The Brutal series (or Brutal trilogy) is a series of fan fictions by Number One Fan of Journey on Fanfiction.net. It is named for its first installment, Brutal, and continues with a sequel, Horrible, and a new third installment, Miserable. It also has a few tie-ins, so far including Coming Home, Of Happiness and Sanity, Hit The Bottle, and What If.This series is a crossover between The Hunger Games and Axis Powers Hetalia. The countries are taken from Hetalia, turned into humans (some with slightly different or very different traits from the original characters) and thrown into the Hunger Games as average District kids.
Provides Examples Of:
Abusive Parents: It's hinted that the father of Toris, Esto, and Raivis may be one of these.
Amer and Igris settle all of their debts with the world and leave things to chance so neither has to die by the hand of the other.
Amer at the end of the third What If scenario concludes that he'll die allowing Raivis to win and preventing Eston from becoming like him.
Alternate Universe Fic: Rather than countries, the Hetalia characters are human. And a LOT of them have different personalities.
The Alcoholic: None mentioned in the core series, but in What If, third ending, Raivis ends up one, at least for a while. This is the topic of "Hit The Bottle".
Sadik holds a knife up to Lovi's throat and forces Spain to make a Sadistic Choice: hand over the rest of the alliance's food or watch her die. Spain, of course, forks over the food. Lovi is not pleased by this, saying she'd have preferred a quick death to one by starvation.
America Saves the Day: Not America itself, but the characters representing the country, both want to be heroes in their own sense of the word - Amer by protecting his allies, Alf by winning the Games and bringing glory to his district. Only Amer actually manages to 'save the day', though, and more often than not he just ends up making things worse.
And Then What?: Thew realizes that Alf (who thinks he killed Thew) is terrified of ghosts and dresses up as one to scare him. However, when his plan succeeds and he has Alf trembling at his mercy, he realizes that he has no idea what to do next, and merely leaves with an ominous but vague warning.
Amer throughout the latter half of Horrible, after he kills Sadik and Vahn.
It's even worse in the climax of What If, in which he actually lets Gries run him through because he feels he does not deserve to live.
Spain also has shades of this, when we learn his main motivation for protecting Lovi is guilt over killing a young woman and a desire not to let another die.
Attempted Rape: Wiremu has every intention to do this. To the relief of all the female tributes (and readers), he gets killed trying to start something with Finni.
Author Appeal: The author is quite fond of both gore and driving her readers to tears.
Dardana aims to do this to the tributes from 10 (Meghna and Amer) in order to avenge her friend Corianne, a career killed by Gil two years earlier.
Subverted with Natalya, who was mature enough not to do this in Horrible, as she realized killing Amer would not bring her adopted brother/love interest Vahn back to life.
Vivi from Brutal is a criminally insane girl who delights in the bloodshed of the Hunger Games, going so far as to shove a sickle into her own throat because she thought her impending death by poison wasn't violent enough.
Russia also qualifies after he loses his mind in Brutal and becomes a psychopath who murders anyone he comes across.
This also happens to Norge when the stress of protecting his sibling gets the better of him.
Also Igris and Fronce. Eventually includes Amer as well.
Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted a few times, but upheld others. Not much detail is really put into the slow decay of the characters' physical conditions, other than a short paragraph with Natalya.
Don't kill any of Amer's friends. Or injure them. Or look like you might injure them. And you probably shouldn't look at them funny, either. For that matter, you should probably keep a good 30 metres of distance between yourself and any of his friends.
Don’t threaten or hurt Liet in front of Switz. It’s not a great idea to just leave the alliance without telling him, either.
Don’t threaten or hurt Finni in front of Sve. Wiremu found this out the hard way.
Don’t mock Maria's death or last words in front of Spain.
Don’t hit on Veta if you're not Austria (see Franse's introductory chapter).
Beta Couple: Sve/Finni, Natalya/Vahn, and Rome/Ania. Notable in that all of them are largely one-sided.
Part of Japan's reasoning for stabbing himself rather than letting Alf strangle him.
Rather than let the Gamemakers eventually kill them with the raging fire beneath them, Sve and Natalya jump into it and thus decide when they're going to die.
Most of the nice people in the series snap if they're not killed off quickly enough.
Especially Russia. Cheerful the whole time... Even while killing people
Veta is pleasant enough (other than hitting Franse over the head for hitting on her) until she beats Gil’s brains out with a frying pan.
Amer is an almost impossibly nice person, but he’ll kill anyone who threatens his friends.
Tina, who totally killed Den with his own cleaver.
Spain. A typically nice, friendly guy who strangled someone for mocking his sister and bashes in Ania's brains in the sixth What If.
Big Bad Ass Bird Of Prey: One of these chases Gil and Thew during Brutal. It also features prominently in one of the What If endings and receives the name “Gil-bird”.
