Cato

"Go on, shoot. And we both go down, and you win. Go on. I'm dead, anyway! I always was, right? I didn't know that until now. Isn't that what they want, huh? No! I can still do this. I can still do this. One more kill. It's the only thing I know how to do. Bring pride to my district. Not that it matters."

- Cato's final speech

Cato is the main antagonist in The Hunger Games. He is the male tribute from District 2 in the 74th Hunger Games and serves as the leader of the Career pack.

Biography
"A monstrous boy who lunges forward to volunteer from District 2."

- Katniss's first impression of Cato

Cato lived in District 2 prior to the 74th Hunger Games and presumably trained for the Games alongside his fellow district members. Like Katniss, he volunteered for the Games, most likely because he had confidence in his abilities to win.

Tribute Parade
"As I glance around, I notice a lot of the other tributes are shooting us dirty looks, which confirms what I've suspected, we've literally outshone them all."

- Katniss's thoughts after the Tribute Parade In the film, Cato and his district partner Clove enter the Tribute Parade wearing Roman-esque outfits. After the parade, Cato glares at the District 12 team, because they have outshone the other tributes.

Training Center
"I've been preoccupied with watching the boy from District 2 send a spear through a dummy’s heart from fifteen yards."

- Katniss's thoughts in the Training Center

In the Training Center, Cato and his fellow tributes train and prepare for the Games.



In the book, Cato trains at the spear-throwing station and displays his prowess with the weaponry. He most likely shows off these skills to the Gamemakers in his private session, as he receives a high training score of 10.

In the film, the Careers target Peeta's weakness and view him as what Katniss describes as a "meal" until Peeta shows his true strength by throwing a 100-pound metal ball into a rack of spears. Later on in the film, Cato is angered when he thinks that the District 6 male took his knife, which was actually taken by Rue when he wasn't looking and kept out of sight via the climbing station. He provokes a fight with the other boy, threatening to make him his first target, until the Peacekeepers separate them.

Interview
"The monstrous boy from District 2 is a ruthless killing machine."

- Katniss's thoughts during the interviews

In the book, Katniss describes Cato as playing up the angle of a "ruthless killing machine." In the film, when questioned by Caesar Flickerman, Cato responds by saying that he is "vicious and ready to go."

Bloodbath
"But it's tempting, so tempting, when I see the bounty waiting there before me. And I know that if I don't get it, someone else will. That the Career Tributes who survive the bloodbath will divide up most of these life-sustaining spoils."

- Katniss's thoughts before the bloodbath

Though Cato is not mentioned in the book during the bloodbath, he is heavily featured in the movie. Like most of the other tributes, Cato runs toward the Cornucopia and fights for supplies. He first targets the District 6 male, as he had promised to do in the Training Center, and beats him up. The District 10 male tries to pass him, but Cato digs his machete into his chest killing him. The District 4 female sees this and runs to Cato, but Cato dodges her attack, knocking the sword out of her hand and throws her over a crate. Cato then sees the District 5 male run at him and aims at the boy's chest, ripping it apart. He hears Glimmer scream so he takes a knife and stabs the District 6 male with it. Later, as the District 4 male tries to escape the Cornucopia, Cato slashes his throat, killing him. Cato then finds the District 4 female in the forest and kills her.

Alliance
"The strong band together to hunt down the weak then, when the tension becomes too great, begin to turn on one another. I don't have to wonder too hard who has made this alliance. It'll be the remaining Career Tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4. Two boys and three girls. The ones who lunched together."

- Katniss's thoughts during the early stages of the Games

As is typical in the arena, the Career Tributes of the 74th Hunger Games form an alliance. The alliance at first includes Marvel and Glimmer from District 1, Cato and his district partner Clove from District 2, the District 4 female, and Peeta. Later in the Games, Peeta betrays the Careers and is subsequently kicked out of the pack, while the District 3 male becomes a new and likely reluctant member.

First Night
"Go on, then, Lover Boy. See for yourself."

