Something that struck me while rereading is just how non-grandiose Snow’s first ever real appearance is, especially compared to Haymitch’s first encounter (second image) which was in the exact same situation and place. He’s really just a footnote.

A) it undermines the themes or wanting to choose between violence which can be satisfying and easy and a more difficult form of peace through cooperation and compromise

B) Secondly it feels like oddly puritanical to be like this girl has to only like this one man in order for it to be true love. Like damn some people fall in love with many people before they find the right fit for them

C) and in some ways I feel it is a more satisfying ending that Peeta is chosen by Katniss who like had a perfectly good option and still chose him

the boxes aren’t empty, he smells them, but he doesn’t open them, so we’ll never really know if they’re in them or not.

and i agree with you on most of your takes about sotr, dont get me wrong. collins definitely didnt have sotr planned from the start, and im sure the reception of tbosas impacted how she wrote it (which pisses me off ngl), but i just dont think i'd say thg haymitch and sotr haymitch are completely different characters. would love to know your thoughts!!

can it be argued? sure. But I don't think SOTR itself leaves Haymitch on a note to develop such traits via the invocation of The Raven and his own recount of what he does.

First, let's unpack what he tells us he does:

I am so desperate to forget. To escape the grief, the aching loneliness, the loss of those I love. There are no mementos of them; all are burned or buried. I work on forgetting their voices, their faces, their laughs. Even in my head, my language becomes dull and flat, stripped of the color and music of yesterday. The only human contact I allow myself arrives by way of Capitol News, which I play on my television set 24/7. That way, if Lenore Dove’s ghost ever comes to me, I can tell her I’m working on a strategy to keep that sun from rising.

There are a few key pieces here. He's working on forgetting, on drinking himself into oblivion. Perhaps this is steady for the first year, but we know Haymitch doesn't forget via his input to the memory book Katniss and Peeta create at the end of Mockingjay. Haymitch is highly perceptive and knows memory is all he has, and yet his goal at the end of sotr is to forget, not try to remember. In fact, he remembers so much that he knows it's not how his games went down when they're all on the train in CF, and then apparently tries to deceive katniss at her most vulnerable in Mockingjay by telling her:

"No. My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after Iwas crowned victor. Because of that stunt I pulled with the force field," he answers. "Snow had no one to use against me."

The second piece is his characterization of his language. His language is some of the most colorful in the original trilogy. Not in the sappy romantic way, but in a keen, mischievous, and sardonic way. Can trauma contribute to that? Absolutely! Does drinking until you're blacked out in the dark alone in front of a capital propaganda machine give you the opportunity to develop the underlying sense of humor he has? No. The ending of SOTR gives him no breathing room to develop the key undertones of his language in the trilogy.

Finally, the television. The point isn't that the television physically prevents Haymitch from becoming strategic. The point is what the habit represents. He's not studying the Capitol because he has a long-term plan. He's not gathering information. He's not building toward resistance. The text tells us exactly why he's doing it: "That way, if Lenore Dove's ghost ever comes to me, I can tell her I'm working on a strategy."

It's passive and avoidant language, not language with a larger goal in mind. He's constructing a ritual to soothe himself while he's most vulnerable to tampering with his memory. The television isn't presented as a tool. It's presented as an anesthetic. And that's important because the ending doesn't frame Haymitch as a man adapting to his circumstances, it frames him as a man giving in to them.

An alcoholic hermit stuck watching capitol propaganda 24/7 with absolutely no human interaction aside from his asshole moonshine dealer does not become a witty, strategic, sarcastic chess-master. He becomes an asshole. There's no pulse here for the undertones of haymitch's character.

Finally, the most damning point is The Raven. The character in the raven succumbs to his fate. He waits, just as Haymitch does, for a savior or the return of the source of his loss- origined grief, claiming others have returned and therefore once the person he lost returns, he'll be fine again:

Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before— On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”             Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

He commands the Raven to leave:

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Then finally resigns to the fact the raven will be a permanent fixture in his life and chooses to slouch:

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;     And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,     And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor             Shall be lifted—nevermore!

His soul becomes trapped under the shadow of the raven forever. Through associating the raven with haymitch, collins has condemned him to a life of nasty, brooding solitude where he has no room to actually develop the beloved trilogy traits under the boot of his trauma. She chose to end on imagery that emphasizes despair, withdrawal, and surrender rather than the qualities we later associate with Haymitch.

Further, under the covey formula, where they all seem to be magically condemned to the violent ends of their namesake, attaching a poem to a character is a permanent decision in the hunger games universe. So when she closes Haymitch's story by invoking a character who ends the poem completely constrained by his loss, she's emphasizing the very traits that sit furthest away from the mentor we meet in the trilogy.

