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** Subverted in the series epilogue: while [[spoiler:Peeta]] and [[spoiler:Katniss]] have two children, and this is a sign of hope, the world is still far from a good place, and Peeta and Katniss retain enduring psychological issues.
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** Subverted in the series epilogue: while [[spoiler:Peeta]] [[spoiler:Peeta and [[spoiler:Katniss]] [Katniss have two children, and this is a sign of hope, the world is still far from a good place, and Peeta and Katniss both retain enduring psychological issues.issues as a result of the events of the books.]]
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** Played straight in the series epilogue. [[spoiler:Peeta]] and [[spoiler:Katniss]] have two children.
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** Played straight Subverted in the series epilogue. epilogue: while [[spoiler:Peeta]] and [[spoiler:Katniss]] have two children. children, and this is a sign of hope, the world is still far from a good place, and Peeta and Katniss retain enduring psychological issues.
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* AsianAndNerdy: Everyone from District 3. "Nuts" Wiress and "Volts" Beetee, the two engineers in Catching Fire, "are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair." The explosives expert in The Hunger Games is described by Katniss as "scrawny, ashen-skinned" and by Rue as "not very big." Draw your own conclusions regarding their ethnicity.
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* AsianAndNerdy: Everyone from District 3. 3 (which produces electronics). "Nuts" Wiress and "Volts" Beetee, the two engineers in Catching Fire, "are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair." The explosives expert in The Hunger Games is described by Katniss as "scrawny, ashen-skinned" and by Rue as "not very big." Draw your own conclusions regarding their ethnicity.
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** Rue is described as having very dark skin.
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** Or not subverted. The rebels' other options besides direct siege would have included trying to seize or disable the Capitol's nuclear missiles, or else bombarding the capitol into submission. The narrator mentions that they can't do aerial bombing because of anti-air defenses -- but what about plain old artillery? Or maybe the rebels could have first attacked the anti-air emplacements, and then bombed the capitol flat. Or they could have just declared victory and negotiated the capitol's surrender. All of these options would probably have been easier than block-by-block urban warfare through a maze of boobie traps.
**Also, why didn't any of Katniss's squad have grenades?
**And why didn't either side have armored ground vehicles?
**At one point a character mentions the use of an EMP bomb by the capitol. Why didn't the rebels just EMP bomb the capitol to disable the pods?
**Also, why didn't any of Katniss's squad have grenades?
**And why didn't either side have armored ground vehicles?
**At one point a character mentions the use of an EMP bomb by the capitol. Why didn't the rebels just EMP bomb the capitol to disable the pods?
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* EarnYourHappyEnding: And ''how!''.
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* EarnYourHappyEnding: And ''how!''.EarnYourHappyEnding
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* KnifeNut: Clove, and how.
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* KnifeNut: Clove, and how.Clove.
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** Invoked by [[TheGovernment Capital]] for all victorius tributes. As children they are put through DeadlyGames, where [[ChildrenForcedToKill they are forced to kill, or be killed]] not only by other tributes but also by [[EverythingtryingToKillYou most of the things on the arena.]] These experiences are enough to make most of them [[ShellShockedVeteran Shell Shocked Veterans]], but Capital doesn’t leave kids alone and puts them through [[MindRape even]] [[ColdBloodedTorture more]] [[SexSlave suffering]] for the rest of their lives, making sure ThereAreNoTherapists to help. They can’t even fight back with [[IHaveYourWife lives of their loved ones]] on line and are ForcedToWatch as people they know participate in the same DeadlyGames. Taken UpToEleven when [[spoiler: victors are faced with a possibility of coming back on the arena and having to kill [[BreakfastClub people they’ve became friends with]]. At the end only seven victorious tributes remain (out of 50), because both Capital and rebels target them to make sure they can’t support the opposite side.]]
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** Invoked by [[TheGovernment Capital]] for all victorius tributes. As children they are put through DeadlyGames, where [[ChildrenForcedToKill they are forced to kill, or be killed]] not only by other tributes but also by [[EverythingtryingToKillYou most of the things on the arena.]] These experiences are enough to make most of them [[ShellShockedVeteran Shell Shocked Veterans]], but Capital doesn’t leave kids alone and puts them through [[MindRape even]] [[ColdBloodedTorture more]] [[SexSlave suffering]] for the rest of their lives, making sure ThereAreNoTherapists to help. They can’t even fight back with [[IHaveYourWife lives of their loved ones]] on line and are ForcedToWatch as people they know participate in the same DeadlyGames. Taken UpToEleven when [[spoiler: victors are faced with a possibility of coming back on the arena and having to kill [[BreakfastClub people they’ve became friends with]]. At the end only seven victorious tributes remain (out of 50), because both Capital and rebels target them to make sure they can’t support the opposite side.]]
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**Indeed, in addition the games helped keep a degree of animosity between the individual districts (not only as basic competition but because that competition involved killing each others children) which helped to reduce the chances of them organizing as well as letting the capital showcase all the amazing technology for killing they have at their disposal (where as the districts are lucky to have a few weapons between them, much less be skilled at using them). As for Katniss, the capital is just so used to winning (having put down uprisings in the past as well as winning the initial war) I doubt they really considered it a major issue until it began getting out of control.
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*** [[spiler: Maybe.. But it does imply people wait for them to grow up a little before it starts (Katniss is 17 in the second book and they comment that it would likely be her fate after she got a little older)]]
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*** [[spiler: [[spoiler: Maybe.. But it does imply people wait for them to grow up a little before it starts (Katniss is 17 in the second book and they comment that it would likely be her fate after she got a little older)]]
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***[[spiler: Maybe.. But it does imply people wait for them to grow up a little before it starts (Katniss is 17 in the second book and they comment that it would likely be her fate after she got a little older)]]
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**The games are perhaps most exciting from a reading perspective, however I don't think they are 'cool' in the sense most people would want to do them in real life.
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* SchizoTech: Justified in that the Capitol deliberately suppresses technology in the Districts, especially weapons tech.
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* IdiotBall: Katniss and Peeta pass this back and forth in the first book: [[spoiler: Katniss for not picking up on Peeta's rather obvious crush (it's staged forthe cameras but it's clear to anyone with a brain), and Peeta for assuming her resiprocation was real.]]
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* TakingYouWithMe: Book 1: [[spoiler: Cato threatens to take Peeta with him into the jaws of the Muttations if Katniss shoots him with her arrows.]]
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* TakingYouWithMe: Book 1: [[spoiler: Cato threatens to take Peeta with him into the jaws of the Muttations if Katniss shoots him with her arrows.]]
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* TakingYouWithMe: Book 1: [[spoiler: Cato threatens to take Peeta with him into the jaws of the Muttations if Katniss shoots him with her arrows.]]
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* IdiotBall: Katniss and Peeta pass this back and forth in the first book: [[spoiler: Katniss for not picking up on Peeta's rather obvious crush (it's staged forthe cameras but it's clear to anyone with a brain), and Peeta for assuming her resiprocation was real.]]
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* DidNotDoTheResearch: [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series Farla]]'s critiques of the books (see "[[LetsPlay Let's Read]]" below) identifies a large number of factual inaccuracies, in addition to other snark and fury.
** Collins' knowledge of basic archery is hurting, and she seems to not be 100% clear on the difference between a crossbow and a flat bow.
** Collins' knowledge of basic archery is hurting, and she seems to not be 100% clear on the difference between a crossbow and a flat bow.
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* DidNotDoTheResearch: [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series Farla]]'s critiques of the books (see "[[LetsPlay Let's Read]]" below) identifies a large number of factual inaccuracies, in addition to other snark and fury.
**Collins' knowledge of basic archery is hurting, and she seems to not be 100% clear on the difference between a crossbow and a flat bow.
**
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* [[LetsPlay Let's Read]]: A highly critical one can be found [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series here]] (and is continued [[http://dragon-quill.blogspot.com/2011/08/mockingjay-ch1.html here]]).
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** Titus and Lavinia are names from Shakespeare's ''TitusAndronicus''. Like their counterparts in the Shakespeare play, Titus was known for cannibalism, and Lavinia had her tongue cut out.
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** Titus and Lavinia are names from Shakespeare's ''TitusAndronicus''. Like their counterparts in the Shakespeare play, Titus was known for cannibalism, and Lavinia had her tongue cut out. [[spoiler:Giving Peeta's comments about 'fingers and toes' an unfortunate implication, given what other things happened to Lavinia in the play]]
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** In ''Mockingjay,'' Peeta finds a can of the same stew and presents it to Katniss when the team scavenges a meal.
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* TooHappyToLive: [[spoiler: Finnick and Annie]] in ''Mockingjay''. As soon as [[spoiler: they got married]], you knew at least one of them was doomed.
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-->''Happy Hunger ! [[ArcWords And may the odds be]]'' [[ArcWords ever]] ''[[ArcWords in your favor!]]''
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-->''Happy Hunger ! Games! [[ArcWords And may the odds be]]'' [[ArcWords ever]] ''[[ArcWords in your favor!]]''
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-->''Happy Hunger Games! [[ArcWords And may the odds be]]'' [[ArcWords ever]] ''[[ArcWords in your favor!]]''
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-->''Happy Hunger Games! ! [[ArcWords And may the odds be]]'' [[ArcWords ever]] ''[[ArcWords in your favor!]]''
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**Katniss once says that none of the boys during the Games grow a beard, even though many of the boys were old enough to grow one. She says that people from the capitol most have done something about it. It is highly possible that they gave them something so the girls wont have their periods during the game. Seems highly possible, since we're already able to do that right now.
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** The mute servants in the Capitol are called the Avox, which means 'without voice' in Latin.
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** The mute servants in the Capitol are called the Avox, which means 'without voice' in Greek and Latin. (The ''a-'' is Greek; the ''vox'' is Latin.)
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* BattleCouple: Katniss and Peeta in the first book, but subverted in the second when Finnick is Katniss' [[TheLancer lancer]].
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* BattleCouple: Katniss and Peeta in the first book, but subverted in the second when Finnick is Katniss' [[TheLancer lancer]]. Played somewhat straight with Gale and Katniss when they storm the Capitol.
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* HellIsThatNoise: One of the "traps" in the Quarter Quell locks the tributes in with Jabberjays trained to emulate the sounds of the tribute's loved ones being tortured.
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** The morphlings are perpetually tripping balls.
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** The morphlings are perpetually tripping balls.strung out on junk.
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In the first book, heroine Katniss Everdeen [[HeroicSacrifice takes her sister Primrose's place]] when Prim is chosen to be a contestant ("[[SuperHappyFunTropeOfDoom tribute]]") in the Hunger Games: a televised DeadlyGame wherein 24 contestants are [[ClosedCircle locked in an arena]] to fight to the death until only one remains. Her struggle for survival ends up igniting a firestorm that quickly goes beyond her control, until she finds herself embroiled in an all-out war that almost makes the arena look like Disneyland.
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In the first book, heroine Katniss Everdeen [[HeroicSacrifice takes her sister Primrose's place]] when Prim is chosen to be a contestant ("[[SuperHappyFunTropeOfDoom tribute]]") in the Hunger Games: a an annual televised DeadlyGame wherein 24 teenage contestants are [[ClosedCircle locked in an arena]] to fight to the death until only one remains. Her struggle for survival ends up igniting a firestorm that quickly goes beyond her control, until she finds herself embroiled in an all-out war that almost makes the arena look like Disneyland.
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[[quoteright:259:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/MockingJay_5707.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:259:[-[[RuleOfSymbolism It's just a bird]], [[BlatantLies nothing more]].-] ]]
-->''Happy Hunger Games! [[ArcWords And may the odds be]]'' [[ArcWords ever]] ''[[ArcWords in your favor!]]''
''The Hunger Games'' by Suzanne Collins is a trilogy of young adult novels that take place AfterTheEnd in [[MeaningfulName Panem]], a nation in what used to be North America that is divided into numbered districts and a large capital city ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Capitol]]).
In the first book, heroine Katniss Everdeen [[HeroicSacrifice takes her sister Primrose's place]] when Prim is chosen to be a contestant ("[[SuperHappyFunTropeOfDoom tribute]]") in the Hunger Games: a televised DeadlyGame wherein 24 contestants are [[ClosedCircle locked in an arena]] to fight to the death until only one remains. Her struggle for survival ends up igniting a firestorm that quickly goes beyond her control, until she finds herself embroiled in an all-out war that almost makes the arena look like Disneyland.
The three books are:
* ''The Hunger Games''
* ''Catching Fire''
* ''Mockingjay''
A feature film adaption has just wrapped filming and is set to be released in March 2012. It will star Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, Liam Hemsworth as Gale and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch. Should be interesting.
Now with a [[Characters/TheHungerGames Character Sheet]]!
----
!!Provides examples of:
* AccidentalMurder: Peeta accidentally kills [[spoiler:Foxface with poison.]]
* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: [[spoiler:Snow, as part of his gambit when he made his rise to power. Subverted in that it wasn't perfect, and he carried long-term damage from it.]]
* ActionGirl: Katniss and most of the other female contestants.
* AerithAndBob
* AirstripOne: The Districts are numbered and segregated by industry.
* AfterTheEnd: Some combination of wars and natural disasters destroyed the entire population of the world except for Panem. WordOfGod says that it took "in the triple digits" of years for this to happen. There are implications that Panem consists of less than 100,000 people and represents the entire human species.
** It has more than that, at least before the war. District 12, the smallest district (possibly excluding 13), had a population of between 8,000 and 10,000 before it was bombed, if a little less than 10 percent survived and it amounted to 800 or 900 people. That would mean the bare minimum population of the districts 1-12 would have to be 96,000, and most likely more, since districts 2 and 11 appear to be several times the size of 12, and the book doesn't say what the population of the Capitol or 13 is. Still, there were many casualties from both soldiers and civilians, and by the end of Mockingjay this figure could very well be true.
* TheAlcoholic: Former District 12 champion Haymitch Abernathy. In fact, it seems that a lot of Games champions end up with some kind of drug or alcohol addiction, due to a combination of too much money and time on their hands, having no real way to cope with the horrors they faced in the arena, and having to mentor new tributes year after year who seldom if ever come back alive. Also, the Capitol tends to find ways to [[spoiler: make the Victors' lives miserable, such as when they force Finnick into prostitution.]]
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The people in the Capitol have some strange fashion ideas, among them body dyes. At least one person mentioned has dyed her whole body pea green (?!).
* AmbiguouslyBrown: Rue and Thresh are both stated to be dark-skinned, but it's never mentioned ''how'' dark.
* AnimalMotifs: Metaphorically, Snow as a snake. Visually, Katniss as a mockingjay. Tigris as a cat-person as both.
* AnyoneCanDie: This is kind of the point.
* ApocalypseHow: In the backstory: it's continental societal disruption at the least, leading to the creation of Panem. There are hints that the rest of the planet may actually be ''worse'' off.
* TheArcher: Katniss. Also Gale.
* ArtisticLicense:
** ArtisticLicensePhysics: Beetee's electric trap in ''Catching Fire'' would not be capable of killing all the sealife and the Careers on the beach like he claims. (Ever wonder why lightning doesn't kill fish in lakes?) [[spoiler:Fortunately, the plan wasn't meant to actually work; it was a distraction for his real plan.]]
* AsianAndNerdy: Everyone from District 3. "Nuts" Wiress and "Volts" Beetee, the two engineers in Catching Fire, "are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair." The explosives expert in The Hunger Games is described by Katniss as "scrawny, ashen-skinned" and by Rue as "not very big." Draw your own conclusions regarding their ethnicity.
** For what it's worth, Asians rarely have "ashen" skin. Some of the districts just seem to have [[AmbiguouslyBrown ambiguous ethnicity]] not commonly found in modern peoples.
** The narrator of the Scholastic audio books puts on a distinct stereotypical "Asian person speaking English" accent that is especially noticeable in ''Catching Fire''.
