Dragan Baron
Dragan Baron is a tribute in the 62nd Hunger Games. He is notable for volunteering for his position, for being the first tribute to be mentored by Victor Klaus Goravich, and for being insta-killed in the Bloodbath.
 | |
| D3M of the 62nd Hunger Games | |
|---|---|
| District | Three |
| Age | 17 |
| Weapon | Bow and Arrows |
| Training Score | 6 |
| Token | None |
| Alliance | NDNTRA |
| Victims | None |
| Place | 23rd |
|
played by North | |
Contents |
Early Life
Dragan was the second child born to a middle class family in District Three. He had a very strong relationship with his parents and his older sister, but particularly with his father - however this was later damaged once he discovered at the age of twelve that his father was involved in the District's black market. After following his father to the building where they stored the smuggled goods, Dragan began to smoke the cigars that he found there, quickly becoming addicted to smoking. The addiction had an adverse effect on his personality, making him paranoid and distrustful of people. However, he is aware of his need for discipline due to his addiction, and so has deliberately hurt himself several times in the past when he thought he deserved it. He attributes his calm - sometimes even verging on lazy - exterior to this internal self-discipline.
Before the Games
Dragan's addiction drove him to become more and more distant from his family in the lead up to his Reaping. His dread of adulthood - perhaps even more concerning to him than the threat of the Games - made him embrace his freedom to be lazy as a teenager, and his need for excitement in a life he saw as boring encouraged him to be more promiscuous, too. Soon before the 62nd Games, Dragan struck up a sexual relationship with Tony Fletcher, although up to that point he had never accepted that he was bisexual. However, this "romance" was cut short when Dragan decided to volunteer for the 62nd Games.
62nd Hunger Games
Reaping and Training
On the night before the Reaping, Dragan found it difficult to get to sleep, and arrived at the District Square agitated and nervous the next morning. Seeing his father in the parents' stand turned Dragan's nervousness into rage, as he knew that his relationship with his father had deteriorated to the point that he no longer wanted to live in the same house - even District - as him. It was this foul relationship, and a desire to "prove a point" to his father, that led Dragan to volunteer when the male tribute's name was called.
Dragan made very little conversation with his District partner, Phyllis Roman, and he was mostly silent during the train ride up to the Capitol. He spent most of the journey musing about the state of his relationship with his father when he left. Once there, he finally met his mentor and most recent Victor Klaus Goravich, who had decided before he even met the tributes that neither of them would win. In the story he began to tell the tributes, Klaus seemed understandably troubled - having only recently been in the Hunger Games himself. Dragan found Klaus' speech confusing and unexpected, and attempted to steer the Victor back into a more strategic vein. However, he didn't seem to be able to get through to the Victor, and went into the Games with as little advice as he started with.
Dragan first met the members of his to-be alliance, NDNTRA, in the Training Centre itself. Standing at the side, watching the other tributes train, he was first approached by Almar Nichols from District 12, followed by the District Seven female Alaska Putley, and finally Vitani Loewen, a tribute Dragan's own age from District Nine. Dragan himself proposed the alliance, once the three tributes had all introduced themselves, and they quickly agreed.
Dragan achieved a 6 in his Private Training Session.
Dragan decided to play it cool in his interview, even though being in front of so many people made him nervous. From the very first question, Dragan revealed he had quite a negative outlook on his own survival in the Games, saying that his preparation didn't matter because he was going to die anyway. When asked whether he had left behind a sweetheart, Dragan immediately thought of Tony, however decided to keep it a secret in order to uphold his casual, careless demeanour. He took the opportunity to curse his father, telling him he didn't care if he died too because Dragan himself surely would, knowing that he would see the interview in the District. Before departing from the stage, Dragan left a message directly to Tony - without introducing who he was first, telling him to make a better life without him. Finally, doing what he had always wanted to do, and no longer caring about the consequences, he exposed his father's black market operation, certain it would condemn him to execution.
Bloodbath
As he waited for his podium to raise him into the arena, Dragan couldn't help thinking about how he had exposed his father's secret to all of Panem during his interview. It relieved him to think that his father had finally got what was coming for him, and that his mother would be able to live safely without being in danger by association if the crimes had continued. Although he didn't have high hopes for how far he'd get in the Games, part of him knew that it was down to luck as much as skill. Dragan was fairly late off the mark when the Arena countdown struck zero, and his final thought before the gong was how badly he wanted a smoke. There were already several fights beginning when he sprinted towards the Cornucopia to find his allies. Alaska was already being attacked by several tributes, and soon enough Dragan himself was targeted, first by Aria Wolfe, who missed. Dragan first lunged at Ellea Banks, making contact with her collarbone, before retaliating to Aria's attack with a newly obtained bow and arrows, but like her, he also missed. Through a bombardment of further attacks, Dragan managed to collect a backpack, several water jugs, some chalk, a compass, an invaluable pair of protective gloves and, finally, a needle and thread, while dealing out a few heavy hits with his bow and arrows - at one point embedding one in Riker Mills' chest, and another in the chest of Kiera Dempsey. By this point, Dragan was struggling to see any other items he could easily grab, however the storm of blows was still coming down on him and he was struggling to successfully escape. Further than that, Dragan was concerned for his alliance, as they seemed to be in as much trouble as him.
Death
Dragan's death was the result of several furious hits from a small number of tributes. Kiera sought to avenge Dragan's attack on her by swinging her Xiphos at him from behind, where it landed deeply and painfully in the back of Dragan's head. However, it was Wednesdae Drummond that dealt the final blow with his spear, which Dragan all but ran into on his way out of the Bloodbath, lodging it deep in his eye and killing him instantly. Dragan died without protest or any further words, and was left bleeding from the front and back of his head, while his allies continued without him.