Both Frances - Franse from Brutal and Fronce from Horrible.
Ciano is also described as looking rather feminine.
Bittersweet Ending: And the 'sweet' part only comes in if you like the victors. Both survive, but are tormented by memories of the Games and those they lost.
Black Magic: Aurth certainly thinks he has it. Whether or not he does is debatable.
Bloodier and Gorier: This isn’t hard to achieve when Hetalia is involved in the crossover. But under those qualifications, this series is absolute overkill of this trope.
With Ciano's fate in the fourth What If ending, it may qualify under Hunger Games grounds, too.
Book Ends: Both the first and last chapters of Horrible (not counting the epilogue) involve Igris' broken Beatles CD. The first time it's just a throwaway occurrence, but the second time is a touching moment that shows how much Igris' brother cared for him and allows him to Go Out With a Smile.
Break the Cutie: Most of the cuties are involved in this one. Especially dear little Raivis.
Breather Episode: Tends to happen a lot. If an alliance goes through an undisturbed period of lighthearted bonding, rest assured that it will end very badly for them, very soon.
Special mention goes to Veta's and Austria's wedding before the latter is murdered, as well as the apple-tossing chapter of What If.
The poison that Igris recieves from a sponsor in Horrible is quickly forgotten, but becomes vital in the climax.
Less obvious is the loop on the end of Veta's frying pan in Brutal. While grieving Austria's death, she absentmindedly muses over its purpose. Later, in the final battle, it saves her life when Russia's knife tip gets caught in it, allowing her to wrench it out of his hands.
Chronic Hero Syndrome: Amer has it really bad. He volunteers for the Games in the place of his brother, asks nearly everyone to be allies so he'll have someone to protect, attacks a pickaxe-wielding tribute with only a hypodermic needle to save someone he barely knows, is constantly willing to die protecting his friends, blames himself for everything that goes wrong, nearly kills himself at the end of the story so that Igris can live, and then can't go through with it because he doesn't want to let down his brother. And that's not even counting What If.
Cruel and Unusual Death: About every other death. Even worse in What If. Notable examples include
Peyton being stabbed multiple times by Vivi, who intentionally leaves enough time between attacks so that her victim will suffer for as long as possible, in Brutal.
Veta smashing Gil's skull to pieces with a frying pan in Brutal.
Vash being blown up by explosive pinecones in Horrible.
Raivis being slowly frozen to death by a poison injected into him by thorny vines, in Horrible.
Lovi gets this fate in What If.
Vahn having his abdomen "shredded to the point of unidentifiability," by Amer's clawed glove, in Horrible.
Finni having a hole drilled in her chest by a pointy-tailed mutt, in Horrible.
Switz being eaten alive by wolves in What If.
Thew's death in Brutal is a subversion of this, as he suffered the same fate but was unconscious during it.
Thew and Liet having their heads (and possibly more in the latter case) decimated by a morningstar in What If.
Ciano being burned alive by a swarm of fire crickets in What If.
China slowly rotting away from the cat muttation's venom in the sixth What If scenario.
Spain having his abdomen sliced open and slowly losing his innards in the sixth What If scenario.
Paliss has her skull completely smashed by being repeatedly slammed onto a metal plate at the Miserable bloodbath.
Cry Cute: After complaining about Spain for most of the Fan Fic, Lovi breaks down crying and thanks him for all his help when she thinks they're going to be killed by cat muttations. In true Tsundere fashion, she vehemently denies her emotional outburst afterwards.
Russia crosses the Despair Event Horizon into full-blown madness after the death of his sister Ukraine.
Losing his brother Toris to the Games two years previously turns Raivis into even more of a nervous, paranoid wreck than he already was.
Spain is also scarred by his sister Maria's death in an earlier Games, and is partially inspired to protect Lovi due to remorse over not saving Perdita at the bloodbath.
The guilt of accidentally killing China haunts Fronce for the rest of the Games.
But probably the Most Triumphant Example is the effect that Raivis' and Eston's deaths (and probably Fronce's and Igris's, following the Games) had on Amer, forever destroying his view of himself as a hero and leaving him with extreme Survivors Guilt.
Deadpan Snarker: Nearly everyone, at one point or another. Snarky characters are a given in practically any of Number One Fan of Journey's works. Special mention must go to Igris, Lovi, and Gries.
Death Faked for You: Thew, sort of. A bit of a subversion in that nobody intentionally sets him up for it; it's more of a series of extremely convenient coincidences that leads everyone to believe he has died.
Death As Comedy: Who didn't chuckle a little when Dardana was offed?