The boldest form of dissent they can manage is silence. They lock their doors and shutter their windows when there’s any sign of unrest.

(Sorry this ask came in back in March and I’m only posting it now, I’ve had a lot of thoughts on it but wanted to get them all in order before responding)

I was actually thinking about this yesterday-I think that there are some hints of remnants of a patriarchal structure in Panem, and especially in the Capitol. The most obvious being the fact that surnames are patrilineal, and it seems like Merchant businesses might pass down through the sons (I can’t for the life of me remember where I got that idea and am too lazy to check) but besides that there is a LOT more evidence in my opinion.

It’s noteworthy that in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Coriolanus is the one who went to school and not Tigris, he was the one the Snow family put all their hopes for a better future on, despite Tigris being older by three years. There is also a lot of focus on the Snow family name, and absolutely no connection to the heritage of his or Tigris’ mothers, which I find interesting.

Also, in Ballad, I definitely think Lucy Gray is a victim of misogyny, especially by Billy Taupe and Coryo based on the way they speak about her and treat her, Coryo with his deep rooted possessiveness and both with their slut-shaming of her. They have a conversation at the Covey’s house (though I don’t remember what page this is on) that I think contains the most evidence for this (Billy Taupe verbally attacks her in it, and LG tries to explain herself to Coryo afterward. It’s the same chapter where Sejanus meets Billy Taupe)

There’s also 1 line in Sunrise where Haymitch says to Sid that when he dies in the Games, Sid will be ‘the man of the house’ and have more responsibility, which I find very strange considering he is ten years old and his mother is a grown, working woman perfectly capable of taking care of both of them on her own. The fact that the phrase ‘man of the house’ has carried over in Panem from the old world is pretty indicative of remnants of some fort of patriarchal structure in my opinion.

But about the main trilogy:

We also know that in the Capitol, at the time of the main trilogy, fathers still walk their daughters down the aisle for their weddings (as mentioned by Effie asking Haymitch if he’ll do it for Katniss in her father’s place) which is an inherently patriarchal tradition, and even if it’s still fairly commonplace now, the roots of it are quite literally about the handing of property over from one man to another (since women were not legally considered people for large parts of European and Western history due to coverture laws). There are also the beauty standards of a fully shaved body, makeup, thinness and even body modifications starting at a young age, including breast augmentation, as we know from the end of the first book, which many argue are deeply misogynistic standards of beauty, which I agree with. This tied with some of the information we get in the Prequels definitely has implications of misogyny to me.

Something else noteworthy to me is how a lot of people say Snow hates the Covey (specifically Covey women, viewing them as manipulative) but I think he just hates women in general, which I think you can tell based off the first chapter alone with how he thinks about Tigris selling her body. Especially since his only ‘hatred’ of the Covey is expressed through his hatred of the women within it.

I don’t have a lot of thoughts about sexist treatment of Katniss specifically throughout the main trilogy, except for perhaps the way both Snow and Coin view her as just ‘using’ Peeta based on their conversations (remember Coin suggesting they position Gale as her new lover since Peeta was taken?), which is a deeply strange view to have considering she has saved his life (at the risk of her own) multiple times, and I can only explain that view point through (you guessed it) more misogyny.

If you want more thoughts on gender dynamics and misogyny within the Hunger Games, you should definitely check out ‘Deborah the Explorer’s video on YouTube about how President Snow used the women around him here: https://youtu.be/OONtp8TBizo?si=JzNKKHn4C13r5mDY

And also @sadieillustrates video in gender dynamics here: https://youtu.be/aDkqGa1uKao?si=dqkhW3RZlZKMbj7D

I mean to be fair, I think the only shoes we ever hear mention of in canon are boots, but that's cos he's in the games.

I think pre games it's likely he only had a pair of boots. You know they're sturdy, good for all weathers, appropriate for working in a bakery in. Like, I think if I only had money for one pair of shoes boots are probably the logical option of what to buy. He'd potentially have some dress shoes for parties, but that would be about it. I think he probably would always be kept in with a new pair of boots when he needed them, they wouldn't be able to be completely worn down to the bare bones. And post games boots are likely his every day shoe too. I think also because Peeta is constantly described as having a heavy gait, boots kind of adds to the image/idea because they are so stompy lol.

Now I have to think about if things like trainers exist, aesthetically trainers being common in the districts doesn't make sense in my mind, but reasonably they probably do exist, especially post war. So I think he'd maybe have some kind of trainer or lighter shoe for the summer, otherwise he would simply get too hot.

Depending on whether you think he grows any more after the war, he may still have some stuff left over that portia designed, like a nice pair of fancier leather shoes.

In general though, I wouldn't imagine him to be a person who has an excess of shoes.