Thursday, December 22, 2011

Match #21: Katniss (Seed #2) vs Sophie (Seed #18) Goes to Katniss

And the winner is...

Katniss


Welcome to The YA Sisterhood and round 2 of The Tournament of Heroines, The Superior Sixteen!  Thank you in advance for your participation in our Tournament of Heroines! We hope you make some friends (and not too many enemies), discover some fantastic books, and have a lot of fun!

Some general rules before we begin:

There may be some spoilers in the following post. We've tried to keep it fairly general, but overall, this Tourney will not be spoiler-free. So beware.

Secondly, You are welcome to write your own comments about either character in the comments section, but we will not tolerate rudeness. The minute it crosses over from logical argument into character bashing, your comments will be deleted and your vote canceled.  POLLS WILL BE OPEN FOR 24 HOURS AND WILL CLOSE AT 12:01AM EST ON DECEMBER 24th.


And now for the match....

My name is Penelope, and I run the book review blog: The Reading Fever. I am honored to be Katniss’ advocate, and will be blogging and tweeting about Katniss’ progress throughout the tournament. You can follow me using the links below for #TeamKatniss updates.



I've got super secret plans in the making for next week, if Katniss makes it past this round, so get ready!



1. About Katniss
The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the Mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.


-Katniss, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (pg. 386-387)
Credit: Entertainment Weekly
Katniss is the main character in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. She is described as having long, straight black hair, which she usually pulls back into a tight braid. She has olive skin and gray eyes. She is an amazing hunter who has deadly aim with a bow, and has been using these skills to put food on her family's table--keeping them from the starvation that is so widespread in their district.



She is fiercely protective of those she loves, and has proven she will go to any lengths to ensure their safety. Not one to be easily swayed or broken, she proves to the Capitol that no matter their methods, they can't control everyone.



Also known as: Catnip, the Mockingjay, and The Girl On Fire.



2. Best Attributes
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 the wild...They hadn’t anticipated its will to live.


-Katniss, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (pg. 92)
As tempting as it is to name Katniss' hunting skills and her innate sense of survival as her best attributes, that just wouldn't be completely true. Everything Katniss does in the series can be attributed to one of these: love, compassion, fear.



Her first act--entering the Hunger Games in place of her younger sister, Prim--was done out of her incredible love for Prim, and fear for Prim's safety. She is pushed to survive by fear of dying and leaving her family without a provider; called into action by compassion for Rue and Peeta (competitors in the hunger games); compelled to accept the title of The Mockingjay (symbol of the rebellion) by compassion for those enduring the destruction the Capitol brings. She takes what the world gives her and reacts to it in a way that benefits those around her; letting love, compassion, and fear guide her. These are her best attributes.



3. What makes Katniss a true heroine?
I’m moving in toward the camera now, carried forward by my rage. “President Snow says he’s sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” One of the cameras follows as I point to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse across from us. The Capitol seal on a wing glows clearly through the flames. “Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”



-Katniss, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (pg. 99-100)
The quote above is from Katniss. At this point in the story, Katniss has already been through the hunger games, has witnessed the pain, torture, and death, of loved ones, has been forced to kill, seen her home destroyed, and has witnessed the extreme lengths the Capitol will go to in order to have total control--and yet these things only empower her to act.



To me a true heroine is someone who rises above her circumstances, who keeps going despite being knocked down, and most importantly: a heroine inspires others to keep going as well. Katniss is a true heroine.



4. Why should you vote for Katniss instead of Sophie?


Credit: kara-lija on DeviantArt
...Because Katniss is just a girl caught in a deadly war. She's a pawn in a game she never wanted to play in the first place, but she is determined to do what it takes to keep her loved ones safe, even if it means she has to sacrifice her own well being to pull it off. So she plays the game, navigating her way through each dangerous obstacle thrown her way. And in the process, she takes on the entire Capitol; the elite military and political center of the known world.



What's more? She comes out the victor--physically and emotionally Scarred, yes, and having lost so, so much. But she does it, using her hunting skills, instinct, and intuition.



No magic necessary.


5. Anything else?


Vote for Katniss! This girl embodies the very definition of 'heroine!'



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☆☆☆☆☆

Hello everyone its Mindy (Bookluvr Mindy) with Magical Urban Fantasy Reads! If you want to chat with me on twitter, I am @bookluvrmindy. And to support The Amazing Sophie, make sure you include #VoteTeamSophie in all of your tweets!

