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Are you over age 18?: Yes

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Character Basics

Character Name: Haymitch Abernathy

Canon Name: The Hunger Games Trilogy

Canon Type: Book

Character In-Depth

Tell us about your character's history: Haymitch comes from
the nation of Panem, established after the destruction of modern
civilization. Panem is divided into 13 Districts and the Capitol; 12
of the districts are recognized as functional, while the 13th is
officially inactive as far as the Capitol is concerned. District 13
was supposedly destroyed during the Dark Days. The Captiol rules with
an iron fist just as it did before the Dark Days - an attempted
rebellion by the 13 districts - in its fortress like city, where the
inhabitants are wealthy and want for nothing. The unsuccessful
rebellion 75 years before the books take place was punished by the
Capitol with the Hunger Games, an annual competition that serves to
remind any rebels that the Capitol is in absolute control of the
Districts' lives. Two children aged 12-18 from each district, a male
and a female, are selected as tributes to fight to the death in a
fully-televised event which leaves only one victor. That victor is
given riches and wealth as a supposed gift from the Capitol, although
not is all as it seems. The selection of the children is called the
Reaping, and is done at random by drawing the names of the children
from a large ball. Childrens' names are put in once per year unless
the child wishes to take tessera, a very meager portion of oil and
grain. They are permitted to take tessera once per year for each
member of their family in exchange for having their name put into the
Reaping draw additional times.


Haymitch himself is a victor of the 50th Hunger Games - the second
Quarter Quell, where instead of one male and one female from each
district, two of each are chosen. At the age of sixteen, he
participated in the games on behalf of District 12, which specializes
in the production of coal. District 12 is one of the poorest
districts, with even its richest inhabitants being no more well off
than some of the poorest in Districts 1 or 2. During the preliminary
interviews that happen before each Games, Haymitch was asked what he
thought about having twice as many people to defeat and insisted there
wasn't any difference, since they would all be just as stupid. He
proved to be a smart boy when he managed to gain a knife from the
Cornucopia of weapons without being killed in the initial slaughter
that usually happened when the Games started. He allied early on in
the games with one of the District 12 females, Maysilee Donner, after
she saved him from certain death by shooting a boy about to slit his
throat with a poison dart. They managed to make it to the last handful
of tributes and reach the edge of their arena, where Haymitch
accidentally kicked a pebble into the forcefield surrounding the
games. The pebble bounced back toward him, pleasing him immensely. Now
worried they would have to kill each other, Maysilee called off the
alliance and headed back to the main area of the arena. Maysilee was
killed by a flock of vicious pink birds who speared her throat with
their beaks, dying in Haymitch's arms. He had rushed to her side as
soon as he'd heard her cries, but was unable to save her. Shortly
after this, he ran into the only other remaining tribute and struggled
with her - he sliced her in the eye, but she cut him so badly with her
axe that he was forced to run toward the border of the Games holding
his intestines. She threw her axe at him and it toppled off the edge,
eventually getting launched back at her and burying itself in her
head. Haymitch, seizing from his blood loss, was crowned winner by way
of his cleverness.


This turned out to be a dangerous thing, however - two weeks after his
Games, Haymitch's family and his current girlfriend were killed by
President Snow, the ruler of the Capitol. The deaths were meant to be
both a warning and a punishment for Haymitch out-smarting the Capitol.
Consumed by the grief of his family and the gruesome images of the
Games, he began to drink. This drinking only worsened when, over the
next 23 years, each and every tribute that Haymitch mentored from
District 12 were killed in the arena. He isolated himself even from
his district, living in a decrepit house in Victor's Village where he
slept fitfully and with a knife in his hand.


The books give us no more information on Haymitch until the 74th
Hunger Games, when he is introduced as the drunken mentor to the
tributes ... by falling off the stage during the Reaping after hugging
Effie Trinket, the District's escort for the Games. His alcoholism
more often than not puts him into a near-comatose state, and he is
often found on the train to the Capitol in a puddle of his own vomit.
To his credit, once Peeta and Katniss, his two tributes, show more
spirit than he has seen in years, he begins to take them more
seriously. He attempts to sober up at least a little and begins to
formulate a plan for them. He proves to be a surprisingly competent
mentor, giving the tributes tips on how to act in order to line up
sponsors and stressing that they need to make an impression on the
Gamemakers in order to survive the Games. Once he finds out that Peeta
is deeply in love with Katniss, he advises the two of them to protect
each other and act as a team. Although it seems that he plans
eventually to split the two of them up, it becomes obvious the longer
the Games go on that he wants to keep them together - even if he shows
this by trying exclusively to save Katinss. He knows that Katniss, by
extension, will save Peeta.


