Victors

"*And this moment here... this is a moment that you never forget. The moment when the tribute becomes a victor.*"
- Caesar Flickerman[src]
**Victors** are tributes who have won previous Hunger Games. Because of this, they receive income from the Capitol for life, are given a special status in their districtsand are allowed to live in the wealthiest part of their district called the Victors' Villagewith their families. Despite the privileges they enjoy, their involvement in the Hunger Games lasts for a lifetime, and they are placed under strict surveillance to ensure that they do not encourage rebellion against the Capitol. Their primary duty as victors is that they must mentor to future tributes from their district through the Hunger Games.

## Life as a victor

### 1st to 10th Hunger Games

In the past, during the 1st to 10th Hunger Games, victors were not given any specific importance or care by the Capitol, with the first few victors being generally thrown back to their home districts after winning and surviving their individual Games and were left to resume their old lives. It was only during and after the 11th Hunger Gamesthat victors were given specific roles and duties that put them into the Capitol's spotlight and forced them to take a bigger role in future Games. These new changes also gave victors compensation and rewards for their victories in an attempt to entice a better crop of tributes to volunteer for future Games.

### Public Image

Victors are often forced to put on false personas for the Capitol audience, such as Finnick Odair's flirtatiousness, or Katniss Everdeenand Peeta Mellark's inseparable love. They also adopt hobbies or talents they can be interviewed about by the Capitol media. Peeta's talent was painting, but Katniss's skill at hunting was illegal and she was unwilling to sing, so she tried several alternatives from a list provided by Effie Trinket: cooking, flower arranging, and playing the flute. Katniss eventually settled on faking a passion for fashion design. Her stylist, Cinna, made things himself for her to pass off as her work.

#### The Victory Tour

The Victory Tour, first implemented in the 11th Hunger Games, occurs almost midway between the annual Hunger Games, and is held to keep the memory of the year's Games fresh in everyone's mind. They start in the highest numbered district and count down, skipping the victor's district and saving it for last. In each district, the victor gives a speech commemorating said district's fallen tributes, followed by a dinner with the district's leaders. Prior to returning to their resident district, the victor stops in 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 concludes with the Capitol throwing a huge feast for the victor's district where all the residents attend.

### Trauma

Most, if not all, of the victors suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress as a result of their experiences in the Games. For example, both Katniss and Peeta endure nightmares, and Annie Cresta is notably mentally unstable even for a victor.

#### Substance abuse

Many victors turn to alcohol or drugs after they have won their Games as a means of coping. Some examples can be seen with Haymitch Abernathy or Chaff and their heavy drinking, and the pair from District 6 with their addiction to morphling. These addictions stem from the traumatic experiences and memories of the Games, the demands that the Capitol continues to impose on them, the death penalty on them or their families, and, for those who become mentors, having to train new tributes every year which more likely will end up dying in their Games.

#### Sex trafficking

Highly attractive and desirable victors are often sexually trafficked by President Snowto citizens of the Capitol.

#### Family

The families of victors can be used as leverage to force them to bend to the Capitol's will. Katniss also mentioned that the children of victors are reaped to participate in the Hunger Games suspiciously often.

### Mentorship

*Main article: Mentors*While a victor is not obligated to work as part of their district's industry, one of their primary duties is to serve as a mentor for future tributes. In this role, the mentor is to provide tactical advice on how to survive the Games, assess their 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 to finance sponsor gifts in the arena, such as food, medicine, supplies, and weapons. This last duty is one of the most crucial to their mentorship duties, as their relative success (or failure) at attracting sponsors is dependent on the impression their tributes make during training and interviews and their performance in the Games themselves, which can have an enormous impact on whether their tribute dies or survives long enough to be crowned victor themselves.

### Third Quarter Quell

While victors are exempted from further eligibility in the reaping, this changed for the 75th Hunger Games. The special rule for the third Quarter Quell 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. Thus, twenty-four victors across twelve districts were forced to participate in the Hunger Games for a second time.

## Known victors

There have been 75 victors throughout the history of the Hunger Games: one for each year from the 1st through 73rd, and then an unprecedented double victory in the 74th Hunger Games. No victor was crowned for the 75th Hunger Games.Aside from Finnick Odair, all victors were between the ages of 15 and 18 at the time of their victory.

At the time of the reaping, 59 victors were still alive, so sixteen died prior to the third Quarter Quell. The Career districts-- District 1, District 2, and District 4—had the most victors, but each district had at least one surviving male and female. Eighteen more died in the 75th Hunger Games, and by the end of the Second Rebellion, only seven victors were still alive: Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, Beetee Latier, Haymitch Abernathy, Annie Cresta, and Enobaria. This means that another 34 died during the Victors' Purge and the rebellion.

In *The Hunger Games* trilogy, only 27 victors were initially revealed, with two more (Porter Millicent Tripp and Augustus Braun) revealed by promotional materials for the films, and another being revealed in *The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes* for a total of 30 known victors. However, this page also includes victors who appear as extras in the films, so more than those 30 are listed. There are still 45 unknown victors. Italicized details are speculative.

## Unknown victors

### Books

* Katniss recalled a male victor from "a few years ago" who only received a training score of three.
* At some point in the history of the Games, District 7 had at least one female victor other than Johanna, as she was specified as being the only "living" female victor from her district.
* Since Effie only sent Katniss and Peeta tapes of victors they might have had to face in the third Quarter Quell, Katniss speculated that the victor of the 25th Hunger Games was deceased by then.

### Films

* The propaganda video shown at the District 12 reaping in the first film appears to show four victors, two female and two male. In order of appearance, they were shown with a sword, a shield, a harpoon, and no weapon.
* In an earlier draft of the script, Caesar Flickerman mentioned to Cato during his interview that District 2 had produced the previous two victors (of the 72nd and 73rd Hunger Games, respectively).
	+ An unnamed male victor from District 2 can be seen briefly on television in the first film. The ruined city arena lines up with the original script,prompting speculation that this was the previous year's victor.
* In behind the scenes footage of *The Hunger Games: Catching Fire*, under 'Friends or Foe,' the District 4 reaping scene of District 4 shows four male victors including Finnick and two female victors (not including Annie).
	+ Similarly, in behind the scenes photos of the District 6 reaping, there were four District 6 victors alive at the time of the 75th Hunger Games: the morphlings and two other uncredited victors.
* In *The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1*, Peacekeepers executed two people from District 8 and three people from 11, who are commonly speculated to have been victors due to the Victors' Purge.