The following contains major spoilers for the Suzanne Collins novel Sunrise on the Reaping.
It’s official: Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson will be reprising their roles as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark in the forthcoming The Hunger Games prequel Sunrise on the Reaping. And while the studio is at least attempting to be vague about the reason for their characters’ return, book readers already know exactly what’s going on — and that it will likely offer up some satisfying closure to their characters’ arcs in post-war Panem.
Suzanne Collins’ novel primarily serves as an origin story for District 12 Hunger Games victor Haymitch Abernathy, chronicling his win during the Second Quarter Quell and complicating much of the original trilogy’s version of what happened. (Propaganda! It’s a thing in every universe.) But the novel also contains an epilogue, set after the events of Mockingjay, that offers not only a glimpse of a bittersweet post-war peace for Haymitch but also for the two young competitors he mentored a quarter-century later.
In the flashforward, Haymitch reflects on his lost love, Lenore Dove, and the way he ultimately fulfilled his promise to her by helping bring an end to the Hunger Games (though it took much longer than either likely expected). He says she still comes to him in visions — Lenore is part of the Covey clan, so this woo-woo style weirdness isn’t as bizarre as it sounds — and has grown older alongside him in his mind. “She says I can’t come to her yet. I have to look after my family,” he says, in case you were ever unsure about how much Katniss and Peeta have come to mean to him.
