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When Mags asks Haymitch and his fellow tributes what they want to get out of the Games (besides the obvious) during their first strategy session, Haymitch barely has to ponder before he puts forth the following two goals: he doesn’t want his loved wants to have to watch him suffer a slow death, and he wants to end the Hunger Games by proving that tributes are people, just like Capitol citizens.

These two goals offer a perfect summation of Haymitch’s character. To begin with, he’s hoping for a quick death not to avoid any personal pain, but because he is worried about Lenore Dove, Sid, and his Ma. He wants his death to be “as easy as possible for them” and knows they will “never get over” a slow, gruesome end. One of Haymitch’s defining traits is his capacity to love. From his unwavering devotion to Lenore Dove to his dedication to his family to the connections he forms with his fellow tributes, Haymitch spends the entire text protecting other people and putting their needs before his. He has many characteristics of the traditional hero—he is clever and strong, and he wants to rid the world of tyranny and oppression—but it is his empathetic nature that makes him truly heroic.

Haymitch’s second goal is just as revealing as his first. He does not just want to survive and get back to his family—he wants to destroy the Games and take the Capitol down with it. He was clearly struck by Lenore Dove’s vision of a world with no reapings and, by the time Mags asks her question, he has already experienced unspeakable horrors despite merely being in the Capitol for roughly twenty-four hours. He sees the Capitol as a “horn of plenty for the few” in the midst of a country defined by desperation and despair, and spends the entirety of the book working to undermine the Capitol and destroy the integrity of the Games.

Haymitch Abernathy is a key character in the original Hunger Games trilogy. However, the apathetic and alcoholic mentor that Katniss and Peeta meet after their reaping is a far cry from the caring and defiant sixteen-year-old that narrates Sunrise on the Reaping. Throughout the prequel, readers learn that Katniss did not teach Haymitch to love or inspire him join the rebellion in the original trilogy—rather she reminded a broken and disenchanted man of the compassion that he used to have for others and the fight he had once been a part of.

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