Lenore Dove is so misunderstood and mischaracterized by the fandom it makes me sad to see.
She is not this manic, dream pixie girl. Her character very much shaped, flawed and real. Haymitch is able to oversee and ignore her “flaws” because he’s a 16 year old teenage boy who is madly in love with her, but it is not hard for us readers, to look between those lines and see how fleshed her character really is.
She is seen to act before thinking, making rash decisions which aren’t the best for her wellbeing. She is way too emotional, feels too many feelings and has too many thoughts and she doesn’t know how to articulate them into words because she’s an introvert and she fears her words being lost in translation.
She only reveals her unfiltered, (sometimes) dark thoughts to her loved ones, and often enough she does it by using metaphors so she can still backtrack incase she gets misunderstood because she still feels like her thoughts could be a burden to the people around her.
She is not a “Lucy Gray Rip-Off”.
Lucy Gray was a born performer. She loved to be on stage, she loved performing for her people and knew how to get the crowd on her side, how to keep them entertained.
Lenore Dove doesn’t sing in front of people. It makes her uncomfortable. She’s not a “Born Performer” nor does she know how to control a crowd, at least not in the way Lucy Gray did.
She’s a rebel. She’ll only use her voice when she realizes she absolutely HAS to. She’ll use it when she’s mad, and sad, and in despair.
She’ll go against the rules at any given time, especially when it comes to protecting her loved ones. She doesn’t realize nor care about any consequences at the time, she only acts because she’s in pain and wants to avenge her people.
She’s a sixteen year old girl who dreamt big in a world where dreaming was a luxury and not something many people can afford.
In spite of her dark, burdened thoughts, she had still kept her innocence and was able to dream of a world without the reaping, she had hopes that one day that dream could become a reality, no matter how crazy it sounded to others.
She also had dreams of growing up, having a loving family and living peacefully with her loved ones and her boy who she loved more than anyone and she was willing to die for him.