Death by Adaptation: Applies to everyone apart from the victors, as obviously character death is not much of a problem in Axis Powers Hetalia. Veta and Amer both get in this in What If, as well as many characters who die earlier than usual, such as Spain, Igris, and Thew in the first, third and fourth endings respectively.
Poal, being killed by the muttation she'd tried to convince Toris was harmless.
Zigzagged with Thew, whose cause of death (mauled by wolves) was not particularly ironic, but the fact that he was finished so offhandedly when he'd been trying to bring himself to the spotlight for once was.
Not to mention his life was saved by a cannon firing at just the right time… And then a different cannon firing at just the wrong time indirectly leads to his death.
In an extremely dark example, Eston could qualify in the third What If ending, as he is killed by the person sworn to protect him.
Definitely Lovi, who's always acting like she doesn't need Spain, but lets her true feelings show when they're in danger.
Igris as well; he starts out cold towards everyone, but genuinely comes to care for his allies Fronce and Amer (although it’s hinted he really cared about Fronce the whole time).
Russia crosses over this into full-blown insanity in a matter of sentences after he finds his sister's severed head in Brutal.
Veta dances on it after her fiancee, Austria, is murdered, but manages to stay stable enough to survive the Hunger Games and mentor for at least another two years, though she's still definitely a Broken Bird.
The same scenario occurs in Horrible with Amer, due to the deaths of all his allies, his violent murder of Vahn, and his victory at the cost of Igris' life.
Sve and Natalya cross it over the deaths of their respective love interests.
Lovi looks like she may cross it when Spain won't wake up, but Ania gets there first.
Dies Wide Open: Finni dies with her eyes open; Sve shuts them.
Digging Yourself Deeper: After accidentally revealing that he's killed someone before the Games, Spain tries to placate Lovi by joking around about it, but this only ends up frightening her more.
Disney Death: Thew appears to die at one point during Brutal, but was actually only knocked unconscious while another tribute's cannon sounded. Subverted in that he does die later.
Doom Magnet: Amer, so much. He even lampshades this at one point. Every last one of his allies dies despite his best efforts. Though, given the nature of the Hunger Games, this is justified.
Doomed by Canon: Toris, Poal, Raivis and Celladora all have to die because, according to The Hunger Games, District 12 has had only two victors - one a canon character, the other established in another of Number One Fan of Journey's fan fictions.
This is averted, however, in one of the alternate endings, where Raivis wins.
Although it doesn't happen within the actual story, one can assume that Veta and Amer did not live to see the fall of the Capitol, as all but seven victors are killed by the end of Mockingjay.
Sve and Natalya, after the deaths of their love interests, discuss surviving to the final two, then killing themselves so there will be no victor. The Capitol is not pleased and sends a ring of fire around them. Their response is to jump into the flames together.
Amer tries to do this at the end of Horrible but cannot go through with it, although he does in the third What If ending. He also kills himself in the the sixth What If ending.
Amer and Lovi also allow Gries to kill them in the first What If because Amer feels he does not deserve to live, and Lovi can’t stand the thought of surviving at the cost of causing another person’s death.
After a serious head injury takes away the little remaining control of her life, Ania drives a blade through her wrists in What If.
Drop the Hammer: Spain and Lovi share a hammer as their only weapon.
The Dulcinea Effect: A very rare gender-flipped example can be seen with Amer, who regularly risks his life for friends he's known for less than a few days.
Dying Alone: Many characters die alone or with no one but their killer nearby, but the unpleasantness of such a fate is only mentioned with China, who is abandoned to die from poison by her allies Fronce and Igris. Fronce wishes to go back to avoid this trope, but Igris refuses.
Dying as Yourself: Possibly Russia, if you squint really, really hard. He doesn't 'get better' or feel remorse by any means, but it's worth something that his final thought was of his sister, for whom he had barely spared a thought after going insane.
Eagleland: Alf is a type 2, whereas Amer, who wants to be type 1, is more of a mix between the two.
Raivis and Spain, who become important characters in Horrible, are briefly mentioned by their siblings Toris and Maria in Brutal.
Vahn is mentioned as having broken Russia's hand.
Sadik and Gries appear as Veta's tributes in the Brutal epilogue.
Matt and Esto, brothers to Amer and Raivis/Toris, also get brief mentions before becoming central in the spin-offs "Coming Home" and "Hit the Bottle".
The list goes on with Shiran and Feli, now characters in Miserable.
Eat The Dog: In Brutal, a deranged Russia encounters one of the cute pony muttations, greets it with a friendly "Hello!"... and then kills it and cooks its meat. Justified, as this is the Hunger Games.
Elsewhere Fic: Takes place during the 43rd, 45th, and the 48th Hunger Games.
Rome gets stabbed in the back by his district partner, Ania.
