charlunday

[charlunday]

i would do anything for him

[charlunday]

Lenore Dove is the dead wife in the montage, and she should have died in the jail. From the moment we leave District Twelve, she exists predominately outside of the narrative, and only through Haymitch's memory. Consequentially, she's dead the moment we leave 12, just like a dead-wife montage.

The whole pre-reaping scene reads like a dead wife montage. He colors her with vibrancy. He tells us about how smart she is, how she seems to know everything there is to know, and he just listens because he loves her so much. It makes sense. Haymitch spends his time from the train onward mourning her like he has already lost her. In a sense, he has. He is convinced he will never see her again, and, in turn, his conviction transforms his girl into a haunting, guiding-force- the dead wife archetype.

Which would make it all the more devastating if the dead wife never came back to life.

When reading SOTR, I was convinced the call in the study would be their final words together. In The Raven, the narrator calls out to his beloved and receives no answer:

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”— Merely this and nothing more.

Which already parallels the line at the end of the call:

But I'm trying to be noble, to, pull myself up to say those words, when the line goes dead without warning. "Lenore Dove? Lenore Dove?" She's gone. Truly for good, this time.

An auditory final goodbye would have paralleled the Raven, but it also would have lent itself to more hallucinations. Haymitch could have come to believe he hallucinated the call. He could have blamed Plutarch for setting him up, and under the context Lou Lou, he could have believed they just mixed her voice or had someone else on the other line.

He would have never gotten a real, genuine, final goodbye with his girl, which lends itself to his reclusive life in the trilogy. Especially because he breaks his phone in his victor's house and Effie is the one to have it fixed twenty-five years later. Maybe he hears hallucinates his phone ringing only to pick it up for a dead tone, and it drives him mad to the point of destruction. Maybe it is Snow calling just to listen to him grieving his girl, thinking maybe, just maybe, he'll hear her voice again.

Further, prior to the call, Haymitch bragged about selling alcohol to the commander of the d12 peacekeepers in his interview while she was in custody. While we do not know if it aired, word of mouth on gossip that flammable was bound to spread to the commander's higher ups. The commander, seeking to punish Haymitch, could have brought the gavel down on Lenore Dove and, in his corruption, made an example out of her. It would send the message of I can break the law, but you cannot. The peacekeepers are above the law. We choose if you live.

Because the interview happened right before the call, I was under the impression news just had not gotten back to the commander by then. Or, if it had, Lenore Dove was trying to comfort Haymitch by relaying her position optimistically. Yet, it seemed there were no actual consequences for his admission.

It would have been even more all the more devastating for Haymitch to lose his girl as a direct result to his attempted submission. He knew he had to put on a show. He gave them what they wanted- a troublemaker, and even while doing what he had to do, playing the game, they still punished him. It's the convince me line of Catching Fire all over again. Through attempting to convince everyone he is a rascal, he hurts the girl he loves most by making an off-hand, truthful comment.

Haymitch would have to live with the fact speaking up was what got her killed for the rest of his life. And Snow can still have a hand in it. Music is illegal. She was playing music. Crack down on laws that were previously forgotten, and it forces people to submit by getting back in line.

By making an example out of her, the Capitol can then justify anything via digging up laws and making up new punishments. There are no laws, because everything suddenly becomes law when it is needed. There is nothing to stop the Capitol from writing a freshly inked date of the past, pointing to it, and saying "Look, this has always been the law." There is no regulating body to stop this, either. They would have the choice of rebellion or conformity.

District Twelve would then have more of a reason to stay in line and conform, like how we see in the trilogy. It would be the pinpoint behind the characterization of why they are afraid to rebel in the first place. It sets up the idea that for years, they were afraid of breaking long forgotten laws, and thereby developed a keep your head down culture to save their own necks.

Lenore Dove should've been a multifaceted political execution. She was the dead wife trope.

[charlunday]

okay! so I saw this on twitter and omg does it resonate with me. this is where I struggle with sunrise on the reaping haymitch versus the original trilogy haymitch. not because it’s so unbelievable that haymitch becomes mean and cruel, it’s actually very realistic, but it saddens me so much because after reading how kind and wonderful he was as a teen, the fact that katniss and peeta will never ever experience this side of him is heartbreaking. like he loves them more than anything, he’s only alive because of them by the end, they’re his entire family, and yet he’ll still never be the sweet boy who wanted to protect all the little kids in the arena, bought his girlfriend a book of old poems because he knew she’d love them and a million other things. like this is what I’ve struggled to reconcile since reading sunrise. haymitch was so genuinely wonderful as a person but his trauma did not make him kind, it made him borderline abusive, and that is just who he is now.

and yes, the films sure did soften him up. but i’m talking about book haymitch only, who said cruel things, made fun of katniss at the worst times in her life, told her she didn’t deserve peeta because she took less than an hour to plead for his life over hers, threatened to implant a device in her brain like lou lou’s and punched peeta in the jaw so hard he fell out of his chair. like i adore haymitch, now more than ever, but it actually depresses me so much that katniss and peeta will never know the man he could have been, and the person he was, even though he loves them with all his heart.

also if these twitter users who I screenshot see this, credit to y’all, I totally agree.

