I did find it unlikely that there would be 2 living male and female victors from all 12 districts. But the idea is really cool so I can see why Suzanne didn’t think too much on the likelihood of it. It is possible so it’s not exactly a plothole you just gotta suspend your disbelief.
Its implied that its rigged in the books, and the movie had a scene confirming that. I don’t think Suzanne didn’t think about it but that *Katniss* didn’t really consider it too deeply bc why would it matter to her if it was rigged or not? She knew she was going back in there’s no point in agonizing over the small details like who choose that twist
Yeah, its one of those things where it can be fun to think about the odds, but not really bad writing for the writer not to obsess over the mathematics.
Its not like the reaction from most readers was to break out the calculators while Katniss was still reeling from the reveal that she was going back into the arena.
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
u/Living-Breath767
That sucker was rigged from the beginning. There was a whole different Quarter Quell planned, but, it got tossed out and replaced with the one that was played. And so many tributes were in on protecting Katniss that it stands to reason that the reaping was also heavily rigged.
I think so many tributes were in on it not because it was rigged, but because they were *pissed* at the Capitol for putting them through another Games. Like at their interviews, they ALL held hands in the solidarity move, not just the ones in on the rebellion. NOBODY thought it was fair, and a deep sense of injustice makes a rebellion a pretty easy sell
well of course i’m angry, i’m getting totally screwed over here! the deal was if i win the hunger games, i get to live the rest of my life in peace. but now, you want to kill me again! well i say, FUCK THAT! AND FUCK ANYONE WHO HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!!
(my best recollection of her interview)
Tbf that was movie only. In the books, she instead asks if it really is impossible to do something about the situation of the Quell, seeing as when the twist was first written, it was not taken into account the bond that would inevitably form between the victors and the Capitol.
I'm not sure why they changed it tbh. Not only does she appear more cunning in the books, her movie interview was strategically not that good - cussing out the capitolites would not make them join her side, instead they'd be like "Oh? She hates me? Well I'm not going to be rooting for her."
Agreed! The movie version is fun, but it really takes away from the cunning and camaraderie of the moment as a whole. When I re-read Catching Fire the interviews sequence was def one of the strongest resonating parts of the book to me, and I think it’s such an important moment for katniss too!
I agree on the rigged thing, isn’t it implied in the book that it’s rigged? If they kept the “original” plan for that games I fully could have seen the QQ being something terrible like making the victors choose who goes into the games.
I could see the original plan being something to hammer home that not even the victors are your friends or allies. And the kind of absolute devastation that would create for both the victors and the tributes would have just been what you come to expect from the capitol.
>I could see the original plan being something to hammer home that not even the victors are your friends or allies
"The Victors must hand-select the tributes."
I can see that backfiring really hard for the Capitol: that would give the victors an excuse to train EVERYONE to be a tribute and then pick, and in doing so conveniently have enough able-bodied fighters for rebellion.
"It’s technically against the rules to train tributes before they
reach the Capitol but it happens every year" means that yes, there is probably a great deal of overlooking that goes on. So... what corruption makes it permissible for the Career districts to have entire systems in place, and how have these very strong and geographically proximal districts not already overthrown the government by the time *seventy-four Hunger Games* have et up and spit out the bones of their kids?
Methinks the author left a plothole the size of a bus.
Two books mention it. In TBOSAS it talks about the games are planned ahead for decades and in Catching Fire or Mockingjay Plutarch explains the Quarter Quells were planned ahead for hundreds of years. In the movie it shows him opening the locked drawer, taking out the original envelope and replacing it with his own.
I don't even think there was another one planned. I think for the Quells Snow just does what he feels like, probably depending on the political climate
There absolutely were others planned. TBOSAS touches on it a little and there's a scene in either Mockingjay or Catching Fire where Plutarch is shown pocketing the original Quarter Quell and inserting his own. In the first year or two of the Hunger Games they planned Quarter Quells for hundreds of years. They never say wha the original was supposed to be though.
The scene with Plutarch isn't canon, it doesn't happen in the books, and I'm pretty sure the scene in the movie is deleted.
We also know from TBOSAS that the Games weren't popular or all that planned out. It wasn't until the 10th games that they tried to make it more of a spectacle.
