starsofatlantis

sawyer!

she/her https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsofatlantis

97 posts

Part 1:

In my head, there are five key elements that color Treech and Lamina’s relationship and the downfall of it. Those are:

1. their youth

2. they are never in line with each other

3. regret

4. circumstance

5. love

THEIR YOUTH

I think The Hunger Games fans are particularly good at remembering that if a character is young it is fundamental to that character, but everyone needs a reminder every now and then

Lamina is fifteen. Treech is head cannoned as a year to two years older. They are teenagers.

Teenagers in particular have a really hard time when it comes to looking outside yourself. Their worldview is so small because it isn’t even two decades old.

Teenage relationships are so special because there is nothing like it, but they are also so fragile.

There’s nothing quite like trying to figure out who tf you are while also having big intense feelings for someone else.

In my writing, I play around with how the tragedy of their relationship is that it was never given the chance to mend. As I said previously, I think they knew each other long before the games, and I also think they meant something to each other (whatever that means to you). However, I think they were also broken before the games.

This comes mostly from my own conviction that I don’t believe that anyone, even repressed Treech, could abandon someone they love the way he did, but also from the look on Lamina’s face afterward.

I’d like to clarify that the way I view the love Treech has for Lamina as deep and (for him) frustratingly unwavering. I don’t believe that if he was actively in a positive relationship with her, he would have been able to leave her on her own. They also knew each other in a way no one else did for years. If he had abandoned her while being on good terms, in my eyes, he is irredeemable.

But also, I think the look on Lamina’s face wasn’t shocked. It was full of hurt and fear, but there wasn’t the kind of shock on her face that would convey “we’re besties for the resties right now and I trust him more than anything but he just betrayed me”. To me, there was the look of someone who had just been faced with something they knew had the possibility of happening and was now having to face the aftermath.

Also, this is probably important. I think Treech would have happily laid down and died for her (it’s the self-hatred and the feeling of unworthiness) if he didn’t have that pesky devotion to duty trait. The duty in question being his obligation to survive for his family’s sake.

^another example of the juxtaposition of his character

So I think they broke before. Whether it be through distance, time, an argument or something else, I believe something happened that reduced the trust Lamina had in their relationship and allowed Treech to convince himself he no longer owed her his loyalty.

Because like I said, Treech does not want to love people. He loves his family because it is his duty, but that is where he draws the line. He absolutely, under no circumstances, goes out looking for anyone else to love.

(And then he meets Lamina whose defining quality is an inherent lovability but I digress.)

So they were broken, but I do believe that by that point they were too entwined in each other’s lives to stay broken so eventually, they would have healed…

Had they been given the time.

Their youth is such an important part of who they are to me, because they died at those ages. They were broken and died before they could fix it. Before they could grow and mature and form a relationship that is mature and not one from a child’s perspective.

When you meet someone at a young age as I headcannon they did, that’s the core of who they are to you. Treech still viewed her as above him because he was seventeen and it is so easy to think others are better than you when you are seventeen. Lamina loved Treech without blame because he was the first person to show her kindness and a part of her is still that little lonely girl.

But loving someone as a child, and as a teenager, and loving them as an adult is different, because they are different.

I think they were broken because learning to love someone as they age and as you age is so so difficult. It is inevitable there be hiccups, but I think they would have figured it out.

They just got Reaped before they could.

THEY ARE NEVER IN LINE WITH EACH OTHER.

I also touch on this a lot in my writing, but I think a lot of their relationship is a race.

I’ve mentioned how they are similar, it’s just that the way they view those similarities is entirely different.

I don’t know if anyone else can relate, but it is one of the most frustrating things in the world to have all the same traits as someone and use them entirely differently— especially if it’s someone you care about.

I think much of their relationship is a game of catch-up. Lamina finally understands something about Treech but when she goes to tell him he has ran in the other direction. When she reaches him, he has realized the same thing she has, but she is already at a different place and too far to tell. I don’t mean this to say that Lamina is smarter or always ahead, in fact I mean this to say that they are so infuriatingly the same that they are different.

They go at different speeds, and in Lamina’s case she tries her hardest to walk in line with Treech, while he does everything in his power to make sure they are nowhere near in step, because if they’re in-step, that is just someone else to lose.

