#silka

So with the sotr movie coming out, the hunger games fandom is ofc popping off. And I just. I simply. Sometimes critical reading and media literacy feels like a lost art man. I saw a post that was complaining about how more people like Silka than Glimmer. That they're described super similarly and the only reason people don't like Glimmer is because of the Cato × Clove ship.

The reason we don't like Glimmer is because Katniss never humanizes her before she's dead. And when she does, it's a comparison of skill with a bow. We see Glimmer from a very nihilist perspective with Katniss. She doesn't let herself see the other tributes as people because it gets harder for her to kill them once they have personhood. We see that first hand in Catching Fire. Once Katniss realizes how good all the other victors are, how kind they are, it becomes much harder for her to visualize herself killing them.

Haymitch, on the other hand, views everyone with intense amounts of personhood. A good chunk of his narrative is focused on the perception of district kids as animals. And how hard he fights to be viewed as more than that, viewed as a person. We see Silka as more than just an opponent. She's another kid. And the scene of the three of them (Haymitch, Wellie, and Silka) all huddled at night with Silka crying below them is a very charismatic moment for her. We see humanity. We see her crying, out of stress or dispair or whatever. She is showing emotion. The most we ever got from Glimmer was her taunting Katniss.

But we see Silka cry. We see Haymitch drop a few chocolates down to her. And in that moment of Haymitch seeing her as human, we see her as human too. That's why people like Silka more. Glimmer was an antagonist that was full of herself and riddled with mistakes (she's also a kid, but like. From Katniss's perspective). Silka is a girl crying under a tree who is alone and could use a piece of chocolate.

this is my silka sharpe, and you will catch me sobbing if they cast her wrong

reblog to manifest 🙏