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The Cornucopia was a large metal structure that served as the starting point for most Hunger Games arenas.[1]

Description[]

In the novels, the Cornucopia was described as a giant golden horn shaped like a cone with a curved tail. Its mouth was estimated to be at least twenty feet high,[1][2] and it was designed to look like the woven horn filled at the harvest, so its surface had a number of ridges and seams that made it possible to climb.[3]

The films took a more abstract approach to the Cornucopia. In The Hunger Games film, it was black instead of gold, and it followed the same general shape as a Cornucopia, but the top was flatter and wider so the actors could fight on top of it. In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, it was silver and far more angular, made of long, wide strips of metal, though the overall structure still suggested the same general shape.

Purpose[]

Supplies[]

At the beginning of the Games, tributes stood on metal platforms that pushed them upwards into the arena, where they found themselves arranged in a circle with the Cornucopia at its center. Less valuable supplies would be scattered around the Cornucopia, with the most valuable items being at the mouth of the horn. This was meant to entice tributes to fight over the stockpile and give the audience an exciting bloodbath.[1]

Cornucopia Supplies

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games film before the bloodbath.

The Cornucopia always offered an array of weapons. It would sometimes include food, water bottles (empty or filled), medicine, items of clothing like spare socks, and/or other survival supplies. Tributes could also grab backpacks that already held a selection of some such items so they could make a quick getaway without leaving empty-handed.[1]

After the bloodbath, an alliance of Career Tributes typically laid claim to the Cornucopia's remaining supplies early on, and they relied heavily on this stockpile in order to feed themselves.[4]

Feasts[]

Main article: Feast

The Cornucopia was also commonly used as the site of feasts because it was a place all the tributes knew.[5]

History[]

1st-10th Hunger Games[]

For the first nine years of the Games, there was no pageantry in the way they were presented, so there was no Cornucopia. The tributes were simply locked inside the Capitol Arena with no supplies other than a pile of weapons.[6]

The rubble in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

The rubble in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

The 10th Hunger Games did not introduce the Cornucopia either, but tributes could get outside supplies of food and drink as sponsor gifts.[7] In The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, rubble fell into a pile shaped like a Cornucopia, and weapons were scattered around it like in future bloodbaths.[8]

50th Hunger Games[]

The Cornucopia was an established convention of the Games by the time of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the second Quarter Quell. That year, the Cornucopia was in the middle of a green meadow. Everything in the arena was poisonous, so sponsor gifts, rainwater, and the Cornucopia were the only safe sources of food and drink.[9]

74th Hunger Games[]

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition.

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games: Illustrated Edition.

A feast was held on Day 13 of the 74th Hunger Games, offering every tribute something they desperately needed[10] inside a backpack with their district number on it. Foxface hid inside the horn and sprung out to grab her bag. Clove was the feast's only casualty; in the novel, Thresh dented her skull with a rock,[11] but in The Hunger Games film, he bashed her head against the metal Cornucopia.[12]

The Cornucopia was also the site of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's final fight with Cato. The three tributes were chased to the Cornucopia by wolf mutts, and they all climbed the metal to get out of the mutts' reach. After a struggle, Peeta was able to throw Cato off and into the wolf pack below. However, Cato's body armor kept him alive, so he was mauled all night until Katniss could mercy kill him with her bow and arrow around dawn.[3]

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

The Cornucopia in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

75th Hunger Games[]

During the 75th Hunger Games, the Cornucopia was located on an island in the center of a salt lake. All of its supplies were piled up at the mouth of the horn, but the only supplies provided were weapons.[2]

Control Room

A Gamemaker viewing the Cornucopia in the Control Room.

Once Katniss and Peeta's alliance figured out that the arena was arranged like a clock, they realized that the Cornucopia's tail pointed to the 12 o' clock mark. They were ambushed by the Careers in the middle of mapping out the arena, and the Gamemakers spun the island around to further disorient them.[13]

Unknown Games[]

  • Once, the Cornucopia's only weapons were spiked maces.[14]
  • One year, a pack of "hideous reptiles" destroyed the Careers' food supply.[4]
  • Another year, a flood washed away the Careers' supplies.[4]

Etymology[]

Cornucopia is a Latin loanword that can be literally translated literally as "horn of abundance", but is more commonly known as a horn of plenty.

Trivia[]

Concept art of the Cornucopia for Catching Fire.

Concept art of the Cornucopia for the Catching Fire film.

  • According to Greek mythology, a cornucopia was created when Heracles wrestled with the river god Achelous, and Heracles tore one of the god's horns off of his head.
    • Another myth credits an infant Zeus with creating the cornucopia when he accidentally ripped off the horn of a goat.
  • The Cornucopia appears to have been the inspiration for Panem's anthem in the films, "Horn of Plenty".[12]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Hunger Games, Chapter 11
  2. 2.0 2.1 Catching Fire, Chapter 19
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Hunger Games, Chapter 25
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Hunger Games, Chapter 16
  5. The Hunger Games, Chapter 18
  6. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 9
  7. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Chapter 12
  8. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
  9. Catching Fire, Chapter 14
  10. The Hunger Games, Chapter 20
  11. The Hunger Games, Chapter 21
  12. 12.0 12.1 The Hunger Games (film)
  13. Catching Fire, Chapter 23
  14. The Hunger Games, Chapter 3
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