The Hunger Games - Blog Posts

As far as book-to-movie adaptations go, The Hunger Games does a pretty good job. But one thing I will never be able to forgive is how dirty they did Finnick.

If you've read the books and watched the movies, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't know, I'll explain. Remember how the District 13 soldiers infiltrate the Capitol to rescue Peeta (and Johanna)? In order to create a distraction for this operation to take this place, the rebels take this opportunity to hack all the Capitol channels. But they need something with sufficient shock factor to capture the Capitol's attention. This is when Finnick steps up and spills some MAJOR TEA in front of the camera. Now, in the books, Finnick's speech is the main focus with the infiltration happening in the background, but the movie does the OPPOSITE (for reasons I will never understand).

People who've only watched the movies don't even know what Finnick said and how important it is because of how the movie overshadows his part there and let's it become fucking background music for the most part.

Finnick talks about how, as a victor, the Capitol sold him (his body that is) to the elite. Basically, they sex trafficked their victors. Keep in mind that Finnick won the games when he was 14. All the victors were minors when they won. And in order to assuage their guilt, to pretend like this was somehow not a really fucking messed up transaction, his "buyers" would offer him gifts- money, jewels, clothes etc. But Finnick figured out a much more valuable thing to exchange. He asked them to tell him their secrets. And because he was dealing the Capitol powerful elite, he learned just how rotten the Capitol was at its core. And the best secret he learned was of how Snow came to power- by poisoning his enemies. And it was from that poison (he also probably had to consume it to prevent his enemies from suspecting something) that he had bleeding sores in his mouth that he tried to disguise with the scent of roses.

Apart from exposing Snow's corruption, Finnick's confession exposes another truth - that the games are never truly over. The victors may leave the arena, but they remain the Capitol's pawns. And if not pawns, they become examples. Johanna and Haymitch were the latter. Johanna was also expected to do what Finnick did. But she basically told the Capitol to go fuck itself and so they killed her whole family. Haymitch had played smart in the arena by using the Capitol's own force field to win. And so they had already killed his whole family (and girlfriend) for that. So they had no one to blackmail him with.

Now think back to what Finnick said to Katniss when they first met. He tells her, "You could have made out like a bandit, jewels, money, whatever you wanted." Katniss ribs at his popularity in the Capitol by talking bout people,"paying for the pleasure of his company, " not realizing just how true that statement was. (He replies "secrets" is you recall). Finnick was alluding to a fate Katniss would have also had to face like other victors if she hadn't been reaped again.

The games were never fucking over. The victors would always be the Capitol's pawns for as long as it suited the Capitol. And I will never be over the fact that the movies quite literally drowned out Finnick's story like that.

also people need to realise that 'the hunger games' is not about a 16-year old starting a revolution, it is about adults in power using children for their political games! both for better or worse!

finnick odair really needs his own novel. and a BIG one. like his story has so much potential!

first of all, the whole setting of district 4, a comeplete opposite of familiar 12. how is the ocean controlled? were there any instances of people escaping on boats?

then finnick's story. how does it feel like to train your whole childhood to kill? how did he play the games? was he aware of his charms? how did he manage to become the youngest winner?

then his life as a winner. it would be a particularly miserable and hard part, but nevertheless interesting. what happened to him in capitol? how did he go through all this? how did his relationship with annie bloom? how his life affected his mind, his soul? (well we partly know that from the mockingjay)

his story is just so deep and impactful, i'd really love to read it in more detail

ok but now i need a shortstory about katniss's parents. i need short stories about other districts, because it's so interesting what life is like there, especially career districts. what is it like to spend your whole childhood training to kill other children? how do career winners feel like? i want to know EVERYTHING

the way haymitch and katniss's father were friends. the way burdock held him from running into the fire. the way him and blair stayed at haymitch's victor's house. the way asterid gave haymitch sleep syrup. the way burdock and asterid were the last ones to keep contact with haymitch, trying to ease his grief. the way it took haymitch hurting asterid for them to leave him. the way burdock showed him lenore's grave, which he probably found long ago, instantly thinking of haymitch, but not telling him because he's not forgotten what he's done. the way haymitch saw how proud burdock was of katniss. the way his best friend died after haymitch himself pushed him away. the way he saw young katniss step into his role of providing for her family. the way haymitch had to take care of burdock's daughter. the way he saw himself, burdock, lenore and louella in her. the way he let her in his heart anyway. the way 'sweetheart' slipped out. the way through katniss, he's finally fulfilled his promise to lenore.