I think they are always on different pages and part of that is why they just can’t give the other up. It is too fascinating, even for Treech, the idea of what will it be like when we are finally in tune? How will that feel? What could that bring us?

It’s every child’s game wrapped up. Tag, Hide and Seek, Telephone, Ghosts in the Graveyard. One person knows and the other is a victim of that knowing. It’s just a matter of whoever’s “it” at the time.

And it isn’t just their own flaws that won’t allow them to be on the same page. It’s the tumultuous lives they will never escape. Not that I have much experience, but I imagine living in the world of Panem doesn’t allow one the luxury of discovering who the person they love is in a sweet and natural growing way. It’s either you know or you don’t. It’s why Treech’s inability to get close to others is so frustrating, because there is no time to convince him to when death is a very close friend. I picture a constant sense of urgency in their world, one with rooms full of held-breaths and one where being able to sit still is unheard of. There is always something happening.

Often times we take for granted the luxury to not only discover who we are, but to also discover who our loved ones are.

They don’t have that luxury. It’s all or nothing at once.

We see this throughout the main trilogy a lot. Peeta loves Katniss from the start and then when he’s hijacked hates her. Katniss protects the people she loves with no reservations. Even with Peeta, she switches from intense hatred and mistrust to nursing him back to health and risking her own life to do so.

This is because they literally don’t have the luxury of time to figure out just exactly how you feel about someone. In that world you need to know instantly because the promise of time is nonexistent.

I imagine Treech as the exact opposite. I think he goes back and forth all the time on his emotions with Lamina because of how contradictory his personality is. I think this is incredibly frustrating for Lamina who never knows where she stands with him.

I joke a lot about how Treemina ain’t Treemina if they don’t have miscommunication and this is why. They are both so similar that they are never together.

Yet Lamina refuses to give up and tries all her life to pick away at Treech’s walls and there are moments where he lets her and moments when he fights her, and there are even moments when Lamina stops. There are few moments where he helps her, and never ones where they swing at the same time.

You can’t be with someone you aren’t walking in line with.

REGRET.

This might just be the most obvious part of their relationship. The way I write them canonically, almost every single negative interaction is colored with regret.

Clearly, the betrayal is the biggest form of that. Treech regrets having to do it in the first place and he regrets not feeling guilty enough to change it.

I think he regrets that Lamina has to die for him to live. I think he regrets that he loves her and I also think he regrets that he doesn’t love her enough.

I think Lamina towards the end of her life regrets that she ever knew Treech at all, but I also think she regrets that they were never given time. The look on her face as she dies is one of anger but I think it’s mostly pain— and I think that pain encompasses a lot of things. I think it’s the pain of what he did, who they were, what they could have been, and the fact that they never got the chance to discover that.

Regret to me is threaded through all of their interactions and honestly, regret is a main theme of The Hunger Games. When you’re faced with death it’s so easy to think of all the things you’ve done wrong and everything you could have done better.

I also picture the regret to not only be about the betrayal and the knowledge they both have of their imminent deaths but I also think it’s regret that happened long before the games.

This stems mostly from Treech’s look down as he walks toward Coral to accept her offer. It’s one of shame but it also looks to me again, much like Lamina’s as one of acceptance.

I think they both went into the Games knowing this would happen because it’s happened before. I said how I thought they were broken before and while I don’t have a concrete picture of what that looks like I think it’s no surprise to either of them that they go their separate ways because of a betrayal.

That to me adds another layer of tragedy to their relationship. Loving someone that you also have no trust in is miserable, and knowing that the person you love has no trust in you but also not caring to do anything to change that is also miserable.

By now it should be pretty obvious that I view their entire relationship as constantly being at odds. Regret for doing something, regret for not doing something else. Regret for loving each other, regret for not loving each other enough. Regret for what has happened, regret for what will never happen.

It’s so easy to regret things when it comes to people you love. The definition of regret is to feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity.

In my opinion, their entire relationship is compiled of missed opportunities, whether that be the missed opportunity to walk away and leave, or the missed opportunity to stay and fight both in and out of the arena.

CIRCUMSTANCE.