- Cato to Peeta

On the first night of the Games, the Careers manage to track down the District 8 female via the fire she foolishly starts in the middle of the night. The Careers attempt to kill her, but when the Gamemakers withhold cannon fire, Peeta goes back to "finish the job." In his absence, the Careers argue over whether they should let him live or not, though they ultimately decide to leave him alive, as he is their best chance at finding Katniss.

Tracker Jackers
A few days into the Games, after an enormous fire forces the tributes together, the Careers find Katniss and chase her up a tree. Cato attempts to follow her into the tree, but he falls due to his heavy weight. Glimmer tries next but meets the same failure. At the urging of Peeta, the Careers decide to make camp below Katniss's tree, so she can't escape without them knowing.



While stuck in the tree, Katniss cuts down a tracker jacker nest, which falls onto the sleeping Careers and chases them away from her tree. While Glimmer and the District 4 female die from their stings before they can make it to safety, Cato and the others escape to a nearby lake, where they fend off the remaining insects. With the Careers distracted, Katniss manages to pry the bow and arrows from a dead Glimmer's corpse, but Peeta returns and urges her to run. As he does so, Cato cuts his way through the brush and realizes what Peeta has done. Enraged at Peeta's betrayal, Cato engages the other tribute in a fight, a fight Peeta swiftly loses, escaping only with a severe leg wound, tracker jacker strings, and burns retained from the fire.

Supplies
"When we find her, I kill her in my own way, and no one interferes."

- Cato about Katniss

Some time later, while the Careers are still nursing their wounds, Cato and his allies stumble upon the District 3 male, whom they let join their alliance on the condition that he rewires the mines in the arena to protect their supplies.



When the Careers catch sight of smoke from Rue's lit fire (a decoy for the Careers), they go to kill her, taking the District 3 male along at Cato's insistence. In their absence, Foxface manages to steal supplies from the Cornucopia by stepping carefully around the mine indentations. This makes Katniss realize that the District 3 male has reactivated the mines in the form of a booby trap. Carefully shooting open a bag of apples, which spill out onto the ground around the Cornucopia, Katniss manages to activate all the mines at once, effectively destroying the Careers' supplies. When Cato returns with his allies, he descends into a fit of rage and snaps the neck of the District 3 male, killing him instantly. His allies eventually manage to calm him down, and the Careers stride back into the woods to hunt.

Feast
"'Clove!' I hear Cato's answer, but he's too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or had he been lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location?"

- Katniss's thoughts during the feast

During the feast, Cato and Clove return to the Cornucopia and lie in wait for their backpack, which contains an item that they desperately need. It is unknown why only Clove went in for the backpack, but by the time she is dying at the hands of Thresh, Cato is too far away to save her. As Katniss flees the feast, she sees Cato kneel beside his ally and "beg her to stay with him," though Katniss knows it is too late for Clove to be saved. Sure enough, shortly after Cato arrives, Clove dies.

By this time, Thresh has stolen both his own backpack and Cato's, which is most likely what motivates Cato to pursue Thresh instead of Katniss. Presumably, Cato follows Thresh and kills him. Katniss speculates that the District 2 backpack contained body armor to fend against her arrows.

Death
"Shoot me and he goes down with me."

- Cato to Katniss

On the last day of the Games, wolf-like muttations appear out of nowhere, chasing a bloodied and beaten Cato out of the woods. Katniss and Peeta think he is on his way to kill them, so Katniss shoots an arrow at his chest, but it bounces off, since he is wearing some sort of body armor that was thought to be in District 2's backpack. Ignoring Katniss's arrow, Cato rockets past Katniss and Peeta and makes his way to the Cornucopia. The two race after him after catching sight of the mutts.



Once on top of the Cornucopia, Cato takes a few moments to catch his breath before he grabs Peeta in a headlock, effectively cutting off his ability to breathe. When Katniss points an arrow at his head, Cato merely laughs and points out that if she shot him, Peeta would fall to the mutts as well. Almost out of options, Peeta shakily draws an "X" in blood on Cato's hand with his finger. Katniss then shoots her arrow into Cato's hand, forcing him to reflexively release the almost unconscious Peeta and fall to the mutts. At first, Cato fights the mutts off, as the sound of his sword against the Cornucopia can be heard for a long time. Eventually, despite his great strength and skill, he is disabled, and the mutts brutally attack him for what seems like hours, as he is too exhausted to defend himself.

