The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion (16 page)

At the beginning of the Quarter Quell Games, Katniss leaps forward and grabs a lot of weapons from around the Cornucopia. She can choose from bows and arrows, knives of all lengths, spears, tridents, axes, maces, swords, and awls. (
Catching Fire
, 269–71). If you’re in a situation as deadly as the Hunger Games, you want to pick up everything you might possibly be able to use, even if you’re not particularly well trained to use the items.

It’s unknown to readers how starved children lacking preparation and training with weapons can succeed in remaining alive. We know that many tributes are quick witted, that some are fast runners, that others understand how to cope in the saltwater arena, that others are good with knives, etc. Each tribute possesses particular skills upon entering the Games, and they then have three days to bone up on what they don’t know.

However, remember that the children are selected by
lottery
—that is, in
random
drawings. A physically weak child, a starving child, someone who is mentally ill or retarded, handicapped, extremely young, sick with anything from the flu to cancer or asthma—a vast majority of children, it seems—would be ill-equipped after three days of training and would be dead within an hour of landing inside the arena.

Keeping this issue in mind, let’s look briefly at some of the Hunger Games weapons, including items such as the pyramid trap, land mines, nuclear missiles, radiation, bunker, and bombs.

THROWING A KNIFE

To excel at knife throwing, you must master a lot of techniques, such as: holding the knife, throwing it, spins and rotations, distances, and targets. Knife throwing isn’t something you can master in three days, particularly when your three-day training includes so many other subjects. Maybe this is why one of the first tributes killed in
The Hunger Games
dies with a knife in his back (
The Hunger Games
, 150). Much later, Katniss is injured by a knife thrown by Clove, but she doesn’t die. Perhaps Katniss is lucky. Her forehead is sliced open, and Clove moves in for the kill, revealing an “impressive array” of knives in her jacket (
The Hunger Games
, 285). However, luck comes into play in the form of Thresh. If not for Thresh and his rock, Katniss probably would have died by the knife right then (
The Hunger Games
, 286).

First, it should be pointed out that there are many types of knives, and each requires a different set of techniques. Most likely, Clove’s huge array of knives includes most or all of the types described in this chapter. By the way, we’ll assume that ordinary kitchen knives and diving knives, which are used underwater, are not part of the Hunger Games weaponry cache. We’ll focus on the knives used for hunting, fighting, and overall survival and talk a little about some of the more common types.

A
hunting knife
is used when “dressing game,” which is the common euphemism for “carving up animals.” This type of knife may have a mildly curved blade, an extremely curved blade, or a clipped blade. A subcategory of the hunting knife is the skinning knife, which as you might guess from its name, is used for stripping animal hide; these have short razor-sharp blades sometimes tipped with a barbed hook—known as the “gut hook”—for eviscerating animals. We’re told in
Mockingjay
that to feed eight hundred people in the Seam, Gale is equipped with only one hunting knife, two sets of bows and arrows, and a fishing net (
Mockingjay
, 7). We don’t know what kind of hunting knife he has, and while reading, we assume it’s a general hunting knife as opposed to one specifically designed for skinning animals.

A
survival knife
is sturdy and often has a hollow grip with an O-ring seal to keep out water. Modern survival knives can be quite elaborate, containing a lot of equipment in the hollow grips: pommels for pounding, thin lines for fishing and making snares, plastic ties, barbed fish hooks, bandages, matches, and other items. It is most likely that the tributes competing in the Games use survival knives of varying types. These knives can be used to hack brush; cut wood; and kill, skin, and gut animals.

Survival knives are typically used in combat, for example, by the major military forces around the world. The U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy issue KA-BAR knives
¹
to all soldiers. It weighs about one pound, has a seven-inch blade, is made of steel, and has a leather-like or synthetic handle. As with all knives, the survival knife comes in many flavors, and it’s a fair guess that Clove has several of them.

