THIS POST CONTAINS THG SOTR SPOILERS
finished sunrise on the reaping !! losing my mind. i cried so much.
here are some long rambling thoughts about my beloved effie trinket and also her friendship/relationship to haymitch abernathy. (yes, iām back here after all these years lmao)
CW for themes present in the hunger games novels ā murder, war, torture, cannibalism
this really is kinda wild to get new canon lore about haymitch and effieās backstory so many years later. and that it contradicts all of our old fanon headcanons is funny, but honestly i love this canon backstory.
effie wasnāt a child watching haymitchās games, but sheās actually a lil bit older than him! probably 5-10 years older, right? and imo sheās such a sweetheart even though sheās flawed and capitol-brainwashed. she came in and showed so much kindness to the D12 districts in the 50th hunger games, she met haymitch before he went into the arena and saw his true self. before alcoholism, before the capitol twisted him into something he wasnāt. the moment when he picked up the dropped makeup box for her was sweet.
i just love all of the new details we learn about effie. in the og trilogy katniss is so oblivious and dismissive of effie (no shade ily katniss) so i really enjoyed getting haymitchās pov and finding out that he feels comforted by her and trusts her
ā¢ she had lavender hair when we first meet her!! this to me feels related to maysilee having a lavender dress at the reaping. something something both women are women haymitch grows to love. also love that we see effie wearing lavender in the hunger games movies a lot. lavender is associated with many meanings ā calmness, grace, love, devotion, femininity, queerness, royalty, take your pick.
ā¢ loved to know effie loved her younger sister proserpina so fiercely and would go out of her way to help her :ā)
ā¢ she dressed D12 nicely for their interviews and really showed them some small moments of kindness ā it was especially lovely to see her and maysilee having moments of girlhood together in what were maysileeās last hours of normality ā and that she was kind to lou lou
ā¢ also i enjoyed the hints about the trinket family and effieās great-aunt messalina and great-uncle silius disgracing the family during the war. knowing itās āhard (enough) to be a trinketā in the context of the capitol really informs us of so much of effieās motivations and mannerisms. sheās obsessed with being perfect because their family has clearly been critiqued and shunned at times. her sisterās at the university, not the academy, which means they arenāt part of the capitol elite.
and thinking about what they might have done to be disgracedā¦ silius trinket owned clothes with concealed weapon slots? bloodstains?? plutarch describing silius as ādepravedā??? it probably wasnāt rebel sympathy because effie says āyou winā when vitus says thatās what his grandfather was, so iām leaning towards cannibalism, becausec alsoā¦
in TBOSAS we learn from snow that nero price (a titan of the railroad industry) was a cannibal during the war and served his maidās leg to his family. his daughter persephone price was a mentor along with snow in the 10th hunger games. itās implied persephone price, as a child, ate the human meat food that her father provided. much like the myth of persephone eating the pomegranates from the underworld.
can someone with more ancient history knowledge pls expand upon this ā i feel like itās something. now, in ancient rome, valeria messalina was the cousin of emperor nero. she was the third wife of the roman emperor claudius, but had an affair and married her lover silius and as a result, messalina and silius were both executed.
and proserpina (effieās sister) is the roman name for persephone (confirmed daughter of a cannibal in tbosas)! i personally believe thatās gotta be a sign that effieās relatives also engaged in cannibalism during the war.
