In the week leading up to the Games themselves, tributes had to curate their public persona, typically in order to appeal to sponsors. The nature of their act would be curated or dictated by their mentor and stylist, then showcased in the Tribute Parade, training sessions, and interviews. Victors would also be expected to maintain these personas long after their Games, for as long as they remained in the public eye.
During the 71st Hunger Games, Johanna Mason feigned weakness to lull her competition into a false sense of security, then revealed herself to be a vicious killer in the arena.[1]
Most tributes aimed to impress the Gamemakers and sponsors with high training scores. However, a high score could also make a tribute a target, marking them as the one to beat. In some cases, tributes would intentionally keep their skills hidden and get low scores on purpose.[6]
Sometimes, tributes would form temporary truces in order to share resources, fight together, and/or protect one another inside the arena. District partners often banded together in this way, but cross-district alliances were not unheard of.
One of the most common kinds of alliance was the Career alliance, also known as a Career pack. Tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4 commonly trained to compete in the Games,[7] and they traditionally joined forces to wipe out the rest of the field before turning on one another. It was also typical for them to claim and divide up the supplies from the Cornucopia.[8]
Tracking[]
It was common for tributes to track one another down, usually with the goal of attacking them, as the Careers so often did.[8] However, tributes would sometimes go looking to form an alliance. For example, Rue followed Katniss Everdeen until Katniss proposed an alliance,[9] and Katniss later tracked Peeta Mellark.[10]
Avoidance[]
Many tributes tried to bide their time in the arena by avoiding other tributes altogether. However, the Gamemakers could counter this by using traps,[11]feasts,[12] or muttations to drive them together and force a fight to occur.[13]
Hiding[]
Even if a tribute couldn't avoid their competition, they could find places to hide and stay unseen. For example, Rue was able to spy on the Careers' camp from a copse with thick foliage in the 74th Hunger Games,[14] and Katniss later concealed herself there overnight when she was incapacitated.[15] However, this left tributes vulnerable in the event that they were discovered and cornered, like when Lucy Gray Baird hid inside an air vent in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.[16]
Tributes like Peeta[10] and the female morphling used camouflage to hide themselves in plain sight.[17] Tributes also camouflaged brightly-colored items on their person, like Katniss with her orange backpack, to prevent themselves from being spotted.[8]
Stealth[]
Stealthy tributes could move quietly throughout the arena without drawing attention to themselves. For example, Katniss developed a slow hunter's tread when she hunted in the woods outside District 12,[9] and Rue avoided other tributes by staying off the ground, leaping from tree to tree.[18] However, stealth could also be used to launch an offensive, like the Career pack's ambush in the 75th Hunger Games.[19]
Combat[]
A tribute's approach to combat depended on the weapons at their disposal, as well as their skills and physical condition.
Hand-to-hand combat[]
In the early years of the Games, tributes from Districts 1, 2, 4, and 11 tended to last longer in the Games because they were better-fed: Districts 1 and 2 due to wealth, and 4 and 11 due to their food-producing industries. This gave them a size and strength advantage that would serve them well in the arena.[20] Children in 4[5] and 11 also worked in their districts' industries from young ages,[9] which taught them how to use nets and tridents[5] or pitchforks and sickles. Tributes from District 7 also shared the advantage of existing weapons skills, having learned to use axes for work in the lumber industry.[19]
Once 1, 2, and 4 started training their tributes and became Career districts, most known Careers excelled in this area of combat. Career Tributes also maintained their size and strength advantage over those from more impoverished districts.[7] However, an unarmed tribute could still gain the upper hand in a close-quarters fight against a Career with the use of an improvised weapon, like when Thresh used a rock to crush Clove's skull.[21]
Tributes engaged in hand-to-hand combat.
Armed
Unarmed
Axe
Knife
Kukri
Mace
Machete
Net
Pickaxe
Pitchfork
Sickle
Spear
Sword
Trident
Brute strength
Grappling
Improvised weapons
Long-range combat[]
Tributes who were at a disadvantage in terms of size and physical strength could turn to long-range combat, like Katniss with her bow and arrow, or Clove in The Hunger Games film.[22] They could also ensnare an opponent from a distance, literally or figuratively, with the use of nets, snares, or clever tricks.
District 3 and District 12 had a particular knack for inventive long-range strategies. From District 3: Beetee was able to kill his opponents in his first Hunger Games with an electrical trap;[19]Teslee killed Mizzen using a salvaged drone; and the District 3 male in the 74th Hunger Games reburied and reactivated the Gamemakers' land mines, planting them to protect the Careers' supplies.[14]
As for the District 12 tributes: Lucy Gray smuggled rat poison into the Capitol Arena;[23]Haymitch Abernathy tricked the District 1 female into throwing her axe at the arena's force field, where it rebounded and killed her;[24] and Katniss and Peeta also weaponized poison against the Gamemakers themselves, threatening to commit double suicide by nightlock berries unless they were both allowed to live.[13]
When faced with a fight they knew they couldn't win, a tribute could choose to run away. For example, Foxface immediately fled the Cornucopia bloodbath,[8] and later in the Games, Peeta fled after being badly injured in his fight with Cato.[14]
Resource management[]
Hunting and foraging[]
Tributes with some skill and knowledge of hunting, foraging, trapping, or fishing could feed themselves with the arena's plant and animal life. However, this strategy proved fatal during the 50th Hunger Games because everything in the arena was poisonous.[24]
Salvaging[]
Tributes sometimes took items that other tributes had discarded, or more frequently, they claimed dead tributes' possessions as spoils of war. In the 10th Hunger Games, they often took each other's sponsor gifts; however, this left them susceptible to decoy tactics where the items left behind could actually be harmful. This was the case when Wovey drank the last mouthful from a discarded water bottle that Lucy Gray had poisoned.[25]
Tributes could gain access to food and drink, medicine, and weapons by endearing themselves to sponsors during the Games. These people paid for tributes to receive gifts inside the arena, sent by their respective mentors.[26] In the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta drew in sponsors by playing up the star-crossed lovers narrative.[10]
Stealing[]
Tributes have also been known to steal from each other. Foxface maneuvered around a field of land mines to steal from the Careers, taking very little so the items' absence would not be noticed.[14] She later stole and ate poisonous nightlock berries that Peeta had been collecting, inadvertently killing her.[27]
