Tear Jerker / The Hunger Games

---

Book

• The entire premise of the series is a Tear Jerker. Every tribute in the Games has been taken from their homes and forced to kill others for entertainment. It makes for good literature but it's a horrible situation. Especially for the careers, who have pretty much been conditioned to kill for the sake of entertaining the people of the Capitol. It's an absolutely awful and equally chilling scenario...it's just...ugh...
• Haymitch. By his district, he's deemed as a crazy drunk, but after his trick with the force field in the arena, his mom, brother, and girlfriend were killed. And what did he have to cope with all those years? Just alcohol. He's been forced to mentor District Twelve's tributes every year since his own games and none of them have made it out alive. That means that by the time he meets Katniss and Peeta he has mentored forty-six children only to watch them die horrible deaths for the sake of entertainment, knowing that as their mentor, he was pretty much their only hope for survival. Who wouldn't be a drunk?
  • Up to eleven when you realise the last you hear of him, he's returned to drinking. For all we know, he's dead before the epilogue begins and hasn't even seen the children of Katniss and Peeta. He does help Peeta and Katniss with the book. So he knows Peeta's on his way to recovering, as well as Peeta and Katniss getting a chance to grow back together.
• Katniss' mother. The poor woman lost her husband long before the series even started, had to watch her daughter walk into the Games, lost her home and most of the people she grew up with, was dropped into a war, and then her other daughter died. There's a very poignant line where Katniss says that her mother can't go back to District Twelve even to comfort her remaining daughter, and that she'll probably never be able to go back.
• Peeta, despite ostensibly coming from a privileged background, is revealed to have had plenty of troubles of his own.
  • His mother is willing to beat him for making mistakes, which shocks even the deeply impoverished Katniss.
  • His believes that when his mother says "maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner" that she is referring to Katniss not him. While he might be wrong about this, it does show how bad their relationship is. To twist the knife further, Peeta notes that Mrs. Mellark commented that "she's a survivor, that one" and apparently his father gave Katniss cookies behind his back!
  • Later he tells Katniss that for the most part Peeta and his family eat stale bread they could not otherwise sell. Even Katniss takes some pity on him, noting how pathetic that sounds. It also is a sign that, like other characters/groups in Panem, Peeta's merchant class family are not as well off as they seem.
  • The relationship between his parents are implied to be poor. Peeta even tells Katniss (presumably on national television) that his father wanted to marry Mrs. Everdeen, suggesting that his father resents being with his mother. Given her behavior, it's no surprise why.
• The idea of the Careers. Yes, they're raised to kill. But most of them are older, trained well, and volunteer if their name is not called. They are honestly preventing people like Prim from dying in the arena, instead of watching 12 year olds go to their deaths. The idea of being raised to die for that is heartbreaking.
• Rue's death.
  • Even worse, Katniss realizing the muttations are the former tributes, especially who the smallest one is.
  • Taken up to eleven in the movie. After placing flowers on Rue's body, Katniss makes a farewell salute to those living in District 11.
  • Thresh's reaction to Clove taunting Katniss about Rue's death. He grabs her and bludgeons her as she screams for mercy. Katniss, who's completely defenseless, asks him to kill her quickly. Thresh refuses, because of Katniss helping Rue, but tells her, "You better run, Fire Girl."
  • Some Fridge Horror: Thresh and Rue had likely agreed to go their separate ways to increase their chance of survival, so that one wouldn't be forced to kill the other. Then after he finds out she's dead, he hears about the rule patch allowing two tributes from one district to live. Thresh must be feeling extremely guilty and angry that if he had been with Rue, he could have saved them both.
• Katniss actually has a few moments of Sympathy for the Devil for the Boy from District 1[[note]]his name is revealed in the next book to be Marvel[[\note]], and its implied that even after she forces it from her mind that she will remain feeling guilty about it later on. It shows a lot about her character that she would even bother to empathize with a boy who killed her friend.
  To hate the boy from District 1, who also appears so vulnerable in death, seems inadequate. It’s the Capitol I hate, for doing this to all of us.
  I keep seeing Rue speared, my arrow piercing the boy’s neck. I don’t know why I should even care about the boy. Then I realize...he was my first kill...the boy from District 1 was the first person I knew would die because of my actions...I killed a boy whose name I don’t even know. Somewhere his family is weeping for him. His friends call for my blood. Maybe he had a girlfriend who really believed he would come back...But then I think of Rue’s still body and I’m able to banish the boy from my mind. At least, for now.
• The ending, but particularly Peeta's reaction after the reveal that Katniss had been playing up the romance aspect to keep them both alive during the games. Not to mention that Katniss herself realizes, that while she doesn't know quite fully if she may or may not actually love Peeta, does truly care for him, and the fear that she could be, and is, losing him devastates her.
  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Peeta extend his hand. I look at him, unsure. "One more time, for the audience?" he says. His voice isn't angry. It's hollow which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me. I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the camera's, and dreading the moment I finally have to let go.

