YZ

Because I don't think it is nearly as formalized as fanon or narrator Haymitch believes (especially in the 50th). Everyone except Twelve has at least one victor by the 50th, and Wiress being sent to mentor Twelve's kids implies a third victor from Three that we never meet. That is not the career pattern that Katniss describes where careers win as often as they don't, and outlier wins are a result of career overconfidence and loss of food supply.

Thoughts are not well formulated here, but my thesis is that it's a mistake to create a monolith surrounding a career district's victors and how they train. Brutus, Lyme, and Enobaria are three victors from Two, three different eras, and three different experiences with the Capitol.

Like… this girl has been training for her entire life to go into a child murdering competition. She‘s a highly trained killer. This is what she does. What she‘s supposed to do.

Yet when Haymitch finds her with Wellie‘s head and screams „What did you do?“ her knee jerk response is „She tried to kill me!“

Maybe… when Haymitch dropped her that chocolate… for just a second, she too realised who the real enemy is.

But that thought was way too terrifying to actually let grow.

he paints clove rearranging the knives in her coat, which was very very interesting to me and it made me a little emotional tbh- he painted her in a candid moment, only mildly threatening with the imagery of knives, but he painted her otherwise normally and just within a moment

it really shows how peeta never dehumanized the careers he spent time with or depicted them monstrously, similarly with his painting of mutt glimmer; it really makes me wonder what his time with them was like, before the tracker jackers

We know the capitol removes the evidence the best they can. We know everyone looks perfect after a fix up.

The movies do such a disservice when they eliminated the loss of Peeta’s leg. There are some things even the capitol cannot fix.

The victors are victims of the games too, and even though they are the winners.. they’re still district. They are still part of the price paid.

thinking about clove taunting katniss, saying that she was going to carve up katniss' face and make sure her death was as long and drawn out as possible, wanting to put on a show for the capitol

thinking about cato's absolute fury. snapping the neck of the boy tribute from 3 in a fit of rage. katniss wondering if cato might not be all right in the head

thinking about sejanus. the kindest boy that coriolanus snow ever met. who cared so much about people that he went into the arena voluntarily in an attempt to martyr himself to protest the games

I saw many people point out how Haymitch was definitely purposely placed In between silka and panache most likely snow and the gamemakers wanted them to get rid of him as quickly as possible but you know what this also reminded me of?

Katniss too was placed in between cashmere and Brutus In the beginning of the 75th games also highly likely intentionally hoping that she'd be immediately be taken out

Haymitch must have absolutely tried not to lose his mind at seeing this

Now we could talk about how the gamemakers and especially snow is purposely screwing over D12 and wants to get rid of them as soon as possible but other people already pointed that out so I'll see if I can add something to this and how the careers are essentially the capitol personal janitors for tributes they want taken out , like they brainwash districts 1 and 2 and 4 and indoctrinate them into training their children to sacrifice themselves for the games lying to them through propaganda that they " honor and appreciate their brave sacrifices" but in reality these districts are as insignificant to them as the outer districts they are still lesser then the capitol and in no way their equals they just lie to them so that tensions don't reach a boiling point and they can keep demanding large quotas and also have them do their dirty work in pitying the districts against each other by the career districts children thinking their whole lives that they have to dedicate it to serve the capitol and bring honor to their districts but In reality the capitol still doesn't Care about them they are just their personal tools they can manipulate to do their dirty work and if they survive that they treat them like objects not human beings and we all know how far their dehumanizing can go with what Finnick and cashmere had to go through

It's also something that to me shows snow's entitlement and narcissism with how he basically fully expects the careers to attomatically prioritize doing what HE wants to happen even though it's at best a gamble like yeah Brutus was most likely capable of taking out katniss but it was a gamble for him to assume that he'd immediately be able to take out katniss when the road to the cornaccoopia was already so difficult and it was a gamble to assume he'd instantly take her out when he's an older victor and district 2 is surrounded by mountains so swimming is most likely not a constant thing like yes Brutus still made it to the same spot katniss swam to and is in a better health compared to other victors but it was still a gamble on snow's end when he was fixating on katniss and the thrid quarter quell twist was a last minute decision on his end that he didn't think In the long term effects it'd have

( I'm a firm believer that reaping the victors was never going to work in stopping the rebellion no matter how it went, it was going to add gasoline to the fire the outer districts would get even more furious and it was a massive slap in the face for the career districts there was no way this was going to work)

And it was an even bigger gamble to assume that cashmere especially would take on katniss when there are even more factors for her to not be prioritizing it since it's extremely likely that just like katniss main priority was to find peeta as soon as she saw the arena cashmere 's biggest priority was to find her brother who it CAN'T BE A COINCIDENCE THAT WAS REAPED ALONGSIDE HER but hey for him it's easy for everyone to discard a sibling for personal survival after all he discarded sejanus and Tigris just as easily despite everything Tigris did to him and sejanus considering him his closest friend

There is also the simple fact that they all would still have to run to the cornaccoopia to grab a weapon and the road to both was difficult with one being placed on top of a hill and the other needing to swim then run on a rocky road to reach so again massive gamble

I hope any of my ramblings make sense

That scene where Silka is all alone, finds the tree Haymitch and Wellie are in, and just sits there and cries. That moment of solidarity when Haymitch drops the chocolate down to her. That reminder that they are all just kids who are either brainwashed or forced to be violent.