He spends time with the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, and convinces
him that the Games need to have a love story in order to be truly
gripping. Seneca concedes and changes the rules of the game to allow
two victors so long as they are from the same District, allowing both
Peeta and Katniss to survive. He also spends time charming the people
of the Capitol into sending Peeta and Katniss gifts in small silver
parachutes, communicating to Katniss with the gifts exactly where he
wants her to go with Peeta in order to survive. Seneca attempts to
rescind the new rule at the last minute, when Katniss and Peeta
threaten to kill themselves by eating poisonous berries, he gives in.
Although he is elated when they both live, Haymitch knows from
personal experience that this rebellious move is going to cost them
all dearly. He warns Katniss before her victory interview that
President Snow will not take such rebellion lightly, and that she must
convince the Capitol viewers without a doubt that she is in love with
Peeta (even if she is not so sure of this herself). After interview,
when he is convinced for the moment that both his tributes will be
safe, Haymitch once again begins to drink heavily. For all the good
that he's done for the first time since his own Games, he still cannot
escape his fears.


It isn't until Katniss comes to his home in Victor's Village to tell
him that she has been personally threatened by President Snow that he
smartens up any - he accompanies Peeta and Katniss on their Victory
tour in hopes of keeping them safe. This proves to be a pointless
endeavour after the team's first tour stop, District 11. Katniss and
Peeta both ignite the crowd's fervour and cause a Peacekeeping officer
to shoot an elderly man. Haymitch and Katniss finally come clean to
Peeta, who had been previously left in the dark about the problems
their victory had caused in the Capitol, and together they survive the
rest of the tour. Once again, Haymitch's drinking worsens until
another horrific event forces him to his feet: the third Quarter Quell
tributes are going to be reaped from the existing pool of victors.
This means that Katniss must be the female tribute for District 12,
and either Haymitch or Peeta will be the male. Haymitch and Katniss
get drunk and discuss how Peeta will inevitably become tribute, since
even if Haymitch's name is drawn, Peeta will volunteer in his stead.
This turns out to be true, and Haymitch promises Katniss that he will
attempt to protect Peeta this time around. While he appears passive,
this is actually the point at which Haymitch begins planning a
rebellion with the rest of the surviving tributes who will join him:
the victors from Districts 3, 4, and 7. He urges his team to make
alliances with the other tributes while this behind-the-scenes
planning is happening. It turns out that the Head Gamemaker for this
year, Plutarch Heavensbee, is an important part of this rebel plan.
The victors from the rebellious districts help Katniss to destroy the
forcefield surrounding this year's arena, although half of them end up
dead. When Katniss is rescued by hovercraft, Haymitch is inside of it
and conversing with the other rebels. He reveals that District 13 is
functional, and that they have joined the rebel cause to overthrow the
Capitol. Overwhelmed with anger, Katniss scratches Haymitch's face
deeply. She is enraged by the fact that he once again kept his true
intentions from her and broke his promise to help protect Peeta, as he
was left behind when the rescue occurred. It's at this point that
he'll be entering the city.


Tell us about your chosen exit point, why you chose it, and why you
want to play the character at All Inclusive: The exit point that
Haymitch is going to be drawn from is the very end of Catching Fire /
the beginning of Mockingjay, where Haymitch is living in District 13.
Katniss hates him, and worse yet ... he has nothing to drink. District
13 is 'dry', and withdrawing from a twenty-some-year spell of
alcoholism. Coming into the bar is going to be an opportunity for him
to continue his bad habits, or maybe try to develop some new ones.
He's already used to schmoozing sponsors and attending balls where you
literally eat so much you have to excuse yourself to the bathroom to
vomit so you can eat some more, so socializing in a bar-type setting
isn't going to be all that different for him. The main reason I'd like
to play him at AI, though, is that he shows himself in-canon to be a
very adaptable person, and I'd love to see him in multiple other-canon
settings. It might do him some good to see that there are in fact
worlds where the rulers don't pit children against each other in a
bloodbath to remind the rest of the nation about the consequences of
rebellion. Largely because of the way his canon functions and his role
as a backseat leader of the rebellion in said canon, he also doesn't
have many people (left alive) that he considers 'friends'. Is 'making
a character suck less by forcing them to care about others and maybe
put down the bottle occasionally' a good reason to play them? I'd like
to think so.

Tell us about your character's personality: The first thing to
understand about Haymitch is that he is much more clever than people
seem to remember he is. He's able to figure out how the force-field
can be used to his advantage during his Hunger Games, and manages to
keep it to himself. He's also able to secretly plan a revolution that
centres around breaking out Katniss from her Quarter Quell games
without alerting any authorities while under the direct supervision of
the Capitol, which is quite a feat. He manages to convince tributes
from 3, 4, and 7 to work with him in order to break Katniss out of the
Quarter Quell arena, so he's obviously manipulative and convincing
when he has to be.


When he's at his best, he is focused and vicious enough to defeat a
hoarde of other tributes when the odds were very much against him. He
is determined, refusing to give up and die even when he is quite
literally running away with his intestines in hand. Hell, even when he
has forty-six tributes die under his watch, he doesn't give up and
throw himself off a building. He self-medicates with alcohol heavily,
yes, but he doesn't dare end his life: this would mean that his future
tributes would have to deal with their Games alone, and that isn't
something that he wishes on anyone. He is a product of twenty-three
years of failure after winning his Games: having his family and
girlfriend killed for his rebellious action during the Games is what
likely started his drinking, but having dozens of his tributes fail to
win their own Games worsened his habit.


