75th Hunger Games

75th Hunger Games
Also known as	Third Quarter Quell
Special features	Victors competed again as tributes
Victor	None
Arena	Clock arena
Head Gamemaker	Plutarch Heavensbee
Duration	3 days
Appearance	Catching Fire
Mentioned	Mockingjay
Preceded by	74th Hunger Games Quarter Quell: 50th Hunger Games
Followed by	76th Hunger Games (unofficial)

"On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

—President Snow announcing the 75th Hunger Games

The 75th Hunger Games, also known as the third Quarter Quell, was the final Hunger Games ever held in Panem. Since this was a Quarter Quell, an extra twist was introduced. Coriolanus Snow read off a card stating that, to remind all the districts that even the strongest among them could not overcome the Capitol, each district reaped their tributes from their existing pool of victors. For these Hunger Games, Plutarch Heavensbee replaced Seneca Crane as Head Gamemaker. No victor was crowned because the Games were disrupted, leaving six tributes still alive.

Tributes

The tributes of the 75th Hunger Games.

This year, tributes were reaped from a pool of 59 victors. The Career districts had the largest pools of victors, but each district had managed to secure at least one male and one female victor to meet this year's premise.

District	Male tribute	Female tribute	Mentors
District 1	Gloss	Cashmere
District 2	Brutus	Enobaria
District 3	Beetee Latier	Wiress
District 4	Finnick Odair	Mags Flanagan	Unnamed victors
District 5	Unnamed tribute	Unnamed tribute
District 6	Unnamed tribute	Unnamed tribute
District 7	Blight	Johanna Mason
District 8	Woof	Cecelia
District 9	Unnamed tribute	Unnamed tribute
District 10	Unnamed tribute	Unnamed tribute
District 11	Chaff	Seeder
District 12	Peeta Mellark	Katniss Everdeen	Haymitch Abernathy

Arena

Main article: 75th Hunger Games arena

The Plan of the 75th Hunger Games Arena.

The Cornucopia sat on an island in the center of a large, round pool of salt water. Encircling the water was a strip of beach, with the jungle sloping up behind it. The only fresh water was stored inside the trees, and the Cornucopia only provided weapons. There were a number of food sources in the arena though, including nuts, "tree rats," and shellfish.

The arena was a small circle designed to mimic a clock. For every hour, some form of torture designed by the Gamemakers would be activated in a specific section of the arena. It was split into 12 sections, each for a different hour of the day, with each sector activating twice in one day at its appointed hour.

Known sectors

• 12-1: Bursts of lightning hit a single tree.
• 1-2: Blood rains from the sky.
• 2-3: Corrosive fog spreads through the jungle.
• 3-4: Orange monkey mutts attack.
• 4-5: Jabberjays torture the tributes with their loved ones' screams.
• 6-7: Unspecified muttation; Peeta called it the "Beast."
• 10-11: A huge tidal wave drowns the whole sector.
• 11-12: From the sound of clicking, tributes speculated that it could be insect mutts with pinchers.

This cycle was repeated periodically to match the time, with each hour triggering a new event. Each event therefore occurred twice a day. The cycle began at midnight on the second day, and the Quarter Quell ended just after midnight on the third night, right as the fourth day would have begun.

Arena uniform

Katniss wearing her arena uniform

The outfits in the book were fitted blue jumpsuits made of sheer, billowy material with zippers down the front. Each suit came with a six inch wide padded belt covered in plastic, which was filled with purple liquid and could be used as a flotation device. The shoes were nylon with rubber soles.

In the film, every tribute wore the same outfit: a black wetsuit with short white sleeves, though longer, removable black sleeves covered the rest of the arm. The use of black, white, and grey were supposed to represent a mockingjay. The outfit didn't come with a padded belt, and they wore black boots.

Summary

Pre-Games

Reaping

This year, Brutus volunteered to compete. Mags also volunteered to replace Annie Cresta, and Peeta volunteered to replace Haymitch Abernathy. Based on comments made by Effie Trinket, there's a possibility that Chaff volunteered as well.

