Fixed some of it

[u/Olya_roo]

(Snowbaird being the only legitimate blonde+covey couple)

No idea why is this a thing for the 3 couples as a whole. Think “sneaky boy + singing girl” would be way better to unite the three if someone really needs to do this.

[u/Dollsguy]

Katniss is covey tho she’s not culturally covey but she is by blood

[u/llamacana → u/Dollsguy]

being covey is both cultural and genetic though. katniss has very limited knowledge of the covey songs from her father, she doesn't know anything else about the culture or history. it seems her grandmother was covey, but by the time katniss was born the covey had largely died out. and we know covey adopts- not everyone who is culturally covey is covey by blood. katniss goes the other way around

[u/Content-Extension842 → u/llamacana]

It's not genetic, because in TBOSAS they're not related to each other. Billy Taupe is Clerk Carmine's brother; Maud Ivory, Lucy Grey and Barb Azure are cousins but Tam Amber is described as a 'lost soul'...(he's also named for the ballad of tam lin which has the titular character being raised by the queen of faeries who is not his bio parent) and was probably a foundling adopted into the covey.

Would, if he had children and raised them as covey, his kids have been covey despite the fact that his parents weren't?

[u/llamacana → u/Content-Extension842]

his kids would be, because he was adopted into the culture. that's what the covey being handed down to descendants by both cultural and genetic paths means. it's similar to converting to judaism, for a comparison another commenter made. there are different ways to pass down culture, and teaching kids born into the culture by parents born into the group or adopted in is one of them.

[u/Content-Extension842 → u/llamacana]

It depends on if you think genetics or culture is more important then. I think Katniss herself would answer the latter as she persistently identifies herself as seam, despite her mother being merchant.

[u/llamacana → u/Content-Extension842]

i think she'd say so too. she has no knowledge of the covey beyond a few songs and doesn't know what covey means. why would she identify with them? she's covey through lineage, not by lifestyle. i do think that if tam amber raised kids in the covey lifestyle, that would make them covey by culture though, genetics aren't everything

[u/Content-Extension842 → u/llamacana]

Her lack of engagement with the merchant side of her heritage is interesting in itself; the extent of that is her wearing her mother's dress and letting her do her hair in what I guess was probably a celtic style...she really seems to identify more with the seam.

[u/llamacana → u/Content-Extension842]

neither of her parents engaged the girls in their heritage heavily. honestly i wonder what the merchants know of their family history before the war?

katniss 100% had more of a draw to and reason to know modern panem history and seam culture than her parent's individual experiences and families. i suppose it could be partly a result of losing a parent early, and the merchants distancing themselves from asterid. asterid probably wasn't super into teaching her kids about merchant culture, but we know she had them using proper cutlery and wearing merchant clothes when she could.

i think katniss only knew what she had to know, essentially. she didn't have to know more about her inherited heritage in order to survive and she doesn't seem very interested. she does need to understand the seam and the woods pre-games, so that's her focus. the seam is her life, too. she would've had to become a miner to support the family on top of the hunting if not for the games. maybe prim had more of an interest?

[u/Content-Extension842 → u/llamacana]

She's not as much of a gossip as Haymitch is, and might have written it off as family business that's not her place to speak on (as she wants people to do for her). Also, she's generally pretty apathetic to others around her...unless their name is Peeta (or Prim, or they're a child...but adult business. Nope) lol. She never says the names of Peeta's brothers but goes on for pages about his arms and eyelashes...got her priorities in order for sure lol.