** Rue is described as having very dark skin.
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Marvel]]
** [[spoiler:President Snow]] gets trampled to death by a mob, which he so rightly deserved.
* AxCrazy: Some of the Careers. Clove would've given Katniss a GlasgowSmile if Thresh hadn't stepped in. And Cato explodes so violently when Katniss takes out his supplies that he snaps a nearby boy's neck.
* AnAxeToGrind: [[spoiler:Johanna Mason]] in the Quarter Quell; after all, she's from the lumber district.
* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler:Katniss and Peeta have two kids, showing that there's some hope for the future.]]
* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter:
** [[spoiler: Peeta]] deliberately invokes this trope [[spoiler: by claiming Katniss is pregnant after the two are forced back into the arena for the Quarter Quell. This is a surprise even to Katniss, as she and Peeta have never actually had sex.]] It sort of works, though: [[spoiler: not even the bloodthirsty denizens of the Capitol seem to want to watch a pregnant woman be killed]]. Of course, some people [[spoiler: who probably at least suspect it's a lie]] are unmoved.
** Played straight in the series epilogue. [[spoiler:Peeta]] and [[spoiler:Katniss]] have two children.
** [[spoiler: Finnick and Annie]] also have a child after [[spoiler: Finnick dies in the war]].
* BadDreams: Katniss and the rest of the victors seem plagued by them.
** FlashbackNightmare: Used rarely. Most of Katniss's dreams are a...
** NightmareSequence: Katniss's dreams are usually a horrifying mishmash of bad memories and fear-gripped imagination, like everyone getting their tongues cut out or all her loved ones screaming in agony.
* BandOfBrothers: The victors.
* BattleCouple: Katniss and Peeta in the first book, but subverted in the second when Finnick is Katniss' [[TheLancer lancer]].
* BattleRoyaleWithCheese: Subverted in that [[spoiler: defeated characters don't come back to help fight the BigBad, they come back in another more sinister form to rip the remaining tributes limb from limb.]]
* [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe Because You Were Nice To My Friend]]: Thresh spares Katniss because she helped Rue out before she died.
* BecomingTheMask:
** [[spoiler: Katniss pretends to be in love with Peeta just to keep them both alive in the arena. By the end of the second book, at the least. At the end of the first she's prepared to kill him to save herself. Contrast the end of the second, where she's totally prepared to die so he can continue living.]]
** [[spoiler:Played straight by the end of Mockingjay.]]
* BeeBeeGun: Katniss uses a hive of lethal, genetically-altered wasps to kill some of her opponents. And almost kills herself in the process.
* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: [[spoiler: Peeta, though he got better.]]
* BettyAndVeronica: Gale is the Betty and Peeta is the Veronica to Katniss's Archie. [[http://apricotteacup.deviantart.com/art/Hunger-Games-Peeta-VS-Gale-152229494?q=sort%3Atime+favby%3ATaylorswifty1&qo=3&offset=130 This picture]] sums it up nicely.
** It is also possible to see Peeta - blond, kind, meek, has had a crush on Katniss forever - as the Betty while Gale, who has a "dangerous" personality and dark good looks, is more akin to Veronica. Peeta is the one society tells Katniss she should be with, while her relationship with Gale was risky.
** Regardless of whether Peeta is or is not more societally acceptable than Gale, the books make it extremely clear that Katniss did not choose Peeta based on what society thought; they also made it clear that Katniss is not the kind of person who would remotely care about what society thinks. Moreover, from an evolutionary standpoint, Gale is the more society-approved choice: the hinted at playboy alpha-male, with enough broody handsomeness to win over every female. Peeta, on the other hand, is artistic, sensitive, sweet, not very confident, non-competitive, and, while unpredictable, not secretive and mysterious. Society has a way of disregarding sensitive guys as weak, which, ironically, makes Peeta the risky choice. Which proves that Katniss wasn't looking for a "survival partner".
* BigBrotherIsWatching: Cameras are waiting to catch every minute of Katniss and Peeta's lives once they become contestants in the Hunger Games. Life in the districts is also very closely monitored, leaving people afraid to say anything that might come off as negative about the Capitol. President Snow even [[spoiler: knows Gale and Katniss kissed in the woods outside District 12, even though Katniss is supposed to be crazy-in-love with Peeta and Gale is supposed to be just her cousin]].
* BilingualBonus:
** 'Panem', the name of the country this story is set in, means 'bread' in Latin. This revealed to be a reference to [[BreadAndCircuses "panem et circenses"]] - when a government appeases people with food and spectacle to maintain power, which is exactly what the Capitol does.
** The mute servants in the Capitol are called the Avox, which means 'without voice' in Latin.
* BirdsOfAFeather: Katniss and Gale, though ultimately inverted when [[spoiler:Katniss decides that she needs Peeta to balance her own personality out.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The freedom at the end of the third book is paid for in a lot of blood, but Panem is rebuilding and there's some BabiesEverAfter for the two lead characters.]]
* BlackAndGrayMorality
* BlackMarketProduce: Katniss makes her living poaching game and selling it on the black market. In addition, most food that isn't made from grain rations is expensive and rather rare in the Districts. The decadent Capital, on the other hand, has tons of food of all kinds.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Subverted by President Snow, since it's neither overt nor a sign of his impending death. [[spoiler:Played straight later.]]
* BloodKnight: "Careers" are kids who train all their young lives to win glory in the Games, even going as far as to ''volunteer'' for them if they're not selected by lottery.
* BloodSplatteredInnocents: About thirty seconds into the 74th Hunger Games, the boy from District 9 coughs blood into Katniss' face after getting knifed by Clove.
* BloodSplatteredWeddingDress: Invoked then parodied. Katniss's wedding dress, [[spoiler: instead of being spattered with blood, it lights itself on fire then turns into a mockingjay dress.]]
* BlueEyes: Prim, Mrs. Everdeen, and Peeta. Implied to be a trait of the merchant class.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler: Peeta. He gets better.]]
* BreadAndCircuses: ''Panem et Circenses''. DiscussedTrope in ''Mockingjay.''
* BreakTheCutie: Peeta's TraumaCongaLine is significantly longer than that of most of the other characters, though for the most part he takes it all in stride.
** In addition, [[spoiler: Katniss']] own mental breakdown, and the reasons it comes about, is elaborated on repeatedly throughout the third book, until eventually you have to wonder when the tale of [[spoiler: a recent victor of a brutal tournament acting as the heroic symbol of a rebellion]] ends and [[spoiler: the clinical psychological study on how to utterly break a seventeen-year-old girl's mind]] begins.
* BreakfastClub: People who have won the Hunger Games tend to become close friends and stick together, because only other tributes can understand what they have gone through.
* BriefAccentImitation: Gale at the beginning of the first novel, inciting one of about five times where Katniss actually ''laughs''.
* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu:
** In the first book, [[spoiler: Katniss is blown back by the explosion she sets off destroying the Careers' supplies and is rendered completely deaf in her left ear. Unable to escape, she only survives by hiding right under their noses]].
** In the Quarter Quell, [[spoiler: Katniss nearly kills herself breaking the force field over the arena]].
* TheBrute: Cato, in the first book, and the aptly named Brutus in the second.
* ButtMonkey: [[spoiler:Poor Boggs. His life is a string of tribulations, from Katniss puking all over him to Gale breaking his nose to getting his legs blown off and dying horribly. The closest he comes to complaining is a sigh when Katniss pukes on him.]]
* CallARabbitASmeerp: "Muttation" is a generic in-universe term for a genetically engineered creature. Lots of things count, like those wolves at the end of the first book, or Jabberjays and Tracker Jackers. Many more exotic variants are introduced in the third book when [[spoiler: they're storming the Capitol]].
** Also, the addictive painkiller in use around Panem is called "morphling" (morphine).
*** And the people addicted to it are called "morphlings."
** Poisonous berries called "nightlock" (nightshade, hemlock)
* {{Casanova}}: Finnick. [[spoiler: Later revealed to be a LadykillerInLove. Not to mention the whole SexSlave aspect]].
* CatsAreMean: Buttercup is to everyone who isn't Prim. [[spoiler:Until Katniss and he finally bond after Prim's death.]]
* ChekhovsHobby: Frosting cakes turns out to come in really handy.
* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Coal Dust]]: In ''Catching Fire'', the new Peacekeepers burn down the Hob. Katniss mentions how easily it burns because of all the coal dust. [[spoiler: At the end of the book, the Capitol firebombs District 12, and the whole district goes up in flames.]]
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: President Coin.]]
* ChildrenForcedToKill
* CleanPrettyReliable: Apparently you have to grow up near the ocean to know CPR, but if you do know it, it works like a charm.
* ClosedCircle
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Several people throughout the books, more notably Katniss in the third book.
** Wiress, aka "Nuts," who can speak only in {{Madness Mantra}}s like "Tick tock!" Beetee has gotten good at interpreting for her.
** The morphlings are perpetually tripping balls.
** Effie Trinket and Katniss's prep team are so wrapped up in their own little worlds that they seem completely oblivious to everyone else.
*** Although, it is hinted at that they do that to themselves on purpose to insulate them from the reality that each year they dress up a teenager who will go into an arena and, in all likelihood, be killed by another teenager for entertainment.
* ConsummateLiar: [[spoiler:Haymitch]], Snow, [[spoiler:Coin]], Johanna, and Peeta.
* ContrivedCoincidence: In-universe. Family members of past tributes are disproportionately likely to be selected as tributes themselves. Katniss figures the drawings must be rigged that way to create [[RuleOfDrama extra drama]].
* ConvenientMiscarriage: Invoked: [[spoiler:A fake miscarriage for Katniss and Peeta's fake baby]].
* CostumePorn: Each tribute gets a personal stylist. Looking flashy outside of the arena serves a practical purpose, though: tributes who catch the audience's eye are more likely to receive sponsors who can help them survive the arena.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: The arena of the second Quarter Quell (Haymitch's) is this. At first glance it's the "most breathtaking place imaginable." There're blue skies, puffy white clouds, songbirds flying by, [[CoolClearWater crystalline streams]], luscious fruit, gorgeous flowers, butterflies, etc. Then everyone realizes [[EverythingTryingToKillYou everything]] is [[DeathWorld deadly poisonous]]. And the [[KillerRabbit fluffy, golden squirrels are carnivorous]].
* CrapsackWorld: Most of the districts are horrible places to live. The people are poor, starving, and oppressed while those in the Capital live outrageously decadent lives. And that's even without mentioning the titular DeadlyGame.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass:
** Haymitch Abernathy seems like a useless drunk, but he did actually win a Hunger Game after all. In ''Catching Fire,'' we learn that [[spoiler:Haymitch survived a Hunger Game with twice as many tributes, mostly with his physical prowess and cunning, but also because he was driven to expose the limitations of the arena. We also learn that he's a member of the underground resistance.]]
** Johanna Mason famously exploited this trope to win the games, appearing to be helpless when she is actually a ruthless killer.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Anyone who's died in the Games, really. And the last book.
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The Capitol is described as being full of colored glass, and the people are obsessed with fashion. Technology also seems to have advanced to the point that it can be completely hidden from view. Although no one wears a toga, Capitol residents almost all have Roman names, establishing them as a decadent and technologically advanced society.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Wiress knows what she's talking about. The trick is ''figuring out'' just what that is.
* DarkActionGirl: Pretty much any female Career tribute by definition, but Clove fits the trope to a T.
* DarkerAndEdgier: The whole series is pretty dark to begin with, but the series finale, ''Mockingjay'', is much more hopeless than even the first two.
* DeadLittleSister: Katniss volunteers to avoid this trope, and its own of her primary motivations throughout the series. [[spoiler:However, Rue serves as a brief foster sister to Katniss, and promptly dies, fulfilling the trope.]] And then [[spoiler: Prim dies too, and Katniss wonders if it was specifically engineered to get to her.]]
* DeadlyGame: The Hunger Games can usually be counted on for at least 23 deaths.
* DeadpanSnarker: Haymitch and Johanna.
* DeathCourse: The Hunger Games, especially when the tributes settle down into a comfortable recovery period / stalemate. [[spoiler:The Capitol defenses use much of the same design aesthetic.]]
* DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler:Plutarch Heavensbee, his assistant, and some of the other people in District 13 have fled the Capitol. This was also the goal of Lavinia, the redheaded Avox, and the boy she was with when Katniss first saw her, but they didn't make it]].
* {{Deprogram}}ming: Has to be done to [[spoiler: Peeta]] in book 3.
* DespairEventHorizon: Katniss passes over it in a matter of paragraphs [[spoiler: at the end of ''Catching Fire''.]] And the rest of the series from there consists of [[ItGotWorse it getting worse]].
* DidMomJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: At the beginning of ''Catching Fire'', the president drops by for a terrifying "chat" with [[spoiler: Katniss, during which he threatens to kill her whole family if she doesn't conduct herself properly on the Victory Tour. (Katniss's mother isn't present for this part of the conversation, but she does drop in to serve them tea. Katniss then has to conceal the conversation from her mother, telling her the president was just wishing her luck.)]]
* DidNotDoTheResearch: [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series Farla]]'s critiques of the books (see "[[LetsPlay Let's Read]]" below) identifies a large number of factual inaccuracies, in addition to other snark and fury.
** Collins' knowledge of basic archery is hurting, and she seems to not be 100% clear on the difference between a crossbow and a flat bow.
** "Capitol" refers to a single government building, not an entire city. The correct term should be "Capit'''a'''l".
** In the author's defense, the story is told entirely 1st person by a 16 year old with a very narrow world view and very little formal education (this doesn't clear her of some of the DNDTR errors, but some of the bigger ones.
* DisappearedDad: Katniss and Prim's father died in the mines a few years before the book begins. Gale's father also died in the same accident.
* [[PlanetOfHats District of Hats]]: Each of the districts has a different primary industry, which serves as its theme. This is an InvokedTrope in the Hunger Games, since the tributes are each trope are traditionally dressed in ways that reference their theme.
* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: The Hunger Games are hateful, deplorable, they ruin their victors psychologically, and the series as a whole is viciously anti-war... yet why are the Games the coolest parts?
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** In District 11, the dark-skinned population is forced to farm and are treated with particular brutality. This sounds a lot like slavery in the American South.
** Panem and [[spoiler:Disctrict 13]] are nuclear powers locked in a stalemate. Panem is decadent, wealthy, and corrupt. Its citizens enjoy outrageous luxury while they exploit the surrounding communities to feed their enormous appetites. [[spoiler:District 13]], on the other hand, is a dull and drab place, ruled by an a totalitarian regime that regiments every aspect if its citizens' lives. This sounds a lot like the Cold War between the United States and the USSR.
* DoomedHometown: [[spoiler: District 12 is firebombed to the ground at the end of ''Catching Fire''.]]
* DoggedNiceGuy: Peeta.
* DrowningMySorrows: Haymitch becomes a drunk due to the horrors he has witnessed.
* DyingAlone
* DyingAsYourself: Peeta's wish before going into the arena.
* DysfunctionJunction: Go figure.
* {{Dystopia}}: Panem is not a great place to live.
* EarlyBirdCameo:
** Johanna Mason gets a brief mention in the first book, then appears in the flesh ([[NakedOnArrival um]]) a book later.
** [[spoiler:Delly Cartwright is mentioned in the first part of the first book in passing, but doesn't appear until the middle of the third.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: And ''how!''.
* EatTheDog: ''"No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog."''
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: [[spoiler:District 13.]]
* EmbarrassingFirstName: While the people themselves don't seem to be, at least Katniss notes that a lot of District 1 ''should'' be embarrassed by their names, the likes of which include Glimmer, Marvel, Cashmere, and Gloss.
* EnforcedMethodActing: Often used in-universe with Katniss.
** She's never warned about Peeta's interview strategy so that her reaction will be more genuine.
** She's dropped into the warzone to film her candid reactions for propaganda, since she can't act at all.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The first two things we learn about Katniss are that she loves her sister and that she has no problem drowning kittens.
* EstrogenBrigadeBait: Gale maintains a surprising harem in the fandom for someone who was a tertiary character for the first book.
* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Inverted. A group of deadly monkey muttations show up in the arena in ''Catching Fire.''
