The Strength of Hunger Games Stories Is Their Rejection of Hollywood Happy Endings

This article contains spoilers for Sunrise on the Reaping.

Since its inception, the Hunger Games has never been shy about the horrors of war. In fact, Suzanne Collins was inspired to create her blockbuster franchise while flipping through TV late at night where news coverage of the conflict in Iraq clashed with the ever popular reality shows of the time. It was that juxtaposition which sowed the seeds for the televised battle to the death that became the epicenter of the Hunger Games universe. Though death matches are rife in fiction and film—from Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game from a hundred years ago to Battle Royale (2000)—Collins managed to carve out a space in the YA genre as someone unafraid of the bleak existential questions that haunt into the night.

Her newest addition to the now decades-long Hunger Games canon, Sunrise on the Reaping, continues Collins’ bold refusal to offer readers happy endings or easy answers, and the series is all the better for it. 

Sunrise on the Reaping acts as a sequel of sorts to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and a prequel to the original Hunger Games novels. Telling the heartbreaking story of Katniss and Peeta’s District 12 mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson in the 2010s films), the book focuses on one of the Capitol’s nightmarish Quarter Quells where each District has to sacrifice four children to the games rather than the usual two. After one of the young men tries to escape, Haymitch is picked as a replacement in order to cover up the messiness of the quell, throwing him head first into a spiral of propaganda, rebellion, and death. 

Although readers and film fans know that Haymitch survives, that doesn’t guarantee him a happy ending. Indeed, our sweet District 12 rebel gets a distinctly unhappy one despite attempting to save the lives of himself and many around him. Just like Katniss and Peeta at the end of the original Hunger Games trilogy, or the ambiguous fate of the tragic Lucy Gray in Songbirds and Snakes, Haymitch manages to survive, but thanks to the machinations of the Capitol and their propaganda he’s portrayed as a lone wolf rather than the brave and thoughtful rebel he actually was.

But manipulating the public opinion isn’t enough for the Capitol. Bitterly, the reason Haymitch really wanted to survive was to reunite with his love Lenore Dove and to realize their hope of one day raising geese together and living happily. Simply. Free. But that dream is snatched away from him by President Snow who poisons Haymitch’s beloved and has her die in his arms. It’s a heartbreaking moment that sets Haymitch on a lonely path, but it’s followed up by an epilogue that tells us he ends up finding some melancholy solace decades later in his slow and steady life with fellow victors Katniss and Peeta. 

The original Hunger Games trilogy ends on a similar note with Katniss and Peeta living in the Victors Village, both struggling with PTSD, trauma, and deep trust issues. There’s no truly happy ending, despite the fact that they managed to stop the Hunger Games and the Capitol’s tyrannical rule. Their world isn’t fixed with President Snow dead, and their life isn’t a particularly joyful one. Instead they’re two survivors trying to find their way through the brutality of their pasts and a world that will likely take a lifetime to reconstruct itself—and only maybe for the better. In 2010 there was a backlash against the complex unhappy ending, which some fans felt rushed the denouement, and others simply found unsatisfactory. But in 2025 it feels prescient and painfully real. 

It’s also far more akin to classic literature than the usual, expected happily ever after which many YA stories and modern blockbuster movies offer up. In Jane Austen’s final book Persuasion, the author tells a tale of a young woman, Anne Elliot, and her relationship with Captain Wentworth. Although she gets her man, the book is famous for its “autumnal” tone and ending that reveals Anne isn’t exactly happy with her new life and instead feels as if she’s settling. It’s something that we can all relate to but that fictional romances rarely admit. With the ending of Mockingjay, Collins calls back to this tradition and gives Peeta and Katniss a send off that feels sadly true, rather than pleasantly false. They are never going to get over what happened to them and the horrors they have seen, but they are willing to work together to try to make something out of what they have left. 

When Collins returned to the franchise with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in 2020, she chose to center the story on a young Coriolanus Snow. While many worried it would be too empathetic toward the villain, it was instead a showcase of how “normal” people can rise up the ranks of a fascist government, making continual moral compromises until there is no morality left. The bleaker and more basic version of the games depicted in the distant past of Songbirds showcased just how truly horrific the concept really is when you remove its reality TV trappings and baubles.

Furthermore, while main character Lucy Gray Baird does appear to escape, the ending is still a rejection of the happy ending. Instead we see Coriolanus lie and scheme his way out of accountability, establishing the start of his meteoric rise. In these early Hunger Games prequels, there really isn’t any way to truly win as the games have to go on until the original trilogy timeline, which Collins’ deftly uses as a way to explore the bad guys winning.

In an ever more complicated world where stories often promise us a happy ending that doesn’t represent the reality we’re living through, Collins’ dedication to grounding her endings in tragedy and loss feels more resonant than ever. It’s not that we can’t win the revolution against tyranny, it’s just that there’s a high cost to every fight, and the ones who do survive will be living with that high price even after the battle is over.

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