History Literature / TheHungerGames

%%** Bird symbolism is used pretty blatantly throughout the series.

** Katniss herself is named for the flower ''Sagittaria'', or arrowhead, but nicknamed for a plant beloved by cats. Prim's cat Buttercup clearly represents him, but they don't even like each other.

** Katniss herself is named for the flower sagitaria, or arrowhead, but nicknamed for a plant beloved by cats. Prim's cat Buttercup clearly represents her, and they don't even like each other.

* ShoutOut: [[invoked]]WordOfGod has stated that Katniss' family name is a reference to the Thomas Hardy character [[Literature/FarFromTheMaddingCrowd Bathsheba Everdene]]. And Katniss (the "Girl on Fire") is in Squad Four Five One, a reference to Ray Bradbury's ''Literature/{{Fahrenheit 451}}'', which is another dystopian novel with a fire motif.

** President Snow reeks of roses.

* MoralityPet: Katniss has Prim and Rue, and Gale has his own younger siblings.

** Twelve. 12 districts, 12 pairs of tributes (who become eligible at age 12), training scores of up to 12, 12 arrows in the quiver in the arena, 12 houses in the Victor's Village, 24 [[spoiler:wedding]] dresses designed for [[spoiler:Katniss]], then voted down to 6, lightning strikes at midnight and noon in a certain section of the [[spoiler:Quarter Quell arena]], which later becomes important to the plot, and a 12 ft ×12 ft apartment in [[spoiler:District 13]]. Also, in the first book, both Prim and Rue are 12 years old, and Rue was one of 6 siblings.

** Catching Fire: "Remember who the real enemy is."
** Mockingjay: "My name is Katniss Everdeen."

** The only reason Katniss has reason to suspect that Peeta is anything other than a canny competitor is because he gave her bread when she was starving to death and preparing to die.

* ArcNumber: Twelve. 12 districts, 12 pairs of tributes (who become eligible at age 12), training scores of up to 12, 12 arrows in the quiver in the arena, 12 houses in the Victor's Village, 24 [[spoiler:wedding]] dresses designed for [[spoiler:Katniss]], then voted down to 6, lightning strikes at midnight and noon in a certain section of the [[spoiler:Quarter Quell arena]], which later becomes important to the plot, and a 12 ft ×12 ft apartment in [[spoiler:District 13]]. Also, in the first book, both Prim and Rue are 12 years old, and Rue was one of 6 siblings.

** District 12: Coal mining.
** District 13: Graphite, nuclear energy.

* MadnessMantra: Wiress repeatedly says, "Tick, tock" during the Quarter Quell. No one initially understands what she's referring to.

* ''The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes'' (2023)

** Tigris looks and acts like a tigress so much that Katniss wonders if she picked the name herself.

** Tigris had plastic surgery to look like a human-tiger hybrid. Katniss wonders which came first, the name or the look. [[spoiler: Literature/TheBalladOfSongbirdsAndSnakes reveal that the name came first.]]

** Tigris had plastic surgery to look like a human-tiger hybrid. Katniss wonders which came first, the name or the look.

* WillTheyOrWontThey: Left ambiguous throughout the series if Katniss will end up with anyone at all. For one thing, she doesn't want to fall in love, get married and have children that might end up in the Hunger Games, so she resists her budding feelings for [[spoiler:Peeta. Gale professing his romantic feelings confuses her and a minor triangle plays out for a few chapters of the second book, then ultimately she chooses to be with Peeta but doesn't start a family with him until fifteen years after the end of the war]]. The movies play it up like a big triangle by adding scenes that allude to [[spoiler:Katniss having feelings for Gale]] and remove the majority of the scenes that [[spoiler:shows she's falling for Peeta]], presumably to cash in on the shipper war hype of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' but it's mostly lead to a negative response and was toned down for the third film.

* InnocentCohabitation: In the end [[spoiler:Peeta appears to move in with Katniss shortly after returning to Twelve, sleeping beside her to help comfort her when she has a nightmare. This time around though it eventually leads to sex, marriage and babies.]]

*** Katniss and Peeta team up with [[spoiler:Finnick and Mags]] near the beginning, but [[spoiler:Mags later commits a HeroicSacrifice so she [[IWillOnlySlowYouDown won't slow down]] the other three. Then they meet up with Beetee, Wiress, and Johanna, who by this time has already lost her own district partner, Blight, as well. Not too long afterwards, Wiress is murdered when the Career pack attacks. And finally, when they destroy the force field around the arena and break out of it, only Katniss, Finnick, and Beetee are rescued, while Peeta and Johanna are left behind]].

