Sotr Spoilers - Blog Posts

Because to Snow, Lucy Gray is an ideal. She's a picture perfectly representing what Snow should have had, what he deserved. And that's what still haunting him. The thought that the same picture may be forever unattainable.

But to Haymitch, Lenore Dove is everything. She is his age, and she grows and morphs as he grows and morphs. She is his other half. She's not a picture, no, she's a book that keeps growing.

To Snow, Lucy Gray is forever the same 16-year-old girl who ~betrayed~ him, and she haunts him accordingly. But Lenore Dove ages and grows gray alongside Haymitch, like she’s walking next to him through the years instead of lying in her grave. If you even care.

Sardonic, snarky, arrogant, rascal, bad boy Haymitch (that it turns out was mostly a product of propaganda), you will be missed.

But lover boy, older brother, guilt ridden, failed rebellion igniter Haymitch, you will be loved.

my fav thing about sunrise on the reaping was when haymitch was like yeah caeser i'm a lone wolf 😏 i'm with the newcomers but i'm not WITH the newcomers, yknow? they call me a rascal. a rebel against the gamemasters. I scored a ONE and that is a THREAT. you do not want to mess with me 🙅

cut to him with like 20 kids following him around like ducklings, him hiding in his t-shirt, him letting a bunny guide him to safety because it reminded him of his girlfriend, and him making nightlights out of potatoes.

“and while lenore dove will forever be my true love, louella is my one and only sweetheart.”

that line hits so hard when you realize how quickly he was calling katniss sweetheart. through katniss’ eyes, it seemed insincere at first, almost like haymitch was mocking her. but now we truly know haymitch wouldn’t just throw that around. he truly cared for her from the start.

😭😞😥

😀

my girl lenore dove who nothing bad ever happened to...

he really DID huh

snow really convinced himself lucy gray didn't love him (after she wrote a whole song about him and tried to run away with him) and then forty years later told sixteen year old haymitch abernathy that dying in the arena would be dodging a bullet compared to loving a covey girl. top 10 situationships gone horribly wrong

SUNRISE ON THE REAPING SPOILERS

“I first saw the girl at the Hob when she was just a baby. Burdock was so proud of her, he toted her around everywhere. After he died in that mine explosion, she started coming alone, trading the odd squirrel or rabbit. Tough and smart, her hair in two braids then, reminding me for all the world of Louella McCoy, my sweetheart of old. And after she volunteered for the Games, that nickname couldn’t help but slip out. I didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love. That’s what Lenore Dove says, anyway.”

When we first meet Haymitch, we can instantly tell that he has made a habit of distancing himself from tributes. That he has nobody left he loves, so he pushes away anybody else that tries to come into his life. But now we know how full of love Haymitch was. How deeply he loved Lenore Dove, how deeply he loved his mother and Sid, his friends, even Hattie. Everything Haymitch did was out of love. He was reaped because he tried to protect the girl he loved. As he was reaped, he did his best to protect his sweetheart, 13-year-old Louella McCoy he grew up with. He tried to distance himself from the other tributes, but eventually he couldn’t help but love them too.

He couldn’t help but call Ampert “Buddy.” He couldn’t help but call all of the district 6 tributes his doves, and mourn all of their deaths, no matter how little he actually knew them. How Louella was replaced, and how he wanted to hate her replacement, but gave her the name Lou Lou and protected her like their own. Haymitch was the one who initiated the hug of all four tributes from 12. He was distrustful of Wyatt, and grew to mourn him like a brother. He carried Lou Lou like his life depended on holding onto her. How he hated Maysilee Donner, and thought of her as the most stuck-up girl in 12. He called her Sis. He grew to love her like the sister he never had. She died as his sister.

All of the love that Haymitch didn’t need to give, and yet he loved so endlessly and so whole-heartedly. And with every person he loved, he lost them, and lost a part of himself. No wonder he didn’t want to let Katniss and Peeta into his heart. He had already tried so hard to push away Burdock, who relentlessly tried to care for him in his despair.

Then, in comes Katniss Everdeen. She carried with her a piece of every person Haymitch tried to push away. She was Asterid, Burdock, the Seam children he grew up with, all in one person. He didn’t want to let her in. He couldn’t have.

And yet, Haymitch couldn’t help but call her sweetheart.

