The Mysterious Maysilee Donner: Unexpected Skills, Covey Connections, and that Orange Paint

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD for Sunrise on the Reaping

If any character in Sunrise is going to steal the show, as they say, Maysilee is a likely contender. Part of Haymitch’s purpose in this story, it seems, is to help unfold Maysilee’s own backstory and character arc. And his own turnaround is stunning, first presenting Maysilee as the meanest girl in town, while later accepting her as family and (somewhat humorously in a morbid way), blood relatives. As Haymitch continues to learn about the mysterious “Ms. Donner,” it is difficult to not appreciate her own evolving story and the numerous mysteries that remain. It is these mysteries to which we turn now.

A Master of Braids

Perhaps the first and most blatant connection some have suggested is between Maysilee’s meticulous braiding skills and the iconic, black braid of one Katniss Everdeen. For the number of times Haymitch mentions Maysilee’s braiding skills, it feels like Suzanne Collins is hitting us over the head with a Maysilee slap. The first time Haymitch makes the reference to braiding is on the train, staring at her “fingers entwined in the strands of a half dozen necklaces. Some beaded, some braided cord, some with trinkets hanging off of them, and at least one real gold” (SOTR 41). Thinking at first she is merely showing off, he later becomes absolutely dumbfounded about her braiding skills. And this thematic thread becomes intricately woven throughout the storyline (sorry, sort of…).

The first serious references to Maysilee’s braiding skills come later when assisting Ampert in the Gym. After telling him that his token looks like “a weasel caught in chicken wire,” she once again displays her kinder side. She tells him, “you could do a braid necklace. That’s a one-strander. It would look something like this.” As Haymitch then narrates, she pulls out one of her six necklaces, an “elaborate black braided piece” (106-07). Working with Ampert, she puts the “finishing touches on an expertly woven braided necklace” (112). It’s not long before her reputation spreads. Any number of wayward tributes follow Maysilee into the bleachers with the hope of having her improve their district tokens as well. It is at this point when Haymitch reflects on more of the real Maysilee, emerging before his eyes. He tells us,

It’s Maysilee who surprises me. Back home, she isn’t popular, she’s known. She’s not respected, she’s feared. Not deferred to, but avoided. Here, following Ampert’s lead, kids bring her their district trinkets and ask her to make them special, and she agrees. The girl must know fifty ways to braid, twist, and loop a cord into a piece of finery. She sets off their humble offerings from home with her fancy patterns. District pride runs deep. (117)

This continued focus on braiding leads one to question just why Collins is emphasizing this particular skill. I was certainly not the only one to make the quick leap to recall Katniss Everdeen’s signature mark of personal identity, her straight, long black braid. As Katniss prepares for a hunting expedition on the day of the reaping, she tells us in the original Hunger Games novel, “I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid up into a cap” (HG 4). Then while preparing for the reaping, Katniss tells us, “I let her towel-dry it and braid it up on my head” (HG 15). The rest is history, as Americans have witnessed a decade’s worth of black-braided Halloween costumes roaming the neighborhoods.

It turns out, then, that her mother, Asterid (as we now know), was an expert braider herself. Even Cinna is impressed upon meeting Katniss. The first thing he notices is Katniss’ braid. “Who did your hair?” he asks. After Katniss responds, he says, “It’s beautiful. Classic really. And in almost perfect balance with your profile. She has very clever fingers” (HG 64). If this skill runs in the Everdeen family, how did Maysilee and Asterid both learn their braiding skills? And why does Collins tie it so intricately into the storyline?

An Impressive Skillset

Beyond braiding and craftsmanship, Maysilee’s wide-ranging skillset continues to impress during training and inside the arena. After arriving to the gym for training (late as usual, thanks to Drusilla), Maysilee jumps in and says, “We should throw knives” (101). Haymitch considers it and recalls that “Blair’s really good and I’m not too shabby myself.” While testing out their skills, Haymitch further notes that “A lot of knives bounce off the target, although Maysilee hits more than she misses, and not to brag, I stick it every time” (102). Is Maysilee a natural talent while practicing here, or has she enjoyed experience with knives in the past? She proves equally adept at the knot-tying booth where she “replicates everything they show her on the first try, even the snares.” Haymitch jokingly accuses her of showing off, because he ends up struggling with a simple square knot. (155) He later suggests that she show all the things she “can do with a cord” as her chosen skill for the Gamemakers. More than one reader has wondered about why snares are mentioned here. This was one of Gale’s specialties, as he eventually teaches Katniss to make snares in the woods to catch small animals.