* 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 ruthless killer who ended up the victor. And Haymitch counts – not only is he quite the strategist in the first Games, but he turns out to be a [[spoiler:major figure in the underground resistance by the end of ''Catching Fire''.]] Not bad for someone most people just think of as the town drunk.

** The implied epic two-day battle between [[CoolVersusAwesome Cato and Thresh.]] [[BattleInTheRain In the rain]].

** Likewise, Mags, who was Finnick's mentor when he won the 65th Hunger Games at age 14, is stated to have practically raised him since then. [[spoiler:Finnick is devastated when she unhesitatingly commits a HeroicSacrifice to save him, Katniss, and Peeta.]]

* {{Phobia}}: [[spoiler:Johanna]] develops a fear of water after being tortured with drowning / electrocution, to the point that she rarely showers and hesitates to even walk outside when it's raining.

* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: Katniss is flustered by people's nudity on several occasions. Johanna knows this and strips off in an elevator whilst chatting with Katniss and Peeta, and again during training, even oiling her body for a wrestling lesson. Peeta finds it amusing. Katniss … not so much.
-->'''Finnick:''' "[[LampshadeHanging Why? Do you find this … distracting?]]"

* {{Portmanteau}}: Several. "Muttation" is a generic in-universe term for a genetically engineered creature, probably derived from "mutt" and "mutation". 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 [[spoiler:when they're storming the Capitol]]. For some reason, Peeta and Katniss also take to using the term "mutt" to refer to [[spoiler:the mentally damaged Peeta after his brainwashing, and the physically damaged Katniss after her burning]]. Poisonous berries called "nightlock" (nightshade, hemlock). ''Mockingjay'' features political ads called "Propo", as in "propaganda spots", and a "Communicuff", which is exactly what it sounds like. "Mockingjay", for that matter. Just like real life examples, this one shows a combination of two different species -- mockingjays are the offspring of mockingbirds and muttations called jabberjays.

* PragmaticVillainy: The gamemakers frown on certain behaviors in The 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 (unless they can be charming about it, as the Career Tributes tend to be somewhat … AxCrazy). The Capitol citizens will gleefully watch children fight to the death, but send a young woman who's pregnant into the arena and they'll call it barbaric. And 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.]]

* 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: This is what drove Katniss and Gale together before the beginning of the series. Both of their dads died several years before in a mining accident and as the oldest children, had to step up and help their mothers. Mrs Everdeen fell into a deep depression when her husband died and was unable to provide emotionally or financial for her children so Katniss had to become the breadwinner and be both the mother as father figure to Prim. Gale’s mother Hazelle helps financially as much as she could but has three other children to raise and only just makes do washing clothes. Gale’s sibling, from what little we see of them, also see him as their father figure. The two of them began to help each other out by splitting the workload.

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Tributes from Districts 1 and 2 tend to come off this way due to those Districts' practice of training children specifically in order to volunteer for the Hunger Games. As a result, these "Career" Tributes are also far more likely to win than Tributes from other Districts, although Haymitch describes their arrogance as a flaw that can lead to their defeat.

%%Administrivia/ZeroContextExample* LaResistance: [[spoiler:Revealed at the end of the second book.]]

* RubberBandAI: Frequently used by the gamemakers if the show isn't entertaining enough. Their methods range from setting off natural disasters to changing the weather or environment to force tributes together to releasing mutts and animals to hunt the tributes. Katniss is savvy enough to plan her strategies with this in mind.

* [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem Screw The Rules We Make Them]]:

** In an example of this trope being beneficial to the heroes, Katniss is able to hunt outside the gates of District 12 at the beginning of the first book, in spite of a clear law against it, because her kills are so prized that even the Peacekeepers in charge of enforcing the laws need the meat that she sells.

* ShaggyDogStory: The story begins in the first book with Katniss sacrificing herself to save Prim's life. [[spoiler:Prim dies at the end of ''Mockingjay'']].

* ShoutOut: WordOfGod has stated that Katniss' family name is a reference to the Thomas Hardy character [[Literature/FarFromTheMaddingCrowd Bathsheba Everdene]]. And Katniss (the "Girl on Fire") is in Squad Four Five One, a reference to Ray Bradbury's ''Literature/{{Fahrenheit 451}}'', which is another dystopian novel with a fire motif.