Lovi almost enacts this trope by trying to kill Spain in his sleep, but is unable to bring herself to do it. Though she does end up giving him an injury, which allowed some sort of small muttation into his brain. This may have ended up killing him if Ania had not done so first.
Switz reacts in this way when Austria leaves his alliance.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Vahn has his adopted sister Natalya. Dardana has her best friend Corianne. Taberah has her ailing father.
Even Evil Has Standards: After slaughtering Vahn, Amer notes with disgust that he's never seen even a Career do anything as violent to a victim as he did.
The Gamemakers moving the arena of Horrible to the Brutal one to mess with the tributes who lost loved ones in that game.
Vivi counts as well, laughing insanely as she delivers violent death blows to her victims, as does Russia when he goes mad.
And possibly the author, who seems to like chapter titles with puns about dismemberment and other things.
Evil Me Scares Me: Amer is terrified of his violent side and tries his best to restrain it, often without success.
Executive Meddling: In-universe example. Several of the tributes of Horrible had ties to the Brutal tributes, so the Gamemakers ditched the arena they'd set up and changed the location of the 45th Games to the arena used in the 43rd for 'extra drama.'
After killing Spain in the first What If ending, Lovi gouges out her own eye. With a hammer. Fun stuff.
In Brutal, Switz pokes his scissors into an alligator's eyes to save his sister.
Face Death with Dignity: Quite a few characters: Japan, Switz, Sve, Natalya, and Igris in the core series, not to mention Eston and Amer in the third What If ending.
Face Heel Turn: Although there aren't really good and bad 'sides' in the Hunger Games, Russia's transformation from a cheerful boy to a remorseless killing machine might be considered this.
Fighting From The Inside: Amer struggles to surpress his insanity and bloodlust throughout the latter half of Horrible, particularly at the start of the fight with Rome and Ania.
In the second alliance, The Hero / The Smart Guy is Igris (The 'Smart Guy' part isn't as obvious as it was with Eston, but he's the most rational of the bunch in most occasions, particularly when it comes to rations, and also the one to think up the poison plan at the end.), The Lancer / The Big Guy is Amer, and The Chick is Fronce.
Another three-man version comes from Brutal; the roles are not as well-defined, but still evident if one looks closely: The Hero / The Big Guy is Switz, The Lancer / The Smart Guy is Austria, and The Chick is Liet.
Flashback Nightmare: Ania is tormented by these towards the end of Horrible.
Nicely averted throughout the series, with characters such as Spain, Raivis, Fronce, Dardana, Igris, Veta, Sve, Natalya and Amer dwelling frequently on their lost siblings, friends, and love interests.
Seemingly played straight but actually averted with Amer after he wins the Hunger Games; he pretends to have forgotten his allies, but is actually tormented with grief and guilt over their deaths.
Definitely averted with Raivis in "Hit the Bottle".
Played straight with Toris, who is never shown to express any emotion over Poal's death (though this may be due to the fact that he died in his next appearance.)
Gender Flip: Germania, South Italy, China, Greece, Poland and Finland are all female here. As are Sweden, Finland (again) and North Italy in Miserable.
Maria is so relieved she got her last words that she manages to smile before she dies.
Japan at least thinks he smiles when Lude tells him what an honour it was to fight alongside him.
Laine is so cheerful she even finds reason to laugh at the weapon that murdered her.
Igris in the ending of Horrible.
After taking a knife for Liet, Switz smiles at her one final time before dying.
Go Through Me: Not the exact wording, but towards the end of Brutal Liet gets in front of an injured Switz and says she won't let Russia hurt him. It doesn't end well.
Russia almost has one, when he compares himself to the career who murdered his sister, but by now he's so far gone that he dismisses the thought that he could be doing anything wrong as completely ridiculous.
Switz is almost too injured to move, but when Russia is about to kill Liet, he finds the energy to push her out of the way and Take the Bullet himself.
Amer does this when fighting Vahn in the third What If.
Switz is the living embodiment of this trope. He volunteers for the Hunger Games so he can help his twelve-year old sister, Liet, survive, knowing full well that doing so means his death. During the games he constantly gives her his rations and carries her on his back, even when he's injured and starving. Finally, he pushes her out of the way when Russia attacks them, taking a knife in his chest and dying.
Before this happened, Liet also took several blows from Russia's blade, shielding her brother.
In the Brutal bloodbath, Franse attacks Alf to buy his district partner, Wynd, some time to escape. Unfortunately, Alf finishes him off almost immediately before dispatching Wynd.
In Horrible, two different people volunteer to protect their loved ones – Sve to protect his crush, Finni, in the games, and Amer in place of his twin brother Matt. Sve's sacrifice is wasted as Finni dies before him, but Amer wins and returns home to his brother.
Also in Horrible, allies Amer and Igris were both willing to do this so the other would live. They eventually settled on a game of chance to decide the Victor. Igris was the loser.