* EverythingsWorseWithBees: Tracker jacker wasps.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** The gamemakers frown on certain behaviors in the Hunger Games, but moreso because it will draw a poor reaction from the audience rather than out of moral disdain. They will not tolerate cannibalism, nor will they allow a psychopath to become a victor.
** In the third book, [[spoiler:Snow never exercises his Nuclear Option, which would damn humanity to extinction, even when he realizes that he's doomed. He states that he would never kill someone if it gave him no advantage.]]
* EvilSmellsBad: President Snow smells of blood and cloying roses. It seems symbolic at first, but a reason for it is given in ''Mockingjay'': [[spoiler:Snow killed many rivals with poison. He uses the roses to cover up the smell of poison, and his bloody breath is from the mouth sores left by poisoned drinks he shared with his victims after taking less-than-perfect antidotes.]]
** Snow also uses the overpowering smell of roses to intimidate his enemies, especially Katniss. The lizard mutts in ''Mockingjay'' were specifically given this trait to screw with her head.
* ExecutiveMeddling: The game masters constantly fiddle with the conditions in the Hunger Games to make things more dramatic. [[spoiler:The most notable example is when they change the rules to allow both tributes from a district survive if they're the last ones left, only to revoke the rule when it might be exercised. This particular instance backfires on them.]]
* EyeScream: When Katniss is hunting squirrels, she always nails her target in the eye. Ouch.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Katniss thinks Johanna has done this when Johanna 'attacks' her. Katniss assumes Finnick must be in on it too.]]
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Panem is basically a futuristic, sci-fi version of Rome (even without the little quote in the third book that points out how the country's name is an adoption of Rome's "Bread and Circuses" motto). The Capitol is an incredibly authoritarian superpower that brutally reigns over conquered territories to feed the decadent desires of its own citizens. The gladiator parallels with the Hunger Games are obvious, of course. But even the celebrations and parties are shown to have a distinct Roman flavor, including guests being encouraged to induce vomiting to empty their stomachs so that they can consume more food.
* FailOSuckyname: Plutarch Heavensbee, Effie Trinket, and just about everyone in the capitol. Except [[spoiler: Seneca Crane, but he dies.]]
* FalseFlagOperation: Toward the end of ''Mockingjay''.
* FeedTheMole
* FeigningIntelligence: Effie is probably the dumbest bunny on the planet, but she doesn't see it that way.
* AFeteWorseThanDeath: The Capital requires the districts to treat the games as a festival.
* FightingFromTheInside: [[spoiler:Peeta during a fair bit of Mockingjay.]]
* FilkSong: Even if one ignores the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCmoAuZgsnE many]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve-WpgIknc versions]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2obqRINOAg&feature=related of]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSLONTtQqFU&feature=related Rue's]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPR-Vf93q0A Lullaby]], there are a considerable number of these floating around including:
** Rachel Macwhirter's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnswUH9Oav8 Mockingjay]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYeWOQfQCQ8 Iron Children]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqSZDKU-J4 Too Clever By Half (The Ballad Of Foxface)]].
** Alex Carpenter's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRA7_MnRKmk In The Hunger Games]].
** Kristina Horner and Luke Conard's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MC2iiRp0I8&feature=related Real Or Not Real]].
** On top of those, an entire unofficial soundtrack exists [[http://www.youtube.com/user/unofficialscore here]].
* FilmOfTheBook: Set for release in 2012. So far, the casting is as follows:
** Katniss - Jennifer Lawrence
** Peeta - Josh Hutcherson
** Gale - Liam Hemsworth
** Haymitch - Woody Harrelson
* FireForgedFriends: Katniss and [[spoiler:Johanna]].
* FiveBadBand: The Career tributes from the 74th Games.
** TheBigBad: Cato
** TheDragon: Clove
** TheEvilGenius: [[NoNameGiven the District 3 boy]]
** TheBrute: Marvel
** TheDarkChick: Glimmer
** SixthRangerTraitor: [[spoiler: Peeta, but mostly as TheLoad to them too.]]
* FiveManBand: One of these forms during the Quarter Quell:
** TheHero: [[spoiler: Katniss]]
** TheLancer: [[spoiler: Finnick]]
** TheBigGuy: [[spoiler: Johanna]], though [[spoiler: Finnick]] also qualifies
** TheSmartGuy: [[spoiler: Beetee]]
** TheChick: [[spoiler: Peeta]], who is also something of TheLoad
* [[FirstGirlWins First Boy Wins]]: [[spoiler: Subverted. Peeta is the first boy chronologically speaking, which should cast him as Unlucky Childhood Admirer, but is introduced within the story after Gale.]]
* FlatCharacter: Prim. Many of the minor characters. Arguably, ''many'' characters qualify for this; their motivations are not generally complex. (Survive, hunt, run, and survive.)
* FlawExploitation: Katniss exploits the Capitol's [[spoiler: need for a victor]].
* FlowerMotifs: Several characters are named after flowers or plants, the President reeks of roses, and of course there's [[spoiler: Rue's death]] scene.
* FloweryInsults: Zig-zagged by Peeta [[spoiler: when he paints the picture of dead Rue covered in flowers for his private lesson but he never says a word to the Gamemakers]]
* FogOfDoom: A nasty example is encountered by [[spoiler: Katniss and her alliance in the Quarter Quell]]. It's poisonous to the touch, burning skin and clothes and causing seizures and temporary paralysis.
* FoodPorn: Katniss describes just about everything she eats in detail, which [[JustifiedTrope sort of makes sense]] considering she spent a good portion of her life nearly starving to death.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the first book, Katniss mentions she first meet the avox in the train while in the forest with Gale. [[spoiler:She ponders where the avox could have been headed since [[BlatantLies there’s nothing beyond the forest of district 12...]]]]
* FragileSpeedster: Rue, who can move deftly in the treetops, but can't face anyone in a confrontation.
* FreudianSlip: [[spoiler:After Rue is fatally injured by the District 1 Career, in a panic, Katniss refers to her as 'Prim' in her narration, though it's not really a secret that Rue has been a surrogate Prim in Katniss' eyes before that.]]
* FriendToAllLivingThings: Prim seems to befriend any animal she meets, and can't bear to go hunting with Katniss.
* GallowsHumor: Katniss and some of the other Hunger Game tributes/victors learn to have a very droll outlook on their CrapsackWorld. Finnick takes it somewhat literally in ''Catching Fire'' by tying a noose and pretending to hang himself as a joke.
* GenderFlip: Katniss is the ActionGirl and is proficient at hunting with a bow and arrow. Peeta bakes and paints, and is more emotional of the two. They're an inversion of ManlyMenCanHunt and FeminineWomenCanCook, respectively. Their names also invert the gender standard, as in English, female names tend to end in vowels (especially 'a') and male names tend to end in consonants.
* GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke
* GenerationXerox: Katniss looks like Mr. Everdeen, has inherited his hunting abilities, singing voice and, like him, [[spoiler: will marry someone from the town]]. Prim looks like Mrs. Everdeen and has inherited her passion for healing. Also Mrs. Everdeen was close friends with Katniss' friend, Madge's mother, as a teenager and the father of Katniss' love interest Peeta had a crush on Mrs. Everdeen.
* GenghisGambit: [[spoiler:In order to rally the people in the Capitol on her side and end things early, Coin blows up a bunch of children and makes it look like Snow is responsible. It works]].
* GenreSavvy: After spending a life watching the Hunger Games, Peeta knows what storylines will excite the audience, and uses it to his advantage. [[spoiler: He also admits he suspected all along that the Gamemakers would never let two people survive the arena]]. Katniss, by contrast, has GenreBlindness.
* GenreShift: ''Mockingjay'' abandons the Games entirely, [[BrokenBase breaking the base]] as it does so.
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Just one fight left. Environment is herding the survivors towards the lake for a final brawl. [[spoiler: SUDDENLY WEREWOLVES!]]
* GildedCage: The wealthier districts have better living conditions but more brutal and fanatical Peacekeepers. On the other hand, District 12 is one of the poorest districts, but the authorities are far more willing to turn a blind eye to things like poaching and black market trading.
* GoodIsNotDumb: Peeta is kind and patient and [[spoiler: totally kills people in the arena, including finishing off one girl in cold blood while he's in the Career pack]], besides being three steps ahead when it comes to manipulating the on-camera narrative.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''Mockingjay'', when [[spoiler: Katniss]] has her uglier scars surgically cleaned up, but is left with some more attractive scars, because she's got to have ''some'' scars to show how bravely she's been fighting. Averted in the end, however, when [[spoiler: she gets ugly skin grafts, and there's no attempt to blend them because District 13 has no more need of her.]]
* TheGoodTheBadAndTheEvil: [[spoiler:District 13 is just as full of assholes as the Capitol. The conflict really boils down to some truly horrible people who happen to be in power and all the innocents who get caught in-between]]. CrapsackWorld indeed.
* {{Gorn}}: How the Capitol citizens view the Hunger Games. In-universe only, hopefully.
* TheGovernment
* GRatedSex: [[spoiler:The act is alluded to at the end of ''Mockingjay'', then skipped over to a brief conversation between the characters afterward.]]
* GrayEyes: Apparently fairly common in the Seam, including Katniss and Gale.
* GreenEyedMonster: Gale tries damned hard not to like Peeta.
* GuysSmashGirlsShoot: In the first book.
** On the female side, Clove uses [[KnifeNut throwing knives]], Glimmer and Katniss use a [[TheArcher bow]], and Rue uses a [[BratsWithSlingshots slingshot]].
** On the male side, Cato uses a [[CoolSword sword]], Marvel uses a [[BladeOnAStick spear]], Thresh uses [[GoodOldFisticuffs brute force]], and Peeta uses a [[KnifeNut combat knife]].
* HairOfGold:
** Peeta, {{lampshaded}} by Katniss and Haymitch more than once.
** Effie takes it too literally with her metallic gold wig during the Quell.
* HandsOnApproach: Finnick uses this to show Katniss how to tie a difficult knot.
* HarmfulToMinors: Only minors are selected for the standard Hunger Games. [[spoiler:The 75th Hunger Game changes the rules.]]
* HerHeartWillGoOn: Peeta tries to invoke this in a MoreHeroThanThou dispute. Katniss' internal monologue reveals she'll have none of it.
* HeroesPreferSwords: Averted. The only character who really seems to use a sword as their main weapon is [[BloodKnight Cato]].
* HeroicBSOD: Katniss at the end of the second book, and all over the third.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** Katniss, taking her sister's place.
** [[spoiler: Mags]] in the second book--''twice.''
** And all over the place in ''Mockingjay''.
* HeroSecretService
* HiddenDepths: Just about all the sympathetic characters reveal themselves to be more than they at first appeared.
* HoldingHands: Most notably during the interviews for the Quarter Quell.
* HollywoodHealing: Due to the advanced medicine available in the capitol, most injuries sustained by the characters are healed completely. Aversions include Chaff's hand and Peeta leg, though he gets a prosthetic leg that is rarely referred to again. In the end, [[spoiler:Katniss and Peeta are both covered in skin grafts and burns that the medics didn't bother replacing]].
* HollywoodTactics: Possibly subverted in the final sections of the third book. On one hand, the districts have been completely taken by the revolution, which means that all the the Capitol has lost all its means of subsistence. Logically, the best way of handling a heavily fortified location that has no capacity for self-sufficiency is to lay siege and wait for the enemy inside to starve themselves out. All they had to do was keep the Capitol under guard and wait until the people there were too weak from hunger to fight back. On the other hand, nuclear weapons are involved and even if Snow wouldn't bring about mutually assured destruction, there's no guarantee that someone else in the government wouldn't. Also, given the entire population of Panem's fixation on the media and entertainment in one form or another, watching a boring siege (which generally tends to take a while) might cause the revolution to lose support after a while.
** Similarly, when the Bombers approach District 8 they fly in a V-formation like Geese and apparently low enough that they can be brought down by a high-tech Bow with exploding bolts. However, it has been nearly a century since the Capitol faced any real resistance and was cocky.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: [[spoiler: Finnick is a rather unusual example, being an unwilling male hooker.]]
* HotWings: Cinna's outfits.
* HumanSacrifice: Tributes are sacrificed by the Capitol to remember the betrayal of District 13.
* HumanShield: Snow surrounding himself with children.
* HumansAreBastards: At the end of ''Mockingjay', Katniss hits this trope ''hard.''
* HungryJungle
* IconOfRebellion: The mockingjay.
* IGaveMyWord: Subverted. Haymitch promises Katniss that he'll keep Peeta alive... and to Peeta that he'll keep Katniss alive.
* ImAHumanitarian: A District 6 tribute from a past Games named Titus is said to have gone insane and ate the bodies of the tributes he killed.
* ImportantHaircut: Or rather, [[InvertedTrope important lack of haircut]]. In ''Mockingjay'', all the rebel soldiers have their hair cut short, except for [[spoiler: Katniss because she needs to stay recognizable.]]
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Katniss is repeatedly shown hitting small game directly in the eye, seemingly with ease.
* IncendiaryExponent: Two of Katniss, The Girl On Fire's first [[CostumePorn ceremonial outfits]] in the Capitol fit this theme, though only one of them actually uses fire.
* InformedAbility: Peeta is mentioned as being good with a knife and Katniss makes a point of giving him one during the Quarter Quell, yet he's more proficient at being [[TheLoad The Load]].
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Katniss [[spoiler: upon finding out she'll be going back into the Hunger Games for the Quarter Quell.]]
* InelegantBlubbering: During Katniss' breakdown after the announcement of the Quarter Quell, most notably.
* InsanityDefense: Used to get [[spoiler:Katniss off for assassinating President Coin]].
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler: Katniss tries to kill herself at the end of ''Mockingjay'', but Peeta stops her.]]
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: One of Katniss's prep team.
* ItsAllAboutMe: For whom is the Quarter Quell a real ordeal?
* ItsPersonal: Between Katniss and Snow.
* ItWasAGift: Katniss' Mockingjay pin.
* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: [[spoiler: Mags.]]
* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: Snow directly threatens Gale and indirectly threatens the rest of Katniss' loved ones if she doesn't convince all of Panem (including Snow himself) that she's madly in love with Peeta.
** The threat is quite real since the entire premise of the Games itself was a way to punish the rebels by making their children kill each other, and to remind them that the Capitol can and will do things like this if they rebel again.
** Snow also uses the threat against loved ones to [[spoiler:force Victors into [[SexSlave prostitution]]]].
* JustFriends: [[spoiler: Katniss and Gale.]]
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Marvel got an arrow in his neck from Katniss as revenge for killing Rue.]]
* KillEmAll: The Games are to end with one person left standing. [[spoiler: Both the 74th and 75th end a little differently.]]
* KilledOffForReal: There are no [[DisneyDeath Disney Deaths]].
* KissingCousins: Gale pretends to be Katniss' cousin to explain his close relationship with her when Peeta is supposed to be her lover.
* KissOfLife: When Finnick revives Peeta in ''Catching Fire'', Katniss describes it initially as "kissing" since she's rarely seen CPR performed.
* KnifeNut: Clove, and how.
* LaResistance: [[spoiler: Revealed at the end of the second book.]]
* LapPillow: Reversed between Katniss and Peeta, and once each between Katniss/Finnick and Katniss/Gale.
* LastKiss: A couple of times between Katniss and Peeta, [[spoiler: never for real.]]
* LastRequest: [[spoiler:Rue]] asks Katniss to sing for her. Despite not singing for years, Katniss comes through.
* LeaveHimToMe: Katniss insists on being the one to kill [[spoiler: Snow]].
* {{Leitmotif}}: Rue's song.
* [[LetsPlay Let's Read]]: A highly critical one can be found [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series here]] (and is continued [[http://dragon-quill.blogspot.com/2011/08/mockingjay-ch1.html here]]).
* LockDown: During the bombing of [[spoiler: District 13 in book 3]].
* LosingTheTeamSpirit:
** [[spoiler: Katniss at the end of the second book.]]
** [[spoiler: She completely loses it in the third one as well.]]
* LotteryOfDoom: The reaping, which selects tributes for the Hunger Games.
