Katniss Everdeen

Katniss's father died in a mine explosion, and since then she's the one putting food on the table, hunting with a bow in the forbidden woods alongside her friend Gale Hawthorne. At the reaping for the 74th Hunger Games, Effie Trinket draws the name of 12-year-old Prim, the first year the girl is even eligible. Katniss shouts that she volunteers. The other tribute is Peeta Mellark, the baker's son who once tossed her a loaf of bread when her family was starving.

In the Capitol, mentor Haymitch Abernathy explains that nobody survives without sponsors. Stylist Cinna sends her out in the opening parade in a costume that bursts into flames, and she becomes the girl on fire. In his interview with Caesar Flickerman, Peeta says he's in love with her, and Katniss assumes it's strategy.

In the arena, Katniss runs from the Cornucopia and survives on her own in the woods. Trapped up a tree by the Careers, she gets a tip from little Rue of District 11 and drops a tracker jacker nest on them, taking Glimmer's bow. The two team up until Marvel wounds Rue. Katniss kills him, sings to Rue as she dies and covers her body with flowers before raising the three-finger salute to the cameras. The gesture sets off a riot in District 11.

When the Gamemakers announce that two tributes from the same district can win together, she finds a wounded Peeta and nurses him in a cave. At the end, after Cato dies, the rule is revoked. Katniss pulls out the poisonous nightlock berries and suggests they both eat them at once. Rather than end up with no victor, the Capitol declares them both champions. Haymitch warns her she has just made powerful enemies.

Back in District 12, Katniss gets a visit from President Snow at her own house. He tells her the berry stunt has turned into a spark of rebellion and demands she convince Panem it was all about love. On the Victory Tour, her speech in District 11 ends with an old man executed in front of the crowd. Katniss and Peeta announce their engagement, but Snow isn't convinced. At home, Peacekeepers whip Gale in public, and Katniss throws herself in front of him.

Snow announces that the 75th Games, the third Quarter Quell, will reap tributes from the existing victors. As District 12's only living female victor, Katniss goes back into the arena. Haymitch's name is drawn, but Peeta volunteers for him. In his interview, Peeta claims the two are already married and that she's pregnant. On Snow's orders, Katniss wears a wedding dress, and Cinna's design transforms into a mockingjay costume in front of the audience. Cinna is beaten in front of her before she leaves.

In an arena that works like a clock, with a different danger every hour, she allies with Finnick Odair, Mags, Johanna Mason, Beetee and Wiress. In the end she ties Beetee's wire to an arrow and fires it into the force field as lightning strikes, destroying the arena. She wakes up on a hovercraft with Haymitch, Finnick and Plutarch Heavensbee: there was a rescue plan all along, District 13 is real, Peeta has been captured and District 12 has been destroyed.

In District 13, President Alma Coin wants Katniss as the face of the rebellion. She only agrees after seeing Peeta on Capitol TV calling for a ceasefire. With a film crew, she shoots propaganda in District 8, where Snow has a hospital bombed right after her visit. Furious, she shoots down aircraft and sends the Capitol a direct message: if we burn, you burn with us.

On a visit to District 12 she sings "The Hanging Tree," which becomes a rebel anthem. A team rescues Peeta, but the Capitol has tampered with his mind, and he tries to strangle her the first time they meet.

Katniss is shot in District 2 and survives only thanks to armor Cinna designed. She joins a squad sent into the Capitol to film the invasion and decides to go after Snow on her own. The mission costs a lot: Boggs dies after handing her the holographic map and a warning about Coin, and Finnick is killed in the sewers by mutts. Outside Snow's mansion, bombs hidden in parachutes explode among Capitol children, and Prim, there as a medic, is killed.

In the rose greenhouse, Snow tells her it was Coin who dropped the bombs. Coin proposes one last Hunger Games with Capitol children, and Katniss votes yes, after asking to execute Snow herself. At the execution she aims up and hits Coin instead. Back in District 12, she reunites with Peeta, who is slowly recovering. Years later, the two are married and playing with their children in a meadow.

In Suzanne Collins's books, Katniss narrates in first person and present tense, so everything is filtered through her head. Her name comes from an aquatic plant with an edible root that her father taught her to gather. The mockingjay pin is a gift from Madge, the mayor's daughter, a character who isn't in the movies.