The Hunger Games Trilogy and Fanfiction Narrative Practices

by

Chrysoula Valentini Markezini

A Thesis

Submitted to the School of English of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece,

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in English and American Studies

Supervisor Dr. Tatiani Rapatzikou

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

July 2021

The Hunger Games Trilogy and Fanfiction Narrative Practices

by

Chrysoula Valentini Markezini

Has Been Approved

July 2021

APPROVED:

Supervisor: Dr. Tatiani Rapatzikou, School of English AUTh

Examiner: Dr. Domna Pastourmatzi, School of English AUTh

Examiner: Dr. Zoe Detsi, School of English AUTh

To my parents,

Who were there at every step of the way…

Fig. 0.1. The Evolution of the Mockingjay, as depicted on the book covers of the trilogy, art and design by Tim

O'Brien and Elizabeth Parisi. Logo taken from www.thehungergames.co.uk/downloads/ provided by Scholastic

Ltd.

Markezini i

ABSTRACT

The recent years have witnessed a shift in the expression of fan culture due to

the widespread access to the Internet. Fan studies have expanded to accommodate this

unprecedented rise in online fan created content, including drawings (fanart) and

stories (fanfiction). Academics working in the newly-developed field of online

fanfiction studies tend to focus on how both the academia and individual reader can

benefit from fanfic writing and reading by cultivating a community generated

approach to cultural production, while also practicing their writing skills and using

critical analysis when creating, discussing and commenting on fan written texts. The

present thesis will explore some of the reasons why the three books of Suzanne

Collins’s trilogy, namely The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009) and

Mockingjay (2010), have fuelled the creative response of the fanfiction community

and have motivated fanfic writers into creating their own versions of the primary

sources mentioned. Following a thematic approach, the thesis is divided into two main

chapters, with Chapter One focusing on the different narrative techniques used by

Collins and how exactly these prompt fanfiction writers to construct their stories

based on the universe or characters she has created. Chapter Two includes an analysis

of Katniss’s character development throughout the trilogy in relation to sexual

awakening and female agency while examining how the romance is reflected,

expanded or altered in the furiously typing hands of the fandom. The critical analysis

includes short excerpts drawn from all three original novels which are combined with

samples of certain responses by the fanfiction community that can shed some light on

this literary phenomenon that keeps on generating new content for over a decade after

the trilogy’s original release.

Keywords: Hunger Games, fandom, fanfiction, romance, dystopian fiction, young

adolescent, Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire, Mockingjay

Markezini ii

Περίληψη

Τα τελευταία χρόνια παρατηρείται μια έντονη αλλαγή στης έκφρασης της

κουλτούρας των φαν (fan culture) λόγω της ευρείας πρόσβασής τους στο Διαδίκτυο.

Οι μελέτες στον κλάδο που ασχολείται με την έκφραση των φαν (Fan culture studies)

έχουν επεκταθεί για να καλύψουν αυτήν την άνευ προηγουμένου αύξηση

διαδικτυακoύ περιεχομένου, συμπεριλαμβανομένων τόσο των σχεδίων (fanart) όσο

και των αφηγήσεων (fanfiction) που προέρχονται από φαν. Οι ερευνητές που

επικεντρώνονται στο νεοσύστατο τομέα της διαδικτυακής γραφής fanfiction τείνουν

να ασχολούνται με το πώς μπορούν να επωφεληθούν από τη γραφή και την ανάγνωση

fanfic τόσο οι ίδιοι οι αναγνώστες όσο και η λογοτεχνική παραγωγή, διερευνώντας

την πολιτιστική συνεισφορά αυτού του είδους ως κατεξοχήν αποτέλεσμα της

κοινωνικής αλληλεπίδρασης μεταξύ των φαν καθώς ο καθένας και η κάθεμια φαν

εξασκεί τις δεξιότητες γραφής και την κριτική ανάλυση των αρχικών λογοτεχνικών

έργων κατά τη διάρκεια της δημιουργίας των δικών του και δικών της αφηγήσεων,

συζητήσεων και σχολιασμού των κειμένων fanfiction. Η παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή

διπλωματική θα διερευνήσει μερικούς από τους λόγους για τους οποίους τα τρία

βιβλία της τριλογίας της Σουζάν Κόλινς (Susan Collins), συγκεκριμένα «Αγώνες

Πείνας» (2008), «Φωτιά» (2009) και «Κοτσυφόκισσα» (2010), ενέπνευσαν σε τόσο

μεγάλο βαθμό τη δημιουργική ανταπόκριση της κοινότητας των φαν και έδωσαν

κίνητρα σε αυτούς να γράψουν τις δικές τους εκδοχές της λογοτεχνικής τριλογίας.

Ακολουθώντας μια θεματική προσέγγιση, η διπλωματική χωρίζεται σε δύο κύρια

κεφάλαια, με το Κεφάλαιο Πρώτο να επικεντρώνεται στις διαφορετικές

αφηγηματικές τεχνικές αλλά και θεματικούς άξονες που χρησιμοποιεί η Κόλινς και το

πώς ακριβώς αυτά ωθούν τους φαν να δημιουργήσουν τις δικές τους ιστορίες

σύμφωνα με το χωρο-πλαίσιο ή τους χαρακτήρες που αυτή έχει δημιουργήσει. Το

Markezini iii

Κεφάλαιο Δύο εξετάζει την εξέλιξη του χαρακτήρα της Κάτνις (Katniss) από το

πρώτο βιβλίο μέχρι και την ολοκλήρωση της τριλογίας σε σχέση με τη σεξουαλική

της αφύπνιση και τη γυναικεία αυτενέργεια, ενώ εξετάζει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο το

ρομάντζο αντικατοπτρίζεται, εξελίσσεται ή μεταβάλλεται στα κείμενα των φαν. Η

κριτική ανάλυση περιλαμβάνει σύντομα αποσπάσματα και από τα τρία πρωτότυπα

μυθιστορήματα της Κόλινς τα οποία συνδυάζονται με δείγματα συγκεκριμένων

απαντήσεων από την κοινότητα των φαν που μπορούν να ρίξουν φως σε αυτό το

λογοτεχνικό φαινόμενο που συνεχίζει να δημιουργεί αφηγήσεις εναλλακτικού

περιεχόμενου για πάνω από μια δεκαετία μετά την αρχική κυκλοφορία της τριλογίας.

Λέξεις Κλειδιά: Σουζάν Κόλινς, Αγώνες Πείνας, Φωτιά, Κοτσυφόκισσα, ρομάντζο,

νεανική λογοτεχνία, εφηβική λογοτεχνία, φαν, δυστοπία, δυστοπική λογοτεχνία

Markezini iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Tatiani

Rapatzikou for being my supervisor because without her suggestions, guidance and

detailed feedback I would not have been able to complete my thesis. Her invaluable

comments throughout the whole process helped me dive deeper into the theories and

practices examined. Most importantly, I wish to thank her for all the support and

patience she has shown to my person, encouraging me through the challenging times

of the coronavirus pandemic that put quite a mental strain on most of us.

Many thanks to Dr. Domna Pastourmatzi and Dr. Zoe Detsi who, being the

examiners of the present thesis, have contributed their insightful comments which

have essentially helped refine it.

I am highly indebted to all the professors of the School of English I have

encountered throughout both my undergraduate and master’s studies because each and

every one have helped shape me into who I am today as a young scholar.

I am also very grateful and consider myself lucky for having such a supportive

and loving MA family that has always been there to offer both technical and

emotional support. Special thanks and love to Stelios and Irene as well as my dear

friend and colleague Sofie for all the encouragement and for believing in me even

during the times I doubted myself and was about to give up.

Finally, I would love to dedicate my MA thesis to my loving parents who were

there at every step of the way, providing everything they could so I would remain

focused on my research and for being willing to listen to all the things I felt the need

to share while studying even though they would understand only half of it.

Markezini v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract…………………………………………………………………...…………......i

Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………....iv

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1

Susan Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy and Fanfiction Narrative Practices ... 18

1.1The Perks of the First-Person Narrative,

Micro-Narratives and Voicing the Silenced ................................................................ 18

1.2 Characters and the Storyworld, Worlds Building in The Hunger Games ............. 30

1.3 Themes and How They Echo Certain Fanfinction Writing Practices ................... 36

1.3.1 Teenage Rebellion, Surveillance, and Subverting the Means of Control….36

1.3.2 Entertaining the Public and the Importance of Appearances………………43

Chapter 2

The Romance in The Hunger Games Trilogy and the Response of the Fanfiction

Community .............................................................................................................. .... .50

2.1Sexual Awakening and Female Agency in The Hunger Games ........................... .50

2.2On Issues of Representation and

Renegotiating Katniss’s Sexuality through Fanfiction ............................................... 63

Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 81

Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 84

Short Bio……………………………………………………………………………. .. .91

Markezini 1

Introduction

Featuring as one of the most popular and worth reading novels of young adult

(YA) dystopian fiction, Suzanne Collins’s the Hunger Games trilogy has become a

global sensation. Since the release of the first novel in 2008 under the title The

Hunger Games and up to this day, the series has sold more than 100 million copies in

print worldwide, and it has spent more than 260 consecutive weeks on The Times

best-seller list, an impressive feat for a novel of its genre.1 The interest for the three

books of the trilogy – The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay – was also

reanimated with the four movie adaptations of Collins’s work (2012-2015)2that with a

box office of $2.97 billion worldwide are considered the most successful film

franchises. But even prior to the boost that came with the film adaptations, the sales

were so high and the fans so many that the author featured in the Time100list of the

‘Most Influential People’ in the world for 2010in the Artists category. So, it comes as

no surprise that many scholars and researchers have been intrigued by the phenomenal

popularity of Collins’s trilogy as it offers a plethora of different topics that one may

choose to examine. In this thesis though, I will focus on fanfiction writing practices

generated by the fans of the Hunger Games trilogy, and thus provide an insight into

how these practices can improve the literary skills of young adult readers.

To facilitate the readers of the present thesis to follow the arguments

developed below, it is appropriate to provide a short overview of the whole series.

Following the story of Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year old girl from District 12, the

readers of the first novel titled The Hunger Games (HG) are introduced to the reality

1According to the New York Times. 2The Hunger Games (2012) was directed by Gary Ross, whereas The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

(2013) was directed by Francis Lawrence, followed by The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1(2014)

and Part 2 (2015) were also directed by Lawrence. The production team decided to split the third novel

of the trilogy in two separate movies.

Markezini 2

of Panem, a nation built upon the ruins of what used to be the U.S.A.3 The luxurious

Capitol governs over the twelve –former thirteen– other Districts following a system

that can be most closely characterized as cyber-feudal, with the products of each

impoverished District along with their people are being exploited with the intention of

sustaining the superfluous lifestyle of the metropolis that has been accumulating

wealth. In the past, an attempt was made to take down the Capitol’s oppressive regime

which resulted in the total obliteration of District 13 that had the leading role in the

rebellion. To avoid a similar uprising in the future, the Hunger Games were

established in order to serve as a constant reminder of the Capitol’s power.4 Each

year, the Districts have to send two tributes, a boy and a girl between the age of

twelve and eighteen, to fight to death into the arena –not quite like a gladiator’s pit–

until there is only one person standing. When Prim, the protagonist’s younger sister, is

randomly selected as a tribute, Katniss volunteers to take her place in the 74th Hunger

Games. Katniss ultimately wins the Games under the guidance of her mentor,

Haymitch, and the help of Peeta, the male tribute from her District. She realizes early

on that for one to survive in that brutal televised show, her fighting and hunting skills

are not enough; rather, it is the viewers’ sponsorship that proves to be the most crucial

part in a tribute’s chances for survival. In order to do so, she agrees to fake a romance

with Peeta, a strategy that indeed proves to be the asset that eventually allows both

tributes from District 12 to be crowned winners. But given the pressing

circumstances, things get complicated as Katniss struggles to recognize that Peeta’s

feelings are something more than a pretentious act, and fails to fully comprehend how

3 As Collins characteristically says in the tenth anniversary interview, “When people ask me how far in

the future it’s set, I say, ‘It depends on how optimistic you are’” (HG 398), a reply that supports the

reading of the book as a cautionary tale that essentially calls for social and political action to be taken

immediately if we wish to avoid such a gloomy future as the one presented in the Hunger Games. 4 Note that when not italicized, the Hunger Games refers to the actual games and not Collins’s book.

Markezini 3

her small acts of resistance during the Games will affect everyone outside the arena,

her “victor” self included.

Moving on to Catching Fire (CF), the obligatory Victory Tour around the

Districts is about to start for Katniss and Peeta, and that is when the heroine begins to

realize that her defiance towards the Capitol’s rules in the previous novel has

triggered a chained reaction in the Districts that have started regarding her actions as

political rather than purely survival tactics. Unknowingly, she has sparked the flame

for a new uprising; the mockingjay pin she was wearing on her tribute suit has

become the symbol of the rebellion. President Snow blackmails her, with everyone

she holds dear, to convince the public that her romance with Peeta is real –that her

attempt to commit a double suicide using poisonous berries and thus leaving the

Gamemakers with no winner in the end of the 74th Hunger Games was the desperate

move of a lovesick girl and not an act of rebellion against his power. A public

wedding is scheduled, but by that time the issue with the rebels is getting out of hand.

So, Snow takes advantage of the Quarter Quell 5 –the special 75th edition of the

Hunger Games– and requires that the tributes are selected from the existing list of

victors for each District. With Katniss being the only female victor from District 12,

she is finding herself into the arena once more with a volunteering Peeta by her side.

The announcement of a fake pregnancy made by the boy is not enough to spare her

from the Games. This time, Katniss needs to figure out whom to trust and team up

with so as to be able to escape. Unfortunately, Peeta and Johanna Mason, a core ally

from District 7, are captured before the rebel forces can save them.Katniss wakes up

in a hovercraft to learn that her mentor as well as Finnick Odair, the fierce tribute

5The Quarter Quell is a special celebration that takes place every 25 years to remind the people of

Panem of the Capitol’s victory over the rebels; during those Games an extra rule is added to make the

spectacle more brutal and cruel to watch. Supposedly, the special rules for the future Quarter Quell

were all written and stored in a box since the very first Hunger Games, but the particular one President

Snow announces is way too convenient for him to be out of a pure lucky draw.

Markezini 4

from District 4, and Plutarch Heavensbee, the Head Gamemaker of the Quarter Quell,

had orchestrated her escape from the start, considering Katniss an integral part of the

Rebellion. By the end of the book, she is on her way to District 13, which turns out to

have rebuilt its power underground throughout the years by remaining undetected, and

it is where the rebel forces have been gathering both their soldiers and armory. Gale,

Katniss’s best friend, informs her that District 12 is now completely destroyed by the

bombs but her family is safe in District 13.

In Mockingjay (MJ), the last book of the trilogy, Katniss decides to join the

rebels in their cause in hopes she will be able to save Peeta and Johanna in the

process. After seeing the destruction of her District, Katniss agrees to play the role of

the “Mockingjay” of the rebellion under the condition that a rescue mission will be

sent for those held captive in the Capitol. The rebels succeed into retrieving Peeta and

Johanna, among others, but turns out that Peeta has been tortured and brainwashed

into believing Katniss is his enemy which explains why he makes an attempt to kill

her upon seeing her in District 13. Parallel to trying curing Peeta, Katniss is sent off

with a crew assigned to record propaganda videos for keeping the rebellion alive in all

Districts under the command of President Alma Coin, the leader of District 13.

Katniss soon realizes that she still has to play a role in front of a camera but for the

rebels this time using the means the Capitol’s regime resorts to in order to control the

citizens of Panem. Disobeying Coin’s order, Katniss heads to kill Snow only to bear

witness to a round of bombs exploding in the hands of children who have functioned

as a human shield circling Snow’s mansion. As a team of medics from the advancing

rebels comes to their rescue, more bombs explode, and Prim, Katniss’s sister who

serves as a nurse, is killed in front of her eyes. An injured Katniss awakes to the

victory of the rebels. She meets Snow just before his public execution and he tells her

Markezini 5

that the bombing carnage was Coin’s idea in order to deliver him the final blow: “But

I wasn’t watching Coin. I was watching you, Mockingjay. And you were watching

me. I’m afraid we have both been played for fools” (MJ 357). When the time comes,

instead of shooting her arrow to execute President Snow, Katniss turns her bow and

kills Coin instead. Snow laughs to the spectacle and dies, with some people claiming

that he perished due to choking on his own blood from the excessive laughter as he

was sick, while others supported that probably the angry mob got him first. With

Katniss taken to be mentally unfit to withstand trial, she returns to District 12 while

her mother and Gale, who is partially responsible for the bombing massacre, find jobs

to other Districts. Shortly after, Peeta comes to join her and together they try to heal

the wounds of the past. In the epilogue, we learn that after many years Katniss settles

down with him and they have two children together, a boy and a girl. The kids soon

will learn from school about the war and their parents’ involvement in it, with Katniss

pondering on the “day [she]’ll have to explain about [her] nightmares. Why they

came. Why they won’t ever really go away” (MJ 390).

Returning to the popularity question of Collins' trilogy now with the full story

in mind, most researchers and academics recognizing the appeal of the fast-paced and

action driven nature of the narrative especially on younger audience, seem to

eventually point to the rapidly shifting sociopolitical context within which the young

readers are asked to grow up, a world characterized by growing instability and

uncertainty. The Hunger Games novel was published in 2008, at the peak of the latest

global financial crisis. As Mark Fisher argues in his essay on “Precarious Dystopias:

‘The Hunger Games’, ‘In Time’ and ‘Never Let me Go,’” it is a period that favors YA

dystopian novels like Collins’s which “engages feelings of betrayal and resentment

rising in a generation asked to accept that its quality of life will be worse than that of

Markezini 6

its parents” (27). Young people appear to be disappointed by the older generation

because it did not manage to secure a better future for them and blame the elders for

remaining inactive and unwilling to take any action to change the rotten parts of the

current political system.

