#sunrise on the reaping analysis

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

If we get another Hunger Games book, I think it will be about Annie’s games

Allow me to explain:

Sunrise on the Reaping spoilers ahead!

First of all, I do think that we’ll be seeing a third book to close off this recent run as a prequel trilogy, though I also understand the arguments that the SotR epilogue could arguably function as a goodbye to the characters.

In my opinion, the most likely people we would learn more about in another book, considering how much we already know about everyone else in all 5 books combined, are Mags, Joanna, and Finnick. But we essentially know Finnick’s story; if there was a book for him individually then I can only see the games being a small section of it, and we know enough to know that if we had dedicated and detailed descriptions of what he was put through in the aftermath from his perspective that the book would have to cross the line into adult fiction, a line the franchise already very closely presses against and arguably bends out of shape. I think that this most likely removes him from the running as an option for a POV, and I also think that Joanna is an unlikely candidate simply for how similar her story is to Haymitch’s, leaving Mags as the most likely character that we have more to explore about (I discount Wiress and Beetee on account of how much more we learned about them in sunrise). However, if we were going to have a Mags book I think it would have been written before SotR to keep this series chronological - especially because arguably a lot of the propaganda themes could have been applied to the little we know about her as well.

Of the main cast of victors introduced to us in Catching Fire who go on to remain important characters but who we don’t already know intimately, then, all of whom have been the most likely candidates for further exploration imo, we have to look at Annie. We know very little about Annie’s games, to my recollection, except that she went into hiding after her district-mate was killed and won mostly due to her swimming ability when the arena was flooded by the gamemakers. But you know what we’ve learned from sunrise, if nothing else? We’ve learned that everything we know about every single game except the ones we witnessed firsthand from inside the arena are most likely being lied about. Not knowing any differently, we fell for the Capitol propaganda; we believed that the broadcasts were accurate. Now that we know for a solid fact that, like Haymitch’s, any one of these, probably most to all of them, have been tampered with, we know nothing.

The order of Haymitch’s days and his interactions with others were completely altered in the “highlight reel” and presumably, based on how the audience appears to respond, during the full broadcast as well - at least to an extent, if not quite so much as this. Even if there was more truth to broadcast, which we can cast doubt on now that we also have hard evidence the “live” broadcasts of reapings aren’t actually live, we can safely assume plenty of edits, tampering, and ‘card-stacking’ goes on (remember Plutarch says of the reaping that the footage only wasn’t fully tampered with because there wasn’t enough time, so he just shuffled the deck instead). With this in mind, did Annie really spend the entire games hiding after her district-mate died? I’m not convinced she did.

If Annie was hiding for a large portion of her games, the camera probably wasn’t showing her off that often; there wasn’t much to watch. And if that’s the case, it would be really easy to keep reusing footage of her hiding at any given point, say immediately after the other tribute’s death for example, and either using various short clips far enough apart that no-one questions them or combining this with subtly tampered footage to make it seem as though hours have passed with her barely moving. After all, Annie is from a career district: would the gamemakers not be doing everything they could to drive her out of her hiding place and into the action, to force her to fight? And especially since we now know how embarrassing it was for the gamemakers that they couldn’t reach Wiress’ hiding place, it seems incredibly unlikely to me that they’d let that ever happen again. After the secret spot was found in the 49th arena, they’d be forever making sure there would never again be anywhere accessible to the tributes that was inaccessible to cameras, sponsorship drones, and gamemakers. So why would they leave Annie alone?

But what if they needed to make it look like Annie hadn’t moved? What if they couldn’t let anyone see what she was actually doing? What if part of the trauma responses we see in Annie are a product of punishment after the games, as well as the experiences of the arena itself?

One of Haymitch’s first thoughts when he finds the massive tankard of water under the arena is to wonder if the gamemakers intend to the flood it. Now this I think, in part, was potentially a painful hint to the dry cistern at his house considering the volcano of the arena being about to erupt, but it also made me think immediately of Annie’s games. If this is indeed going to be a trilogy of prequels then, although clearly they don’t immediately follow on from each other, there have to be clear threads that weave them. We saw a lot of threads weaving SotR to Ballad so I’m not going to go on about that here, but it’s true that Mags, the water, and even the beheadings that Haymitch and Annie both witness could be a strong thread to carry between Sunrise and a potential future book that focused around Annie.