I'm currently reading "sunrise on the reaping" (only like 4 chapters left) and oh my god how I am loving the characters

they all are just so wholesome and too pure for this world😭😭😭😭 I'm really invested in this generation of tributes. It's also really interesting to watch more cooperative tributes, I kinda wish we could see more of others working together. or maybe I'm acting a little bit as capitol public watching the games lol

MAYSILEE DONNER THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE! she's really become my favourite

lowkey should've won the games. and i have such a vivid picture of her in my head like in a movie! ugggh i wish i was good at drawing people. guess it's time to look for some fanart

also, I'm trying to picture haymitch book-accurate, but his movie appearance keeps popping up in my head, and only now, when I'm already finishing the book, I can finally kinda imagine him properly😭😭😭

Started rereading the Hunger Games series and I feel like it’s so overlooked how in 74th and 75th Hunger Games, we don’t know every Tribute’s names, with Katniss only referring to them by their District numbers but in TBOSAS, we knew every single Tribute by name. We associated them with the clothes they wore on the Reaping Day and Suzanne even goes so far as to describe how they looked, however briefly. We see these Tributes and we’re familiarized with them by the little tidbits provided to the mentors and to Snow and Lucy Gray. But we never get this in the original trilogy.

In two generations, President Snow alienated the Districts from each other so much that Katniss didn’t even care to know all the names of the Tributes sent into the Arena with her, with the exception being those who posed great risk against her safety and those she felt great compassion for (e.g. Cato, Thresh, Rue, Mags, Betee, Wiress etc.). Katniss even went so far as to call the D6 Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games morphlings, for their affinity to imbibe in the drugs that help them forget their own traumas (an incredibly hurtful description, in my own opinion, to be known by the qualities you hate the most about yourself). We never know the real name of the 74th D5 girl, with Katniss only referring to her as Foxface and we don’t even know Marvel’s name until we get to the second book and he was Katniss’ first personal kill. Katniss even kills the D4 girl in the books with the same tracker jacker venom that killed Glimmer and yet still, we don’t know her name. We are so removed from the identity of the other Tributes that we don’t even know what some of them looked like beyond brief descriptions of mangled bodies and dead Tributes in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.

And, the thing is, Suzanne established the importance of names in the series. Even in real life, we recognize the importance of being named. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. If you’re ever in a perilous situation where a person might be placing your life in danger, we’re told to remind the person that you’re human. “Keep saying your name, how old you are, where you came from. Remind them you are a human being just like them.” Before any propaganda can work against a group of people, refusing to recognize a person’s name is the first step to dehumanization. And just like the people of the Districts, we don’t care enough about the other Tributes to even want to know their names. Their propaganda worked on us, the readers.

In two generations, President Snow completely wiped out any sense of familiarity and camaraderie the Districts may have shared with the other. In two generations, Snow sowed the seeds of distrust and division into the Districts so deeply that even we, the readers, were affected by the effects of Capitol propaganda. In two generations, the Districts ceased to genuinely care about the others beyond the vague sense of injustice they feel for their shared plight. It’s why Career Districts don’t seem to care about killing the other Tributes. How can you care, to show your compassion and humanity, when you can barely see them as people? Yes, they may have been in the Arena with you. Yes, they may have been starved and beaten and forced into labor like you were. Yes, they might be children just like you. Yes, they might be subjected to the same deplorable system that turned you into virtual slaves. But they are not your friends. They are not your allies. They are strange, with different customs and traditions that you have. You do not share the same values. They do not care about you. At the first chance they get, they will kill you with your bare hands and they will do it with alacrity if it meant their survival. There can only be one Victor and it can’t be them. It has to be you.

The Victor’s purge is absolutely something that just blows my mind.

The Capitol propaganda against Victors were so effective, even the very people fighting for their freedom turned on them.

During the events of TBOSAS, we learn that the first 10 winners of the Hunger Games received no compensation for their participation in the games. Why would they? They’re nobodies. Reminders of a war that had forced the people of the Capitol to turn on each other, forcing them into such desperate lengths that they had to resort to eating other people just to survive. They were not celebrated like the Victors we recognize in the 75th Hunger Games. They were not victors but survivors. In fact, we learn that not many people wanted to watch the Hunger Games in the beginning. It left a bitter taste in a person’s mouth to watch children fight to the death and have the event sensationalized, even if the child is considered the enemy.

And yet, with Victors being placed on a pedestal after the events of TBOSAS, we saw how quickly the Victors were woven into the Capitol’s society.

Upon winning, Victors were alienated in their own Districts. They were given beautiful mansions, fed three square meals a day, and their families wanted for nothing. They became mentors, becoming active participants in the very Games designed to kill members of their own Districts. Their participation may have been forced but when you smile and wave at cameras and show off your new found wealth, it’s hard to believe you didn’t want these things.

Victors are even further alienated outside of their own Districts with the Victor’s parade. A whole week of traveling through the 12 districts to show off your vitality and strength and your life, the very thing you took from the other tributes in order to survive. Victors did not need to drip themselves with jewels to offend the other Districts, their survival was insult enough. Never mind that you didn’t want to kill these kids. Never mind that you are a child yourself.

Every place you turn, you’re met with jealousy, derision and contempt. No longer the perfect quintessential victim but a killer of children who “benefitted” from the very system designed to oppress you. By winning the Hunger Games you are no longer District.

So you turn to the one place that showers you with any hint of adoration.

Ingratiating themselves into the Capitol’s society cemented their identity as Other. They may live in the Distrcts, may be forced to subject themselves in horrors that are far worse than any modicum of starvation they faced in the Districts, but they are no longer one of them.

And so the Rebels forget who exactly they’re fighting for, forgot who actually experienced the horror they could only dread.

Yes, they are fighting against their own oppression. Yes, they fight for their child’s right to live and never play in the Games. But they forget about the 59 other Victors who actually went through the horrors they’re fighting against. They forget about the biggest victims of the system they are fighting against.

Snow alienated Victors from the rest of the Districts so much that of the surviving 59 Victors before the events of Mockingjay, only 7 come out alive.

7 out of 59.

There’s not even enough of them to distribute one to every district.

The biggest victims of the Capitol’s oppression also became the biggest victims of the rebel’s war.

I want to put focus on how significant parents are in the Hunger Games franchise, most especially on the role a parent has in shaping their child’s psyche and I want to do this by using Katniss, Peeta and Snow as reference. 

In the books and the movies, parents are more or less background characters. We truly only see glimpses of them. Both of Peeta’s parents are alive yet we rarely see them featured prominently in the books/movies. Both of Snow’s parents are dead and we only get to hear of them in passing and while Mrs. Everdeen is alive, she’s often relegated to the background because of how dismissive Katniss is towards her mother. 

Yet these characters and the very essence of their beings are shaped by their parents. 

Beginning with Katniss, we saw how deeply her father’s death wounded her. He was their provider, the sole person responsible for bringing food onto their table. We know how deeply he was loved by his children and his wife and how beloved he was by the other citizens of 12 by Katniss’ stories. Mr. Everdeen was a well known figure in the Hobb and Katniss firmly believed that it was because of him that people took pity on her and allowed her to bargain with them. It was his death that served as a catalyst to Katniss’ journey to becoming a Victor. Without his death, without Katniss being forced to hunt to serve her family, she wouldn’t have made it out of the arena. To Katniss, her father was the hero deserving of being placed on a pedestal and it was his values and actions that she tried desperately to emulate to protect her family. 

On the other hand, Katniss scorned her mother. She hated Mrs. Everdeen’s inaction when she spiraled into a deep depression after her husband died. And though it wasn’t Mrs. Everdeen’s fault, I can’t blame Katniss for feeling this way about her mother. She and her sister were near the brink of death by starvation on the day she met Peeta. Even when Mr. Everdeen was alive, Katniss was partial to her father because he stoked the rebellion in Katniss’ heart while it was her mother who tried to stop it. Katniss perceived her mother’s depression as a weakness and even after she got better, Katniss was determined to keep her at arms length. The love she felt for her mother may have been unconditional but she constantly put her mother under the test. Waiting to see if she would disappoint her, fail her by abandoning her once again. And when Prim died and Mrs. Everdeen left for District 4, Katniss’s unconscious bias against her mother was once again reaffirmed. 

