Each Starvation Video games Character That Returns In Dawn On The Reaping

On March 18, 2025, creator Suzanne Collins expanded the universe of her unique “Starvation Video games” tales even additional with “Dawn on the Reaping,” a novel that provides followers extra perception into two particular issues. First, we study Haymitch Abernathy, the District 12 victor seen within the unique books — and performed by Woody Harrelson in the unique movie franchise — and his life and time within the Video games. Second, we expertise the second Quarter Quell, which added an additional layer of trauma by doubling the variety of youngster tributes from 24 to 48, via his eyes. The e-book is already set to get its personal movie adaptation, so earlier than lengthy, we’ll get to see Haymitch’s story on the massive display.

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Haymitch, as we all know from “The Starvation Video games,” in the end wins the fiftieth Video games, however what occurs to him alongside the way in which? Quite a bit, actually — and he additionally meets some vital figures that readers and audiences will acknowledge from “The Starvation Video games,” “Catching Fireplace,” and “Mockingjay.” Earlier than we get began, I’ll say this: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the central pair of characters and District 12 tributes performed within the movies by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, are talked about in an epilogue, however that does not actually matter, so for the needs of this listing, I am solely counting individuals who have an actual impact on the plot of the particular story advised in “Dawn on the Reaping.” From Capitol officers to the evil president of Panem to a few of Haymitch’s closest mentors, listed below are a number of the acquainted characters we meet because of Haymitch’s perspective in “Dawn on the Reaping,” many or all of whom will, presumably, seem within the forthcoming movie adaptation a technique or one other. 

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Clearly, essentially the most distinguished returning character in “Dawn on the Reaping” is Haymitch Abernathy himself, although he is youthful on this novel and hasn’t but been subjected to the horrors he witnesses in the course of the fiftieth annual Starvation Video games. After we first meet a younger Haymitch, he is decently content material along with his life in District 12, caring for his mom and youthful brother, Sid, by bootlegging unlawful alcohol within the impoverished district. (A startling second within the e-book reveals that Haymitch, who develops a dependency on alcohol after the Video games, by no means drank beforehand regardless of working to distribute liquor.) He is additionally in love with a younger woman from the Covey, Lenore Dove; we first study in regards to the musical and considerably rebellious nomads referred to as the Covey within the different “Starvation Video games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.”

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Haymitch remains to be fairly brash and misanthropic as a teen, however the model of him we ultimately see within the books and movies is way darker and extra troubled than the teenager we meet who loves his household and Lenore Dove and is set to return dwelling to them after the Video games. He does, however as we all know from the unique tales, after he makes use of the world’s power area to take down his last competitor — exposing the interior workings of the Capitol’s technology — his household and Lenore Dove are killed by the Capitol in retribution, creating the person we see mentoring Katniss. 

We have now seen President Coriolanus Snow in two completely different “Starvation Video games” tales portrayed by two completely different performers. Within the unique movies, he is performed by the late, nice Donald Sutherland — who handed away in June of 2024 — and in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” he is performed by Tom Blyth as a younger man making an attempt to make it within the Capitol regardless of coming from the largely disgraced Snow household. Snow, to place it tremendous bluntly, is all the time evil, even when he reveals just a few indicators of humanity in his youthful years all through “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” He is terribly crafty, totally cutthroat, and can cease at nothing to achieve and maintain onto energy, even when meaning brutally murdering others.

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The Snow we see in “Dawn on the Reaping,” although, is bleak. Haymitch is invited to fulfill the President after considered one of his fellow District 12 tributes, Louella McCoy, is killed in a stampede throughout a number of the pre-Video games festivities, and what he sees is not nice. (Haymitch solely bought the President’s consideration by stealing one other chariot and carrying Louella’s physique proper as much as Snow.) 

“I flip and see President Snow leaning in opposition to the doorway, wiping his forehead with a hand-kerchief,” Haymitch narrates. “As soon as once more, I am rattled by being in his presence. The ability of his place. The report of his cruelty. Evil within the flesh. Was my crime actually so nice that it requires a private assembly? Particularly when, on nearer remark, he is clearly unwell. Perspiring and breathless and white as a sheet. His regal bearing deserted as he hunches over his intestine. For as soon as, regardless of his beauty remedies, he seems to be his 58 years.” Snow is, apparently, enduring both a bout of meals poisoning or straight-up poisoning, so the glimpse we get of him is grotesque … which feels considerably acceptable, on condition that he is extraordinarily foul.

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After being unfairly dragged into the Video games and brought to the Capitol for coaching — and for the flashy pre-Video games festivities staged by the Capitol every year — Haymitch begins to fulfill his opponents, together with a younger boy from District 3 named Ampert. As the 2 get to know one another, Haymitch is understandably baffled by Ampert, saying that he cannot wait to “inform his dad” numerous issues as a result of Haymitch feels sure that Ampert will not make it out of the Video games alive. Because it seems, Ampert’s dad Beetee Lavier is half of the video games; as a former District 3 victor who pissed off the Capitol, he is pressured to function a mentor in the course of the Second Quarter Quell, the place he’ll nearly actually see his son brutally killed.