Did she flood the arena herself? Did the gamemakers flood it to hide something she’d done, maybe an attempt to break it, forgetting in their panic that she would likely be the only survivor of such an action?

A book exploring Annie’s games would also give us strong potential to explore Mags’ and Finnick’s stories in more detail. Although we know that Finnick was her mentor, Mags would also likely have been a presence for both of them at this time. Annie also won her games at 18, which gives us a new perspective as someone who would have aged out of the reaping of she’d made it through that final year, and more political insight into a career district would be a new and interesting endeavour to learn about. Insight into career districts would carry plenty of weight in the propaganda themes, in the reframing of narratives, and in the exploration of conditioning and manipulation, as well as overcoming it.

Anyway these are just some thoughts I had, but does anyone agree? Does anyone have alternate theories on what might be in store for us with another book? I’d love to hear any thoughts

EDIT: sorry I just posted this and realised I forgot to say that this idea was partially inspired by a video by stillfrombrooklyn on tiktok, who didn’t theorise a new book from this perspective or go into all the same details I have but did question whether what we know about Annie’s games is actually true and raised theories about the footage of her hiding being fake.

[triassictriserratops]

these two instances really stick out to me for their similarities and their differences.

In Sunrise on the Reaping, we see Haymitch struggle with his inaction and what it means about his acquiescence to the Capitol. He failed to act and fight alongside someone he loved and it inspired in him a deep shame.

"Plutarch's voice taunts me. "The question is, why didn't you?" I can't say I'm not a killer anymore. That leaves brainwashed or cowardly."

As a consequence of his inaction, Maysilee (and Maritte) have made themselves direct targets of the gamemakers an act that foolishly leaves Haymitch with only one true opponent, Silka. Maysilee's death and Haymith's compliance to Capitol authority haunt the choices he makes as he prepares to play the role the Capitol demands of him, in the hopes of of keeping his remaining loved ones safe. -----

However, in Mockingjay, we see a different kind of inaction. Here is Peeta, a boy he loves - against all effort and against his better judgement. A boy he failed and abandoned to the Capitol just as surely as he abandoned his Newcomers. As he abandoned Wellie. As he abandoned his friends in District 12. All for a purpose, but all with the same sense of failure and loss. But he gets him back. He gets his boy back. And he knows what this means for the girl, even if she's too out of sorts and ill-prepared to admit it herself. In bringing Peeta back, Haymitch will get Katniss back as well. He'll have his family in one place. Safe. Away from the Capitol. Away from Snow. Away from the fire and the poison and the snakes. And then he's faced with a Peeta that is filled with Capitol poison. He sees the one thing he can't even begin to comprehend. And he freezes. And, if Boggs hadn't been there, it would have cost him everything. ---- Two entirely different moments of inaction from Haymitch. For entirely different reasons. But I feel that these two moments likely haunt him just the same.

[feral-and-chaotic]

OKAY! SUNRISE ON THE REAPING THOUGHTS:

I adore the parallels between Haymitch and The other characters. Haymitch is both such a strong reflection of Katniss and Peeta in particular.

At a cursory glance, Haymitch's home life and spirit is of that of Katniss. The way he takes Louella's body and runs is reminiscent of Katniss and Rue. His relationship with Sid is strikingly similar to Prim and Katniss.

BUT

The charisma? The heart? The desire to fight, not for himself but to keep his friend alive. The recognition that his personality counts for something? The idea of trying to show that they can't change him?

It's so strikingly Peeta.

Katniss has a lot of Lenore Dove in her. That rebel flightiness. (I wonder if that's why Haymitch dubbed her as Sweetheart).

I wonder if the reason Haymitch gets, almost defensive of Peeta in Catching Fire, to the point of almost cruelty, might be because he recognises that soft and cleverness of Peeta, whilst also relating to Katniss.

Anyway. I've only hit part two. But god help me.

Mags, Wiress, Beetee. I love you. All magnificent.

Haymitch deserves so much better. I'm glad he ends up with his geese and living near Peeta and Katniss.

Though I'm doubling down on Haymitch and Effie. He deserves something.

