The Panem Companion

by V. Arrow

  Other District 11 allusions to slavery are more overt: every day, for twelve hours at no pay, the people work the fields to send food off to the Capitol. They are allowed only meager rations of what they harvest, and Katniss surmises that its citizens begin work at a much younger age than in District 12; certainly Rue, at twelve, already has a position of some responsibility in the fields as the human dinner bell. (Her job is one that would have made her well known, or even well loved, to the viewers back in her home district, though clearly not so beloved that anyone was willing to volunteer in her place. It was also a job that ends up working to her advantage in the Games by giving her an inimitable skill, which would have been a by-product unexpected by the Capitol akin to Katniss’ starvation in District 12 teaching her to forage and hunt. The poor conditions of the districts helped to train tributes for survival in the arena.)

  Then, of course, there are also the visual racial markers these characters are assigned by Katniss as she encounters them—markers that feel familiar to us as racial identifiers in ways that the Seam’s visual markers are not but still ambiguous enough to leave the dominant District 11 race/ethnicity open to our interpretation:

  And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor.THG45

  Like the unclear, mixed racial background of the Seam one district over, the specialty class of District 11 is described ambiguously. “Dark hair and dark skin” could indicate Latin American, Native American, South Asian, or East Indian/Pakistani descent just as easily as African American heritage. However, given the parallels between the district and the antebellum South, it seems likely that they are intended to be of African or African Caribbean descent. Regardless of the depth of skin tone or equivalent contemporary ethnicity, it is clear from the text that District 11 citizens have the darkest skin in Panem, and their tributes’ lack of support from Capitol sponsors—as well as the brutal nature of the Peacekeepers’ treatment and an institutional poverty even greater than that of the Seam—imply that District 11 is considered Other to a degree that the districts that include white-skinned merchant classes are not.

  Culturally, District 11 presents both a subtle and, at times, overt amalgamation of details of the African American experience that have been appropriated and transformed into a recognizable, if fairly stereotype-reliant identity, not unlike the Native American allusions we see in Katniss. In other words, the series plays on traditional Western stereotypes of the African American experience so that readers will more clearly understand the role that District 11 and its citizens play in Panem. Peeta noted that the signature bread from this district was a crescent-moon-shaped roll dotted with seeds. These may be intended to resemble benne (or sesame) seeds, which are believed to have been brought to America by West African slaves and are used in customs representative of good luck or good fortune in the Deep South, particularly among the descendants of freed slaves in North Carolina. Rue’s burial in flowers and music may be an allusion to New Orleans–style funerary customs, which include the use of flowers and bright colors, as a celebration of life over death, as well as music. The orchards, again, are reminiscent of Georgia, while the grain fields “stretched as far as the eye can see”CF55 suggest Virginia.lxix

  Perhaps the clearest connection between District 11 and African American cultural history is in the oppression perpetrated on District 11’s citizens by the Capitol and Peacekeepers, especially the violent response to their peaceful protest during Katniss and Peeta’s Victory Tour. The themes here in District 11 echo Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, especially in how, another few centuries later in Panem, very little has changed:

  One hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.lxx

  Although the Victory Tour riot might be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of a show of Capitol violence against innocents in District 11, Rue relates an anecdote to Katniss during their time in the Seventy-fourth Games that exemplifies the horrific conditions under which District 11’s citizens lived. The moment is so fleeting that many fans forget it entirely. However, this may well be the incident that gives Katniss “the impression” that life in District 11 is harsher than in District12: the calculated execution of Martin, a handicapped child, by the Peacekeepers, after he mistakenly attempted to keep a piece of Capitol property.

  “These aren’t for sun, they’re for darkness,” exclaims Rue. “Sometimes, when we harvest through the night, they’ll pass out a few pairs . . . one time, this boy Martin, he tried to keep his pair. Hid it in his pants. They killed him on the spot.”

  “They killed a boy for taking these?” I say.

  “Yes, and everyone knew he was no danger. Martin wasn’t right in the head. I mean, he still acted like a three-year-old. He just wanted the glasses to play with,” says Rue.

  Hearing this makes me feel like District 12 is some sort of safe haven . . . I can’t imagine the Peacekeepers murdering a simpleminded child.THG204-205

  In District 12, Capitol-led violent atrocities (Gale’s whipping, the crackdown on the Hob that effectively accounted for forced starvation of many Seam families) start only after the rumblings of the Second Rebellion begin; in District 11, obeisance to the Capitol and Peacekeepers is a much more immediate matter of life and death, given that not only starvation but beatings and executions are already common occurrences. It is no wonder that District 11 is one of the first to overthrow the Capitol and take control of its own resources during the Second Rebellion in Mockingjay. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s statement on the nature of freedom and racial equality seems an apropos description of the civil unrest that led to the Victory Tour uprising:

  We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.lxxi

  It’s a quote that further demonstrates the rights leader’s appropriateness as likely inspiration for giving the name “Martin” to the symbol of injustices done to District 11.