ā¢ effie told haymitch he was being brave and said he deserved to look beautiful š„¹
ā¢ sheās a fake leather hater, lol, this fact goes so well with film!effie loving mahogany
ā¢ she was so nervous before haymitch went into the arena that her hands were shaking, and she reminded him not to step off the plate for 60 seconds so he wouldnāt die
ā¢ she promised to get his token to his love (leonore dove) if he died in the arena
ā¢ she believed in a positive attitude to get through anything :ā)
ā¢ post-games, she stood strong in the face of peacekeeper bullets and she was already faking positivity and she was determined as ever, āyou canāt keep effie downā
ā¢ while everyone else saw haymitch as a vicious animal and had him chained up, she trusted he would never hurt her and stood by him
ā¢ she watched over haymitch at the victory party in the capitol when he was in a cage
ā¢ when they needed a new escort and plutarch suggested effie, she came even though it wouldnāt be easy for her. being an escort is a way for her to climb the social ranks, but itās also so challenging and puts effie in line of president snowās gaze
ā¢ after his family and leonore were killed, she tried to motivate haymitch to keep living when he was suicidal and she helped him to bathe and get cleaned up and doted on him and she took the knife out of his hands when he started sleeping with it
ā¢ she tried to keep haymitch sober on the victory tour despite all the booze around them
i love her so much u guys. sheās such a misunderstood character with a lot of love in her heart <33333
sheās brainwashed by the capitol from birth and sheās certainly got all of their superficiality, like she worries about trivial things like ageing and cares too much about how she looks, but in her heart sheās good and kind. sheās clearly just trying to survive and not get herself or her family killed by the regime.
plus, iām now thinking of all of this in context of the other novels.
how in the hunger games haymitch tries to hug effie when sheās drunk (but she pushes him away bc sheās worried about looking perfect for the reaping), and how they bicker (more so in the films) but trust and actually get along with each other, because now we know theyāve known each other 25 years at this point and in this time, and that means they were mentor and escort to 46 children who died before katniss and peeta came along.
effie tries to help katniss and peeta, as best as she can, and she grows to love them. she just wants them to be safe and hates to see them hurt. and she wishes she could make sponsor dealsā¦ and she and haymitch are āof one mindā and really do work well together as a team. and effie hides her smiles when the other 3 are being kinda traitorous. sheās got a rebellious streak herself.
then in catching fire sheās even more of a mother hen to peeta and katniss, she stops drinking in solidarity with haymitch while heās trying to be sober, she gets them all the gold bangles to be a team, when effie stresses about being behind schedule and everything not being perfect because of delays haymitch sides with effie when katniss is rude to her, effie fusses over the kids all the time, she freaks out when peeta and katniss do the seneca crane / rue moments to the gamemakers and haymitch sides with her warning them not to be rebellious. effie is so deeply aware of how rebellion gets u killed and she keeps her mouth shut to stay alive. just like haymitch does. GAHHHH.
and, the detail in sotr that effie hates needles, but then in mockingjay (the book) she ends up a prisoner of the capitol and gets tortured and starved and probably gets drugged to all hell. and haymitch and plutarch have a hard time keeping her alive. bloody hell.
now, onto the hayffie of it all.
book!haymitch loves leonore more than anything, and he still sees visions of her throughout his life including into the epilogue, post-war. i always wondered what suzanne collins would do after the films leaned in harder into the hayffie romance angle (thank u woody and liz lmao) and i do like that she kept it aligned to the original books ā itās very mature and realistic. they do care deeply for each other, but itās not some glossed over romance given the deep trauma haymitch has been through.
book!haymitch by the end of his games, after everyone he loves is murdered, believes that he cannot love anyone or theyāll die. he closes himself off completely. of course heās not going to allow himself to become romantically linked to effie and have a relationship with her. heās broken and an alcoholic and trying to win a rebellion. katniss, in catching fire, thinks he couldāve had any woman in the district, but he doesnāt. he canāt.
but in the epilogue, now that the warās over? yeah he worries that his liver is gonna fail him, but heās still only in his early 40s and they do have great medicine so whoās to say what happens between him and effie in the next 40-50 years of their lives? maybe they stay just friends, maybe they become romantic. i think thatās all open to interpretation. SOTR really doesnāt rule out romantic!hayffie to me. in fact i think it gives us some delicious angst potential (hello fanfic) wherein he loves effie but will always love and mourn leonore.
anyway, i am just so glad to know more about effie trinket and glad we got to see her again. she is so special to me. i need an effie book please and thank you. ā¤ļø
