Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
“I first saw the girl at the Hob when she was just a baby. Burdock was so proud of her, he toted her around everywhere. After he died in that mine explosion, she started coming alone, trading the odd squirrel or rabbit. Tough and smart, her hair in two braids then, reminding me for all the world of Louella McCoy, my sweetheart of old. And after she volunteered for the Games, that nickname couldn’t help but slip out. I didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love. That’s what Lenore Dove says, anyway.”
When we first meet Haymitch, we can instantly tell that he has made a habit of distancing himself from tributes. That he has nobody left he loves, so he pushes away anybody else that tries to come into his life. But now we know how full of love Haymitch was. How deeply he loved Lenore Dove, how deeply he loved his mother and Sid, his friends, even Hattie. Everything Haymitch did was out of love. He was reaped because he tried to protect the girl he loved. As he was reaped, he did his best to protect his sweetheart, 13-year-old Louella McCoy he grew up with. He tried to distance himself from the other tributes, but eventually he couldn’t help but love them too.
He couldn’t help but call Ampert “Buddy.” He couldn’t help but call all of the district 6 tributes his doves, and mourn all of their deaths, no matter how little he actually knew them. How Louella was replaced, and how he wanted to hate her replacement, but gave her the name Lou Lou and protected her like their own. Haymitch was the one who initiated the hug of all four tributes from 12. He was distrustful of Wyatt, and grew to mourn him like a brother. He carried Lou Lou like his life depended on holding onto her. How he hated Maysilee Donner, and thought of her as the most stuck-up girl in 12. He called her Sis. He grew to love her like the sister he never had. She died as his sister.
All of the love that Haymitch didn’t need to give, and yet he loved so endlessly and so whole-heartedly. And with every person he loved, he lost them, and lost a part of himself. No wonder he didn’t want to let Katniss and Peeta into his heart. He had already tried so hard to push away Burdock, who relentlessly tried to care for him in his despair.
Then, in comes Katniss Everdeen. She carried with her a piece of every person Haymitch tried to push away. She was Asterid, Burdock, the Seam children he grew up with, all in one person. He didn’t want to let her in. He couldn’t have.
And yet, Haymitch couldn’t help but call her sweetheart.
Because Katniss was a woven tapestry of every person he had ever loved. She was his best friend’s daughter. She carried Lenore Dove’s songs. Louella’s skin and hair. Wyatt’s protectiveness. Maysilee’s fight, Maysilee’s resistance, Maysilee’s pride, Maysilee’s pin. And in the arena, she painted the best poster Haymitch and Maysilee could’ve ever hoped for- Rue, surrounded by flowers, her passing in dignity and not as another number in the games. And refusing the Capitol their winner by eating the berries with Peeta.
It’s no surprise that Katniss and Peeta broke down Haymitch’s walls. Haymitch had the flint striker, the spark. And Katniss was the fire that caught 25 years later.