  Race and racial cooperation appears many times in the Hunger Games, from Katniss and Peeta to Haymitch and Maysilee, Mr. Everdeen and Mrs. Everdeen, and Katniss and Cinna. But the key moment of cooperation across racial lines, the moment that most visibly rocked Panem itself, was that of Katniss and Rue. Katniss herself memorializes this relationship, as well as her gratitude for and “life debt” to Thresh, on the Victory Tour for the Seventy-fourth Games, and it is what leads to the violent riot that signifies the official start of the Second Rebellion in the districts, despite prior protests in Districts 8 and 4. This presents a marked contrast to the initial stages of battle in District 2, where skin is presumably lighter (extrapolating from the Capitol’s heavy preference for District 2 tributes and the fair skin of the District 2–bred Peacekeepers). In District 2, the battle begins with gunfire, but in District 11, it begins with a salute to fallen tributes and a silent, peaceful demonstration of thanks to Katniss and Peeta.

  This kind of response—reacting to nonviolent protest with violent action—is a familiar pattern from the history of race relations in the United States. Just one example is the tragic real-world events in Birmingham in 1963, when city Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus “Bull” Connor ordered violent police action against peaceful demonstrators—including children—protesting against segregated schooling. Connor ordered the use of attack dogs and water cannons, eventually inciting mass riots against the Birmingham police that led President John F. Kennedy to send 3,000 troops to Birmingham to restore order—an act that is echoed in the Capitol’s decision to respond to the District 11 riots by sending m
ore Peacekeepers, and more strict/violent officers, not only to District 11 but to all noncompliant districts.

  Despite Katniss’ claims early in The Hunger Games that District 11 tributes were usually weak and unprepared for the Games, Thresh and Rue—and the following year, Chaff—made it to the Games’ final eight. District 11, likewise, had more living victors than District 12—at least by a margin of one. (The only District 11 victors we meet are Chaff and Seeder, but Katniss does inform the readers in The Hunger Games that District 12 has won the Games the fewest number of times; there were only two District 12 victors prior to Katniss/Peeta’s win.) And District 11 was immediately ready and able to wrest control of their resources, land, and means of transport and export from the Capitol when given the opportunity.

  Katniss acknowledges on the Victory Tour that she and Peeta could not have won their Hunger Games had Thresh not exhibited extraordinary integrity in sparing her life, integrity in his refusal to join the Careers, and immense power in drawing Cato away from their cave for three entire days of filming, inadvertently—or advertently—giving Peeta time to recuperate somewhat from his wounds. (That “missing” span of three days between Cato and Thresh battling out in the rain is one of the most compelling and mysterious in the entire Hunger Games series: What could have been so gruesome and intense that the Capitol had no further call for blood for three whole days? Because after all, while the Katniss/Peeta romance was thrilling, the Capitol audience relishes the Hunger Games for its displays of gruesome violence. It is likely that, given Cato’s character, that is what they were given.)

  Chaff, despite being a minor character in the series, displays a similar balance of physical power, rebelliousness, and integrity. Despite the resources available to victors, he doesn’t appear to become subject to any material vice—unlike even his close friend Haymitch—and as a visible sign of rejection of Capitol ideals, refused a prosthetic hand after he lost his in his own original Games. He also remains alive in the Quell until its very last chaotic moments, and was only killed by Brutus during the catastrophic error that was meant to be the collecting of both Chaff and Peeta onto the hovercraft with the other rebel victors. His actions in the Quell were similar to both Rue’s and Thresh’s: he avoided confrontation, but not out of a lack of ability to fight. (Rue hid in the trees and calculated careful strategy with Katniss; Thresh hid in the fields and avoided contact with other tributes until he needed something from the feast and confrontation became necessary.) Chaff, like the tributes he mentored in the previous Games, seemed to have adopted “if they can’t catch me, they can’t kill me” as his mantra—an apropos parallel to the mindset of escaped slaves and freedmen using the Underground Railroad.

  Thresh’s behavior in sparing Katniss’ life, along with Seeder’s empathy in Catching Fire and the closeness that Chaff shares with Haymitch, suggest that District 11’s culture (like the Seam’s) is very communal, and deeply values teamwork and interpersonal support—almost the direct opposite of the values of the Career districts and the Capitol, which are egoistic. The fact Thresh dies battling Cato and his probable mentor, Chaff, dies battling another District 2 Career (and possibly even Cato’s mentor), Brutus, provides a continuity of characterization between the two districts.

