15Another really short one. I don't know where this one came from. I guess it's kind of my view on the matter? Everyone is always complaining about how Prim and Rue are too young to be exposed to the events of the book series. While I agree with that, I feel like people put too much stock into their physical age and not their mental age.
Everyone thinks that they are too young. They need to be protected.
Katniss must go in her sister's place in the Hunger Games because Prim is only 12 years old, and that's much too young to die. Never mind that Katniss is only 4 years older, age 16. 12 is too young to die.
Rue is too young to experience the horrors of the Games. Never mind that she saw things in the fields that no one should ever have to see. 12 is too young to see these things.
There are other excuses. They are small. They look weak and helpless. But in the end, it all comes down to age. If they were small and appeared weak and helpless at age 18, people wouldn't have cared as much.
Forget that Prim saw her sister kill other children, some in cold blood.
Forget that Rue grew up with the danger of the Games as a simple and unavoidable fact of life.
They both starved with their families. Were they too young for that?
Rue always had the threat of a whipping hanging over her head if she didn't pick the fruit fast enough.
Prim would have died if it weren't for a certain boy with bread and a dandelion.
Rue and Prim, Prim and Rue. So much alike. They both found pleasure in small things; Rue in music, and Prim in Lady and Buttercup.
Rue is the oldest in her family, and she is still too young. Too young for what? To go into the Games? Everyone is too young to go into the Games. Rue and Prim are older than the Career tributes, but no one cares. The Careers who never had to starve, never had to worry for their family, and who were in the Games by choice.
Rue, who never should have made it past the bloodbath, gave Katniss the will to win.
Prim, who never should have gone in as a medic, gave Katniss the will to move on.
She tried to protect them both, but they helped her more than she could help them.
Now they will stay forever young, fresh as the plants for which they were named.
And I totally borrowed the last line. Not mine! It's Suzanne's, don't sue! Although if a lawyer was combing Fanfiction for someone to sue, they must be desperate for a case.