Tear Jerker / Johanna Mason: They Will Never See Me Cry

• During Gaia's first meeting with Joey, she tells him that her son died in an accident when he was six.
• Johanna learns that her dead ally Red was Finnick's nephew.
• Johanna's kind and dainty mother becomes a Broken Bird after her husband dies and she has to watch her daughter kill people in the Hunger Games.
• During a phone call about the death of Johanna'a uncle, a distraught Finnick tell her his sister was also killed by the Capitol, during a riot suppression action.
• When Johanna says goodbye to her family before leaving to mentor for the 74th Hunger Games, she worries she will never see them again due to all the intrigue in her life. Adding to her turmoil is how her mother won't even look at her, and she feels a stab of pain as her Adorably Precocious Child brother gets a morose Wise Beyond Their Years comment about knowing that he will be eligible for the reapings in three years and will face the same terrible kill or be killed choice as so many other kids.
• The female District 7 tribute for the 74th Hunger Games is a twin, and her sister won't let go of her as she walks up to the reaping stage until the Peacekeepers forcibly pull them apart.
• Every single Victor has traumatic flashbacks (some briefer than others) to their own Games every year when their mentoring jobs force them to watch the videos of their tributes being sent into the arena by elevator.
• Johanna's conversation with her sixteen-year-old fellow mentor Byte during the 74th Hunger Games. She sees how out of depth he is after he only won through a Victory by Endurance achievement and lacks the fire that keeps so many other victors going. He knows his tribute is doomed despite being a de facto part of the Career Alliance and asks her to lie to him about how mentoring will get easier. The way Johanna speaks from experience and Byte knows what she really means is sad.

  Johanna: No worries, hun, in a couple of weeks, you'll be fine. You'll probably never see their families in District 3. The media definetely won't plague you asking why you didn't do something that seems so obvious to them but escaped you in the heat of the moment. This time next year you won't even remember their names.

  • Then, a chapter later, Byte is asleep when his tribute dies, and Beetee talks with Johanna about how he's not good with people, but has to be there with Byte while Agnes, the third District 3 victor with them in the Capitol, tries to help but has a family to take care of.
    Beetee: I'm not supposed to be a living emotional crutch to a boy who thinks people are dying because of him. I shouldn't be having to distutb the first sleep he's had in days to tell him that we've lost the fight once more.
• The Died in Your Arms Tonight moment between Cato and Clove is even more heartbreaking due to how Clove ends up being the one comforting Cato as she accepts her death and tells him not to blame himself. They also reaffirm their love and mourn how neither knew that the other would also be volunteering for the 74th Hunger Games until it was too late for either of them to back out.
• Chaff storms onto the roof to scream loudly at the skyline and hit stuff in a rage near the end of the 74th Hunger Games, causing a nearby Johanna to solemnly and correctly guess that Thresh has just fallen in battle to Cato.
• Lalaney watching a video of her daughter's ballet recital, which she missed to focus on helping Johanna, is a small moment overall, but it's also an example of how the relatively few people trying to do the right thing in the Capitol have to sacrifice sweet personal moments with the people they love to focus on the grim Games or rebellion, and that they may not have many of those happy moments before Snow turns the force of his Police State on them.
• Johanna's family is Doomed by Canon, but the way they die one by one after being so close-knit and happy early on is played for great tragedy, especially when her brother Joey, with his constant Children Are Innocent moments, goes.
• Rue's death scene gets a Perspective Flip showing not only the mentors from her home district but also others like Johanna, Haymitch, Bit Character Gamma from District 5, Lyme, and even Marvel's mentor Gloss unashamedly crying, fixated on the scene, or looking at the ground.
• The District 3 Quell reapings take a heavy toll on the Victors who escape the reaping, and even though they don’t volunteer, they are clearly torn up over it (Agnes drops to the ground crying when her roommate Wiress is reaped and Byte turns red as he struggles with the decision of whether to volunteer for his mentor Beetee). Johanna mentally curses the Capitol for relishing making Victors who don’t volunteer seem cowardly to undermine their group as a whole while having no perspective of why going back into the arena is so hard for him.
• Blight takes it hard when it looks like his drinking buddies Chaff (who volunteers for younger Victor Baler) and Haymitch (before Peeta volunteers for him) will both be in the arena with him.
• After seeing Johanna's gradual bonding with District 7 escort Lalaney, it is a Gut Punch when Lalaney abruptly shows up serving the District 7 victors as an avvox, with the implication that Snow also avvoxed her husband and daughter (or maybe just killed them).
• Kindly Scatter Brained Senior District 7 mentor Egor is beaten and probably killed by Melanita as Johanna can only watch, moments before she is taken away to be prepared for the arena.
• Johanna is forced to kill a panicked District 10 Victor-tribute during the 3rd Quarter Quell bloodbath and is shaken and saddened when Blight mourns that woman during the anthem and mentions she had wished him luck in the arena.
• Johanna lies to Katniss that Haymitch and not Cinna told her to rendezvous with Wiress and Beetee, not wanting to get Cinna in trouble and not knowing that he has already fallen victim to the same treatment as Egor.
• Despite Johanna claiming there is no one left that she loves for jabberjays to mimic the voices of, they still bring her to tears by imitating her brother, knowing that he may be dead, but she still loves him.