  Finally, although the Hunger Games films are neither necessary to an analysis of the novels’ text nor applicable to the analysis in this book, they do provide one final real-world look at the prejudice faced by—and, in the future version of our world depicted by the Hunger Games, perhaps leading to the systemic oppression of—District 11. On the film’s release, pockets of deep-seated racism erupted against actress Amandla Stenberg, who played Rue in the film, and actor Dayo Okeniyi, who portrayed Thresh. Despite the novels’ clear description of their “dark brown” skin and the overt parallels to historical events involving slavery, racism, and the 1960s civil rights movement, some users of the social media network Twitter spoke out in language not at all different from what could be expected in the antebellum South, the turbulent Birmingham of the 1960s, or Panem’s Capitol: “when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad [sic].”lxxii

  12

  The Architects of the Rebellion

  The Hunger Games’ Second Rebellion is like any other tumultuous political uprising in history: its origins are messy, unclear, and traceable to any number of singular sparks that could have caused the fire to spread. The question of who actually instigated the rebellion—who planted the first seeds of the plan—has been a hot topic of debate in the fandom. From Haymitch and his known contact with the victors of other sympathetic districts to Mr. Everdeen and the possibility that his death was a Capitol assassination to Madge and her knowledge of the significance that Maysilee’s pin would have held for Haymitch, several different characters have garnered staunch supporters as lead architect of the Second Rebellion.

  Each of the following characters played some kind of role in the Second Rebellion; the question is how much of that role was premeditated and backed from the start by rebellious intention. Who is the man or woman most responsible for the rebellion? And were his or her actions intentional?

  Haymitch Abernathy

  We know Haymitch Abernathy played a significant role in the design of Katniss and Peeta’s strategy in the arena during the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games, particularly in strategizing with Peeta and Katniss individually in the ways they were most receptive to—Peeta by talking things out, Katniss through an unspoken system of reciprocity—and, we assume, through unseen actions in his role as mentor in the Capitol. When he’s sober—and perhaps even when he’s not—he has a sharp mind and a knack for advance planning; his victory in his Games was the result not of brute strength but of remarkable mental acuity and forethought. He’s likely capable of engineering something like the Second Rebellion. But did he?

  Haymitch has something that few others in Panem did—a persona that could be adapted to keep him below the radar in both Capitol and district locations. Haymitch Abernathy, the drunk victor of District 12, had the advantage of being noticed when he wanted—such as making a mockery of the reaping ceremony of the Seventy-fourth Games with a well-timed and well-executed fall—and unnoticed when he didn’t . . . say, in the bars and clubs where, as we learned in Mockingjay, fellow rebel Finnick Odair gathered intelligence. Despite living in District 12, he is required to take yearly trips to the Capitol to mentor his tributes, which would have put him in regular contact with the other mentoring victors.

  Throughout the Seventy-fourth Games, Katniss is aware that Haymitch has some sort of plan, which is communicated to her through an unspoken system of deed and reward via sponsorship gifts. However, she does not find out, or even suspect, until afterwards that he had been operating based on a fully fleshed-out strategy. Haymitch’s plan encompassed both what Cinna tells Katniss, to be herself and to speak honestly as if to a friend, and compensated for Katniss’ personal annoyance with Effie, Peeta, and the majority of the people they were to encounter in the lead-up to the Games. The nuance of this strategy suggests that Haymitch may have coordinated with Cinna and Portia beyond color schemes and polite hellos, something Katniss takes for granted at this point because of her distaste for her mentor.

  Some readers believe that, to understand Katniss so well, Haymitch had to have had knowledge of Katniss’ personality and abilities in advance of the Games themselves, and went into the Games intending not only to make her a victor but also a symbol that Panem could rally behind. Such advance knowledge could have been indirect and unintentional—both Katniss and Haymitch were from the Seam, a close-knit community—but it is also possible that, as the only living victor of District 12, he kept a close eye on the poorest children of reaping age in the district for knowledge of exactly this type. Katniss would have been particularly easy to track given her movements in the Hob, where Haymitch spent much of his time drinking.

  Haymitch’s intimacy with the Quarter Quell plot and his covert, continued communication with
the victors of rebellion-sympathetic districts in the lead-up to the Seventy-fifth Games also suggest that, at least until his withdrawal in District 13, Haymitch was a heavy hitter in the planning and execution of the uprisings, if not one of the original architects. His ability to navigate the District 11 Justice Hall quickly suggests that he had been there multiple times (despite Katniss, at least, having no evidence of him leaving District 12 other than once a year for the Games), and may foreshadow the network of hidden tunnels that the rebels make use of during Mockingjay. Whether alongside other victors or in a sphere of his own, Haymitch had extended contact in advance of the Quarter Quell with at least Plutarch Heavensbee, Cressida, and President Coin in the strategizing for war; during Mockingjay, he continues to serve as a conduit between the conspirators and Katniss, who does not trust them but finds that, after they comfort each other about Peeta’s capture, she does trust Haymitch. Both represent supreme votes of confidence in his ability to lead others, and his importance to the cause.

  Plutarch Heavensbee, Seneca Crane

  The role of Head Gamemaker is clearly an influential one. The Head Gamemaker has control of not just the events that occur within the arena (including, through scores, each tribute’s chance of obtaining sponsors) but the way those events are produced and seen by viewers. There is no bigger or better platform in all of Panem. As well, a person who ascends to Head Gamemaker status must necessarily be skilled in planning; he or she must coordinate and oversee the construction of the arena, as well as the “story” of the Games themselves. Could either of our Head Gamemakers, Seneca Crane or Plutarch Heavensbee, be the lead architect of the rebellion?