Eston and Amer in the third What If ending.
What Norge has been attempting to do for Ise. Ise ends up dead before this can happen, though.
When their alliance is threatened by a tidal wave, Plutonia stays behind to wake up Shiran, even though it means she won't make it.
Hidden Depths: Nearly every character who survives the bloodbath and isn't a Career (and even here there are some exceptions) will have this trope.
Holding Hands: Peyton notes with dismay that many of the district partners in Brutal are doing this during the chariot rides, meaning that lots of them already know each other.
Hollywood Healing: Largely averted, as most of the characters attain and many die from serious wounds, and those who survive do so thanks to Capitol first aid.
Zigzagged with Fronce though, as he manages to survive getting a sword through the stomach but later dies from infection, though not from the stomach wounds but from a thin cut his allies didn't notice.
Sadik vowed to go as far as he could through the Games without killing, even if it meant starving to death from a lack of donations. His resolve caved in rather quickly and he forced Spain to make a sadistic choice between Lovi's life and the rest of their alliance's food. Subverted in that, despite the fact that he ended up choosing reason before honour, he couldn't go through with killing Lovi, and merely left with the food.
Hope Spot: Near the end of Horrible, Gries and Ania go head-to-head. Ania is quickly dispatched by Gries, but not before sticking a sword through her chest. However, Gries isn't done for yet, reasoning that if she just keeps the sword firmly stuck in her body, she won't bleed to death. Then she sneezes, and loses her grip…
How Dare You Die on Me!: Lovi to Spain, Igris to Fronce, Sve to Finni. Numerous other characters also echo "you can't die," sentiments to their fallen allies.
Spain, burdened with guilt from a past murder, uncertainty over his own morality, and an ungrateful ally, never stops trying to help Lovi through the Games.
Amer, who tries hard to be a good person despite some spectacular failures and the loss of his friends.
Switz, accepting the burdens of injury and starvation to keep his sister alive and putting on a smile so she won't see the toll she's taking on him.
And, of course, Paliss. Has there ever been a time since she wasn't crying?
Idiot Hero: Amer has elements of this, particularly towards the beginning of the story.
I Dont Want to Die: Obviously, none of the characters do, but Eston fulfills this trope in the traditional sense during the third What If scenario, in which he asks to be alone and cries for a while before letting himself be killed so Raivis can win the Hunger Games.
If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten: The Career pack tests Lude this way by making him kill a defenceless Ciano, whom he had briefly befriended in training. He does (except in What If).
Ignored Epiphany: At one point towards the end of the story, Russia compares himself to the Career who murdered his sister, wondering if he isn't just as bad. Unfortunately, by now he's so far gone that he dismisses the thought as completely ridiculous.
I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Amer with everyone in his alliances, but most strongly Eston and Raivis. Sve, after Finni is killed. Spain also has a brief moment of this with Perdita.
I'm Cold... So Cold...: Stammered a bit less dramatically by Raivis before the poison from the cyan vine takes over, and he dies.
Improvised Weapon: So much – and it actually works! Veta uses a frying pan against Gil (and Russia); Amer uses his broken glasses against Sadik.
Interrupted Suicide: Zigzagged with Amer at the end of Horrible. He is about to commit suicide, but stops himself - not because he was physically interrupted by anyone, but because he knows his brother is watching this on TV and would interrupt him if he could.
Insane Equals Violent: Russia, to the extreme. Justified in-universe, as a sponsor sends him a knife as he is crossing the Despair Event Horizon to convey the message that, with the death of his sister, no one stood in his way of winning the games and he was now free to eliminate the rest of the field.
Involuntary Battle to the Death: Between Igris and Amer at the end of Horrible and Amer, Eston and Raivis at the end of the third What If. Notable in that, while the characters Took a Third Option to prevent an actual battle in both scenarios, said Third Options still resulted in one or more deaths.
Amer after Vahn indirectly causes Raivis' death and kills Eston.
I Will Only Slow You Down: While not stated word-for-word, Fronce tries to persuade Igris to leave him behind instead of carrying him around as he slowly dies of infection.
Igris pretty much acts like he hates everyone, but when Fronce is close to death (and later dies), he reveals how much he really cared. He constantly insults and complains about Amer as well, but likes him to the point of dying for him.
Lovi has a gruff exterior and spends much of her time angry at Spain, but similar to Igris, lets her true feelings show when their lives are threatened.
Karma Houdini: Russia gets off scot-free in both the Brutal What Ifs.
Vahn's chopping off the pinky finger of poor little Raivis.
Vivi torturing poor Peyton and continuing to mutilate her body.
Wiremu attempting to rape Finni.
Ania kicking Rome in the stomach as he lay dying.