At the point when he starts tutoring Katniss and Peeta, it's seems
like he's close to giving up. He tests the two of them during their
first breakfast meeting, though, challenging Peeta to attack him. When
he finds that Katniss is the one who becomes aggressive (with Peeta
following behind), he's actually impressed and pleased: he stated
during the Reaping that he thought Katniss had spunk, and she proved
him right. He's happy with this, and manages to pull himself out of
his glass to help her in any way he can. Together with Peeta, he comes
up with a clever scheme to win the sympathies of the Capitol people.
Years of interacting with the Capitol people and also the Gamemakers
has given him insight on how to manipulate the crowd's feelings to
Katniss and Peeta's advantages. He spends time during the pair's game
schmoozing with sponsors in order to keep Katniss and Peeta alive. He
even communicates with Katniss using his gifts, knowing that she is
smart enough to figure out what he wants to say with them. Their
personalities are quite similar, in fact: she's just as stubborn as he
is when it comes to not giving up.


When he drinks, Haymitch is surly and unkind: he speaks before he
thinks, and this ends up getting him into trouble more often than not.
His depression and personal problems make him drink, and his drinking
makes these problems worse. He often drinks himself into passing out
in a pile of his own vomit in order to quell the nightmares that
surely haunt him from his own Games, the death of his family, and the
deaths of countless tributes. He covers his affections for Katniss and
Peeta by being sarcastic to them more often than not, but when Katniss
seeks him out for comfort, he doesn't deny her. He holds her and tells
her that things will work out, letting her cry on him as much as she
wants to.


Peeta and Katniss are infinitely important to him because they
represent his hope of the revolution and of the future. Working with
them is what sparks him to seriously consider starting the revolution
after so many years of the Districts being in unrest. When District 13
tells him that they want Katniss for their revolution and that Peeta
isn't important enough, he's distressed: he feels guilty enough for
leaving Peeta alone after promising Katniss he'd protect him this time
that he doesn't resist Katniss slashing him across the face with her
nails once she finds out he'd been keeping the revolt from her.


If your character is an alternate version of someone already in the
game, explain how they are markedly different: N/A

Prose example post(s): He wakes up with his head throbbing -
it's a familiar sensation by now, a near-daily ritual. The side of his
face isn't wet with vomit, however, so he'd had a better night than
he'd guessed from the pounding in his skull. He pushes himself to his
feet and swaggers over to the sink, placing his hands flat on the cool
marble counter.


The previous night is coming back to him in bright, painful bursts -
it had marked yet another day of the Quarter Quell, and another day of
talking in hushed tones to people whose Capitol couture sported subtle
mockingjay pins or necklaces or earrings. Most people assumed that the
pins were simply a way to show that they wanted the District 12
tribute, Katniss Everdeen, to win - but it was much more complicated
than that. These people wanted to stop the Games, to overthrow the
Capitol because of what it had been doing to the Districts for years.
He'd quickly grown too overwhelmed with the weight of the situation,
knowing that Katniss' daring escape was approaching far too quickly
for his liking. He couldn't help being concerned that something would
go wrong, that they'd change their minds at the last moment and he'd
be left to watch Katniss die.


The other tributes who he'd recruited to the cause - he trusted most
of them implicitly, but he knew better than anyone that once they were
back in the arena all bets were off. The Games changed people, and
there was no real going back from that. Annie Cresta had been one of
the only ones to go outwardly mad, but the rest of them were just as
screwed up as her on the inside. It was that worry that had prompted
him to drink that night - never mind that he always found an excuse to
drink - but it was also what had made him dump at least a half-bottle
of clear liquor down the bathroom sink.


Ah, well - that explains that. He splashes cool water on his face and
glances down into the sink. Broken glass tinged with pink is pooled
near the plug, rinsing clean with the fresh water from the tap.
Haymitch, out of habit, looks down at his hands - sure enough, there
are a few cuts in his palms that weren't there the night before. Does
blood-loss make a hangover worse? It must.


He sighs and reaches out to turn on the television in the bathroom,
forcing himself to fix his eyes on the screen. Sure enough, Katniss
and her band of would-be rebels are fleeing from another hourly
disaster: this focuses him, moves him to action. He pours some rubbing
alcohol over his palms and barely winces at the burning sensation,
toweling his hands off once they're cleaned off. A moment later he
calls for an Avox to clean up the bathroom and moves into the common
area where he knows he'll find Effie and a cup of coffee. There's much
to be done, after all, and people are depending on him. Katniss and
Peeta are the only tributes he's ever managed to save, and he's not
going to let them go without a fight. He'll burn down the whole
Capitol before he lets them both die, no matter what he told Katniss
about only saving Peeta.