The following is a list of characters in The Hunger Games novels, a series of young adult science fiction novels by Suzanne Collins whose original trilogy was later adapted into a series of four feature films. The actors who portray these characters are given in list of The Hunger Games cast members. Katniss Everdeen Katniss Everdeen, known as "the girl on fire", is the main protagonist in the Hunger Games. She is 16 years old at the beginning of the first book and is quiet, independent, and fierce. She has long dark hair (hers is usually tied up in a braid), olive skin, and gray eyes, which are given as a characteristic of residents of the coal mining region of District 12 known as "the Seam". She was named for an aquatic plant with edible underwater tubers by her father, who jokingly said that “If you can find yourself, you’ll never be hungry.” She lives with her mother and younger sister, Primrose Everdeen (nicknamed "Prim"). Her father's death in a mining accident several years ago left her mother deeply depressed, forcing Katniss to become the mother figure and to use the hunting skills taught by her father to feed the family. Her favorite color is green, (as she told Peeta when he offered friendship to her) because of her familiarity with the forest. When Prim is "reaped" (chosen by lottery) as a "tribute" who must fight twenty-three other tributes to the death in the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She survives the game along with fellow tribute Peeta Mellark, who is in love with her. She "pretends" she loves him to survive. When the Gamemakers renege on a promise to let two surviving tributes from the same district live, she defies and embarrasses the government by threatening a double suicide with Peeta, becoming the personal enemy of Panem's leader, President Coriolanus Snow. In the second installment Catching Fire, she is forced to fight in the next year's Hunger Games, an especially brutal edition known as the Quarter Quell which occurs every 25 years. While in the games she begins to realize her feelings for Peeta. She destroys the force field containing the Games arena and is rescued along with a few surviving tributes by members of an underground rebellion organized by the supposedly destroyed District 13. In the third installment, she is caught in a love