Who’s Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games, and how does he know Haymitch and Katniss?

Suzanne Collins has blessed us all with a brand new The Hunger Games book – aka Sunrise on the Reaping. The new prequel tells the origin story of Katniss and Peeta’s mentor Haymitch Abernathy, and is packed full of characters from the other books who were very important to you when you were 13, but who you’d probably forgotten about until now. To refresh your memory, here’s a thorough deep-dive into all the lore about who Plutarch Heavensbee actually is, and what he gets up to in all The Hunger Games books.

Plutarch is a nepo baby Panem politician 

There’s no other way to explain it. Plutarch is part of the “ultra-rich” Heavensbee family, who are one of the very elite (and very elitist) families who live in the Capitol and spawn loads of politicians who run Panem. Plutarch’s great-grandfather Trajan Heavensbee called himself the “father of Panem”. He built the huge mansion Plutarch lives in. After the first civil war known as the Dark Days, the Heavensbee family funded reconstruction of the Academy in the Capitol. Coriolanus Snow and the other students mastermind the tenth Hunger Games from a school building called Heavensbee Hall.

One of Plutarch’s relatives pops up in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Hilarius Havensbee is a snobby (and pretty sexist) student in Coriolanus’s class. Coriolanus later refers to him as a “useless whiner”.

Sunrise on the Reaping completely changes what we know about Plutarch

Plutarch and President Snow planning how to most effectively murder kids for reality TV
(Credit: Lionsgate)

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We knew Plutarch was working for the rebels for at least ten years before the original Hunger Games books. Sunrise on the Reaping shows his plan in The Hunger Games had been in the works for, like, 25 years. Er, maybe he was really taking his time with the planning?

Haymitch meets Plutarch when he’s a cameraman at the reaping ceremony in District 12. Plutarch invites Haymitch to his fancy mansion, where President Snow randomly drops by for a glass of milk after poisoning someone. Plutarch has a plan for how Haymitch could be rebellious in The Hunger Games arena… you’ll have to actually read the rest of Sunrise on the Reaping to see how that works out for everyone.

Near the end of the book, Plutarch hints that he would like to find a figurehead for the rebellion who is more popular and more lucky than Haymitch (which foreshadows how he’ll eventually pick Katniss to be the face of the rebellion). He also says it would be helpful to find an army. This hints the events of Sunrise on the Reaping led Plutarch to slide into District 13’s DMs.

Plutarch features in all three original The Hunger Games books

He does pop up briefly in the very first book. Plutarch is one of the gossiping gamemakers whose roast pig Katniss shoots. He replaces Seneca Crane as the Head Gamemaker for the 75th Hunger Games. Plutarch designs the arena with a lightning tree so that Katniss, Peeta and friends can escape from it and join the rebellion in District 13. We learn at the very end of Catching Fire that Plutarch has been masterminding the rebellion for, like, ages.

Plutarch and President Coin plotting away
(Credit: Lionsgate)

In Mockingjay, Plutarch is in charge of propaganda for the rebellion. He directs all those adverts of Katniss in a silly leather bird outfit. He helps Katniss out a lot towards the end of the book by stopping Effie Trinket from being executed, and by vouching for her after she executes President Coin. He becomes Secretary of Communications after the war.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Plutarch in the movies

The actor sadly died during the middle of filming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. This is why near the end of the film, Haymitch reads out a letter from Plutarch to Katniss, instead of Plutarch telling her these things himself.

The author Suzanne Collins related the most to Plutarch

Suzanne Collins actually told Time magazine back in 2013 that Plutarch is the character most similar to herself. She said: “Plutarch is creating the story and he’s creating the arena and he’s manipulating the characters – a writer isn’t far from a game maker. And Plutarch masterminds the rebellion, so he’s thinking in many ways about the story and how the story is unfolding in the same way I am as an author when I’m telling it. I’m not for creating arenas or something, but if you look at it from a creative perspective, we’re really doing the same job.” Fascinating stuff.

Plutarch seems to be named after a real ancient Greek historian, who wrote lots of biographies of famous Greek and Roman figures. Presumably this is because Plutarch Heavensbee also creates narratives about politicians and celebrities?

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