fandomchaos

This is about gale hawthorne,

He watched his father die in exploitation, he watched his best friend's father die in exploitation, he took on the responsibility of 4 people, and then 6 when katniss was in the games, he watched his best friend suffer in the games, he watched his people get bombed and nearly genocided.

And you want me to think he's the villain for having his hatred for his oppressors exploited?

As of Silka, she accepted his chocolate (a true, kind gesture). She was vulnerable but he didn’t take advantage of that, even if he could. It was one of the many ways he painted his poster: by being human.

I used to hold on to the belief that Snow purposefully kept Haymitch around to torment him for „i hate the covey so much“ reasons. And there‘s probably some of that. But this man hasn‘t been in power for close to 40 years by being a fool and so easily influenced.

So follow me on my ramble as I try to figure this out.

1) Right after the flooding:

Something slipped onto the live cameras while Haymitch flooded the arena. Something that‘d made some people maybe suspect that Haymitch was up to more than just some harmless rascal mischief. If there‘s a five minute delay in the districts I‘m sure there‘s a five minute delay in the arena. But maybe something still slipped by. So the gamemakers targeting him right then might emphasize that. Then again… they targeted Ampert right then. And he was doing the rebelliousness right along with Haymitch. Maybe Haymitch not getting targeted soon after the flooding simply had to do with the fact that Ampert already had mutts preprogrammed for him, and the gamemakers would need a little bit to program some mutts for Haymitch. Ampert was always gonna die by squirrel.

2) The „they needed time to program mutts“ theory falls apart during the next part of the games. Haymitch is alone. Trapped in a gamemaker maze trying to find the North of the arena. What better time to torture him to death gruesomely? I guess one explanation for this is that the gamemakers were all scrambling to make sure the arena didn‘t combust while making sure the cameras didn‘t catch any of it. So any deaths that happened between Ampert (the arena flooding) and the porcupine attack was natural and not gamemaker orchestrated. Because they were so preoccupied.

3) Haymitch takes out two careers. His popularity with the audience soars. People love him. Leaving Snow and the gamemakers hesitant to take him out just yet. He‘s also with Maysilee now, who has been proven to be lethal with her blowgun. She‘s most likely also popular. For the sake of the show, they let the alliance be.

4) Once only Haymitch, Maysilee, Maritte, Silka and Wellie are left, the gamemakers know. Maritte or Silka will be the victor. Haymitch and Maysilee have been talking so much shit. And Wellie? She‘s dying up that tree. For her to win either the other tributes wound each other so mortally they all die before Wellie does, or the gamemakers would need to take out all four of the other tributes themselves. And why do that? What a let down ending for the 50th Hunger Games. But then Maritte and Maysilee kill the gamemaker teens. And therefore immediately eliminate themselves from being potential victors and mark themselves for death.

5) Haymitch‘s popularity wouldn‘t save him from here on out. I‘m sure Maritte was hugely popular (girl scored a Katniss level 11 in training). They targeted her anyway. So I think what was going on here, was indeed a mixture between „We need an epic final showdown to end the 50th. It can‘t be Maysilee or Maritte, and Wellie isn‘t going to give us that anyway. So we leave Haymitch alive for that. Haymitch froze and didn’t attack the gamemakers. IF he wins… he can propably be subdued into implicite submission. The other two? Absolutely not.

Here I think Snow‘s weird fascination with Haymitch also comes into play. We’ve seen Snow do silly things filled with hubris to prove his own little theory of „everyone kills everyone when it comes down to it“ before. That’s what the whole „two can win! oops nevermind, guess you have to kill eachother afterall!“ business was all about in the originals. He wanted to prove to people that this is what humanity is. But he also wanted to prove it to himself, especially because Katniss was covey, projecting Lucy Gray onto her. I‘m not saying the „two can win“ came in to play exlusively because of Katniss. Afterall, Cato and Clove could have been the last survivors. But oh was it convenient when Peeta and Katniss were the final pair.