Edit: I wrote this before getting to the end, hence why I wasn’t aware of the sweetheart bit

[sheisoverhere]

Peeta Mellark is an integral member of the four D12 victors. He is literally the sunset on the reaping! How is this not clear? I’ve never wanted to report people for bad literary analysis more and I’m only half joking. It has forced me to commit a cardinal sin: analyze in anger!

1. Him being chosen by absolute accident is the point. Not only does he represent every single other tribute who simply gets chosen because they live in a messed up country but he represents how even with some odds being in your favor (older siblings, merchant family, being white, being popular, etc.) you are still very likely to be victimized by the oppressive structure of Panem.

2. When Haymitch says, “But she was smarter than me, or luckier” - the luck is all the people around Katniss who created the circumstances for her to lead a successful revolution (her father teaching her to hunt, the arena having woods, Rue healing her with leaves, Thresh not killing her, Haymitch consistently giving her support, her mother teaching her aspects of medicine, on and on and on) and Peeta is the number one, most important part of her luck in the first book. She has someone in the games actively putting her life before his… are you kidding? There is legitimately no better luck than that.

3. Even if we take Katniss out of it, Peeta is so impactful as a victor because most of his scenes would not be cut/doctored. What’s there to edit out? Instead, the viewers get a full view of him loving a girl so selflessly, using trickery and strategy instead of violence, keeping himself alive through art, joking on literal death’s door, and sharing so much of himself with the audience it becomes harder for them not to see him as a real human boy. How rare do you think that is for the games? Haymitch and LGB are caricatures of themselves in the games, playing roles that flatten them down. Even Katniss becomes one dimensional on screen without Peeta (and Rue, of course). It is also heavily implied that he does not kill anyone during the games (in a straightforward way) and even if you count Cato or the girl from 8 or even foxface, it’s never him hunting them or seeking out a kill - again how rare do you think that is to see on screen for Games viewers?

4. I didn’t think this needed to be said but: Katniss dies without Peeta in the first games. a) she goes for the bow and dies in the bloodbath; b) she is hunted and killed by Careers; c) she is killed by game makers because there’s no love story angle to keep them from just burning her entirely; d) she dies from tracker jacker stings or Cato because Peeta doesn’t defend her or tell her to run… I could go on…

5. But even if she does win and wins alone - the victory means as much (I would argue less than) any other rebellious victor winning, certainly less than Haymitch’s win. The biggest rebellion for their games is that two of them win! This is legit the only thing that distinguishes them from any other sympathetic, kind child who would have won the games. Like if Haymitch or Finnick or Wiress winning isn’t jarring enough for the Games to end… why do you think Katniss killing Peeta and winning solo would be? It would not.

6. And finally, I cannot stress this enough: There is no peaceful end to the rebellion or the trilogy without Peeta. “Peeta’s a whiz with fires” (HG) for a reason! Collins, over and over, shows us how fire can get out of control and destroy even those who are innocent and who you love (Gale, Beete, Peeta’s family, Haymitch’s family). If everyone really burns, there’s no one to clean the ashes. The reason not everyone burns is because of people like Peeta who can coax the flames in a way that is nurturing and consistent. I mean…. “Peeta fashioned some kind of incubator” is such an obvious detail. Those goslings don’t hatch without Peeta, life does not go on in peace and joy without Peeta.

It is no coincidence that when Maysilee says Lenore Dove got the “jump on us all” (in being a rebel), she is referring to LD using orange paint to make protest art!

We must stop pushing Peeta Mellark out of the narrative! He is literally the sunset on the reaping!

[justafewberries]

love the symbolism of haymitch's outfit in the parade scene. he loses his "cheesy imitation coal miner hat in the accident and, rid of the headgear, our outfits become merely neutral, black and forgettable." (SOTR, 79).

he's wearing the uniform of his district, a coal miner, someone sent to the deepest parts of the earth day after day, working for scrip, not even real money, facing the highest, "most brutal" person in panem with a dead girl in his arms forcing him to confront that he did this.

how he's not haymitch- rather he's every coal miner in district 12, every person who has lost a child to the games, to starvation, to the oppression of snow's regime. he is not haymitch. he is panem.