* LoveAtFirstSight / LoveAtFirstNote: If we take Peeta's word for it, that is.
* LoveHurts: Often literally.
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: [[spoiler: Katniss tries to convince the citizens of Panem she was so crazy with love for Peeta that she can't be held responsible for her actions. To say nothing of Peeta's actions to begin with.]]
* LoveTriangle: Unsurprisingly resolved at the end of Mockingjay.
* MadnessMantra: Wiress repeatedly says, "Tick, tock" during the Quarter Quell. No one initially understands what she's referring to.
* ManiacMonkeys: One of the many delights of the Quarter Quell.
* ManOnFire / WreathedInFlames:
** Katniss gets lit on fire five times: thrice in the name of fashion and twice in combat situations. There is a reason they call her ''The Girl Who Was On Fire''.
** Peeta also gets singed [[spoiler: at the very end, when he was presumably following Katniss.]]
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Peeta is the male version of FeminineWomenCanCook and Katniss is the female version of ManlyMenCanHunt.
* MeaningfulName:
** Katniss is a real plant. Its common name? "Arrowhead".
** Peeta the baker sounds like "pita," a type of bread.
** Effie Trinket seems to be trivial and shallow.
** Also, [[spoiler: the original Cinna was a doomed opponent of Sulla the dictator.]]
** One of the meanings of "Rue" is "regret." [[spoiler:Her death haunts Katniss, who failed to protect her.]]
** Avox means 'without a voice'
** Tigris had plastic surgery to look like a human-tiger hybrid. Katniss wonders which came first, the name or the look.
** Pollux and Castor, the twin cameramen from ''Mockingjay'' are named for the Gemini of Roman mythology. Like the myth, Castor dies and Pollux is allowed to live - only with some horrible mutilation.
** Titus and Lavinia are names from Shakespeare's ''TitusAndronicus''. Like their counterparts in the Shakespeare play, Titus was known for cannibalism, and Lavinia had her tongue cut out.
** In addition to any other possible meaning, a lot of the tributes' names related to their distriict's industry or their personal profession:
*** District 1, luxury goods, gives us Marvel, Glimmer, Gloss, and Cashmere.
*** District 3, electronics, has Wiress. And Beetee, which sounds like TV, CD, PC, etc. (Or BD, as in blu-ray disc). For British readers, it invokes BT - British Telecom.
*** District 4, fishing, ''Fin''nick Odair and Annie ''Crest''a.
*** District 7, lumber, gives us the optimistically-named Blight.
*** District 8, textiles, has Twill and Woof (another word for "weft").
*** District 11, agriculture, has Rue, Thresh, Chaff, and Seeder.
*** The Capitol uses Roman names, in reference to their technological superiority as well as their decadent culture.
* TheMedic: Katniss's mother and Prim.
* MemeticSexGod: Finnick is an in-universe example.
* MercyKill:
** After [[spoiler:Katniss puts Cato out of his misery at the end of the first Hunger Game.]]
** ''Catching Fire,'' [[spoiler: Katniss considers doing this for Peeta and possibly Beetee as well]].
** [[spoiler:Gale and Katniss have an understanding in 'Mockingjay' that they would kill each other before letting the other get captured, to avoid torture. Both fail to do it in the end.]]
* MindControlEyes: [[spoiler: Peeta]]
* MoralityPet: Katniss has Prim and Rue, Finnick has Annie, and Gale has his own younger siblings.
* MoreHeroThanThou: In ''Catching Fire'', [[spoiler: Katniss and Peeta are each determined the other will be the survivor.]]
* MushroomSamba: A (mostly) [[NightmareFuel extremely unfunny]] version thanks to tracker jacker venom.
* MyOwnPrivateIDo: In ''Catching Fire'', [[spoiler: Peeta claims he and Katniss did this, so that he can then claim Katniss is pregnant to garner extra sympathy]].
* MysteryMeat
--> "Once it's in the soup, I call it beef."
* NeckSnap: [[spoiler: Cato to the boy from District 3]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Katniss' main goal through the second book is to find a way to trick Snow into believing she's in love with Peeta. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, she does convince him (and just about everyone else), and therefore manages to give him the leverage to break her during ''Mockingjay''.]]
** One can say that the entire series is this. [[spoiler: Prim dies anyways, which was what the entirety of the first book was trying to prevent.]]
* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: President Snow and the Gamemakers.
* NobodyPoops: Bears may shit in woods but tributes, apparently, do not. It wouldn't be so noticeable, except that Collins takes pains to make everything about the Hunger Games and the horrors of the arena seem dirty and uncomfortable and horrible, so in the first book at least it's a glaring omission.
** They may not shit in the woods, but they do urinate.
*** Justifed, since it is common to retain bowel movements in high-stress circumstances.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Given the nature of the beast, it's an inevitability. Even outside the arena, [[spoiler: Cinna receives a nasty one as Katniss watches helplessly]]. ''And they never saw him again.''
* NoNameGiven: Katniss never learns the names of most of the tributes. [[spoiler: She doesn't find out until well after the games are over that the boy from District 1 was named Marvel, even though she was the one who killed him]].
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:Presidents Coin and Snow.]]
* NonActionGuy: Peeta, whose sole moment of badassery is so early on in the games that it's easily outshined by his persistent habit of being TheLoad.
* NonActionBigBad: President Snow.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Either the books take places very strategically to avoid this problem or Collins simply overlooked it.
** Possibly justified in that women who are significantly underweight and experience high physical and mental stress sometimes tend to stop menstruating, but this rationale may be OverthinkingIt. See also: NobodyPoops.
* NotInThisForYourRevolution: It takes Katniss a long time to decide to actively [[spoiler: help the revolutionaries instead of just looking out for her own survival]].
* NuclearOption: [[spoiler: Discussed. Both District 13 and the Capital have nukes trained on each other, but mutually assured destruction of all humanity keeps them both at bay.]]
* ObfuscatingStupidity:
** Katniss remarks this was Johanna Mason's strategy in her Games: everyone thought she was a sniveling, useless weakling and overlooked her... until she turned out to be a vicious killer who ended up the victor.
** Oddly enough, [[spoiler:Haymitch]] counts -- [[spoiler:not only is he quite the strategist in the first Games, but he turns out to be a major figure in the underground resistance by the end of book 2. Not bad for a drunkard.]]
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The implied epic two-day battle between Cato and Thresh. [[BattleInTheRain In the rain]].
* TheOphelia: [[spoiler:Katniss near the end of the third book, after killing Coin.]] Annie is presented as unstable at the best of times.
* OppositesAttract
* OrnamentalWeapon: Subverted with Katniss' bow. After all, just because it's pretty doesn't mean it can't be deadly.
* OrphanageOfFear: It isn't actually seen, but the District 12 community home is implied to be like this.
* OutrunTheFireball: One of the Gamemakers' traps.
* PerfectPoison: Nightlock berries. Most of the plants in the Second Quarter Quell.
* {{Phobia}}: [[spoiler:Johanna]] develops a fear of water after being tortured with drowning / electrocution.
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: Katniss is flustered by people's nudity on several occasions. Boggs is also annoyed by seeing Finnick sauntering around in his underwear.
* PoliceState: Panem is one. [[spoiler:District 13 is less openly cruel but even more restrictive.]]
* PresidentEvil: President Snow, especially as time goes on. [[spoiler:President Coin of District 13? Not much better]].
* PrimalFear: Suzanne Collins seems to be a fan of these... both The Hunger Games and the Underland Chronicles are full of people dying in horrible ways thanks to fire, drowning, bugs (sometimes GIANT bugs) and/or savage animals.
* PromotionToParent: The death of [[DisappearedDad Katniss' father]] and her mother's subsequent depression make her the breadwinner of the family.
* ProngsOfPoseidon: Since he's from the fishing district, Finnick is dangerously adept with a trident.
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Justified in Book One since the premise is a cage match to the death between random strangers. Averted in 2 and 3.
* ProtectedByAChild: Near the end of Mockingjay, [[spoiler:this is supposedly what Snow was doing to protect himself]].
* PsychoSerum: Tracker jacker venom.
* PyrrhicVictory: The ending of ''Mockingjay''
* RaceLift: [[http://www.movieline.com/2011/03/oh-no-they-didnt-the-hunger-games-casting-for-underfed-white-teenage-girls.php Fans are saying this]] after the casting call for the movie called for thin underfed white girls and the lily white Jennifer Lawrence was picked for Katniss, because many fans feel that Katniss was meant to be a person of color (or at the very least a dark-skinned white person).
* RainOfBlood: ''Literally.''
* RealityEnsues: Pretty much what Mockingjay runs on.
* RegionalSpeciality: Each district's bread is very distinct.
* ReplacementGoldfish: Katniss [[spoiler: forms an alliance with Rue, stays with her while she dies, and vows to win for her]], who reminds her of her own little sister Prim back home.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The third book is FULL of this.
* RomanticFalseLead: [[spoiler: Gale.]]
* RousingSpeech: [[spoiler: Katniss tries to give one in the middle of a firefight in District 2. It fails miserably.]]
** YMMV on whether it was successful or not, considering that even though [[spoiler: she was shot, it was by a soldier from the Capitol, not the one she was addressing, and the people who retaliated by gunning him down were not the rebels, but the District 2 soldiers she had been trying to inspire.]]
** In general, though, she's pretty good when she improvises. In ''Catching Fire'' she makes a beautiful speech [[spoiler: in District 11, about her ally Rue, that causes the crowd to make a show of insubordination.]] And her [[spoiler: "If we burn, you burn with us" speech in District 8]] in ''Mockingjay'' is all kinds of awesome.
* RuleOfDrama: Ties with RuleOfEmpathy, below. The Capitol loves best those victors who put on a great show.
* RuleOfEmpathy: Tributes must be able to invoke sympathy from the Capitol and District audiences. Sympathy will equal sponsors and money for necessities in the arena, and could therefore make the difference in the Games. Peeta, it turns out, is a natural at invoking the RuleOfEmpathy at the drop of a hat. Katniss is not.
* RuleOfThree: Suzanne Collins loves her powers of three. There are three books. Each book is divided into three parts. Each part contains nine (3x3) chapters.
* SacrificialLion: Although it was inevitable, [[spoiler: Rue.]]
** [[spoiler: Prim and Finnick in the third book.]]
* SayMyName: Especially Katniss' incident in the tree during the first games.
* ScaryBlackMan: Thresh.
* [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem Screw The Rules We Make Them]]: The Gamemakers.
* SexSlave: [[spoiler:According to Finnick, this happens to a lot of victors, himself included.]]
** [[spoiler: Fridge Horror + this, when you realize the victors are all children, so it is PoweredByAForsakenChild.]]
* ShallowLoveInterest
** The fandom seems to be split on who this applies to. Gale is either truly the other half of the OfficialCouple, or he's a [[RomanticFalseLead Paolo]]. Similarly, Peeta is either a cunning yet rather hopeless romantic, or a total idiot.
* ShellShockedVeteran: All of the Victors have some form of PTSD.
** Outdone by Katniss herself in the third book. Jury's still out on what's up with Peeta.
* ShootTheHostage: [[spoiler: President Coin orders a bombing attack on children being used as human shields by President Snow - and makes it appear that the attack was initiated by Snow, in order to destroy any remaining public support for Snow's regime.]]
* ShoutOut:
** WordOfGod has stated that Katniss's family name is a reference to the Thomas Hardy character Bathsheba Everdene.
** Katniss (the "Girl on Fire") is in Squad Four Five One, a reference to Ray Bradbury's ''Fahrenheit 451'', which is another dystopian novel with a fire motif.
* ShoutOutToShakespeare: Lavinia, who has no tongue, is a reference to ''TitusAndronicus''.
* SimulatedUrbanCombatArea
* SingleTargetSexuality: Peeta towards Katniss. He fell in love with her when he was 5 and never fell out of love. [[spoiler:Except of course for the brief time while he was hijacked - but that wasn't his fault and didn't last long.]]
* SlaveToPR: A dominating theme. A likable persona for a tribute wins sponsors; just as Finnick. It culminates in ''Mockingjay'' when [[spoiler: it is strongly implied that the rebels ''bomb a town square full of children'', in a hovercraft labeled as the Capitol, solely in order to convince everyone in the nation that the Capitol is evil]]. P.R. is possibly ''the'' most powerful weapon in ''The Hunger Games.''
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism - The cynicism side. Far, far, ''far'' on the cynicism side.
* SlowClap: Not exactly an applause, but the whole community of District 12 uses a cultural gesture to show their support of Katniss when she takes her sister's place. [[spoiler: District 11 tries this as well... and pays the price.]]
* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Avoided. They exist, they're just the worse alternative.
* SomeKindOfForceField: Prominent in ''Catching Fire,'' causing death or serious injury multiple times.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: [[spoiler:Annie gives birth to their baby sometime after Finnick is killed.]]
* TheSpeechless: Avoxes, traitors who've had their tongues mutilated as punishment.
* StrangeSalute: When Katniss volunteers to take her sister's place, the entire crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hands to their lips, and then holds it out to her. Katniss explains that it's an old District 12 gesture that means thanks, admiration, and goodbye to someone you love. [[spoiler:It becomes a little more meaningful later on.]]
* StunnedSilence: The first response to Katniss' exchange.
* StarCrossedLovers: [[spoiler: Peeta and Katniss pretend to be this to garner sympathy.]]
** [[spoiler:Turns out to be quite real in the end.]]
*** [[spoiler:real in that they were lovers, not real in that they were StarCrossedLovers (this trope is not a good thing...it implies that their love is doomed from the get go, the trope namers kill themselves because of it.)]]
* SuperHappyFunTropeOfDoom: The role of the Peacekeepers isn't as sweet as it sounds. (Bit like in RealLife, then?) Pretty much everything surrounding the Games is treated as fun and entertaining; being a "tribute" is an ''honor.''
* SuperPersistentPredator: The tracker jacker wasps do not give up an attack once pissed off. Running away doesn't help.
* SureLetsGoWithThat: When Caesar Flickerman asks Katniss exactly when she first [[spoiler: fell for Peeta]], she's evasive at first (since at this point [[spoiler: she hasn't actually fallen for him yet]]) and then immediately goes along with his first guess.
* SurvivalMantra: Although nonverbal, Finnick's compulsive knotting in ''Mockingjay''.
** Katniss shares Finnick's knotting habit for a bit in the third book, but has one of her own.
--> My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games...
* TakeAThirdOption: [[spoiler: The climax of Book 1.]]
* TakeThat: In universe, the mockingjay becomes an increasingly unsubtle one of these towards the Capitol.
* TakingTheBullet: During the Quarter Quell, [[spoiler: one of the morphlings is killed by an attack from a vicious monkey that was meant for Peeta]].
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Gale.
* ATasteOfTheLash: [[spoiler:Gale]] in Catching Fire
* TearsOfRemorse: After Katniss's meeting with the odds makers.
* ThemeNaming: The capitol and District 2 use Roman names to highlight their decadent nature and fondness for gladitorial combat. The nation itself is called Panem, the Latin word for bread. The districts often use names referencing their primary industry.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: The districts are too poor for something like a therapist, leaving the traumatized victors to relive their nightmares every year as they're forced to participate in the games. Invoked by Capital to make them broken beyond repair and thus unable to fight back. Subverted in [[spoiler:District 13]]: all refugees are given psychological help and local specialists do everything they can to get [[spoiler:Peeta]] back to his old self after a MindRape. Before [[spoiler:the final attack on Capital]], soldiers are checked for possible psychological problems ([[spoiler:Johanna]] gets sent to a mental facility). Katniss also goes through therapy after [[spoiler:her sister’s]] death.
* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Played straight [[spoiler: for seventy-three years. Zig-zagged in the first book.]]
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Here, there and everywhere given the nature of the Games. Big mention to [[spoiler:Cato, who, having lost all his limbs and skin from being gnawed on by at least twenty wolf-like creatures for hours on end, dies from an arrow to the face.]]