While advancing to kill Ise, Ilber casually hits Mr. Puffin with his sword For the Evulz. He quickly discovers this was a very bad idea.
Kick Them While They Are Down: Quite a few times: Amer to Vahn, Veta to Gil, Ania to Rome, and that's just in the core series. In What If we have Gil to Austria and Veta as well as Lude to Liet. The reasons for these vary from Unstoppable Rage to Sanity Slippage to simple jerkishness.
Kick the Son of a Bitch: Amer'sStart of Darkness comes when he brutally murders Vahn ... who had used his friends Raivis and Eston for slave labour, kept them in line with death threats, sliced off one of Raivis' fingers when he tried to run away, indirectly led to Raivis' death, and finally murdered Eston with a pickaxe.
Kidanova: Franse, Fronce, and Rome. Apparently Rome even dates dozens of girls at once.
Kill 'Em All: Even if they don't die in the original, they die in the alternate endings.
Kill the Cutie: Pretty much any sweet, lovable character is involved in this - Liet, Ciano, Perdita, Laine, Raivis...
Killed Off for Real: Everyone but Veta and Amer, and some minor characters back home.
Kill It with Fire: Most of the cat muttations in the sixth What If ending get burnt to death pursuing Igris, Fronce and China through the lava crater. ( China only barely avoids this fate as well.)
Kill It With Water: Lude employs this technique on the fire crickets in Brutal.
Norge. Cold at first, but then warms up considerably when he finds that Ise is his brother. That also leads to The Reveal.
You could count Osso as a Kuudere too. His dying moments with Magya sure confirmed his warm side.
Last Request: Igris' is that, should Amer win the Games, he not blame himself for Fronce's death. This being Amer, of course, he breaks the promise. Igris also asks him to hit his little brother on the head for breaking his Beatles CD should he meet him on the Victory Tour.
Lighter and Softer: The fifth What If ending. Not that that's a bad thing.
Lovable Coward: Ciano, and Raivis, to an extent. Not that one can blame them for being scared.
Love Makes You Crazy: Natalya all the way, in her insane obsession with her foster brother/love interest Vahn.
Manly Tears: Igris tries hard not to cry after Fronce's death but gives in. Amer tells him this is nothing to be ashamed of.
Meaningful Echo: After Igris abandons China to die alone, Fronce indignantly asks him if he would leave him behind in a similar situation. Igris responds that he would instead stick around to taunt him. Much later, after Fronce has been gravely injured and knocked out, he wakes up to discover Igris is carrying him on his back. The first words out of his mouth? "So you didn't leave me behind after all."
Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Amer would certainly like to kill himself at the end of the third What If scenario, but that would mean leaving his two allies to kill each other. So he has to Shoot the Dog before offing himself.
From Poal's facepalm-inducing insistence on pony-riding to her death pony-riding.
Also seen in the third What If ending: one chapter, Amer, Raivis and Eston are happily playing a game of catch with apple cores. The next chapter, they're deciding which of them will be murdered by their ally. Yikes.
More Expendable than You: Raivis plays this card when Eston is going to die for him at the end of the third What If scenario, claiming that he is worthless compared to the heroic Amer and the intelligent Eston. It doesn't work.
In Brutal, Switz is determined to die so his sister, Liet can win. Once she figures out what he's going to do, she decides to do the same thing for him. They both end up Taking the Bullet for each other, dying together.
In the end of Horrible, Amer and Igris come to a stalemate because neither one of them wants to kill the other, and neither will let the other commit suicide. They end up settling things with a game of chance that leaves Amer the victor.
Mortal Wound Reveal: Fronce's wounds are seemingly patched up after a battle with Careers, but later it's revealed he's dying of infection from a tiny scar which his allies overlooked because it was hidden behind his long hair.
Murder by Mistake: Thew puts poisonous berries into Alf's water bottle, intending to kill him, but Vivi drinks it instead.
Gries and Ania, in the last battle of Horrible. The same scenario occurs between then in the third What If.
In the first What If, Igris and Ania get this – he holds her underwater until she drowns, then dies of the wounds he received during their swordfight.
Chia and Philan take each other out this way in the bloodbath of Brutal.
Igris and Rome in the sixth What If.
My Greatest Failure: A large part of Spain's desire to protect Lovi stems from his guilt over murdering a young woman who insulted his sister, as well as for not trying to save Perdita at the bloodbath.
Played with in Brutal - realizing that, having both been reaped, they won't have a wedding, the engaged couple Austria and Veta tie the knot in the middle of the Games by reciting the wedding vows they've memorized.
Natalya also plans to do this with Vahn in Horrible. Unluckily for her, he’s kind of dead and gutted by the time she finds him.
Nations as People: Obviously, considering what this is partially based off of.