* 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, and even then it seems that a part of him still loved her.]]

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Haymitch and Peeta, two of the most cunning characters in the series, [[http://everlarkedalways.tumblr.com/post/138791630934/salanderjade-ive-decided-that-this-is-one-of-my enjoy playing chess together]]. At one point they are doing so at Katniss' house - when she's not even at home.

* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Avoided. They exist, they're just the worse alternative.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The books have been compared to an Americanized take on ''Literature/BattleRoyale'', to the point where a bit of a FandomRivalry has developed between the two.

** Finnick offers Katniss sugar when he flirts with her. "Give me some sugar" is slang for "Let's kiss etc."
** When Katniss requests to kill Snow, [[spoiler:the president of District 13]] offers to flip her for the privilege. The president's last name? Coin.

** In the first film/book more specifically, Katniss and Peeta are the two sole surviving tributes. The game master earlier said that two people could win as a team if they were both from the same district to make things a little more interesting. However, he changes his mind at that point, and tells them that one would have to die. Peeta offers himself as a sacrifice, claiming Katniss had more reason to go home alive. However, Katniss refuses to play into their hand, [[spoiler:and brings up the poisonous berries he had accidentally gathered earlier. Katniss knows that PR is king in the Capitol, and having no victor would look bad for the Hunger Games, so she figures if they both threaten to eat the nightlock berries the Gamemaster will change his mind. She ends up being right, although her defiance sets in motion the events of the second two books.]]
** Snow believes Crane should've done this in response to Katniss' Third Option [[spoiler:of double suicide]]. Rather than letting both die or both win, Snow would've [[MurderIsTheBestSolution simply killed Katniss]]. It’s revealed in ''Catching Fire'' that Crane [[YouHaveFailedMe pays the ultimate price]] for his choice.

* TakeThat: In universe, the mockingjay becomes an increasingly unsubtle one of these towards the Capitol.

* TakingYouWithMe: Book 1: [[spoiler:Cato threatens to take Peeta with him into the jaws of the Muttations if Katniss shoots him with her arrows.]]

* TemptingFate: In the first book, Katniss reassures her sister Prim after a nightmare that her name won't be drawn for the Hunger Games...seconds later, that's exactly what happens. And Katniss realizes that if you're referred to as "the girl who was on fire" enough times, eventually you do get actually lit on fire.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: The districts don't largely seem to have therapists, leaving the traumatized victors to relive their nightmares yearly as they're forced to participate in the games (though it's implied that Katniss' mother was able to somehow gain access to one in order to get hold of drugs to treat her depression). {{Exploited|Trope}} by the Capitol 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 the Capitol]], 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]].

* TogetherInDeath: [[InvokedTrope The promise of this]] was how Katniss and Peeta [[spoiler:forced the Gamemakers to back down on their attempt to force them to fight to the death, being prepared to commit suicide simultaneously, which they would later portray as both being unwilling to live without the other]].

* YouHaveFailedMe: Snow [[spoiler:has Crane killed after Crane declares both Katniss and Peeta winner of the 74th Hunger Games. Otherwise they both would have committed suicide, and there would be no winner, likely angering many people in the process, especially in the districts, which President Snow warned him about earlier. Snow thought a better solution would've been to [[MurderIsTheBestSolution simply kill Katniss]]]].

* NoNameGiven: Katniss never learns the names of most of the tributes. She doesn't find out until well after the games are over that the boy from District 1 was named Marvel, even though [[spoiler:she was the one who killed him]].
** This applies to Katniss' parents, and to Peeta's entire family. Not to mention [[spoiler:Peeta's and Katniss' children]], who go unnamed as well. Reportedly Suzanne Collins has stated that their names are [[spoiler:Willow and Rye]].

* ThirteenIsUnlucky: District 13 is the odd district out, especially after it got destroyed by the Capitol prior to the events of the series. [[spoiler:Or so Katniss and most of the country has been told. A portion of the district has been quietly surviving underground, [[MutuallyAssuredDestruction having enough nuclear weapons to keep itself and the Capital locked into an uneasy truce out of fear of a nuclear war.]] Still, they're cut off from most of the world.]]

* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: In-universe example. The longer the Games run, the more expensive it is for sponsors to send support to remaining Tributes.

** Occasionally used is 'little duck' from Katniss to Prim, due to the latter's habit of having her shirt tails untucked.

* AmbiguouslyBrown: Collins has stated that we're so far in the future that racial mixing has blurred any categories that might exist today. She refuses to elaborate on what modern races the characters would be categorized as. Katniss herself has olive skin and straight black hair, in contrast to her blonde-haired and blue-eyed mother and sister. Rue and Thresh have "dark skin." In ''The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes'', the District 11 tribute, Reaper, is described as having dark brown skin.
* AngstySurvivingTwin: Madge’s mother Mrs Undersee lost her twin sister Maysilee in the 50th Hunger Games and became a drug addict afterwards.
* AnimalMotifs: Katniss repeatedly compares President Snow to a snake, showing her distrust of him (the prequel with Snow as the main character is called ''The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes''), and Rue to birds, highlighting her fondness for Rue and Rue's sweet and free-spirited nature. In-universe, Katniss is associated with a specific kind of bird called a mockingjay, which is an emblem of freedom and of the Capital's fallibility. Tigris looks and acts like a tigress so much that Katniss wonders if she picked the name herself.

* ArtisticLicensePharmacology: [[spoiler:Snow used assassination by poison]] to rise to power. Apparently the Capitol can neither perform autopsies nor test surfaces for presence of toxins.[[note]]Can't … or [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch won't?]][[/note]] In ''Mockingjay'', Katniss describes morphling as making her feel numb and empty. For opiate addicts (who've begun to grow 'immune' to the effects) this may be the case, but morphine makes non-addicts feel relaxed, warm and happy, even through emotional depression.

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: This trope is deliberately invoked [[spoiler:by Peeta who claims Katniss is pregnant after the two are forced back into the arena for the Quarter Quell.]] Apparently not even the bloodthirsty denizens of the Capitol seem to want to watch a pregnant girl be killed. Subverted in the epilogue as while [[spoiler:Peeta and Katniss do 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 as a result of the events of the books. This is less 'babies make everything better' and more the fact that the world is finally 'better' enough to have a baby in the first place.]]

** This occurs with regard to [[spoiler:Rue.]] As Katniss would be rather unsympathetic if she was forced to kill [[spoiler:a terrified 12-year-old who saved her life, looked up to her, and reminded her of her little sister]], one of the fellow competitors does it for her.

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Played straight at the end of the first book, when Katniss undergoes a beautification procedure that removes all of her scars after she emerges victorious. Averted in subsequent books, as she has a nasty scar on her arm at the end of the second book, and by the end of the third [[spoiler:much of her body is covered by burn scars and skin grafts]]. Even after this, however, her face suffers no lasting damage.
* BeautyToBeast: Glimmer is the stunningly beautiful tribute from District 1. [[spoiler:Her beauty is destroyed and her face is horribly disfigured by trackerjack stings.]]

%%* BigBad: [[PresidentEvil President Coriolanus Snow]] for the entire series, [[spoiler:until Alma Coin seizes control from him near the end of ''Mockingjay''.]]

* BigDamnHeroes: In the first book [[spoiler:Thresh saves Katniss from being killed by Clove, on behalf of her relationship with Rue.]]
* TheBigDamnKiss: One per book. In-universe, the Katniss/Peeta shippers in the Capitol (and for that matter the rest of Panem) get such a moment when Katniss and Peeta are hiding in the cave.
* 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 Greek and Latin.[[note]]The ''a-'' is Greek; the ''vox'' is Latin.[[/note]] "Katniss" is the name of a family of plants, also known as "Sagittaria" -- Latin for 'archer'.

* BloodierAndGorier: ''Mockingjay'' is probably the bloodiest of all the books (though none of them are gory per se), but this applies much more clearly in-universe to the Quarter Quells, which are all extremely violent and in-universe intentionally made ''even more'' brutal than the "normal" Games.

* BookEnds: Buttercup [[spoiler:is hated by Katniss in the beginning and adopted as protective pet and mutual reminder of Prim in the end.]] A nightmare [[spoiler:wakes Prim in the beginning, and Katniss' child in the end]]. Singing to the frightened child: [[spoiler:Prim in the beginning and Katniss' child in the end]].

* BreadAndCircuses: ''Panem et Circenses''. DiscussedTrope in ''Mockingjay.''