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: District 13 is the odd district out.
* TitleDrop: Of sorts. In the third book, "Fire is catching" becomes a slogan for the [[spoiler: rebels.]]
* ToAbsentFriends: [[spoiler:The book that Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch create at the end of Mockingjay.]]
* TooCleverByHalf: Foxface. [[spoiler:Up until the point where she fails to distinguish poisonous berries from normal ones. Granted, she was starving by then, but still...]]
* TraumaCongaLine: By the end, try to count more surviving characters that haven't suffered one without running out of fingers. This is especially endemic amongst the victors of the games as the Capitol torments them to keep them from using their elevated status to foment rebellion.
** [[spoiler:Until they messed up with Katniss.]]
* TrickArrow: Both the flaming and exploding kinds.
* TryNotToDie: Pretty much everyone's last words to Katniss and Peeta.
* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: [[spoiler: Gale]]
* UnwittingPawn: Katniss feels this way, since she's constantly out of the loop.
* TheUriahGambit:
** [[spoiler:Attempted by President Coin, who sends Peeta out with Katniss's team in the Capitol, with a gun, while he's still BrainwashedAndCrazy and Katniss is his BerserkButton. It fails]].
** Katniss being sent [[spoiler: back into the arena in book 2]] might also qualify, if you believe it was rigged by [[spoiler: President Snow]].
* UselessSpleen: In ''Mockingjay'', [[spoiler: Katniss gets shot. Not surprisingly it happens to be her spleen that is destroyed. Good thing she doesn't need it.]]
* VillainBall: The Capitol wouldn't have had to face a major rebellion (or at least, not for a while) if it wasn't so hellbent on making Katniss's life miserable. Indeed, there wouldn't be a rebellion at all if they had allowed the Hunger Games to cease after the first few times.
** Aside from the central extravagance of the Hunger Games (and even that is in some ways an inspired form of repression in that it forces people to become complicit in it through starvation, quite Stalin-esque actually) the tactics the capital uses to repress the districts are actually a fairly realistic representation of the terror methods that RealLife regimes use, and just like in RealLife but unlike in most stories: they work, to a point. In 75 years of power the capital had almost certainly weathered minor uprisings that it had been able to quell through force, control of information, and playing disctricts off against each other. What tips the scale in the period of the plot is [[spoiler: military support from district 13, inter-district organizational and information support from district 13 and rebels in the capital, and a unifying symbol for all the districts in the form of [[TheHero Katniss]] and [[TheLoad Peeta]] that had already been helpfully broadcast through the capital's own propaganda machine.]]
* VillainsNeverLie [[spoiler:President Snow]]
* VoiceOfTheResistance: Katnniss and her fellow Victors, throughout book 3.
* WarIsHell: Absolutely nothing [[WarIsGlorious glorious]] about it.
* WartimeWedding: [[spoiler: Finnick and Annie.]]
* WasItAllALie: Peeta's ongoing question to Katniss from the end of the first book all the way to the "Real or not real?" question at the end of the last.
* WeaponsKitchenSink: Inevitable, given the fact that the Capitol just spreads them around in the Arena and hopes for a sloppy death scenario to increase the "entertainment" value.
* WhamLine: Chapters have a tendency to end with these, such as, [[spoiler:"Katniss, there is no District 12."]]
** Or how about [[spoiler: "And then the second round of parachutes goes off."]]
* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Subverted. [[spoiler: Katniss sees Peeta as TheHeart and thinks his power to love is much better than her ability to kill things.]]
* WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve: [[RaceAgainstTheClock Given the nature of the arena used by the Quarter Quell.]]
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: The Districts have a few geographical clues but otherwise the readers don't really learn where they are.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [[spoiler:Tough-as-nails Johanna Mason is undone by water... because when she was a prisoner of the Capitol, they soaked her and then electrocuted her as part of her torture.]]
* WillNotBeAVictim: Invoked and then exploited. It's how [[spoiler:Johanna]] won her Hunger Games.
* TheWorfEffect: [[spoiler:Cato taking out Thresh in Book 1.]]
* WreathedInFlames: part of Katniss' symbology (along with being a mockingjay).
* WritersCannotDoMath: In ''Catching Fire'', Katniss describes the Cornucopia as being 40 yards away from the launch platform, which is located in a circular lagoon. There are twelve spokes of land separating the 24 tributes, and Katniss is equidistant from the land strip and the adjacent tribute platform. If you do all the calculations, it turns out that Katniss is about seven yards from the nearest land strip. Katniss has to swim this distance, and describes it as "a longer distance than [she's] used to swimming" back in the lake outside District 12.
* WouldHitAGirl: There are just as many girls as boys in each Hunger Game, ensuring a lot of this. [[spoiler:Marvel kills Rue, and Thresh kills Clove.]]
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: The people living in the Capitol dye their hair some pretty wild colors.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Leads to [[spoiler: Cato [[NeckSnap snapping the neck]] of District 3's]] boy in the first book.
* [[YouKilledMyFather You Killed My]] [[spoiler: [[YouKilledMyFather Sister]]]]: [[spoiler: In Mockingjay, either President Snow or President Coin killed Prim.]]
** More literally, Katniss understands that if the conditions were not so bad in the coal mines due to the decadent lifestyle in the capitol and the corrupt government, her father would not have died in the mine accident.
* YourFavorite: Katniss at one point receives food including the stew she stated in an interview was her favorite thing about the Capitol.
----
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
[[caption-width-right:259:[-[[RuleOfSymbolism It's just a bird]], [[BlatantLies nothing more]].-] ]]
-->''Happy Hunger Games! [[ArcWords And may the odds be]]'' [[ArcWords ever]] ''[[ArcWords in your favor!]]''
''The Hunger Games'' by Suzanne Collins is a trilogy of young adult novels that take place AfterTheEnd in [[MeaningfulName Panem]], a nation in what used to be North America that is divided into numbered districts and a large capital city ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Capitol]]).
In the first book, heroine Katniss Everdeen [[HeroicSacrifice takes her sister Primrose's place]] when Prim is chosen to be a contestant ("[[SuperHappyFunTropeOfDoom tribute]]") in the Hunger Games: a televised DeadlyGame wherein 24 contestants are [[ClosedCircle locked in an arena]] to fight to the death until only one remains. Her struggle for survival ends up igniting a firestorm that quickly goes beyond her control, until she finds herself embroiled in an all-out war that almost makes the arena look like Disneyland.
The three books are:
* ''The Hunger Games''
* ''Catching Fire''
* ''Mockingjay''
A feature film adaption has just wrapped filming and is set to be released in March 2012. It will star Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, Liam Hemsworth as Gale and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch. Should be interesting.
Now with a [[Characters/TheHungerGames Character Sheet]]!
----
!!Provides examples of:
* AccidentalMurder: Peeta accidentally kills [[spoiler:Foxface with poison.]]
* AcquiredPoisonImmunity: [[spoiler:Snow, as part of his gambit when he made his rise to power. Subverted in that it wasn't perfect, and he carried long-term damage from it.]]
* ActionGirl: Katniss and most of the other female contestants.
* AerithAndBob
* AirstripOne: The Districts are numbered and segregated by industry.
* AfterTheEnd: Some combination of wars and natural disasters destroyed the entire population of the world except for Panem. WordOfGod says that it took "in the triple digits" of years for this to happen. There are implications that Panem consists of less than 100,000 people and represents the entire human species.
** It has more than that, at least before the war. District 12, the smallest district (possibly excluding 13), had a population of between 8,000 and 10,000 before it was bombed, if a little less than 10 percent survived and it amounted to 800 or 900 people. That would mean the bare minimum population of the districts 1-12 would have to be 96,000, and most likely more, since districts 2 and 11 appear to be several times the size of 12, and the book doesn't say what the population of the Capitol or 13 is. Still, there were many casualties from both soldiers and civilians, and by the end of Mockingjay this figure could very well be true.
* TheAlcoholic: Former District 12 champion Haymitch Abernathy. In fact, it seems that a lot of Games champions end up with some kind of drug or alcohol addiction, due to a combination of too much money and time on their hands, having no real way to cope with the horrors they faced in the arena, and having to mentor new tributes year after year who seldom if ever come back alive. Also, the Capitol tends to find ways to [[spoiler: make the Victors' lives miserable, such as when they force Finnick into prostitution.]]
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: The people in the Capitol have some strange fashion ideas, among them body dyes. At least one person mentioned has dyed her whole body pea green (?!).
* AmbiguouslyBrown: Rue and Thresh are both stated to be dark-skinned, but it's never mentioned ''how'' dark.
* AnimalMotifs: Metaphorically, Snow as a snake. Visually, Katniss as a mockingjay. Tigris as a cat-person as both.
* AnyoneCanDie: This is kind of the point.
* ApocalypseHow: In the backstory: it's continental societal disruption at the least, leading to the creation of Panem. There are hints that the rest of the planet may actually be ''worse'' off.
* TheArcher: Katniss. Also Gale.
* ArtisticLicense:
** ArtisticLicensePhysics: Beetee's electric trap in ''Catching Fire'' would not be capable of killing all the sealife and the Careers on the beach like he claims. (Ever wonder why lightning doesn't kill fish in lakes?) [[spoiler:Fortunately, the plan wasn't meant to actually work; it was a distraction for his real plan.]]
* AsianAndNerdy: Everyone from District 3. "Nuts" Wiress and "Volts" Beetee, the two engineers in Catching Fire, "are small in stature with ashen skin and black hair." The explosives expert in The Hunger Games is described by Katniss as "scrawny, ashen-skinned" and by Rue as "not very big." Draw your own conclusions regarding their ethnicity.
** For what it's worth, Asians rarely have "ashen" skin. Some of the districts just seem to have [[AmbiguouslyBrown ambiguous ethnicity]] not commonly found in modern peoples.
** The narrator of the Scholastic audio books puts on a distinct stereotypical "Asian person speaking English" accent that is especially noticeable in ''Catching Fire''.
** Rue is described as having very dark skin.
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Marvel]]
** [[spoiler:President Snow]] gets trampled to death by a mob, which he so rightly deserved.
* AxCrazy: Some of the Careers. Clove would've given Katniss a GlasgowSmile if Thresh hadn't stepped in. And Cato explodes so violently when Katniss takes out his supplies that he snaps a nearby boy's neck.
* AnAxeToGrind: [[spoiler:Johanna Mason]] in the Quarter Quell; after all, she's from the lumber district.
* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler:Katniss and Peeta have two kids, showing that there's some hope for the future.]]
* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter:
** [[spoiler: Peeta]] deliberately invokes this trope [[spoiler: by claiming Katniss is pregnant after the two are forced back into the arena for the Quarter Quell. This is a surprise even to Katniss, as she and Peeta have never actually had sex.]] It sort of works, though: [[spoiler: not even the bloodthirsty denizens of the Capitol seem to want to watch a pregnant woman be killed]]. Of course, some people [[spoiler: who probably at least suspect it's a lie]] are unmoved.
** Played straight in the series epilogue. [[spoiler:Peeta]] and [[spoiler:Katniss]] have two children.
** [[spoiler: Finnick and Annie]] also have a child after [[spoiler: Finnick dies in the war]].
* BadDreams: Katniss and the rest of the victors seem plagued by them.
** FlashbackNightmare: Used rarely. Most of Katniss's dreams are a...
** NightmareSequence: Katniss's dreams are usually a horrifying mishmash of bad memories and fear-gripped imagination, like everyone getting their tongues cut out or all her loved ones screaming in agony.
* BandOfBrothers: The victors.
* BattleCouple: Katniss and Peeta in the first book, but subverted in the second when Finnick is Katniss' [[TheLancer lancer]].
* BattleRoyaleWithCheese: Subverted in that [[spoiler: defeated characters don't come back to help fight the BigBad, they come back in another more sinister form to rip the remaining tributes limb from limb.]]
* [[BecauseYouWereNiceToMe Because You Were Nice To My Friend]]: Thresh spares Katniss because she helped Rue out before she died.
* BecomingTheMask:
** [[spoiler: Katniss pretends to be in love with Peeta just to keep them both alive in the arena. By the end of the second book, at the least. At the end of the first she's prepared to kill him to save herself. Contrast the end of the second, where she's totally prepared to die so he can continue living.]]
** [[spoiler:Played straight by the end of Mockingjay.]]
* BeeBeeGun: Katniss uses a hive of lethal, genetically-altered wasps to kill some of her opponents. And almost kills herself in the process.
* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: [[spoiler: Peeta, though he got better.]]
* BettyAndVeronica: Gale is the Betty and Peeta is the Veronica to Katniss's Archie. [[http://apricotteacup.deviantart.com/art/Hunger-Games-Peeta-VS-Gale-152229494?q=sort%3Atime+favby%3ATaylorswifty1&qo=3&offset=130 This picture]] sums it up nicely.
** It is also possible to see Peeta - blond, kind, meek, has had a crush on Katniss forever - as the Betty while Gale, who has a "dangerous" personality and dark good looks, is more akin to Veronica. Peeta is the one society tells Katniss she should be with, while her relationship with Gale was risky.
** Regardless of whether Peeta is or is not more societally acceptable than Gale, the books make it extremely clear that Katniss did not choose Peeta based on what society thought; they also made it clear that Katniss is not the kind of person who would remotely care about what society thinks. Moreover, from an evolutionary standpoint, Gale is the more society-approved choice: the hinted at playboy alpha-male, with enough broody handsomeness to win over every female. Peeta, on the other hand, is artistic, sensitive, sweet, not very confident, non-competitive, and, while unpredictable, not secretive and mysterious. Society has a way of disregarding sensitive guys as weak, which, ironically, makes Peeta the risky choice. Which proves that Katniss wasn't looking for a "survival partner".
* BigBrotherIsWatching: Cameras are waiting to catch every minute of Katniss and Peeta's lives once they become contestants in the Hunger Games. Life in the districts is also very closely monitored, leaving people afraid to say anything that might come off as negative about the Capitol. President Snow even [[spoiler: knows Gale and Katniss kissed in the woods outside District 12, even though Katniss is supposed to be crazy-in-love with Peeta and Gale is supposed to be just her cousin]].
* BilingualBonus:
** 'Panem', the name of the country this story is set in, means 'bread' in Latin. This revealed to be a reference to [[BreadAndCircuses "panem et circenses"]] - when a government appeases people with food and spectacle to maintain power, which is exactly what the Capitol does.
** The mute servants in the Capitol are called the Avox, which means 'without voice' in Latin.
* BirdsOfAFeather: Katniss and Gale, though ultimately inverted when [[spoiler:Katniss decides that she needs Peeta to balance her own personality out.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The freedom at the end of the third book is paid for in a lot of blood, but Panem is rebuilding and there's some BabiesEverAfter for the two lead characters.]]
* BlackAndGrayMorality
* BlackMarketProduce: Katniss makes her living poaching game and selling it on the black market. In addition, most food that isn't made from grain rations is expensive and rather rare in the Districts. The decadent Capital, on the other hand, has tons of food of all kinds.
* BloodFromTheMouth: Subverted by President Snow, since it's neither overt nor a sign of his impending death. [[spoiler:Played straight later.]]
* BloodKnight: "Careers" are kids who train all their young lives to win glory in the Games, even going as far as to ''volunteer'' for them if they're not selected by lottery.
* BloodSplatteredInnocents: About thirty seconds into the 74th Hunger Games, the boy from District 9 coughs blood into Katniss' face after getting knifed by Clove.
* BloodSplatteredWeddingDress: Invoked then parodied. Katniss's wedding dress, [[spoiler: instead of being spattered with blood, it lights itself on fire then turns into a mockingjay dress.]]
* BlueEyes: Prim, Mrs. Everdeen, and Peeta. Implied to be a trait of the merchant class.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: [[spoiler: Peeta. He gets better.]]
* BreadAndCircuses: ''Panem et Circenses''. DiscussedTrope in ''Mockingjay.''
* BreakTheCutie: Peeta's TraumaCongaLine is significantly longer than that of most of the other characters, though for the most part he takes it all in stride.