It’s why Katniss struggles to form a good bond with motherly characters like Effie but maintains relatively good relationships with fatherly figures like Haymitch and Cinna. Katniss openly admits that of the two people who guided them throughout the Hunger Games, it was Haymitch she was most alike. They grew up at the Seam, and shared similar features and she was adamant that should she have been forced into becoming a mentor like Haymitch was, she was looking at what her future would have looked like. Drunk and continuously intoxicated like Haymitch was. 

On the other hand, we have Peeta. 

Peeta was routinely abused by his mother. While we don’t know the full extent of what it was he had to endure, we know that it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Peeta’s mother took pride in the knowledge that District 12 would finally have another Victor, and she wasn’t referring to Peeta. We saw him take a beating to feed Katniss and whatever relationship Peeta had with his father was practically nonexistent. It was his mother that served to be the looming presence in his life the same way Katniss’ father haunted her. It’s why I believe Peeta got along so well with Effie and why Effie likely preferred Peeta over Katniss. Aside from the fact that Peeta was so much more civil to Effie than Katniss was to Effie, Peeta always deferred to Effie. He and Effie are similar in the same way Katniss and Haymitch are similar. 

Peeta was characterized to be of the merchant class, the “upper” class of District 12. As a given, Effie is from the Capitol, the upper crust of Panem. It was Effie who provided Katniss and Peeta with the script necessary to ensure their survival after the 74th Games and in return, Effie knew how effectively a person’s image and reputation could mean life and death in the arena and in this, Peeta is in agreement. While Katniss may have used a bow as a weapon, Peeta used his words. He always knew the right things to say and do to get people to side with him, so much so that he managed to convince the careers of the 74th Games, his biggest enemies in the arena, to ally with him. Had anyone else been in his situation, they would have been killed. Peeta craved Effie’s maternalism the same way Katniss craved Haymitch’s paternalism because these were the things they lacked growing up.

And then there’s Coriolanus, who lost both his parents and it is both of these parents who haunt him. His mother, described to be beautiful and kind, was represented by the powder compact he kept with him constantly. His father, harsh and cruel, represented by the handkerchief that Snow kept with him.

In TBOSAS, Snow has two mentors himself. 

Dean Highbottom and Dr. Gaul.

It’s not lost on me that in them, the characterization of the two are reversed from Snow’s parents. Highbottom, like Snow’s father is stern and harsh. He is Snow’s biggest critic and while I doubt Mr. Snow would go so far as to hate his own child, he would not have been kind to Coriolanus had he lived past the war. Yet Highbottom and Mr. Snow’s similarities end there. Because of Highbottom’s remorse and the kindness that he showed Lucy Gray after she won the Games, he takes after Snow’s mother in that regard. He is compassionate and filled with horror at the abomination he created.

On the other hand, Gaul treats Snow with a gentleness that Highbottom never had for him. Though Snow finds Gaul creepy, it is Gaul that takes him under his wing. It is Gaul who stitches up his wounds after he is attacked in the arena and retrieves Sejanus and Gaul who praises him for his ingenuity at suggesting the sponsoring system. Gaul genuinely likes Snow and begins grooming him to become her replacement in the event that she dies. But while Gaul may have been a woman with the capacity for gentleness, she is a terrible human being who threw children into the arena to fight for their survival. She is the same woman who hung a child for running away from the games and paraded the corpses of children on the streets of the Capitol. She is pure evil. She is exactly like Snow’s father. 

It isn’t loss on me that Snow, who has an abundance of maternal figures in his grandmother and Tigris, chooses to take after Gaul, who is externally like his mother but internally like his father, rather than Highbottom, who is the opposite. 

At every instance Snow had to do good, to choose to do the right thing and be like his mother, he intentionally continued to do the evil thing for the sake of his selfishness and be like his father. 

“You look just like your father, Coriolanus.” Were the words Tigris used to describe him at the end of the movie because that is precisely who he chose to become. 

And as Snow poisons Highbottom and becomes a gamemaker under Gaul’s tutelage, he kills whatever remnant of his mother he had left in him, fully embodying his cruel father’s ideals.

My fanart based on the fan fic Melodrama on ao3!

Don’t repost! (And if you do, credit me. Or I will haunt you down)

Guys I just spent the last ten minutes crying over a edit of thresh and rue paralleling reaper and dill. Like I’m genuinely stricken by grief at these children who I knew would die, dying. I am NOT okay do NOT contact me for a least the next 24 hours or I’ll cry.