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All About Sophie

Sophie Alice Mercer is the 16-year old, snarky, freckle-faced girl next door type that you NEVER want to mess with! Her brown hair, blue eyes and innocent freckles hide powers that are second to none in all of wizarding history, including in that famous galaxy far, far away!!! That’s right! Even Darth Vader is no match for Sophie Mercer!

But until now (until she turned 16), Sophie “Soo-fee-yuh” has been sheltered her entire life from what she truly is . . . the most powerful witch ever! She’s constantly been moved around the country by her mother, from one school to the next, just because she sometimes (innocently!) exposes her powers to other humans! And then it’s always time to pack up and leave?! Sheesh! How unfair is that?

Yup, the last spell she cast was the last straw; A TOTALLY AWESOME spell at the Senior Prom for the most popular guy at school, making him want to be with the biggest loser at school! And if you haven’t read Hex Hall, then you have got to read the prologue, it’s hilarious! But now she’s done it! With that last, totally wicked spell, she’s been sentenced to Hecate Hall (or as Jenna, her roommate and best friend would say, “Hex Hall”), the school of magical misfits who must be isolated to prevent them from exposing themselves to humans. And that’s where her totally AWESOME powers are developed, along with her crush for two very HOT love interests named Archer and Cal, who, by the way . . . want you all to #VoteTeamSophie!



Why Sophie ROCKS!☆


Snarkiness! Yeah, that may not be a magical power, but it powers her interactions with everyone! And it’s probably what helps make her so fiercely independent and loyal . . . and not easily swayed by the popular (MEAN) girls . . . or even easily discouraged in the face of adversity! It’s also what powers her connection to her other, magical powers!

Speaking of which, those magical powers are second to none! On a scale of 1-10 . . . HELLO!!! . . . her powers rate a solid 100! Here’s just a little of what she can do . . .

The unstoppable Sophie doesn’t need any magical instrument to focus her powers! She only needs to think about what she wants to do and her powers take care of the rest! The only problem? Sometimes her accomplishments are heightened so massively by her powers that she far exceeds her goal! For example, when Sophie’s father tells her to break a mirror, she looks at one and simply thinks “break.” The only problem is that she doesn’t just break one mirror, she breaks EVERY mirror in the room! Another time Sophie and her friends are hanging out in a Prodigium club and “The Eye” (religious killers of all things magical) unexpectedly shows up! But while trying to escape, the crowd is hysterically running around so Sophie thinks in her mind, “Move” and then a force field surrounds herself and her friends, but the force field tramples everyone in their path! And let’s not talk again about that wicked love spell she cast on Kevin Bridges! But the full extent of her true powers always comes out when she’s caught up in the toughest situations . . . and then you REALLY see how powerful she is and what she is capable of . . . AND then you truly know that you never want to mess with her!!!

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Why Sophie is MY HERO!☆


Sophie has AWESOME magical abilities. But that’s not what makes Sophie a true heroine. What makes Sophie a true heroine is that she doesn’t think about the dangers to herself while fighting for what she believes in. So, not only does she fight for what’s right (even when abused by the meanest girls in school), but she’ll even go out of her way (and put herself in danger!) to protect and save the mean girls! EVEN if saving them means killing someone very important to her. Yeah, just like the night The Eye swarmed the Prodigium club . . . in the middle of all that pure craziness, when her friends were only thinking about how to get the heck out, Sophie just wanted to help out the rest of the Prodigium. BUT even then, she knew she had to get her friends out first!

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Why should you vote for Sophie instead of Katniss???☆

Well, since this is a Heroine Tournament you would assume that I should be proving why one heroine is a better than the other…Right? But they are both amazing heroines! How do you compare these two? Their lives were soooo very different! We don’t know what Katniss would be like if she lived like Sophie or vice versa. So instead, here is my plea on Sophie’s behalf.

Sophie is a Prodigium that has an insane power. She demonstrated that her love of good and right was even more precious to her than her blood or even her own well-being. For GOODNESS SAKE she had to kill her demon grandmother to protect the Prodigium at Hecate Hall…come on! She was also willing to strip her own powers which would cause her to lose a part of herself with knowledge of what great pain it would bring. True self-sacrifice, knowing to protect others from one’s self! That is a true heroine!

So Again, how do you compare two amazing beings with undeniable heroism? I cant. I can only ask that you vote for Sophie because she stood against her heritage, her blood, her family for the sake of humankind, friends, enemies and frenamies, alike.




☆☆☆#VoteTeamSophie☆☆☆


So there you have it! Obviously Sophie TOTALLY ROCKS!!! Soooooo... #VoteTeamSophie NOW!!!


**voting is now closed**