[charlunday]

Haymitch & Sid commission for my lovely friend @thehellcaster ! I really loved getting to explore these two in this piece

commissions are still open! – come claim your 20% discount

Look under the cut for the version without text

[charlunday]

Out of all the foods to share, a roasted bird that you’re taking a bite out of without silverware is on the less clean side and they’re just instinctively sharing food like this without giving it a second thought.

New headcanon that even when they were being odd during quell training, they did this. Haymitch and Gale have to witness them angrily pining and then sharing a water bottle and protein bar

[charlunday]

Baby boy got a little too ambitious while tree climbing 🌳

I really tried to hold out on posting this to space out my work but it's just too cute not to share immediately

commissions open!

[charlunday]

i do find it funny that movie everlark are always serious and brooding around each other while in the book they bicker over if peeta’s icing skills would be useful if the arena was a giant cake or not

[charlunday]

two peas in a pod

bonus :)

[charlunday]

the nights on the train lore drop in front of gale is actually one of my favorite peeta moments hijacked or not bc it’s SO petty but somehow that makes it even more in character for him. he knew exactly what he was doing and it’s DELICIOUS

EXACTLY that’s what makes me love it too because it has “if it weren’t for the baby” energy like … that’s Peeta … just the really mean, bitter, “son of the witch,” version of Peeta but still HIM my petty child

like it’s not kind to Katniss at all, but, 1) he is hijacked and 2) she knows it’s not true, and 3) Gale kind of deserves to crash out over it at this point in the book I’m ngl

[charlunday]

Suzanne Collin’s just said fuck you to everyone who’s ever critiqued the Hunger Games as being a “teen girl saves the day” story. She said oh, Mockingjay didn’t make it clear enough? Here’s a book about how people have been rebelling for decades only to have their efforts suppressed and propagandized. Rebellion takes time and it takes failure and Katniss may have been the spark that ignited the wildfire but she did so standing atop the doused flames of everyone who came before her.

[charlunday]

In the Air by Artem Chebokha

[charlunday]

Hmm actually Lucy Gray is different from Haymitch and Katniss and Peeta because her tragedy is she caused the games to continue. If the games hadn't become entertaining, they wouldn't have continued and she made it entertaining because she was an entertainer - she saved herself but she doomed dozens more because she performed too well and it allowed the Capitol to make the games a performance in the later years. Haymitch's tragedy is that he couldn't end the games, Lucy Gray's is that she continued them.

[charlunday]

“he accidentally offers one to me — ‘champagne?’ — before he realizes his mistake. ‘whoops! none for the children!’” — sotr pg. 29

this quote really struck me. i find it funny how when accidentally offering alcohol to these fresh tributes, this character immediately back tracks, obviously with his thoughts being “these kids aren’t of age to drink!!” yet they’re of age to be sent into the arena to die?

which reminds me of how in america, even if you aren’t of age to drink, you are expected lay your life down for your country, give birth to an unwanted child, etc. all of these hypocritical notions that treat people 18 and under like children, yet they expect these children to act like adults and be adults.

you aren’t old enough to drink, but there’s no age limit on giving up your life for the government.

[charlunday]

The way we see the full progression of the dehumanisation of the tributes as the Hunger Games becomes more established and more normalised in the Capitol

In Ballad, they’re like wild animals, caged and starved as a form of revenge

In Sunrise, Haymitch being likened to some kind of pet by his prep team and in the afterparty of the games

In The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, they’re like celebrities trapped in a sick parasocial relationship with the people who will, in a week, get to see them die

The cage is always there- it just evolves to make it more palatable to the viewers

[charlunday]

I just need more time to pass so people realize sotr actually wasn't that bad

[charlunday]

haymitch when the bunny leads him out of the maze but directly into an attack from the careers

[charlunday]

Haymitch when Clerk Carmine still doesn't like him even though he's an ally: