Victor

"*And this moment here... this is a moment that you never forget. The moment when the tribute becomes a victor.*"
―Caesar Flickerman on Raudel's victory**Victors** were tributes who won previous Hunger Games. Because of this, they received income from the Capitol for life, were given a special status in their districts, and were allowed to live in the wealthiest part of their district, called the Victors' Village, with their families. Despite the privileges they enjoyed, their involvement in the Hunger Games lasted for a lifetime, and they were placed under strict surveillance to ensure that they did not encourage rebellion or dissent against the Capitol.

Many victors turned to alcohol or drugs after they won their Games as a means of coping. Some examples can be seen with Haymitch Abernathy or Chaff Boivin and their heavy drinking, and Sylva Mayleaf from District 9 with her addiction to morphling. These addictions stemmed from the traumatic experiences and memories of the Games, the demands that the Capitol continued to impose on them, the death penalty on them or their families, and having to train new tributes every year which almost always ended up dying. Almost all of the victors suffered from some form of PTSD as a result of their experiences in the Games, such as the mental instability experienced by Annie Cresta and the recurring nightmares that both Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark endured following their Games.

## Function

Their primary duty as victors was to act as mentors to subsequent tributes from their district in future Hunger Games. They were responsible for courting sponsors, which controlled the flow of gifts sent to their tributes in the arena, and they had a say in the tactics that the tribute used before and during the Games. Highly attractive and desirable victors were almost always prostituted by President Snow to citizens of the Capitol, as was the case with Finnick Odair, Cashmere, and 22 others. Victors were also usually forced to take on special personalities, such as Finnick's flirtatiousness or Katniss and Peeta's inseparable love. Victors ultimately represented a ray of hope, as they established themselves as special individuals who survived the Hunger Games, one of the Capitol's main tools of oppression and tyranny. After their victories, victors had to find a talent or a hobby to take up, for example, Katniss Everdeen's talent was fashion designing, although her stylist, Cinna, secretly made things himself and passed them off as her work.

While victors, regardless of their age when they initially were reaped for the respective Hunger Games, were exempt from further participation until they were no longer of reaping age, this changed for the 75th Hunger Games, which was also the Third Quarter Quell. Its special rule stipulated that as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them could not overcome the power of the Capitol, the tributes would be selected from the existing pool of victors. The remaining victors of each district were once again forced to partake in the reaping and participate in the Hunger Games.

## The Victory Tour

The Victory Tour, first implemented in the 16th Hunger Games, occurred six months after the victor's Hunger Games, and was held to keep the memory of the year's Games fresh in everyone's mind. They started in the highest numbered district and counted down, skipping the victor's district and saving it for last. In each district, the victor gave a speech commemorating said district's fallen tributes, followed by a dinner with the district's mayor. Prior to returning to their resident district, the victor returned to the Capitol for an interview following up on their life after the Games, with the night concluding with a lavish party at the president's mansion. The Victory Tour concluded with the Capitol throwing a huge feast for the victor's district that all the residents attend.

## Mentorship

While a victor was not obligated to work as part of their district's industry following their victory, one of the primary duties as was victor is to serve as a mentor each year for their district's latest slate of tributes for the Hunger Games. The mentors were supposed to provide tactical advice on how to survive the Games, assess the tributes' pre-existing skills and talents and how best to display them during training and their interview, and serve as a lifeline for their tributes once the Games have started by attracting sponsors and providing sponsor gifts such as food, medicine, supplies, and weapons. This last duty was one of the most crucial to their mentorship duties, as their relative success (or failure) at attracting sponsors was dependent on the impression their tributes make during training and interviews and their performance in the Games themselves, which had an enormous impact on whether their tribute died or survives long enough to be crowned victor themselves.

## Known victors

There were 75 victors throughout the history of the Hunger Games. Just before the 3rd Quarter Quell, 59 victors were still alive. By the end of the Second Rebellion, only seven victors were known to still be alive, but two others lived in the wilderness. Those known to be alive were Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, Beetee Latier, Haymitch Abernathy, Annie Cresta, and Enobaria. 16 died of natural causes, 18 died in the 75th Hunger Games, and the other 32 died during the Victors' Purge and the rebellion.

## Trivia

* Districts 4, 1, 2, and 11 were the only districts to have had victors in consecutive years. In the case of District 1, one of their two consecutive sets of victories was of siblings.
* The youngest known victor was Finnick Odair, winning his Games at just 14 years old.