Haymitch Abernathy, The Devout

The snow may fall, but the sun also rises.
– Suzanne Collins

When I started reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins a few months ago, I never would have imagined I'd plow through the entire series in such a short time.
The latest of these books, Sunrise on the Reaping, was the strongest entry in the series for me, and a very fitting capstone. It's a profoundly tragic book, where the destination was clear from the beginning. Despite this, or maybe because of it, I was all the more interested in the journey.

Haymitch Reframed

Haymitch is introduced as a broken character in the original trilogy, and this book challenges many assumptions we might have had about him:
Haymitch wasn't always a drunkard, he actively avoided drinking. He also wasn't nearly as abrasive and distraught. This was a young man who tried to make the best of what he was given. Seeing the young, hopeful version of Haymitch and knowing where he ends up hurts. But it also reframes just how strong he remained at his core. Broken, yes, but not giving up, ever pursuing the Capitol's downfall in secret. Haymitch goes from broken to hanging in there, carried by undying devotion.

Readers of the trilogy also knew that Haymitch lost all his loved ones, and his abrasive, dismissive behaviour has always read as pushing people away for two reasons. First, he clearly suffered a lot of loss, and might be afraid to lose people again after he lets them in. Second, he might be afraid others could be endangered just by associating with him.

This book makes it clear that both concerns likely played into it.

The way he loses his family and loved ones is crushing, even when you know it's coming. The reunion with and subsequent loss of Lenore Dove hits particularly hard, and the entire scene is executed masterfully. By the time the book comes to its epilogue and we reunite with the older Haymitch we know from the trilogy, his whole trajectory just makes sense. This book doesn't change who Haymitch is or was, but it reframes him in a meaningful way by providing depth he simply couldn't have as a side character. Haymitch was an excellent choice for another POV on Collins' part, just like Coriolanus Snow was in A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It humanises his more negative traits without excusing them.

The Difference that Makes No Difference

Collins' series was always a page turner, but there is a tension in Sunrise that I don't quite feel in the other books. The original trilogy was a mix of coming-of-age and rebellion. Sunrise on the Reaping re-examines that with a meaningful difference between protagonists.

Katniss was a hardened provider for her family, with few joys except being out in the woods. She was already bitter when the series started. Haymitch, on the other hand, lives his life as carefree as one could, given the circumstances in District 12. His mother and his love for Lenore Dove, a covey girl, gave his life a certain levity that Katniss' life lacked, given her father's early death, her mother's decline, and Katniss' role as the provider of the family.

Like Katniss, Haymitch steps up to protect someone he loves and ends up in the Games for it. Like Katniss, Haymitch has a loved one who explicitly wants to challenge the status quo, and believes it doesn't need to stay the way it is. Like Katniss, Haymitch doesn't quite believe that.

Unlike Katniss, Haymitch is charming. Unlike Katniss, Haymitch thinks carefully about how he presents himself and how he acts in front of the Capitol. Unlike Katniss, Haymitch is informed about a plot to sabotage the Capitol. Unlike Katniss, he warms to the idea quickly, and enters the arena with purpose.

And yet, Haymitch is just as much at the Capitol's mercy as Katniss. He struggles to keep his allies alive, suffers through their deaths, and ultimately emerges as the victor, only to lose everything he holds dear on his return home.

His calculated agency means nothing in the face of the Capitol's institutional might and Snow's cruelty.

Or does it?

Sunrise on the Reaping

It's Lenore Dove who first challenges Haymitch's notion that the Reaping is part of life, just like his birthday and the sunrise. The notion that, just because the sun always rises, there must always be a reaping is a false one. The sun's movement, is determined on a cosmic scale. While the Capitol's oppression can certainly feel like it's part of the laws of nature, Lenore Dove draws attention to the fact that it very much isn't.

The Hunger Games have only been around for 50 years. Before that, they simply didn't exist – and so it stands to reason that they may disappear again one day. They're not inevitable, they're not a law of nature – The are a human invention. This crucial difference between the sun and the Hunger Games is highlighted in the final exchange between Lenore Dove and Haymitch:

“Don’t you . . . let it . . . rise . . .” she gets out.
[...] “I can’t stop it. You know I can’t stop it.”
[...] “. . . on the reaping,” she whispers.

– Sunrise on the Reaping, Ch. 26

Haymitch says he can't stop the sun from rising, but when Lenore Dove adds ". . . on the reaping", and insists, he commits to the promise.

He may simply have said so in hopes of keeping her with him, but I choose to read it this way and as a serious promise once the dust settles. Haymitch has never taken commitments lightly, and I believe his actions throughout the trilogy are an extension of this promise.

Of course he can't stop the sun from rising. But he can stop the Reaping.