Lenore Dove is the dead wife in the montage, and she should have died in the jail. From the moment we leave District Twelve, she exists predominately outside of the narrative, and only through Haymitch's memory. Consequentially, she's dead the moment we leave 12, just like a dead-wife montage.
The whole pre-reaping scene reads like a dead wife montage. He colors her with vibrancy. He tells us about how smart she is, how she seems to know everything there is to know, and he just listens because he loves her so much. It makes sense. Haymitch spends his time from the train onward mourning her like he has already lost her. In a sense, he has. He is convinced he will never see her again, and, in turn, his conviction transforms his girl into a haunting, guiding-force- the dead wife archetype.
Which would make it all the more devastating if the dead wife never came back to life.
When reading SOTR, I was convinced the call in the study would be their final words together. In The Raven, the narrator calls out to his beloved and receives no answer:
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Which already parallels the line at the end of the call:
But I'm trying to be noble, to, pull myself up to say those words, when the line goes dead without warning.
"Lenore Dove? Lenore Dove?"
She's gone. Truly for good, this time.
An auditory final goodbye would have paralleled the Raven, but it also would have lent itself to more hallucinations. Haymitch could have come to believe he hallucinated the call. He could have blamed Plutarch for setting him up, and under the context of Lou Lou, he could have believed they just mixed her voice or had someone else on the other line.
He would have never gotten a real, genuine, final goodbye with his girl, which lends itself to his reclusive life in the trilogy. Especially because he breaks his phone in his victor's house and Effie is the one to have it fixed twenty-five years later. Maybe he hallucinates his phone ringing only to pick it up for a dead tone, and it drives him mad to the point of destruction. Maybe it is Snow calling just to listen to him grieving his girl, thinking maybe, just maybe, he'll hear her voice again.
Further, prior to the call, Haymitch bragged about selling alcohol to the commander of the d12 peacekeepers in his interview while she was in custody. While we do not know if it aired, word of mouth on gossip that flammable was bound to spread to the commander's higher ups. The commander, seeking to punish Haymitch, could have brought the gavel down on Lenore Dove and, in his corruption, made an example out of her. It would send the message of I can break the law, but you cannot. The peacekeepers are above the law. We choose if you live.
Because the interview happened right before the call, I was under the impression news just had not gotten back to the commander by then. Or, if it had, Lenore Dove was trying to comfort Haymitch by relaying her position optimistically. Yet, it seemed there were no actual consequences for his admission.
It would have been even more all the more devastating for Haymitch to lose his girl as a direct result to his attempted submission. He knew he had to put on a show. He gave them what they wanted- a troublemaker, and even while doing what he had to do, playing the game, they still punished him. It's the convince me line of Catching Fire all over again. Through attempting to convince everyone he is a rascal, he hurts the girl he loves most by making an off-hand, truthful comment.
Haymitch would have to live with the fact speaking up was what got her killed for the rest of his life. And Snow can still have a hand in it. Music is illegal. She was playing music. Crack down on laws that were previously forgotten, and it forces people to submit by getting back in line.
By making an example out of her, the Capitol can then justify anything via digging up laws and making up new punishments. There are no laws, because everything suddenly becomes law when it is needed. There is nothing to stop the Capitol from writing a freshly inked date of the past, pointing to it, and saying "Look, this has always been the law." There is no regulating body to stop this, either. They would have the choice of rebellion or conformity.
District Twelve would then have more of a reason to stay in line and conform, like how we see in the trilogy. It would be the pinpoint behind the characterization of why they are afraid to rebel in the first place. It sets up the idea that for years, they were afraid of breaking long forgotten laws, and thereby developed a keep your head down culture to save their own necks.
Lenore Dove should've been a multifaceted political execution. She was the dead wife trope.