Heyyy can we talk about how in the hunger games Katie’s is also the mockingjay because she echoes the efforts of those who came before her. Like she is a parallel to Sam many people, mainly Lucy gray and Haymitch who both tried and failed to break the games, and sort of her identity as the mockingjay is to echo the songs of those who came before her- both literal songs, and their actions. Oh also the thing she wore that gave her her name, the mockingjay pin, was inherited from both Lenore Dove and Maysilee, effectively continuing their stories and honoring them… yaknow just saying

effie trinket i will forever love you! here are some sketches i did of outfits i think she’d wear bc she is a camp glam fashion girl and i love drawing clothes

if i could sew i would be a fashion designer trust

SOTR characters! i cried so bad reading this book i had mascara streaming down my face.

pictured are haymitch, lenore dove, maysilee, wyatt, louella, lou lou, burdock, and asterid

i’m planning on doing more i’m just kinda burnt out after drawing so much LOL

another bonus my portraits of peeta and katniss bc i love them and they are everything and so very beautiful

here’s some more of my hunger games drawings hope you like!

lucy gray, snow, finnick, johanna, madge, and cinna

oh lucy gray baird how i love you

people enjoyed these on tiktok so i thought id share here too! here are my hunger games character drawings! (katniss, peeta, rue, haymitch, effie, prim, and gale)

i tried to be more book accurate but these are just how i imagined them when i read the books (i have to reread soon…)

i also told this story on tiktok but when i was younger i overheard my sister talking to her friends about the hunger games and i was totally confused and scared because i thought it was like a reality game show where they were killing children 😭😭😭

anyways i love tumblr guys everyone is so fun and talented

this whole hunger games renaissance is giving me dracotok flashbacks because why are we once again simping for the bad guy with bleached hair and more importantly why has the society ONCE AGAIN devided into two groups: the people that "can change him" and the people that ship him with the brown haired guy that just wanted to help everyone???

i was so confused when lucy gray actually ran from snow and for a split second i was hoping she'd come back even tho i knew how terrible of a person he was and it just made me realise how brainwashed we are and used to girls in romance books/movies always ignoring all the red flags and almost willingly getting manipulated. and i know i'd be real mad if she didn't run— i'd be disappointed but (unfortunately) not surprised and yet for a split second i got mad and disappointed when she did run too. i guess what i'm trying to say is we really should normalise RUNNING and quite literally disappearing in the woods when a man is being sus no matter how hot he is. in this essay i will—

'tom blyth' this 'coriolanus snow' that— i'm so tired like bffr have y'all seen lucy gray?? have y'all HEARD her?? she's literally perfect it's 2023 why are we still simping for racist mean stupid white guys???? i'm so done

it just hits me out of nowhere sometimes how it all started with Prim and for Katniss it all ended with Prim. Katniss' depression after the war is forever buried somewhere at the back of my mind, truly all for nothing at all.

But this happened right before I deleted my instagram everyone, this is the best day of my life!

Hello, all. Changed my name because it occurred to me that if I ever somehow seduced my celebrity crushes into a relationship, their crazy fan girls might be able to trace my account and expose me for writing fics about these characters. What can I say? I’m delulu as shit.

i’m a writer for multiple fandoms, and i do write for requests and love interacting with people from my fandoms. below is a list of my usual fandoms, but feel free to ask for others

• The Twilight Saga

• Bones

• The Black Phone

• American Horror Story

• The Hunger Games

• It

• Insidious

• Supernatural

• Marvel

• Teen Wolf

• And more, just ask :)

I don’t just write fanfics, i also do fandom rants, character evaluations, and headcanons

Below is a list of things i refuse to write about and i don’t tolerate

• Racism

• Sexism

• Homophobia

•Any and all hateful bigotry language and behaviors

• Rape

• Genetic Incest

I have written smut in the past and will continue to do so here, we are fun and we like the spice, however there are a few kinks I’m too uncomfortable to write about, such as

• Lactation

• DD/lg (or the gender reversed version) (i just think it’s kinda weird but if you want a character to say “Mommy” or “Daddy” that’s cool)

• Bodily waste fluids

• Non-con (i may write dub-con but only under specific circumstances so just let me know what you have in mind)

I am happy to have a working account that allows me to freely interact with my fandoms again and happy to have an easier platform to write on.

Please interact, like, follow and/or reblog

“…Are you, are you, comin’ to the tree? / Where a dead man called out, for his love to flee, / Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be / If we met at midnight in the hanging tree…”

if i had a nickle every time my favorite book characters had the same last name, i would have two nickles. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. yes i'm looking at you haymitch and francis abernathy

now what if i make myself so beautiful and sexy during the hunger games…

God importance of food in HUNGER Games is such amazing aspect of the books and shows the mentality of both Katniss AND Snow.

Coriolanus learns that food is power. He sees Nero Prize cutting off maid's leg to eat it. He sees what tributes will do for food. He knows what Lucy Gray did for food. He knows what he would do for food.

In his eyes food is a luxury and ultimate means of manipulation. That's why there is a tessare system, that's why there are monthly packages for the winning districts, that's why Games are a yearly public spectacle in the Capitol. He keeps districts hungry for food and Capitol hungry for entertainment.

Katniss learns that food is love. It starts with Peeta throwing her the burned loaf of bread. Then goes further into her love for Prim, which is the main cause of her hunting. Then with Gale as her hunting partner. Then with Madge who is her best friend and loves strawberries. Then with Mr. Mellark who loves squirrels. Then with Rue and bread from District 11. Then with Peeta again, with the berries.

Katniss doesn't use the power of food over people. She shares it. That's how she builds connections, forms friendships, wins over people's hearts, starts and wins revolutions.

For Snow food it a tool with which you can sew starvation and chaos.

For Katniss food is a tool with which you can form bonds and find peace.

The way we see the full progression of the dehumanisation of the tributes as the Hunger Games becomes more established and more normalised in the Capitol

In Ballad, they’re like wild animals, caged and starved as a form of revenge

In Sunrise, Haymitch being likened to some kind of pet by his prep team and in the afterparty of the games

In The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, they’re like celebrities trapped in a sick parasocial relationship with the people who will, in a week, get to see them die

The cage is always there- it just evolves to make it more palatable to the viewers

Something i didnt quite understand in the book is why in the arena they had to kill the game makers is theres any bigger piece to it or is it just pure brutality?

Thanks for your ask!

The answer comes from a few different places, but it ultimately leads back to David Hume’s essay Of the First Principles of Government. (It's a short read, and I highly recommend it!)

In Of the First Principles of Government, Hume discusses implicit submission. He maintains governing bodies derive their power from public opinion, and it is exactly why all of the characters acted the way they did in that scene. I will break it down by character, but first I want to examine some context in SOTR.

In the text, the training scene right before Plutarch begins to question Haymitch foreshadows the later scene:

“There’s this moment, just as I get to my feet, where I look around, and I’m armed, and they’re armed. A half dozen of us hold sleek, deadly knives. And I see that there aren’t many Peacekeepers here today. Not really. We outnumber them four to one. And if we moved quickly, we could probably free up some of those tridents and spears and swords at the other stations and have ourselves a real nice arsenal. I meet Ringina’s eyes, and I’d swear she’s thinking the same thing.” [...] “The more I think it over, the more my dismay grows. Every year we let them herd us into their killing machine. Every year they pay no price for the slaughter. They just throw a big party and box up our bodies like presents for our families to open back home.”

When you read this as context to the scene in the arena, it is the same idea. The armed tributes outnumber the Gamemakers, and in the arena, everyone is on equal footing. The tributes have the numbers and the momentum of days in the arena behind them. 

There are two lines that are thematically significant in this section. The first line is from a Gamemaker: 

The Gamemaker with the drill raises her mask and straightens up to a full height. "That’s right. And all four of you are in absolute violation of the rules. You must immediately withdraw or there will be repercussions." "That’d be a lot more impressive if you weren’t shaking like a leaf," observes Maysilee, fingering her blowgun. 

The only defense the Capitol worker has is that of governing status. She attempts to assert the rules of governance on her side by claiming that they are all in violation of the rules, and therefore they must submit to the Capitol by leaving them alone. Even she knows, as her shaking voice exposes, there is no true way to enforce this rule. This is where David Hume’s essay comes in:

"When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion."

The force is always on the side of the governed. The governed, in this case, are the tributes of the arena. Yet, in the arena, where the purpose, according to Dr. Gaul, is to strip man down to his base instincts, a governing body cannot exist. The government exists to make sure man doesn’t regress to said instincts. Therefore, the government cannot exist in the arena in the same way it does in the rest of Panem. Ergo, the public opinion needed to enforce the rules is obsolete, to the point where both parties are on equal grounds. There is no illusion of power. 