In Haymitch‘s case though, it may not even entirely a covey motivated thing. At least not as much as with Katniss. Afterall, Haymitch isn‘t covey. Yes the covey connection got his attention. But now? Now I think it‘s about Haymitch himself. Snow wants to manipulate this kid. That‘s what the milk pitcher was. The milk wasn‘t an outright „kill yourself“ order. It was a way to trap Haymitch. Because if he drank the milk, that would ruin his image of „I‘m doing my absolute best to save Wellie“ and if he gave it to her… well his image would be intact, but Wellie would die. Snow wanted to watch Haymitch struggle. He wanted to trap him psychologically. I do think Snow thought Haymitch would end up drinking it. He‘s seen how much of a bleeding heart Haymitch is and how attached he gets to the kids this entire games through. Haymitch would rather mess up his image than kill Wellie.

6) Once Wellie dies, the final showdown begins. The Gamemakers don‘t want to intervene here. They want to show this entire battle and if they send in mutts to target Haymitch that would be so, SO obvious. So they let it play out.

7) Haymitch is the victor. And they need their victor. Well shit. Now Snow REALLY has to do everything in his power to make sure he breaks this 16 year old‘s mind (in the direction of submission, not setting the world on fire) And you know what? Him hesitating to kill gamemakers, plus his bleeding heart? Doesn‘t make it seem all that impossible. Snow breaks Haymitch. And is so confident in his success… he ignores the man entirely. For the next 25 years.

So to summarise… the conclusion I came to was:

Ampert was eliminated immediately after the arena flooding. He was going to die by squirrel anyway, but this action might have brought it on sooner. The reason Haymitch wasn‘t taken out, as Snow promised he would be, was because there were no mutts already programmed for him that could simply be released at the press of a button. The gamemakers were too preoccupied trying to keep the arena running and have none of the cameras catch anything, to focus on killing Haymitch for a good while after.

This makes sense to me. No contradictions here.

It‘s from here on forward where my theories start contradicting eachother.

I can‘t decide if Snow wanted to ever risk Haymitch being a victor or not, or if he always intended to kill him. Because sending the milk (which he knew Haymitch would drink) was obviously him trying to kill Haymitch. Snow isn‘t all knowing however much he may try to claim he is. Not even he could have predicted that Silka would interrupt Haymitch poisoning himself.

So. He did want Haymitch dead. But then… why wait so long?

An explanation I give in the previous post is „For the show“. Okay… maybe earlier on when there were still more tributes left and Haymitch was popular for managing to kill careers.

But why risk him becoming a victor later on? When it‘s just him, Maysilee, Silka, Maritte and Wellie? I argue in the previous post that it‘s because Snow has to kill Maritte and Maysilee after they kill the gamemaker teens, and Wellie vs. Silka would hardly be an entertaining finale.

But then why the milk? They could have hardly shown Haymitch getting poisoned by a sponsor gift. They probably would have explained it away with him eating something or other else (not sure how they thought anyone would have bought it though since Haymitch had been very careful with what he ate this entire game) and then showed him dying slowly and painfully in gruesome detail, as Snow promised.

But. Then my theory of „keeping him for the finale“ makes no sense.

So my current conclusion is… Snow was not intending on keeping Haymitch for the finale at all. He had to kill Maritte. He had to kill Maysilee. He had to kill Haymitch. But he devised his own special psychological trap to torment Haymitch specifically. To pay him back for his personal rebellion against Snow. Maysilee? Maritte? They rebelled against the capitol as a whole. Not against Snow personally, the way Haymitch did by showing him Louella‘s body and by drinking all the milk in Plutarch‘s mansion.

Snow didn‘t „let“ Haymitch win. We just get that impression (or at least I did) because Snow so clearly seemed to come out the winner in this scenario. He seemed so in control. Gloating. Reveling in tormenting Haymitch, with the recording of Lucy Gray, wishing him a happy homecoming, locking him in a cage.