The economist and academic Noreena Hertz comes to support Fisher’s

argument with the findings of her eighteen-month long research, interviewing 2,000

teenagers. She decided to call the target group ‘Generation K,’ after Katniss, instead

of the common ‘Generation Z’ (that includes those born between the mid 1990s and

early 2010s), claiming that “they feel the world they inhabit is one of perpetual

struggle – dystopian, unequal and harsh” like the world of Panem. While studying the

teenagers’ anxieties about making a living, concerns about their career paths and

politics, loneliness and depression, Hertz summarizes that “Generation K is coming of

age in the shadow of economic decline, job insecurity, increasing inequality and a

lack of financial optimism.” These young audiences are maturing in a post-modern

world, experiencing an intense social stratification while having an identity crisis,

which turns out to be a sign of the times. Thanks to the technological advancement

and reality TV, the boundaries between real and artificial are blurred, appearance

turns out to matter more than essence, information gets fragmented, while footage of

war and terrorist attacks is flooding the mass media. When asked why she believes

her books became an international bestseller, Collins answers that is “[p]ossibly

because the themes are universal,” while she stresses the similarities between our

world and Katniss’s reality: “In The Hunger Games, you have vast inequality of

wealth, destruction of the planet, political struggles, war as a media event, human

rights abuse, propaganda, and a whole lot of other elements that affect human beings

wherever they live. I think the story might tap into the anxiety a lot of people feel

Markezini 7

about the future right now” (HG 409; emphasis added). These observations serve

almost as mirror images of contemporary reality hinting at the feelings of anxiety and

uncertainty young adults experience nowadays.

Given the social stratification and the setting of the trilogy, many approach the

books as a cautionary tale, a warning about how the political system of the U.S. can

widen its socio-cultural scope beyond capitalist economy. Personally, I agree with

Saci Lloyd when she claims the following: “I don’t think that the majority of young

readers are connecting to it on a political level, but I do think that it taps into their

sense of anxiety” (qtd. in Sarah Hughes; emphasis added). Hopefully, for the majority

of the HG trilogy readers around the globe, the exact political arrangement depicted in

Collins’s work is still not that similar to their own. Moreover, the Hunger Games are

considered groundbreaking in their conceptualization in the young adult category due

to offering a far more realistic approach to the numerous difficult situations a present-

day teenager might have to face. In her article for The Guardian titled “In Debt, Out

of Luck: Why Generation K Fell in Love with The Hunger Games,” Hughes aptly

points out that “[i]n contrast to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, there are no reliable

adult figures to dispense helpful advice and no one in authority […] [Katniss] can

truly trust (notably even the most likeable adult figures in the books tend to be flawed

at best and fraudulent at worst).” As already mentioned, young people like Katniss,

being disappointed by as well as distrusting the elders, end up having to learn to rely

solely on themselves and seek help among their peers that share their experiences and

fears. Yet even then, as Meghanne Flynn and Sarah Hardstaff observe in their essay

“‘Trust Me’: Volatile Markets in Twilight and The Hunger Games,”6 “[q]uestions of

6 Flynn and Hardstaff’s approach to the particular novels is rather interesting as they examine the two

heroines within a socioeconomic framework, using theories about risk taking, value and investments,

as well as introducing the notion of emotional labor to the argument. Bella represents the ‘pre-crash’

Markezini 8

risk and trust come to the fore as the protagonist decides who to believe, what actions

to take with limited information, and how to hedge against a bad decision”

(206).7Collins’s characters are not infallible and they have to suffer the consequences

of their mistakes and actions. Through regret and mourn, they get to reflect on their

decisions while examine the possible alternatives and solutions they should have

sought. Collins stresses that for change to be brought forward in the world people

cannot solely rely on themselves but they need to come and work together towards a

common goal.

However, these are not the only themes that explain the popularity of Collins’

trilogy but it is also the way she treats war and death with teenagers presented in the

pages of her novels as agents of and not victims to peer violence. Collins believes that

young people nowadays have become desensitized due to their constant exposure to

violence and war footage on the mass media without of course being exposed to their

traumatic consequences. The author admits that the U.S is “a nation at war” (HG

428), which is something that she wishes to subvert in the pages of her trilogy.

On the one hand we have the researchers who analyze the Hunger Games

novels for their messages and themes, draw the links and point out Collins’s

commentary on the current sociopolitical situation of the U.S and, by extension, the

armed conflicts around the globe. On the other, there is the branch of fan studies that

took interest in observing the behavior and activities of the fans of the trilogy both

online and offline thanks to its massive popularity. But, the approach still seems to

remain rather descriptive. Given that fanfiction represents a large portion of the whole

fan generated content surfing around the internet, and that HG fanfiction is one of the

while Katniss the ‘post-crash’ individual, with the later progressively moving form a self-interest to a

community-driven mindset while the former remain in the first stage throughout the series (214-215). 7 “The Games begin in two days, and trust will only be a weakness” (HG 114) Katniss says and decides

to not trust Peeta or anyone else in the arena, because it is a survival game and there is going to be only

one winner; it is a mors tua, vita mea situation.

Markezini 9

most prolific in the fanfiction writing community, it does come as a surprise that

scholars have not paid much attention to it. The research conducted for the present

thesis wants to place emphasis on how this unexplored side of the fandom can offer a

better understanding of the fannish expression in the modern era while the analyses of

the fan written text will help to properly examine the way the young adult readers

comprehend and reflect on the original novels.

Before anything else, one has to start by trying to understand the young

readers who engage in the online communities. Generation Z –the Zoomers or TikTok

generation– does not solely reach maturity in times of increasing instability but also

comes of age witnessing a new wave of technological advancements that affect and

change drastically any form of interpersonal communication. The dawn of the century

signals the second wave of media fan fiction, which started with Star Trek in the

1960s, as the introduction of the internet brought much of the fandoms’ activities

online. As Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson characteristically mention in their

introduction to Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, “Before

then, fandom was a face-to-face proposition: fan clubs formed, and fans wrote

newsletters, zines, and APAs (“amateur press association” add-on circuit newsletters)

and got together at conventions. […] Fan artifacts were physical, and geographical

boundaries were often an issue” (13). The online affinity spaces tore down those

boundaries, successfully managing to bring together fans from all over the globe,

introducing new ways of expression and securing broader access to information for

the individual.

Fan fiction studies is still a relatively new branch that bloomed out of fan

culture studies. Thankfully, in recent years, the field has steadily attracted the

attention of researchers to match the impressive growth of the practice of fan fiction

Markezini 10

writing. In 2019, the Archive of Our Own (AO3), one of the most well-know

fanfiction platforms, won the Hugo Award for Best Related Work. It is the first time

this prestigious sci-fi/fantasy award has been awarded not to a person but to a

platform of 4.7 million fanfics and their respective fanfiction writers, which serves as

an acknowledgement of fanfiction’s contribution to the literary community.8 Because

of the great number and diversity found in the fanfic texts, scholars studying fan

fiction works follow many different approaches that will be touched upon and

discussed in the present thesis. Through a collection of essays for The Fan Fiction

Studies Reader, Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson identify and expand on some of

them with fan fiction being treated as an interpretation of the source text, as a

communal gesture, as a sociopolitical argument, as individual engagement and

identificatory practice, as a means of audience response, as well as a pedagogical

tool(8-10).In short, through fanfic, fans engage in close reading and analysis of the

original material while, at the same time, exercise their writing skills. Such a practice

offers them the opportunity to reflect on and expose their views with regard to

personal and sociopolitical issues, “often in terms of feminist and/or queer

reappropriations of the primary texts” (9), while they actively seek support,

understanding and a sense of belonging within the fandom community.

Jen Scott Curwood, in her essay “‘The Hunger Games’: Literature, Literacy,

and Online Affinity Spaces,” argues that in an age where statistics show that children

and teenagers refrain from reading literature outside the school environment, we must

encourage them to engage with digital literary forms as is the case of fanfiction. This

is not only because the digitalized online spaces are far more accessible to the young

8 During the acceptance speech, Naomi Novik, one of the AO3 co-founderssaid: “All fanwork, from

fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community.

And that is true of the AO3 itself, […] All our hard work and contributions [as AO3 volunteers] would

mean nothing without the work of the fan creators who share their work freely with other fans, and the

fans who read their stories and... nourish the community in their turn” (qtd. in Aja Romano on Vox).

Markezini 11

audience, but also due to the “digital literacy […][being] more participatory,

collaborative, and distributed than conventional print-based literary practices” (417).

Through case studies, she too comes to support the arguments that online fan spaces

can help develop the literary as well as communication and organization skills of

young students as all the load of fan works –not exclusively limited to fan fiction–

and the huge amount of input needs to be processed and sorted out, while the young

adult has the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the creator and other community

members in forums or in the comment sections the platforms provide. Interacting with

other people with the same interests and prompted by peers, fans are motivated to

transform from mere consumers of fiction to creators of stories. Curwood, driven by

the interest of many teachers and academics to include the Hunger Games trilogy in

the school curriculum, offers some interesting activities teachers could incorporate in

class that draw on fanfiction practices. Her suggestions are justified by the conclusion

that works of online fan fiction function as “media paratexts, or parallel texts” that, as

it is illustrated in Chapter One of the current thesis, enrich the original narrative and

“serve as a way for readers to access schema, critically understand themes, construct

knowledge, and engage in multimodal9 content creation” (423).10

Thanks to the internet and the digital media teenagers and young adults have

access to a huge amount of information, yet the quality or the truthfulness of it varies.

Being the main consumers of such fiction-writing practices, they need to learn how to

navigate through fanfiction platforms very carefully by avoiding propaganda,

9 With the fandom shifting online, the fan generated text is no longer limited to written language, but

can incorporate images, audio, video into its main body. 10 For those interested in introducing fanfiction to the academia see also “Teaching fan fiction: Affect

and analysis” by Kathryn Conrad and Jamie Hawley. In their essay, they “reflect on the design and first

iteration of an asynchronous online university English course focused on fan fiction, with a particular

focus on the anticipated challenges of negotiating affect and analysis in the classroom and the structure

of the course;” the detailed syllabus of the course they implemented is also provided. See also, Erika

Romero’s “Including new media adaptations and fan fiction writing in the college literature classroom”

where she focuses on encouraging critical analysis of any fan created work and literary narrative on

electronic media.

Markezini 12

misinformation and misconduct. It gets harder and harder to check the reliability of

the fanfic sources and the people participating in such platforms without being

distracted by the allure, swiftness and endless possibilities online fanfiction offers.

Because the line between fake and real blurs even more, as we will see in the chapters

to follow, on the basis of the example Katniss sets, readers need to understand the

way this elaborate system works, and recognize how appearance and identities are

constructed, assigned and then employed in order to survive.

Yonah Ringlestein redirects one’s attention to the “fragmentation, negotiation,

and reunification of self [that occur] through […] fan-based activities” (373). Yet, at

the same time, the fact that through the writing of fanfiction participants have the

opportunity to shape their self anew is often overlooked. One cannot help but wonder

if this is a hopeless journey after all. The Hunger Games trilogy originally became a

transmedia franchise by launching official fansites, guides and forums11 where the

publishers have invited readers to participate in quizzes and role-playing games in

order to discover extra content in addition to creating and sharing their own works.

Ringlestein argues that as readers engage with these online expansions of novels

already published in print, “they actively participate in a form of complex world

building, and in so doing, perform the desire for unification of identity and

articulation of ‘real reality’ that marks the franchise as distinctive” (374). Young adult

readers by navigating the different media, participating in discussions and sharing

their work, they provide their own expansions and alternatives to Collins’ trilogy. In

this way, they come closer to the world of Panem as they explore it on their own.

11Among the most popular online sites at the time were the Mockingjay.net (2009) that hosted a vast

amount of fan created works as well as organized events and podcasts, thehungergames.co.uk operated

by Scholastic (Collins’s publishing house) known for providing character tests and simulation games

for the fans of the trilogy, Panem October (2011) was an alternative reality game that got rather

popular even though it was short-lived as it was launched and also ended in 2011 (see also Curwood

420-421).

Markezini 13

Producing their own versions of the original texts through the practice of fanfiction

writing, they “make a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” (Henry

Jenkins qtd. in Ringlestein 374) as we shall see in Chapter One where the intertextual

value and expansive potential of fanfiction writing is discussed in detail.

According to Collins’s vision, the trilogy seeks to make its readers question

their reality and simultaneously invite them to turn inward in an attempt to focus on

and eventually be able to deal with the anxieties that surround them. It is a world

within which they feel alienated while “fan culture,” as Ringlestein believes,

“provide[s] these ‘moorings’ that anchor fans to a community, providing them with an

identity and sense of belonging, as well as a story from which they derive meaning

and values” (384), even though the sense of community the fanfiction sites create is a

mere construction. Yet, teenagers and young adults nowadays do value things they

can actively co-create with the online fanfiction spaces functioning as a means

through which they can reclaim their agency, voice and rightful place in a world that

is not evolving in their favor.

Chapter One of the present thesis explores the reasons why the Hunger Games

trilogy is one of the most prolific source material for the fanfiction community

according to the number of related fanworks available online, and examines how

some of the books’ central themes apply to fanfiction writing as a practice. In

particular, the chapter begins by analyzing some of Collins’s narrative techniques,

such as the use of first person narrative that narrows the reader’s perspective and thus

leaves room for fanfic writers to expand on the worldbuilding, as well as the role of

the embedded micro-narratives from which they draw inspiration for their own

stories. Providing excerpts from the three novels alongside various fanfiction

examples, the chapter elaborates on the issues of armed conflict and the representation

Markezini 14

of the silenced voices as some of the themes the fanfiction writers, as shown by the

tagging system of the fanfiction platforms, explore. Drawing on fanfiction studies

theory and, specifically, on Abigail Derecho’s idea of fanfiction as “archontic”

literature, the value of fanfiction is discussed in terms of expanding the original

narrative of the trilogy in addition to helping the young adult audience develop their

literary skills. The chapter also sheds light on the themes of surveillance and teenage

rebellion in an attempt to show through Michel Foucault’s idea of Panopticism how

the fanfic writers, similarly to the means of discipline and control that are subverted

by the rebels in the novels, can challenge and subvert Collins’s own authority over the

narrative. There, Busse and Hellekson’s views on fanfiction as an open work in

process and a product of community writing are introduced. The chapter ends

resorting to Shanon Mortimore-Smith’s work on the role of the audience in shaping

the entertainment industry, thus elaborating on the ways fanfic writers create their

content while taking into consideration the demand through their social media

platforms on which they eventually promote their works.

Driven by the overwhelming amount of Hunger Games fanfictionand its

emphasis on the love relationships of the characters, Chapter Two focuses on the

romance as presented in the trilogy and the response it has generated among the

members of the fanfiction community. The chapter begins with the exploration of the

links between sexual awakening and female agency, while analyzing the way Collins

subverts the masterplot of romance and happy ending which is one of the factors that

has ensured the novels’ popularity. She creates an innovative narrative that

juxtaposes, yet eventually, blurs the lines between romance as a survival tactic in a

televised spectacle and as expression of genuine feelings. The chapter continues with

a close reading of Katniss’s expression of sexuality with attention paid to different

Markezini 15

examples taken from the three novels which reminds readers that the HG trilogy is

also a coming of age narrative. Resorting to Foucault’s The History of Sexuality and

adopting the idea that sexuality is a sociohistorical construct, the chapter elaborates on

the factors that shape the main female character’s sexuality and eventually dictate her

choice of a partner as well as her decision to have kids by the end of the trilogy. A

discussion over the significance of such an epilogue follows with scholars, such as

Katherine Broad, believing that such an ending hinders the trilogy’s potential to

effectively break heteronormative conventions and come in clash with others who

find the particular epilogue to be empowering and provocative, as is the commentary

provided by June Pulliam and Keith O’Sullivan. Observing the variety of narratives

portrayed in fanfiction, one discovers how young adult fans renegotiate Katniss’s

sexuality through their own fanfiction writing in order to explore and express their

own sexuality concerns. The chapter continues with the examination of the gap in the

market that fanfiction writing appears to fill in due to its sexually explicit content at

times as argued in Catherine Driscoll’s work on romance and pornography. Following

Sara K. Day’s and Catherine M. Roach’s arguments on the lack of alternative

narratives to romance, the chapter closes offering examples of the diversity and

alternatives found in the fanfiction community.

The current thesis does not attempt an exhaustive quantitative research of

fanfiction platforms and works which could be expected in a lengthy study of such

writing production; but emphasis here has been placed on the selection of diverse

examples by attention paid to showcasing the variety of narrative practices within the

Hunger Games fanfiction. So, being impossible to access all available works, the

main criterion for each sample used hereafter has been its different fanfiction platform

and category origin regarding its main themes/content and narrative mode (e.g.

Markezini 16

alternative universe, crossover, mature/explicit content, pairing and rating). This has

enabled the articulation of certain questions and observations that would set the basis

for a future research project. Note that due to the lack of demographics which would

inform researchers about the users exact age, gender or ethnicity, people working on

the field of online fanfiction have to rely heavily on assumptions and personal

observations while resorting to generalizations especially in the use of certain terms; a

phenomenon to which the present thesis is not an exception. The anonymity and

concealment of the user identity, while not necessarily a bad thing as it sets fanfiction

writing and reading on a less biased ground, it certainly poses some difficulties in the

fanfiction studies research. According to the AO3 Census, a survey conducted by

Centrum Lumina in 201312 about the Archives of Our Own (AO3) platform which is

extensively used in this research, approximately 80% of the users are between the age

of 15 or younger and 30 years old. Given the fact that Collins’s trilogy is also

promoted as a YA novel, it has been considered optimal to address the readers of the

books and writers of the Hunger Games fanfiction as teenagers and young adults

throughout the thesis due to the lack of any specific sources of information as regards

their status. What should be acknowledged is the risk the researcher runs of jumping

into assumptions, which sheds light on the blurriness and fluidity that usually

characterizes this terrain of this kind of research without limiting the value of the

observations made and conclusion extracted.

The Hunger Games trilogy turns out to be an inexhaustible source of themes

and topics from which both academics and young adult readers draw inspiration to

writing their own works. Eventually, what helps narrow down one’s scope in dealing

with a specific topic depends on personal interest, their real life anxieties as well as

12 The finding of the survey are reposted by user “centreoftheselights” under the title AO3 Census

Masterpost on AO3, https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019228

Markezini 17

personal interpretations of the original text. Here as well, only a small fracture of the

books’ themes are touched upon, those considered to be the most relevant to

fanfiction writing. The present thesis wishes to serve as a starting point for a more

productive dialogue between young adult novels, as is the case of Collins’ trilogy, and

the fanfiction they generate. The research conducted here hopes to offer an insight

into how exactly the trilogy has affected the readers’ minds and how this can be

achieved through examining the fanfiction practices it generates.