The second line is: 

Silka seems stunned into inertia as well. “What’d you do? Did you kill Gamemmakers? They’ll never let us win now!”

Silka still believes there are winners in the games. In fact, she goes so far as to say “let us win”, thus she recognizes that the Capitol has true control over who wins, and prior to this, she expected to be able to win. Now, she believes winning is a right that the Capitol can revoke, which lends itself to the idea of Hume’s secondary principles of government:

"There are indeed other principles, which add force to these, and determine, limit, or alter their operation; such as self-interest, fear, and affection: But still we may assert, that these other principles can have no influence alone, but suppose the antecedent influence of those opinions above-mentioned."

Because Silka expects to be able to win, she is stunned into submission under her expectation of particular rewards:

"For, first, as to self-interest, by which I mean the expectation of particular rewards, distinct from the general protection which we receive from government, it is evident that the magistrate's authority must be antecedently established, at least be hoped for, in order to produce this expectation."

On the other side, fear stuns Haymitch. Hume details how fear is a form of submission:

"No man would have any reason to fear the fury of a tyrant, if he had no authority over any but from fear; since, as a single man, his bodily force can reach but a small way, and all the farther power he possesses must be founded either on our own opinion, or on the presumed opinion of others."

Haymitch recognizes how futile it would be to take down a few Gamemakers. It is the same reason he deduces when he reflects on his time in the training center. They may outnumber the peacekeepers in the training center, but what would happen? It would be a fruitless rebellion, and public opinion would squash anything that could potentially develop from it. Hume’s discussion of fear is not exactly fear of the tyrant himself, rather, fear of the power he possesses over others. Snow had public opinion on his side outside of the arena. Killing a few Gamemakers here would just bring upon the tyrant’s arsenal.

Maysilee and Maritte, however, both recognize that the perception of power via public opinion doesn’t exist in the arena. Both realize they cannot be punished more than they already are. I don’t usually quote the movies, but I think Reaper’s taunting of the Capitol when he rips the flag down in the 10th Games suits this philosophy extremely well: 

“Are you gonna punish me now? Are you going to punish me now?”

Both girls act because they are disillusioned with the power of the Capitol. They refuse to submit. They are free from the secondary aspects of self-interest, fear, and affection. Maysilee alludes to the idea that winning was never going to happen in the first place: 

Maysilee’s voice drips honey. “Still chasing that sad little dream, Silka?” 

While one can interpret this by assuming Maysilee means she was going to kill Silka, it can also be taken to counter Silka’s belief of a fair win, calling it a dream. Maysilee likely recognizes the Capitol can always give advantages to people they want to win, or send mutts on whoever they don’t like. We see this with Titus in his games. She doesn’t submit. 

I would like to cross reference this with the 10th Games in Ballad, where Coriolanus and Sejanus entered the arena. Dr. Gaul used Coryo’s experience in the arena about a lesson on human nature: 

“Without the threat of death, it wouldn’t have been much of a lesson,” said Dr. Gaul. “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.”

Later in the scene, she talks about how the death of Coryo and Sejanus would not have brought anyone closer to winning. This is the same idea, just from the perspective of what would have been the Gamemakers, had they survived: 

“What did you think of them, now that their chains have been removed? Now that they’ve tried to kill you? Because it was of no benefit to them, your death. You’re not the competition.”  It was true. They’d been close enough to recognize him. But they’d hunted down him and Sejanus — Sejanus, who’d treated the tributes so well, fed them, defended them, given them last rites! — even though they could have used that opportunity to kill one another.  “I think I underestimated how much they hate us,” said Coriolanus.  “And when you realized that, what was your response?” she asked.  He thought back to Bobbin, to the escape, to the tributes’ bloodlust even after he’d cleared the bars. “I wanted them dead. I wanted every one of them dead.”

Interestingly, he makes a point about human nature that calls back to what Hume is saying:

“I think I wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if you hadn’t stuck me in that arena!” he retorted.  “You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else. It’s a lot to take in all at once, but it’s essential that you make an effort to answer that question. Who are human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.” Dr. Gaul began to wrap his wound in gauze.

While initially it seems to validate Dr. Gaul’s argument that humans, by nature, are violent creatures, his refutation actually provides the basis for the very reason Maysilee and Maritte killed the Gamemakers. “[They] wouldn’t have beaten anyone to death if [the Capitol] hadn’t stuck [them] in that arena”. 