** In addition, [[spoiler: Katniss']] own mental breakdown, and the reasons it comes about, is elaborated on repeatedly throughout the third book, until eventually you have to wonder when the tale of [[spoiler: a recent victor of a brutal tournament acting as the heroic symbol of a rebellion]] ends and [[spoiler: the clinical psychological study on how to utterly break a seventeen-year-old girl's mind]] begins.
* BreakfastClub: People who have won the Hunger Games tend to become close friends and stick together, because only other tributes can understand what they have gone through.
* BriefAccentImitation: Gale at the beginning of the first novel, inciting one of about five times where Katniss actually ''laughs''.
* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu:
** In the first book, [[spoiler: Katniss is blown back by the explosion she sets off destroying the Careers' supplies and is rendered completely deaf in her left ear. Unable to escape, she only survives by hiding right under their noses]].
** In the Quarter Quell, [[spoiler: Katniss nearly kills herself breaking the force field over the arena]].
* TheBrute: Cato, in the first book, and the aptly named Brutus in the second.
* ButtMonkey: [[spoiler:Poor Boggs. His life is a string of tribulations, from Katniss puking all over him to Gale breaking his nose to getting his legs blown off and dying horribly. The closest he comes to complaining is a sigh when Katniss pukes on him.]]
* CallARabbitASmeerp: "Muttation" is a generic in-universe term for a genetically engineered creature. Lots of things count, like those wolves at the end of the first book, or Jabberjays and Tracker Jackers. Many more exotic variants are introduced in the third book when [[spoiler: they're storming the Capitol]].
** Also, the addictive painkiller in use around Panem is called "morphling" (morphine).
*** And the people addicted to it are called "morphlings."
** Poisonous berries called "nightlock" (nightshade, hemlock)
* {{Casanova}}: Finnick. [[spoiler: Later revealed to be a LadykillerInLove. Not to mention the whole SexSlave aspect]].
* CatsAreMean: Buttercup is to everyone who isn't Prim. [[spoiler:Until Katniss and he finally bond after Prim's death.]]
* ChekhovsHobby: Frosting cakes turns out to come in really handy.
* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Coal Dust]]: In ''Catching Fire'', the new Peacekeepers burn down the Hob. Katniss mentions how easily it burns because of all the coal dust. [[spoiler: At the end of the book, the Capitol firebombs District 12, and the whole district goes up in flames.]]
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler: President Coin.]]
* ChildrenForcedToKill
* CleanPrettyReliable: Apparently you have to grow up near the ocean to know CPR, but if you do know it, it works like a charm.
* ClosedCircle
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Several people throughout the books, more notably Katniss in the third book.
** Wiress, aka "Nuts," who can speak only in {{Madness Mantra}}s like "Tick tock!" Beetee has gotten good at interpreting for her.
** The morphlings are perpetually tripping balls.
** Effie Trinket and Katniss's prep team are so wrapped up in their own little worlds that they seem completely oblivious to everyone else.
*** Although, it is hinted at that they do that to themselves on purpose to insulate them from the reality that each year they dress up a teenager who will go into an arena and, in all likelihood, be killed by another teenager for entertainment.
* ConsummateLiar: [[spoiler:Haymitch]], Snow, [[spoiler:Coin]], Johanna, and Peeta.
* ContrivedCoincidence: In-universe. Family members of past tributes are disproportionately likely to be selected as tributes themselves. Katniss figures the drawings must be rigged that way to create [[RuleOfDrama extra drama]].
* ConvenientMiscarriage: Invoked: [[spoiler:A fake miscarriage for Katniss and Peeta's fake baby]].
* CostumePorn: Each tribute gets a personal stylist. Looking flashy outside of the arena serves a practical purpose, though: tributes who catch the audience's eye are more likely to receive sponsors who can help them survive the arena.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: The arena of the second Quarter Quell (Haymitch's) is this. At first glance it's the "most breathtaking place imaginable." There're blue skies, puffy white clouds, songbirds flying by, [[CoolClearWater crystalline streams]], luscious fruit, gorgeous flowers, butterflies, etc. Then everyone realizes [[EverythingTryingToKillYou everything]] is [[DeathWorld deadly poisonous]]. And the [[KillerRabbit fluffy, golden squirrels are carnivorous]].
* CrapsackWorld: Most of the districts are horrible places to live. The people are poor, starving, and oppressed while those in the Capital live outrageously decadent lives. And that's even without mentioning the titular DeadlyGame.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass:
** Haymitch Abernathy seems like a useless drunk, but he did actually win a Hunger Game after all. In ''Catching Fire,'' we learn that [[spoiler:Haymitch survived a Hunger Game with twice as many tributes, mostly with his physical prowess and cunning, but also because he was driven to expose the limitations of the arena. We also learn that he's a member of the underground resistance.]]
** Johanna Mason famously exploited this trope to win the games, appearing to be helpless when she is actually a ruthless killer.
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Anyone who's died in the Games, really. And the last book.
* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: The Capitol is described as being full of colored glass, and the people are obsessed with fashion. Technology also seems to have advanced to the point that it can be completely hidden from view. Although no one wears a toga, Capitol residents almost all have Roman names, establishing them as a decadent and technologically advanced society.
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Wiress knows what she's talking about. The trick is ''figuring out'' just what that is.
* DarkActionGirl: Pretty much any female Career tribute by definition, but Clove fits the trope to a T.
* DarkerAndEdgier: The whole series is pretty dark to begin with, but the series finale, ''Mockingjay'', is much more hopeless than even the first two.
* DeadLittleSister: Katniss volunteers to avoid this trope, and its own of her primary motivations throughout the series. [[spoiler:However, Rue serves as a brief foster sister to Katniss, and promptly dies, fulfilling the trope.]] And then [[spoiler: Prim dies too, and Katniss wonders if it was specifically engineered to get to her.]]
* DeadlyGame: The Hunger Games can usually be counted on for at least 23 deaths.
* DeadpanSnarker: Haymitch and Johanna.
* DeathCourse: The Hunger Games, especially when the tributes settle down into a comfortable recovery period / stalemate. [[spoiler:The Capitol defenses use much of the same design aesthetic.]]
* DefectorFromDecadence: [[spoiler:Plutarch Heavensbee, his assistant, and some of the other people in District 13 have fled the Capitol. This was also the goal of Lavinia, the redheaded Avox, and the boy she was with when Katniss first saw her, but they didn't make it]].
* {{Deprogram}}ming: Has to be done to [[spoiler: Peeta]] in book 3.
* DespairEventHorizon: Katniss passes over it in a matter of paragraphs [[spoiler: at the end of ''Catching Fire''.]] And the rest of the series from there consists of [[ItGotWorse it getting worse]].
* DidMomJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: At the beginning of ''Catching Fire'', the president drops by for a terrifying "chat" with [[spoiler: Katniss, during which he threatens to kill her whole family if she doesn't conduct herself properly on the Victory Tour. (Katniss's mother isn't present for this part of the conversation, but she does drop in to serve them tea. Katniss then has to conceal the conversation from her mother, telling her the president was just wishing her luck.)]]
* DidNotDoTheResearch: [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series Farla]]'s critiques of the books (see "[[LetsPlay Let's Read]]" below) identifies a large number of factual inaccuracies, in addition to other snark and fury.
** Collins' knowledge of basic archery is hurting, and she seems to not be 100% clear on the difference between a crossbow and a flat bow.
** "Capitol" refers to a single government building, not an entire city. The correct term should be "Capit'''a'''l".
** In the author's defense, the story is told entirely 1st person by a 16 year old with a very narrow world view and very little formal education (this doesn't clear her of some of the DNDTR errors, but some of the bigger ones.
* DisappearedDad: Katniss and Prim's father died in the mines a few years before the book begins. Gale's father also died in the same accident.
* [[PlanetOfHats District of Hats]]: Each of the districts has a different primary industry, which serves as its theme. This is an InvokedTrope in the Hunger Games, since the tributes are each trope are traditionally dressed in ways that reference their theme.
* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: The Hunger Games are hateful, deplorable, they ruin their victors psychologically, and the series as a whole is viciously anti-war... yet why are the Games the coolest parts?
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
** In District 11, the dark-skinned population is forced to farm and are treated with particular brutality. This sounds a lot like slavery in the American South.
** Panem and [[spoiler:Disctrict 13]] are nuclear powers locked in a stalemate. Panem is decadent, wealthy, and corrupt. Its citizens enjoy outrageous luxury while they exploit the surrounding communities to feed their enormous appetites. [[spoiler:District 13]], on the other hand, is a dull and drab place, ruled by an a totalitarian regime that regiments every aspect if its citizens' lives. This sounds a lot like the Cold War between the United States and the USSR.
* DoomedHometown: [[spoiler: District 12 is firebombed to the ground at the end of ''Catching Fire''.]]
* DoggedNiceGuy: Peeta.
* DrowningMySorrows: Haymitch becomes a drunk due to the horrors he has witnessed.
* DyingAlone
* DyingAsYourself: Peeta's wish before going into the arena.
* DysfunctionJunction: Go figure.
* {{Dystopia}}: Panem is not a great place to live.
* EarlyBirdCameo:
** Johanna Mason gets a brief mention in the first book, then appears in the flesh ([[NakedOnArrival um]]) a book later.
** [[spoiler:Delly Cartwright is mentioned in the first part of the first book in passing, but doesn't appear until the middle of the third.]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: And ''how!''.
* EatTheDog: ''"No one in the Seam would turn up their nose at a good leg of wild dog."''
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: [[spoiler:District 13.]]
* EmbarrassingFirstName: While the people themselves don't seem to be, at least Katniss notes that a lot of District 1 ''should'' be embarrassed by their names, the likes of which include Glimmer, Marvel, Cashmere, and Gloss.
* EnforcedMethodActing: Often used in-universe with Katniss.
** She's never warned about Peeta's interview strategy so that her reaction will be more genuine.
** She's dropped into the warzone to film her candid reactions for propaganda, since she can't act at all.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: The first two things we learn about Katniss are that she loves her sister and that she has no problem drowning kittens.
* EstrogenBrigadeBait: Gale maintains a surprising harem in the fandom for someone who was a tertiary character for the first book.
* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Inverted. A group of deadly monkey muttations show up in the arena in ''Catching Fire.''
* EverythingsWorseWithBees: Tracker jacker wasps.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** The gamemakers frown on certain behaviors in the Hunger Games, but moreso because it will draw a poor reaction from the audience rather than out of moral disdain. They will not tolerate cannibalism, nor will they allow a psychopath to become a victor.
** In the third book, [[spoiler:Snow never exercises his Nuclear Option, which would damn humanity to extinction, even when he realizes that he's doomed. He states that he would never kill someone if it gave him no advantage.]]
* EvilSmellsBad: President Snow smells of blood and cloying roses. It seems symbolic at first, but a reason for it is given in ''Mockingjay'': [[spoiler:Snow killed many rivals with poison. He uses the roses to cover up the smell of poison, and his bloody breath is from the mouth sores left by poisoned drinks he shared with his victims after taking less-than-perfect antidotes.]]
** Snow also uses the overpowering smell of roses to intimidate his enemies, especially Katniss. The lizard mutts in ''Mockingjay'' were specifically given this trait to screw with her head.
* ExecutiveMeddling: The game masters constantly fiddle with the conditions in the Hunger Games to make things more dramatic. [[spoiler:The most notable example is when they change the rules to allow both tributes from a district survive if they're the last ones left, only to revoke the rule when it might be exercised. This particular instance backfires on them.]]
* EyeScream: When Katniss is hunting squirrels, she always nails her target in the eye. Ouch.
* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Katniss thinks Johanna has done this when Johanna 'attacks' her. Katniss assumes Finnick must be in on it too.]]
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Panem is basically a futuristic, sci-fi version of Rome (even without the little quote in the third book that points out how the country's name is an adoption of Rome's "Bread and Circuses" motto). The Capitol is an incredibly authoritarian superpower that brutally reigns over conquered territories to feed the decadent desires of its own citizens. The gladiator parallels with the Hunger Games are obvious, of course. But even the celebrations and parties are shown to have a distinct Roman flavor, including guests being encouraged to induce vomiting to empty their stomachs so that they can consume more food.
* FailOSuckyname: Plutarch Heavensbee, Effie Trinket, and just about everyone in the capitol. Except [[spoiler: Seneca Crane, but he dies.]]
* FalseFlagOperation: Toward the end of ''Mockingjay''.
* FeedTheMole
* FeigningIntelligence: Effie is probably the dumbest bunny on the planet, but she doesn't see it that way.
* AFeteWorseThanDeath: The Capital requires the districts to treat the games as a festival.
* FightingFromTheInside: [[spoiler:Peeta during a fair bit of Mockingjay.]]
* FilkSong: Even if one ignores the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCmoAuZgsnE many]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve-WpgIknc versions]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2obqRINOAg&feature=related of]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSLONTtQqFU&feature=related Rue's]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPR-Vf93q0A Lullaby]], there are a considerable number of these floating around including:
** Rachel Macwhirter's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnswUH9Oav8 Mockingjay]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYeWOQfQCQ8 Iron Children]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqSZDKU-J4 Too Clever By Half (The Ballad Of Foxface)]].
** Alex Carpenter's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRA7_MnRKmk In The Hunger Games]].
** Kristina Horner and Luke Conard's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MC2iiRp0I8&feature=related Real Or Not Real]].
** On top of those, an entire unofficial soundtrack exists [[http://www.youtube.com/user/unofficialscore here]].
* FilmOfTheBook: Set for release in 2012. So far, the casting is as follows:
** Katniss - Jennifer Lawrence
** Peeta - Josh Hutcherson
** Gale - Liam Hemsworth
** Haymitch - Woody Harrelson
* FireForgedFriends: Katniss and [[spoiler:Johanna]].
* FiveBadBand: The Career tributes from the 74th Games.
** TheBigBad: Cato
** TheDragon: Clove
** TheEvilGenius: [[NoNameGiven the District 3 boy]]
** TheBrute: Marvel
** TheDarkChick: Glimmer
** SixthRangerTraitor: [[spoiler: Peeta, but mostly as TheLoad to them too.]]
* FiveManBand: One of these forms during the Quarter Quell:
** TheHero: [[spoiler: Katniss]]
** TheLancer: [[spoiler: Finnick]]
** TheBigGuy: [[spoiler: Johanna]], though [[spoiler: Finnick]] also qualifies
** TheSmartGuy: [[spoiler: Beetee]]
** TheChick: [[spoiler: Peeta]], who is also something of TheLoad
* [[FirstGirlWins First Boy Wins]]: [[spoiler: Subverted. Peeta is the first boy chronologically speaking, which should cast him as Unlucky Childhood Admirer, but is introduced within the story after Gale.]]
* FlatCharacter: Prim. Many of the minor characters. Arguably, ''many'' characters qualify for this; their motivations are not generally complex. (Survive, hunt, run, and survive.)
* FlawExploitation: Katniss exploits the Capitol's [[spoiler: need for a victor]].
* FlowerMotifs: Several characters are named after flowers or plants, the President reeks of roses, and of course there's [[spoiler: Rue's death]] scene.
* FloweryInsults: Zig-zagged by Peeta [[spoiler: when he paints the picture of dead Rue covered in flowers for his private lesson but he never says a word to the Gamemakers]]
* FogOfDoom: A nasty example is encountered by [[spoiler: Katniss and her alliance in the Quarter Quell]]. It's poisonous to the touch, burning skin and clothes and causing seizures and temporary paralysis.
* FoodPorn: Katniss describes just about everything she eats in detail, which [[JustifiedTrope sort of makes sense]] considering she spent a good portion of her life nearly starving to death.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the first book, Katniss mentions she first meet the avox in the train while in the forest with Gale. [[spoiler:She ponders where the avox could have been headed since [[BlatantLies there’s nothing beyond the forest of district 12...]]]]
* FragileSpeedster: Rue, who can move deftly in the treetops, but can't face anyone in a confrontation.