When dawn comes, Katniss can take Cato's moans of pain and despair no more and decides to use her last arrow to end his suffering. With Peeta's help, she leans down into the mouth of the Cornucopia and finds a savagely-bloodied, barely alive Cato lying at the back. He mouths the word "please," and out of pity, not vengeance, she shoots the arrow into his skull, killing him instantly.



In the film, Cato's death differs slightly. Unlike the book, he is already on top of the Cornucopia, bloodied, beaten, and armed only with his baton, before Katniss and Peeta arrive. He manages to attack both tributes at once in a last desperate attempt to kill them and puts Peeta in a headlock while Katniss is distracted by the mutts. When she turns around, ready to shoot Cato with her bow, he points out to her that if she shoots him, both he and Peeta will fall to the mutts. He then rants about how the Capitol has made him into a pawn, as all he knows how to do is kill and his only goal in life is to bring pride to his district. When he falls to the mercy of the mutts, he does not suffer for very long, as Katniss shoots an arrow into his heart almost seconds after his fall.

Cato placed third out of 24 tributes.

Catching Fire
"Cato and Clove, the tributes from District 2, might have both made it home if Peeta and I hadn't."

- Katniss's thoughts during the Victory Tour

Katniss and Peeta visit District 2 on their Victory Tour and see Cato's grieving family among the spectators.

Memories
"Cato and Clove. Brutus and Enobaria. I've seen their eagerness and their bloodlust, too."

- Katniss's thoughts on tributes from District 2

Katniss recounts the bloodlust of tributes from District 2, among them Cato.

She thinks of Cato several times throughout the book, the first being when she encounters mockingjays, an incident which causes her to remember how the birds had started singing just before the mutts "gnawed Cato to a bloody pulp." She later remembers how tracker jacker venom had messed with her head, making her question whether Peeta had saved her from Cato or not.

Visit to District 2
"Worn down by the Victory Tour, failing in my attempt to calm the districts, facing the memories of Clove and Cato, particularly Cato's gruesome, slow death by mutts."

- Katniss's thoughts about the Victory Tour

Katniss later visits District 2 and recalls seeing Cato's grieving family during the Victory Tour. While sitting in the entrance hall of the Justice Building, she recalls the weariness of visiting District 2 on the Victory Tour, as it had been hard to be reminded of Cato and Clove, specifically Cato, as he had died such a gruesome death.

Possessions
During the Games, Cato, being a Career tribute, had many supplies such as medicine, food, water, and weapons from the Cornucopia, but they are destroyed by the mines set up by District 3 boy. Cato was left with his sword, and later he received some kind of high tech Capitol body armor, most likely from his District 2 backpack from the feast. This allowed him to deflect arrows and knives when they were thrown at his body. However, it was too strong when he was attacked by the muttations, which allowed him to suffer for hours while the muttations attempted to tear into his flesh.

Physical description
Tall, strong, muscular, and good-looking, the monstrous boy from District 2 has no restraint when it comes to killing, and is thought to be the most dangerous tribute in the game. He uses all the weapons he can get his hands on. He can easily choke anyone within seconds of getting his hands on their throats, and he proves this raw, physical power by grabbing another tribute (the boy from District 3) and snapping his neck almost instantly. He is one of the most feared tributes in the Games, but is considered the second strongest tribute. This reputation is solidified after supposedly killing the huge Thresh.

Personality
Defiant and stupidly brave, Cato never gives in. After Katniss blows up the supplies, he unleashes another side of him, a side that convinces Katniss he is not completely sane. Determined to win, he does everything he can to achieve his goal. Cato is bloodthirsty and he does not care who he kills in the process, whose lives are spent, as long as he comes out alive. Like Clove, Marvel and Glimmer he truly hates Katniss either because of her 11 in training, her taunting them in the tree, or the tracker jacker incident. He expresses this when he says that when they find her he will kill her his own way. He later shows compassion and humanity when Clove is killed, and in the film, by giving a speech at the end about being a pawn in the Capitol's games.