Tribute Parade

Cinna's fire motif from the year previous inspired copycats in other districts. District 3's tributes were given outfits studded with electrical lights, and the pair from 10 were dressed as cows with flaming belts. Notably, Finnick Odair was draped in a golden net that was "strategically knotted at his groin", while Johanna Mason wore a zippered tree costume with forest green slippers and a headdress of leafy branches.

Finally, from District 12, Katniss and Peeta both wore fitted black jumpsuits that covered them from the neck down, and they each wore a half-crown of heavy black metal. The suits had a button just inside the fabric around their wrists; when pressed, this gave the appearance of smoldering embers.

Training scores

Because Katniss fired an arrow at an apple in a roast pig's mouth in her private session the previous year, a force field was put in place between the Gamemakers and the tributes for the duration of training. This year, for her private session, Katniss hanged a practice dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name across its body. In his own session, Peeta used the camouflage station to paint a portrait of Rue, Katniss's young ally who had been killed last year.

"Predictably high" scores were given to tributes from Career districts— Gloss, Cashmere, Brutus, Enobaria, and Finnick— while "low to medium" scores were given to the rest. For the first time in Hunger Games history, Peeta and Katniss were both given scores of 12, making them instant targets as retaliation for their respective stunts.

The victors holding hands at the end of interviews.

Interviews

Throughout their interviews, the assembled victors made a concentrated but ultimately futile effort to have the Quarter Quell cancelled. Cashmere and Gloss appealed to the audience's sympathies; Beetee questioned the legality of the Quell; Finnick recited a poem to his "one true love"; Johanna emphasized the bonds the Capitol has formed with victors; and Seeder and Chaff suggested that President Snow could use his power to change the rules.

Katniss was made to wear a wedding dress that was voted on by the Capitol audience: heavy white silk with a low neckline and tight waist, with sleeves that draped down to the floor. Pearls were stitched into the dress, in ropes around her throat, and forming the crown for the veil. At the end of her interview, she spun around as she had the year before, and the dress burned away to reveal the same design in black, made of tiny feathers, with white patches on the sleeves: a mockingjay.

In the last interview, Peeta falsely confessed that he and Katniss had already married secretly, and he claimed that she was pregnant, garnering the most explosive audience reaction of the night. The anthem started to play to drown out the citizens' outrage, and with this chaotic backdrop, all twenty-four tributes stood together and held hands in a show of unity before the cameras were finally cut.

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The Games

Day 1

Cornucopia bloodbath

Katniss entering the arena

Katniss is the first tribute to reach the Cornucopia, and she seizes a bow and arrows when she turns to see the next arrival, Finnick. He shows her that Haymitch has given him a bangle to wear, so she reluctantly goes along with him as an ally. Finnick spears the District 5 male with his trident and warns Katniss not to trust Districts 1 and 2. Enobaria and Gloss reach land, but Enobaria anticipates the arrow Katniss fires and dives into the water to avoid it. Gloss gets an arrow to the calf before he plunges into the water as well.

Next, Brutus approaches with his belt stretched out in front of him as a shield. One of Katniss's arrows lodges into the belt, and before she can let loose another, he drops to the ground and rolls into the water. Then Katniss and Finnick take off along a spoke, and he swims to retrieve Peeta while Katniss covers him with her bow. At this time, she sees that the Careers have regrouped at the Cornucopia, and Mags starts paddling over to Katniss. Once the tributes from District 4 and District 12 are united, they seek refuge in the jungle.

Meanwhile, Beetee uses his belt as a floatation device to get to the Cornucopia. Once he gets there, he gets a shallow, six-inch-long cut across his back grabbing a coil of wire from the Cornucopia, but he's ultimately able to get away alongside Wiress and the two tributes from District 7, Johanna Mason and Blight. At some point amidst all of this, the District 6 male, Woof, Cecelia, both from 9, the District 10 female, and Seeder are killed.

Day 1, continued

As Peeta cuts his way through the foliage, he accidentally strikes the force field surrounding the arena, stopping his heart. Fortunately, Finnick performs chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth, saving his life. Haymitch sends them a sponsor gift they initially don't know what to make of, but Katniss eventually realizes it's a spile, and they use it to tap the trees for fresh water. Later that night. Katniss hears twelve gongs, which signal the beginning of the hourly horrors.

