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"Squad Four-Five-One, you have been selected for a special mission. We have numerous sharpshooters, but rather a dearth of camera crews. Therefore, we've handpicked the eight of you to be what we call our "Star Squad." You will be the on-screen faces of the invasion."
Plutarch Heavensbee explaining the purpose of the squad[src]

Squad 451, also known as the "Star Squad," was a special sharpshooter unit formed to film propos and defuse pods during the Battle of the Capitol.[1] They later set out on an unsanctioned mission to assassinate President Snow, led by Katniss Everdeen.[2]

Members[]

Soldiers[]

At its first formation, the squad had nine members, but one was replaced by Peeta Mellark,[1] leaving a total of ten soldiers who had been a part of the unit.

District Name Position
13 Boggs Commander
Jackson Second-in-command
Homes Soldier
Mitchell Soldier
Leeg 1 Soldier
Leeg 2 Soldier
4 Finnick Odair Soldier
12 Katniss Everdeen Eventual de facto leader
Gale Hawthorne Soldier
Peeta Mellark Soldier; Leeg 2's replacement

Camera crew[]

Squad 451 was also accompanied by a four-person film crew, who were responsible for filming and producing Star Squad propos.

District Name Position
The Capitol Cressida Director
Messalla Assistant director
Castor Cameraman
Pollux Cameraman

History[]

Formation[]

After passing their examinations, Squad 451 was formed as a unit of highly skilled sharpshooters. They trained together for a few days before troops were deployed to the Capitol.[1]

Battle of the Capitol[]

Main article: Battle of the Capitol

Squad 451 was transported by hovercraft to District 12— which was used as a makeshift transportation area— and they boarded a cargo train there. After a couple days' travel, they stepped out into a mountain tunnel. Then they traveled six hours on foot to a rebel encampment, secured a week before their arrival.[1]

Days 1-4[]

Squad 451 shot propos for several days, and on their fourth morning, Leeg 2 hit a mislabeled pod; it was supposed to release muttation gnats, but she was shot in the brain by a "sunburst of metal darts" instead.[1]

Day 5[]

In the evening on the fifth day, Peeta Mellark arrived to replace her.[1] Due to Peeta's hijacking, Boggs made a phone call to President Alma Coin and he returned angry. He ordered Jackson to organize a two-person, round-the-clock watch on him, and he warned Katniss that Coin saw her as a threat to her ascent to presidency over all of Panem. Katniss requested that Jackson put her on the watch rotation; though Jackson was initially resistant, Boggs' word was enough to convince her. Then the squad ate a tense dinner together, after which Katniss spoke with Haymitch Abernathy over the phone, and he admonished her for the way she'd been treating Peeta.[3]

Day 6[]

Behind the scenes photo of one of the Leegs, Homes, Katniss, and Gale over Boggs' body.

Behind the scenes photo of one of the Leegs, Homes, Katniss, and Gale over Boggs' body.

On the sixth morning, the squad shot propos, and Jackson devised the game "Real or Not Real" to help Peeta sort out his confused memories.[2]

Day 7[]

The next afternoon, the whole squad was called in to film a complicated propo. In the process, Boggs stepped on a pod that blew off his legs,[3] then transferred his Holo over to Katniss. Mitchell tackled Peeta when he started to lose control, but Peeta threw him off, triggering a second pod. Mitchell was caught in a net made of barbed wire, and a wave of a tar-like substance swept across the area.[2]

The squad and camera crew fled into a nearby apartment, where Boggs succumbed to his injuries. Jackson demanded that Katniss transfer the Holo to her so she could navigate them back to camp. Katniss refused, falsely claiming she was on a special mission from Coin to assassinate President Snow. Cressida backed up Katniss's story, stating that Plutarch Heavensbee thought televising Snow's death could end the war. Cressida also explained that Peeta had filmed propos for the Capitol in the president's mansion, so he would be able to guide them. With this settled, the squad relocated to a different building several blocks away. Peacekeepers launched shells into the apartment they'd just been in, triggering explosions that made the whole building collapse and burn. Believing they were still inside, the Capitol declared them dead. When Gale asked what their next move was, Peeta demanded that they kill him.[2]

Once they settled a disagreement over what to do with Peeta, the squad ate dinner from cans hidden throughout the apartment. While they ate, they watched a broadcast of Snow gloating over their deaths, and a competing rebel broadcast of Coin announcing herself to the nation and using Katniss's supposed death as a rallying cry. Finally, Snow concluded his own broadcast, and Pollux guided the squad through the sewers where he used to be enslaved as an Avox.[4]

Day 8[]

Squad 451 in the Transfer.

Squad 451 in the Transfer in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2.

After six hours in the sewers, they stopped to rest around three in the morning in a warm room full of machines, levers, and dials. Shortly before seven, they began to hear mutts hissing Katniss's name.[4] They redistributed weapons to arm the camera crew, and then they continued on the course Katniss and Pollux had already worked out. They heard the sounds of Avoxes screaming, so Katniss argued that she should lead the mutts off while the others go on ahead with the "mission". However, while they argued, the scent of blood and roses grew stronger, and the lizard mutts chased them into the Transfer.[5]

A lizard mutt

A lizard mutt

Messalla was killed by a pod which melted his skin like candle wax; Jackson and Leeg 1 were killed holding off mutts at the "Meat Grinder", a pod with dangerous, spinning blades; then Homes, Castor, and Finnick were decapitated by the mutts as well. Katniss said the keyword "nightlock" three times into the Holo, activating its self-destruct to blow up the mutts.[5]