Despite his deadly nature, Cato seems to be at least partially loyal to his friends and allies. When his partner from District 2, Clove, is at the mercy of the dangerous District 11 tribute, Thresh, he rushes to her aid, having been searching for Katniss and Peeta. When he arrives, he begs her to stay alive, but he is too late. Cato is genuinely saddened by her death, and in another fit of rage, he chases down Thresh to avenge her death. At the time, they could have used the same deal as Katniss and Peeta and both have been crowned victors.

Cato isn't very thorough during the Games which is displayed when he slashed Peeta in his leg, a place that should have killed him but it didn't, and when he possibly stabbed the District 8 female, but then had to have someone to return when her cannon wasn't released. His arrogance seemed to cost him dearly in the games.

Victims
Cato, along with the Careers, kills at least six tributes in total. He himself kills at least two tributes. The ones known to be killed by him were most notably Thresh and the District 3 male.

In the film and the book, Cato kills the male tribute from District 3, an ally to them. When they go off to kill Rue at one of her fires, they leave him behind to watch their pyramid of supplies, Marvel leaving him with only one spear. He sits waiting in a chair, as Foxface makes her way through the pedestal mines and takes a few supplies from the pyramid, then runs away. He hears her run into the woods and takes off, looking for her with the spear. Katniss has her arrow aiming at a bag of apples, and slices the top off. Without breaking into the bags, Katniss aims for the bottom, and successfully works. The apples fall down to the mines, blowing up all of the supplies that the Careers have hoarded. Cato, Clove, and Marvel all run back angrily. Cato asked the District 3 male how it happened. The others are poking around for items with uses still potential, but the mines blew them to crisp. Cato is so angry, he simply puts him in a headlock (in the film, he snaps his neck), and sharply jerks his head to the side, cracking his neck and killing him, as he falls to the ground. The Careers continue, as Clove tries to calm him down after the killing.

In the film, Cato does not kill Thresh. At the bloodbath in the beginning of the games, he kills the District 10 male by slashing his chest with a machete. When the District 4 female confronts him and swings an axe towards his head, he easily dodges and slashes her. He then grabs her and throws her into a supply crate, causing her to somersault. He later finds her in the forest with the rest of the career pack and kills her himself. He kills the District 6 male like he promised him in training. When the tribute attempted to stab him, he grabbed his armed arm and slashed his leg with a scythe, causing him to fall, following up with another slash in the stomach, making him hit the floor with impact. He then slashes him one more time, again in the stomach. Near the end of the bloodbath, Cato is also shown killing the District 4 male by slashing his throat with a machete, causing the tribute to back up until he hits a supply crates, splattering blood on it.

It does not show Cato killing the District 8 female, but rather he hands his sword to Glimmer, who is presumed to do the deed, though this does not happen in the book, as he says, "I stuck her myself."

In The World of The Hunger Games and the Bonus Features trailer, it was revealed that Cato does kill the girl from District 4, notably shoving or throwing her into a supply crate. In the bonus features, he is seen using a baton or machete to hit the District 10 male, causing him to fall onto the floor, but in the film, his jacket color could have altered a bit to look green/black. In the weapons trailer and the bonus features, he is shown using a small scythe like weapon to slash and stab the District 6 male.

Film portrayal
Alexander Ludwig portrayed Cato in The Hunger Games film.

Trivia

 * He received a training score of 10, the same as his district partner, Clove.


 * His odds of winning are shown as 3-1, making him the tribute with the highest odds. He shares these odds with the District 8 male.


 * It is shown that he weighs 185 pounds.


 * Cato is the only known tribute (besides Katniss) in the 74th Hunger Games to have volunteered, although it can be presumed that the other Careers, including his own district partner, Clove, also volunteered - though it isn't known for sure.


 * In the film, he kills both of the tributes from District 4.


 * Cato is named after Cato the elder who was a Roman military leader. Which is fitting since the book is Roman themed.

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