Reaper Ash

Reaper Ash was the male tribute from District 11 in the 10th Hunger Games. His mentor was Clemensia Dovecote.

Biography

Reaper grew up in District 11 and became his district's male tribute in the Reaping for the 10th Hunger Games.^[1] Sometime before the reaping, Reaper killed a Peacekeeper, and nobody ever found out who did it.^[2]

Along with the other tributes, he was transported from his district to the Capitol in a cattle car. After Coriolanus Snow got into a truck with the tributes in order to spend time with his own tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, Reaper taunted Coriolanus and pinned him to the bars, his fingers around the mentor's throat. Coriolanus was only released after driving his knee into Reaper's crotch. Soon after, they were dumped into the monkey house at the Capitol Zoo.^[2]

During his interview session with Clemensia Dovecote, Reaper refused to utter a single word.^[3] While at another mentor-tribute meeting, Reaper sat at his table with a stained bandage around his head, supposedly having been injured from the bombing in the Capitol Arena. However, he was alone, as his mentor had been taken ill earlier.^[4]

The night before the Games, he spoke with the other tributes, apologizing to them personally for having to kill them and claiming that upon becoming victor, he would take revenge upon the Capitol. Most people merely stared at him, but Jessup Diggs spit in his eye, leading to him unknowingly contracting rabies.^[5]

10th Hunger Games

Reaper was one of the few tributes to run for weaponry when the gong first went off, although by the time he positioned himself in a fighting stance, the area had already been cleared of other tributes. Frustrated, Reaper climbed into the stands, ready to hunt. Later that day, he emerged from a tunnel carrying Dill, his district partner, laying her down in the sun before her death from illness.^[6]

After Jessup's death, Reaper appeared at the end of the arena and went to collect the remaining water bottles around him, though they were intended for Lucy Gray, who had fled.^[7]

Later, Reaper cut a deal with the female tribute from District 7, Lamina, who had been sitting for long hours directly underneath the sun. He tore the Panem flag and tossed it up to her in exchange for food, though this led to objections, and his mentor doubted any sponsors would be willing to aid him following such a display. Reaper then withdrew behind the barricade when Lamina pointed out Coral, Mizzen and Tanner approaching. After Lamina was killed by the pack, Reaper made a makeshift morgue of all the tributes that had died in the arena so far, with the exception of Jessup (whose body he did collect later), and covered them with a second piece of the flag. He then took Lamina's flag remnant for himself, using it as a cape.^[8]

After Wovey, the female tribute from District 8, died from Lucy Gray's poisoning, Reaper seemed suspicious as he examined her face. He suspected it was unnatural, and lined up Wovey with the other dead tributes as well, abandoning her food and water on the ground. When Dr. Volumnia Gaul released snake mutts into the arena to punish them for Gaius Breen's death, Reaper found refuge on the roof of the press box.^[9]

The first time Clemensia sent Reaper food, he brushed it off, drinking water from a puddle instead. He descended from the press box and cut off another piece of flag, using it to cover Teslee and Mizzen after they had been added to his morgue. At this point, he was unsteady from lack of food and water, as well as the rabies he had contracted earlier.^[10]

Death

When only she and Reaper remained, Lucy Gray went over to the body of Treech, the male tribute from District 7 whom she had just killed. She began to drag him to Reaper's morgue, but Reaper assumed the job himself. When he finished, Lucy Gray taunted Reaper by wreaking havoc upon the pieces of Panem's flag meant for covering the fallen tributes' corpses, moving them about aimlessly as he gave chase, insistent of keeping them covered. Aware of Jessup having previously spat at him, she purposely used the fact that Reaper had not eaten much for many days as a symptom of the rabies he had contracted to tire him out. With his attempts to give chase turning out to be futile, he desperately drank out of his puddle that, unbeknownst to him, had been contaminated with rat poison by Lucy Gray. Reaper barely made it to Treech's body before covering half of his form with the flag when his body gave out. It took the Gamemakers half an hour to fully acknowledge his passing, only doing so when Lucy Gray herself came out to check his pulse and, finding nothing, shut his eyelids.^[10]

