Treaty of Treason

"The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games."

—Katniss Everdeen's description

The Treaty of Treason was a contract created by the Capitol in order to subjugate Panem's twelve remaining districts after their failed rebellion.

History

Creation of the Hunger Games

"The assignment was to create a punishment for one’s enemies so extreme that they would never be allowed to forget how they had wronged you."

—Casca Highbottom

The Hunger Games were conceptualized by Casca Highbottom for his final project in Dr. Volumnia Gaul's class at the University. He had paired up with his best friend, Crassus Snow, who plied him with alcohol and encouraged his brainstorming. Once Highbottom sobered up, he was horrified that Snow had turned the proposal in.

After the Dark Days, Dr. Gaul brought out Highbottom's proposal and presented him to the country as "the architect of the Hunger Games." At this point, the Games were presumably included in the Treaty of Treason. The document instituted the annual Hunger Games as a way to keep the districts divided and suppressed. It also introduced new legislation, though the contents of these laws are unclear.

Hunger Games period

At every the reaping, tributes were selected to go compete in the Games, and their district's mayor was required to read the entire treaty aloud to assembled citizens before the tributes were taken into the Justice Building or straight to the train station. This persisted for seventy-five years until the Second Rebellion, when rebels successfully overthrew the Capitol and abolished the Games.

Contents

Novels

The document was not directly quoted in any of the books, but Katniss Everdeen described it as "long, dull", and "dreary".

Film adaptation

An extract from the treaty appeared at the beginning of The Hunger Games film:

"In penance for their uprising, each district shall offer up a male and a female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public "Reaping." These Tributes shall be delivered to the custody of the Capitol. And then transferred into a public arena where they will Fight to the Death, until a lone victor remains. Henceforth and forevermore this pageant shall be known as the Hunger Games."

—Opening quotation from "the Treaty of the Treason"

The Treaty of Treason in The Hunger Games film.

The same excerpt was also in the propaganda film shown at the District 12 reaping. Here, it was written in Latin and marked with the seal of the Capitol pressed into red wax.