Never Bring a Knife to a Fistfight: Sadik commences his and Amer's fist fight by pulling a knife, and promptly loses it. Guess who wins. Sort of zigzagged, though, since he wasn't trying to play dirty by taking out the knife, just warning Amer not to mess with him.
Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Russia, Russia, and a thousand times Russia. He snaps so much that he views the killing as one fun game, even carving a happy face into the flesh of one of his victims, and is completely unaware of how horrific he has become.
Spain vows to protect Lovi throughout the Games, but unintentionally reveals to her that he once killed a woman in a fit of anger. This makes his young district partner so terrified of him that she attempts to murder him in his sleep, getting cold feet at the last second but giving him a blow that leads to amnesia.
Also, after Raivis dies as an indirect result of Vahn's actions, Amer rushes off to kill him. Unfortunately, in doing so, he leaves his other ally Eston alone and unguarded, providing the perfect opportunity for Vahn to stick a pickaxe through his head.
In the first What If ending, Rome has his neck torn to absolute shreds.
Nobody Poops: Subverted. Bathroom breaks are pretty much used at leisure to separate allies.
Non-Action Guy: Quite a few of the boys apply: Toris, Ciano, Austria and Thew in Brutal and Raivis, Eston, Spain and Fronce in Horrible never use any weapons outside of the Training Centre and mostly choose to evade rather than confront. This changes a bit in What If, when Spain takes on the careers twice.
Many of Igris' cooking attempts mentioned by Fronce, along with other references to the two's past bickering. Though this also hints at why Igris’ mentor wouldn’t think Fronce would notice a packet of bitter cyanide mixed in his food.
At the beginning of his introductory chapter, Eston states he'd "rather not elaborate on" any of his past wood-related endeavors.
Igris refuses to abandon Fronce, even when he's mortally wounded and Careers are closing in. he was perfectly fine with leaving China to die alone earlier.
Plutonia sacrifices herself making sure Shiran wakes up in time to escape the tidal wave.
In Brutal, Russia has an almost-Heel Realization when he considers that what he's been doing to the other tributes, is essentially the same as what Japan did to his sister. However, by this point he's so far over the edge that he concludes this thought is ridiculous.
In Horrible, Amer realizes that anything bad he says about Vahn would also apply to himself, as they have both been responsible for deaths in the Games.
To an extent, Thew and Alf. Thew holds the other in contempt for killing without mercy or remorse, but that is essentially what he does to the Careers.
Igris has broken out of his usual icy exterior on several occasions, both in the core series and What If. In Horrible, he expresses genuine emotion over Fronce's injury and death, as well as when putting his life on the line to give Amer a chance at getting home. In the sixth What If, he cries upon realizing he's going to die alone.
Lude tries to remain a stiff-upper-lipped soldier throughout the fourth What If, but can't help crying when Ciano dies. And it all goes downhill from here.
Ominous Walk: Ise thinks Ilber is doing this during their confrontation. In reality, Ilber has been recently injured, hence the slow approach.
Only Sane Man: Definitely Sui. Maybe Shiran. And yes, Ise. After all, they're the only combatants who aren't going through mental withdrawal or anything.
Overly-Long Gag: "There's a hole in my bucket, dear Meghna!"
Pay Evil unto Evil: Thew seems to have no qualms with slipping poison into the Careers' drinks because they've killed innocent people.
Doubly subverted with Russia – he starts out at this, loses his marbles and his morality over his sister's death, and still manages to remain optimistic in a completely terrifying way.
Shiran (even when he thinks that he's going to die, he still does his best to hide it and cheers Plutonia up) and Tina (well, before she went through a Break the Cutie process!).
Power Trio: Found all over the place: Switz, Liet and Austria; Igris, Fronce and China; Amer, Raivis and Eston; Igris, Amer and Fronce; Den, Sui and Tina...
Properly Paranoid: Poor Toris and Plutonia. Their allies Poal and Shiran are constantly telling them to stop worrying about things, but seeing as they're in the middle of the Hunger Games, it's not as if they don't have good reason.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Technically all the careers count, but Lude and Japan fit the best.
Gil is beaten over the head with a frying pan repeatedly, managing to hang on until it has chipped away some of his skull.
It takes having all his internal organs ripped out and his body hacked through all the way to his spine to kill Vahn.
Liet, of all people, gets this in the fourth What If, as Lude discovers it takes more than one morningstar blow to the head to kill her.
Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Subverted hard. I don't think anyone can actually stutter as much as Raivis does in the story. The level of grammatical errors in both speech and narration varies with the character as well.
Eston starts out as this to Raivis, who lost his sibling Toris to a previous Games and wants a 'brother' in the arena.