Markezini 18

CHAPTER ONE

Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy and Fanfiction Narrative Practices

“Who cares? It’s all a big show. It’s all how you’re perceived”

~Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (2008)

As the present thesis seeks to shed light onto some of the reasons why the

Hunger Games trilogy is such a popular and prolific source material for the online

fanfiction community, this first chapter focuses on a number of Collins’s narrative

techniques that inspire the readers, but it explores only a fraction of the fanfiction

writing practices employed, with the following chapter turning its attention to the

examination of romance and female agency by attempting a close reading of Susan

Collins's texts. Chapter One will progressively move from the narrative points of the

original text that excite the fanfic writer, to a discussion about worldbuilding, and

how fanfiction as a practice helps advancing the literary skills of the young adult

readers according to fanfiction studies. The chapter concludes with examining some

of the story’s themes and how these are expressed and applied in fanfiction writing as

well as the promotion of the fanfic texts themselves.

1.1 The Perks of the First Person Narrative, Micro-Narratives and

Voicing the Silenced

The sentence “When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold” (HG 3) is the

very first line the readers encounter, helping them understand that this is going to be a

first person narrative, one written in present tense even. For this is one of the most

striking traits of the trilogy. As readers dive into Katniss’s world and experience the

story unfolding right before their eyes, they encounter a narrative devoid of any

further observations an external or omniscient narrator would supply or even of any

Markezini 19

insightful comments the protagonist could have offered in case a flashback or a

memoir format had been used. Yet, nothing prevents readers from following the

succession of events and understanding the world into which they are being initiated.

Readers are able to witness the action by identifying with the teenage protagonists

everyday life tasks and challenges. This mental involvement in the story essentially

raises reader’s awareness of the struggles of the underrepresented, the silenced, whose

voices are not allowed to reach the wider public and, consequently, challenges our

worldview. Collins chooses a first person narrative in order to pass on her message in

the best way possible. She realizes that an idea, a lesson, is better understood and

more efficiently ingrained in people’s minds through the centuries old practice of

storytelling than by exposing her young adult readers to any kind of theoretical text

or sterilized factual evidence.

The Hunger Games trilogy opens up the debate of ‘just war’ by making its

readers mentally face a war situation. When they empathize with a character, they are

also the ones called to make a decision. Given the circumstances Katniss has to face,

readers are given a chance to imagine themselves making the same choices as herself,

or, sometimes, oppose to her decisions, only to be left to find out what that course of

action leads to with every turn of the page. We are taught war stories at school,

especially during history classes, but rarely pause to think of their actual significance,

their impact on both the society as a whole and the individual. Students hardly ever

pass past the memorization of distant dates and mere numbers; literature might be the

course to feel in this gap. As Collins characteristically says during her interview with

publisher David Levithan, “The point […] is to take the reader through the journey,

have them confront the issues with the protagonist, and then hopefully inspire them to

think about it and discuss it” (HG 389). Ultimately, the author’s “hope is that better

Markezini 20

discussion might lead to more nonviolent forms of conflict resolution, so we evolve

out of choosing war as an option” (390).

It is actually interesting to observe how the young readers are evidently trying

to process and deal creatively with the variety of circumstances and moral dilemmas

to which Collins’ trilogy exposes them. On the back cover of the first book of the

series one finds written in golden letters the lines: “WINNING MEANS FAME AND

FORTUNE. LOSING MEANS CERTAIN DEATH. THE HUNGER GAMES HAVE

BEGUN.” But a simple look at the tags used on the description of many of the fanfics

available online will convince readers that the fanfiction writers have actually noticed

and built upon the core issues Collins strives to expose through her writing. Winning

does not simply mean fame and fortune, but it comes with a cost, that is the

psychological trauma for the characters involved in the story that probably they would

never be able to shake off their shoulders.13 During the writing of the present thesis, a

speed search using the search engine of the Archive of Our Own (AO3) platform has

revealed the existence of more than five hundred Hunger Games fanfics mainly

focusing on, or at least mentioning, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), while

another six hundred hits pop up when using the key words ‘Hunger Games’ and

‘trauma’. The existence of such works, usually paired with other related tags like

‘anxiety’, ‘post-war’, ‘hurt and comfort’ and ‘dysfunctional relationships’ comprise a

small sample of works whose writers seem to have reflected upon the reality of war

and the equally severe consequences of its aftermath.

As mentioned in the Introduction, young adult Americans, to whom the books

were originally addressed, realize that there is so much more to war than what is being

13 On the last page of the Epilogue in Mockingjay, as Katniss speculates on how she and Peeta will

explain their involvement in the Rebellion to their kids without scaring them, she realizes that they will

not be able to shield them from the brutality of the world, hide their own traumas as she admits that

“one day I’ll have to explain [to her children] about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won’t

ever really go away” (MJ 390).

Markezini 21

sported on the news, whose content is almost exclusively limited to slaughter and life

loss. As a result, young adult readers gradually become more and more aware about

the cruel world of adults often concealed from them under false pretenses. Most

importantly, they come to the realization that it is not some kind of bizarre fiction of a

disturbed mind, but that people their age on the other side of the planet are victims of

such cruelty and have no means to raise their voice.

Speaking of silenced voices, allow me to return once again back to the

liberties the first person narrative of the trilogy gives to the fanfic writers. Katniss

herself is one of the silenced characters especially in the first book of the Hunger

Game trilogy, a poor citizen of Panem that no matter the struggles she and her family

have to face on a daily basis, the oppression the whole District suffers under the

Capitol’s control, she has no means to be heard and speak her mind freely for the fear

of punishment is looming over her head. As each District is isolated and has no means

of communicating with any other part of the nation, Katniss has no one to narrate her

story to in an attempt to ask for help, seek understanding, and decide on the kind of

action that needs to be taken. But fortunately, Collins provides a way out for her

central female character by addressing through the narrative of her sixteen-year-old-

protagonist a willing audience to which she can turn to and express herself without the

fear of being brutally punished or even killed off as a traitor to the Capitol. On a

second note, this makes me think that interestingly enough, the greatest punishment

readers can inflict on Katniss is to drop the book and refuse to listen to what she has

to say, preventing her in this way from sharing her experiences with them. Even with

Capitol’s spotlight and the cameras on her, she has a role to serve, a persona to

uphold, a fake story to sell for her survival and, again, no actual freedom speech to

deliver. So, fanfic writers serve a double role, functioning as both Katniss’s attentive

Markezini 22

listeners and turning into her mouthpiece while exploring in detail through their own

writings several incidents of her life that she does not have the chance to narrate in the

books of the trilogy.

Through fanfiction writing many more of the Hunger Games characters get to

have their own stories come to light. No matter how crucial or small their contact with

the female protagonist is, those further marginalized characters find their way to the

broader public. Others manage to present their own version of events, and in a way

they challenge the perspective readers have adopted while following Katniss’s

narrative. Pure intentions aside, narration cannot help but be subjective and it is

satisfying to see that many readers resort to their subjective reactions when attempting

to elaborate on the original narrative in their fanfics by utilizing different points of

view (POV). Two of the most prolific tags in the fandom are those of Peeta’s POV

and Gale’s POV where readers rewrite the events of the books in the Hunger Game

trilogy from the perspective of these two characters which contributes to the

embellishment of the original story with multiple other variables. As H. Porter Abbott

observes in his book The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, “if there is a narrator,

almost invariably the reliability of the narrator becomes a focus of dispute” (69;

emphasis in the original). As an active character who is simultaneously the narrator of

the story that unfolds in the present tense, Katniss carries her own prejudices,

judgemental observations, and personal morals into the way she narrates the events

because she is equipped with her own information processing capacity. All these

factors create a filter through which the reality of the Nation of Panem is presented to

the readers. From all the above it is evident that a narrator, especially with Katniss’s

involvement in the story, can never know or narrate everything, even if they wanted

to. This question of reliability here has nothing to do with Katniss being deceitful on

Markezini 23

purpose, but it offers an insight into how she thinks and acts which shows that she

cannot have access to the broader picture or the ‘truth’ of the world she inhabits.14

For the most part of the first book, Katniss is not sure about Peeta’s intentions

and his feelings for her. She questions his love multiple times throughout the story

and interprets it as a strategic move in his effort to get sponsors or even as a wicked

plan so that he earns her trust in order to ensure his own survival in the arena for a

while. With that idea in mind, it is not surprising how easily she is convinced that

Peeta has turned against her while the poor boy has only been trying to distract the

other tributes and lead them away from her. And that is merely one instance when

readers get suspicious and confused about the intentions of the boy. The book finishes

with Katniss not having yet realized Peeta’s feelings for her and how her faking being

in love has affected him. Katniss uncertainty becomes the readers’ own and her

thoughts cloud their judgment. Because of a factor called empathy readers often adopt

her viewpoint and sometimes fall to the same wrong conclusions. Thankfully, Collin’s

protagonist is quite perceptive to many things, so readers do not suffer from that lapse

of judgment all that much. But here come the fanfic writers to serve the other half of

the story. Adopting Peeta’s Pov, as mentioned above, they allow his voice to be

heard, while they themselves do a character study –also a common tag in fanfic

descriptions. Readers draw from the incidents described in the original source text and

rewrite the scenes, providing in this manner extra episodes or whole storylines to the

main text. The flexibility of fanfiction writing is one astonishing thing that can lead to

the production of impressive pieces of literary complexity with regard to character as

14 Abbott also provides a very helpful distinction between what Dorrit Cohn calls a “discordant

narrator” and an what is traditionally thought as an unreliable narrator, the first being one “we trust for

the facts but not for their interpretation,” while the later is someone “we cannot even trust for the facts”

(Abbott 77). Katniss can be characterized as a discordant narrator given this definition.

Markezini 24

well as world building, while expanding the original setting and elaborating on its

political mechanisms.

As the focus of the current chapter revolves around fanfiction narrative

practices, one cannot help but mention the function of the supplementary events and

the embedded micro-narratives of the trilogy that are the bread and butter of the fanfic

writers. As a dystopian adventure, the books have a fast-paced action primarily driven

forward by the rapid succession of constituent events that follow Katniss as she

volunteers for the Hunger Games in order to save her sister, survives the arena only to

find herself back in the Games a second time, inspiring the revolution in the process

and, eventually, playing a crucial role in a civil war that is about to change the future

of the nation. Yet, there are a few brief interventions, mostly in the form of flashbacks

and memories, where the narration does not move the action forward. We get those

supplementary events either directly through Katniss’s trail of thoughts or from the

micro-narratives other characters share with her during their dialogue exchanges. As it

will be shown further down, readers are quite apt in picking up many of the

sociopolitical issues Collin tackles in her work and do not miss the chance to expand

on them through their own stories. They use the incidents mentioned and the

characters involved in an attempt to explore and dive deeper into them.

These serve as side stories that give the opportunity to other members of the

community to reflect on and engage critically with the comment section, sharing their

own ideas and observation on the matter with other participants. 15 Like many

scholars, Kristina Busse with her essay on the “Intimate Intertextuality and

Performative Fragments in Media Fanfiction” also stresses this “performativity, the

15 Let us not forget that after all “[c]onstituent events are only necessarily more important than

supplementary events insofar as we are concerned with the sequence of event that constitute the story

itself. But supplementary events can be very important for the meaning and overall impact of the

narrative” (Abbott 23; emphasis in original). There is a reason why they are included in the narrative in

the first place.

Markezini 25

conversational, community interaction component of many stories” (46) facilitated by

the online medium as most fanfic writers farther encourage their readers to leave

comments and discuss under their works (Fig 1.1). Lauren Rouse comes with her

multimethod study on “Fan fiction comments and their relationship to classroom

learning” to further support the argument that close reading and critical analysis are

benefited by fanfiction writing and reading. Using web scraping tools, Rouse focuses

on fan comments and by extensively pooling and comparing them, she was able to

confirm –through text analysis, term association and topic modeling charts– that “fan

fiction readers apply strategies of literary analysis to their pleasure reading.” Readers

of fanfiction tend to move from general comments on the impression a fanfic has left

to them to in-depth textual analysis as they “continually make inter- and intratextual

references and are able to apply their knowledge of literary modes, structures, and

styles.” With the findings of her case study on the comments under fanfiction texts

“show[ing] that fans are using skills valued in traditional classroom settings in their

leisure time,” Rouse concludes that fanfiction might indeed be an asset in improving

student engagement and literary skills in a teaching environment. Ultimately, close

reading skills and a playful imagination are required for both the stand point of the

fanfiction writer and that of a fanfic reader. By gathering bits and pieces, scattered

hints, and building on supplementary events and micro-narratives, one can argue that

fanfiction constitutes a really dynamic imaginative process.

Fig. 1.1. Note at the end of It's Complicated by Showmeurteef, on Archive of Our Own.

Markezini 26

Note how the register in the note (Fig 1.1) shifts dramatically from that of the main

body of the work as the fanfiction writer wants to appear more playful and

approachable to their reader. The writer even provides their personal accounts on

other platforms to encourage further interaction with their audience.16

To be more specific, some of the micro-narratives that inspire the readers also

bring the issue of the silenced voices to the surface, in other words of those people

whose actual stories of suffering and exploitation rarely come to light. The promised

fame and glory of the victors has a dark side that only few come to witness. Finnick,

an originally career tribute, explains to Katniss why and how winning the Games does

not bring the promised freedom from Capitol’s watchful eye. On the contrary, his

body gets to be exploited in a way more brutal than in the arena. But he finds a way to

turn President Snow’s control against him. During their very first meeting in the 75th

Hunger Games, Finnick approaches Katniss ironically commenting on her being

restricted to roam the Capitol as a past victor due to the circumstances. However, she

admits that she does not fancy such things but asks where he spends all his money. To

that Finnick responds: ‘“Oh, I haven’t dealt in anything as common as money for

years,’ […] ‘Then how do they pay you for the pleasure of your company?’[…] ‘With

secrets,’ he says softly. He tips his head in so his lips are almost in contact with [hers].

‘What about you, girl on fire? Do you have any secrets worth my time?”’ (CF 210).

This is the first glimpse we get of the inescapable life of the victors. As Katniss,

Finnick, and Johanna come closer, the girl starts to understand their reasons and

motivation to turn against the system. They are more often than not, forced to be the

16 The fanfiction examples used in the present thesis do not attempt to promote particular fanfic sites or

writers but they are used to support and illustrate the arguments of the paper. Readers are invited to use

and explore the fanfiction platforms themselves in order to find fan written pieces to their liking and

interest; by using the platforms themselves one will gradually learn to navigate and distinguish between

what is worth their reading time or not.

Markezini 27

fancy escort of the most powerful in the Capitol, essentially sported as some precious

trophies by rich men and women alike. Many times, violence and sexual assault

ensues, but money and threats suffice to keep things out of the public eye.

Finnick manages to turn the whole business around and gain both power and

invaluable information for the resistance. Johanna, on the other hand, who repeatedly

refuses to become a pricy prostitute –despite Snow’s proposed deal– finds her family

members slaughtered as retaliation. Those two characters have many fanfics written

that tell their background story while they focus on the trauma and bonding over such

shared experiences. If one looks at the tags created for such works, they can

understand how easy it is for readers to be able to submerge into the characters’

world. Take for instance some of the works by user Kawuli (Fig. 1.3) where they

stress the alcohol and drug use as some of the methods these characters have been

trying to cope with in order to confront the Capitol’s demands and the trauma inflicted

on them. Or in the case of But It Was Not Your Fault But Mine by Deathmallow (Fig.

1.2), the objectification of the victors is openly discussed, with the narrative following

Finnick as he tries to come to terms with the system having stripped him off his right

of self-determination –forcing him to homosexual intercourse– at the same time he

starts thinking of how to turn the situation to his advantage. An important factor

contributing to the burning imagination of the fanfic writers might as well be their

exposure to celebrity culture of modern times and the idol scandals that break out

every now and then that apparently are not as well hidden in our own reality as in

Panem.

Markezini 28

Fig. 1.2.But It Was Not Your Fault But Mine by Deathmallow,

a Hunger Games AU on Archive of Our Own.

Fig. 1.3.What Doesn’t Kill You and Finally Breathe by Kawuli, on Archive of Our Own,

fanfiction featuring Johanna Mason and Finnick Odair from the Hunger Games series.

Markezini 29

Similarly to Johanna, Avox servants constitute another interesting example of

non-conformist citizens towards the Capitol rules that get severely punished for their

disobedience. Silenced with the literal sense of the word, Avox are people who have

their tongues cut off and appointed as mute servants in the metropolis after being

declared traitors of the state. This practice of turning traitors into Avox has generated

a number of fanfics with aspiring fanfiction writers creating their own characters,

setting them somewhere in the vast nation of Panem imagining the act of individual

rebellion that grand them such a fate, or writing side stories with the Avox characters

that appear in the original novels. For many, part of the joy of reading fanfiction has

to do with filling in the narrative gaps that emerge as the story progresses. Some of

them are willing to take a step further and share what their imagination generates with

the readers of their fanfic platform. For example, Katniss recognizes a male Avox in

the face of Darius who takes care of her during the 75th hunger games; he is a former

Peacekeeper from her District who saved Gale from being flogged to death (CF 216-

217). What has happened to him since that day is unknown to the readers; this also

serves as the perfect gap that fanfic writers can certainly fill in. In similar fashion,

Lavinia, the Avox girl Katniss recognizes in the Hunger Games was running from the

Capitol into the woods towards the ruins of District 13 when she run into Katniss and

Gale moments before she got captured (HG 82-83). Many interesting and different

answers are given by the fandom as to why Lavinia had to run from the Capitol, the

city with all the comforts. Through fanfiction, readers are trying to figure out

themselves who the boy with her was and, most importantly, the reasons why they

had to run for District 13 when supposedly the only thing they would find there where

ruins filled with radiation. Did they actually know about the Resistance rebuilding its

forces underground?