[tiredandoptimistic]

Something that I think is important about Wyatt as a character is how he highlights the stupidity of the district system. I know that the human love of sorting ourselves into categories meant that every YA series for a while had a bunch of different groups with associated traits that tweens could take uquizzes about, but The Hunger Games isn't like Divergent or Harry Potter where young adults get grouped based on their personalities. Sure, the districts all have industries they're known for and the tributes are clearly shaped by wherever they grew up, but being born into District Four doesn't actually mean that you'll like fish. Wyatt is brilliant when it comes to numbers, but in District Twelve he can only channel that into gambling. Imagine if he'd been born into District Three with a father like Beetee, what he could have done with his mathematical talents. There's mention of it with Maysilee too, how she doesn't want to run the candy store but her options are that or the mines.

I guess what I'm saying is that the district system is great for keeping people oppressed because they see their fellows as "other," which is why it is a tool of fascism and not a practical way to run a society. It doesn't matter who is in what group, it matters that they internalize their group identity to the point that they ignore the similarities between them.

[daydreamer-in-reverie]

Started rereading the Hunger Games series and I feel like it’s so overlooked how in 74th and 75th Hunger Games, we don’t know every Tribute’s names, with Katniss only referring to them by their District numbers but in TBOSAS, we knew every single Tribute by name. We associated them with the clothes they wore on the Reaping Day and Suzanne even goes so far as to describe how they looked, however briefly. We see these Tributes and we’re familiarized with them by the little tidbits provided to the mentors and to Snow and Lucy Gray. But we never get this in the original trilogy.

In two generations, President Snow alienated the Districts from each other so much that Katniss didn’t even care to know all the names of the Tributes sent into the Arena with her, with the exception being those who posed great risk against her safety and those she felt great compassion for (e.g. Cato, Thresh, Rue, Mags, Betee, Wiress etc.). Katniss even went so far as to call the D6 Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games morphlings, for their affinity to imbibe in the drugs that help them forget their own traumas (an incredibly hurtful description, in my own opinion, to be known by the qualities you hate the most about yourself). We never know the real name of the 74th D5 girl, with Katniss only referring to her as Foxface and we don’t even know Marvel’s name until we get to the second book and he was Katniss’ first personal kill. Katniss even kills the D4 girl in the books with the same tracker jacker venom that killed Glimmer and yet still, we don’t know her name. We are so removed from the identity of the other Tributes that we don’t even know what some of them looked like beyond brief descriptions of mangled bodies and dead Tributes in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.

And, the thing is, Suzanne established the importance of names in the series. Even in real life, we recognize the importance of being named. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. If you’re ever in a perilous situation where a person might be placing your life in danger, we’re told to remind the person that you’re human. “Keep saying your name, how old you are, where you came from. Remind them you are a human being just like them.” Before any propaganda can work against a group of people, refusing to recognize a person’s name is the first step to dehumanization. And just like the people of the Districts, we don’t care enough about the other Tributes to even want to know their names. Their propaganda worked on us, the readers.

In two generations, President Snow completely wiped out any sense of familiarity and camaraderie the Districts may have shared with the other. In two generations, Snow sowed the seeds of distrust and division into the Districts so deeply that even we, the readers, were affected by the effects of Capitol propaganda. In two generations, the Districts ceased to genuinely care about the others beyond the vague sense of injustice they feel for their shared plight. It’s why Career Districts don’t seem to care about killing the other Tributes. How can you care, to show your compassion and humanity, when you can barely see them as people? Yes, they may have been in the Arena with you. Yes, they may have been starved and beaten and forced into labor like you were. Yes, they might be children just like you. Yes, they might be subjected to the same deplorable system that turned you into virtual slaves. But they are not your friends. They are not your allies. They are strange, with different customs and traditions that you have. You do not share the same values. They do not care about you. At the first chance they get, they will kill you with your bare hands and they will do it with alacrity if it meant their survival. There can only be one Victor and it can’t be them. It has to be you.

[winter-wise]

Snow's influence in the gradual erasure of the Covey from District 12's culture. In TBOSAS, they're well-known as performers. In Sunrise on the Reaping, they no longer sing in public. Lenore has to cut a deal just to be able to play the piano. In Hunger Games, Katniss, a singer herself, doesn't mention the Covey once.

