Her rebellion was emotionally driven because she couldn’t stand watching them suffer. She wanted change and dared to hope for a better future because she refused to accept that the world she knew was all her people would ever have.

“And that’s part of our trouble. Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible.”

“But Lenore Dove’s convinced there must be people outside of Panem, far to the north.”

Just like Lenore Dove, Sejanus spends the majority of the book wishing for a better world. He was desperately trying to find a way to help the Districts, and that is ultimately what Snow uses against him in the end, and what caused his demise.

“They say there are people in the north, but even if there aren’t, there’s no Capitol.” Sejanus told him. “And that’s the main thing for me, isn’t it? living in a place where they can’t control my life.”

They both want to be free, to live a life where they and their people aren’t being controlled, and where the Capitol no longer exists. This is precisely why they want to believe there are people out there, far beyond the Capitol’s reach. They want to believe that freedom is possible, that it is within reach, and that their lives will not be spent in vain.

They both act on impulse, guided by their feelings and their hurt. For Sejanus, that despair leads him into the arena, convinced he has no other way to help, and so he chooses death as his final act of protest.

“Coriolanus pressed him. “That’s it? That’s your only choice?”“It’s the only way I might possibly make a statement. Let the world see me die in protest,” Sejanus concluded.”

Lenore Dove reacts similarly when her boy gets a one in training. She’s overcome by the desperation and the fear of losing him, and her instinct drives her to sing those forbidden songs in front of the Justice Building, not only as an act of defiance, but also an attempt to follow him to what she thinks will be his death.

“You? It’s entirely my fault you’re there! And I know I’m why you got that score. I as good as killed you, and that’s not something I can live with.” And so she’s doing what she can to get herself killed? Now I’m mad.”

They both understood the power of words and used them to move people, weaponizing the Capitol’s own empty promises and propaganda into quiet acts of defiance.

“NO CAPITOL, NO HANGING TREE! It’s a rebel play on the Capitol’s propaganda. NO CAPITOL, NO REAPING! Tucked away in this alley, a rallying cry beyond the Peacekeepers’ radar. This is Lenore Dove’s work. Her sign. Her message to me now. Her reminder that I must prevent another sunrise on the reaping.”

“And now that the war’s over, they’re just citizens of Panem, aren’t they? Same as us? Isn’t that what the anthem says the Capitol does? ‘You give us light. You reunite’? It’s supposed to be everyone’s government, right?”

Their difference lies in the way the narrators view them. While Lenore Dove’s words directly influence Haymitch to keep going and to find a way to stop the reaping, Sejanus’s words unsettle Coriolanus. He is so far beyond feeling any sense of empathy that he cannot relate to his despair, and instead sees him as foolish and naive.

They have similar beliefs, both believing that it’s up to humans to reject the Capitol ideals. The world doesn’t have to be terrifying; cruelty is a choice, and so is compassion.

“Because the world doesn’t have to be so terrifying. That’s on people, not the world.”

“Who wants to watch a group of children kill each other? Only a vicious, twisted person. Human beings may not be perfect, but we’re better than that.”

“Lenore Dove explained to me once that the common was land anyone could use. Sometimes the Peacekeepers chase her and the geese off the Meadow for no reason. She says that’s just a teaspoon of trouble in a river of wrong.”

“You’ve no right to starve people, to punish them for no reason. No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they’re not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn’t give you that right. Having more weapons doesn’t give you that right. Being from the Capitol doesn’t give you that right. Nothing does.”

Lenore Dove’s love for gumdrops served as an important reminder of her childlike innocence, of the fact that even after everything, she was only a child whose life was cut short so abruptly.

Snow decides to take her life with something he himself had associated with innocence and hope, with something familiar.

she was clerk carmine’s and tam amber’s baby; they watched her grow up, and they did everything in their power to try and protect her from everything cruel in their world.

"I think about the bits of color Lenore Dove adds to her wardrobe, the bright blue, yellow, and pink. Are they scraps from this girl's dress? A way to keep her alive?”

she’s raised in a world that was actively trying to erase her family from the narrative by banning their songs and dulling their colors—she’s the very last baird, carrying maude ivory’s soul, lucy gray’s voice, and barb azure’s fire in her.

she’s the very last songbird. the coveys last remaining voice.

she’s trying to keep her voice loud enough to be heard, while simultaneously trying to hold onto the family she’s lost; the echoes and the voices of her people—the ones that she’s been chasing after her whole life.

she’s a mosaic of the covey.

she carries the blood of a baird, was raised by clerk carmine and tam amber, and chooses the tune-box as her preferred instrument; a nod to clerk carmine’s brother, billy taupe.

she carries the very best of all of them in her, growing up learning new stories of the family she wished to have met, and uses the rage fueled by losing them in her fight for a better future.

when she dies, the covey “die” with her.

their very last songbird is gone, and by katniss’ period of time, there’s no mention of the covey—it’s safe to assume they aren’t performing anymore.

their voices have been silenced, yet the haunting echoes of their—now forbidden—songs still roam around, waiting for the time they’ll be sung again.

until katniss comes along.

covey runs in her blood, and her pa made sure to raise her with those very same songs and ideals his family had taught him, too.