• Deaths: 8 - District 5 male, District 6 male, Woof, Cecelia, District 9 male, District 9 female, District 11 female, Seeder

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Day 2

Following a lightning storm and rain which doesn't seem to move closer to the alliance, they hear a cannon. Shortly afterwards, Katniss notices the unnatural uniformity of an approaching fog and wakes the others as her skin starts to blister.

While fleeing through the jungle, Katniss and the others find their motor controls failing. In order for Finnick to save Peeta, Mags sacrifices herself by walking into the fog. Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick collapse in the jungle and notice monkeys lining the trees. They crawl to the lake to purge themselves of the fog poison. Then Peeta tries to tap a tree and they notice the monkeys again, at which point they are attacked. When Katniss runs out of arrows she beckons to Peeta for more, momentarily distracting him. However, when a monkey attacks him, the District 6 female appears from behind the foliage and sacrifices herself to save Peeta. She dies on the beach as Peeta comforts her.

Katniss and the alliance rest while Finnick remains on watch, grieving for Mags. In the morning, they receive a sponsor gift of skin ointment. Finnick and Katniss scare Peeta awake and receive another gift of bread from District 4. The 10 o'clock wave occurs and they hear a cannon along with the District 5 female's scream. Sometime later, Johanna, Wiress and Beetee join the alliance and fill them in on what happened to Blight. The cannon they heard before the fog signaled his death; blinded by blood rain, he ran straight into the force field, killing him instantly. Katniss and Peeta tend to Beetee's injuries and Wiress keeps mumbling "Tick tock". Shortly before 2pm, this leads Katniss to the revelation that the arena is set up like a giant clock.

The alliance heads to the Cornucopia to verify their theory and resupply. Over a span of just a few minutes, Wiress is killed by Gloss, Katniss shoots Gloss, Johanna kills Cashmere, and the Cornucopia starts to spin. This disorients the alliance and removes their strategic advantage: the certainty of which sector corresponds to which hour.

Finnick and Katniss then become trapped in the jabberjay section, where they're forced to listen to artificial sounds of their loved ones being tortured. Between 6 and 7pm, another cannon sounds and the District 10 male is collected in pieces by hovercraft, killed by an unknown mutt. The alliance settles down for the night again, and Peeta attempts to persuade Katniss not to sacrifice her life for his.

• Deaths: 8 - Gloss, Cashmere, Wiress, Mags, District 5 female, District 6 female, Blight, District 10 male

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Day 3

The next day, Beetee comes up with a plan to kill off the remaining Careers. The plan, as he tells it, is to take the coil of wire down to the beach, flee into the jungle in another sector, and leave Brutus and Enobaria to be electrocuted on the wet sand.

Katniss and the others make it to the tree in ample time, and Beetee has Katniss and Johanna take the wire and take it to the beach as quickly as possible. On their way down, the wire snaps. Johanna knocks Katniss over the head with the coil of wire and cuts her arm, telling her to stay down. Once Katniss gathers her strength, she leaves to look for Peeta, and Finnick calls out looking for Katniss and Johanna. A cannon fires, signaling that Brutus has killed Chaff.

The destruction of the force field.

After coming upon the wire again, Katniss follows it back to the lightning tree; there she comes upon an injured Beetee, who has attempted to drive a knife into the force field. Katniss begins calling out to Peeta to draw the other tributes to her. Finnick and Enobaria reach the tree at the same time, and Katniss, hidden up on the slope above them, aims to kill Enobaria when a second cannon fires: in the jungle, Peeta has killed Brutus, and now he calls out for Katniss. She recalls something Haymitch told her— "You just remember who the real enemy is"— and wraps the wire around her arrow. When the lightning strikes, she shoots the force field, blowing it out.

After destroying the force field, Katniss, Finnick, and Beetee are recovered by District 13 rebels, while Johanna, Peeta, and Enobaria are taken hostage by the Capitol.

