How does Katniss compare to Tris Prior (Divergent)?

Tris is more ideological — she discovers she's Divergent and accepts a special destiny. Katniss explicitly doesn't want a special destiny. Tris fights because she believes in the faction system's failure on a systemic level. Katniss fights because her sister was taken. The motivations produce very different characters.

How does Katniss compare to Offred (The Handmaid's Tale)?

Offred is a survivor embedded in a system she didn't choose and cannot escape through force. Her resistance is interior. Katniss's resistance is exterior — she fights, literally, with bow and arrow. Both are realistic; they describe different types of oppression and different available responses.

How does Katniss compare to Hermione Granger?

Different categories — Hermione isn't dystopian. But as comparison: Hermione is enthusiastically capable. Katniss is reluctantly capable. Hermione wants to master the world's challenges. Katniss wants to survive them. Both are effective; the difference is orientation.

What specifically sets Katniss apart from most fictional heroines?

Her refusal to be inspiring. Most heroines in genre fiction eventually accept the mantle of hero — they choose the cause, the people, the mission. Katniss doesn't fully choose any of it. She's dragged, manipulated, grieving, and eventually makes her most important decisions from rage and despair rather than hope. This is unusual and more honest about what fighting against terrible systems actually requires.

Why does Katniss's unwillingness make her more compelling?

Because it's more true. Genuine resistance to injustice doesn't usually come with a clean hero's motivation. It comes from someone who's just lost enough that they have nothing left to lose — or someone protecting a specific person who can no longer be protected any other way. Katniss is the second kind.