Film adaptation

Reaper first appeared during the reaping ceremony on the screen when his mentor, Clemensia Dovecote, was assigned to him. He got off at the platform with the other tributes before being taken to the Capitol Zoo. When Coriolanus Snow joined him and the rest of the other tributes inside the truck, Reaper taunted him and asked him if he was in the wrong cage before grabbing the boy and slamming him up against the wall of the truck, threatening to kill him. His district partner Dill claimed that he had killed a Peacekeeper back in District 11. Just before Reaper and the rest of the tributes were about to attack, Lucy Gray commented that if they killed Coriolanus the Capitol would kill their families and then them. He was dumped at the zoo along with the rest of the tributes and trapped in a cage where a news team and a few Capitol citizens gawked at them.

A few days later, the tributes were chained and brought to meet their mentors and talk strategy with them for the upcoming interviews and Games ahead. Reaper met his mentor, Clemensia, when she she sat down and attempted to talk to him, but he regarded her coldly and tried to attack her but was stopped by his chains, frightening the girl. When the tributes and their mentors went to scope out the arena, Reaper was left without his mentor as she had been bitten by a snake mutt. Reaper pulled Dill aside and told her to stick by him, allying himself with her.

When the gong rang, Reaper ran as fast as he could towards the pile of weapons, where he grabbed a sword and fought a couple of tributes. Seeing Dill scared, he decided to protect her when Circ appeared and attacked him. After escaping, Reaper and Dill observed the bloodbath until the scene was clear, then stayed in the tunnels for the rest of the day. However, Dill eventually walked away, and Reaper followed her only to find her lying on the ground. Reaper tried to help her, but discovered that she had been killed from drinking water poisoned by Lucy Gray Baird.

Afterward, he decided to place all the corpses he could find under the broken beam in the arena. To cover them, he tore down the Panem flag, approaching the morgue that he had made and placing the flag over all the bodies. Suddenly, a drone appeared carrying a large tank, which it deposited in the middle of the sand. Seeing Wovey approaching the tank, Reaper warned her to stay away, but Wovey was killed as the tank released hundreds of deadly snakes. Rather than trying to fight them off, Reaper stayed completely still and allowed them to overcome him, placing 3rd.^[11]

Physical description

Reaper was rangy, tall and muscular, with dark brown skin and patched burlap clothing.^[2] After the bombing in the arena, Reaper had a bandage stained with dried, rusty blood wrapped around his head.^[4] When he was ill from hunger in the Games, he became gaunt and unsteady, rocking back and forth.^[10]

Etymology

His mentor, Clemensia, found his name quite ironic, given that he was reaped for the Hunger Games. However, Reaper's given name is just a farming name;^[3] it refers to reaping, which is the cutting of grain for the harvest. His surname Ash refers to what is left behind by a fire, as in the aftermath of the First Rebellion. His first name is also reminiscent of the Grim Reaper, as he collected the bodies of the tributes after they died in the Games.

Trivia

• Reaper could be seen having some sort of mutual bond with his fellow District 11 tribute, Dill. In the moments leading up to her death during the first day of the Games, Reaper carried her out of the tunnels and made a lackluster attempt of comforting her, ultimately leaving her be. Their relationship vaguely paralleled that of Thresh and Rue during the 74th Hunger Games.
• Despite being one of the stronger tributes and armed with a weapon, Reaper did not make a single kill throughout the Games, instead using intimidation as a defense mechanism. Furthermore, he was the only tribute to stay in the main portion of the arena during the beginning of the Games.
• He was one of only three tributes in the 10th Hunger Games whose last name was revealed. The others were the pair from District 12.
• In the film adaptation, actor Dimitri Abold adlibbed Reaper fake-lunging at Clemensia during the tribute-mentor meeting. He ran this by director Francis Lawrence first, but Clemensia's actress, Ashley Liao, was not told ahead of time.^[12]

References