Later in the arena, her survival skills only continue to impress, for instance showing Haymitch how to make a better watercatcher with the tarp and knife. Elsewhere she suggests, “With a second hammock, maybe we can both sleep up in the trees” (278). She clearly holds no fear or lack of confidence with climbing. Later she impresses Haymitch by cleaning his wounds and closing them with “neat, even stitches” (269). And just before that, we don’t need to be reminded about the skill that saves Haymitch’s life. Somehow Maysilee devised a way to convert a blowgun that shoots poison darts. Not candy. Down goes Panache!

Aside from her chosen skills, we learn throughout Sunrise about what Maysilee’s most likely chosen career would be. That is, if her life wasn’t cut short like all the other kids in the arena. After Maysilee educates us about how much she hated working at her parents’ sweetshop, Haymitch wonders, “What did she dream of doing instead?” This seems like a well-placed prompt from Collins for us to reflect on that very question. The simple answer is fashion and design. Her sarcastic and admittedly hilarious critiques of Capitol citizens — not the least being Drusilla — continue through much of the story, and they generally all focus on aspects of appearances, clothing, and hygiene. She “makes people remember her” by roasting several members of the audience during the tribute interviews (including the woman with the cat ears — probably not Tigris, though tempting to think it). And her disrespectful yet justifiable exchanges with Drusilla are already legendary. In one instance Maysilee tells her, “I know my grandmother had a jacket like yours, but we wouldn’t let her wear it out of the house” (52). Haymitch then compliments her: “There I was, trying to be so high-and-mighty about the cake, and then you go all wildcat on us.” Maysilee gives a small smile. “Well, I have strong opinions on fashion… It’s high time someone told Miss Matchy-Matchy she looks hideous” (52).

A Cherished Grandmother from the Covey Days

The final set of mysteries to consider for purposes here (there is so much to write!) involves her grandmother and a certain secret that even Haymitch has not been privy to. Maysilee mentions her grandmother on multiple occasions, including when she berates Drusilla (above). We learn in bits and pieces throughout the story that Maysilee feels a strong emotional connection to her grandmother, and that her grandmother was in fact the first recipient of Tam Amber’s storied mockingjay pin, which is then handed down to Maysilee by her father, Mr. Donner (humorously, Maysilee sticks it in a drawer because she despises mockingjays — admittedly not a Covey way to think). Later during the Games Maysilee shows Haymitch her grandmother’s photo inside her locket. Grandma had given it to Maysilee the year before she died. Haymitch fondly tells us, “I take in the smiling eyes, full of mischief, peering out of their own spiderweb of wrinkles.” Of course, in classic Collins style, we are not given a name for her grandmother, which means her identity is still meant to remain a mystery. Could Maysilee somehow be related to the Covey? Or has she simply been absorbing District 12 lore like many of them, handed down through generations?

It might be useful to keep in mind that, presuming her grandmother was around 65 or 70 when she died, she was likely in her 30s sometime after the 10th Games when Tam Amber started his blacksmith trade. She may have attended original Covey concerts during the days of Ballad, or at least known of the original lyrics. Either way, she knew Tam Amber enough to either be a paying customer or a gift recipient for the future Donner pins.