Because Katniss was a woven tapestry of every person he had ever loved. She was his best friend’s daughter. She carried Lenore Dove’s songs. Louella’s skin and hair. Wyatt’s protectiveness. Maysilee’s fight, Maysilee’s resistance, Maysilee’s pride, Maysilee’s pin. And in the arena, she painted the best poster Haymitch and Maysilee could’ve ever hoped for- Rue, surrounded by flowers, her passing in dignity and not as another number in the games. And refusing the Capitol their winner by eating the berries with Peeta.

It’s no surprise that Katniss and Peeta broke down Haymitch’s walls. Haymitch had the flint striker, the spark. And Katniss was the fire that caught 25 years later.

SOTR Spoilers!!!

Okay, I'm not sure if this is just me and I'm overthinking it, but I feel like even in the book, no one acknowledges that we don't know for sure that Louella McCoy was really the one to make it home in that coffin. Hell, when Lou Lou dies, Haymitch even takes a moment to think about what will happen to her body, if it will be sent back to District 11 or left in the Capitol, or even if she would be cremated. Now of course we know that at the end of the book, "Louella McCoy" is sent back in a coffin on the train with Haymitch, but for all we know, it could still be Lou Lou. Think about it from the Capitol's perspective: they want no loose ends, no one will ever know about this, and those who do can never do anything. If they want to keep this so secret, wouldn't it make more sense to send Lou Lou back since her body would have the correct wounds from her death in the arena, so if anyone ever opened the coffin, they would assume it was Louella. Of course, they could assume that no one would ever open the coffin, and they would most likely be right, but if someone did, even years down the road, it should be pretty obvious whether this person died from blunt force trauma or poison since those are two wildly different deaths.

Besides all that, I think that it also adds another layer of tragedy to the whole situation. Lou Lou was kidnapped from her home, stripped of her identity, and murdered by the Capitol while brainwashed to be someone else. It feels even more cruel to send her to a District she's never been to, into the home of a dead girl she was forced to replace, and to be buried under a false name, where her body can be visited by people she never knew, all while everyone who loved her (presumably) rest elsewhere. Meanwhile, Louella was kidnapped from her home, died and had her identity stolen, and no one evens knows what happened to her, but we know she never made it back.

Ampert's death RUINED me oh my fucking gosh. What the fuck Suzanne.

bro no way suzanne actually used this for inspiration 😭

that moment in catching fire when haymitch jumps in front of peacekeepers for someone he loves, leading him to get reaped again…

Oh nothing, just thinking about how Hay watched his mentors die in the games they helped get him throught 25 years ago.

Okay so i can't get the book out of my head, please can someone write fanfiction about Haymitch meeting everyone in afterlife? Begging rn, also give me some good thg/sotr ff to read 🙏🙏🙏

The fact that there are several undertones that we don't understand until later in life when we're older, reading The Hunger Games is astounding.

Haymitch was never forced into anything (I'm talking prostitution) because his love and family were dead. If he hadn't pushed his friends away they would be the new collateral that Snow would hold over Haymitch's head.

Haymitch was never going to have a happy ending either way and that's all the more depressing to think about. Had Lenore survived, she would've been something to hold over him. His life was bound for depression the minute he won the games. He didn't die in the games, his chance of happiness died the minute he boarded the train.

(And perhaps that theory that Burdock's death in the mines was targeted may hold some merit, although in my opinion that was a very late accident that I'm not sure it would been connected. However, the chance that it was more of an act to squash rebellion definitely sticks, and it no doubt it still probably haunts Haymitch.)

Suzanne really making us look at the victors in the eyes and realizing that they are all victims.

Please I can't.

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!

suzanne collins did a lot of great things in sunrise on the reaping but one of my favorites has to be her decimating all AI usage in one sentence.

do you think haymitch and clerk carmine reconnected/interacted at finnick and annie’s wedding in mockingjay?

the way my brain automatically started playing katniss’s theme when maysilee and haymitch sat down in sotr

i love how suzanne just gives us a little treat by mentioning the katniss plant every book. like here u go. ik u miss our girl. she's fine. enjoy lowercase katniss

Something I had to keep reminding myself of because I keep imagining her like she was in Catching Fire-

Wiress was still a kid when she mentored Haymitch- they're like 2 year apart

I feel like we're so used to the idea of the mentors being old enough to be the tributes parents

but so many of them were still babies forced to blame themselves for other babies deaths

MAJOR SOTR SPOILERS

I feel like most stories I've seen that tackle the topic of propaganda always show the dangers of it in a similar way. They show blatant displays of violence that are hidden away from the people

But in Panem, violence is the point. So how does SOTR show the dangers of propaganda?