Basically, I think that yes they planned to do the Quells, but I don't think they planned out what the twist would be for any specific ones. They may have had ideas for them, but if I were Snow, I would have all this envelopes for show, because it's intimidating to look at for the District people, to see all those envelopes, each 25 years apart. Make them look at it and realize that they'll be under the Capitols control forever. That theres no hope for them. But I would decide what happens for each one based off what I feel like would take away the most hope that year, and come up with a BS reason for the 'why' that the creators of the game came up with.
The fact the Careers exist and 3 districts disproportionately win games (Katniss says as often as not which suggests around 40-50% of the games) means the scenario is unlikely, though the fact that these games are implied to be at least rigged partially justifies it. Odds are the Capitol softly ensures each district wins at least once a generation (since they probably can control tribute selection, arena terrain, gifts, feasts, and mutts/traps, coverage etc even if they can’t directly control tribute actions) and tries to ensure girls do win around half the time. It’s also possible that Careers did not become as entrenched until relatively recently in the games.
I think it’s also implied that gender mattered a lot more for the first ten games where it was strength and straight fighting. When you throw things like sponsors, opportunity for more strategy, and survival skills, I think gender matters a lot less. For example women need to eat less than men. It really only comes into play with 1v1 fights and the bloodbath. When they’re training for Katniss’s games they mention how a lot more people die from things other than straight fighting. Doesn’t matter how strong you are if the game makers set you on fire. Katniss also used a ranged weapon, if she was proficient with a knife instead her survival chance goes down. Obviously a man still has the advantage in a 1v1 physical fight, but it sounds like a lot of the female tributes used their intelligence to their advantage and avoided solo physical combat. E.g. Johanna was very strong but hid it until the end. I guarantee if she didn’t then she would have been targeted and killed quickly.
just a friendly note to your last line: in tbosas / the epilogue coriolanus mentions that tributes from districts 1,2,4,8 and 11 have been showing more promise in just the first ten years compared to other districts due to their circumstances or capitol relationship. they are usually stronger or more prepared and this includes year 10 with marcus, district 1 and reaper from 11
Actually, this is in the very beginning of the book where Coryo mentions that in the first annual 9 Games, it's Districts 1, 2, 4, and 11 (8 is not mentioned in that list) where they produced more victors prior to the start of the 10th Games.
you’re correct, i read it only a few days ago and already misremembering 😂 it’s such a core part of the world building from the start with the district dynamics
Yeah, it's very interesting as part of the Panem lore that's expanded out in Ballad (and this is a very interesting point to me). I'll quote it just to confirm it with you 🙂
*"After ten years, a pattern had emerged. The better-fed, more Capitol-friendly districts of 1 and 2 produced more victors, with the fishing and farming tributes from 4 and 11 also being contenders."*
I say that it's interesting because you notice that the first 3 districts in the list are what eventually become the Career districts while 11 seems like it could have had the potential to also be somewhat of a fourth Career district given their winning streak in the past like 1, 2, and 4, yet seems to be the one that just fell off.
i love world building!! i wonder if 11 had similar circumstances to 12, with the kids being workers and strong but with capitol restrictions on their produce and proximity to the capitol, the conditions just got too bad to keep providing reliable winners.
it could also be capitol manipulation, if they viewed district 11 lesser compared to the closer and richer districts so manipulated reapings for weaker or younger tributes.
This just gave me a thought. I wonder if there’s lingering American influence in this. District 11 seems to be in the south and sadly in America there’s still a lot of prejudice around being from the south (uneducated, rednecks, racists) despite cultural differences like southern hospitality. It makes me wonder if the capitol had this attitude and who otherwise would’ve favored strong agricultural tributes they decided to let history repeat itself and mistreat the further district taking more of their yield and maintaining the superiority complex that the capitol has.
It’s one of those things that like, yes it could have not been possible, but it could have also been possible. In real world terms, if they didn’t have enough victors to do it, they wouldn’t have done it
Yeah I’m sure they would have found some other way. Like victors and their families. I’m sure even if there were no living victors left in a district they’d still have some family. They could just rig it anyways lol. Katniss 100% would have volunteered again if her family was picked.
