the thing about sotr that really hits home is the cyclical nature of violence and oppression. we see it with the parallels between haymitch and katniss of course, both the eldest children of coalminer fathers with rebel sympathies, both relying on illegal means to ensure their families' survival, both willing to give their lives to protect the people they love, both doomed to lose their beloved younger sibling at the hands of a tyrant.
but that's just the tip of the iceberg. sotr instils this message over and over again, showing us how many generations of people have suffered and continue to suffer on account of systemic violence that is built into every facet of panem's society. the games just happen to be the most overt representation of this cycle.
mags explicitly says that she never intended to survive her games - her first priority was to protect her district partner, a boy she couldn't save and then goes on to live the rest of her life trying to protect children that she cannot save, even the ones she brings home alive are beyond her protection.
beetee's son is reaped and he is forced to mentor him, knowing that he will die a terrible death, all as retaliation for conspiring to take down the capitol's communications system. meanwhile his wife is pregnant with another child, a child he might very well lose the same way as ampert, another child that could be taken by the games as a punishment.
but what struck me most was how clerk carmine and tam amber react to lenore dove's death:
"Then the uncles are there. Clerk Carmine ripping her from my arms, trying to restart her heart while he calls her name. Tam Amber standing stiffly over them, his head shaking as he mumbles, "Not again. Oh not again." - sotr, pg366
suzanne collins shows exactly how much has been taken from this family. they have been here before with a doomed girl's name on their lips and her blood on their hands. how many times did they call lucy gray's name into the woods, trying to find her, desperate to bring her home, even though snow had made sure that she never could? how long did they spend trying to restart maude ivory's heart when her labour went wrong and their district didn't have the expertise or the medicine to help her - a direct result of snow's determination to keep the outer districts impoverished and on the brink of starvation. and now lenore dove, the only covey child of her generation (that we know of) to carry on their naming tradition, this girl that they've raised with care and devotion has been taken from them - just as their music, their colour, their culture has been taken from them - as a punishment.
katniss is the end of this cycle - it's her actions both in the arena and as the mockingjay that finally ends the games and enables the people of panem to reshape their society - but what sotr does is show us how long this process actually takes, how it can take multiple generations to get to a point where change is possible, how many false starts, failures, and set backs we will face in the course of creating meaningful and lasting societal change.
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