But if you look at it from the angle of: Haymitch wasn‘t supposed to win. Haymitch was supposed to die. Snow wanted him to die. And he did. Not. Die. Haymitch living, was outside of Snow‘s controll. A loss of controll. The exact thing that we know Snow fears above all else. Controll, the thing he needs to feel safe and like he will never be that scared helpless little kid from the dark ages again.

No one else would have looked at this scenario and thought „Snow lost“. No one else really knew about the personal Haymitch-Snow beef. But Snow did. And Snow could not stand there and let Haymitch be the victor, not in a „victor of the Hunger Games“ sense, but a victor over Snow. And him not dying when Snow wanted him to? That would be him winning.

Yes, he had to torment Haymitch into depression and never rising against Snow/the capitol again. But I think simply murdering everyone Haymitch cared about would have been enough for that.

The rest? The Lucy Gray recording? The diet of milk and bread? The „Happy Homecoming“ comment? The golden birdcage? Haymitch already knew everyone he cared about was at risk. He didn‘t need Snow to remind him so he would behave. This extra torment? This was for Snow‘s own personal satisfaction. To prove to himself that yes, HE was the victor here. Not Haymitch. HE is having fun here at Haymitch‘s expense. HE is making Haymitch suffer, because HE is in controll dammit.

And Snow kept making sure that he won over Haymitch over and over again, by turning him into a tool to scare off other victors from following in his rebellious footsteps.

Katniss being frightened to death that any action she takes will come back to her family? She may not know it consciously, but at least part of that is because of what happened to Haymitch. Not all of it of course. There is still just regular people getting punished for regular things, but Haymitch‘s meer existence is a reminder to the people of what happens if you mess up. Probably not explicitely, it was too long ago by Katniss‘ time. But in Haymitch’s time everyone knew that fire wasn‘t an accident and that Lenore Dove didn‘t die by appendicitis. District 12 has a clear, vivid example of what happens when you mess up and it got ingrained into the society. Katniss and District 12 being frightened to death? That‘s Snow winning and regaining controll. Finnick not fighting back, because he has a breathing example of what happens if he does? Snow winning and regaining controll.

I HAVE MORE THOUGHTS, SO MANY THOUGHTS SO PLEAAAASE YAP WITH ME ABOUT THIS

I used to hold on to the belief that Snow purposefully kept Haymitch around to torment him for „i hate the covey so much“ reasons. And there‘s probably some of that. But this man hasn‘t been in power for close to 40 years by being a fool and so easily influenced.

So follow me on my ramble as I try to figure this out.

1) Right after the flooding:

Something slipped onto the live cameras while Haymitch flooded the arena. Something that‘d made some people maybe suspect that Haymitch was up to more than just some harmless rascal mischief. If there‘s a five minute delay in the districts I‘m sure there‘s a five minute delay in the arena. But maybe something still slipped by. So the gamemakers targeting him right then might emphasize that. Then again… they targeted Ampert right then. And he was doing the rebelliousness right along with Haymitch. Maybe Haymitch not getting targeted soon after the flooding simply had to do with the fact that Ampert already had mutts preprogrammed for him, and the gamemakers would need a little bit to program some mutts for Haymitch. Ampert was always gonna die by squirrel.

2) The „they needed time to program mutts“ theory falls apart during the next part of the games. Haymitch is alone. Trapped in a gamemaker maze trying to find the North of the arena. What better time to torture him to death gruesomely? I guess one explanation for this is that the gamemakers were all scrambling to make sure the arena didn‘t combust while making sure the cameras didn‘t catch any of it. So any deaths that happened between Ampert (the arena flooding) and the porcupine attack was natural and not gamemaker orchestrated. Because they were so preoccupied.

3) Haymitch takes out two careers. His popularity with the audience soars. People love him. Leaving Snow and the gamemakers hesitant to take him out just yet. He‘s also with Maysilee now, who has been proven to be lethal with her blowgun. She‘s most likely also popular. For the sake of the show, they let the alliance be.