Markezini 30

With all these being said, one can claim that fanfic writers work their way

around narrative gaps like the screenplay writers of film adaptations who try to come

up with scenes portraying events that are taking place behind the cameras of the

broadcasted show that the first person narrative does not provide. Readers are called

to do pretty much the same as they are going through the pages of a novel. Collecting

all the hints they can get, they try to recreate the full picture through their own

narratives. Through a process that usually involves a lot of character analysis,

character study and speculation, one can find on the fanfiction sites and forums

numerous works that deal with certain aspects of the Hunger Games volumes as is for

example the creation of the arena, the ingenious traps the gamemakers put there and

the role the profiling of the tributes has played in their construction. Also other areas

being explored by fanfic writers have to do with President Snow and his private

conversation with the main host of the Games, Ceasar Flickerman, and the head

Gamemaker as they are orchestrating their most entertaining spectacles while

eliminating any possible threats against their power in the process.

Such literary endeavors undertaken by the fanfic writers suggest a rather

increased awareness about the current political situation the young readers -turned

writers- use as a scaffold for structuring their own plots, and, simultaneously, indicate

a conscious reflection upon the political motifs and the power games presented in the

books.

1.2 Characters and the Storyworld, Worldbuilding in the Hunger Games Trilogy

Fanfiction is based on as well as making use of someone else’s imaginary

product, be it their storyworld or characters, or both. Many rush to argue against the

Markezini 31

creative importance of fanfiction and regard such pieces of writing as a lesser kind of

literature compared to other ‘original’ –printed to their majority– works.17

It is important at this point to draw attention to what circulates within the

fanfiction community, as regards major writers and their sources of influence. In

particular, many fanfic writers claim that Milton’s Paradise Lost draws from the book

of Genesis and other religious texts written centuries before his time; Shakespeare as

well writes extensively about real life historical figures and events, especially when it

comes to his historical plays; he uses Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and

Romans and Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland as his main

sources, while other times, he gets inspired by folktales and older theatrical pieces.

However, does this mean that the writings of such authors is unoriginal and

borrowed? In addition to a variety of socio-cultural factors, it all comes down to the

way they deliver the story, their unique mode of narration and their personal take on

the characters they build upon, the aftertaste each piece leaves and the enriching

experience it provides for the audience. But, let’s see how this idea applies to the

Hunger Games online fanfiction.18

In her books, Collins skillfully plants comments and information about the

political structure of Panem in the thoughts and utterances of the main characters,

either when openly criticizing the system or simple recalling past history. Through

small yet comprehensive description, the author manages to paint the broader picture

of how Katniss’s world functions prior to the civil war and offers readers an idea of

17Of course, many fandoms derive from films and series, but when it comes to books, many questions

about notions such as High vs Low Culture, the preconceptions of the wider public about printed vs

online literary texts, and copyright issues arise. Those will not be the focus of the present thesis. 18

Among the many instances of readers pointing to fanfiction as a practice that infiltrates even the

literary canon, Jordan West in their article “None Of This Is New: An Oral History Of Fanfiction,”

characteristically writes: “If you’ve taken an English class in America, you’ve almost certainly been

assigned fanfiction to read, not just in the form of Beowulf and Shakespeare, obviously, but also in

the form of books like Johnny Tremain, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Paradise Lost.”

Markezini 32

how it is going to be the aftermath with the rise of the new order of things. That final

chunk leaves a lot of space open for the readers creative imagination to operate that

will be extensively discussed in the second chapter when focusing on the openness of

the ending. The established “cyber-feudal” system (Mark Fisher 28) of the 12

Districts sustaining the very extravagant Capitol with their exclusive exports is a

rather simplified version created for the sake of the books with the target audience in

mind as Collins herself admits in the interview with Levithan (HG 395). For many of

the Districts, readers know just as few things as what is their main trade product and

the names of some past tributes, and that because they play no crucial role in the

advancement of the plot and Katniss’ journey to maturity. But that does not make

them any less interesting and worthy of exploration. All the above, combined with a

set of characters that are “themselves some of narrative’s most challenging gaps”

(Abbott 132), fuel fanfiction production under the umbrella of the online Hunger

Games AU.19

When readers choose to dive into a Hunger Games AU, they expect to find the

world Collins has created, with or without her own characters in it. It is a tag used to

indicate that in the particular story, one will have to visualize a place where the

Hunger Games are, or at least used to be, a reality, a yearly event that affects the lives

of the characters involved in one way or another. The distinction between Districts

exists as well, though fanfic writers have the flexibility to alter other characteristics as

long as the basic idea of the Hunger Games storyworld remains the same. Readers

have to bring along a certain amount of knowledge from the books to be able to

engage in a fanfic creation.20For example, from time to time, there might be intriguing

19 AU stands for Alternative Universe. 20 However, the amount of prior knowledge needed in order to understand the fic is up to the fanfic

writer to decide, and warn their readers about it. Many choose to presume people know the basic

structure of the world so they do not provide much information about it, while others explain the

Markezini 33

questions that have to do with whether Katniss was a student in the Hogwarts School

of Witchcraft and Wizardry; how she would put up with the demanding professor of

magic potions and, at the same time, avoid breaking the rules given her rebellious

spirit; what House the Sorting Hat would put her in according to her character and

potential; what kind of a character Peeta is or whether the writer sees something else

in him and so on. Every fanfic writer has the freedom to decide for themselves and let

their imagination roll in line with their own conclusions about the characters in a

novel based on their personal reading of the source material. And last but not least,

the master category of Crossover comes into play. Under that tag, people have the

opportunity to merge worlds and bring together characters from many different books

and franchises, while unleashing all their creative skills and imagination when writing

about numerous interactions and adventures they might find themselves caught up

into.

All three types of fanfiction described above require a close reading and

analysis of the source texts from which they draw inspiration as well as a great deal of

consideration and reflection on how the new stories will be constructed and the

creative liberties to be taken. This dynamic creative process essentially promotes a

better understanding of the original piece, exposing, especially in the case of

crossovers, shared character traits of fictional characters from virtually different

works, while underlining common themes that authors seek to address. Ultimately, the

fanfic as the product of a transformative writing practice turns out substantially

different from the earliest work as it carries the voice, point of view and unique

stylistic values of the fanfic writer who wants to expand the author’s initial vision or

criticize it. Prompted by the use of the word ‘expand,’ it is worth mentioning here

crucial parts in their texts so even readers from outside the fandom can follow the story without any

problem.

Markezini 34

Abigail Derecho’s essay on “Archontic Literature” where she approaches fanfiction as

an artistic practice rather than a cultural phenomenon. There, she explains why the use

of the term “archontic” –a term borrowed from Jacque Derrida– is preferred when

discussing the intertextual value of fanfiction and its expansive potential (Derecho

64). 21 Derecho further points out that “[c]alling a text based on a prior text

‘derivative’ […] signifies a ranking of the two texts according to quality and classifies

the secondary text as the lesser one. Similarly, appropriative connotes ‘taking’ and

can easily be inflected to mean ‘thieving’ or ‘stealing’” (64; emphasis in original), but

is this really the case? Once again, the importance of the motivation and intentions of

the fanfic writer for creating the work should be seriously taken into account, if not

prioritized, along with the overall aesthetic value of the piece created.22

To better illustrate the argument and many of the points raised in this chapter,

one more randomly chosen example will be brought forward form the AO3 platform

(Fig. 1.4). Many interesting arguments come to mind with just a look at its tags and

summary.

21 “An archontic text allows, or even invites, writers to enter it, select specific items they find useful,

make new artifacts using those found objects, and deposit the newly made work back into the source

text’s archive” (Derecho 65). 22These practices in particular remind one of many of the writing exercises teachers encourage their

students to engage with during the literature courses where students are called to write their own short

pieces based on the text they have read. Children are asked to imagine what happens to the characters

after the end of the story, rewrite a scene where something different happens at a crucial point in the

narrative but maintain the author’s style, or even provide an alternative ending to the text. Some

fanfiction writer might just continue exercising what they have learned and been practicing at school.

Markezini 35

Figure 1.4.Pyrrhic Victory by Rainydayphotos, a crossover fanfiction text combining

the Harry Potter AU with the Hunger Games AU, on Archive of Our Own.

It is an example of a crossover fanfic where the writer, named Rainydayphotos,

merges the two fandoms, that of Harry Potter and the one of the Hunger Games.

Their worlds coexist in a post-war reality where the protagonists seem to strive to heal

from their old wounds but to no avail. The fanfic writer here seems to have spotted

the common elements in both series and wants to stress the trauma the individual

character has been suffering from, hence the use of the PTSD tag. As the plot unfolds

in these two crossover chapters, the fanfic writer tries to map what Harry and Katniss

have in common. The two characters will gradually bond as they start sharing the

troubles due to their celebrity status as well as the lack of understanding from those

close to them. As for the title the particular fanfic attempt uses – “Pyrrhic Victory”– is

telling of the anxieties of the protagonists by the end of each series, with the fanfic

writers proceeding with their own speculations about their impact and repercussions.23

23In the end of Mockingjay, when peace seems to have been restored in Panem,Katniss asks the last

gamemaker, who became a leader figure in the Resistance, “‘Are you preparing for another war,

Plutarch?”’ only for him to answer ‘“Oh, not now. Now we're in that sweet period where everyone

agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated, […] But collective thinking is usually short-

lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although

Markezini 36

With a glimpse to the contributions of the Hunger Games fans to the fanfiction

community, it is not hard to see that young adult readers have been intrigued and have

reflected on the issues about war, trauma, human rights and propaganda, to name a

few, which Collins wanted to tackle with her work. But there are some of the novels’

themes that apply to fanfiction as a practice, not explicitly addressed in the fanfiction

text itself, that maybe even the fanfic writers are not fully aware of.

1.3 Themes that Echo Certain Fanfiction Writing Practices

With the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins touches upon many different

issues of the modern world, ranging for the individual to the community to the global.

Asfor her sociopolitical commentary and psychological reflections, they do not seem

to pass unnoticed by the young adult readers. Among the many different themes of the

books, we will examine those of establishing authority through surveillance and

teenage rebellion (1.3.1) as well as themes about public entertainment, media and

appearances (1.3.2). This subsection calls attention to how these themes apply to

fanfiction writing and promotion.

1.3.1 Teenage Rebellion, Surveillance, and Subverting theMeans of Control

As it was mentioned earlier, the political system of Panem can be

characterized as cyber feudal, with Capitol as its head and the twelve subordinated

Districts forced to sustain it. Unlike the old traditional way of medieval feudalism,

which relies heavily on titles and privileges, here the government favors and, hence,

rules by fear. The Hunger Games are themselves a show of Capitol’s power over the

masses that now pay for their past disobedience. Certainly, the governor makes sure

that said masses remain exclusively in their respective Districts and restricts any

communication between them so poor people would never realize the power of their

who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss”’ (379). Apparently for Rainydayphotos that “sweet period”

was really short-lived.

Markezini 37

number and be able to organize and turn against his oppressive authority. The public

flogging and the very existence of the Avox servants serve as a constant reminder that

anyone who attempts to go against its wishes will be severely punished. Common

people have no control over their lives, or even deaths. Capitol maintains its power

over the different regions by establishing a surveillance system with planted cameras

in every corner, alongside a trained garrison force installed in each District called the

Peacekeepers.

Like all other tributes, Katniss has the cameras silently casting their gaze over

her both inside and outside the arena. In his book Discipline and Punish: the Birth of

the Prison, Michel Foucault, while analyzing the idea of the Panopticon, refers to this

kind of surveillance as the “faceless gaze that transform[s] the whole social body into

a field of perception; thousands of eyes posted everywhere, mobile attention ever on

alert” (214; emphasis added). Because of the constant surveillance, citizens keep on

suffering silently, afraid that they will be eliminated before any successful move

against the Capitol’s rule can be orchestrated. Hence, Panopticism succeeds in

inducing “a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic

functioning of power. So to arrange things that surveillance is permanent in its effects,

even if it is discontinuous in its action” (Foucault 201). And here lies a hole in the

system that Katniss seems to have found out prior to the beginning of the first book

even. The cameras are there all the time but it is practically impossible for every

single one of the District’s people to be followed through them. For one, there have to

be blind spots in the broader area that the cameras cannot capture, and also there are

way fewer people in the Capitol than the actual people of each District. Several times

Katniss goes near the district borders unnoticed and slips into the woods for hunting.

Markezini 38

The woods are off limits to people form District 12 but that does not stop her, neither

does the electric fence of high voltage that surrounds them.

Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact enclosing all of District 12,

is a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire loops. In theory, it’s

supposed to be electrified twenty four hours a day as a deterrent to the

predators that live in the woods […]But since we’re lucky to get two or three

hours of electricity in the evenings, it’s usually safe to touch. Even so, I

always take a moment to listen carefully for the hum that means the fence is

live. Right now, it’s silent as a stone. […] There are several other weak spots

in the fence, but this one is so close to home I almost always enter the woods

here. (HG 4-5)

Katniss learned from her late father how to tell if the fence operates or not and not let

its ever-present warning sign to keep her restricted like other people.

Tributes and rebels not only know how to go around the cameras but also learn

how to revert and use them for their own advantage throughout the series. Katniss has

shown many times through the broadcast of the Games how she defies the

expectations of the organizers and exhibits affection towards Rue. After the girl’s

death, she pays tribute to her, even though Capitol wants her to regard Rue as the

enemy in the arena. Thus, Katniss highlights the humane solidarity in suffering that

unknowingly sparks the revolution. The obligatory screening of the Games is one of

the rare chances district people have to ‘know’ each other and come close.

Unconsciously, she challenges President Snow in his own game when publically she

prompts Peeta to a double suicide, a move that would render the 74th Hunger Games

without a victor and thus the whole event meaningless, as the victor symbolized the

Markezini 39

idea of Hope and reward that Snow’s regime wants to preserve.24And it is not the only

time that Capitol’s means of establishing control are used against it. In Mockingjay,

the rebels in District 13 are able to spread their messages nationwide to all Districts

by hijacking the Capitol’s own transmission and making sure their propaganda videos

will reach as many people as possible. With such broadcast signal intrusions, they

manage to fuel the hopes of the people and keep the resistance going. Finnick, as it

has already been mentioned, seemingly complies with the Capitol’s wishes into

offering his company to the rich people of the metropolis in hopes to protect his loved

ones. But he turns this situation, which seeks to deny him the freedom of agency, to

his favor as he trades for secrets that will ultimately damage Snow’s authority. Some

more practical instances come to show how crucial it is to realize that the system itself

provides the means through which it can be taken down. There is no need to go far

and construct something new and powerful; all we have to do sometimes is to look

around of what is already provided to us and how it can be used as a weapon in our

favor, like Katniss in Cathing Fire.

I finally see Beetee’s knife with clear eyes. My shaking hands slide the

wire from the hilt, wind it around the arrow just above the feathers, and

secure it with a knot picked up in training.

I rise, turning to the force field, fully revealing myself but no longer

caring. Only caring about where I should direct my tip, […] My bow tilts up

at the wavering square, the flaw, the… what did he call it that day? The chink

24 As Shannon Mortimore-Smith declares, “Katniss’s final triumph in the end […] it’s actualizing her

power to turn tables on the Capitol’s rule and play ‘Gamemaker’ to her viewers’ desires and demands.

[…] Katniss maneuvers her final pawn against the Capitol with a handful of berries and her viewers’

empathy as her ally” (165).

Markezini 40

in the armour.25 I let the arrow fly, see it hit its mark and vanish, pulling the

thread of gold behind it.

My hair stands on end and the lightning strikes the tree.

A flash of white runs up the wire, and for just a moment, the domebursts

into a dazzling blue light. I’m thrown backwards to the ground,body useless,

paralysed, […]

Right before the explosions begin, I find a star. (CF 378-379; emphasis

added)

Katniss uses the electric power of the lightning the gamemakers have programmed to

strike every hour in the arena to destroy its very dome and let the hovercraft of

District 13 come and save the tributes.

Years prior to the events of the books, when the first rebellion took place, the

mockingjays were born. It is the bird on Katniss’s pin that becomes the symbol of the

second rebellion with which the heroine identifies. They are “funny birds and

something of a slap in the face tothe Capitol” (HG 42) as she says, and explains that

the government had “bred a series of genetically altered animals as weapons [one of

which was] a bird called a jabberjay that had the ability to memorize and repeat whole

human conversations” (42-43). The jabberjays were used to spy on the rebels and fly

back to the Capitol with the recorded information. But soon people realize what was

happening and started feeding the birds with false intel that would frustrate and

misguide the enemy. Interestingly enough, Capitol has left the birds in the wild

thinking they will become extinct, but they underestimated the species will to live as

the jabberjays mated with the local mockingbirds resulting in the birth of the

25 “The sky above the circumference of the jungle is tinged a uniform pink. And I think I can make out

one or two of those wavy squares, chinks in the armour, Wiress and Beetee called them, because they

reveal what was meant to be hidden and are therefore a weakness” (CF 286).

Markezini 41

mockingjays that keep thriving in the Districts.26 Capitol makes the same mistake

with the Mockingjay of the Rebellion, underestimating Katniss’s will to survive.27

Moving to fanfiction writing, one should consider that the means one employs

in establishing and maintaining authority can be used as weapons against them. The

examples above illustrate this case sufficiently. Now is time to see how exactly the

fanfic writer can challenge Collins’s authority over the text using her own means;

namely, the written text and the online media through which her works are promoted.

Though, the fanfiction writer’s reasons for doing so are not limited exclusively to the

need of overthrowing the absolute authority of the author –this wordplay here cannot

be helped– but works alongside the need of the citizens of Panem to take down the

government and alter the political system. For them, the revolution and the civil war

are a journey that will lead them from docility and obedience to free agency and

control over their lives. Sometimes, fanfic writers, like the young rebels of the Hunger

Games, try to find a way to alter what they do not like about the whole situation,

strive for a change to the course of the (hi)story that they would deem satisfactory to

their needs. So, they resort to fanfic writing and circulate their texts on the online

affinity spaces that advertise the trilogy itself, be it fan-bases, official sites and forums

where fanfiction coexists side by side with other fan-generated artifacts, fanart,

fanmade videos, and community discussions.

As it has been analyzed in previous sections, for the fanfic writers to be able to

produce their own stories, they have first to fully understand the canon, which Busse

and Hellekson explain as “the events presented in the media source that provide the

26 In Catching Fire, Katniss revisits the origin of the mockingjayin an expert that makes a bold

statement about the “highly controlled” District people as well as herself: “A mockingjay is a creature

the Capitol never intended to exist. They hadn’t counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the

brains to adapt […], to thrive in a new form. They hadn’t anticipated its will to live” (92). 27“[T]he Capitol repeatedly overestimates its ability to control and manipulate Katniss” (Sean P.