• Deaths: 2 - Brutus and Chaff

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Rebel plan

In this year's Games, the tributes from Districts 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about a plan to break the tributes out of the arena. They were also willing to give up their lives in order to keep Katniss alive, because her status as a symbol of rebellion was vital to the movement. Plutarch Heavensbee had ensured that the coil of wire would be at the Cornucopia, and Beetee was supposed to blow the force field. Sponsor gifts of bread were used to convey to rebel tributes the day and hour to carry out the mission: twenty-four rolls from District 3, indicating midnight at the end of the third day.

Seemingly, Johanna's role was to protect Beetee, up until the final stage where Katniss became her responsibility. She cut Katniss's tracker out of her arm and led Brutus and Enobaria away, ensuring that the rebels could extract Katniss by hovercraft without being followed or shot down by Capitol forces.

Finnick's role seemed to be to protect Katniss and Peeta throughout the Games, but his role in the final stage is unclear. Based on the fact that Finnick left the lightning tree to look for Katniss and Johanna, the wire being cut was probably the work of the Careers rather than a part of the rebel plan, and Peeta may not have been his primary responsibility.

Chaff's involvement is nearly certain because he was able to meet up with Peeta in the lightning sector, suggesting that he may have known something about the plan. However, his role in it is entirely unknown, as he was killed by Brutus.

Placing

• Final 6 - no victor
  • Captured by the Capitol - Enobaria, Johanna Mason, Peeta Mellark
  • Rescued by District 13 - Katniss Everdeen, Beetee Latier, Finnick Odair
• 7th (Day 3) - Brutus - killed by Peeta [shortly before 12am]
• 8th (Day 3) - Chaff - killed by Brutus [before 12am]
• 9th (Day 2) - District 10 male - ripped apart by an unidentified mutt [6-7pm]
• 10th (Day 2) - Cashmere - killed by Johanna with an axe to the chest [3-4pm]
• 11th (Day 2) - Gloss - shot in the throat by Katniss [3-4pm]
• 12th (Day 2) - Wiress - throat slit by Gloss [3-4pm]
• 13th (Day 2) - District 5 female - killed by tidal wave [10am]
• 14th (Day 2) - District 6 female - bitten in the chest by a monkey mutt, died on the beach [3-4am]
• 15th (Day 2) - Mags - killed by poisonous fog [2-3am]
• 16th (Day 2) - Blight - blinded by the blood rain and ran into the force field [1-2am]
• 17th-23rd (Day 1) - killed in the Cornucopia bloodbath
  • District 6 male, Woof, Cecelia, District 9 male, District 9 female, District 10 female, and Seeder
• 24th (Day 1): District 5 male - impaled by Finnick's trident

Aftermath

Fifteen minutes after the force field was blown, the Capitol carried out the bombing of District 12, and the Second Rebellion broke out. In the coming months, this would lead to the end of the Hunger Games, the liberation of the districts, and overturn of the Capitol regime.

Trivia

• This is the only Hunger Games where the age restriction (12-18) was ignored. At 17 years old, Katniss and Peeta were the only tributes under the age of 18 this year.
  • The next youngest tributes were Johanna and Finnick, who were 21 and 24, respectively.
  • The oldest tribute in the arena was Mags at 80, with the next known oldest tribute being Woof, who was in his seventies.
• This was the shortest known Hunger Games, lasting a total of 3 days.
  • It also had the largest alliance, consisting of fourteen members.
• Katniss and Johanna were both the only living female victors from their districts, leaving their participation in the Quell a certainty.
• In the third Quarter Quell, 18 out of 24 tributes (75%) were dead within three days. Most casualties were caused by other tributes, with only five being caused by the clock arena's mutts and traps.
  • In the second Quarter Quell, 18 out of 48 died in the bloodbath alone, but it took four days to meet the same percentage because the number of tributes overall had been doubled from the usual 24. Nearly half the casualties were caused by Gamemaker traps.
• In the 50th Hunger Games, the only sources of safe food and drink in the arena were the Cornucopia and rainwater. In the 75th Hunger Games, this was reversed: the Cornucopia only provided weapons, so food and water had to be acquired from the arena itself or through sponsors.