The tributes of the 74th Hunger Games.
Tributes were residents of Panem's twelve districts who were reaped or volunteered to participate in the annual Hunger Games. Except in special cases such as Quarter Quells, 24 children between the ages of 12 and 18 were chosen at random to participate. Every district had to send one girl and one boy to the Capitol, who then fought to the death in an arena until only one victor remained.[1]
Choosing the tributes
Effie Trinket during the reaping
Each year, all children aged twelve to eighteen were separated into their respective age groups and designated to different areas. There were two glass reaping balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. Each one contained slips of paper with the names of the district's children. The district's escort picked one name out of each, and the two children they selected became that year's tributes.[1]
However, not everyone's chances of being reaped were equal; children who were twelve were entered once, thirteen-year-olds twice, and so on until they were eighteen with at least seven entries. A child's name could also be entered more times if they opted to receive tesserae. For each tessera taken by a child (with a maximum of however many people were in their family), their name was added an extra time in exchange for a year's supply of grain and oil for one person. However, these entries were cumulative, so all entries were rolled over to the next year. For example, Gale Hawthorne took tesserae for five family members since he was first entered into the reaping, and so had his name entered forty-two times by the 74th Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen had her name entered twenty times, while her twelve-year-old sister's name was entered only once.[1]
Volunteering
Katniss Everdeen volunteering for her sister.
By rule, once a person's name had been chosen to become a tribute, another eligible boy or girl could volunteer to take their place. Normally volunteers were asked for after the chosen person is introduced, but Katniss Everdeen volunteered spontaneously before her sister Primrose Everdeen could mount the stage. This marked the first time in decades that a person had volunteered in District 12.[2]
Several Careers training for the 74th Hunger Games.
In Districts 1, 2 and 4— in the films, only 1 and 2— Career Tributes trained all their lives to participate in the Games so they could volunteer for a chance at fame and glory. As a result, the volunteering protocols were different there. However, in poorer districts like 12, participating in the Hunger Games was equivalent to a death sentence, so volunteering regulations were rarely used.[2]
Quarter Quells
Quarter Quells were special editions of the Hunger Games that were held every 25 years: a quarter of a century, hence the name "Quarter Quell." Each one had a cruel twist that would remind the districts of their failed rebellion, further punishing them for it and keeping the memory fresh.[3]
| Quarter Quell | Hunger Games | Twist |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 25th | To remind the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, each district had to hold an election and vote in their two tributes.[3] |
| 2nd | 50th | To remind them that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen, the districts were required to send twice as many tributes.[3] This meant that each district had to send four tributes, two male and two female, for a total of 48 tributes across the twelve districts. |
| 3rd | 75th | To remind the districts that even the strongest among them could not overcome the Capitol, each district's tributes were reaped from their existing pool of victors.[3] As a result, the 12-18 age range was ignored, and victors could be reaped regardless of their age or physical condition. |
Known tributes
Tributes in the 10th Hunger Games
This is the only Hunger Games for which all twenty-four tributes have been named.[4]
Lucy Gray Baird, District 12's female tribute.
| District | Male Tribute | Female Tribute |
|---|---|---|
| District 1 | Facet | Velvereen |
| District 2 | Marcus | Sabyn |
| District 3 | Circ | Teslee |
| District 4 | Mizzen | Coral |
| District 5 | Hy | Sol |
| District 6 | Otto | Ginnee |
| District 7 | Treech | Lamina |
| District 8 | Bobbin | Wovey |
| District 9 | Panlo | Sheaf |
| District 10 | Tanner | Brandy |
| District 11 | Reaper Ash | Dill |
| District 12 | Jessup Diggs | Lucy Gray Baird |
Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the second Quarter Quell.
Tributes in the 50th Hunger Games
Since twice as many tributes were sent into the arena for the second Quarter Quell, there were forty-eight tributes this year.[3][5] However, only two are named.