* FreudianSlip: [[spoiler:After Rue is fatally injured by the District 1 Career, in a panic, Katniss refers to her as 'Prim' in her narration, though it's not really a secret that Rue has been a surrogate Prim in Katniss' eyes before that.]]
* FriendToAllLivingThings: Prim seems to befriend any animal she meets, and can't bear to go hunting with Katniss.
* GallowsHumor: Katniss and some of the other Hunger Game tributes/victors learn to have a very droll outlook on their CrapsackWorld. Finnick takes it somewhat literally in ''Catching Fire'' by tying a noose and pretending to hang himself as a joke.
* GenderFlip: Katniss is the ActionGirl and is proficient at hunting with a bow and arrow. Peeta bakes and paints, and is more emotional of the two. They're an inversion of ManlyMenCanHunt and FeminineWomenCanCook, respectively. Their names also invert the gender standard, as in English, female names tend to end in vowels (especially 'a') and male names tend to end in consonants.
* GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke
* GenerationXerox: Katniss looks like Mr. Everdeen, has inherited his hunting abilities, singing voice and, like him, [[spoiler: will marry someone from the town]]. Prim looks like Mrs. Everdeen and has inherited her passion for healing. Also Mrs. Everdeen was close friends with Katniss' friend, Madge's mother, as a teenager and the father of Katniss' love interest Peeta had a crush on Mrs. Everdeen.
* GenghisGambit: [[spoiler:In order to rally the people in the Capitol on her side and end things early, Coin blows up a bunch of children and makes it look like Snow is responsible. It works]].
* GenreSavvy: After spending a life watching the Hunger Games, Peeta knows what storylines will excite the audience, and uses it to his advantage. [[spoiler: He also admits he suspected all along that the Gamemakers would never let two people survive the arena]]. Katniss, by contrast, has GenreBlindness.
* GenreShift: ''Mockingjay'' abandons the Games entirely, [[BrokenBase breaking the base]] as it does so.
* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: Just one fight left. Environment is herding the survivors towards the lake for a final brawl. [[spoiler: SUDDENLY WEREWOLVES!]]
* GildedCage: The wealthier districts have better living conditions but more brutal and fanatical Peacekeepers. On the other hand, District 12 is one of the poorest districts, but the authorities are far more willing to turn a blind eye to things like poaching and black market trading.
* GoodIsNotDumb: Peeta is kind and patient and [[spoiler: totally kills people in the arena, including finishing off one girl in cold blood while he's in the Career pack]], besides being three steps ahead when it comes to manipulating the on-camera narrative.
* GoodScarsEvilScars: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] in ''Mockingjay'', when [[spoiler: Katniss]] has her uglier scars surgically cleaned up, but is left with some more attractive scars, because she's got to have ''some'' scars to show how bravely she's been fighting. Averted in the end, however, when [[spoiler: she gets ugly skin grafts, and there's no attempt to blend them because District 13 has no more need of her.]]
* TheGoodTheBadAndTheEvil: [[spoiler:District 13 is just as full of assholes as the Capitol. The conflict really boils down to some truly horrible people who happen to be in power and all the innocents who get caught in-between]]. CrapsackWorld indeed.
* {{Gorn}}: How the Capitol citizens view the Hunger Games. In-universe only, hopefully.
* TheGovernment
* GRatedSex: [[spoiler:The act is alluded to at the end of ''Mockingjay'', then skipped over to a brief conversation between the characters afterward.]]
* GrayEyes: Apparently fairly common in the Seam, including Katniss and Gale.
* GreenEyedMonster: Gale tries damned hard not to like Peeta.
* GuysSmashGirlsShoot: In the first book.
** On the female side, Clove uses [[KnifeNut throwing knives]], Glimmer and Katniss use a [[TheArcher bow]], and Rue uses a [[BratsWithSlingshots slingshot]].
** On the male side, Cato uses a [[CoolSword sword]], Marvel uses a [[BladeOnAStick spear]], Thresh uses [[GoodOldFisticuffs brute force]], and Peeta uses a [[KnifeNut combat knife]].
* HairOfGold:
** Peeta, {{lampshaded}} by Katniss and Haymitch more than once.
** Effie takes it too literally with her metallic gold wig during the Quell.
* HandsOnApproach: Finnick uses this to show Katniss how to tie a difficult knot.
* HarmfulToMinors: Only minors are selected for the standard Hunger Games. [[spoiler:The 75th Hunger Game changes the rules.]]
* HerHeartWillGoOn: Peeta tries to invoke this in a MoreHeroThanThou dispute. Katniss' internal monologue reveals she'll have none of it.
* HeroesPreferSwords: Averted. The only character who really seems to use a sword as their main weapon is [[BloodKnight Cato]].
* HeroicBSOD: Katniss at the end of the second book, and all over the third.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** Katniss, taking her sister's place.
** [[spoiler: Mags]] in the second book--''twice.''
** And all over the place in ''Mockingjay''.
* HeroSecretService
* HiddenDepths: Just about all the sympathetic characters reveal themselves to be more than they at first appeared.
* HoldingHands: Most notably during the interviews for the Quarter Quell.
* HollywoodHealing: Due to the advanced medicine available in the capitol, most injuries sustained by the characters are healed completely. Aversions include Chaff's hand and Peeta leg, though he gets a prosthetic leg that is rarely referred to again. In the end, [[spoiler:Katniss and Peeta are both covered in skin grafts and burns that the medics didn't bother replacing]].
* HollywoodTactics: Possibly subverted in the final sections of the third book. On one hand, the districts have been completely taken by the revolution, which means that all the the Capitol has lost all its means of subsistence. Logically, the best way of handling a heavily fortified location that has no capacity for self-sufficiency is to lay siege and wait for the enemy inside to starve themselves out. All they had to do was keep the Capitol under guard and wait until the people there were too weak from hunger to fight back. On the other hand, nuclear weapons are involved and even if Snow wouldn't bring about mutually assured destruction, there's no guarantee that someone else in the government wouldn't. Also, given the entire population of Panem's fixation on the media and entertainment in one form or another, watching a boring siege (which generally tends to take a while) might cause the revolution to lose support after a while.
** Similarly, when the Bombers approach District 8 they fly in a V-formation like Geese and apparently low enough that they can be brought down by a high-tech Bow with exploding bolts. However, it has been nearly a century since the Capitol faced any real resistance and was cocky.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: [[spoiler: Finnick is a rather unusual example, being an unwilling male hooker.]]
* HotWings: Cinna's outfits.
* HumanSacrifice: Tributes are sacrificed by the Capitol to remember the betrayal of District 13.
* HumanShield: Snow surrounding himself with children.
* HumansAreBastards: At the end of ''Mockingjay', Katniss hits this trope ''hard.''
* HungryJungle
* IconOfRebellion: The mockingjay.
* IGaveMyWord: Subverted. Haymitch promises Katniss that he'll keep Peeta alive... and to Peeta that he'll keep Katniss alive.
* ImAHumanitarian: A District 6 tribute from a past Games named Titus is said to have gone insane and ate the bodies of the tributes he killed.
* ImportantHaircut: Or rather, [[InvertedTrope important lack of haircut]]. In ''Mockingjay'', all the rebel soldiers have their hair cut short, except for [[spoiler: Katniss because she needs to stay recognizable.]]
* ImprobableAimingSkills: Katniss is repeatedly shown hitting small game directly in the eye, seemingly with ease.
* IncendiaryExponent: Two of Katniss, The Girl On Fire's first [[CostumePorn ceremonial outfits]] in the Capitol fit this theme, though only one of them actually uses fire.
* InformedAbility: Peeta is mentioned as being good with a knife and Katniss makes a point of giving him one during the Quarter Quell, yet he's more proficient at being [[TheLoad The Load]].
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Katniss [[spoiler: upon finding out she'll be going back into the Hunger Games for the Quarter Quell.]]
* InelegantBlubbering: During Katniss' breakdown after the announcement of the Quarter Quell, most notably.
* InsanityDefense: Used to get [[spoiler:Katniss off for assassinating President Coin]].
* InterruptedSuicide: [[spoiler: Katniss tries to kill herself at the end of ''Mockingjay'', but Peeta stops her.]]
* ItHasBeenAnHonor: One of Katniss's prep team.
* ItsAllAboutMe: For whom is the Quarter Quell a real ordeal?
* ItsPersonal: Between Katniss and Snow.
* ItWasAGift: Katniss' Mockingjay pin.
* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: [[spoiler: Mags.]]
* IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure: Snow directly threatens Gale and indirectly threatens the rest of Katniss' loved ones if she doesn't convince all of Panem (including Snow himself) that she's madly in love with Peeta.
** The threat is quite real since the entire premise of the Games itself was a way to punish the rebels by making their children kill each other, and to remind them that the Capitol can and will do things like this if they rebel again.
** Snow also uses the threat against loved ones to [[spoiler:force Victors into [[SexSlave prostitution]]]].
* JustFriends: [[spoiler: Katniss and Gale.]]
* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Marvel got an arrow in his neck from Katniss as revenge for killing Rue.]]
* KillEmAll: The Games are to end with one person left standing. [[spoiler: Both the 74th and 75th end a little differently.]]
* KilledOffForReal: There are no [[DisneyDeath Disney Deaths]].
* KissingCousins: Gale pretends to be Katniss' cousin to explain his close relationship with her when Peeta is supposed to be her lover.
* KissOfLife: When Finnick revives Peeta in ''Catching Fire'', Katniss describes it initially as "kissing" since she's rarely seen CPR performed.
* KnifeNut: Clove, and how.
* LaResistance: [[spoiler: Revealed at the end of the second book.]]
* LapPillow: Reversed between Katniss and Peeta, and once each between Katniss/Finnick and Katniss/Gale.
* LastKiss: A couple of times between Katniss and Peeta, [[spoiler: never for real.]]
* LastRequest: [[spoiler:Rue]] asks Katniss to sing for her. Despite not singing for years, Katniss comes through.
* LeaveHimToMe: Katniss insists on being the one to kill [[spoiler: Snow]].
* {{Leitmotif}}: Rue's song.
* [[LetsPlay Let's Read]]: A highly critical one can be found [[http://farla.livejournal.com/tag/the%20hunger%20games%20series here]] (and is continued [[http://dragon-quill.blogspot.com/2011/08/mockingjay-ch1.html here]]).
* LockDown: During the bombing of [[spoiler: District 13 in book 3]].
* LosingTheTeamSpirit:
** [[spoiler: Katniss at the end of the second book.]]
** [[spoiler: She completely loses it in the third one as well.]]
* LotteryOfDoom: The reaping, which selects tributes for the Hunger Games.
* LoveAtFirstSight / LoveAtFirstNote: If we take Peeta's word for it, that is.
* LoveHurts: Often literally.
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: [[spoiler: Katniss tries to convince the citizens of Panem she was so crazy with love for Peeta that she can't be held responsible for her actions. To say nothing of Peeta's actions to begin with.]]
* LoveTriangle: Unsurprisingly resolved at the end of Mockingjay.
* MadnessMantra: Wiress repeatedly says, "Tick, tock" during the Quarter Quell. No one initially understands what she's referring to.
* ManiacMonkeys: One of the many delights of the Quarter Quell.
* ManOnFire / WreathedInFlames:
** Katniss gets lit on fire five times: thrice in the name of fashion and twice in combat situations. There is a reason they call her ''The Girl Who Was On Fire''.
** Peeta also gets singed [[spoiler: at the very end, when he was presumably following Katniss.]]
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Peeta is the male version of FeminineWomenCanCook and Katniss is the female version of ManlyMenCanHunt.
* MeaningfulName:
** Katniss is a real plant. Its common name? "Arrowhead".
** Peeta the baker sounds like "pita," a type of bread.
** Effie Trinket seems to be trivial and shallow.
** Also, [[spoiler: the original Cinna was a doomed opponent of Sulla the dictator.]]
** One of the meanings of "Rue" is "regret." [[spoiler:Her death haunts Katniss, who failed to protect her.]]
** Avox means 'without a voice'
** Tigris had plastic surgery to look like a human-tiger hybrid. Katniss wonders which came first, the name or the look.
** Pollux and Castor, the twin cameramen from ''Mockingjay'' are named for the Gemini of Roman mythology. Like the myth, Castor dies and Pollux is allowed to live - only with some horrible mutilation.
** Titus and Lavinia are names from Shakespeare's ''TitusAndronicus''. Like their counterparts in the Shakespeare play, Titus was known for cannibalism, and Lavinia had her tongue cut out.
** In addition to any other possible meaning, a lot of the tributes' names related to their distriict's industry or their personal profession:
*** District 1, luxury goods, gives us Marvel, Glimmer, Gloss, and Cashmere.
*** District 3, electronics, has Wiress. And Beetee, which sounds like TV, CD, PC, etc. (Or BD, as in blu-ray disc). For British readers, it invokes BT - British Telecom.
*** District 4, fishing, ''Fin''nick Odair and Annie ''Crest''a.
*** District 7, lumber, gives us the optimistically-named Blight.
*** District 8, textiles, has Twill and Woof (another word for "weft").
*** District 11, agriculture, has Rue, Thresh, Chaff, and Seeder.
*** The Capitol uses Roman names, in reference to their technological superiority as well as their decadent culture.
* TheMedic: Katniss's mother and Prim.
* MemeticSexGod: Finnick is an in-universe example.
* MercyKill:
** After [[spoiler:Katniss puts Cato out of his misery at the end of the first Hunger Game.]]
** ''Catching Fire,'' [[spoiler: Katniss considers doing this for Peeta and possibly Beetee as well]].
** [[spoiler:Gale and Katniss have an understanding in 'Mockingjay' that they would kill each other before letting the other get captured, to avoid torture. Both fail to do it in the end.]]
* MindControlEyes: [[spoiler: Peeta]]
* MoralityPet: Katniss has Prim and Rue, Finnick has Annie, and Gale has his own younger siblings.
* MoreHeroThanThou: In ''Catching Fire'', [[spoiler: Katniss and Peeta are each determined the other will be the survivor.]]
* MushroomSamba: A (mostly) [[NightmareFuel extremely unfunny]] version thanks to tracker jacker venom.
* MyOwnPrivateIDo: In ''Catching Fire'', [[spoiler: Peeta claims he and Katniss did this, so that he can then claim Katniss is pregnant to garner extra sympathy]].
* MysteryMeat
--> "Once it's in the soup, I call it beef."
* NeckSnap: [[spoiler: Cato to the boy from District 3]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Katniss' main goal through the second book is to find a way to trick Snow into believing she's in love with Peeta. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, she does convince him (and just about everyone else), and therefore manages to give him the leverage to break her during ''Mockingjay''.]]
** One can say that the entire series is this. [[spoiler: Prim dies anyways, which was what the entirety of the first book was trying to prevent.]]
* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: President Snow and the Gamemakers.
* NobodyPoops: Bears may shit in woods but tributes, apparently, do not. It wouldn't be so noticeable, except that Collins takes pains to make everything about the Hunger Games and the horrors of the arena seem dirty and uncomfortable and horrible, so in the first book at least it's a glaring omission.
** They may not shit in the woods, but they do urinate.
*** Justifed, since it is common to retain bowel movements in high-stress circumstances.
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Given the nature of the beast, it's an inevitability. Even outside the arena, [[spoiler: Cinna receives a nasty one as Katniss watches helplessly]]. ''And they never saw him again.''
* NoNameGiven: Katniss never learns the names of most of the tributes. [[spoiler: She doesn't find out until well after the games are over that the boy from District 1 was named Marvel, even though she was the one who killed him]].
* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:Presidents Coin and Snow.]]
* NonActionGuy: Peeta, whose sole moment of badassery is so early on in the games that it's easily outshined by his persistent habit of being TheLoad.
* NonActionBigBad: President Snow.
* NoPeriodsPeriod: Either the books take places very strategically to avoid this problem or Collins simply overlooked it.
** Possibly justified in that women who are significantly underweight and experience high physical and mental stress sometimes tend to stop menstruating, but this rationale may be OverthinkingIt. See also: NobodyPoops.
