Plot
Haymitch Abernathy lives in District 12 with his impoverished mother and younger brother Sid, where he illegally distills moonshine to keep his family afloat and regularly sneaks out to the woods to meet his girlfriend Lenore Dove Baird. On Haymitch's 16th birthday, the reaping for the 50th Annual Hunger Games is held, where all districts must produce double the usual number of tributes in honor of the Second Quarter Quell. At the reaping, one of District 12's male tributes attempts to escape but is quickly killed. In the ensuing chaos, Haymitch attempts to protect Lenore Dove from Peacekeepers, for which District 12's cruel tribute escort Drusilla Sickle and Plutarch Heavensbee, a cameraman who appears sympathetic to the tributes, appoints Haymitch as the substitute tribute, re‐staging the reaping. His fellow District 12 tributes include betting oddsmaker Wyatt Callow, neighbor and close friend Louella McCoy, and the rich and callous Maysilee Donner.
Arriving in the Capitol, the District 12 tributes are dismissed as "long shots." During the Tribute Parade, a horse-drawn chariot accident kills Louella and Haymitch carries her body down the parade route before laying her in front of President Snow and mockingly applauding him. Haymitch is taken alone into Heavensbee Hall, where President Snow threatens him that he will ensure the Gamemakers punish him with a painful death if he continues with his defiance. Attempting to cover up the parade fiasco, Snow brings in a drugged body double replacement for Louella, whom the District 12 tributes nickname "Lou Lou."
With no surviving victors from their district, the District 12 tributes are assigned random mentors from previous Games, Wiress of District 3 and Mags of District 4. Dueling alliances quickly form between the Career tributes and those from the rest of the districts, who nickname themselves "The Newcomers." During training, Beetee, a former victor cruelly forced to mentor his own son Ampert (who was reaped as punishment for Beetee's rebellious activity) recruits Haymitch for a covert plan to sabotage the arena. Plutarch covertly gives Haymitch additional information about the sabatoge, and to gain Haymitch's trust, arranges for him to share a bittersweet farewell call with Lenore Dove. Haymitch agrees to detonate explosives in the arena's underground water tank to flood the arena's computer systems. In response to a disastrously low evaluation score from the Gamemakers as punishment for his parade rebellion, Haymitch adopts a defiant "rascal" persona in the tribute interviews to attract sponsors.
The Games begin in a stunningly beautiful but deadly arena rife with poisonous hazards. Haymitch abandons his alliance with the Newcomers to carry out his sabotage plan, and Wyatt is killed on the first day. Briefly accompanied by Lou Lou, who soon dies from toxic pollen, he teams up with Ampert to enter an access channel designed to release genetically mutated creatures ("mutts") and trigger an explosion that destroys the arena's subterranean water tank. However, the ensuing flood fails to fully disable the arena, and the mutts kill Ampert. Later, when he encounters a group of Careers, Maysilee saves Haymitch with a poisonous blow dart gun, renewing their partnership.
Determined to find another way to destroy the arena, Haymitch convinces Maysilee to explore its edge. They encounter the Careers and during the ensuing fight, the tributes stumble upon a surprised trio of Gamemakers performing maintenance, whom Maysilee and the Careers kill before fleeing. Haymitch and Maysilee find a power generator at the arena's edge shielded by a force field which bounces back any objects thrown at it. As she splits up with Haymitch, Maysilee is killed by mutts specifically sent to punish her for killing the Gamemakers. With three tributes remaining, Haymitch seeks out the last remaining Newcomer, Wellie, finding her starving. He leaves her alone to look for firewood, yet returns only to find her killed by the final Career, District 1 tribute Silka. In a final confrontation at the arena's edge, Silka is inadvertently killed by her axe bouncing off the force field. After his victory, a grievously injured Haymitch attempts to detonate a final explosive against the force field in a final act of defiance against the games, and is rendered unconscious as the blast goes off, failing yet again to destroy the arena.
Haymitch awakens in captivity at the Capitol and is forced to attend a series of public events, gradually realizing that the televised version of the Games has been heavily edited to erase any signs of rebellion. In his sole encounter with Haymitch after the games, President Snow tells him to "enjoy his homecoming." Upon returning to District 12, Haymitch finds his home burned down and his mother and brother dead. A reunion with Lenore Dove in a quiet meadow turns tragic when Haymitch unknowingly feeds her a poisoned candy, an act orchestrated by President Snow. Lenore Dove dies in his arms after urging him to prevent another "sunrise on the reaping." Haunted by his losses, Haymitch retreats into isolation and alcoholism in the Victors' Village, distancing himself from former friends out of fear for their safety. However, during the Victory Tour, Plutarch's encouragement spurs him to keep fighting.
In the epilogue, set after the original series, Haymitch opens up to Katniss and Peeta about his past, finding solace in caring for gifted goose eggs in memory of Lenore Dove.