Connors 7) into serving its interests the same way it happens with the jabberjays.

Markezini 42

universe, setting and characters” (9). From there, they can depart, according to their

own wishes, and indulge themselves and readers to the fanon where they “often

create[] particular details or character reading even though canon does not fully

support it – or, at times, outright contradicts it” (9).Given the creative freedom of the

genre, readers can change the original source text quite dramatically. In the

community, one can find many different versions of Collins’s story not supported by

the books as a result of adaptation. Those adaptive reading of the Hunger Games

mostly have to do with the romantic relationships (commonly referred to as ships) that

community writers want to push forward. Many times readers try to find evidence in

the books to support their theories while there are other instances where the couples

are paired up just for fun and purely self-indulgence purposes.28 Moreover, quite

substantial are the changes reflected in the tags where, apart from the Canon

Divergence, we find the alternative ending, and changed scenetag. The argument here

does not necessarily mirror a strong disagreement with the author’s choices; but rather

it is a mix of wishful thinking and the need of the readers to explore their own

understanding of the original (character analysis, worldbuilding) as they play around

and alter some key factors that determine the narrative. After all, if things are as

Abbott claims to be, and “[t]o tell a story is to try to understand it” (109), then to

change the given story might require a little more of mental strain.

The Alternative ending can be found for all three books of the series. People

are intrigued to see what would happen if Peeta and Katniss ate the poisonous berries,

or if one of them actually turned against the other as their survival instinct prevailed.

Some want to witness a nation of Panem were the second Revolution failed and the

rebels did not manage to take over the Capitol. What would be the future of the

28 The role of Romance in the Hunger Games, its significance and meaning, is discussed extensively in

2.1

Markezini 43

Districts and the protagonists then? Also, many readers were devastated when Finnick

–a dearly loved character– gets killed during an operation so they unleash their

frustration on fanfics with a changed scene where he gets out of it alive, makes it to

the end of the war, and is able to watch his son coming to life. As we can see,

fanfiction is heavily based on and driven by the emotional impact the original source

material has on the readers. Collins responds to complains on Finnick’s tragic end,

claiming that her trilogy is primarily a story about war, and war is ugly.29 His death

leaves an impact on the reader because he is a loved character that has precious things

to lose with his demise; a young wife and an unborn son. Armed conflict has not only

casualties but also far deeper consequences than the media are willing to show. Young

people, who hold the future in their hands, have to realize what armed conflicts

actually bring upon this world. No matter how painful that part was, the author stays

true to her wish of exposing, even a little bit, readers to the reality of it through

loss.But the fandom always finds its way around the canon –sometimes it is a

mechanism to cope– and the result is rather interesting. As an attempt to humor the

pain, the tag about Finnick deserved better that circulated at the time, was a funny one

to come across in the fanfiction community in its own bitter way.

1.3.2 Entertaining the Public and the Importance of Appearances

While reading the books, one realizes that the role of the cameras is not

limited to surveillance purposes. The Hunger Games are essentially a reality show

broadcasted nationwide. As Collins says to Levithan, she originally conceived the

idea for writing the books while zapping through channels showing “reality television

programs and actual footage of the Iraq War” (HG 381). Later, she uses the Greek

myth of Theseus and the story of Spartacus as further inspiration to build her plot

29 When asked by David Levithan if she thought about HG as a dystopian novel from the very

beginning, Collins pointedly replies: “I thought of it as a war story. I love dystopia, but it will always

be secondary to that” (HG 398).

Markezini 44

(382-383). In particular, Theseus actually volunteers to go to Crete and fight against

the infamous Minotaur –as Katniss volunteers to participate in the Games– while

Spartacus’s story is “about a person who’s forced to become a gladiator, breaks out of

the gladiator school/arena to lead a rebellion, and becomes the face of a war” (HG

383). If we substitute the word ‘gladiator’ with the word ‘tribute’ in the sentence

above, one gets the summary of Katniss’s journey through the trilogy.

For the wider public, the books connection to Spartacus and the Roman

Empire might be the most striking, as most of the names in the series point to that

direction. From the very name of the nation that is Panem to the two head

gamemakers called Seneca and Plutarch, the presenter of the Games called Caesar,

down to the very telling name of President Coriolanus Snow, the link with the ancient

past is hard to miss. In Mockingjay, Plutarch makes a comment about the people of

the Capitol in contrast to the rest of the nation claiming that “all they’ve known is

Panem et Circenses” and proceeds in explaining to a curious Katniss: “It’s a saying

from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called

Rome, […] translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’ The writer was saying that in return

for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political

responsibilities and therefore their power” (MJ 223). And for a long time, this method

succeeded in keeping the people under the control of the Capitol. That passage is one

of Collins’s many warnings to the readers on how important it is to realize their role

as consumers and apply some critical reflection to everything the media have to offer,

any kind of media- printed or televised.

Shannon Mortimore-Smith, in her essay “Fueling the Spectacle: Audience as

‘Gamemaker’”, comes to support what has been discussed above while stressing that

the games exist “not only to ensure the docility and subservience of the twelve

Markezini 45

districts, but also to entertain a wide and voracious viewership” (159). Capitol seeks

to both satisfy the voyeuristic tendencies of its people, who enjoy the action, drama

and slaughter from the comfort and safety of their luxurious couches, and cloud their

judgment about the whole sociopolitical situation while concealing their political

agenda. They present the District people as lower species with animalistic tendencies

that need this practice for them to be tamed, and thus that is how Capitol maintains

and secures the peace and balance in the nation. Sadly, it is the audience’s

engagement that keeps the Hunger Games going but they do not seem to realize it.

Even when the audience appears concerned about Katniss being pregnant and entering

the Games a second time, they remain passive and do not make a move to actively

stop the event from happening as their ‘hunger’ for spectacle prevails. Additionally,

seeking to stress this relation between televised shows and audience, the screenwriters

of Catching Fire (2013) that constitutes the film adaptation of the synonymous novel

from the trilogy, add a few extra lines to Joanna's words during her interview for the

75th Games, emphasizing the role of the viewer with a scene that is not included in the

novel. ‘“Well, hell yes, I'm angry,’” she says to Caesar, ‘“You know, I'm getting

totally screwed over here. The deal was that if I win the Hunger Games, I get to live

the rest of my life in peace,”’ and then turns to stare straight into the camera lens, as if

speaking directly to those watching the movie itself, ‘“But now, you want to kill me

again,”’ and the camera shifts once more as she faces the audience of the live-

broadcast and shouts, ‘“Well, you know what? F---THAT! AND F--- EVERYBODY

THAT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!”’ (Catching Fire 1:11:10-1:11:40).

With this cinematic technique, the screenwriters manage to involve the spectators into

the Games because they are the force dictating how the Games will play out.

Markezini 46

Given the situation, it is also up tothem to keep and help a tribute make it

through.Katniss understands very soon that in order to survive the Games, she needs

to gain sponsors that will send medicine, food and other things in the arena that can

make the difference between life and death for the participant. To do so, see needs to

get their attention in any way possible and stand out among the rest of the tributes.

The impressive costumes Cinna makes for her serve that purpose. The suit that is set

on fire and the dress prepared for her first interview that gives off sparkles when she

moves make her the infamous ‘Girl on Fire’. The stylist’s modification to her

wedding dress during the 75th Hunger Games –that actually cost him his life–

transform Katniss into the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion; the white fabric

peels off revealing the winged bird underneath and leaves both the audience and

Caesar speechless. It is all a matter of making a memorable impression as Haymitch,

her mentor, repeats again and again, “[i]t’s all a big show” (HG 135). Katniss needs

“the ‘gaze’ of the sponsors –by evoking the empathy and the bloodlust of her

spectators– can Katniss truly triumph” (Mortimore-Smith 158).

Katniss decides to play along, learning that the trick is to get to know what the

sponsors hunger for and play with their expectations. And in their case, it is the

romance that can ensure their sponsorship, a masterplot that most of us fall for as we

will see in the following chapter. Katniss even admits that Peeta is a natural when it

comes into manipulating the public to their favor, especially when he lies about

Katniss’s pregnancy. “There. He’s done it again. Dropped the bomb that wipes out the

efforts of every tribute who came before him. […] how much I rely on Cinna’s

talents, whereas Peeta needs nothing more than his wits” (CF 256). Of course, here

the heroine does not do herself justice but she makes a great point on how one can

gain the public’s favor and attention. And, as much preferable it would have been for

Markezini 47

the District people to stay in the dark, away for the cameras, for Katniss things have

changed. As a tribute, she needs the spotlight – “I’m glad for the cameras now,” she

says, “I want sponsors to see I can hunt, that I’m a good bet” (HG 164) – and she gets

to win not only the favor of the rich people of the Capitol but also the respect of Rue’s

district after witnessing her treatment to the girl’s dead body.

Fanfiction writers rely for their

survival upon the readers the same way

Katniss does in the arena with the sponsors.

The protagonist seeks to leave an impression

to the audience overshadowing the rest of the

tributes. In the online community, fanfic

writers try to find ways to not have their fics

get lost in the multitude of works that get

uploaded to the platforms every single day. If

one looks closely, they will see that one

important factor is the proper use of tags and

key words in the description of their work so

they can resurface easily during searches.

This means that writers have learned to use a more detailed and elaborate tagging

system for their works noticing how readers go online in search for very specific

things to read (Fig. 1.5).30 The option given to the readers to modify their search

30 The extensive use of the Archive of Our Own (AO3) platform as a source for the present thesis is

partially because it is currently the largest database for online fanciction, but also it has the most well-

organized tagging system, a feature for which AO3 is highly praised within the community. For more

details read Gretchen McCulloch’s article “Fans Are Better Than Tech at Organizing Information

Online: Archive of Our Own, the fanfiction database recently nominated for a Hugo, has perfected a

system of tagging that the rest of the web could emulate.” There, she explains how AO3, with the help

of volunteer tag wranglers, constructed its own system borrowing from both “laissez-faire tags” and a

Fig. 1.5. Sample of the search filters

provided by Archive of Our Own.

Markezini 48

according to what they are

looking for drives many young

people away from hardcopies

and leads them towards the

online archives. Furthermore,

fanfic writers usually provide

their other social media accounts

in their works encouraging in

this way readers to engage with

them there or in the comment section of the fanfiction platform. In the community,

this helps fanfic writers to both get immediate feedback on their work which helps

them improve their writing skills in the process and stay hyped and motivated in order

to keep on writing. This immediate contact with their readers is also a way to help

writers satisfy the demand in the fandom. With twitter and tumblr being the most

popular platforms, fanfic writers can scroll and search to find what the community

craves for at a given point in time. They also post polls, or ask to receive prompts on

what to write next, and proceed accordingly (Fig. 1.6). In a way, they secure a

standard viewership by exploiting many social platforms. Often, some accompany

their fanfics with pictures and moodboards (Fig. 1.7) especially created for each work,

and this constitutes an extra artistic point when it comes to promoting fanfiction that

aims to catch the eye of the media user.

Busse and Hellekson argue that even after the online publication of a

fanfiction piece this remains open as a work in progress where the writer can go back

and make changes according to mistakes spotted, or –especially in chaptered fanfics–

“controlled, top-down, rigid tagging system” to facilitate the online experience and free artistic

expression of the fans.

Fig. 1.6. Poll posted by user @_its_addison_ on Twitter

asking their readers what they would like to read next.

Writing for the Minecraft fandom, they have plans for a

Hunger Games AU. Given the opportunity, they promote

their other works in a follow up tweet.

Markezini 49

they can get inspiration by

the comments under each

update and revise the way

the story will develop (6). It

is up to the writer to decide

whether they will satisfy the

readers’ expectations and

predictions or actually go

for a surprise.

With all these being said, one should keep in mind that “[i]n most cases, the

resulting story is part collaboration and part response to not only the source text, but

also the cultural context within and outside the fannish community in which it is

produced” (Busse 7). Many are the reasons why the Hunger Games Trilogy is so

popular on the fanfiction platforms, and equally numerous are the ways fanfiction

writers choose to unfold and promote their own stories. Thus, having examined in

detail some of the narrative practices of online fanfiction, we should be increasingly

aware of and willing to question our role as consumers even if this has to do with the

reading of printed books or online fanfics, or watching film adaptations, reality shows

and news media outlets. Collins’s work should function as a “cautionary tale” whose

“dystopia forecasts the brutal outcome of any society that loses sight of the ‘reality’

that drives its entertainment” (Mortimore-Smith 164).

Fig. 1.7. A Hunger Games AU moodboard made by user

@jihunscutie to accompany their fanfic featuring Kpop Idols from

the boy group BTS, on Twitter.

Markezini 50

CHAPTER TWO

The Romance in the Hunger Games Trilogy

and the Response of the Fanfiction Community

2.1 Sexual Awakening and Female Agency in the Hunger Games Trilogy

As illustrated in the previous chapter, the audiences are those who essentially

determine and shape the entertainment industry. The content of the consumed cultural

products is cleverly fashioned to meet the public’s needs and satisfy their

expectations. The field of publishing is not an exception to this rule. Romance, as

Catherine M. Roach argues in her book Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in

Popular Fiction, “is a central storyline of human culture” (3) and she specifies that,

according to the research of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), “[r]omance

fiction is America’s bestselling genre” (5).Such stories usually involve themes of

love, romance, rivalry, and carnal desire among many other human passions.

No matter the multitude of such stories and the recycling of similar ideas and

plotlines, the genre is not likely to lose popularity any time soon as the sales numbers

of the novels and the success of their audiovisual adaptation show.31Viewing the

romance alongside young adult literature, one can argue that the romance masterplot

appears to be the most popular; this might be because anxiety about love linked to the

sexual awakening of a person is often a characteristic of young adults which are the

targeted audience of such publications. Like Katniss, the majority of the readers of the

Hunger Games trilogy are at that liminal stage in life, the passage from childhood to

adulthood, where they need to explore and transform themselves through a journey

31 Based on her research in book publishing and marketing and the data collected from RWA until

2019, Valerie Peterson observes in her online article on “What You Need to Know About Romance

Fiction Genre” that “the romance fiction industry is worth $1.08 billion dollars a year, which makes it

about a third larger than the inspirational book industry, and about the size of the mystery novel

genre and science fiction/fantasy genre markets combined.”

Markezini 51

that, unfortunately, calls for a lot of trial-and-error, questioning and reflecting on the

consequences of their actions in hopes to learn from it about their very own self.

However, Suzanne Collins employs the masterplot of romance and the

promise of a fairytale ending, only to subvert and challenge it. She manages to play

with the readers’ expectations by actually subverting the expected masterplot when

she presents it as a tactic or as a survival mechanism for her protagonist and not as the

driving force in the plot and the ultimate goal for the young heroine. Many critics

claim that the popularity of the trilogy is partly due to the lack of overt romance that

enables male readers to embrace a young adult novel with a female protagonist more

easily.32The same argument though can be brought forth when it comes to female

readership that actually have had enough with the multitude of young adult novels in

the market focusing on romantic relationships, a prince Charming and a happily-ever-

after that populate the selves of every available bookstore. The Hunger Games trilogy

offer a refreshing alternative to the ever-present question of ‘what do girls want’ that

in reality turns out to be a very tricky one to tackle. Yet again, the boundaries are

blurry as the series deny readers the actual romance till the very last two pages of the

trilogy. Nevertheless, in the process, this lack fuels the reader’s desire to know how

this story will end, if Katniss will eventually make a choice between the two men in

her life even though this kind of closure is not the main focus of the narrative at hand.

Before moving on to see how fanfiction writers deal with the romance –or the

lack of it– as presented in the novels along with their reaction to Katniss’s ultimate

32At this point, it would be interesting to appeal to the recurring theme of the role of ‘appearances’ in

the series, and observe the cover of the books themselves that picture the evolution of the Mockingjay

(see Fig. 0.1), an emblematic image that initially features the mockingjay trapped within the circle, its

head hanging low. The bird eventually manages to spread its wings and break free. Talking about

marketing, Collins’ publisher, David Levithan, admits they had to turn down many covers portraying

Katniss or scenes from the books till they decided on the Mockingjay pin (HG 405). Collins comes to

add that the final cover “doesn’t limit the age of the audience and [she] think[s] that really contributed

to adults feeling comfortable reading it” (405) as “[t]here’s something universal about the imagery, the

captive bird gaining freedom” (406).On the same basis, it can also be claimed that the omission of a

female figure on the cover helps expand the trilogy readership.

Markezini 52

choice, I suggest that it should be best to explore how the young female character

approaches any kind of romantic relationship in the original text. Throughout the

whole story, Katniss does not actively seek physical contact with Peeta–outside of

their little act for the Capitol –or Gale, nor show signs of being romantically

interested to any individual presented in the books the way most people would expect

from a sixteen-year old girl. She recognizes that the two boys are objectively

attractive and admires their physique and skills, but she usually stresses how these

traits are beneficial for their survival. Most importantly, she stops her thoughts the

moment they seem to be trailing off to anything nearly erotic, dropping the subject

completely and moving on to the next issue the characters have to face while looking

rather unaffected, as shown in the following paragraph.

As the books are written in a way that reflects Katniss unfiltered thoughts,

readers can spot from the very beginning the way she stresses that there are no

romantic feelings towards her best friend Gale. “Finally, Gale is here and maybe there

is nothing romantic between us, but when he opens his arms I don’t hesitate to go into

them. His body is familiar to me –the way it moves, the smell of wood smoke, even

the sound of his heart beating I know from quiet moments on a hunt– but this is the

first time I really feel it, lean and hard-muscled against my own” (HG 38-39;

emphasis added); this is how she describes her attraction to Gale when he comes to

say goodbye just before she is transferred to the Capitol for the first time. And in the

very next sentence, they proceed discussing about what her first moves in the arena

would be in order to secure food and weapons, leaving the previous thought hanging,

the atmosphere shifting rapidly. But even in the arena, while Katniss considers how

her fake romance with Peeta appeals to viewers and sponsors alike, she cannot help

thinking about him.

