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The Justice Building is a place in each of Panem's districts where official business is conducted.

Purpose[]

The Hunger Games[]

The annual Hunger Games reaping ceremony was held in front of each district's Justice Building.[1] Tributes were taken inside afterwards to say goodbye to loved ones before being taken to the Capitol.[2] Several months after the competition, whoever survived to become the victor would give a speech at each district's Justice Building on their Victory Tour,[3] then attend a dinner inside later that evening.[4]

Administrative uses[]

  • Children of reaping age went to their district's Justice Building to sign up for any needed tesserae.[5]
  • Citizens also went to the Justice Building to sign marriage forms and get assigned a house together.[6]
  • In District 12, the eldest children of coal miners killed in workplace accidents received medals of valor at the Justice Building.[7]

History[]

First Rebellion / Dark Days[]

After the Capitol bombed District 13,[1] all that was seemingly left of the district was the smoking rubble of their Justice Building.[8] However, the Capitol actually reused the same footage for decades to keep up the illusion that 13 had not survived.[9]

Hunger Games period[]

Justice-Building-the-hunger-games-29038079-477-476

Children outside the Justice Building for the reaping in The Hunger Games (film).

When Katniss Everdeen was eleven, she[7] and Gale Hawthorne received medals of valor when their fathers were killed in a mine explosion.[10][11] On May 8th, her twelfth birthday, Katniss went to the Justice Building and signed up for tesserae, bringing home a batch of oil for the first time. She went back to collect her monthly allotment on the eighth of every month.[5] Several years later, when Katniss and Peeta Mellark were reaped, Peacekeepers marched them inside the building, where they were visited by their loved ones.[2]

Peeta and Katniss began their Victory Tour with speeches on the verandah of District 11's Justice Building. They then witnessed an old man being executed for initiating a display of rebellion from the crowd.[3] Once inside, Haymitch Abernathy took Peeta and Katniss to a disused storage space in the building's dome, and later that night, they attended an elaborate dinner downstairs. The victors continued to give speeches and attend celebrations at every district's Justice Building for the duration of their tour.[4]

After Romulus Thread became District 12's new Head Peacekeeper, a large banner with the seal of Panem was hung off the roof of the Justice Building.[12] Months later, after the reaping for the 75th Hunger Games, he ushered Katniss and Peeta out the building's back door without giving them a chance to say goodbye.[13]

Second Rebellion[]

  • The Justice Building was one of many places destroyed in the bombing of District 12.[14]
  • Cressida tried to film a propo of Katniss in front of District 13's ruined Justice Building.[15]
  • Katniss watched the bombing of the Nut from the top of District 2's Justice Building, and she began her speech on its front steps.[16]

Description[]

District 11[]

District 11's Justice Building was a "huge marble structure". On the exterior, ivy overtook the crumbling façade, and the roof visibly sagged. Out front, it had a big flight of marble stairs and a verandah: a "tiled expanse between the front door and the stairs... shaded by a roof supported by columns". For Victory Tours, a special platform was constructed at the bottom of the stage for the families of that year's deceased tributes.[3]

Inside the building, there was the odor of rot and mildew.[11] There was a "magnificent curved marble staircase" going from the ground floor to the second. On that second floor, there was a long hallway with worn carpet. Through a set of double doors, one entered a room with a twenty-foot ceiling, with designs of fruit and flowers carved into the molding. "[Cherubs looked] down... from every angle", and vases of flowers gave off a "cloying scent".[4]

Elsewhere in the building, after traversing "a maze of twisting staircases... increasingly narrow halls", and rarely-used doors, a trapdoor opened up into the dome of the Justice Building. This was used as a storage space for "broken furniture, piles of books and ledgers, and rusty weapons:" Four square windows along the sides of the dome were noted as being "grimy", and everything was covered in dust.[4]

District 12[]

Justice Building D12

District 12's Justice Building in Catching Fire.

District 12's Justice Building was a short car ride away from the train station.[2] It had a dark and creaky elevator that moved slowly and smelled of sour milk.[10] A temporary stage was set up out front for the annual reaping.[1] Inside, the rooms where tributes were taken after being reaped were finer than the rest of the district, with thick carpets and a velvet couch and chairs.[2] However, all of this was destroyed in the bombing of District 12, leaving only "a heap of blackened rubble".[14]

Trivia[]

  • In the The Hunger Games film, it is called the Hall of Justice rather than the Justice Building.
  • A bell was always rung in 12's Justice Building on New Year's Day.[17]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Hunger Games, Chapter 1
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Hunger Games, Chapter 3
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Catching Fire, Chapter 4
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Catching Fire, Chapter 5
  5. 5.0 5.1 The Hunger Games, Chapter 4
  6. Catching Fire, Chapter 17
  7. 7.0 7.1 The Hunger Games, Chapter 2
  8. Catching Fire, Chapter 10
  9. Catching Fire, Chapter 11
  10. 10.0 10.1 The Hunger Games, Chapter 6
  11. 11.0 11.1 The Hunger Games, Chapter 8
  12. Catching Fire, Chapter 9
  13. Catching Fire, Chapter 13
  14. 14.0 14.1 Mockingjay, Chapter 1
  15. Mockingjay, Chapter 11
  16. Mockingjay, Chapter 15
  17. Catching Fire, Chapter 20
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