[saptashati]

Despite the fact that Gale looks like he's from the Seam, was also a coal miner and a hunter, Katniss almost never associates him with her father, her most favorite person in the world. The few times she does its usually in reference to the significant loss they shared. The one exception to this is the lake, her last place of refuge.

The person she most often associates with her father (and her mother for that matter) is Peeta. Peeta is the person that always brings up her father's beautiful voice, his squirrel trading and the Plant book that kept Katniss alive. The shared memory of her father's singing voice is one of the things that helps Peeta start to recover his memories. Her father's Hanging Tree song is so closely associated with the tragedy of Peeta and Katniss's relationship. A lot of their physical affection reminds Katniss of her parents.

(Katniss basically takes all her softer emotions and locks them away and usually Peeta is the only person who can help her access them)

((sometimes daddy issues are chic)

[hayabug]

when katniss was talking about the reaping at the start of series, she stresses how it’s absolutely mandatory to attend unless you’re literally “at deaths door.” So i wonder what it was like, for haymitchs mother, an extremely pregnant teenage girl, who just managed to escape the reaping herself a year prior, to go into labor on that day. Having to worry about how you could potentially be punished if labor isn’t enough of an excuse to miss the reaping while going through the horrors of it; Knowing that two children from your community were once again ripped away, while you bring a new one into those horrors. And then, 16 years later, you have to watch as that same child marches off to his certain death, on the day of his birth.

[sippingdaisies]

although katniss is our protagonist and main character i think there's actually a much more fitting throughline when it comes to the presence of covey girls and their acts of rebellion.

lucy gray

lenore dove

primrose

i don't often see prim mentioned when it comes to covey lineage (most likely because her character is so aligned with their merchant mother in the original trilogy) but all three of these girls actively haunt the narrative.

lucy gray is the ghost whose songs of resistance endure in district 12 long after her name is forgotten. lenore dove paints her posters across the district and its haymitch's promise to her that forces him to keep going, keep fighting back until someone 'just like him but luckier' comes along to do what he couldn't. primrose is reason that katniss volunteers, she inspires a love so great that it defies the odds and brings her sister home.

they all have an immense strength but also an inherent gentleness - their love of animals whether this is lucy gray's snakes or lenore dove's geese or prim's refusal to hunt animals (not to mention lady and buttercup) - they are all drawn to creatures that are not widely seen as valuable or lovable.

they share a deep sense of optimism, each believe in the power of hope to transform one's circumstances. they each believe that a better world is not only possible but they are willing to take action to make it so. lucy gray uses her songs and performances, lenore dove engages in acts of sabotage and vandalises property. prim learns how to heal and chooses to enter a warzone in order to help people - in a world governed by violence, prim is first and foremost a healer.

and ultimately they are all taken from those who love them - they are girls frozen in time, forever filled with colour and light. three generations of covey girls, each doomed by their connection to the games.

[tempestandwhirlwinds]

I find it so fascinating how Lucy Gray haunts the narrative and how Snow can't help but try to recreate the "man kills the woman he loves" dynamic in over Victors of District 12.

When Haymitch wins his games, Snow kills his family as both a punishment and warning. But he makes sure that Lucy Gray is killed by Haymitch's hand, using the poison that Snow has such an affinity for.

When Snow tortures and manipulates Peeta before allowing him to be rescued, we can clearly see the same setup. Snow was hoping that Peeta would kill Katniss, the girl he loves, in yet another recreation of what he (thought?) he did to Lucy Gray. But this time, it didn't work. Because Katniss was too valued by the people around her, and then later, because Peeta was able to overcome his brainwashing.

I can't help but see Snow's obsession with this dynamic as a way to prove to himself that love means nothing in the face of violence and self-preservation. Or perhaps it was his way to justify his actions, to show that he's not singularly monstrous for what he did. Or maybe he was trying to give himself closure with not knowing if Lucy Gray survived - Lenore Dove was dead by Haymitch's hands, so surely the same could be said for Lucy Gray?

But either way, we can see how the mystery of Lucy Gray Baird really, truly HAUNTED Snow until his dying breath. Even if she wasn't in the situations he was dealing with, he certainly found a way to put her there.