Markezini 53

And Gale. I know him. He won’t be shouting and cheering. But he’ll be

watching, […] willing me to come home. I wonder if he’s hoping that Peeta

makes it as well. Gale’s not my boyfriend, but would he be, if I opened that

door? He talked about us running away together. Was that just a practical

calculation of our chances of survival away from the district? Or something

more? I wonder what he makes of all this kissing. (HG 280; emphasis added)

In those instances, Katniss recognizes that there is something keeping her from

engaging in a romantic relationship with Gale, something inside her that will be

further analyzed in the paragraphs that follow. In this way, readers begin to

understand that she might be confused about the boy’s intentions but she senses –even

subconsciously – that Gale could be jealous of all that fake display of affection

towards Peeta and thus, she is mildly aware of the feelings he is nursing for her. For

some, voicing the concerns quoted above might be an early indication of her own

feelings and fear of giving him, of all people, the wrong impression about where her

heart lies.33

Indeed, once back home as the winner of the 74th Hunger Games, comes an

incident that leaves her with no doubt that Gale does have romantic feelings for her,

when he gets her by surprise, kissing her while they are both out hunting, and

vanishes immediately afterwards. “I tried to decide how I felt about the kiss, if I had

liked it or resented it, but all I really remembered was the pressure of Gale’s lips and

the scent of the oranges that still lingered on his skin. It was pointless comparing it

with the many kisses I’d exchanged with Peeta. I still hadn’t figured out if any of

33

In Catching Fire, there is again a moment when Katniss almost admits feeling the sting of jealousy

when she gets angry after Haymitch hinting there might be something going on between Gale and a

local girl. Peeta simply asks how those two would know each other. ‘“We used to sell her

strawberries,’ I [Katniss] say almost angrily. What am I angry about, though? Not that she has brought

the medicine, surely. […] That’s what nettles me. It’s the implication that there’s something going on

between Gale and Madge. And I don’t like it”’ (CF 116).

Markezini 54

those counted. Finally I went home” (CF 27). Days pass and Gale does not mention

anything about it and Katniss admits that “I just pretended it had never happened,

either. But it had. Gale had shattered some invisible barrier between us and, with it,

any hope I had of resuming our old, uncomplicated friendship. Whatever I pretended,

I could never look at his lips in quite the same way” (CF 28; emphasis added). Here,

reading between the lines, many readers and critics detect one of the reasons why

Katniss appears reluctant to let herself invest in a relationship; prioritizing her

family’s survival above everything else. After her father’s death, she is the only

provider for her catatonic mother and little sister, and Gale is a crucial ally and her

only companion in the daily struggle to fend for them. They hunt together, sell their

catch illegally in the market, they have each other’s back. Complicating their

relationship, endangering this fruitful friendship with romantic feelings, one can claim

that it places Katniss’ friendship at risk which she is not willing to take.

Parallel to this argument appears the reading of the trilogy not only as a story

about war and survival, but also as a coming of age narrative that depicts the sexual

awakening of its teenage protagonist, and all the confusion that comes with it as

Katniss experiences the sparks of lust and desire for the first time. Collins comments

on this in the novel as follows: “This is the first kiss [with Peeta] that we’re both fully

aware of. Neither of us hobbled by sickness or pain or simply unconscious. Our lips

neither burning with fever or icy cold. This is the first kiss where I actually feel

stirring inside my chest. Warm and curious. This is the first kiss that makes me want

another” (HG 298). It is the kiss that she shares with Peeta after realizing she genuine

wants him to survive the games; not for the sponsors’ eyes or the people back in

District 12 but for her, as he becomes a person she has come to appreciate dearly for

what he stands for. The same feeling is experienced in Catching Fire when Katniss

Markezini 55

sense this new “curious” feeling once again while confronting Peeta who is willing to

die in order to help her return home and take care of her loved ones, claiming that

nobody cares whether he will make it out alive anyway. Katniss, battling with waves

of feelings she finds hard to fully identify, cries out that she cares, she needs him, and

once again, she cuts short any further arguments by kissing him to avoid elaborating

on the confession of real feeling:

I feel that thing again. The thing I only felt once before. In the cave last

year, when I was trying to get Haymitch to send us food. I kissed Peeta about

a thousand times during those Games and after. But there was only one kiss

that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want

more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down.

This time, there is nothing but us to interrupt us. And after a few

attempts, Peeta gives up on talking. The sensation inside me grows warmer

and spreads out from my chest, down through my body, out along my arms

and legs, to the tips of my being. Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the

opposite effect, of making my need greater. I thought I was something of an

expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind. (CF 352-353)

Appearing near the end of the second novel, this scene is the most explicit content-

wise for the young readers of the whole trilogy. Collins skillfully builds on such

content in a way that the romance is subtle –having in mind that all the instances

collected here are, in fact, scattered through the pages of the entire trilogy. Romance

does not turn out to be what drives the whole plot forward, a choice that could divert

Markezini 56

people’s attention away from the other sociopolitical issues she wants to expose with

her work.34

One common element that underlines the descriptions Collins offers of the

female character, Katniss, during those moments of proximity she shares with the two

male characters is the lack of overt physical attraction with regard to external

appearances. If paying attention to the wording, it is rather the sense of security and

comfort, familiarity and homeliness that she focuses on when embraced by both Gale

and Peeta. This becomes evident in Katniss’s words when thinking about Peeta while

hiding inside a cave during her first time in the arena: “As we settle in, he pulls my

head down to use his arm as a pillow, the other rests protectively over me even when

he goes to sleep. No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father

died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else’s arms have made me feel this

safe” (HG 298-299). As evidenced here, what Katniss needs, while living under a

treacherous regime and having to face such brutality and horrors in such a young age,

is the sense of security and not heteronormative purely erotic desire.

It is not only the readers that point to the strong survival instinct Katniss has

developed over the years as a factor that will dictate all her life choices, partnership

included. In the second half of Mokingjay and while presuming that Katniss is asleep,

Gale and Peeta discuss about the criterion with which she will make a choice between

the two of them if they make it out of the war alive – one could argue at this point that

34 Unlike Collins’s text though, the marketing team responsible for the media promotion of the books

as well as that of their movie adaptations (posters, trailers etc) choose to heighten the romance between

the leading characters following the idea that ‘romance sells’. It could be said that this kind of

promotion manages to silence the potential of the books to some extent. On the topic, Keith O’Sullivan

notes that “[w]hile the film adaptations of The Hunger Games subvert the socio-political critic of

contemporary Western values implicit in Collins’s dystopian fiction for the sake of playing up the

romantic love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale, both film and fiction depict a post-apocalyptic

world that young readers can identify with” (102).

Markezini 57

it is rather bold of them to assume that the girl has to pick one of them eventually.

Gale’s answer is a real blow for Katniss.

A chill runs through me. Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale

didn’t say, “Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,” or

even “whoever she can't live without.” Those would have implied I was

motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the

person who I think I “can’t survive without.” There’s not the least indication

that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I'll just conduct an

unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the

end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my

longevity the most. It’s a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to

refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited

by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I

can survive just fine without either of them.

In the morning, I have no time or energy to nurse wounded feelings.

(MJ 330)

The bitterness in her tone is rather palpable. Katniss refuses to believe she a

calculating cold person when it comes to her interpersonal relationships, she knows

deep down she is not, but at the same time the heroine has trouble to articulate what

her actual motivations are. In the end of the day, people find it easier to define

abstract ideas such as love or sexuality by negation, describing it for what it is not

rather than expressing what it actually is, remaining for her an ever elusive term. Yet,

Katniss does not hesitate to articulate her thoughts when she is trying to work out her

emotions or her confusion over certain situations as is for example the case of the

Capitol’s exploitative governance.

Markezini 58

In his book The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that power does

not repress the sexuality of the individual as many believe, but it actually shapes it.

Sexuality is not the expression of something innate humans have to discover, not “a

kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check” but it is better understood as

“a historical construct […] a great surface network in which the simulation of bodies,

the intensification of pleasures, the incitement to discourse, the formation of special

knowledges, the strengthening of controls and resistance, are linked to one another”

(105-106). There are so many factors that operate on Katniss’s sexual development.

One of them has to do with her living in one of the poorest Districts in the nation of

Panem which renders the development of any romantic relationship impossible with

survival being her utmost priority and day to day struggle. Readers can also claim that

Katniss is just a late bloomer in the field of love given her age, but again, on the basis

of Foucault’s views, one can hardly support that having a late sexual awakening is a

natural given that springs from within the girl totally unaffected by external

sociopolitical factors. Such a statement seriously trivializes the environment in which

the character grows up and how she experiences it. Furthermore, a crucial element for

consideration is Katniss’s refusal to having kids for many years after living with

Peeta, and her repetition of that wish throughout the series. This comes as an indirect

result of the government’s attempts in regulating its citizens. Katniss refuses to offer

them more means to control her life; spending the rest of her life with the fear of her

children getting reaped every year. She cannot shake this thought off decades after the

end of the Hunger Games.35 What can be said here regarding this development is that

35 During a hunt, Gale and Katniss discuss about how hard it is to sustain their families and siblings: ‘“I

never want to have kids,’ I say. ‘I might. If I didn’t live here,’ says Gale. ‘But you do,’ I say, irritated.

‘Forget it,’ he snaps back. The conversation feels all wrong. Leave?” (HG 9-10; emphasis added).

Again, after President Snow’s threats, it is only her marriage to Peeta that would help pacify the public;

however, Katniss is convinced that “Given all the trouble I’ve caused, I’ve probably guaranteed any

child of mine a spot in the Games” (CF 45-46). When she finally gets to have her two children, she

Markezini 59

her negative stance towards having children has subconsciously driven her away from

any possible heterosexual romance that could result in pregnancy.

Katniss final decision to stay with Peeta and raise her children away from the

Capitol without playing an active role in the politics of the new democratic system

disappoints some readers. Many critics, as is Kathrine Broad, believe that “the series’

conclusion in an epic heroine defaulting to a safe, stable, and highly insular

heterosexual reproductive union” nullifies the groundbreaking alternatives Collins

could potentially offer to the genre. She suggests that the revolution failed in

essentially challenging the established “social and sexual status quo” (125) of

Katniss’s reality, which is rather similar to our own, when “the final image of

complacent adulthood suggests that Katniss’s instances of rebellion are permissible

for girls, but not women” (126). However, based on the individual interpretation of

the final pages of the trilogy, others recognize that the heroine has undeniably “more

agency in her life than she did at the beginning of the narrative. Katniss has learned

how to negotiate the power relationships in which she is embedded” (Pulliam 183),

and thus her transformative journey to adulthood is successful and liberating. The

Hunger Games portray the struggle of a teenage girl –and of a whole nation– to move

from a stage of subordination and oppression to that of free agency. Its protagonist

transformed from a powerless citizen who believed that yelling over the injustice

“doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make things fair. It doesn’t fill our stomachs”

(HG 14) to become the leading figure of a successful revolution by actually managing

to stay alive so that she can have a taste of the change she has brought. “It is an

admits: “It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first

felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of

holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much” (MJ 389). Given

Katniss’s strong parental instinct combined with her failure to save Prim, Rue and other children that

became the necessary targets of this war, she will probably live carrying the fear of being unable to

protect and losing her children till her last days.

Markezini 60

empowering and provocative ending,” according to O’Sullivan, as “Katniss’s tactical

seduction of the disciplinary mechanisms of the Capitol suggest that power relations

are never fixed and that change can be effected from within the socio-political

systems” (109), as it is extensively analyzed in the previous chapter of this paper.

Instead of raising questions of subordination to heteronormative conventions,

it can be claimed that Katniss by the end of Mockingjay is finally free from many of

the factors that previously would not permit her undisclosed desires to come to the

surface. Now that there is peace, no more Hunger Games, and poverty does not stand

in her way, it is her conscious choice to start a family with Peeta. This development

should come as no surprise given her heightened parental instinct that is presented to

the readers since the beginning of the first novel, a detail that many academics seem

to ignore. Despite all the arguments about her role as a transformative heroine of

young adult (YA) dystopian fiction, one who does not conform to the expectations

and traditional gender roles prescribed by the society, June Pulliam observes that we

cannot ignore the way “Katniss’s behavior is motivated by feelings that are more

stereotypically feminine than masculine,” feeling the need to “protect her loved ones

rather the more typically masculine desire to openly defy others” (175-176). Hence,

Katniss demonstrates both traditionally male and female characteristics and it is

exactly this fusion of traits that explains her multifaceted character and wide range of

action. Jeniffer Mitchell, with her essay “Of Queer Necessity”, comes to add that

“Katniss’s ability to negotiate, try on, and experiment with various gender roles is a

testament to the lack of stable substance underneath them” (129). If one holds onto

that statement, it soon becomes clear that arguments which support that Katniss

chooses Peeta because Collins simply subverts the traditional gender roles, having the

first play the man and the latter the woman in their relationship according to their

Markezini 61

respective character traits, are not all that well founded. There is probably way more

to it than this overgeneralization suggests.

The author herself states that “Peeta and Gale appeared quickly [in the story],

less as two points on a love triangle, more as two perspectives in the just war debate”

reminding her readers what the central theme of her work is. Essentially, Katniss has

to make a choice between the “violent remedies” that Gale represents and

“diplomacy” that resonates with Peeta, and she chooses the latter (HG 388). It is

almost certain that no substantial change could have come without any extreme action

in the case of the deep-rooted cyberfeudal system of Panem, but Collins has to “make

the arguments as strong as possible on both sides” (389). Katniss ultimately chooses

diplomacy but she succeeds in ending the Games once and for all through an act of

violence by killing Coin, an insidious character aspiring to be the new dictator (389).

So, by bringing together and balancing the two options in Katniss, Collins hopes that

eventually “better discussion [on the just war issue] might lead to more nonviolent

forms of conflict resolution, so we evolve out of choosing war as an option” (390) at

the first place. As Abigail Myers phrases it, choosing Gale “would mean a betrayal of

one of her highest values: the preservation of innocent life” (qtd. in Pulliam 183) and

readers should not forget that Prim, Katniss’s little sister, is killed because of Gale’s

violent plots against Coin. Katniss volunteers to take her place in the 74thGames in

order to save her life, even though this does not prove to be possible. Even though

Katniss and Gale have similar disposition and experiences in District 12, their

“differences of opinion are based in just war theory,” their “ethical and personal lines”

differ, “[b]ut it’s rarely simple; there are a lot of gray areas […] the emotional pull

and the ethical pull becomes so intertwined it’s impossible to separate them. […] You

keep trying to understand what led to the difference and see if it can be bridged

Markezini 62

(Collins HG 391). In their case, it is not possible anymore. Collins manages to portray

romantic feelings and interpersonal interactions in all their complexity, mapping

Katniss’s romantic relationships on a rather realistic and deeply humane ground. Her

success in doing so is evident in the readers’ different arguments and points raised in

order to support either of the male characters.

Taking into account how stripped of pure physical attraction the whole trilogy

appears to be, all the way till the last punctuation mark, one can easily claim that in

the end all comes down to the principal of companionship that ideally relies on mutual

understanding, trust and satisfaction of basic physical and emotional needs. For

Katniss, the emotional fulfillment is the most important as she spends her life

deprived of inner peace and emotional security, forced to forsake her childhood

innocence too early, becoming a family provider and a tribute in the process. She

finds her inner peace and hope in Peeta and his optimistic view of life. Katniss

confesses that it took some time after the war ended but

Peeta and I grow back together. […] I know this would have happened

anyway. That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and

hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the

spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The

promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be

good again. And only Peeta can give me that. (MJ 388)

The ‘girl on fire’ needed balance, a partner that could tame the raging blaze within her

before it consumes her completely. Pulliam concludes that Katniss “can never

honestly answer Peeta’s question” (184) in Mockingjay, “You love me. Real or not

real?” (MJ 388), because she can never actually know what factors contributed to her

choice. Personally, I like to think that her choice of the gender neutral “dandelion” as

Markezini 63

a long-life partner and her assertive “Real” (388) indicate a person who has come to

terms with their inner demons and made peace with the thought that love, no matter

how elusive, cannot help but be selfish; but this selfishness goes both ways. Peeta

would never make it without Katniss as well. In the end of the day, it is through

Katniss’s relationships with other characters in the story through which readers gain

an insight into her survival mechanisms that render certain traumas a bit more

bearable.

2.2 On Issues of Representation and Renegotiating Katniss’s Sexuality through

Fanfiction

When it comes to the online fanfiction platforms, a glimpse into the Hunger

Games fandom and its artistic production shows that young adult readers are more

than capable to understand and evaluate Collins’s romance writing strategies. Readers

explore their own sexuality, indulge and entertain themselves through fanfic writing

while expressing their queerness, anxieties and curiosity about their own sexual

development and can find the support and comfort, which is often hard to find offline,

among fellow fans of the trilogy. By reading and writing fanfics, they have the chance

to reflect on Katniss’s journey and learn about their own reality through a character

that “is always questioning what has shaped her feelings [and thus] exposes the forces

in our world that form girls’ desire” (Pulliam 184). In the paragraphs that follow, this

section will focus on the examination of those taboos and prejudice in the context of

popular fiction and romance the fanfiction community attempts to subvert, as well as

issues of representation that need to be addressed.

Markezini 64

Staying loyal to the way the Star Trek fandom developed in the 1960-70s,36

fanfic writers of the Hunger Games trilogy continue the tradition of submitting

material with explicit sexual content. A quick search on the sites that host the HG

fanfics suggests that, possibly driven by both the lack of ‘smut’ in the pages of the

trilogy and intrigued by the dynamics that Collins builds between her characters, fans

feel the need to explore the possibilities, turn the romance physical and their stories

explicit. As Eden writes in her article “Fanfiction and LGBT+ Representation,” “[…]

this is also where the negative association of fanfiction with lewdness or

distastefulness [began].” The characterization of such fanfic content as distasteful and

lewd closely links fanfiction to the Romance novel, especially when taking into

consideration their common themes and that the majority of the writers are women or

people who do not identify as the traditional straight masculine male individual.