The arena does not strip people of their nature. It forces them to submit for the very secondary aspects Hume provides. The governing body forces them to kill, and by stepping into the arena, where the Capitol has stripped itself and all beings of their own power to display what it believes to be human nature in its primitive form, it has erased the protection of public opinion. 

The Capitol holds no real power in the arena itself. Sure, they bomb it afterwards to clear out the four tributes. Sure, they sic the mutts on Maysilee and Maritte, but they do not govern in the way they do over Panem. 

Inasmuch, the Gamemakers died because the arena disillusioned Maysilee and Maritte to their implicit submission. The moment the Gamemakers entered the arena, they were powerless as of their own creation.

I hope this makes sense. Thanks for the ask!

what do you think was the arena for the first quarter quell ? I headcannon it was a labyrinth . Since this was the first arena built by scratch , I think the game makers wanted this arena to be memorable and honour the origins the games should they modelled the arena after the myth which inspired the hunger games ( Theseus and the Minotaur )

Also since Haymitch said Snow needed the 2QQ to go perfectly meaning something went wrong during the 1QQ. What do you think went wrong ? Maybe there was a Minotaur mutt in the arena that was killed by one of the tributes causing uprisings to happen in the districts ? Maybe they capitol was forced to let that person be victor because the remaining tribute were worse ?

A labyrinth would be so interesting! I’m gonna steal your line of thinking and pull from something else religious/mythological: the Mountains of Moriah.

Collins seems to have an affinity with the book of Genesis. The arena resembles the Garden of Eden, the poison berries mirror the poison fruit, snakes as message bearers (you’re murdering us), seeking to go beyond the walls (the force field), and I’m sure there’s plenty more I’m missing. 

The districts had to vote their own children into the Games for the first Quarter Quell. It resembles another story in Genesis: the Sacrifice of Isaac, where God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son on top of one of the mountains in Moriah. The districts are told the same thing: sacrifice your sons to the Games. I think it’s too strict of a parallel to not place it in the mountains, especially when Haymitch uses the word “environment” here: 

For the last twenty-four years, they’ve unveiled a brand-new arena each year based on a different environment or theme, from a desert to a frigid landscape to Wiress’s reflective puzzle, which they called the Nest of Mirrors.

However, the word theme and the mirrors both lend themselves towards the labyrinth idea. I see the appeal of a labyrinth in construction. Like you said, it’s the first arena they have constructed themselves for the sole purpose of the Games. A pure landscape of mountains wouldn’t give the image of grandiosity the Capitol would want to portray, and it wouldn’t mark the era of constructed arenas. So maybe, in keeping with the theme, perhaps there is an altar of sorts, symbolic of the sacrifice they are making at the altar of the Capitol, and that altar can hold the labyrinth. Two symbolic allusions in one.

As for what I think went wrong, my mind immediately jumps to construction. I highly doubt they had the technology for an efficient Sub-A back then. We see in the 50th games that they’re still using manual labor to clean up, but they are removing the bodies with the hovercrafts, so they do have some distance technology that works. It’s the first arena they have built. Something is bound to go wrong, whether the altar’s door won’t open, or the cornucopia rolls down the mountain.

Neither of those things seem like they would affect the “smoothness” of the Games, though, so my theory is more rebellious. What strikes me between the 74th and the 50th Games is the fact Haymitch was so close to Maysilee’s body when they removed it. Katniss knew that the hovercraft won’t take the bodies if someone is there. Haymitch knows it’s less likely, but they still take the bodies as we see with Maysilee. So what if that rule started in the 25th games? Maybe a tribute or two hitched a ride on the claw and hijacked a hovercraft. There’d be no reason to have a large staff on the ship itself until it happens. It seems simple enough.  

You raise a good point about the victor. We don’t know the victor, yet we know Mags. Mags is significantly older than the victor from the first QQ. Something happened to that victor to make them disappear. A QQ victor is not someone Panem forgets unless the Capitol wants them gone. Katniss says it herself in the 75th Games, all eyes would be on Haymitch because he won the 2nd QQ. All eyes should have been on the first QQ winner, but they weren’t. They weren’t even mentioned by name. So maybe that victor was a rebel after all. Now you’ve got me thinking. 

I’m curious what your theories on the victor would be.