[evermarch]

now that we have sotr, i wanted to update this post about how katniss’ power comes not from her similarities to lucy gray, but in their differences. i’m still working out my feelings about katniss being canonically covey descended, because i don’t love the implications for the 74th reaping to begin with. but i am at least glad that the covey connection has no bearing on what makes katniss the symbol of the revolution.

lucy gray’s livelihood was music. she believed that her voice was the skill which kept her and her family alive. from the minute she started singing at the reaping, before they even met, snow recognized it as the only currency she possessed, and thus, the only power she wielded. it was her ticket to victory, and they both knew it. to her knowledge, it was her last line of defense in the arena against the snakes. in the end, singing to the jabberjays may have been what saved her from snow.

in sotr, we learn that burdock’s covey connection comes not from the everdeens, but from his mother’s side. unlike her singing voice, katniss’ skill with a bow is an everdeen characteristic, through and through. and archery, not music, is what katniss identifies as the source of her strength, as the skill which keeps her alive. and it’s true; she never would have been a real threat without that bow. she simply wouldn’t have survived long enough. not after burdock died, not in the arena(s), and not in the war. she also would never have been able to shoot coin and end the cycle of the dehumanizing “opinion” of governance.

yes, a lot of katniss’ “power” over snow comes from her connection to the covey (her name, singing their songs, girl from district 12 “pretending” to be in love with a blond boy, etc.). and there is no doubt that the covey connection is imperative to katniss’ cultural identity and her relationship to her father. but not one of the qualities which make katniss the mockingjay for the people, which is her real threat in bringing about the capitol’s downfall, has anything to do with lucy gray or the covey at large.

beyond the bow which keeps her alive, katniss’ power comes from a variety of non-covey sources. cinna’s costumes, while echoing lucy gray in unforgettability, make her not appealing, but striking, as the “girl on fire.” tying the district 12 tributes together comes from haymitch, the rebellion, and most importantly, her luck of being reaped alongside peeta, someone willing to give his life to save hers. her compassion for prim, peeta, rue, thresh, and even cato is rooted in her mother, who snuck into the seam to treat people for free and left her privileged life behind to marry a coal miner. even katniss’ ability to heal both herself and peeta, which keeps them alive long enough to hold out the berries, comes from asterid.

the covey and their legacy touches katniss more than most in district 12, but that isn’t part of her appeal to the masses. there is music class in district 12, and peeta, asterid, and maysilee recognize and feel emotionally connected to many of their songs. the galvanizing effect of their music could have come from any mouth singing banned songs with provocative words. that’s clear because it works when no one, not even katniss, knows of her heritage. when katniss sings, her beautiful voice is not what moves people—it’s the timing, the moments when she sings: to rue, and to pollux and the mockingjays. ultimately, katniss is not a performer, which is, as haymitch points out, explicitly what people respond to about her.

katniss’ similarity to lucy gray is undoubtedly a rose thorn in snow’s side, and most certainly leads to his recklessness in exacting his vengeance against her. in fact, it’s snow’s attempted exploitation of that connection by trying to force katniss to be a performer that is his predominant failure. but the effect on snow, personally, isn’t what ignites the rebellion. it certainly isn’t what makes the revolution successful. that is a concerted, unified effort of decades, which results in katniss and peeta holding hands at the opening ceremonies in burning costumes. in no one being able to blow katniss and peeta in the air when they hold out those berries. in giving katniss the wire to fire into the force field.

as snow himself notes before her victory tour, no one would believe her death was an accident after she held out the berries. she is already a martyr before she really starts to perform. because, unlike for lucy gray, reaper, haymitch, finnick, and the other potential symbols, the people of the districts are already primed and ready to fight. katniss, in a burning costume, is the human manifestation of marching orders. she is a signal to something that already exists.

the kindling is laid. the logs are stacked. the gas is poured. the striker is not around her neck, but in maysilee’s pin on her shirt. all katniss would need to do to start the fire is find a striking rock on a berry bush in her arena. a striking rock which she could only recognize because of her father. whose true power she only understands because of peeta. power she only chooses to use because of her sense of justice, displayed through her solidarity.