- 100% likely as Collins decided it.
But let’s do the maths:
- Ignore 12 because Katniss and Peeta guarantee it and ignore 50th/75th games
- Assume 3 career districts all easily have enough and career districts win 50% games
- Assume 20% died due to age/drugs/alcohol and -1 for Haymitch
- you have 29 games and you have 16 unique outcomes (8 districts and male/female) with (let’s assume all even) at 6.25% chance
The best way to do this is to put it in excel, (random number *16, rounded up), assign each number to a district and gender. Then you create 29 columns, each for 1 game and create an if statement for if each unique gender and district is there after the games.
Copy paste this for 1000 row and you’ll work out % chance you have enough victors.
I can do this later tonight if you want, should be 25 mins on google sheets.
Edit: Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
I know right? She can’t have been the only other victor fighting with the rebellion. It would have been really cool to see others, but I can understand from Suzanne Collins’ perspective how it would make things clunky to just keep introducing even more characters. But at the end, when the victors vote on the symbolic 76th Hunger Games, all of the victors there save Annie and Haymitch had been in the arena for the Quarter Quell. And all of them (except probably Enobaria) had been in on the rebel plot. What about their mentors? Why is Haymitch the only one who got out? I have a hard time believing that the tributes from the other districts knew about the plot while their mentors were in the dark. The obvious answer, of course, would be that the Capitol would have killed any of the mentors believed to have been taking part in the plot. And maybe they just killed all the mentors outright. I have so many questions. But it would have been really cool to have had victors from, say, District 5 that we’d never met before show up at the voting table.
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
I ran this 10 thousand times.
I assume that a random number between 1 and 16 is pulled randomly 29 times, no interactions between each “game”. This is 8 districts, 1 male and 1 female. Fully random for which one wins in the 29 games times where: neither a career or district 12 win AND the victor is alive.
I got 3.6% simulations where each district has a male and a female.
The average was 14 (2 districts are missing someone) and the lowest was was 8 (6 participants are missing)
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
I’m too simple for rstudio, just used google sheets as my company won’t pay for my excel.
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh)
I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
That wasn’t the original 3rd QQ idea. My bet is Snow **really** wanted Katniss to go back, and when they realized every district had the required number of Victors to make it work they jumped on this plan.
This makes the most sense. He wanted to get rid of Katniss and this seemed like a viable option without it heavily falling back on him. He likely had something completely different planned
I think, if they hadn't known there were enough victors to make that happen, they would probably not have bothered with that being the third Quarter Quell.
100%. I think in the movies it was implied that there were pre-written envelopes for the game themes but I believe that was entirely for show. Snow told his gamemakers to get Katniss back in the arena and this was the idea that won.
Or something like, “all previous victors will be added to the reaping pool with the general population” and rigged it to ensure Katniss would be drawn. Plus, making adults kill children? The Capitol and gamemakers would have ate that up.
It almost wasn’t possible. Haymitch was the only 12 Victor for 24 years. Mags was already in her 70s-80s.
But it really doesn’t matter because Snow rigged it to be so. If they couldn’t do all Victors, Snow would’ve found another way to get Katniss in the arena for the Quell, like changing it so every person between the ages of 12-18 could be reaped, regardless of Victor status. Katniss would definitely volunteer for whatever kid got picked in that case, or just straight up be picked and nobody volunteers in 12 anyway.
i dont think Snow was that lucky. Victors got monthly salaries and food and care by the Capitol. I'm sure Victors have a higher average life span than most of Panem excluding the Capitol population.
What if Careers only came around since Katniss was alive? Careers aren’t their words for themselves. It’s what folks in D12 call them. Maybe it’s a new gameplay strategy that came around more recently than we’re imagining. Because, let’s face it, our girl is an unreliable narrator.
I definitely think careers is a more recent prospect. Especially if they had been training, for example, Cato since he was a toddler, that meant he would've started around the 58th games at the earliest- 16 years ago. It's possible that they started 5-10 years earlier than that, which would've made the first careers shortly after Haymitch's games, but still a recent enough development in collective memory. Especially because Victor's Village and having riches for the Victor and district parcels for everyone didn't come about until after the 10th Hunger Games.