It is during Maysilee’s heartfelt description of her grandmother when she drops another shocking revelation. Grandma knew lyrics from Covey songs. She tells Haymitch that her grandmother used to say, “It’s okay, Maysilee, nothing they can take from you was ever worth keeping” (301). Then it’s Maysilee’s turn to be surprised when Haymitch informs her it’s from an actual song that he learned from Lenore Dove (and a clear throwback to Lucy Gray in Ballad). She then responds with one of her most mysterious lines: “It’s a song?” Maysilee smiles. “Well, your gal’s full of surprises. Guess she got the jump on us after all.” When Haymitch asks, “Doing what?” she responds, “Doing nothing” and snaps the locket closed (301). This leads us to those mysterious orange fingernails…

Maysilee’s Secret and That Orange Paint

This brief exchange about the locket seems to reprise their much earlier conversation about Maysilee’s secret, which neither she nor Lenore Dove herself will reveal to Haymitch. Back in their apartment during training, Maysilee had acknowledged that Lenore Dove doesn’t like her — but not only because she’s so mean. She explains, “mostly because I know her secret and she hates being at my mercy” (162). At Haymitch’s prodding, she only tells him to ask her about the “orange paint on her fingernails” when she performed for the Mayor’s birthday party. He can only wonder if Lenore Dove somehow stole expensive nail polish, though this doesn’t explain why she’s wearing it at this specific event. And we are left to wonder just why she is referring to it as “orange paint” and not “orange nail polish” or thereabouts.

It is much later when Collins reveals the secret of the orange paint for all of us. One night back in 12, Haymitch escapes his Victor’s house and tragically “hits the bottle even harder” as a desperate effort to forget (373). He ends up shivering in a back alley, where he eventually sees “a message sprayed in bright orange paint.” NO CAPITOL, NO HANGING TREE, etc. He realizes the message has to be anti-Capitol propaganda, the work of none other than Lenore Dove. Continuing to share his own revelations, he provides us with perhaps the most significant piece of the story’s entire puzzle:

Full of surprises. Full of secrets, even from me. But Maysilee had put it together, he recalls. Orange paint on her fingernails. This is Lenore Dove’s work. Her sign. Her message to me now. Her reminder that I must prevent another sunrise on the reaping (373).

His revelation in the alley could arguably serve as a powerful climax of the story (we’ll see if the Sunrise film producers agree). Recall that, back at the Covey gravesite, he had pleaded with Lenore Dove to send him a sign, asking her to free him from his final promise to her, to one day prevent the sun from rising on the reaping (372). There in the alley, he got his sign indeed — but more as a knock on the head from his former love. He would need to press on and find a way forward, right into the original trilogy. And now we know why her nails were covered in “orange paint,” likely as her own subtle protest at the Mayor’s house, or perhaps as leftovers from her earlier graffiti work. That paint had decorated more than her nails in that alley!

With this revelation, we also have a better idea (if not conclusive) of what Maysilee meant when she said that Lenore Dove “got the jump on us after all.” This phrase typically refers to someone who was first, “beating someone to the punch,” so to speak. Or, someone who jumped out ahead to start a race. Perhaps this was Maysilee’s way of saying that Lenore Dove’s rebelliousness against the Capitol began long before either Maysilee or Haymitch began “painting their own posters” in the Capitol and arena. Lenore Dove was already painting her own posters (including quite literally in the alley), including her secretive efforts to mess up earlier reapings (yet other instances not admitted by Haymitch’s “girl”). All of this fits together now. This is all Lenore Dove’s initiative from the start, to encourage Haymitch to set aside his tendency toward implicit submission (thank you, David Hume), to rise up and do something.

And finally, we can all rest better likely knowing why Collins dribbles the color orange over practically everything she writes throughout the novel. Orange is everywhere in this book. First, “burnt orange” is likely referencing a 1970s fashion trend, which may foretell another “period piece” coming with the Sunrise film (see this post for more on this topic). Beyond those cultural references, orange appears to be Lenore Dove’s special color of rebellion, reflecting the main point of the entire story. When performing at the Mayor’s house, her lips are “tinted orange,” apparently along with her painted nails (9). It was she who dared to dream of a day when her orange morning sun would not rise over the reaping. And even in the hereafter, just as in the “old therebefore,” she was not letting Haymitch off the hook so easily.

(WHILE YOU’RE HERE: You may wish to check out my most recent companion book, Behind the Ballads: A Tribute to the People, Places and Music of Songbirds and Snakes (2024). A future companion guide for the Sunrise prequel and film is also in the works!)

Source for featured Image (Actress Mckenna Grace, cast as Maysilee Donner in Sunrise on the Reaping, and Stefania Barr from the Mainstay Pro fan video, “The Second Quarter Quell”).