Consequently, this negative criticism has fueled the arguments while pointing to an

attempt to repress not only female but any other sexually ‘deviant’ group from

popular fiction. Roach aptly remarks that this stance of the patriarchal society against

the “lowbrow smut, bad in all senses of the word” (191), has stigmatized the writer,

often instilling in them a “sense of inferiority” that eventually has made them turn

unnecessarily defensive over their works.37

As is the case with the popularity of romance novels, explicit and queer

fanfiction has been produced in order to satisfy that part of the community asking for

stories of sexually explicit content that apparently cannot be easily found in the

36 “Star Trek popularized the term and the practice” of modern fanfiction writing, giving rise to the

infamous ‘“slash’ fiction, pairing together characters Spock and Kirk in a romantic setting. The

romantic pairing was shortened to ‘K/S’, which gradually informed the slang for fictional gay romance,

as written in fanworks, as ‘slash’. This is likely where the connotation of fanfiction with homoeroticism

began; as ‘slash fiction’ grew, it began to incorporate other identities and expressions”’ (Eden). 37 As Hans-Georg Betznotes in his article “Romance Novels Are a Weapon Against Misogyny,” for

years the romance novels used to be “contemptuously dismissed as ‘chic lit’ and ‘cliterature,’”

derogatory terms that are sufficiently self-explanatory regarding the male audience’s sentiments and

impression towards the genre and its writers.

Markezini 65

mainstream market. Dara Downey argues that “the Fifty Shades phenomenon cannily

exploits this gap in the market, even as it has fuelled demand for more sexually

explicit romance fiction” (114), becoming the best-selling book of the decade with the

series selling 35 million print and e-book copies from 2011 to 2019 (Gwen Aviles for

NBC News).One better not forget that interestingly enough, E. E. James’s series

started as a Twilight fanfiction and ended up taking the publishing industry by storm.

Despite negative criticism on its pornographic elements and disputes on the stylistic

value of the piece, one can hardly ignore the international sensation it has brought

forward as well as the supportive and loyal readership it has secured by being

originally uploaded on fanfiction.net which made its publication in print possible.

Even though fanfiction is not solely about slash fics and romantic

relationships, these are the kind of fanfics that serve the purpose of the present thesis.

For that reason, it is worth mentioning Catherine Driscoll’s essay titled “One True

Pairing: The Romance of Pornography and the Pornography of Romance” where she

ponders on the need of closely examining the connection that there is between the two

terms on the grounds of fanfiction. There, it is argued “[t]hat fanfiction includes the

only form of pornography mainly produced and consumed by women [which] is

important more for what it says about the gendering of pornography than for any

question of motivation or effect” (91; emphasis added). By effectively blurring the

lines between pornography and Romance, fanfiction reveals the double standards of a

society that capitalizes on female romantic sensitivities but draws the line at any overt

expression of the female desire and sexual fantasies by women writers, deeming them

as nothing more than unworthy and low-quality endeavors. Even today, the idea

remains that men, as both producers and consumers, are free to sexualize women in

popular culture for the sake of their entertainment, presenting them in ways that suit

Markezini 66

their tastes, while women and queer people are not allowed to do as they please,

having to conform to the established norms. But thanks to the fanfiction community,

the rules have started to change drastically in this interplay between romance and

porn, to the point where fanfiction studies come to support that “whereas porn

transforms romance, romance subverts pornography’s abstraction from and

depersonalization of sex/gender relationships, and that fan fictions recasts sex in terms

of intimacy […], producing a feminist reworking on porn” (83). That is a really

positive take, an achievement for the practice of fanfiction writing in terms of

opposing to the objectification of the female body, but in the fifteen years that have

passed since Driscoll wrote her essay, things have taken an even more interesting

turn.

Nowadays, women employ both printed and online media, fanfiction included,

in their effort to normalize watching or reading explicit adult content for the sake of it,

having free sexual intercourse without the stigma of being filthy or called ugly names

for going after pleasure, and having fun without the promise of eternal love and the

prospect of marriage in the near future. Cultural scholar, Madita Oeming who

specializes in studying the phenomenon of pornography commenting on a survey by

Pornhub reporting that 32% of its visitors for 2019 were women, she adds “I'm not

saying that men are sexually free, not at all. But the idea that women are sexually

active beings, that women have a sex drive, that women seek sex not just for romance,

intimacy or reproduction but also just for pleasure, is still something that is hard to

wrap our head around as a culture, even in the 21st century” (on Deutsche Welle).

Even so, the data of porn sites confirm the numbers of female viewership growing

each year and hopefully this finding also reflects a shift in the society’s idea of female

sexuality and gender stereotypes.

Markezini 67

At this point, it is worth pointing out that the romance element in YA novels

cannot be compared with the explicit sexual content of Romance novels which

primarily address adult readers, as is the case with the Fifty Shades of Grey. The

statistics of the online fanfiction platforms seem to suggest that YA readers have

found easy access to the ‘lewd’ content of Romance thanks to the internet. The

findings of the AO3 Census, provided by user “centreoftheselights” under the title

Fanfic Habits vs. Age, show that the fanfics rated as Mature and Explicit are steadily

the most popular to read among the teenager and YA users of the platform.

Interestingly enough, when it comes to the young fans production, the charts (Fig.

2.0) indicate that the same users seem to write primarily texts rated as Teen and Up

Audiences whose content cannot be compared with the explicit or mature works they

choose to consume as readers. The reason why this happens requires further research

and access to data which lies beyond the scope of the present thesis.

Markezini 68

Fig. 2.0. Charts of the popularity of different ratings of fanfics within different age group. The ratings

are, from left to right, General Audiences (G), Teen and Up Audiences (T), Mature (M), Explicit (E)

and Not Rated (NR).

Markezini 69

As it was briefly mentioned in Chapter One, readers are being very creative in

bringing together characters from the series when they think there is –or could be–

chemistry between them. They also like to pair up characters that could never be

together based on the original plot but fans are curious to see how an affair would

develop between them. In most cases, fanfic writers create a narrative that includes

more than just the explicit scenes, navigating their way around the individual’s

psychology and character development. It is not a rare incident having writers, in the

comment or the notes section, admit that their story characters are projections of

themselves, or that they write in order to cope with their own sexual frustration.

Putting these points aside and turning to Katniss from the Hunger Games

trilogy, one sees how most of the fan-works renegotiate the character’s hesitation and

uncertainty when it comes to physical contact and intercourse. The possible reasons

for her behavior are many as discussed in the previous section, and every fanfic writer

has the freedom to build on and argue in favor of whichever one serves the narrative

of the story they want to tell. The lack of experience, the awkwardness that

characterizes the awakening of such romantic feelings in a person for the first time, as

well as trauma, are some of the most common themes that fanfcition engagement

attempts to explore.

Markezini 70

Fig. 2.1.Forever a Flame, a Burning Desire by Northern_Rose, on Archive of Our Own.

Fig. 2.2.Map the Stars by Titania522, a Hunger Games fanfic written

in third person narrative, on Archive of Our Own.

Markezini 71

Fig. 2.3.A Pipe Dream by Papofglencoe, a Hunger Games fanfic written from

Peeta’s perspective, on Archive of Our Own.

Bringing up a few examples of the diversity that appears in the Hunger Games

fanfiction, we can see that some writers, like Northern_Rose (Fig. 2.1), chooses to

rewrite parts of the trilogy in order to emphasize their romantic aspect. In order to

justify further Katniss’s choice to stay with Peeta and understand why the girl starts

falling for him, fanfic writers choose to illustrate how the pair grows closer outside

the arena while observing their everyday interactions in a peaceful setting; the fanfic

writer here as evidenced in the examples gets to see those small perks of his character

which, as Katniss confesses, strengthen her will to live by Peeta till the end of the

series. The fanfic writer (known as Northern_Rose) is only one of the many fans who

wanted to find out for themselves how the genuine romance builds up in order for the

characters to reach that “eventual sex” tag.

On the other hand, another fanfic writer (known asTitania522) in Map the

Stars (Fig. 2.2) explores Katniss’s hesitation when it comes to displays of affection

away from the cameras. In the books, she does not know how to act on her impulses

without feeling awkward or embarrassed, rushing to dodge the subject immediately

Markezini 72

after a kiss or a hug. As the fanfic entries suggest, Κatniss and Peeta still struggle a

little during their intimate moments. The fanfic writer (Titania522) writes in her entry

that Katniss and Peeta are “awed” and a little “unsure of what had [just] occurred” but

they are quick to rationalize their mixed feelings: “After all, they’d emerged from a

society that saw fit to sell sex like it had seen fit to sell the murder of children. They

knew the mechanics of how it all worked very well. What those programs failed to

convey was the utter comfort, the sense of completeness that came with being as close

to someone as they had been to one another.” Yet, the fanfic writer gives one more

clever twist to the narrative, with Katniss refusing at first to let Peeta take off her shirt

because she is “ashamed of her body – she felt hideous, encased in the web of her

scars.” Peeta, though, undeterred starts kissing and caressing the affected spots

claiming that he is “mapping Andromeda,” and asking “Do you know it is the closest

galaxy to ours?” effectively distracting her with questions about the galaxy, letting her

relax while embracing her scared body; and hence the title of the fanwork. With this

particular fanfic entry, one notices that the fanfiction writer attempts to tackle issues

such as war trauma in addition to the emotional and psychological scars it leaves on

the individual.

On the other hand, another fanfic user, appearing under the name of

Papofglencoe in A Pipe Dream (Fig. 2.3), adopts Peeta’s point of view offering

readers glimpses into the boy’s sexual frustration over the romantic feelings he nurses

for Katniss. Unlike Katniss in the novels who does not think about the effect her

actions might have on Peeta, most young adult fans cannot help but wonder how a

boy of seventeen years old that –they know for sure– is in love with her, can remain

totally unaffected while sleeping in the same bed with Katniss. In the particular fanfic,

people get to see that the habit Katniss develops to crawl next to him and hug him in

Markezini 73

order to pacify both her own but also Peeta’s nightmares is not always easy for the

boy, no matter how much he welcomes the routine. A Pipe Dream invites readers to

challenge Katniss’s narrative as it appears in the original novel and once again reflect

on the events presented with an open mind. Even though Katniss is aware of the

impression they give to the rest of their preparation team, she does not ponder at all

about Peeta’s perception of their “arrangement;”

Effie starts giving me pills to sleep, but they don’t work. Not well

enough. I drift off only to be roused by nightmares that have increased in

number and intensity. Peeta, who spends much of the night roaming the

train, hears me screaming as I struggle to break out of the haze of drugs

that merely prolong the horrible dreams. He manages to wake me and

calm me down. Then he climbs into bed to hold me until I fall back to

sleep. After that, I refuse the pills. But every night I let him into my bed.

We manage the darkness as we did in the arena, wrapped in each other’s

arms, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment. Nothing

else happens, but our arrangement quickly becomes a subject of gossip on

the train.

When Effie brings it up to me, I think, Good. Maybe it will get

back to President Snow. I tell her we’ll make an effort to be more discreet,

but we don’t. (CF 72; emphasis in the original)

While in A Pipe Dream, Peeta presents a more detailed account of the scenes Katniss

avoids to focus on, the very position of their embrace in sleep and his thoughts about

it. “I don’t realize how starved I’ve been for human closeness, for the feel of her

beside me in the dark, until she’s in my arms sleeping peacefully, and her hand is

draped across my stomach,” he describes. The boy continues by saying: “I can feel an

Markezini 74

electric current coursing through my body, radiating from the spot where her hand

rests on me, sending tingling sensations throughout my body even through the fabric

of my shirt. Her fingers are splayed just above my groin, and although the position is

natural for her in her sleep, it’s excruciating for me in my wakefulness.” The specifics

of the scenes that Papofglencoe provides would also be impossible for Katniss to

narrate as she was asleep at the time, while Peeta feels embarrassed fantasizing about

the girl;

This is an inconvenient fantasy. […] I’m never going to fall asleep

if this continues, and the last thing I want is for her to wake up and notice

my erection or think I can’t sleep because of nightmares.

I don’t want her embarrassment or pity either, so I gently

disengage her body from mine, careful not to wake her. I slink over to her

bathroom as quietly as I can and lock myself in so that she doesn’t come

looking for me and accidentally walk in.

Male sexuality enters the discussion; Peeta struggles against his feelings for Katniss,

thoughts of this unrequited love that haunt him, the need to stay respectful, and the

fear of the death that awaits both of them due to their participation in the Quarter

Quell.

While it is true that Collins challenges the stereotypical image of the teenage

girl that is preoccupied with romance and girly activities throughout the course of the

trilogy, the implications of Katniss’s marriage and motherhood in the end trouble

many readers. The young adult readers who are drawn to Katniss because of her

rebellious character are taken aback by the epilogue in Mockingjay. The queer female

character that subverts and refuses to comply with the traditional gender roles that the

Capitol expects of her, appears to eventually conform and transform into what the

Markezini 75

patriarchal system was asking from the beginning; a passive housewife and a mother

of two. Adopting Tison Pugh’s argument, “queerness [is] not [used] as a synonym for

homosexuality but as a descriptor of disruptions to prevailing cultural codes of sexual

and gender normativity” (qtd. in Lisa Manter and Lauren Francis 289). Thus, the term

can also be expanded to describe possible interpretations of Katniss’s sexuality

differing from the strict stereotypically heteronormative ideas of female desire. As

some of the previous and following examples show, many fanfiction writers prefer

and employ the term in relation to Katniss’s sexuality. Nonetheless, queerness is a

trait that transcends many aspects of the girl’s social behavior.

As Sara K. Day notes in her essay titled “Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies:

Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young Adult Dystopian Novels,” the

epilogue created such a debate because in YA fiction the “assumptions about

heteronormativity also problematize their message of empowerment through sexual

awakening. Queerness is often absent or invisible in young adult dystopian literature”

(90). As some scholars “[align] the lived experiences of many queer adolescents with

the type of restrictive, abusive systems portrayed in” such novels, they claim that,

similarly to the lack of representation of non-white heroines,38 “other possibilities

[than hetero relationships] seem to be ignored or marginalized instead of explored as

logical options and extensions of contemporary life” (90). Regarding the claim that

sexual awakening is usually linked to the empowerment of her main female character,

Collins indeed lets the two develop in parallel. From the beginning, Katniss

accumulates power and agency while her sexuality still remains dormant for the most

part. She survives the games and the war, comes out as a victorious –yet traumatized–

rebel who actually manages to bring change to the world. All these take place way

38 Note that Katniss in the film adaptations is played by a white actress, while the book descriptions

suggest that the black-haired heroine with the olive skin is probably a woman of color or a person of

mixed origins that could make the reading of certain passages of the books even more interesting.

Markezini 76

before she embraces any erotic desires or actively seeks a life partner. It is rather

absurd to claim that Katniss’s actions and achievements prior to her marriage do not

indicate an empowered heroine who transforms from a passive child to a strong

independent woman, free to make her own choices in life. This becomes evident from

her choice to keep Peeta close, irrespective of the presence of cameras and Snow’s

threats.

When it comes to lack of queer representation, the fanfiction writers fill in the

niche as the fanfiction community is founded on inclusion and tolerance of the

different and the underrepresented. Roach comes to add to Day’s argument by

stressing the conservative ideas promoted by romance fiction through its happily-

ever-afters and persistent “pair bonding” (193). Concerned with “the extent to which

the [romance] narrative becomes imperative,” Roach argues that “[t]he problem is that

the genre places so much insistence on pair-bonded love as a necessity for maturity

and happiness” (193). For Collins’s female character, this statement holds true only

for the latter part of the narrative. Katniss matures through the rebellious acts and

their consequences and gets wiser regardless of her relationship with Peeta. The

bittersweet ending of Mockingjay still leaves some room for questioning the

protagonist’s happiness, given the war trauma manifesting into reoccurring

nightmares and Katniss’s fear over the newly established and possibly fragile peace.

For some readers this is also a reason to question her love choices as well. Roach

continues by saying that what οne needs is “more counter-narratives to romance, not

to cancel out that storyline but to add alternatives to it” (193). It is exactly these new

alternatives that the individual readings of the Hunger Games trilogy and fanfic

writers offer. But as Roach states, the popular literary market seems to progressively

demand and welcome “new cultural conversations around polyamory or consensual

Markezini 77

non-monogamy, asexuality, and the new singledom” (193), topics that have been

thriving for years in the fanfiction community.39

In particular, on the fanfic platforms there are multiple portrayals of Katniss in

a lesbian relationship with Johanna –an equally strong tribute and fighter – or other

female characters. Those fanfic writers often build on Katniss’s sexual indifference

towards the male leads in the trilogy taken to be a sign of her suppressed homoerotic

desire that the strictly heteronormative conventions of Panem had imposed on her.

Some fanfic writers come up with multiple alternative endings. To exemplify, in some

cases Katniss chooses to live alone due to her inability to ever fully grasp the carnal

desires that would dictate her settle down with anyone. In other fanfics, thanks to their

shared past and their similarity in temperament, Katniss forgives Gale and their “fire”

wins over. Fanfic writers know no limits when writing, reimagining or re-negotiating

the character relations Collins presents in her trilogy –often challenging their initial

understanding of them. Moreover, many of them place Katniss somewhere on the

asexual spectrum based on when and how her sexual desires manifest themselves. As

a result, certain tags,such as ‘demisexual,’ ‘asexual’ or ‘aromantic Katniss,’ 40

constitute terms that can actually be supported by the original text and appear on the

fanfic platforms. This also explains why many asexual young readers empathize and

identify with Katniss, and eventually claim her as a teenage heroine of YA dystopian

novels. Through fanfiction writing, young adults explore their queer sexualities as

they are exposed to fictional ones that deviate from the traditional norms society seeks

to maintain. Consequently, one can claim that fanfiction narratives promote and

39 Even though these are old data coming from 2013, the percentages of the AO3 Census say a lot about

the people that resort to the fanfiction community and thus explain to a great extend the kind of content

one finds on these platforms till this day. According to the survey, from the 10,005 participants only

38% identify as heterosexual and a solid 54% as belonging to a gender, sexual, or romantic minority

(centreoftheselights). 40The term “aromantic” refers to people who experience little to no romantic attraction to other

individuals.

Markezini 78

encourage a kind of love that is free of conservative restrictions and knows no gender.

One can get an idea of the creative alternatives and all the possibilities fans can bring

together in order to create a totally different yet organic narrative inspired by

Collins’s work in Missing Words and A Soul in Any Other Body (Fig. 2.4, 2.5). Such

examples show that young readers have already embraced the idea that “[c]ommunity

and family come in all shapes and forms, as does love itself”(Roach 193), and

probably try to live accordingly. Actually, the important thing is to “[c]onnect to

people and things good and true, in order to find worthy love, to revel in consensually

shared bodily delight, to develop your highest potential, and to be a force for

goodness in the world” (Roach 193).