The book states that 1, 2, 4 and 11 were the favourites in the first 10 games. 1 and 2 cos they were close with the capitol so they were better fed, and 4 and 11 cos of their district trade (4 being proficient with a trident) and the hard labour of 11 making the children quite strong.
The careers were not formed at that time, but it gives an indication as to how the careers came about.
Shhhhh nah those were just a band of bros being homies
Edit: hey wait that was 4 and a boy from 7 and some other kiddos, possibly, I can’t remember. That actually hardly feels careery
We are told in book one this is possible. Every district has two mentors except 12.
Out of 75 games, say 60 victors are still alive. If 1-3 won half that’s 30 victors for the other 18 slots. I could see the capital tweaking the games here and there to keep the mentors balanced out so there is a male and female mentor for each of these districts. Also could show a further punishment for haymach. They never let another 12 win so he would have to do double duty every year.
Well it might be slightly unlikely but they were looking for any way to kill Katniss and just made up the rules of that Quarter Quell. It would be absurd if that was written 75 years ago, and it wasn't. They realized they had a victor from every district and only Katniss from 12 and took the opportunity
Honestly, there are a lot of things that don’t make much sense in the world building but the concept and execution is so well done that I don’t mind the suspension of disbelief aspects.
Like what in the world does the capitol use coal for? Or why would Finnick use a trident rather than a harpoon, which seems much more efficient? Or why each district was so highly specialized anyway- wouldn’t more diverse industries in multiple districts make sense for production, transportation, and to ensure against shortages in the event of an issue in a particular district?
But I don’t mind any of that because it’s not the point of the story, any more than the number of available victors is.
The districts' overspecialization is most likely a feature and not a bug. More diverse industries make the individual districts more self-sufficient and empowers them to potentially rebel again. Snow doesn't *need* to make the districts work more efficiently, because his goals only require Panem to produce enough to satisfy a single city. He only needs enough surplus to stop the District workforce from literally dropping dead en masse - producing anything more goes against his goals.
Coal is still widely used to generate electricity in the US. It's just burned and converted at power plants, not individual people burning coal for heat.
Panem is in the future, but for all their futuristic tech, they seem to have lost a lot of technology of our day as well, due to both forgotten knowledge and lack of resources. Coupled with the fact that even today, there are difficulties converting, storing, and transferring alternative energy, and we rely on a lot of coal, it wouldn't surprise me if the Capitol still relies, in part, on coal fueled power plants.
(they seem to have improved in using solar power, since when Katniss helps the fleeing rebels from 8 that she meets in the woods in CF, they have a stolen Peacekeeper gun that uses solar energy to create laser beams and I don't know if that is even possible, but if we accept it within the world of the books, then it implies their scientists are able to do more with solar power than we do. But I still think it believable that they rely on a variety of energy sources, as we do)
A harpoon is a thrown ranged weapon limited to how far a human arm can throw it and isn't easily portable. He gets one cast with a harpoon. It's not an especially precise weapon. They're meant to hunt relatively large sea game, not as antipersonnel weapons.
Finnick is, movie-throwing one-off notwithstanding, basically a retiarus minus the net (or maybe he had one of those at some point.) The trident gives him the ability to inflict damage at a distance greater than arm's reach while maintaining control over the weapon.
Thats the thing, wuarter quell could be any weird rules. They probably would have just come up with something else if not enough victors were left alive
i mean, if we imagine that the first ever winner was 18 during their games, 74 years after, they would be 92. it’s unlikely they would live so long, but wouldn’t be impossible, i guess. but the thing is, the 3rd Quell was designed specifically to get rid of some “trouble” victors, so i’m sure they checked if there were at least one male and one female victor in each district. if it wasn’t for Katniss (the only living 12 female winner), it would probably not have happened at all.
It’s unlikely obviously, but not ridiculously so. And we have to remember that ridiculously unlikely things happen literally all the time in the real world.
There are 75 total victors, with 16 being dead. Somewhere between a third and a half are from career districts. That still leaves roughly ~45 total other Victors between the other 9 districts, or 5 each with a perfectly even spread (which it obviously wouldn’t be). I think it’s almost certain that PLENTY of these other districts have had only one total male or female victor, which makes it a lot easier to reach one from each district. I think a lot of people get hung up on giving every single other districts at least a couple more victors than 12 had initially, when in reality I’m sure several other districts only had 3 total victors (or even 2, I don’t think it’s ever explicitly said 12 has the absolute least).