* NotInThisForYourRevolution: It takes Katniss a long time to decide to actively [[spoiler: help the revolutionaries instead of just looking out for her own survival]].
* NuclearOption: [[spoiler: Discussed. Both District 13 and the Capital have nukes trained on each other, but mutually assured destruction of all humanity keeps them both at bay.]]
* ObfuscatingStupidity:
** Katniss remarks this was Johanna Mason's strategy in her Games: everyone thought she was a sniveling, useless weakling and overlooked her... until she turned out to be a vicious killer who ended up the victor.
** Oddly enough, [[spoiler:Haymitch]] counts -- [[spoiler:not only is he quite the strategist in the first Games, but he turns out to be a major figure in the underground resistance by the end of book 2. Not bad for a drunkard.]]
* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The implied epic two-day battle between Cato and Thresh. [[BattleInTheRain In the rain]].
* TheOphelia: [[spoiler:Katniss near the end of the third book, after killing Coin.]] Annie is presented as unstable at the best of times.
* OppositesAttract
* OrnamentalWeapon: Subverted with Katniss' bow. After all, just because it's pretty doesn't mean it can't be deadly.
* OrphanageOfFear: It isn't actually seen, but the District 12 community home is implied to be like this.
* OutrunTheFireball: One of the Gamemakers' traps.
* PerfectPoison: Nightlock berries. Most of the plants in the Second Quarter Quell.
* {{Phobia}}: [[spoiler:Johanna]] develops a fear of water after being tortured with drowning / electrocution.
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: Katniss is flustered by people's nudity on several occasions. Boggs is also annoyed by seeing Finnick sauntering around in his underwear.
* PoliceState: Panem is one. [[spoiler:District 13 is less openly cruel but even more restrictive.]]
* PresidentEvil: President Snow, especially as time goes on. [[spoiler:President Coin of District 13? Not much better]].
* PrimalFear: Suzanne Collins seems to be a fan of these... both The Hunger Games and the Underland Chronicles are full of people dying in horrible ways thanks to fire, drowning, bugs (sometimes GIANT bugs) and/or savage animals.
* PromotionToParent: The death of [[DisappearedDad Katniss' father]] and her mother's subsequent depression make her the breadwinner of the family.
* ProngsOfPoseidon: Since he's from the fishing district, Finnick is dangerously adept with a trident.
* ProtagonistCenteredMorality: Justified in Book One since the premise is a cage match to the death between random strangers. Averted in 2 and 3.
* ProtectedByAChild: Near the end of Mockingjay, [[spoiler:this is supposedly what Snow was doing to protect himself]].
* PsychoSerum: Tracker jacker venom.
* PyrrhicVictory: The ending of ''Mockingjay''
* RaceLift: [[http://www.movieline.com/2011/03/oh-no-they-didnt-the-hunger-games-casting-for-underfed-white-teenage-girls.php Fans are saying this]] after the casting call for the movie called for thin underfed white girls and the lily white Jennifer Lawrence was picked for Katniss, because many fans feel that Katniss was meant to be a person of color (or at the very least a dark-skinned white person).
* RainOfBlood: ''Literally.''
* RealityEnsues: Pretty much what Mockingjay runs on.
* RegionalSpeciality: Each district's bread is very distinct.
* ReplacementGoldfish: Katniss [[spoiler: forms an alliance with Rue, stays with her while she dies, and vows to win for her]], who reminds her of her own little sister Prim back home.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The third book is FULL of this.
* RomanticFalseLead: [[spoiler: Gale.]]
* RousingSpeech: [[spoiler: Katniss tries to give one in the middle of a firefight in District 2. It fails miserably.]]
** YMMV on whether it was successful or not, considering that even though [[spoiler: she was shot, it was by a soldier from the Capitol, not the one she was addressing, and the people who retaliated by gunning him down were not the rebels, but the District 2 soldiers she had been trying to inspire.]]
** In general, though, she's pretty good when she improvises. In ''Catching Fire'' she makes a beautiful speech [[spoiler: in District 11, about her ally Rue, that causes the crowd to make a show of insubordination.]] And her [[spoiler: "If we burn, you burn with us" speech in District 8]] in ''Mockingjay'' is all kinds of awesome.
* RuleOfDrama: Ties with RuleOfEmpathy, below. The Capitol loves best those victors who put on a great show.
* RuleOfEmpathy: Tributes must be able to invoke sympathy from the Capitol and District audiences. Sympathy will equal sponsors and money for necessities in the arena, and could therefore make the difference in the Games. Peeta, it turns out, is a natural at invoking the RuleOfEmpathy at the drop of a hat. Katniss is not.
* RuleOfThree: Suzanne Collins loves her powers of three. There are three books. Each book is divided into three parts. Each part contains nine (3x3) chapters.
* SacrificialLion: Although it was inevitable, [[spoiler: Rue.]]
** [[spoiler: Prim and Finnick in the third book.]]
* SayMyName: Especially Katniss' incident in the tree during the first games.
* ScaryBlackMan: Thresh.
* [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem Screw The Rules We Make Them]]: The Gamemakers.
* SexSlave: [[spoiler:According to Finnick, this happens to a lot of victors, himself included.]]
** [[spoiler: Fridge Horror + this, when you realize the victors are all children, so it is PoweredByAForsakenChild.]]
* ShallowLoveInterest
** The fandom seems to be split on who this applies to. Gale is either truly the other half of the OfficialCouple, or he's a [[RomanticFalseLead Paolo]]. Similarly, Peeta is either a cunning yet rather hopeless romantic, or a total idiot.
* ShellShockedVeteran: All of the Victors have some form of PTSD.
** Outdone by Katniss herself in the third book. Jury's still out on what's up with Peeta.
* ShootTheHostage: [[spoiler: President Coin orders a bombing attack on children being used as human shields by President Snow - and makes it appear that the attack was initiated by Snow, in order to destroy any remaining public support for Snow's regime.]]
* ShoutOut:
** WordOfGod has stated that Katniss's family name is a reference to the Thomas Hardy character Bathsheba Everdene.
** Katniss (the "Girl on Fire") is in Squad Four Five One, a reference to Ray Bradbury's ''Fahrenheit 451'', which is another dystopian novel with a fire motif.
* ShoutOutToShakespeare: Lavinia, who has no tongue, is a reference to ''TitusAndronicus''.
* SimulatedUrbanCombatArea
* SingleTargetSexuality: Peeta towards Katniss. He fell in love with her when he was 5 and never fell out of love. [[spoiler:Except of course for the brief time while he was hijacked - but that wasn't his fault and didn't last long.]]
* SlaveToPR: A dominating theme. A likable persona for a tribute wins sponsors; just as Finnick. It culminates in ''Mockingjay'' when [[spoiler: it is strongly implied that the rebels ''bomb a town square full of children'', in a hovercraft labeled as the Capitol, solely in order to convince everyone in the nation that the Capitol is evil]]. P.R. is possibly ''the'' most powerful weapon in ''The Hunger Games.''
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism - The cynicism side. Far, far, ''far'' on the cynicism side.
* SlowClap: Not exactly an applause, but the whole community of District 12 uses a cultural gesture to show their support of Katniss when she takes her sister's place. [[spoiler: District 11 tries this as well... and pays the price.]]
* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Avoided. They exist, they're just the worse alternative.
* SomeKindOfForceField: Prominent in ''Catching Fire,'' causing death or serious injury multiple times.
* SomeoneToRememberHimBy: [[spoiler:Annie gives birth to their baby sometime after Finnick is killed.]]
* TheSpeechless: Avoxes, traitors who've had their tongues mutilated as punishment.
* StrangeSalute: When Katniss volunteers to take her sister's place, the entire crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hands to their lips, and then holds it out to her. Katniss explains that it's an old District 12 gesture that means thanks, admiration, and goodbye to someone you love. [[spoiler:It becomes a little more meaningful later on.]]
* StunnedSilence: The first response to Katniss' exchange.
* StarCrossedLovers: [[spoiler: Peeta and Katniss pretend to be this to garner sympathy.]]
** [[spoiler:Turns out to be quite real in the end.]]
*** [[spoiler:real in that they were lovers, not real in that they were StarCrossedLovers (this trope is not a good thing...it implies that their love is doomed from the get go, the trope namers kill themselves because of it.)]]
* SuperHappyFunTropeOfDoom: The role of the Peacekeepers isn't as sweet as it sounds. (Bit like in RealLife, then?) Pretty much everything surrounding the Games is treated as fun and entertaining; being a "tribute" is an ''honor.''
* SuperPersistentPredator: The tracker jacker wasps do not give up an attack once pissed off. Running away doesn't help.
* SureLetsGoWithThat: When Caesar Flickerman asks Katniss exactly when she first [[spoiler: fell for Peeta]], she's evasive at first (since at this point [[spoiler: she hasn't actually fallen for him yet]]) and then immediately goes along with his first guess.
* SurvivalMantra: Although nonverbal, Finnick's compulsive knotting in ''Mockingjay''.
** Katniss shares Finnick's knotting habit for a bit in the third book, but has one of her own.
--> My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games...
* TakeAThirdOption: [[spoiler: The climax of Book 1.]]
* TakeThat: In universe, the mockingjay becomes an increasingly unsubtle one of these towards the Capitol.
* TakingTheBullet: During the Quarter Quell, [[spoiler: one of the morphlings is killed by an attack from a vicious monkey that was meant for Peeta]].
* TallDarkAndHandsome: Gale.
* ATasteOfTheLash: [[spoiler:Gale]] in Catching Fire
* TearsOfRemorse: After Katniss's meeting with the odds makers.
* ThemeNaming: The capitol and District 2 use Roman names to highlight their decadent nature and fondness for gladitorial combat. The nation itself is called Panem, the Latin word for bread. The districts often use names referencing their primary industry.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: The districts are too poor for something like a therapist, leaving the traumatized victors to relive their nightmares every year as they're forced to participate in the games. Invoked by Capital to make them broken beyond repair and thus unable to fight back. Subverted in [[spoiler:District 13]]: all refugees are given psychological help and local specialists do everything they can to get [[spoiler:Peeta]] back to his old self after a MindRape. Before [[spoiler:the final attack on Capital]], soldiers are checked for possible psychological problems ([[spoiler:Johanna]] gets sent to a mental facility). Katniss also goes through therapy after [[spoiler:her sister’s]] death.
* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Played straight [[spoiler: for seventy-three years. Zig-zagged in the first book.]]
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Here, there and everywhere given the nature of the Games. Big mention to [[spoiler:Cato, who, having lost all his limbs and skin from being gnawed on by at least twenty wolf-like creatures for hours on end, dies from an arrow to the face.]]
* ThirteenIsUnlucky: District 13 is the odd district out.
* TitleDrop: Of sorts. In the third book, "Fire is catching" becomes a slogan for the [[spoiler: rebels.]]
* ToAbsentFriends: [[spoiler:The book that Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch create at the end of Mockingjay.]]
* TooCleverByHalf: Foxface. [[spoiler:Up until the point where she fails to distinguish poisonous berries from normal ones. Granted, she was starving by then, but still...]]
* TraumaCongaLine: By the end, try to count more surviving characters that haven't suffered one without running out of fingers. This is especially endemic amongst the victors of the games as the Capitol torments them to keep them from using their elevated status to foment rebellion.
** [[spoiler:Until they messed up with Katniss.]]
* TrickArrow: Both the flaming and exploding kinds.
* TryNotToDie: Pretty much everyone's last words to Katniss and Peeta.
* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: [[spoiler: Gale]]
* UnwittingPawn: Katniss feels this way, since she's constantly out of the loop.
* TheUriahGambit:
** [[spoiler:Attempted by President Coin, who sends Peeta out with Katniss's team in the Capitol, with a gun, while he's still BrainwashedAndCrazy and Katniss is his BerserkButton. It fails]].
** Katniss being sent [[spoiler: back into the arena in book 2]] might also qualify, if you believe it was rigged by [[spoiler: President Snow]].
* UselessSpleen: In ''Mockingjay'', [[spoiler: Katniss gets shot. Not surprisingly it happens to be her spleen that is destroyed. Good thing she doesn't need it.]]
* VillainBall: The Capitol wouldn't have had to face a major rebellion (or at least, not for a while) if it wasn't so hellbent on making Katniss's life miserable. Indeed, there wouldn't be a rebellion at all if they had allowed the Hunger Games to cease after the first few times.
** Aside from the central extravagance of the Hunger Games (and even that is in some ways an inspired form of repression in that it forces people to become complicit in it through starvation, quite Stalin-esque actually) the tactics the capital uses to repress the districts are actually a fairly realistic representation of the terror methods that RealLife regimes use, and just like in RealLife but unlike in most stories: they work, to a point. In 75 years of power the capital had almost certainly weathered minor uprisings that it had been able to quell through force, control of information, and playing disctricts off against each other. What tips the scale in the period of the plot is [[spoiler: military support from district 13, inter-district organizational and information support from district 13 and rebels in the capital, and a unifying symbol for all the districts in the form of [[TheHero Katniss]] and [[TheLoad Peeta]] that had already been helpfully broadcast through the capital's own propaganda machine.]]
* VillainsNeverLie [[spoiler:President Snow]]
* VoiceOfTheResistance: Katnniss and her fellow Victors, throughout book 3.
* WarIsHell: Absolutely nothing [[WarIsGlorious glorious]] about it.
* WartimeWedding: [[spoiler: Finnick and Annie.]]
* WasItAllALie: Peeta's ongoing question to Katniss from the end of the first book all the way to the "Real or not real?" question at the end of the last.
* WeaponsKitchenSink: Inevitable, given the fact that the Capitol just spreads them around in the Arena and hopes for a sloppy death scenario to increase the "entertainment" value.
* WhamLine: Chapters have a tendency to end with these, such as, [[spoiler:"Katniss, there is no District 12."]]
** Or how about [[spoiler: "And then the second round of parachutes goes off."]]
* WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway: Subverted. [[spoiler: Katniss sees Peeta as TheHeart and thinks his power to love is much better than her ability to kill things.]]
* WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve: [[RaceAgainstTheClock Given the nature of the arena used by the Quarter Quell.]]
* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: The Districts have a few geographical clues but otherwise the readers don't really learn where they are.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: [[spoiler:Tough-as-nails Johanna Mason is undone by water... because when she was a prisoner of the Capitol, they soaked her and then electrocuted her as part of her torture.]]
* WillNotBeAVictim: Invoked and then exploited. It's how [[spoiler:Johanna]] won her Hunger Games.
* TheWorfEffect: [[spoiler:Cato taking out Thresh in Book 1.]]
* WreathedInFlames: part of Katniss' symbology (along with being a mockingjay).
* WritersCannotDoMath: In ''Catching Fire'', Katniss describes the Cornucopia as being 40 yards away from the launch platform, which is located in a circular lagoon. There are twelve spokes of land separating the 24 tributes, and Katniss is equidistant from the land strip and the adjacent tribute platform. If you do all the calculations, it turns out that Katniss is about seven yards from the nearest land strip. Katniss has to swim this distance, and describes it as "a longer distance than [she's] used to swimming" back in the lake outside District 12.
* WouldHitAGirl: There are just as many girls as boys in each Hunger Game, ensuring a lot of this. [[spoiler:Marvel kills Rue, and Thresh kills Clove.]]
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: The people living in the Capitol dye their hair some pretty wild colors.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Leads to [[spoiler: Cato [[NeckSnap snapping the neck]] of District 3's]] boy in the first book.
* [[YouKilledMyFather You Killed My]] [[spoiler: [[YouKilledMyFather Sister]]]]: [[spoiler: In Mockingjay, either President Snow or President Coin killed Prim.]]
** More literally, Katniss understands that if the conditions were not so bad in the coal mines due to the decadent lifestyle in the capitol and the corrupt government, her father would not have died in the mine accident.
* YourFavorite: Katniss at one point receives food including the stew she stated in an interview was her favorite thing about the Capitol.
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<<|{{Literature}}|>>
