HAYMITCH ABERNATHY (The Hunger Games)
Brief Summary (spoilers)
art by friedChicken365
Strengths: He wields a powerful mind that’s main instinct, like Katniss’s, is survival. With all his prior experience with the games and brilliance with manipulation, Haymitch is a survivor that is inexcusably funny!
Weakness: Sobriety. He cannot seem to get a grasp on overcoming the horrors of his past.
- Courtesy of cns49
Haymitch is an intelligent man who has been so hardened by his past that he has opted to drown his sorrows in a bottle. After winning the second Quarter Quell, besting 47 competitors and outsmarting the game makers, the Capitol killed everyone that he loved. He was left with nothing except the unfortunate task of mentoring the district 12 tributes every year and watching each one of them die. Since district 12’s industry is mining and the citizens aren’t able to work in the mines until they are 18, the district produces the least prepared and skilled tributes. Every year Haymitch shows up at the reaping completely drunk and is regarded as a joke, but this is how he deals with meeting the two children he will soon fail in the arena. It is not until the reaping for the 74th Hunger Games that Haymitch gets a tribute out alive. We see him evolve as a character once he realizes that there is a very real possibility that Katniss can win the games. With this hope he sobers up enough to get sponsors and is able to get both tributes home. Even though Haymitch and Katniss have a seemingly volatile relationship, it is mostly because they are so much alike. They are both survivors who ultimately want to do what is right, but don’t like to have to accept help from anyone. His ultimate goal is to take down the Capitol and he is motivated and intelligent enough to play a lead role in the whole uprising. He’s a part of the rebellion and plays a role in getting Katniss out of the Quarter Quell arena alive. After the Capitol is defeated and Haymitch brings Katniss home after her trial he raises geese, drinks and helps Katniss and Peeta create a book to memorialize the fallen and as a sort of therapy. Haymitch also ends the series much like he began it, still drinking too much. However throughout we see him, Katniss and Peeta almost become a family unit. They are the only residents of Victor’s Village in District 12 and share the common bond of the last two Hunger Games.
- Courtesy of thgadminjessi
Why We Like Him
He starts out as a lovable drunk, but as the series goes on we begin to see how lonely his life is, and how difficult. When he lets Katniss and Peeta in, we see his love for them. He has a keen survival instinct, much like Katniss, and so he turned out to be a pretty good mentor. After a while, his alcoholism becomes acceptable – what with the hard choices he had to make over the years, choosing only one tribute to survive. When we learn the actual reason for it, well, that just flips his character around. He becomes the person you want to shield from the world, to protect – instead of the mentor who can’t quite control himself. Everything he does is calculated, every choice he makes is one for survival. He is yet another character who has been broken by the Games. – uchihakatniss
His history really interested me the most, which you only get glimpses of. The mystery of him is really compelling. – Burdge-bug
EFFIE TRINKET (The Hunger Games)
Brief Summary (spoilers)
art by pseudolirium
Effie works as an escort for District 12, particularly to Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark in The Hunger Games trilogy. Her responsibilities include drawing Hunger Games tributes’ names at reapings and subsequently escorting the tributes to the Capitol. She is very well known for her Capitol accent, upbeat attitude for the Games and the Capitol phrase, “May the odds be ever in your favor!”
Effie tries to encourage tributes to be happy about their upcoming participation in the Games, though her efforts are mostly in vain. When Katniss volunteered to take her twelve year old sister’s place when her name was pulled during the 74th Hunger Games reaping, the audience stayed silent and Effie was left on stage clapping by herself in an effort to lighten the atmosphere. During the events of the Rebellion, Effie was said to be taken by the Capitol, and Katniss later finds out that Effie had joined the rebels’ side in the rebellion.
Effie lives in the Capitol, and remains there for most of the year. The only reason she travels to District 12 or the other districts is because of the Games or the Victory Tour.
- Courtesy of TheHungerGamesWiki
Why We Like Her
Effie is so driven when it comes to what she does. She’s like a lovable puppy, running around and yapping all the time. You can tell she actually cares about Katniss and Peeta by how much she wants them to succeed. Sure, maybe it’s because she’s dying to be promoted to a better district, but she’s stuck with them the whole way. – artysgirl (Harry Potter)
Effie is fiercely ambitious and is not as oblivious as she seems. She is a Capitol citizen and projects that on the outside, but on the inside there is way more going on. She is intelligent and acts on the Capitol’s behalf mostly as a way to survive, as we learn that is not where her loyalty ultimately rests. She is not entirely shallow and truly does care for both Katniss and Peeta. Not to mention she is just so colorful, who doesn’t love that!? – thgadminjessi
VOTING CLOSES END OF 9/26/12
