Amethyst Goldwyn, District 1
"Wisdom's a gift, but you'd trade it for youth,
Age is an honor, but still not the truth."
Vampire Weekend, Step
How exactly is one to describe Amethyst Goldwyn? Numerous historians, political leaders, students of his, and even his own friends, if he had any, have tried and failed. Amethyst was nothing less than possibly the most legendary Victor of the Hunger Games in history, rivaling such early favorites as Orion Rossi and his own mentor Lorelei Jewel, as well as younger victors, popular at the time of the rebellion, like Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, and even Katniss Everdeen herself. Some would call him the greatest Career of all time, the founder of the modern pack of One, Two, and Four, as well as runner up on the all-time list of kills, with 11, just under Beatrix Carmen. He was a merciless killer, slaughtering all who stood in his path, even four of the members of his own alliance, including his district partner at the very end of the Games. He earned the first ever recorded 11 in training, won thousands of sponsors with his classic One beauty, and did it all without ever displaying an ounce of emotion.
Even once the Games were over, his legendary status never faded. Within weeks of emerging from the Arena soaking in the blood of his own district partner, he was sitting in the office of President Invictus, discussing opening a Peacekeeper training academy, an idea that the President readily agreed to. Amethyst found it very hard to believe that he didn't know the true nature of his Academy, but he was smart enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth. And so began the first ever true Career Academy in Panem.
He mentored more Victors than any other Victor in history, five. Jupiter, Jewel, Halo, Gloss, and even Luster fresh out of surgery to reboot his failing liver. All five would win exactly how Amethyst wanted them to, the classic Career way, with their hands held high.
All but one killed their district partner.
Amethyst pushed his tributes harder than anyone else at the Academy, even Lorelei. Suicide rates were higher at the One Academy than at Two and Four's combined. His students hated him, feared him, and above all, worshipped him.
When the time of the election rolled around, he only had one Victor, but his tribute that year, a fiery girl named Orient who happened to be going in alongside her boyfriend, was feisty unlike anything he'd seen in a while. Many asked him whose side he was on, Snow or Cardew. He knew the truth behind Cardew's candidacy, and he knew what would come if she won. He had no love for the Capitol, they'd murdered his family, after all, but the Games were nothing compared to the anarchy that would undoubtedly follow Cardew's victory. Snow had his, along with every One Victor's vote.
More than anything, however, it was the people he met that defined his greatness. His mentor, Lorelei Jewel, the woman who took him from nothing and made him into a legend. Amethyst respected few and trusted none, but he did know how to love and his relationship with Lorelei was full of it.
His first Victor, Jupiter Gold, and possibly the only man he would call a friend and confidante. Even the stone-cold needed someone to rely on, and for Amethyst, it would be the person he would regard as almost a son.
His Two and Four counterparts, Beatrix Carmen and Mako Devlin. Their relationship was strictly professional, but many a Capitol barman would tell tales of the trio passing out drunk in their establishments at 2am after the bloodbath every year. Amethyst was the rock of the trio, Beatrix the mind, and young Mako the visionary, making them three of the most powerful Career mentors in Games history.
President Coriolanus Snow, the man who made everything Amethyst had created possible, and, one would argue, the man who burned it to the ground. No, he didn't hold the torches that lit the fires that quite literally set the Victor's Village and Academy ablaze after the rebellion began, that honor belonged to seventy-five years of beaten-down citizens tearing the symbols of their suffering down, but Snow's tyranny had led to rebellion just as much as Katniss Everdeen's arrow.
And it was as Amethyst watched his home, his District, his nation collapse into chaos that he decided that the Games had finally worn out. Maybe Lorelei was right. All he was, all anyone was, was just a pawn in the magnificent game known as existence. And, as she'd said on her deathbed some twenty years earlier, existence was overrated.
And there he is. The living legend of Panem, Amethyst Goldwyn. Honestly this ended up being less of just a biography of the guy and more of me throwing the kitchen sink of characterization at him. This was partly because, like the chapter says, he's basically the Finnick Odair of the first quarter-century of Games, and partly because you can bet that Amethyst will be back, and bigger than anyone will be able to expect. I won't say much now, but I've got plans for future chapters. Big plans.
Next up is another semi-canon victor, the District 9 female in the Quell. I've got a cool idea of what to do for her character that I think'll work out pretty well.