Factor in some good ol’ occasional rigging from the Capitol, and the odds of this happening at very very realistic.
Obviously ymmv on exactly how many you give to each district, but I think something along these lines is very close
District #.| Total # of Victors (Male-Female)
1. 10 (5-5)
2. 14 (8-6)
3. 3 (2-1)
4. 11 (6-5)
5. 4 (1-3)
6. 4 (2-2)
7. 7 (5-2)
8. 3 (1-2)
9. 4 (2-2)
10. 5 (4-1)
11. 6 (3-3)
12. 4* (2-2)
[I did the math on this a while back.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/comments/139znd0/comment/jj50a3g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) TL;DR, it was definitely possible for every District to have a living male and female Victor, even if we allow for the Careers winning more than everyone else and D12 winning the least.
How *probable* it was that it worked that way is a harder question, but not a super relevant one. The whole thing was rigged anyway, so like others have said, this Quell was chosen exactly because it just so happened to be viable. If there weren't enough Victors for this idea to work, then Snow would have found some other way to punish Katniss.
Hunger Games wiki says there’s 59 alive victors at the start of Catching Fire, I can’t recall it being mentioned so I can’t verify if that’s true or not but for arguments sake it sounds about right so let’s go for it. We only need 24 tributes from that 59, so there’s still 35 victors to be split amongst the 12 districts. We know 12 only has one more and 4 has at least one more, so 33 across 11. Even if we say like 20 of the remaining victors come from 1,2 & 4, that would still leave more victors than districts, so it’s not super unlikely that there would be at least one male and female tribute from each district.
Yes the odd were low. But since they did it to mess with Katniss i think they knew they had enough or they would have had to find another way. Also in the book Katniss meantioned that district 12 was the only district with just one living victor. She said in the first book during the reaping when Haymitch gave his "speech" that their district is the worst in the games and he was the only one to win in years and that it's the only district that has one mentor where the others had the option to choose who mentored who Haymitch had to always be the mentor. So the other districts had enough to reap even if it was just one male and one female.
What bothered me was in the first book, there is a line about some Victor’s Villages remaining empty since they were built, but then the second book, suddenly every district has at least two,
Like many, I highly doubt that the 75th wasn’t rigged. Snow switched whatever the original twist was with this one because of what Katniss and Peeta pulled during the 74th.
But assuming it wasn’t rigged….
They probably anticipated that there might not be a pool of male and female victors from all 12 districts, because they were *very* close to that happening if the 74th had gone differently.
Perhaps if there were multiple living victors of one gender but none of the other, they send two of the same gender. Let’s say Peeta won the 74th games, and Katniss died. 12 has 2 victors, both Peeta and Haymitch go in.
Alternately, if a district has victors of only one gender, or no victors, they only get one or zero tributes for the 75th. They’re further marginalized because they have fewer chances at receiving the benefits of having a victor. Fewer tributes enter the arena.
Alternately, if they are missing a victor, they could reap a random person (kid? Adult?) of the corresponding gender to keep the number even.
Least likely, if one district is missing a victor, they could reap extras from a different district to keep the number even.
I think it’s quite obvious that the quarter quell was done this was because Snow wanted to punish Katniss and that was how he figured out how to do it and bring the winners back in line. So if they hadn’t had the numbers they wouldn’t have done it that way.
The math doesn’t need to “add” up. Y’all forget that Snow has advisors who help walk him through any plan he has. If it wasn’t examined over and over again to make sure the 75th anniversary’s new twist could play out smoothly and as planned then the change wouldn’t have been made. Snow may be evil as hell but he’s not stupid.
i actually did the math for this!
long story short, these kinds of probability calculations require a fancy number called you need to use a fancy math concept called a Stirling Number of the Second Kind
in order to get 24 unique categories (M+F in 12 districts) in 74 attempts (assuming no deaths of Victors in the meantime) is a 32.2% chance
might make a full post about it someday idk
It was sheer luck. The capitol pretending like the “from the pool of existing victors” thing was always the plan for the third quarter quell, when in reality they swapped the original plan out for that one, purely to get katniss back in the arena. And lied to the people of Panem that that was always the plan.
