WHAT happens to my poor bby Theta
ohhhh theta sweet child . her life is genuinely a soap opera
(below is copy pasted from my handy document in which i and mara wrote detailed notes on victors 1-25 for the next chapter of arpeggi it saves me from writing it out again)
A meek girl of simple office-worker parents, Theta never stood out much. Excelling in STEM subjects, Theta was confident that maybe one day she would become a manager at a data center or something along those lines. Convinced she would never be popular or pretty, Theta poured all of her time to her upcoming graduation- because every moment counted.
When she was reaped at 17, Theta was distraught. She sobbed and yelled in her parents arms to take her away from this and that she didn’t want to die, and all they could do was to hold their daughter close and pet her head and try to breathe in what little they had left of their sweet, shy, smart only child. She was so resistant that when it came time for her to be taken away, she had to be sedated. The last thing she heard was her district partner, Percy Router, promising her father that he would take care of her.
Percy told her later that he only said that so Theta would stop crying, and it didn't work, and that he's not sure he meant it. Despite this, they become friends.
Theta and Percy were terrified of Godot. They were both well aware of how many people Godot killed in the arena, and how insane he looked in those last moments of the broadcast- and for children who were young and impressionable when they saw that live, it made a dark impression of him to them. However, Godot was patient with them and tried his best to get them into the right position to win. Neither of them were particularly strong, but they were both smart- an emerging upward trend in a large chunk of Three’s children. He urges them to prioritise survival skills, and to notice trends in their training stations, to try and gauge where they would be dropped in Panem. Theta had a gut feeling that rock climbing would come in handy- and right she was in thinking so.
Theta was sent to a cave system in District 9, and ended up going far without casualties due to obtaining supplies for catching water and rationing snacks throughout the games. She ultimately won when facing off against the boy from two, Howitzer Goodyear, who was a fan favourite due to his family supplying the Capitol with recreational blimps. He and Theta were stuck on an underground cliff outcropping, and when Howitzer lunged at her a final time, she ducked underneath him, grabbing the hilt of his dagger and forcing it into him. Paralyzed in pain, Howitzer could only scream and squirm, and covering her ears, Theta wriggled out from underneath him. As he bled out and tried to get up, Theta instinctively pushed him, and with his balance gone, he tripped and fell off of the cliff ledge, plummeting to his death.
Theta came home miserable, and although her parents and Godot tried to console her, she spent most of her interviews and Victory Tour in tears, barely able to make it through most of her speeches. Hated and largely disappointing to the Capitol, Theta is eventually glad that nobody wants to spotlight her, because it has given her more time to try and recover in peace. And now that she’s somewhat okay, with only some nights waking up in tears, she is slightly optimistic about her future. She’s even thinking about marrying a man who’s begun to try and court her back home, so despite her awkward attempts at mentoring, Theta hopes she can settle down, start a family, and maybe one day forget the horrible nightmares for good.
Around the 28th Hunger Games at age 22, Theta marries Arthur Sounder, a man and former classmate who she has grown desperately in love with. They have a close marriage, but it begins to strain when Theta seems to be unable to conceive a child, something they both want very much. It reaches a breaking point after the 32nd games, at which point Artie serves her with a divorce. Bitter and cold, Theta signs the papers there and then, telling him that he has no claim to her house or her fortune, and that she wants him out completely within the week. He agrees to these terms and leaves.
Forced to contemplate her loneliness at her own failure to provide a good life, Theta becomes just as miserable as she once was when she came back from the Hunger Games.
Her health declines, but she only consults a doctor the next year after Godot becomes worried for her past the point of reason and sends her to a Capitol doctor himself, suspecting that her mental illness is having serious physical repercussions.
Theta is diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer that month, (likely due to intense stress and genetic predisposition to it) and begins treatment for it, barely making it through mentoring the 33rd games at the Capitol's behest, claiming she's fine. The next year, weaker than before, Theta is forced to mentor again, but collapses in the first few days, forcing Godot to take over, something he insisted he do when she was diagnosed.
This is the year Beetee wins, and he visits her in the hospital after he returns, worried about her despite it all.
Theta makes a full recovery in the years following, and begins to attempt to get her life back. Unable to have children herself (she is unsure if she was the cause before her cancer treatment, but decides she is not getting married in the future and as a result wont have any- despite still yearning for it) she becomes close with Beetee's wife Io through babysitting their son Ampert, a boy that Theta would have done anything for. Just when she is about to regain her positivity in the face of adveristy, Ampert is killed int he fiftieth hunger games as a result of plans made by the rebels she is close to.
Not sure if she wants to trust her found family anymore, and suffering just as much as the rest of them with the loss of Ampert, Theta tries to combat the wave of depression that threatens to take her again.
She was never an active rebel, just a supporter and sympathiser to those in her circle who actively participate, she watches the rebellion grow from the seat at the Godot's table she always occupies, and is terrified at the prospect of the Third Quell's terms. Everyone is breifed on the action plan in case they're reaped, and Theta feels guilty that she is relieved that she wasn't, because she knows that if she was, she would not have been strong enough to survive the bloodbath.
After losing Wiress by watching it happen on screen, Theta walks around the empty square in District Three, unable to stop crying about the loss of a woman who used to be such a brilliant girl. When the arena breaks and the riots break out, Theta is shot in the square by frenzied rioters who have undertaken a growing fear of Victors.
so yeah nothing nice ever happens to Theta Verne , the nicest girl in District Three