- District 1 female
- Nine other Career Tributes
- Haymitch Abernathy (victor, District 12)
- Maysilee Donner (District 12)
- Unnamed District 12 female
Tributes in the 74th Hunger Games
From left to right, Thresh (District 11), Glimmer (District 1), and "Foxface" (District 5)
Volunteers
- Cato[6]
- Any combination of Marvel, Glimmer, Clove, the unnamed District 4 female, and/or the unnamed District 4 male (presumed)
- Katniss Everdeen - volunteered in place of her sister, Prim[2]
Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games
Due to the twist of the third Quarter Quell, this would be each tribute's second time competing in the Hunger Games.[5]
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The third Quarter Quell's tributes holding hands during interviews.
| District | Male Tribute | Female Tribute |
|---|---|---|
| District 1 | Gloss | Cashmere |
| District 2 | Brutus | Enobaria |
| District 3 | Beetee Latier | Wiress |
| District 4 | Finnick Odair | Mags Flanagan |
| District 5 | Unnamed | Unnamed |
| District 6 | Male morphling | Female morphling |
| District 7 | Blight | Johanna Mason |
| District 8 | Woof | Cecelia |
| District 9 | Unnamed | Unnamed |
| District 10 | Unnamed | Unnamed |
| District 11 | Chaff | Seeder |
| District 12 | Peeta Mellark | Katniss Everdeen |
Volunteers
- Brutus[5]
- Mags Flanagan - volunteered for Annie Cresta[5]
- Chaff (possible)[5]
- Peeta Mellark - volunteered for Haymitch Abernathy[7]
Other Games
Victors have been omitted from the following table because they and their Games are covered more comprehensively in their own article. However, all 75 victors were at one point tributes.
- See also: Victor
| Hunger Games | Known tributes | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|
| 62nd[8] | Unnamed male | Enobaria tore his throat open with her teeth.[9] |
| 70th | District 4 male | Beheaded in front of his district partner, Annie Cresta.[10] |
| 73rd | District 3 male | Named Prospero in an early draft of The Hunger Games film script, where he killed the District 12 male with a mace.[11] |
| District 10 male | Seen on television in the first film. He was killed with a brick by the District 2 male, placing second.[12] | |
| District 12 male | Starving resident of the Seam.[6] Referred to as Sage Blanken in an early draft of the script.[11] | |
| District 12 female | Starving resident of the Seam.[6] | |
| Unknown | Six unnamed tributes | In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Haymitch Abernathy said that Beetee Latier won his Games by electrocuting six tributes at once.[13] |
| Titus (District 6) | Competed a few years prior to the 74th Hunger Games. He tried to cannibalize the tributes he killed, but he was taken out by an avalanche thought to be the work of Gamemakers.[14] | |
| Unnamed female | Dropped her tribute token before the sixty-second countdown ended, setting off the land mines around her platform. She was blown apart and had to be collected in pieces.[15] | |
| 24 tributes | One year, the tributes had to bludgeon each other to death with spiked maces, the only available weapons.[6] | |
| "Many tributes" | Bitten by venomous snakes or "went insane from thirst" in "a landscape of boulders, sand, and scruffy bushes."[6] | |
| Around 12 tributes | Froze to death at night because they had no firewood.[6] |
Etymology
Tribute is wealth, often in the kind that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Failure to pay tribute constituted an act of rebellion. Ancient Rome extracted tribute from its provinces and subject kingdoms, whereas the Capitol demanded tribute from the districts in the form of competitors for the Games.
Trivia
- At the start of The Hunger Games, there had been 1,776 tributes in the history of the event.
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes revealed that the annual reaping was held on July 4th.[16] This coincides with the United States' Independence Day, which commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776.
- Over all 75 years of the Hunger Games, there were 1,800 unique tributes. There were also 75 victors,[5] but eighteen died in the 75th Hunger Games,[17] so the annual event ultimately claimed 1,743 lives.
- However, only seven victors survived the Second Rebellion and Victors' Purge,[18] so 1,793 tributes had died by the end of the war— a 99% mortality rate.
- The word "tribute" is also the official name for fans of the film franchise. It was primarily chosen after numerous fan sites conducted a survey on which names should be chosen; some of the names included in the survey were mockingjays, rebels, and several other names, such as jabberjays.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Hunger Games, Chapter 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Hunger Games, Chapter 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Catching Fire, Chapter 12
- ↑ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 7
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Catching Fire, Chapter 14
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 The Hunger Games, Chapter 3
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 13
- ↑ Game Faces: District 2’s Enobaria - Capitol Couture
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 16
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 24
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 https://www.scriptslug.com/assets/uploads/scripts/the-hunger-games-2012.pdf
- ↑ The Hunger Games (film)
- ↑ The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
- ↑ The Hunger Games, Chapter 10
- ↑ The Hunger Games, Chapter 11
- ↑ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 1
- ↑ Catching Fire, Chapter 27
- ↑ Mockingjay, Chapter 26