The Games

## Hunger Games

**The Hunger Games** were a morbid and brutal competition which took place annually in the country of Panem. Every year, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 were selected from each of the twelve districtsas tributes, who train for a week and then are sent into an outdoor arena to fight to the death. The event was nationally televised as mandatory viewing for all citizens. The last living tribute is declared the victor and is showered in gifts and lives the rest of their lives in luxury in Victor's Village. The winning district also receives parcels of food from the Capitol for a year. Seventy-five years before the 74th Hunger Games, the thirteen districts of Panem revolted against the Capitol. Together, they stood strong, but when District 13 was supposedly obliterated by the Capitol, resistance became impossible, as District 13 was the driving force behind the rebellion. The remaining districts submitted to the Capitol and lost their hope for change.

Every year since the rebellion, the Capitol forced 24 children into the arena and used hidden cameras to televise the events in order to both entertain the Capitol citizens and remind the twelve districts how they are completely at the Capitol's mercy. Only one tribute can win the games, with the exception of the 74th Hunger Games, where Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark of District 12 both won because of their joint attempted suicide.

## Reaping

Every year, each district holds a reaping ceremony "Lottery". Two large glass balls contain slips of paper with the names of each child through the ages of 12-18. However, they can choose to add their name more times in exchange for tessera, which is a small ration of oil and grain. Each tessera has enough oil and grain to supply one family member with food for one year and entries are cumulative from year to year. Exception to this rule was the 25th Hunger Games, the First Quarter Quell, where each District was forced to elect or choose their own male and female as tribute to the Capitol.

The district's representative/escort (e.g. Effie Trinket for District 12) picks a name out of the balls, one of which is for girls and one for boys. The tributes whose names are chosen are then entered into the Hunger Games, unless someone is willing to volunteer - a normally quite rare phenomenon unless it is in one of the "Career Districts" (1, 2, and 4 in the novel, 1 and 2 in the film), in which children have been training their whole lives at a special school to enter the Games. The one exception to the traditional one boy, one girl per district, total of twenty four reaped tributes rule was the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell. In these games each District were required to double the amount of tributes and reap two girls and two boys for a total of 48 tributes to complete.

Victors from previous Hunger Games are no longer eligible to be reaped or volunteer for subsequent games, even if they are still age eligible. The exception being the 75th Hunger Games, the Third Quarter Quell, where the reaping pool of potential tributes was restricted only to each district's existing victors.

## Mentoring

Each living victor from each district is given the task of mentoring the next tributes for the Games. If there is only one living victor, he/she will be the mentor for both tributes (e.g. Haymitch mentors both Katniss and Peeta for the 74th and 75th Hunger Games). Any living victor, mentor or not, is required to visit the Capitol to watch the Games, visit the residents, and make Capitol TV cameos, but the mentors come alongside their respective District tributes and to watch the Games live. Mentors are very important as they give advice to their tributes, assist in the forming of alliances, politic for their tributes, secure sponsors, and control the sending of any gifts into the arena. A good clear minded mentor is imperative to the success of their tributes with very few exceptions.

## Quarter Quells

Every twenty-five years, the president of Panem selects a card from a box made during the original establishment of the Hunger Games that makes a change in the rules of the reapings. For the first Quarter Quell, or the 25th Hunger Games, each district had to choose the children who went into the arena. For the second Quarter Quell, or the 50th Hunger Games, twice as many tributes had to be reaped to go into the arena (It can be assumed that four children were reaped from each district that year; Two boys and two girls). That was the year Haymitch Abernathy won. For the third Quarter Quell, or the 75th Hunger Games, the tributes were reaped from the pool of existing victors. Katniss Everdeen was despaired when she heard this because her status as the only living female victor from District 12 assured her return to the arena.

## Trivia

* After the Hunger Games were abolished, memorials were set up.