How Did Haymitch Win the Starvation Video games When He Was a Tribute?

Once we first meet Katniss and Peeta’s mentor Haymitch Abernathy in The Starvation Video games (each the primary e book and the primary movie), he is a multitude.

We be taught that it has been 24 years since he gained his personal Starvation Video games, and in his time as a mentor for District 12 tributes since, none of them have returned as victors. Haymitch has fully surrendered himself to ingesting, and he actually would not encourage a lot hope in Katniss and Peeta, who’re about to enter the Video games themselves and wish his steerage.

At first, it appears exhausting to consider that Haymitch may’ve ever beforehand gained the massacre in any respect. However within the second e book (Catching Fireplace), Katniss and Peeta — who’re referred to as again into the Video games, this time for the third Quarter Quell — watch an previous tape of Haymitch’s Video games.

Haymitch’s Video games have been the fiftieth, and the second Quarter Quell. (Fast refresher: Quells are mainly glorified variations of the Video games each 25 years.) For Haymitch’s Quell, the variety of gamers doubled to 48.

Here is how a younger and good-looking 16-year-old Haymitch gained his Video games.

Because the fiftieth Video games start, the gamers are lifted up through tube into the world. Instantly, many of the gamers are stunned by the beautiful meadow earlier than them, and all they’ll do is stare in awe.

However whereas these different gamers are distracted, Haymitch makes use of this time to seize what he can from the golden Cornucopia in the midst of the meadow, and he high-tails it out of there.

On one facet, there’s a distant mountain; on the opposite facet, there are woods. Haymitch heads for the woods.

4 days in, after a volcano erupts within the enviornment, the remaining 13 tributes who have not been killed but discover themselves all confined to the woods. Haymitch encounters a bunch of Careers. (Refresher: Careers are the youngsters who’ve educated all their lives for Video games, normally coming from the wealthier districts 1, 2, and 4.)

With fast pace, Haymitch kills two out of the three Careers. The third one disarms Haymitch and is about to slit his throat when all of the sudden the Profession drops to the bottom, killed by a dart.

Haymitch turns to see that Maysilee Donner, a fellow District 12 tribute, has saved him. Maysilee means that they’d work higher as an alliance. Haymitch agrees.

The 2 proceed on and work collectively, salvaging rainwater and preventing off assaults. Maysilee asks Haymitch why he is so decided to maintain going in a single course, particularly towards the tip of the world. He says it is as a result of “perhaps there’s one thing we are able to use.”

After they attain the tip of the world, they discover themselves at a cliff that overlooks jagged rocks. At this level, Maysilee sees no level in persevering with the alliance, and he or she takes off on her personal. Earlier than she leaves, she tells him she “[doesn’t] need it to return all the way down to you and me.”

Whereas strolling by the sting of the cliff, Haymitch by chance knocks a pebble over its facet — solely to search out that the pebble bounces proper again from the abyss. It is clearly a drive area. Haymitch seemingly has a lightbulb second at this.

However the second is ruined when he overhears Maysilee screaming from afar. He rushes over to search out that she’s been attacked by “sweet pink birds” who’ve pierced her neck with their lengthy beaks. Haymitch holds her whereas she dies.

Finally, it comes down to simply Haymitch vs. a woman from District 1, who’s stronger than he’s and simply as fast. Their vicious combat results in what look to be doubtlessly deadly wounds for each. However when the lady lobs her ax at a debilitated Haymitch, he collapses to the bottom by the cliff, dodging the flying weapon. The ax flies over the cliff, solely to bounce proper again — and straight into the lady’s head, killing her.

In fact, it wasn’t all fortunately ever after for Haymitch after he turned the victor.

We later come to be taught within the third e book, Mockingjay, that the Capitol and President Snow have been displeased that Haymitch had used their very own units (on this case, the drive area) to his benefit. They believed it made them seem like fools.

To punish Haymitch for his actions, President Snow ordered the deaths of Haymitch’s mother, youthful brother, and girlfriend.

Although the movies do not delve an excessive amount of into Haymitch’s backstory, the books give the reader a better understanding of what led Haymitch to grow to be the damaged shell of a person who Katniss and Peeta met at first of their very own journey.

We additionally see how his survival story is so linked to Katniss and Peeta’s personal story, as Katniss and Peeta equally win their very own Video games by making fools out of the Capitol and President Snow, after they initially resolve to eat poisoned berries in order that there is no such thing as a winner. (Katniss and Peeta weren’t conscious of Haymitch’s backstory at that time.)

Katniss additionally makes use of the world’s drive area on the finish of Catching Fireplace to assist her survive her personal Quarter Quell, simply as she had seen Haymitch do whereas watching the tapes of his Quarter Quell earlier within the e book.

All through the sequence, Haymitch turns into a key character in Katniss and Peeta’s lives and within the rebel in opposition to the Capitol. His journey is an advanced one, but it surely’s a part of why he is such a fan-favorite character within the franchise.