Fig. 2.4.Missing Words by Lady_Tragedy, on Archive of Our Own. A HG fanfic that

portrays platonic as well as polyamorous relationships blooming between Collins’s main characters.

Markezini 79

Fig. 2.5.A Soul in Any Other Body (Would Love as Loyally) by Midnighteverlark,

on Archive of Our Own, which addresses issues of gender dysphoria, gender perception and

transgender identity.

As the analysis thus far has shown, some of the readers might favor what

Antje M. Rauwerda claims about the epilogue of the trilogy focusing on a

“retrogressive image of Katniss as a female warrior stripped of her power and

obliged to fill exactly the kind of role Snow’s Capitol wanted of her: docile,

nurturing, nonthreatening, and powerless” (188). What this observation reveals, is a

heteronormative reality where the queer element has been compromised and

eradicated. Others agree with scholars like Ellen M. Rigsby, Lisa Manter and

Lauren Francis who share the view that the last pages of Mockingjay is “a portrayal

of a queer-friendly utopia” in the rise, and argue that such an epilogue in a dystopian

setting is “challenging political discourses of futurity: discourses that are constituted

by any symbolic willing to sacrifice the vulnerable in order to ensure its own

continuation. Ultimately, we find that the epilogue argues for an undefined future

Markezini 80

and points to embracing human vulnerability as the basis for political community”

(Rigsby and Manter 404). It is rather interesting how Manter and Francis link their

utopian vision with Katniss’s role as the non-conformist queer revenger that actually

manages to survive both systems, President Snow’s oppressive regime, as well as

the one that used her as its revenge hero in order to overthrow him. “While the

revenge tragedy arc would typically kill off such characters to present an

‘unpolluted’ new society, Collins instead posits a space –albeit on the outskirts–

where this queer community can not only exist but thrive” (414). Similarly, the

online fanfiction community, provides a safe ground for the queer other as regards

free and spontaneous communication as well as self-empowerment.

Keeping in mind that motherhood and heterosexuality should never be

imposed on the people but that they remain as options for any individual, the

epilogue “suggests to YA readers that there might be room for them to choose their

own future rather than live out the futurity of the symbolic in which they live”

(417). Regardless the reading one applies to the Hunger Games trilogy and its

representation of romance, the fanfiction community with its written production

provides significant alternatives. Fanfiction writers are able to preserve the queer,

and expand their visions of either/both utopia or/and dystopia according to their

critical abilities, their wishes and view of the future, through their creative

narratives.

Markezini 81

CONCLUSION

Suzanne Collins’s the Hunger Games trilogy is examined in the present thesis

alongside some of the fanfiction texts they have inspired through the years in an

attempt to offer a better idea of the writing practices embraced by the trilogy’s young

adult readers within the online fanfiction community. Through the research on the

fannish texts it becomes clear that the young fanfiction writers have efficiently

understood and reflected on Collins’s narrative and are able to construct their own by

reworking or expanding her world engaging in a really dynamic imaginary process.

The author’s sociopolitical commentary and messages about war, propaganda,

surveillance and teenage rebellion are reflected to a great extend in both the main

body of the fan-generated works as well as in the elaborate tagging system that

accompanies them on the online fanfiction sites.

Moreover, as fanfiction circulates and is being promoted by the fanfic writers

themselves or other enthusiastic fans on different social platforms like Twitter,

Facebook, and Tumblr, one observes how some of the recurrent themes of the trilogy

apply to fanfiction writing as a practice and its promotion. The use of modern media

and technologies for public entertainment and the importance of appearances that are

central to Collins’s work and consequently to Katniss’s survival, also play a crucial

role for the popularity of the fanfic whose writers often do not hesitate to stress or

openly comment about it in a metanarrative context with their readers. As it was

illustrated in the pages of the thesis, fanfiction writers employ all the tools the digital

era provides in order to engage their readers, transforming their texts into multimedia

pieces in hopes that their work will not get lost in the rapid flow and magnitude of the

multisensory online content.

Markezini 82

Romance occupies a large part of the young adult fiction and it is central to

modern fanfiction, which was born and keeps on thriving by primarily exploring the

romantic relationships and adventures of already established characters from a huge

number of different franchises, both old and new. Collins’s work and the Hunger

Games fanfiction is not the exception. But Collins cleverly subverts the masterplot of

romance and the promise of a happily-ever-after, a feat to which many critics attribute

the phenomenal success of the trilogy which simultaneously raises questions about the

representation of the modern heroine in YA novels and the reading interests of the

audience. However, Collins’s romance writing strategies proved to be a very fertile

ground for the fanfiction community that seems to fill in the gap in the market for

more sexually explicit content using the freedom of expression and the promise of

acceptance within fanfiction community.

For many, Katniss is a queer symbol because of her non-conformist character

and overall androgynous representation, combining both stereotypically male and

female traits; while for others, she is also a sexually queer protagonist according to

their interpretation of her behavior and the factors that shape it throughout the three

original novels. Focusing on the differences in readers’ interpretations, the epilogue of

the trilogy also turns out to be the most controversial part of the narrative for scholars.

But whether one believes that, in the end, neither Collins nor her female protagonist

manages to escape conformity to the heteronormative conventions, the fanfiction

community is there to provide numerous alternative reading and offer the alternative

narratives that are still missing from the YA fiction and Romance novels in general.

The young adult readers show that they understand, expand and reevaluate Collins’s

writing techniques and ideas through fanfiction writing, and have the opportunity to

tackle issues of representation, prejudice in the literary market, and explore their own

Markezini 83

sexuality in a save and supportive environment encompassed by fellow fans of the

Hunger Games trilogy.

With the series global popularity flourishing for more than ten years since its

original release, and the public interest recently renewed with the release of The

Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes (May 2020), a prequel set decades prior to the events

of the trilogy that is under examination in the present thesis, many researchers in the

field of fan studies examine the behavior of the young fans of Collins’s work, their

participation in events and other types of fan-generated content both online and

offline. But according to this research, while the fan culture is analyzed, Hunger

Games fanfiction still remains underexplored even though it is one of the most lasting

and prolific modes of artistic expression for the fandom throughout the years. The

present thesis aspires to show that a reading of the novels alongside the HG fanfiction

will grant a better understanding and a broader picture, to academics and scholars

alike, of the reception of novels by the fans and how Collins’s themes and messages

resonate within the targeted audience. In the process, it has been noted that, through

these fanfiction narrative practices, the young adult readers cultivate both their literary

and literacy skills in multiple ways, which paves the path for the exploration of the

pedagogic in addition to the academic potential of fanfiction. Certainly this constitutes

an area to be researched in a future project, with the current thesis only providing a

few insights into a recently-developed and academically prolific area of research.

Markezini 84

Works Cited

@_its_addison_. “okokok so for another dnf fanfic, do we want something sort of hunger

games related, or another just irl fanfic? I think i've got a pretty banger idea for the

hunger games one, but obviously I want to write something you all will read!”

Twitter, 3 Jan. 2021, 10:36 p.m., twitter.com/_its_addison_/status/

1345831368861822977

@jihunscutie. “here's a moodboard to illustrated my taekook hunger games au (you can check

it out here -> archiveofourown.org/works/10119491/chapters/22517354…).”

Twitter, 26 Aug.2017, 2:37 p.m., twitter.com/jihunscutie/

status/901408309403627520.

Abbott, H P. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge UP, 2008.

Aviles, Gwen. “‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ was the best-selling book of the decade.” NBC News,

20 Dec. 2019, www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/books/fifty-shades-grey-was-best-

selling-book-decade-n1105731. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

Betz, Hans-Georg. “Romance Novels Are a Weapon Against Misogyny.” Fair Observer, 26

Jul. 2019, www.fairobserver.com/culture/romance-novels-womens-rights-donald-

trump-misogyny-culture-news-79544/. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

Broad, Katherine R. “‘The Dandelion in the Spring’: Utopia as Romance in Suzanne

Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy.” Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young

Adults: Brave New Teenagers, edited by BalakaBasu, et al., Routledge, 2013, pp.

117-130.

Busse, Kristina, and Karen Hellekson.“Introduction: Why a Fan Fiction Studies Reader

Now?”The Fan Fiction Studies Reader, edited by Kristina Busse and Karen

Hellekson, U of Iowa P, 2014, pp. 1-17.

Markezini 85

---. “Introduction: Work in Progress.” Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the

Internet: New Essays, edited by Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, McFarland &

Company, 2006, pp. 5-32.

Busse, Kristina. “Intimate Intertextuality and Performative Fragments in Media

Fanfiction.” Fandom, Second Edition: Identities and Communities in a Mediated

World, edited by Jonathan Gray et al., NYU Press, 2017, pp. 45-59. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1pwtbq2.5.Accessed 27 Mar. 2021.

Catching Fire.Directed by Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate Films, 2013.

Centreoftheselights. “AO3 Census Masterpost.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for

Transformative Works, https://archiveofourown.org/works/17019228. Accessed 6

July 2021.

---. “Fanfic Habits vs. Age.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative Works,

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003886/chapters/39974280#workskin.

Accessed 6 July 2021.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games.Special 10th anniversary edition, Scholastic Inc., 2018.

---. Catching Fire.Special 10th anniversary edition, Scholastic Inc., 2018.

---. Mockingjay.Special 10th anniversary edition, Scholastic Inc., 2018.

Connors, Sean P. “‘I Was Watching You, Mockingjay’: Discipline, Power and Agency in the

Hunger Games Trilogy.” Academia, www.academia.edu/11775548/_I_was

_watching_you_Mockingjay_Discipline_power_and_agency_in_the_Hunger_Games

_Trilogy. Accessed 25 Mar.2021.

Conrad, Kathryn, and Jamie Hawley. “Teaching fan fiction: Affect and analysis.” Fan Studies

Pedagogies, special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 35,

2021. doi.org/10.3983/twc.2021.2087.

Markezini 86

Curwood, Jen Scott. “‘The Hunger Games’: Literature, Literacy, and Online Affinity

Spaces.” Language Arts, vol. 90, no. 6, 2013, pp. 417-427. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/24575002.Accessed 16 Feb. 2021.

Day, Sara K. “Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies: Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in

Young Adult Dystopian Novels.” Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian

Fiction, edited by Sara K. Day, et al., Routledge, 2014, pp. 75-92.

Deathmallow. “But It Was Not Your Fault But Mine.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for

Transformative Works, archiveofourown.org/works/539057.Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.

Derecho, Abigail. “Archontic Literature: A Definition, a History, and Several Theories of

Fanfiction.” Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New

Essays, edited by Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson,McFarland & Company,

2006, pp.61-78.

Downey, Dara. “E. L. James and the Fifty Shades Phenomenon.”Twenty-First-Century

Popular Fiction, edited by Bernice M. Murphy and Stephen Matterson, Edinburgh

UP, 2018, pp. 112-124.

Driscoll, Catherine. “One True Pairing: The Romance of Pornography and the Pornography

of Romance.” Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New

Essays, edited by Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson,McFarland & Company,

2006, pp.79-96.

Eden. “Fanfiction and LGBT+ Representation.”The Artifice, 14 Oct. 2019, the-

artifice.com/fanfiction-lgbt/#note-134498-3. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

Fisher, Mark. “Precarious Dystopias: The Hunger Games, in Time, and Never Let Me Go.” Film

Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4, 2012, pp. 27-33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/

stable/10.1525/fq.2012.65.4.27.Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Markezini 87

Flynn, Meghanne, and Sarah Hardstaff. “‘Trust Me’: Volatile Markets in Twilight and The

Hunger Games.” CR: The New Centennial Review, vol. 19 no. 1, 2019, p. 205-

227. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/723505.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley,

Pantheon Books, 1978.

---. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, Vintage

Books, 1995.

Hertz, Noreena. “Think Millennials Have It Tough? For 'Generation K', Life is Even

Harsher.” The Guardian, 19 Mar. 2016, www.theguardian.com/

world/2016/mar/19/think-millennials-have-it-tough-for-generation-k-life-is-even-

harsher. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Hughes, Sarah. “In Debt, Out of Luck: Why Generation K Fell in Love with The Hunger

Games.” The Guardian, 31 Oct. 2015, www.theguardian.com/

film/2015/oct/31/hunger-games-mockingjay-teenage-anxiety. Accessed 15 Feb.

2021.

Kawuli. “Finally Breathe.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative

Works,archiveofourown.org/works/5473502.Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.

---. “What Doesn’t Kill You.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative Works,

archiveofourown.org/works/8268778.Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.

Lady_Tragedy.“Missing Words.”Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative

Works, archiveofourown.org/works/24283912/chapters/58531951.Accessed 26 Mar.

2021.

Manter, Lisa and Lauren Francis. “Katniss’s Oppositional Romance: Survival Queer and

Sororal Desire in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games Trilogy.” Children’s

Markezini 88

Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 3, 2017, pp. 285-307. Project

MUSE, doi:10.1353/chq.2017.0029.

McCulloch, Gretchen. “Fans Are Better Than Tech at Organizing Information Online.”

Wired, 6 Nov. 2019,www.wired.com/story/archive-of-our-own-fans-better-than-tech-

organizing-information/.Accessed 28 Mar. 2021.

Midnighteverlark. “A Soul in Any Other Body (Would Love as Loyally).” Archive of Our

Own, Organization for Transformative Works, archiveofourown.org/works/

5459201/chapters/12619952.Accessed 26 Mar. 2021.

Mitchell, Jennifer. “Of Queer Necessity: Panem’s Hunger Games as Gender Games.” Of

Bread, Blood and the Hunger Games: Critical essays on the Suzanne Collins

Trilogy, edited by Mary F. Pharr and Leisa A. Clark, McFarland & Company, 2012,

pp. 128-137.

Mortimore-Smith, Shannon R. “Fueling the Spectacle: Audience as ‘Gamemaker’.” Of

Bread, Blood and the Hunger Games: Critical essays on the Suzanne Collins

Trilogy, edited by Mary F. Pharr and Leisa A. Clark, McFarland & Company, 2012,

pp. 158-166.

Murphy, Bernice M., and Stephen Matterson. “Introduction: ‘Changing the Story’- Popular

Fiction Today.” Twenty-First-Century Popular Fiction, edited by Bernice M.

Murphy and Stephen Matterson, Edinburgh UP, 2018, pp. 1-8.

Northern_Rose. “Forever a Flame, a Burning Desire.”Archive of Our Own, Organization for

Transformative Works, archiveofourown.org/works/7693981/chapters/17529079.

Accessed 26 Mar. 2021.

O’Sullivan, Keith. “Panoptic and Synoptic Surveillance in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games

Series.”Twenty-First-Century Popular Fiction, edited by Bernice M. Murphy and

Stephen Matterson, Edinburgh UP, 2018, pp. 101-111.

Markezini 89

Oeming, Madita. “Women watch porn, too — but why?” Deutsche Welle, 26 Nov. 2020,

www.dw.com/en/women-watch-porn-too-but-why/a-55710197. Accessed 30 Mar.

2021.

Papofglencoe.“A Pipe Dream.”Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative Works,

archiveofourown.org/works/3822703?view_adult=true.Accessed 26 Mar. 2021.

Peterson, Valerie. “What You Need to Know About Romance Fiction Genre.” The Balance

Careers, www.thebalancecareers.com/romance-novels-about-the-romance-fiction

genre-2799896. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

Pulliam, June. “Real or Not Real – KatnissEverdeen Loves PeetaMelark: The Lingering

Effect of Discipline in the ‘Hunger Games’ Trilogy.” Female Rebellion in Young

Adult Dystopian Fiction, edited by Sara K. Day, et al., Routledge, 2014, pp. 171-

185.

Rainydayphotos. “Pyrrhic Victory.”Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative

Works, archiveofourown.org/works/1770535/chapters/3788722.Accessed 25 Mar.

2021.

Rauwerda, Antje M. “Katniss, Military Bratness: Military Culture in Suzanne Collins’s

Hunger Games Trilogy.” Children's Literature, vol. 44, 2016, pp. 172-191. Project

MUSE, doi:10.1353/chl.2016.0016.

Rigsby, Ellen M., and Lisa Manter. “To Kill a Mockingjay: Katniss’s Corrosive Queerness in

the Hunger Games Trilogy.” Utopian Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, 2019, pp. 403-

421. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/744692. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Ringlestein, Yonah. “Real or Not Real: The Hunger Games as Transmediated

Religion.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, vol. 25 no. 3, 2013, p. 372-

387. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/533723. Accessed 16 Feb. 2021.

Markezini 90

Roach, Catherine M. Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture. Indiana

UP, 2018.

Romano, Aja. “The Archive of Our Own just won a Hugo. That’s huge for fanfiction.” Vox,

19 Aug. 2019, www.vox.com/2019/4/11/18292419/archive-of-our-own-wins-hugo-

award-best-related-work.Accessed 21 Mar. 2021.

Romero, Erika. “Including New Media Adaptations and Fan Fiction Writing in the College

Literature Classroom.” Fan Studies Pedagogies, special issue of Transformative

Works and Cultures, no.35, 2021. doi.org/10.3983/twc.2021.1881.

Rouse, Lauren. “Fan Fiction Comments and Their Relationship to Classroom Learning.”Fan

Studies Pedagogies, special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 35,

2021. doi.org/10.3983/twc.2021.1911.

Showmeurteef. “It’s Complicated.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative

Works,archiveofourown.org/works/28826493.Accessed 27 Mar. 2021.

Titania522. “Map the Stars.” Archive of Our Own, Organization for Transformative Works,

archiveofourown.org/works/2687561.Accessed 26 Mar. 2021.

West, Jordan. “None Οf This Is New: An Oral History Of Fanfiction.” The Mary Sue, 2 Nov.

2014, www.themarysue.com/none-of-this-is-new-an-oral-history-of-fanfiction/.

Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.

Markezini 91

Short Bio

Chrysoula Valentini Markezini is currently an MA student in English and American

Studies, in the School of English at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She is also a

holder of a BA Honours degree in English Language and Literature from the same university.

Her main field of research is literature with a special interest in fantasy and science-fiction.

With her MA research, she examines the relationship between online literary texts written by

teenage and young adult people in fandom. As an active member of the Youth Peace

Ambassadors Network (YPAN), she is keen on youth empowerment and respect of youth

diversity.