solidarity, not an inherited musical talent, not twirling in a colorful dress at the interviews, not a “performance” as a lovestruck girl, is what lights the spark of revolution. it’s a quality katniss shares not with lucy gray, but with haymitch. of course, the difference between them is that haymitch did not have the benefit of a locked and loaded rebel movement in place to ensure the world would be watching. but snow’s lingering obsession with lucy gray is also not what makes katniss a success where haymitch failed. from haymitch, the rebellion learned that its symbol is needed not to build the fire, but to light the spark.

in a line of failed attempts ranging from beetee to haymitch to finnick, katniss is successful because, this time, the groundwork is laid to launch the districts into a planned, full-scale rebellion. in displaying her love for prim, for rue, and for peeta, her solidarity was the striker hitting the rock at just the right moment. katniss, the springtime daughter of asterid march, the prodigal archer of the everdeen line, the girl who fights not for herself, but for everyone else, is the mockingjay not because she bleeds covey blood, but because in selecting the moment she starts to burn, she is “luckier, [and] with better timing.” and that is a fire that even snow, the #1 peacekeeper, would never have been able to quell.

[worldwithinworld]

Since we all have the time of Haymitch's games on our minds, I thought now would be a good time to bring up again my longstanding theory that Katniss's mother was disowned by her parents but not primarily (or even at all) because she married someone from the Seam. I think it's because she and Katniss's father were involved in rebellious activities.

Here are my clues:

She was Maysilee's friend. She got her canary after she died, inheriting the symbol of a warning in the form of a songbird.

Haymitch's victory frightened Show. If the Capitol's control was strong at the time, Haymitch's forcefield trick would have been just good tv. The fact that Snow came down so hard on Snow suggests there were threats of rebellion before Haymitch even went into the arena.

When Gale is whipped, Haymitch says they used to take people who got whipped to Katniss's mother. Specifically, he says, "She's the one we took them to," which seems to imply it was just her, not her whole family.

After treating Gale, she briefly speaks to Haymitch about "before." They understand each other so easily with just a few words despite us seeing hardly any interaction between them before. It feels like they have more of a shared history than what Katniss knows.

Speaking of what Katniss knows, she considers this interaction and wonders what they are talking about but decides she's too upset to ask right then. She never thinks about asking again, but the whole thing suggests that there is a lot more to the story of D12 in Haymitch and her parents' youth.

Katniss remembers her mom getting angry at her dad for teaching her "The Hanging Tree." Little Katniss had cried because her mom yelling was so out of the norm. Katniss assumes that her mom didn't like her little girl learning such a dark song, but we know better. Her dad sang a rebels' song, and her mom got scared of him teaching it to her daughter.

I think both of Katniss's parents were involved in rebellion to some degree when they were young. The Capitol came down hard on Haymitch and his whole district to snuff it out. It scared Katniss's maternal grandparents who maybe told her to cut ties with her Seam boy or else, or maybe they just cut her off for her own deeds irrespective of her romantic interest.

[orie-jai]

So if Katniss and Peeta are Penelope and Odysseus

And Haymitch and Lenore Dove are Orpheus and Eyuridice

Then that makes Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Jason and Medea

So i did end up writing that essay but I also wanna point out the amazing analysis included here and here 💛

[justafewberries]

It's interesting how intention and public perception factor in the reception of the axe vs. the berries stunts.

Haymitch did not intend to use the force field as a weapon. He wasn't trying to outsmart anyone, he was just trying to get to the edge in hopes it would give him an advantage.

He didn't even remember the force field until after it aided him. He didn't intend to outsmart the Gamemakers, but Katniss did.

And it's likely why he knew he had to pitch the berries stunt as an emotional lapse in judgement or at least, hoped it would work.

He knew she intended to outsmart the Gamemakers, but he also knows what happens first hand when intention is assumed, and he wasn't going to let Katniss and Peeta's families die.

Even if he didn't intend to outsmart the Gamemakers, even if his goal was just to live, to the capitol, the axe was calculated no matter if it actually was or not.

The difference being Haymitch didn't have propaganda on his side. To the audience, he was a smart rascal who knew how the force field worked, so he must have meant to weaponize it by dragging Silka over to the edge. it doesn't matter what he was thinking at the time, because the footage, the narrative, shows otherwise. he lost the war of public opinion from the second he crafted his image in the interviews.

But Katniss, the giggly, dress-twirling girl, how could she ever intend something like that?