Fanfic / The 61st Annual Hunger Games

"Are the odds ever really in our favour?"

— Barley Mayes

The 61st Annual Hunger Games by EJ Kearney is a Fanfic that takes place in the universe of The Hunger Games. The Hero Protagonist is Barley Mayes, a 15-year-old girl from District 9 (no, not that District 9) reaped to participate in the 61st Hunger Games. However, there are other characters to get a POV (Caspian Hadala, Clarisse, Sylva Mayleaf, Maximus, and Sarahva Boor). Barley is allied with her district partner, Dagan Starche, as they try to survive the Games together. But as they progress and they witness several horrors, they start to wonder: is emerging victorious any better than losing?

The fanfiction takes place thirteen years before the start of the main trilogy and 18 out of 20 chapters are currently published, while the final two will soon be released. The fanfiction can be found here and here.

Some spoilers may be unmarked, but most will be covered.

---

Provides examples of:

• Action Girl: The girls in the Career Pack (Twinkle, Perdita, and especially Clarisse), are this. Caspian's mentor Elsie was this when she was in her prime.
• Adaptational Villainy: Blight was barely mentioned at all in Catching Fire, but it can be assumed that he was a good guy because he was in on the rebel plot. However, in The 61st Annual Hunger Games, he was mentioned to have "turned nasty" in the Games despite starting out a sweet boy.
• Aerith and Bob: We have Clarisse, Jeremy, and Trevor, then we also have Catellus, Twinkle, and Lucius.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Clarisse's death. "I approach the pathetic, muscular mass on the planks and dig my machete into her throat. Her visage epitomizes worry and her eyes still fret, so I slice her throat again out of mercy."
• All Deaths Final: All of the characters who we see seemingly die do indeed die for good.
• All for Nothing: The bloodshed of the Feast happened only for tributes to fight over six barely ripe apples.
• Alliterative Family: The tributes from District 8, who are brother and sister, are named Trevor and Tuila.
• Ambiguously Brown: Dagan has "almond skin". Given as "Dagan" is an ancient Syrian deity, he may be Middle Eastern.
• And I Must Scream: The Avox servant who Sylva sliced the legs of is in agony and wants to ask Barley for help, but can't, as she has no tongue.
• Animal Motifs: Barley has a dream where she's standing on President Snow's balcony and he turns into a ginormous golden snake, symbolizing his sinister and deceptive personality.

