So if Katniss and Peeta are Penelope and Odysseus
And Haymitch and Lenore Dove are Orpheus and Eyuridice
Then that makes Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Jason and Medea
SOMEONE WANTS IT, LET'S GO!
This ended up being VERY LONG but I hope yall see what I see here and that it's coherent despite me being sleep deprived.
This is based off of a TikTok video saying Haymitch and Lenore Dove are Orpheus and Eurydice and pretty much everyone agreed that Peeta and Katniss were Penelope and Odysseus, but there was speculation as to who Snow and Lucy could be repped by. Some said Romeo and Juliet, others said Ariadne and Theseus (I like this better than R&J, fits with the Greek myth motif). But, I think Snow and Lucy Gray represent Jason and Medea better than Ariadne and Theseus. Since I'm a nerd, I'm gonna go into each of the couple dynamics.
Let's start off with Everlark, my dear Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. TikTok has been going feral about the final arc of Epic the Musical (a musical about the Oddessy) being released where Odysseus finally comes home to his true love Penelope after being in war and trying desperately to get home. Penelope has been waging a war of her own with the suitors trying to take the throne of Ithaca. I think this version is what people are attributing specifically to Everlark. Please note this is not a 1:1 comparison, they are a mix of each character in this instance.
In another post I made, I compared Katniss to the constellation Orion, mentioned in Sunrise on the Reaping, the bow hunter. We know the bow is Katniss's main weapon of choice, it's iconic. When Penelope gives the suitors the trial to be able to marry her, the trial is to string her husband's bow and shoot through several ax handles. In some cases it's said that Penelope directly puts herself in the firing line so that even if they do succeed, she would die and not have to remarry.
I really reccomend listening to the song Would You Fall in Love With Me Again? which is the final song for Epic the Musical. There's a TON of Everlark edits to this song.
So, Katniss is a known archer. She has gone through war and made a perilous journey to be able to go home in the end to her family. She faces unspeakable terrors and has shed so much blood. She is traumatized and different than who she was in the beginning.
Peeta was highjacked and lost himself for a while, which we can tie to when Odysseus met the lotus eaters that made his crew forget they were going home. He had to remember who he was and let himself fall back in love with Katniss. Both Odysseus and Peeta are known for being very charismatic and able to use their words to their advantage, like Peeta's interviews in the first two books and Odysseus with Polyphemus the Cyclops or him telling stories to the Phaeacians and asking for help. He saves Katniss from killing herself, similarly to when Odysseus shot the bow and completed the trial without killing Penelope.
Both Katniss and Peeta had to wait for each other. Peeta waited for Katniss to love him back while Kaniss waited for Peeta's return physically and then mentally. In the end, just like Odysseus and Penelope, they lived out there days at home with their family.
Next we've got Haymitch and Lenore Dove
Their story is tied so deeply to music, just as it is with Orpheus and Eurydice. While Haymitch may not be a musician, he does sing several times throughout the book and is constantly singing The Raven in his head after losing Lenore Dove. And, being Covey, Lenore Dove is a musician.
In mythology, Orpheus and Eurydice were married in a meadow, which makes me think of the meadow that comes up so often in this series. Eyuridice, later on, steps on a snake, is bit, and dies. Lenore Dove is a Covey girl who is rebellious, tried to take Woodbine Chance's body from the Peacekeeper, and then started singing revellious songs in the town square thus steeping on the snake and being "bit" when she was taken into custody, thus her going to the "Underworld." He loved her too much to sit on the sidelines.
Haymitch travels through his own Underworld, that being the Hunger Games. Haymitch is known to use songs to connect with people while he is there, like the District 9 kids and the Sunflower song or when he and Maysilee kill the ladybugs, similarly to the musician Orpheus. He survived for his family and Lenore Dove, which is what sealed their fates.
Snow/Hades gives Haymitch/Orpheus the task of leading their loves out of the Underworld without looking back so that they can live out their lives with their loves. The first instance we see of him looking back in SOTR is actually when Haymitch runs to her at the Reaping when she was going to be hit by the Peacekeeper. And, of course, we have the gumdrop scene. Haymitch thinks it's safe and so he feeds her a gumdrop before realizing he made a grave error and loses her forever. Because he lived, she had to die.
Now, I know people would be like, "I just wouldn't turn around." But, that's not the point of the Orpheus and Eyuridice myth. The point is loving someone so fiercely that you have to turn back to help, to make sure they're there, to know you did all you could. The tragedy is that in loving so deeply, you lose them regardless. To love is to turn around.
Both men spend the rest of their days lamenting over their lost loves and never takes another lover.
Finally, we have Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird as Jason and Medea.
When it comes to the Games in Ballad, I see Snow as providing Lucy Gray with the help she needed to win, like how Medea helped Jason with the tasks to obtain the Golden Fleece. Snow gets her to sing, provides her with a guitar, lets her use his mother's compact to hold rat poison, and makes it so the snakes won't harm her.
After Snow is sent to District 12, he passes a test and is told they're gonna ship him off to District 2 because they can utilize him in the upper ranks. Jason, despite promising Hera that he would always love Medea, was going to marry a different woman so he could become a king. These instances are mirroring a power grab by these men, wanting more despite having what the need to lead a happy life.
Medea had two children with Jason and, depending on the text, she kills them either by accident or on purpose so that her sons will not be murdered or enslaved. I see this as Lucy Gray making the Games more interesting, meaning she unwittingly helped the Games continue to kill more and more children each year when there was a chance they could've ended.
Medea is the granddaughter of Helios the Sun god and Lucy Gray is Covey. Both women rely on their family to run away from the men in their lives. Medea uses Helios's chariot to run away while Lucy Gray runs into the wilderness, just like what her nomad Covey ancestors would do.
Both Snow and Jason try and say that these women were no good and couldn't feel love. For Medea, Jason called her hateful to gods and men, yet Medea has the approval of Helios. Snow tries to convince both Haymitch and Peeta that Covey girls are beautiful but callous, not capable of love. He literally tells Haymitch that he's "dodging a bullet" by dying in the Hunger Games, and he convinces Peeta for a while using Tracker Jacker venom.
Jason, having broken his vow of love to Medea, loses favor with Hera and dies loney and unhappy. Snow loses favor with his cousin Tigris when he comes back more cold than ever. He lives a life devoid of love and the man is so obsessive, i doubt that he's happy. Both men are crushed to death, Jason by rotted, falling pieces of his ship, and Snow being trampled by his own people.
I'm sorry this is so long and I hope it makes sense. It's 4 am here, so im going to bed. Also, if you haven't, listen to the soundtracks for Epic the Musical and Hadestown. I mentioned Epic above, but Hadestown has some bangers that can apply here too.
If you got this far, thank you for indulging me!