4) Once only Haymitch, Maysilee, Maritte, Silka and Wellie are left, the gamemakers know. Maritte or Silka will be the victor. Haymitch and Maysilee have been talking so much shit. And Wellie? She‘s dying up that tree. For her to win either the other tributes wound each other so mortally they all die before Wellie does, or the gamemakers would need to take out all four of the other tributes themselves. And why do that? What a let down ending for the 50th Hunger Games. But then Maritte and Maysilee kill the gamemaker teens. And therefore immediately eliminate themselves from being potential victors and mark themselves for death.

5) Haymitch‘s popularity wouldn‘t save him from here on out. I‘m sure Maritte was hugely popular (girl scored a Katniss level 11 in training). They targeted her anyway. So I think what was going on here, was indeed a mixture between „We need an epic final showdown to end the 50th. It can‘t be Maysilee or Maritte, and Wellie isn‘t going to give us that anyway. So we leave Haymitch alive for that. Haymitch froze and didn’t attack the gamemakers. IF he wins… he can propably be subdued into implicite submission. The other two? Absolutely not.

Here I think Snow‘s weird fascination with Haymitch also comes into play. We’ve seen Snow do silly things filled with hubris to prove his own little theory of „everyone kills everyone when it comes down to it“ before. That’s what the whole „two can win! oops nevermind, guess you have to kill eachother afterall!“ business was all about in the originals. He wanted to prove to people that this is what humanity is. But he also wanted to prove it to himself, especially because Katniss was covey, projecting Lucy Gray onto her. I‘m not saying the „two can win“ came in to play exlusively because of Katniss. Afterall, Cato and Clove could have been the last survivors. But oh was it convenient when Peeta and Katniss were the final pair.

In Haymitch‘s case though, it may not even entirely a covey motivated thing. At least not as much as with Katniss. Afterall, Haymitch isn‘t covey. Yes the covey connection got his attention. But now? Now I think it‘s about Haymitch himself. Snow wants to manipulate this kid. That‘s what the milk pitcher was. The milk wasn‘t an outright „kill yourself“ order. It was a way to trap Haymitch. Because if he drank the milk, that would ruin his image of „I‘m doing my absolute best to save Wellie“ and if he gave it to her… well his image would be intact, but Wellie would die. Snow wanted to watch Haymitch struggle. He wanted to trap him psychologically. I do think Snow thought Haymitch would end up drinking it. He‘s seen how much of a bleeding heart Haymitch is and how attached he gets to the kids this entire games through. Haymitch would rather mess up his image than kill Wellie.

6) Once Wellie dies, the final showdown begins. The Gamemakers don‘t want to intervene here. They want to show this entire battle and if they send in mutts to target Haymitch that would be so, SO obvious. So they let it play out.

7) Haymitch is the victor. And they need their victor. Well shit. Now Snow REALLY has to do everything in his power to make sure he breaks this 16 year old‘s mind (in the direction of submission, not setting the world on fire) And you know what? Him hesitating to kill gamemakers, plus his bleeding heart? Doesn‘t make it seem all that impossible. Snow breaks Haymitch. And is so confident in his success… he ignores the man entirely. For the next 25 years.

So to summarise… the conclusion I came to was:

Ampert was eliminated immediately after the arena flooding. He was going to die by squirrel anyway, but this action might have brought it on sooner. The reason Haymitch wasn‘t taken out, as Snow promised he would be, was because there were no mutts already programmed for him that could simply be released at the press of a button. The gamemakers were too preoccupied trying to keep the arena running and have none of the cameras catch anything, to focus on killing Haymitch for a good while after.

This makes sense to me. No contradictions here.

It‘s from here on forward where my theories start contradicting eachother.