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Beetee, performed within the movies by Jeffrey Wright, is a personality that we initially met in “Catching Fireplace,” which sees the Third Quarter Quell — during which solely earlier victors are eligible for reaping, which is a transfer particularly meant to punish Katniss for devising a stunt with poisoned berries on the finish of the 74th Video games. (Somewhat than kill Peeta and win, the 2 threatened to eat the berries and depart the Capitol with out a victor except they will each win). We study in each “Dawn on the Reaping” and “Catching Fireplace” that Beetee is a know-how professional, and in each, he encourages youthful gamers — particularly, Haymitch after which Katniss — to govern the world’s know-how to assist them win and even injury the Capitol within the course of. 

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Readers who decide up “Dawn on the Reaping” is likely to be stunned that Plutarch Heavensbee, who turns into the Head Gamemaker in “Catching Fireplace” and is performed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, performs such a giant position in Haymitch’s story, however he is truly very important to the plot … and we now know that, years earlier than he helped the key rebels in District 13 overthrow the Capitol, he was quietly making an attempt his personal rebellions from contained in the Capitol itself. In “Dawn on the Reaping,” he is a cameraman current on the District 12 reaping and takes a shine to Haymitch, and when the 2 head to the Capitol, Plutarch even engineers a cellphone name between Haymitch and Lenore Dove in order that he can say goodbye.

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Nonetheless, alongside Beetee, Plutarch is set that Haymitch actually flood the world by destroying a water tank that may damage the complete area and all of its violent know-how, however Haymitch does regularly (and understandably) marvel if he can actually belief the person. When he realizes Plutarch is in on the plot with Beetee, Haymitch is shocked:

Plutarch? Plutarch is aware of in regards to the enviornment plot? He is proper. I do not belief him, or the entire forsaken plan now. Have been Beetee and I being recorded one way or the other in the course of the blackout, even when the cameras have been out? It might be simple sufficient to bug the place. Have been there microphones within the vegetable bouquet tonight? If that is the case, Plutarch might be working for the Capitol, making an attempt to get extra information out of me and kill anybody concerned.

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Plutarch will certainly play an unlimited position within the movie adaptation of “Dawn on the Reaping,” however tragically, Hoffman handed away in 2014, earlier than the unique “Starvation Video games” movies have been even completed — so he will not be reprising his position as Plutarch. If I could, although? His very gifted son Cooper Hoffman is proper there.

Alongside Beetee, Wiress — performed in “Catching Fireplace” by Amanda Plummer — is likely one of the District 3 victors who heads again into the world with Katniss and Peeta, and in “Dawn on the Reaping,” she’s a model new mentor after successful the forty ninth Starvation Video games. As Haymitch tells the reader, Wiress was caught in an enviornment with totally reflective surfaces that made many of the tributes completely lose their minds, whether or not they have been slamming into a bit of glass pondering it was a path ahead or just overcome by the entire mirrored mild. Wiress, although, understood it innately. “Many of the tributes went nuts, however not Wiress,” Haymitch remembers to himself. “She took all of it in, then rigorously maneuvered away from the Cornucopia, one way or the other discovering packs of provides the place none seemed to be. Ultimately, a careless massacre ensued, however she was lengthy gone at that time, exploring the world little by little, till she settled on a rock jutting out over a lake, in full view of her opponents. Besides . . . they by no means have been in a position to see her. She’d discovered a blind spot, and though they’d come raging inside just a few toes of her, she averted detection. She simply sat there, quiet as a mouse, consuming, ingesting from the lake, and sleeping curled up in a ball.”

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Finally, in keeping with Haymitch, Wiress received her video games by merely tricking one other tribute: “Wiress lastly stood up, revealing herself, and the boy leaped for what he thought was her, cracked his head, and drowned within the lake.” Not even the hovercraft meant to take away Wiress from the world might discover her, and when requested how she managed the reflections, she merely mentioned, “I adopted the sunshine beams.” Haymitch is not happy that the “unnverving” victor is assigned to him, however she seems to be extremely useful … and contemplating that Wiress dies within the enviornment in the course of the seventy fifth Starvation Video games, it is actually superb to get to know her higher.

As a result of there aren’t any recognized surviving victors from District 12 to mentor Haymitch or his fellow tributes Louella, Maysilee Donner, and Wyatt Callow, they’re assigned Wiress in addition to Mags Flanagan, performed in “Catching Fireplace” by Lynn Cohen. Mags is aged after we see her pressured to compete within the seventy fifth Starvation Video games, and we instantly notice she’s a nurturing presence to her fellow tribute in that recreation, her fellow District 4 victor Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin within the movies). On the subject of Haymitch in “Dawn on the Reaping,” she’s additionally maternal and comforting when he wants it essentially the most.