the covey end up haunting the narrative for the complete trilogy through katniss and everything she represents.

she’s the one who got to stop the sun from rising on the reaping, the one who managed to become the songbird—the mockingjay, and the voice of all her people.

she finishes what the covey started.

lenore dove, also condemns haymitch to live—to find a way to stop the sun from rising on another reaping—which becomes one of the main reasons that haymitch stays in the old therebefore.

he made a promise to stay, and its through that promise that he manages to find his way back to his family—katniss and peeta—and together, they all lend a hand in the revolution’s success.

clerk carmine, the very last remaining covey, also gets to see snow’s reign fall, just like his niece would’ve wanted.

i wish he got to reconcile with haymitch after the war, and they got to share their sweet memories about lenore dove.

she grew up under an oppressive government—one which actively tried to erase her own people—she had every damn right to react the way she did.

she wasn’t doing “too much”, nor was she doing something that wasn’t to be expected, if you knew anything about they covey and the way they raised their children.

she was raised with values, she was raised looking to find colors in a world that remained dull for her and her people.

she grew up knowing of a past that she so desperately wanted to live, of relatives that were taken away from her before she ever got to meet them. she was constantly living in their shadows, chasing their ghosts and trying so hard to catch up to them but to no avail.

she had so much pent up anger and anguish because of the system, for the way her district and her people were being treated, and she often cried when her thoughts got too loud.

she wasn’t perfect—no one in the series is.

it’s why we love suzanne’s main characters so much, because we can relate to them, because they’re human and their flaws are real and not something you can’t see reflected upon yourself.

lenore dove often used her heart over her head.

she acted based on her feelings, she wasn’t calculative. she would jump head first in order to save her people and she WOULD do anything in her power to help whoever needed it.

she was a small child setting fire to the panem flag and cutting off the rope used in the gallows—both instances would’ve had SERIOUS repercussions if she were to get found out.

but she didn’t really seem to weight the danger like that. all she had in her mind was to make a change and buy some time for her people.

she wasn’t a breadwinner like katniss or gale, she had no one depending on her for their livelihood, which made it easier for her to act the way she did. because she knew, if she were to get caught, she wouldn’t leave any people behind who desperately counted on her.

which is why she lashes out when haymitch gets reaped and gets a one as a score.

she’s a teenager experiencing love for the very first time, with haymitch falling as hard as she did—from what we know, they used to spend countless of hours together, and were constantly trying to find free time in order to be around each other.

so when she realizes that her person is doomed? she wants to doom herself too.

she wants to do anything in order to condemn the capitol for what they did, for taking so many children away from their families and cutting their lives short for their own entertainment, for taking her boy away from her, for giving him an awful score making his odds worse.

she used her heart and her feelings to act. she wasn’t thinking anything other than the fact that her boy is doomed and that she has to do something about it, anything.

she’d do whatever she could to ensure a change could be seen somewhere in their horizon.

she ended up condemning haymitch to life at her dying moments—the very same boy she swore she’d follow to the grave.

all because she wanted him to live to see the world without a reaping that she so desperately pictured every night.

and no, she might not be the symbol of the rebellion—but having so much willpower to fight back in such circumstances and at HER age does make her contribution to the rebellion crucial to the series.

she didn’t have enough time with us, she didn’t have enough time to show us what more she could’ve done for the rebellion and how she could’ve developed through it.

but if she had lived and grew up next to haymitch’s side, then everything would be different.

the MAJORITY of the series would’ve gone differently.

they were two children growing up in a terrifying world, one that only knew how to take from them.

but they found hope and comfort in each other’s arms, and they could’ve made a home if they were given more time (first love being THE one is a pattern we often see in thg universe.)

he wanted to experience everything right by her side, he had been dreaming of marrying her and starting a family with her. he wanted a home filled with music, laughter, and love.

their home would’ve been their safe place, and nothing would’ve mattered to either of them as long as they got to be by each other’s side.

that very same dream was harshly taken away from him the moment he won.

snow took away everything haymitch fought for in the arena—his family and his girl. the people haymitch needed the most after he won, the only people who could’ve helped him deal with the trauma that was inflicted on him.

and he wanted to follow them. he didn’t think he could live without them.

but lenore dove made him promise before she left.

she made him promise to stay, to not follow her and his family—not yet, it hadn’t been his time.

she made him promise to not give up, to fight for his and their peoples’ freedom. she wanted him to get to experience the sun rising without a reaping, because he deserved it.

and he did. haymitch finds peace at the end of the book with his found-family.

the little girl burdie left behind to take care of him, and the sweet, gentle baker boy—the two people who understood him better than anyone else.

he tells them about his girl, tells them about everything he’s kept inside for years, and they help him find peace.

haymitch and everlark spend the rest of their lives taking care of each other, and living life honoring the people they’ve lost.

haymitch feels familial love, peace and safety for the last years of his life. he now knows that the moment he’s ready, he’s going to be reunited with all the people he’s missed. all the people he’s ever loved.

they’re all so incredibly proud of him and they’re waiting patiently for the moment they’ll get to wrap their arms around him and hold him close.

lenore dove has never left his side. the capitol could never take her away from him, and haymitch knows that. she lives in him, through values, through hope and through the bright sun rising on his birthday without a reaping.