• Arc Words:
  • "Are the odds ever really in our favour?"
  • "Show the Capitol you do not belong to them."
• Ascended to Carnivorism: Emmer realizes that the deer he sees isn't a normal deer and is a mutt when it starts eating a dead animal on the ground.
• Attack on the Heart: Clarisse stabs Dagan in the heart.
• Battle Couple: Jade and Twinkle were going to break up, but instead they decided to volunteer for the same edition of the Hunger Games so one of them would die.
• Beach Bury: Barley does this on the first night for warmth, and Dagan does it on the second.
• Beach Episode: Downplayed. Barley is on the beach moping in chapter 10.
• Berserk Button: Caspian once tied up one of his classmates in a janitor's closet and tortured him until he was begging for mercy. Why? The classmate simply made fun of him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Barley worries that she will turn out like Blight. He started out kind and quiet in the interviews and training. He even ran away from the Cornucopia bloodbath, but when they were called back for the Feast, Blight killed three tributes in one minute.
• Big Brother Instinct: Dagan to Barley and Barley to Catellus.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: Barley has a Heroic BSoD and breaks down in tears when the drones come to pick up the bodies of Dagan and Clarisse, the latter of which she killed.
• Blood Knight: Jade, Twinkle, Caspian, and Clarisse are happy to participate in the Games. Maximus started out a Blood Knight, but eventually realized the horrors of the Games.
• Bloody Horror: "Barley is crying and writhing on the cement floor from her axe attack. Disgusting flabs of dead skin peel above her arm, and blood still pours from the scabbing wound."
• Bludgeoned to Death: Sylva watches Maximus on TV as he bashes Angus' face in with a steel block. The blood splats all over his face, and he continues assaulting him even after his cannon sounded.
• Brain Bleach: Clarisse is disgusted when Jade and Twinkle get intimate on the first night of the Games.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Maximus kills many people, but he's horrified of his actions and runs away cowardly when threatened by Sarahva's arrow.
• The Cameo: Haymitch Abernathy makes a cameo during the first day of training, drinking with Chaff. Rhonda also complains about his lack of helpfulness, and Caspian rewatches his Games.
• Caught in a Snare: The fate of Cacia, the girl from District 7
• Chekhov's Gun: The throwing knife that Dagan finds in a backpack in the Cornucopia is mentioned early on, but not used at all until Barley splits open a bag with it on top of a pillar at the feast.
• Clean Cut: Caspian's katana does this, most notably to Sarahva's ear.
• A Day in the Limelight: Caspian, Clarisse, Emmer, Sylva, Maximus, and Sarahva all have POVs.
• Dead Partner: Dagan, and even Rhonda and Milo.
• Death Glare: Caspian's specialty.
• Dehumanizing Insult: "You pompous waste of oxygen."
• Devoured by the Horde: Seagull muttations fight over Jade's limp but living body after Sarahva shot him twice. The seagulls end up killing him.
• Doomed by Canon: It's a Foregone Conclusion that Emmer can't win because he's only 13 and the youngest victor in the history of the Games, Finnick, was 14 when he won.
• Dream Episode: Barley has an odd dream where President Snow turns into a golden snake and eats her. It then shifts to a dream where Caspian sets a field of barley on fire.
• Dress-Up Episode: Chapter 3 covers the Tribute Parade.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Fallow O'Leary struggles from alcohol addiction, and it's not confirmed that Sylva does as well, but it's hinted at (like when she threw an empty bottle.)
• Dual Wielding: When she attends the feast, Barley takes a shield and a machete, with a knife in her pocket.
• Dwindling Party: Both the Career Pack and the alliance of the tributes from Nine and Twelve.
  • Rhonda and Milo die on the first day and Dagan dies on the seventh day, leaving Barley alone.
  • Perdita dies on the first day, Jade dies on the fourth day, Clarisse dies on the seventh day, and Twinkle dies on the tenth day. The other chapters have not been finished yet, so as of now, Maximus and Caspian are the ones who remain.
• Dying as Yourself: Dagan died on the same day that he admitted to Barley that he was nineteen and that he wasn't as stoic as he presented.
• The Eeyore: Sarahva is depressed in every single scene she's featured in. She holds a pessimistic worldview and doesn't find herself worthy of allies.
• Emotion Suppression: Dagan uses this as a coping mechanism, and Barley mistakes it for extreme stoicism.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Apart from his appearance on Sylva's Mentor Tablet, Torque, the male tribute from District 5, is referred to as, well, Five.
• Everyone Chasing You: The entire Career Pack comes running after Sarahva. Luckily, Barley decides to save her.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: What happens in The 61st Annual Hunger Games? The 61st Annual Hunger Games.
• Feathered Fiend: Seagulls circle like vultures to attack the tributes.
• Fishing Episode: Lots of narrative time is spent with Barley (and sometimes Dagan) fishing with the rod that Barley got before the Bloodbath started.
• Foil:
  • Rhonda is a character foil to Sarahva. Both are female tributes from the outlying districts who are on friendly terms with Barley, but Rhonda is The Pollyanna while Sarahva is The Cynic. The fact that Rhonda is the first to die and Sarahva lasts a long time is symbolic of the tragic Too Good for This Sinful Earth aspect of the Games.
  • Maximus is a character foil to Caspian. Both of them are tall, bulky, and competitive male Career tributes, but Maximus is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Caspian is just a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. They come across as a one-sided Vitriolic Best Buds relationship.
  • Jeremy is a character foil to Catellus. They are both underaged male citizens of District 9 who are very close with Barley. They are not seen much within the timeframe of the story, but are frequently mentioned in flashbacks. What separates them is that Jeremy is Prone to Tears and Catellus is more resilient. Additionally, Jeremy lives in poverty while Catellus is one of the wealthier citizens of Nine.
• Functional Addict: Sylva is addicted to morphling, but manages to overcome it every year during the Games. Fallow, on the other hand, is an Addled Addict.

• Girlish Pigtails: Twinkle sports pigtails. After Jade's death, she abandons them for a ponytail, symbolizing the loss of the little innocence she had left.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The deer muttations have these.
• Got Volunteered: Dagan and Barley were both reaped into the Games naturally, as were all of the other tributes from the outlying districts (Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve), the tributes from District 3, 5, and 6, as well as Caspian an6d Perdita (though both of them had planned to volunteer in a couple of years anyways).
• Grievous Bottley Harm: An Avox servant is brutally assaulted in the legs by Sylva's beer bottle in the middle of the night, resulting in her running away and being shot by Peacekeepers.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Zig-Zagged.
  • Guys that use close-range weapons include Maximus, Caspian, Torque, and Dagan.
  • Girls that use long-ranged weapons include Twinkle and Sarahva (Barley also uses one to break open a bag).
  • However, there are guys who use long-ranged weapons (Emmer and Jade) and girls who use short-range weapons (Perdita, Clarisse, Freida, and Barley)
• Happily Married: The Capitol citizens who sponsor Barley, Pompeius and Cornelia Anderson, are content with their marriage and seem to have been married for a long time.
• Hates Rich People: The boy from Rye Village's motivation for attacking Catellus was simply because he was wealthier than most other citizens living in abject poverty.
• Height Insult:

Caspian: I must say, those were some pretty fierce attacks for someone so short.