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I already talked about that Louella, one of many District 12 tributes, is killed in the course of the conventional parade (in one of many franchise’s most deranged strikes ever, which is saying one thing, the Capitol replaces Louella with a kind of clone that has none of her reminiscences and might barely operate). What I have not talked about but is that Haymitch meets Mags within the instant aftermath, and she or he says nothing … however comforts him. “Mags simply holds me whereas sobs rack my physique and tears and snot drip onto her shoulder,” Haymitch says of his future mentor. “Wiress takes Maysilee and Wyatt farther into the residence, giving us a second. ‘I am sorry,’ I choke out. However Mags shakes her head and simply retains patting my again.”

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Mags sacrifices herself to avoid wasting Finnick, Peeta, and Katniss in “Catching Fireplace,” so this is not shocking — nevertheless it’s stunning to see that Mags was all the time a caring presence in such an unpleasant world. Like a number of the actors on this listing, Cohen has handed away (the actress died in 2020), so she will not reprise her position, however somebody new will get the possibility to take over the position within the movie adaptation.

“Starvation Video games” followers know Effie Trinket because the materialistic stylist performed by Elizabeth Banks who handles Katniss and Peeta throughout their first Starvation Video games, and it was positively shocking to see her pop up in “Dawn on the Reaping” as an aspiring stylist who replaces Drusilla, the unique Capitol handler for District 12. Earlier than Haymitch enters the world, Effie is simply kind of on the periphery, hailed as a hero for displaying as much as clear up the mess Drusilla has created by, frankly, being completely inept and dangerous at her job. On the finish, although, after Haymitch wins the Video games, it looks like Effie is his solely supply of actual assist.

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When it is time for the Victor’s Ceremony, Haymitch’s stunt with the world’s power area has clearly precipitated points with the Capitol, so the guards manhandle and shackle him even after Effie clothes him to the nines — and that is when Haymitch realizes that she’s sticking up for him in her personal means. “Effie, to her credit score, stands by me. When the Peacekeepers object, she says, ‘He is the second Quarter Quell victor. Drusilla and Magno should not obtainable. Somebody must be with him to honor his achievement.'” 

Haymitch, dwelling on the mandatory atrocities he dedicated within the enviornment, nearly understands why he is shackled, however nonetheless, he has heat emotions in the direction of the stylist. “I really feel grateful to Effie,” Haymitch narrates, earlier than telling Effie he will not damage her. “‘I do know that,’ she says. “I’ve recognized who you might be ever because you helped with my make-up field. And I do know your place couldn’t have been simple.’ It is surprisingly touching.” Sadly, that is when Effie’s Capitol instincts fireplace again up, as she tells Haymitch, However they are surely for a larger good. The Starvation Video games.” (With that, Haymitch says she’s “misplaced” him). Effie will certainly be a returning participant within the “Dawn on the Reaping” movie — although she possible will not be performed by Banks — and it is cool to see her concerned with a number of Video games.

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The Starvation Video games are all in regards to the spectacle — which is, ostensibly, meant to distract the residents of the Capitol from the truth that they’re treating homicide as leisure — which suggests there’s all the time an announcer so as to add some aptitude to the proceedings. In “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” that obligation falls to Fortunate Flickerman, the prototype for all future Starvation Video games announcers performed by Jason Schwartzman; within the unique “Starvation Video games” trilogy, he is portrayed completely by a ghastly, grinning Stanley Tucci.

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When Haymitch first sees Caesar in the course of the conventional one-on-one tribute interviews, he does not mince phrases in regards to the man’s look. “Caesar descends from the ceiling perched on a crescent moon, stars taking pictures behind him,” Haymitch thinks to himself. 

“He is a younger man sporting a go well with so darkish blue it is nearly black, embedded with tiny mild bulbs that make it twinkle. The go well with by no means modifications, however yearly, he dyes his hair a special shade, tonight a deep pine-forest inexperienced, and paints his eyelids and lips the identical shade. Perhaps you may make an argument for the hair and eyes, however inexperienced lips counsel a person within the technique of decomposition. He simply seems to be ghoulish. The gleam of his overly white tooth as he flashes the viewers a figuring out smile solely reminds you that he is bought a cranium beneath all that glop. As he deftly dismounts the moon, he opens his arms and says, ‘Hiya, Panem! We could get this get together began?’ The viewers roars in approval.”

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Serving because the narrator of a recreation the place literal youngsters kill one another for sport is, as Haymitch places it, “ghoulish” to start with, however Caesar takes weird glee in his job. We’ll see who finally ends up taking part in a younger Caesar, however there’s zero doubt that it will be an unnerving efficiency.

The movie adaptation of “Dawn on the Reaping” is at present set to be launched on November 20, 2026.