Arguably, Fronce and Igris could be seen as this for Amer after the death of his first alliance, because he can't stand being alone and his Chronic Hero Syndrome drives him to protect people.
Revenge by Proxy: Dardana's revenge on the tributes from 10 is partway between this and Sins of Our Fathers. Since her friend Corianne's killer, Gil, is dead, she decides to avenge him by killing the current tributes from 10. Fortunately, she doesn't get too far.
Russian Guy Suffers Most: Inverted and played straight - Russia and Vahn spend most of their time making life miserable for their fellow tributes, but Russia's insanity stems from a horrific Despair Event Horizon moment, and Vahn gets what might be the most painful death in the series.
Russian Roulette: Amer and Igris do this with poison at the end of Horrible.
All of the bloodbath victims fulfill this trope to a T.
Some of the earlier deaths could qualify, to a lesser extent. Characters such as Vash, Poal and Bell have defined personalities and some development, but still don't last very long and their deaths have little impact on the plot other than that another tribute is down.
Many characters fulfill this role, their absence having serious effect upon either the surviving tributes or the reader. Notable examples include Austria, Switz and Liet from Brutal, and Eston, Raivis, Lovi, Spain, Finni and Fronce from Horrible.
Ukraine and Toris, to a lesser extent. Neither lasted as long or had as much prominence as any of those already mentioned, but both's deaths were crucial to the plot: hers was necessary to bump Russia over the Despair Event Horizon; his to show just how insane the aforementioned had become.
This was the plan for Switz and Sve - survive to the final two, then kill themselves to ensure the Victory of little sister Liet and love interest Finni. Neither of them got to go through with it.
Looks like Sheen might be plotting this for Feli in Miserable.
Shoot Him He Has a Wallet: Zigzagged with Sadik's death. He was pulling a knife, averting this trope, but was doing so to deter, not harm, his attacker.
Shoot the Dog: Amer killing Eston in the third What If scenario so that he and Raivis won't be the final two.
Shout Out: Clever little jokes and references to Axis Powers Hetalia are scattered throughout the text.
Sole Survivor: Each story has only one: Veta in Brutal, Amer in Horrible, and Gries, Russia, Raivis, Russia again, and Fronce in the What Ifs (respectively, and not counting the fifth.)
Someone Has to Die: The third scenario in What If Amer volunteers to kill Eston or Raivis then himself. Eston loses the coin toss and dies in place of Raivis
Spared by Adaptation: What If is built around this. Gries, Raivis, Fronce and Russia all get to keep their lives at least once (with Russia surviving twice). Taken Up to Eleven in the fifth What If, in which everybody survives.
Spiritual Successor: Although Number One Fan of Journey's oneshot "Asylum" is listed as being solely a Hunger GamesFan Fiction, the author has confirmed that it is basically an epilogue to the second or fourth What If endings.
Star-Crossed Lovers: Veta and Austria, the Official Couple of Brutal whose engagement is tragically cut short by the Games. Other relationships, such as Sve/Finni, Vahn/Natalya, Ania/Rome, Lovi/Spain and Sheen/Feli, are present but too one-sided to qualify as 'star-crossed.'
Stepford Smiler: Russia is always smiling, even while slicing up and killing other tributes.
The Stoic: Vash, Gries, Osso, Lude, Ania, Japan, Igris ... Some of them end up as Not So Stoic, though.
Stuffed Into the Fridge: Played almost straight with Ukraine and Russia. Japan didn't intentionally leave her headless body where Russia could find it, but other than that, her death and the circumstances it has fit the trope summary to a T.
Sort of. Veta is the sole survivor of Brutal but her death kicks off the first What If ending based off that fic.
Also, Switzerland is a very important character in Brutal but his alternate version dies rather swiftly and unceremoniously in Horrible.
Suicide Pact: After the deaths of their love interests, Sve and Natalya decided to do this together as a way of insulting the Capitol. Turns out the Gamemakers didn't like their plans much...
Survivors Guilt: Amer suffers the guilt of surviving while his friends did not. Veta feels the same about her fiancee/husband Austria.
Two Guys and a Girl: Switz, Liet and Austria; Igris, Fronce, and China; briefly Norge, Ise and Sui.
Weak, but Skilled: Shiran. Definitely not the physically strongest, but he manages to avoid certain death with his expertise in swimming, as well as kill Norge with some frog poison.
White-Haired Pretty Boy: Ax and Magya describe Ilber (an albino, thus the white hair) as good looking.
Would Hit a Girl: or kill her. All of the trained guys, plus Gil, Russia, Vahn, Spain (in a backstory at least), and Igris.
Russia, after he snaps, keeps a cheerful face, murderous all the while.
The author is known to blabber about how much she loves her readers before causing their worst nightmares to happen and giggling at their cries of anguish.
, and continues with a sequel, Horrible
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