Cornucopia

Spoiler Alert! This page may contain plot details relating to Sunrise on the Reaping or unintentionally spoil elements of the book.

Cornucopia
Location	Arena
Appearances
Appearances	The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Sunrise on the Reaping
Mentioned	Mockingjay

The Cornucopia was a large metal structure that served as the starting point for 50 Hunger Games arenas.

Description

In the novels, the Cornucopia was described as a giant golden horn shaped like a cone with a curved tail. Its mouth was estimated to be at least twenty feet high, and it was designed to look like the woven horn filled at the harvest, so its surface had a number of ridges and seams that made it possible to climb.

The films took a more abstract approach to the Cornucopia. In The Hunger Games film, it was black instead of gold, and it followed the same general shape as a Cornucopia, but the top was flatter and wider so the actors could fight on top of it. In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, it was silver and far more angular, made of long, wide strips of metal, though the overall structure still suggested the same general shape.

The spires of the Cornucopia for The 50th Hunger Games rest upon a raised golden platform, surrounded by beds of flowers and a ring of pedestals.

In The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, the Cornucopia is a symmetrical white and metallic structure made up of six tall, triangular spires. The spires are arranged in three paired sets, each pair contains a taller inner spire and a shorter, wider outer spire; the outer spires partially enclose the inner ones like shells. The exterior surfaces are white while the interior faces are painted deep purple, creating a strong visual contrast. Golden strips run along the geometric edges of both the interior and exterior, and on the inner faces these strips radiate from quarter-circle motifs at the base, producing the effect of sunbeams. Each spire tapers to a sharp point. The Cornucopia rests on a raised platform with vertical faces clad in gold plating, shaped like a three-pointed star, with staircases leading to the Cornucopia at the center of each side.

Purpose

Supplies

At the beginning of the Games, tributes stood on metal platforms that pushed them upwards into the arena, where they found themselves arranged in a circle with the Cornucopia at its center. Less valuable supplies would be scattered around the Cornucopia, with the most valuable items being at the mouth of the horn. This was meant to entice tributes to fight over the stockpile and give the audience an exciting bloodbath.

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games film before the bloodbath.

The Cornucopia always offered an array of weapons. It would sometimes include food, water bottles (empty or filled), medicine, items of clothing like spare socks, and/or other survival supplies. Tributes could also grab backpacks that already held a selection of some such items so they could make a quick getaway without leaving empty-handed.

After the bloodbath, an alliance of Career Tributes typically laid claim to the Cornucopia's remaining supplies early on, and they relied heavily on this stockpile in order to feed themselves.

Feasts

Main article: Feast

The Cornucopia was also commonly used as the site of feasts because it was a place all the tributes knew.

History

1st-10th Hunger Games

For the first nine years of the Games, there was no pageantry in the way they were presented, so there was no Cornucopia. The tributes were simply locked inside the Capitol Arena with no supplies other than a pile of weapons.

The rubble in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

The 10th Hunger Games did not introduce the Cornucopia either, but tributes could get outside supplies of food and drink as sponsor gifts. In The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, rubble fell into a pile shaped like a Cornucopia, and weapons were scattered around it like in future bloodbaths.

11th to 24th Hunger Games

It is assumed that there was no Cornucopia during the 11th Hunger Games to 24th Hunger Games.

25th Hunger Games

The Cornucopia was introduced for the first time in a one-time use arena during the 25th Hunger Games, also known as the first Quarter Quell.

49th Hunger Games

Wiress recalled that the cornucopia for her Games was silver. The disorienting nature of the arena for the games meant that most of the tributes immediately went nuts and thus were unable to readily claim supplies. Wiress, however, carefully maneuvered away from the Cornucopia, finding packs of supplies where none appeared to be.

50th Hunger Games

The Cornucopia was an established convention of the Games by the time of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the second Quarter Quell. That year, the Cornucopia was in the middle of a green meadow. Everything in the arena was poisonous, so sponsor gifts, rainwater, and the Cornucopia were the only safe sources of food and drink. That year, the Cornucopia was golden and resembled the pupil of an eye in the greater eye-shaped arena. Haymitch Abernathy immediately targeted a spring-green backpack near the tail of the Cornucopia, claiming both a spear and a knife on his way to it. He claimed the backpack, then immediately made for the woods, avoiding the initial bloodbath. The backpack proved to contain a mesh hammock, a pair of binoculars, two gallon jugs of water, a number food supplies and charcoal tablets Haymitch at first believed to simply be for indigestion and therefore a joke on the part of the Gamemakers. These, however, proved lifesaving when they turned out to be an antidote for poison after Haymitch drank the water from a stream.

74th Hunger Games

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition.

A feast was held on Day 13 of the 74th Hunger Games, offering every tribute something they desperately needed inside a backpack with their district number on it. Foxface hid inside the horn and sprung out to grab her bag. Clove was the feast's only casualty; in the novel, Thresh dented her skull with a rock, but in The Hunger Games film, he bashed her head against the metal Cornucopia.

The Cornucopia was also the site of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's final fight with Cato. The three tributes were chased to the Cornucopia by wolf mutts, and they all climbed the metal to get out of the mutts' reach. After a struggle, Peeta was able to throw Cato off and into the wolf pack below. However, Cato's body armor kept him alive, so he was mauled all night until Katniss could administer him a coup de grâce with her bow and arrow around dawn.

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

75th Hunger Games

During the 75th Hunger Games, the Cornucopia was located on an island in the center of a salt lake. All of its supplies were piled up at the mouth of the horn, but the only supplies provided were weapons.

A Gamemaker viewing the Cornucopia in the Control Room.

Once Katniss and Peeta's alliance figured out that the arena was arranged like a clock, they realized that the Cornucopia's tail pointed to the 12 o' clock mark. They were ambushed by the Careers in the middle of mapping out the arena, and the Gamemakers spun the island around to further disorient them.

Unknown Games

• Once, the Cornucopia's only weapons were spiked maces.
• One year, a pack of "hideous reptiles" destroyed the Careers' food supply.
• Another year, a flood washed away the Careers' supplies found in the cornucopia.

Etymology

Cornucopia is a Latin loanword that can be literally translated literally as "horn of abundance", but is more commonly known as a horn of plenty.

Trivia

Concept art of the Cornucopia for the Catching Fire film.

• According to Greek mythology, a cornucopia was created when Heracles wrestled with the river god Achelous, and Heracles tore one of the god's horns off of his head.
  • Another myth credits an infant Zeus with creating the cornucopia when he accidentally ripped off the horn of a goat.
• The Cornucopia appears to have been the inspiration for Panem's anthem in the films, "Horn of Plenty".