Obviously, circumstance is big with every relationship. Maybe this shouldn’t be called a key component but being Tributes in The Hunger Games is a pretty big circumstance.

I believe before I mentioned how I think the tragedy of their relationship is that they were never given the chance to fix what had been broken because they died before they could.

I know it may seem like I think Treech is a self-hating, cowardly little bastard (which lowkey yes) but also no.

One of the most interesting things about The Hunger Games is the theme of how fear brings out the worst in people.

It’s the whole thing about how misery loves company and bad emotions breed bad emotions. We see it in literally every Game how it is a consistent fight to stay positive and to hold onto your head. In Catching Fire Katniss is constantly having to be reminded of who the real enemy is.

It is no secret how different the 10th Hunger Games are compared to the ones we see in the original Trilogy. I just want to reiterate how much of a death sentence it was to be Reaped in the early days. Even Katniss, who views The Hunger Games as the horrific practice they are, still has some level of reverence for the Victors. It’s hard not to have reverence for glory, and that is what it means to be a Victor in the Hunger Games of Katniss’s books.

And maybe reverence isn’t the right word, but at least hope that there is a possibility to win, because the Victors are shoved down their throats until the next Game.

During tbosas, it’s the opposite. We don’t even know if the other Districts know who wins the Hunger Games once they do. These kids aren’t thinking about winning because they’ll get rich or a nice house, they’re thinking about winning for the sole luxury of living.

That is a HUGE difference in my opinion and one that is very prevalent through the books. I haven’t read the original trilogy in a while so I could be wrong, and as dire as the circumstances are there is always that underlying thread of “lifelong glory for the winners”, and this is obtained through the way the Tributes are treated pre-games. Personally, I think part of the reason they do that is to make the Tributes even more bloodthirsty. It’s to show them that hey, if you fight hard to win, not ONLY will you survive, but you’ll ALSO have a life of luxury after. It’s horrific, and manipulative, and works completely if the acts of some Victors (Enobaria ripping an opponents throat out with her teeth) is anything to go by.

With tbosas, it feels literally so dire. The Tributes are MISERABLE before the Games and in all honestly I would be too. You’re having to fight to live just to go back to the same hard life you’ve always had. It’s literally insane.

It’s why I think all the good in the 10th Hunger Games is so shocking, because why tf would anyone have any goodness left in their heart when they’ve been stuck in a zoo, barely fed, bombed, and been to two funerals before you even get to the arena?

That kind of suffering brings out either the best in people, or the worst and we see it with all the Tributes.

That’s why I think it’s important to note the circumstance. If it were the 74th Hunger Games, I’m not sure if I’m convinced that Treech would have left Lamina the way he did, because he wouldn’t have been beat down so badly before, the way he was in the 10th.

But after going through everything they did before the arena in the 10th? What is one more heartache on top of the pile? They’re dead anyway.

LOVE.

A bit on the nose I know, but it’s important.

Everything I’ve mentioned before— the sadness, the betrayal, the regret— would not be possible if they didn’t love each other.

It’s that whole quote that’s like a traitor never comes from an enemy it comes from a friend.

That is literally them. That is the tragedy of their relationship. Because for once love did not fix all. It didn’t save anyone, it didn’t protect anyone, and it didn’t do anything besides exist.

However, that is why I find it so cool. If you’ve been on tumblr for even a short while you’ve definitely seen all those posts about how love doesn’t always have to be world-ending to matter.

For me, what I always try to remember is that at the end of the day they loved each other. Yes, they wished they didn’t and it would be so much easier for everyone if they didn’t, but they did.

As confusing, and tumultuous, and complicated as their relationship gets, the core of it is love.

That’s why it hurts as bad as it does. They loved each other. It didn’t do anything to help, but they still did.

If you’ve read my fics you know that I almost always write them as romantic, however, that does not always have to be the end goal. I think that the love they have for each other is deep and unrelenting and it doesn’t always have to end with them in a relationship.

Again, the love was there, whatever type, and that is what matters.

The tumblr post that’s like “not romantic, not platonic but a secret third thing (so devoted the lines blur)” is the easiest way to put it.

It is a luxury to love and it is also a burden, and though neither of them lived long they experienced both sides of that.