The remaining five members of the squad— Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Cressida, and Pollux— exited the Transfer into someone's utility room, and Katniss shot a civilian woman who discovered them before she could cry out for help.[5] They briefly resupplied and disguised themselves in Capitol clothes before Cressida led them to the fur underwear store run by Tigris, an associate of Plutarch's. They hid in her small cellar and tended to Gale's bite wound before resting.[6]

Day 9[]

The squad remained in Tigris's cellar throughout the following day. Katniss confessed that she'd lied about the mission, and Gale, Cressida, and Pollux tried to convince her that they'd all known what they were getting into. When Katniss turned to Peeta for his input, he replied with more of the same. The squad returned to talking strategy, though Katniss still suggested giving herself up to give the others a shot at killing Snow. Tigris brought them upstairs for dinner after her shop closed for the day, watching Capitol broadcasts to catch up on the news, and they returned downstairs to keep brainstorming, recuperate, and rest. Katniss overheard Gale and Peeta talking about which of the two of them she would choose.[6]

Day 10[]

The next morning, the squad gathered around Tigris's television to watch a rebel broadcast about their progress through the city. They learned that rebels had begun letting unmanned cars drift down the street to trigger pods, but the Capitol quickly disabled some and reenabled them when rebel forces followed after the vehicles. They also learned that shopkeepers were being asked to host refugees, so the squad made plans to move on towards the mansion the next morning. Peeta announced his intention to head off alone as a distraction, and Gale gave Peeta his nightlock pill in the event that he got captured.[7]

Day 11[]

Tigris helped disguise them more convincingly as Capitol citizens. Cressida and Pollux set out together first as guides, then Katniss and Gale, with Peeta bringing up the rear. Rebel snipers on the rooftops shot at Peacekeepers, inadvertently taking out refugees as well. Gale took a gun from a wounded Peacekeeper, then shot another to secure their weapon for Katniss. Rebels and Peacekeepers facing off triggered a pod with steam that boiled people alive, killing refugees and combatants indiscriminately. Another pod set off a purple light that caused its victims to bleed from every orifice, only stopping once they all dropped dead. Katniss and Gale briefly played dead before moving on, but another pod opened up a trapdoor beneath the street with a long drop and mutts prowling below. Katniss and Gale both narrowly escaped this, but Gale was captured by Peacekeepers. He asked Katniss to shoot him, but she failed to hear the request in time. She continued towards the president's mansion, where she witnessed the death of her sister in the City Circle bombing.[7]

Aftermath[]

The squad wouldn't reunite again, but the five remaining members all survived the war. Katniss and Peeta both spent time in the hospital recovering from burns. Meanwhile, Gale went to "[mop] up Peacekeepers" in District 2, and Cressida and Pollux were sent across the districts to document war wreckage.[8]

As Hunger Games victors, Katniss and Peeta both voted on a proposal about holding a 76th Hunger Games. After Katniss assassinated President Coin,[9] she spent several months in solitary confinement while a trial in absentia was held. She was eventually released into Haymitch's care and returned home to District 12.[10]

Nothing is known of Cressida or Pollux's whereabouts after the assassination, but Peeta had therapy with Dr. Aurelius for a while in the Capitol before he too was released to 12 in the spring. Gale took a "fancy" job in District 2, where he could occasionally be seen on television.[10]

Casualties[]

Deaths[]

  • Finnick Odair - killed by lizard mutts[5]
  • Homes and Castor - killed by mutts[5]
  • Jackson and Leeg 1 - died trying to hold off mutts at the Meat Grinder[5]
  • Messalla - killed by a pod; immobilized by a beam that melted off his flesh[5]
  • Mitchell - killed when Peeta pushed him on top of a pod; caught and speared in a net of barbed wire[2]
  • Boggs - legs blown off by an explosive pod; died moments later from blood loss[2]
  • Leeg 2 - killed by a mislabeled pod that sent out a "sunburst of metal darts"; one shot through her brain[1]

Injuries[]

  • Gale Hawthorne - bitten in the neck by a lizard mutt,[5] later shot twice by Peacekeepers in an escape attempt[8]
  • Katniss Everdeen - sustained burns in the City Circle bombing[8]
  • Peeta Mellark - sustained burns in the City Circle bombing[8]

Trivia[]

  • Fans have speculated that Squad 451 got their name from Ray Bradbury's 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, which revolves around books being outlawed and burned in America. The title refers to the temperature at which "book-paper catches fire and burns".
  • Squad 451 had two sets of siblings, both of whom may have been twins: Castor and Pollux on the camera crew,[11] and Leeg 1 and Leeg 2.[1]
  • All six soldiers on the squad from District 13 were killed in the conflict. Finnick Odair was the only soldier on the squad to die who was not from 13, though the two deceased members of the camera crew were from the Capitol.
  • In The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, Peeta was not sent to replace Leeg 2. Instead, she was injured when Boggs and Mitchell died, and her sister Leeg 1 stayed behind to take care of her while the others moved on. The Leegs were both killed in the Peacekeeper assault on the building.[12]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Mockingjay, Chapter 18
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Mockingjay, Chapter 20
  3. 3.0 3.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 19
  4. 4.0 4.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 21
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Mockingjay, Chapter 22
  6. 6.0 6.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 23
  7. 7.0 7.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 24
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Mockingjay, Chapter 25
  9. Mockingjay, Chapter 26
  10. 10.0 10.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 27
  11. Mockingjay, Chapter 8
  12. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
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