I can‘t decide if Snow wanted to ever risk Haymitch being a victor or not, or if he always intended to kill him. Because sending the milk (which he knew Haymitch would drink) was obviously him trying to kill Haymitch. Snow isn‘t all knowing however much he may try to claim he is. Not even he could have predicted that Silka would interrupt Haymitch poisoning himself.

So. He did want Haymitch dead. But then… why wait so long?

An explanation I give in the previous post is „For the show“. Okay… maybe earlier on when there were still more tributes left and Haymitch was popular for managing to kill careers.

But why risk him becoming a victor later on? When it‘s just him, Maysilee, Silka, Maritte and Wellie? I argue in the previous post that it‘s because Snow has to kill Maritte and Maysilee after they kill the gamemaker teens, and Wellie vs. Silka would hardly be an entertaining finale.

But then why the milk? They could have hardly shown Haymitch getting poisoned by a sponsor gift. They probably would have explained it away with him eating something or other else (not sure how they thought anyone would have bought it though since Haymitch had been very careful with what he ate this entire game) and then showed him dying slowly and painfully in gruesome detail, as Snow promised.

But. Then my theory of „keeping him for the finale“ makes no sense.

So my current conclusion is… Snow was not intending on keeping Haymitch for the finale at all. He had to kill Maritte. He had to kill Maysilee. He had to kill Haymitch. But he devised his own special psychological trap to torment Haymitch specifically. To pay him back for his personal rebellion against Snow. Maysilee? Maritte? They rebelled against the capitol as a whole. Not against Snow personally, the way Haymitch did by showing him Louella‘s body and by drinking all the milk in Plutarch‘s mansion.

Snow didn‘t „let“ Haymitch win. We just get that impression (or at least I did) because Snow so clearly seemed to come out the winner in this scenario. He seemed so in control. Gloating. Reveling in tormenting Haymitch, with the recording of Lucy Gray, wishing him a happy homecoming, locking him in a cage.

But if you look at it from the angle of: Haymitch wasn‘t supposed to win. Haymitch was supposed to die. Snow wanted him to die. And he did. Not. Die. Haymitch living, was outside of Snow‘s controll. A loss of controll. The exact thing that we know Snow fears above all else. Controll, the thing he needs to feel safe and like he will never be that scared helpless little kid from the dark ages again.

No one else would have looked at this scenario and thought „Snow lost“. No one else really knew about the personal Haymitch-Snow beef. But Snow did. And Snow could not stand there and let Haymitch be the victor, not in a „victor of the Hunger Games“ sense, but a victor over Snow. And him not dying when Snow wanted him to? That would be him winning.

Yes, he had to torment Haymitch into depression and never rising against Snow/the capitol again. But I think simply murdering everyone Haymitch cared about would have been enough for that.

The rest? The Lucy Gray recording? The diet of milk and bread? The „Happy Homecoming“ comment? The golden birdcage? Haymitch already knew everyone he cared about was at risk. He didn‘t need Snow to remind him so he would behave. This extra torment? This was for Snow‘s own personal satisfaction. To prove to himself that yes, HE was the victor here. Not Haymitch. HE is having fun here at Haymitch‘s expense. HE is making Haymitch suffer, because HE is in controll dammit.

And Snow kept making sure that he won over Haymitch over and over again, by turning him into a tool to scare off other victors from following in his rebellious footsteps.

Katniss being frightened to death that any action she takes will come back to her family? She may not know it consciously, but at least part of that is because of what happened to Haymitch. Not all of it of course. There is still just regular people getting punished for regular things, but Haymitch‘s meer existence is a reminder to the people of what happens if you mess up. Probably not explicitely, it was too long ago by Katniss‘ time. But in Haymitch’s time everyone knew that fire wasn‘t an accident and that Lenore Dove didn‘t die by appendicitis. District 12 has a clear, vivid example of what happens when you mess up and it got ingrained into the society. Katniss and District 12 being frightened to death? That‘s Snow winning and regaining controll. Finnick not fighting back, because he has a breathing example of what happens if he does? Snow winning and regaining controll.