A
utility knife
is a fancy way of saying “pocketknife” or “box cutter.” Along with several blades, it might contain pliers and other tools. Used when installing kitchens, carpets, and other home furnishings, and when opening cartons, it’s common in factories and warehouses.

A
stockman’s knife
is a fancy way of saying “switchblade.” This is a folding knife with at least three blades: a clip, a normal, and a spey.

An
electrician’s knife
is insulated to protect from electric shock. This would come in useful when Peeta thrusts his knife into the “invisible barrier” around the four-to-five o’clock wedge (
Catching Fire
, 344).

A
kukri
is a fighting and utility knife with a deep curve.

A
machete
is larger than a knife and shorter than a sword, and it’s heavy so it can slash though brush.

A
butterfly knife
opens and closes as you spin it in your hand.

A
dagger knife
is short and used for stabbing rather than slicing meat.

A
fillet knife
is used with fish and ranges between one-half and one foot long.

A
throwing knife
can be almost any of the knives described above—if you’re desperate enough and only have a dagger, for example, you might want to throw it. But there are knives that people use specifically for throwing at targets. Typically, they’re made of one piece of steel and have no handles. The knife has a blade and a grip.

Throwing knives also come in other shapes such as stars, a staple of spy movies. But the knives thrown in the Hunger Games are probably survival knives and ordinary throwing knives.

THROWING A SPEAR

Unfortunately for any Avox trying to run away from Capitol pursuers, spears are a likely form of death. Remember in
The Hunger Games
when Katniss tells Peeta about the time she and Gale watched a spear kill a boy from a hovercraft. The vile Capitol pursuers then hauled the dead body into the hovercraft via the cable attached to the spear (
The Hunger Games
, 82).

Spears are also part of the Games themselves, and tributes can opt to learn how to throw a spear during the pre-game training. In fact, Katniss watches a boy from District 2 practicing his spear-throwing techniques from fifteen yards away from a dummy (
The Hunger Games
, 95). One of her earlier fears during her first Games is that she’ll be killed by spears or clubs (
The Hunger Games
, 149). And even later, Peeta hoists a spear over her, but then stops as he sees that he’s about to kill Katniss (
The Hunger Games
, 193). Maybe worst of all, poor Rue dies by spear in
The Hunger Games
. This is a poignant scene, with Rue screaming Katniss’s name right before a boy from District 1 kills her. Katniss can’t make it to her friend on time, and when she reaches the body, she sees that the spear is embedded up to its shaft in Rue’s stomach (
The Hunger Games
, 233). The weight of the scene is heavy because as readers, we know how much Rue means to Katniss, we know that she identifies Rue with her little sister Prim. Even more poignant is the fact that her first kill is the boy from District 1. She begins to wonder if she’s what I call a “killer kid” in chapter 8, “Killer Kids.” Has she been programmed and desensitized to killing? Is the taking of a human life really all that different from that of an animal’s life? At this point, Katniss feels terrible about killing other children. At this point, she realizes that they have names and families and friends, just as she does. Finnick, we learn, is also good with a spear, particularly with a trident, which is a type of spear used in his fishing district (
Catching Fire
, 209).

A spear, of course, is a pole that has a shaft and a sharpened point. Spears are often made of wood, which might be the case in the Games—we don’t know—but they can also be formed out of bamboo, obsidian, bronze, or iron. Typically, the sharpened point is shaped like a triangle.

Wooden spears have been in use for at least 400,000 years. Neanderthals made stone spear heads 300,000 years ago. Early humans constructed complex spear heads from stone more than 200,000 years ago. Spears were a popular form of weapon during the Stone Age, but fell a bit out of favor once firearms were discovered.

It’s interesting to note that the
pan troglodytes verus
subspecies of chimpanzees know how to create and use spears. The chimps strip the bark off straight tree limbs and remove any branches, then they use their teeth to sharpen one end. They use the resulting spears to hunt and kill galagos.