T.

he had this ability to kill the whole time but didn't because he didn't want to. (/didn't want them to change him.)

Curly blonde hair? Check

Tall? Check

Blue eyes? Check

Knows how to charm people to get what he wants? Check

Is in love with a girl who “swishes around in bright colors” (Katniss’ dress at the parade and the interview). “Who you love” (Because she came here with me) but who doesn’t seem to love you (Katniss kissing Gale when she comes back to twelve)? Check.

This is definitely an interesting idea because it makes the entire series look a bit different. To me Katniss probably reminded him more of Sejanus, but I definitely see the LG similarities.

I mean this dude immediately identified with Haymitch, even though he looks nothing like Snow, so can you imagine how he would react to Peeta, who canonically looks like him?

I really think Peeta frustrated Snow, in that on the surface, he was like him. He looked kind of like him (ironically though Haymitch looks more like Snow in the movie version). He is smart and cunning and manipulative and charming. He is in a similar — at least on the surface — situation as he once was, with Gale/Katniss and Lucy Gray/Billy Taupe. Peeta’s even privileged by his district’s standards. And yet, Peeta won’t snap. He somehow maintains his purity of self and his integrity throughout two Hunger Games and in the face of betrayal and heartbreak from the girl he loves. Peeta never stoops down to Snow’s level, never loses his goodness, his kindness, his morality. It’s like old Coryo is looking in a mirror, but the reflection is better than him in every way. And it both fascinates and infuriates him.

She’s shy and vulnerable and judgemental and inexperienced and embarrassed. She loves flowers (dandelions!) and pretty things and fashion and dresses. She would have music and singing in her life more if she wasn’t so traumatised and stunted. She has crushes and she’s very romantic, if we go by her own descriptions of Peeta and what she notices from her parents. She’s metaphorically (and sometimes literally inside her own mind) twirling her hair and kicking her feet and giggling any time she’s around him. She’s such maternal and protective instincts for Prim, Peeta, Rue and countless others throughout the series. She cares for people a lot and she values community and friendship and love. She wants softness, she wants cuddles, she wants her hair played with, she wants to look good, she wants to wear cute and fun things, she wants to be kissed and loved, she wants to go frolicking in fields of dandelions.

“because he loves Peeta too” is the only line ever because it tells us, with the plainest read of the text, that Haymitch loves Peeta just as Katniss loves Peeta; so Katniss admits she loves Peeta here; and, read another way, I think it also tells us that Haymitch loves Katniss, and he loves Peeta too

and Katniss knows they are loved by Haymitch (she articulates it more later, but the fact that she reaches for his comfort also speaks volumes), which is just … a whole thing …

and he’s there for his sweetheart, immediately, and they’re united in their grief over Peeta, even as everyone else is fretting about how they’ve lost their propaganda piece

he didn’t want to let them in and this is why — and he does know what she’s feeling, more than she can handle hearing right now, not only because of his past, but because he too is watching Peeta’s decline, and Katniss’s decline because of it … so he just tells her he knows, and he holds her

“source? well Peeta said it so”

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.