Barley: Thank you. I must say, that's a pretty weak insult for someone so tall.

• Heroic BSoD: Barley has one after Dagan's death, when she refuses to let the drones take his or Clarisse's bodies away.
• Home Base: Both the Career Pack and the tributes from Nine have one.
  • The Careers use a large fancy restaurant on the corner of the boardwalk as their base.
  • District 9 camps out in a building designed as a seashell souvenir store.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: A platonic example with Dagan and Barley.
• Illegal Religion: All religion is banned in Panem. At least, all religions that mention a God, but hardly anybody outwardly adheres to a religion anyways just to be safe, as repercussions are severe. The reason for godly religions being banned is because President Snow does not want anyone to believe that there is a being more powerful than him.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: It's mentioned that a minor character in Catching Fire, Cecelia, was three months pregnant while she competed in (and miraculously won!) the 58th Hunger Games. She won by hiding in a dark sector of the small spaceship arena and relying on sponsors.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Barley is able to spill open the bag with only a single apple using the throwing knife she's never used before.
• Ineffectual Death Threats: When he confronts her at the machete station, Caspian makes many of these towards Barley. He carries out none of them.
• Injured Limb Episode: The end of chapter 12 and the entirety of chapters 13 and 14 are spent with Barley writhing in agony from her axe wound.
• Ironic Birthday: [[Spoiler: Dagan was reaped for the Hunger Games the day before his nineteenth birthday.. It's heavily implied that the Reaping was intentionally rigged to draw in attention to the Games.
• Just in Time: Right as the Pack is about to corner Sarahva and kill her, Dagan and Barley decide to go rescue her, saving her life.
• Karmic Death: Jade's death occurs right after he hunted down and sadistically murdered Emmer, who was only thirteen years old.
• Kick the Dog: Caspian is the main invoker of this trope.
  • In an Establishing Character Moment, he bullies Trevor, the skinny boy from District 8, for no apparent reason.
  • He aggresively shoves Barley up against the metal wall merely to intimidate her.
  • He tells the Pack to go out of their way to kill any tribute from Districts 9 and 12.
• Kill the Cutie: Rhonda was one of the most genuinely pure characters. She was naive, but kind to her competitors and she kept a positive attitude. She was killed by Maximus after Caspian told him to target her.
  • This also applies to Emmer, whose POV is arguably the saddest.
• Living Is More than Surviving: "Why must it matter anymore whether I live or die? My life will never be the same again either way. How my parents or Catellus would react if they never saw me again is the only thing that pushes me to stay in the competition. They couldn't stand it if I died."
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Is Barley seeing more stars appear in Sagittarius as tributes die a spiritual sign from the sky, a joke from the Gamemakers, or her brain playing tricks on her? It's up to you to decide.
• Meaningful Name: Most characters, but notably:
  • District 2: "Maximus" means "greatest", which reflects how the Capitol citizens interpret him. "Perdita" means "lost", and she is the first of the Careers to become "lost" in the brutality of the Games.
  • District 6: "Terminus" means "end", or "boundary". End reflects that he is the first of Clarisse's victims to meet their end. Boundary is representative of Six's industry, transportation.
  • District 9: Dagan is a semitic deity represented by grain and fish. Dagan's district industry is grain, and he fishes with Barley. Speaking of Barley, it's a cereal grain, and her last name Mayes is a distortion of maize.
• Mercy Kill: Barley slits Clarisse's throat merely because she can't watch her suffer anymore.
• Mission Briefing: The Pack met up near the Cornucopia before any casualties happened in the Bloodbath to discuss their plans.
• Most Definitely Not Accompanying Us: Dagan insists that Barley doesn't attend the Cornucopia bloodbath. He was successful, and she didn't... mostly.
• Multiple Narrative Modes: In chapters where Barley is the POV, it is told in first-person. When other characters are the POV, it is third-person.
• The Nameless: The boy who beat up Catellus in a flashback and was promptly threatened by Barley was never given a name. Neither was the Gamemaker who conversed with Lucius Bindlings.
• Not So Stoic: When Barley sees Dagan called onto the stage during the Reaping, she notices he doesn't show any signs of emotions. Later, this was revealed to be a dissociative coping method, and he even breaks down in tears.
• Novella
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Usually, Barley's stylist Martin Cella is ignorant to the needs and problems of the tributes. He treats the Games as whimsical effects with no negative effects. However, after Barley gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, he briefly panics and worries that the Games are bad before going back to his old self without any mention of his previous comments.
• The Pollyanna: Rhonda remains hopeful that she can win the Games despite her dismal chances, so she is the Pollyanna. [[spoiler: At least, she is until she's targeted and murdered in the Bloodbath
• Post-Stress Overeating: Once she boards the train bound for the Capitol, Barley spends a whole hour vigorously eating turkey, rolls, and salad.
• Present Tense Narrative: Similar to the canon series, this fanfiction is in the present tense.
• Prophet Eyes: The carnivorous deer muttations in the birch forest have shining, blank white eyes.
• Pummeling the Corpse: Terrifyingly, Maximus keeps on beating Angus' face after the cannon signaling his death went off.
• Real Men Have Short Hair: Dagan's long hair is shaved off in the Remake Center for this reason.
• Shield Bash: Dagan shoves Twinkle with his shield twice, knocking her to the ground both times.
• Some of My Best Friends Are X:

Dagan: But still, he wasn't exaggerating about the poverty in Rye Village...

Barley: I have a friend who lives there.

• Stars Are Souls: Combined with Stellification. After Barley paints a picture out of mud of Dagan and Clarisse, two stars she's never seen before appear in the sky.
• Statuesque Stunner: It isn't specifically stated that Clarisse is attractive but being a Career and very popular with the Capitol, it's implied. She also qualifies as a gender-inverted version of Tall, Dark, and Handsome.
• Symbolically Broken Object: [[Spoiler: After Dagan's death, his family portrait is cracked in a Y shape. The crack goes through his and his parents' faces.
• Take It to the Bridge: If a boardwalk counts as a bridge. When Sarahva is being chased by Jade and Twinkle, she runs towards the highest corner side of the boardwalk, where Dagan and Barley are fishing.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: "Oh, it has to "look good on you too", does it?" I scream, "I'm sorry, are you going to be at extreme risk of murder in a little over a day? Did you get snatched away from your district and everything you know? No. You didn't. So, I want to care about how it looks on you, but I'm not going to make myself a target just for your professional success."
• Thrown Out the Airlock: This was the fate of Cephas, the runner-up in the 58th Hunger Games, who accidentally died it to himself.
• Title Drop:

Priscilla: Ladies and gentlemen, I am very proud to announce that we will be choosing the next two tributes to represent District 9 in the 61st Annual Hunger Games very shortly!

Snow: We welcome these twenty-four brave young men and women who will be participating in the 61st Annual Hunger Games!

• Too Dumb to Live: Terminus corners Clarisse in the Cornucopia without a weapon, despite the fact that he is literally surrounded by weapons.
• Tragic Keepsake: Barley keeps Dagan's family photo and his two red wishing stones after he dies.
• Uncertain Doom: It's not known what happened to the Avox servant until Sylva mentions many chapters later that she was killed.
• Undiscriminating Addict: Fallow. "Compared to Fallow, Sylva's lucky to have managed to avoid the amount of addiction he suffers from. Morphling, alcohol, cigarettes, you name it."
• Villain Episode: Caspian and Clarisse both take a leading role in one chapter each (chapters 5 and 9 respectively).
• Violence Is Disturbing: The fight sequences are presented as cool, but the bloody death scenes and the traumatic aftermath are definitely not.
• Water Wake Up: A variant of this is invoked when Barley mentions that she stayed warm overnight by covering herself with sand. Since she dug her hole too close to the water, the rising tide caused her to wake up with a mouthful of ocean water the next morning.
• Weapon Specialization: Many tributes have a distinctive weapon:
  • Batter Up!!: The girl from District 6, Freida, uses a baseball bat when she comes up to attack Clarisse in the Cornucopia.
  • Twinkle uses a spear.
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The Ax-Crazy Jade uses an axe.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Caspian is awesome with a katana. During his training session, he defeats a group of holographic ninjas with his sword, and that's before the Games even start.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Torque is seen only in the Bloodbath and the Feast before getting killed. Milo, despite being a part of the main alliance, is killed immediately. Volta is seen during the training days and in the Cornucopia Bloodbath, but is killed offscreen on the sixth day (though the story does vaguely allude to her killing Cacia with a trap.)
• The Woobie: Poor little Emmer. First he fell out of a tree while engaging in child labour, then he was beaten by Peacekeepers, then he was reaped for the Hunger Games, then he was killed by Jade's axe. All he wanted to do was win for his little sister, Rosie.
• You Are Number 6: In chapter 17, Torque is referred to as "Five".
• Zombie Apocalypse: Caspian mentions that his mentor, Elsie, won the 34th Hunger Games by defeating a horde of the zombies from previous editions while the other living tributes were killed by them.