** In ''Mockingjay'' there's a vote between the Tributes about whether or not to send [[spoiler:high-ranking Capitol officials' children into a last Hunger Game]]; Katniss and Haymitch vote to do it. It seems almost certain that Katniss votes that way only in order to [[spoiler:fool Coin into thinking she's on her side]], and the fact that Haymitch understood that and voted with her makes Katniss realize how much they really understand each other.
* BreakTheCutie: To a certain extent, any character deemed cute goes through this treatment in the series. Rue is the first, as she gets shoved into the Hunger Games at 12, and is heartbreakingly resigned to the fact that she can't win. 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.
** Averted, however, in the case of Prim who, despite the horrors she experiences, seems to adjust pretty well. [[spoiler:Not that it does her much good at the end.]]
** The same could be said for Annie, who, despite having become unstable after her games and [[spoiler:losing her husband Finnick during the war]], actually seems ''more'' together somehow by the end of the series than she was before.

* CallARabbitASmeerp: The addictive painkiller in use around Panem is called "morphling" (morphine) and the people addicted to it are called "morphlings."
* CallBack: Finnick offers Katniss a sugar cube [[spoiler:again in ''Mockingjay'', to add to her coffee]], referencing when he offers her one previously at the 75th Hunger Games tribute parade.

* CanonForeigner: The characters Augustus Braun and Porter Millicent Tripp appeared on the now defunct Capitol Couture website, where they were said to be victors in past Hunger Games. [[note]]Mags was also featured.[[/note]] However, there is no mention of these characters in either the books or the films. What's more, Augustus was said to be from District 1, though his name is more in keeping with District 2.

* KillEmAll: The Games are to end with one person left standing. [[spoiler:Both the 74th and 75th end a little differently.]]

** Averted with Johanna, who [[AnAxeToGrind uses an axe]], and District 13, where soldiers of all genders rely on guns.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:The first book ends with Katniss and Peeta both surviving the Hunger Games, as well as gaining the rewards that go with being crowned victor, but the government is very angry at them - mostly Katniss - because their refusal to try to kill each other is considered an embarrassment to the totalitarian regime that orchestrates the Games and a threat to its control. The freedom at the end of the series is paid for in a lot of blood, and the characters are burdened with deep emotional scars. However, Panem is rebuilding and there's some BabiesEverAfter for the two lead characters.]]

* 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 Greek and Latin.[[note]]The ''a-'' is Greek; the ''vox'' is Latin.[[/note]] 'Katniss' is the name of a family of plants, also known as 'Sagittaria' -- Latin for 'archer'.

** The crew that works The Hunger Games. They obviously live in the Capitol and prepare the candidates to be offered as tribute, and Effie even seems to love the Games, but the genuine horror that most of them feel for Katniss and Peeta's suffering makes things a little grayer. One could even argue that by styling, mentoring, and presenting them, the teams are doing all they can from the Capitol to ensure their survival, since good PR helps a lot.

** We come to see as the series progresses that The Capitol is not the {{Utopia}} Katniss thought it was. [[spoiler:Seneca Crane]] was executed for simply [[YouHaveFailedMe failing at his job]]. In ''Catching Fire'', Effie's frightened comment – "That sort of thinking...it's forbidden, Peeta. Absolutely." – implies a ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''-esque society where their lives are physically comfortable, but people live in fear because thought, word, and deed are policed by the State, and free-thinkers are punished in terrible ways.

** Cinna was the name of various Roman figures relevant to his character, namely [[spoiler:a doomed opponent of Sulla the dictator, one of Julius Caesar's assassins, a poet mistaken for the same and beaten to death by an angry mob, and a conspirator against Augustus Caesar.]]

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: People from the Capitol are often named after Ancient Roman historical figures: Cinna, Caesar (Flickerman), Seneca (Crane), Coriolanus (Snow), Claudius (Templesmith), etc.

* AnimalMotifs: Katniss repeatedly compares President Snow to a snake, showing her distrust of him (the sequel with Snow as the main character is called ''The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes''), and Rue to birds, highlighting her fondness for Rue and Rue's sweet and free-spirited nature. In-universe, Katniss is associated with a specific kind of bird called a mockingjay, which is an emblem of freedom and of the Capital's fallibility. Tigris looks and acts like a tigress so much that Katniss wonders if she picked the name herself.