Film

• When Prim's name is called at the Reaping, she begins the walk up to the stage, horrified but still strong enough to tuck in her shirt as she goes, just like Katniss had told her to a little earlier. Actually, almost all the scenes that involved Prim were tearjerkers of some sort.
  • Katniss' panicked reaction to Prim's name being called. The one person she lets herself care about, the one person who's safe ...
  • Prim's reaction when Katniss volunteers. She could hold herself together when it was her life on the line, but when her big sister decides to sacrifice herself for her, poor girl starts to bawl and has to be carried away to her mother's arms.
• It's small, but Peeta's version of the bread scene in the movie. Katniss has always interpreted it as an act of kindness, but Peeta's angry at himself because he didn't do enough. He's been berating himself for five years for not doing more, like actually handing it to her. This is the guy who deliberately took a beating from his abusive mother in order to feed a girl he didn't know well in person, and he thinks he didn't do enough.
• Right before Katniss is sent up into the arena, she has one last meeting with Cinna, who tries his best to comfort her with a hug. It's at this point that her defenses break down and she's revealed to be a terrified teenager who knows that she's probably going to die in a matter of hours, if not minutes. She doesn't.
• Watching Katniss trying to nurse her burn wound. She obviously doesn't know how to deal with it, and watching her bite down on the collar of her jacket to silence her screams as she dabs on it makes you tear up a bit.
  • Haymitch's expression as he's watching tops it off. He's not seeing a tribute, he's seeing what she really is: a scared kid in a lot of pain.
• Haymitch seeing the Capitol citizens give one of their children a toy sword. If you needed any more reason to hate the Capitol and how it makes something incredibly brutal seem fun and exciting, that was it.
  • Haymitch's expression just seems to barely repress all the anger and turmoil he's probably feeling, being a previous winner of the games and having survived and experienced the whole glorified bloodbath himself.
  • Katniss gets her own version in the Catching Fire film, when she sees a young girl (implied to be from District One) who says, "I'm going to volunteer someday. Just like you."
• After Katniss has covered Rue in flowers, she makes the three-finger-salute. We get to see District 11, where they return the salute, and a man in the crowd (most likely Rue's father) attacks the Peacekeepers, and soon everyone starts fighting. It's heartbreaking. The music doesn't help, either.
  • During the riot scene, the ballot box is knocked over, spilling hundreds of paper slips onto the street. A somber reminder of the many, many children who were sent to their deaths for the Capitol's entertainment...and now there's one more.
  • When Katniss is still singing to Rue while she dies, the camera cuts to Rue's perspective, showing us a shot of the trees above her. Then, slowly, it gets quieter and quieter until everything is silent. The screen fades to white and you know that the little girl is dead, even if you haven't read the book.
    Katniss: (sobbing over Rue's body) I'm sorry...!
• Peeta shivering from fever, right after he and Katniss have heard that the Cornucopia will have medicine. Katniss without hesitation goes to the Feast, even though he begged her not to take the risk.
• Thresh on hearing Clove's Evil Gloating, kills her quickly after she gleefully recounts Rue's murder to Katniss. He then tells Katniss, "Just this once, Twelve. For Rue" before running off with Cato's backpack.
• Cato just before his death. In the book, he's portrayed as a psycho who gets enjoyment out of the death of another tribute right down to when he dies. In the movie, he's pretty much the same... until he's about to die. We then learn that his motives were to bring honor and respect for him and his District. He was also a career tribute, meaning that he was trained to kill from a very young age, and likely had no choice in the matter. Killing was all he knew. Combining all of these, plus his behavior at the end, implies that he was craving respect and recognition from people, which, in turn, implies that he was abused, neglected, unappreciated, ignored, or possibly all of the above. This may show that he feels the only way to be loved is to win. What's even sadder is, that assumption may have been true.
  "Go on! Shoot, and we [him and Peeta] both go down and you win. Go on. I'm dead anyway! I always was, right? I couldn't tell that until now. How's that, is that what they want? Huh? Huh... No... I can still do this... I can still do this. One more kill. It's the only thing I know how to do. To bring pride to my district. Not that it matters."
  • All the kids' deaths are sad. Examples include Glimmer, who dies a painful, stinging death by wasps while screaming in terror; the District 3 boy, who gets his neck snapped by Cato for failing him; Foxface, who wasn't remotely bad and died a really random death by eating poison berries; and Thresh, who is finished off by the mutant wolves after Cato carved him up offscreen.
    • Or even right in the beginning; the tiny boy with curly hair inside the Cornucopia. He's trying to hide from the bloodbath, and as soon as he tries to escape, he's brutally murdered by Cato.
  • Peeta and Katniss split up to hunt and gather. Katniss hears a cannon, and sees pile of nightlock berries next to Peeta's pack. She runs in a panic, tackling Peeta in a hug and screaming she thought he was dead because the berries are deadly poison. Peeta's expression as she hugs him saying, "Damn you, Peeta!" makes him realize that Katniss's feelings for him aren't an act, even if she doesn't realize it yet.
  • It's implied (especially heavily in the movie) that Foxface's self-poisoning was intentional. She was reluctant to kill anyone, almost like Katniss, and didn't want to be killed, yet she had to cover up her suicide as an accident so that her family won't get into trouble for her trick. (If you want to know what might have happened to them, Haymitch and Johanna are two particular examples. And bear in mind these two are not the only ones — they are the only ones mentioned.) Ain't it heart-wrenching to know that your family isn't secure even after your death — that is, never safe? Then again, it shows the cruelty and ruthlessness of the Capitol (doubling as (doubtly) unintentional Heroic Sacrifice) and further (along with Rue's death) nails down the idea that President Snow's regime "must pay, must fall!"
• Seneca Crane's execution. This guy had to choose between either having no victor or having two, both of which would likely result in his death. Essentially, he was backed in a corner, whilst still having the illusion of choice so that he could be held responsible for his actions.
• Even the official soundtrack contains some heartwrenching songs, including the Pistol Annies' "Run Daddy Run", which pretty much perfectly sums up what 11-year-old Katniss must have been feeling when her father died, her mother fell into despair and she was forced to take charge of the family and look after her sister.
  Mama's been cryin' in the kitchen
  Sister's been afraid of the dark
  I've been gatherin' the pieces of all these shattered hearts
  And I don't care where you go to
  I don't care where you land
  Just get out of there, Daddy, as fast you can...