A) They cover up The Capitol's incompetence. (D12's Reaping, The Tribute Parade, Louella's death, Lou Lou being a real slap-dash solution, Haymitch being able to break parts of the arena, tributes finding and killing low rank game makers in the arena)

and B) Erasing any memory of the solidarity between the districts, and the strength it gives them. Mainly in the way Haymitch's games were edited to erase the Newcomers- an alliance between EIGHT DISTRICTS. (Some might say it failed, but a lot of those kids survived longer and were a little less scared because of it and that matters.) And by making Haymitch seem like he's the victor because he only played for himself (aka that's the only way to survive-forced individualism)

I don’t precisely know how to phrase this, and truly, I have too many things I would simply die to see in your wonderful style, so I can throw some potential inspiration out there:

1. (More THG adjacent but) I am so compelled by the fact that Lenore Dove, Lucy Gray, and Peeta all have a connection to the color orange … would you ever draw a Lenore Dove-centric piece with nods to LGB & P?

2. And then of course any scene with Haymitch … I simply love the way you illustrate him … particularly the way you show us scenes from the trilogy from his POV … 👀👀👀👀

3. Orrr maybe, more SOTR specific … Burdock (perhaps emerging from the mist in the woods as he does) and the Covey graves …

But honestly, I’ll gobble up anything you create with a spoon. A spoon, I tell you.

All very very very good suggestions!

BUT something people might not know about me is Burdock has been one of my absolute FAVORITE HG characters for YEARS now (when his name was revealed my reaction actually startled my friend I was with)

And in the epilogue Haymitch’s mentions him proudly touting baby Katniss around

I HAD to draw him proudly with both his little girls

I forgot I made this lmao

His first real birthday

I JUST REALIZED I POSTED THIS ON HIS BIRTHDAY

Family Portrait

The only family he has.

SOTR Spoilers Ahead:

I've seen a couple of posts now about people's suspicion over The Capitol being able to find a girl that could replace Louella as fast as they did, especially after finding out Lou Lou's from District 11

But I'm gonna be honest, when I found out she was from District 11, it actually put a lot of the pieces together for me. My mind immediately went to Seeder, the D11 female victor in Catching Fire

If its been a second since you've read CF here's her description:

She looks like she could be from the seam. I wouldn't be surprised if Seeder's description is the reason SC chose D11 for Lou Lou tbh.

Also for making their faces match, I've always just kinda assumed fast fashion cosmetic surgery is common place for The Capitol so there's probably plenty of surgeons able to do the job quickly and well enough to pass her off as Louella to anyone who didn't know her.

And it’s not like they did a particularly clean job at it either. Their “solution” was so incredibly slapped together and messy (And that’s HORRIFIC because we’re talking about a CHILD). She’s hooked up to drugs 24/7, which could easily be ripped out, manipulated, etc. and also make her barely able to function and causes more problems for the Capitol than not. One thing that’s brought up over and over in sotr is the Capitol’s gross incompetence, but because of they’re good at propaganda, you wouldn’t realize it. Lou Lou’s another example of that

(Also....Seeder's in her 60s in CF...meaning she would have been a victor and, I dunno, old enough to have a 13 year old by the 50th Hunger Games...I'M NOT SAYING SHE'S LOU LOU'S MOM I'm just saying the timeline lines up weirdly well)

Without fail every single THG book has had at least one moment (usually multiple) with a district 11 tribute/citizen that had me ugly crying and GOD LOU LOU’S GOTTEN ME LIKE 4 TIMES

or how many reaping they had redo because the kids ran and they shot them? or what games the edited because of something rebellious? or change the narrative to look better for the captial? or erase tribute just because the can?

because of sotr we can’t take any information as fact because it could be edited. maybe Enobaria killing someone with her death wasn’t as viscous as we think. maybe annie didn’t actually go THAT mad during her games. maybe the morphings didnt just hide in their games and the captiol just hide it because they can.

I've got to wonder, how many attempted rebellions were there, did other tributes try and break the games, try to upthrow the capitol, were all their efforts erased

everyone should talk about how derange Lenore Dove is

girl is 16 and she already been arrested twice. and when she got questioned she wrote a SEVEN PAGE DOCUMENT about if would die give all of her things to her geese for her alibi.

She literally talked about breaking into the Donners home to get back pin her uncle made for Masyilee. Haymitch and Burdock had to stop her for actually doing it!!

My girl is so chaotic and i love her for it

didn’t expect to love Mayislee so much but after reading sotr i’m claiming her