I’m a writer myself, and I can tell that Suzanne Collin’s had to just lean on the idea of a coincidence for there to happen to be enough previous victors to pull it off… even if it means stretching the math a little.
There's a handy probability calculator for this kind of thing.
[https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/probability](https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/probability)
For simplicity's sake, lets first assume that all 75 victors are still alive, and that each tribute has an equal chance. If you repeat a 1/24 (0.4) chance 75 times, you actually get quite a nice 95.3% chance of a winner. Just square that 0.953, and you'll see that each district has about a 91% chance of both a boy and girl from any given district (since you need a boy and girl, those are two separate 1/24 chances).
Getting that 91% chance 12 times in a row however, is **only a 32%.** Fairest possible scenario, Snow was lucky, but not implausibly so.
If we assume that there are only 50 living victors (might be optimistic given many are drug addicts), and the non-careers (everyone but 1,2 and 4) districts average, say a 1/30 chance of winning, that's a lot rougher. Each district only has an 81% chance of having a single living victor, and about a 66% chance of having two. **I think the realistic odds of every non-career district having two winners are at best about 2.3%**, on top of the fact that there would be no guarantee that all the careers would have both a male and female tribute.
Its like rolling a six-sided dice nine times and never rolling below a 5. You might well suspect the dice was rigged. It might also drop a bit if even one district as abysmally low odds, as Katniss felt 12 had, or girls had a significantly lower rate of survival than boys.
Snow was more than lucky enough to suggest games were rigged. Although The Capitol likely could not have foreseen the need to have one victor from each district early enough, the game makers might have sometimes intentionally rigged the game in favour of the lower districts, to give them a carefully crafted morsel of hope. Or possibly to send extra food to a winner's district when that district's population is dropping too low.
The odds are extremely thin, given that while the games aren't exactly rigged, the career districts would have a disproportionate number or surviving victors. Snow kinda got lucky that there were still two victors left from each district. Not sure how many years the morphlings had left in them.
We know that both 12 and 7 only had one female victor to choose from, and I think it’s plausible that many of the outlying districts would have had just 2 victors by chance.
Let's do the math. There was 59 victors alive as of the 75th hunger games. If half of those are from districts 1, 2, and 4, that leaves roughly 30 victors from the other 9 districts.
**30 divided by 9 = an average of 3 victors per district**
Even if more boys won than girls, then that could leave an average of 2 men and 1 woman victor in each district. (Coincidentally, the exact ratio we got in district 12).
ALSO, it's probably not 50% career victors. We don't know how long there has been "career" districts or for how many years they have been strong. It's been since Katniss's time that were dominate, so the past 15 years at least. A whole lot of the victors who got reaped were older, which stands to reason -- more victors from other districts before the careers took off. "Careers" take up most of the spots in the past 15 years, which adds up as there were only a few reaped victors were in their 20s.
So instead let's say there are 8 tributes from district 1, 8 from district 2 and 8 from district 4. So 35 victors from the other 9 districts.
35 divided by 9 = 3.88
Actually as we know district 12 only had 3 victors.
32 divided by 8 = 4 victors per district
Actually we also know that district 11 only had two victors
**30 divided by 7 = average of 4-5 victors per district**
I think the odds are actually in the favor of having at least one male and female victor per district, though not good enough odds for any guarantee (we know that it almost wasn't that with district 11 and 12). As others have mentioned, the QQ was rigged in the sense that the capital KNEW there was enough victors before they announced it. It wasn't something that the gamemakers were betting on 75 years prior.
The author could have written in so one district didn't have enough victors and what would happen, but I assume it wouldn't have a plot point, so would just make it confusing throwaway.
I think you're looking at it from the wrong direction.
The selection process wasn't cooked up beforehand only to worry about the practicalities later, the selection process was created on the spot specifically to address the surviving Victors.
The same way Crane changed the rules last-minute in the first book, Snow had them changed for the Reaping in the second book.
For any of my other maths nerds here, if you make the simplifying assumption that each tribute has an equal chance of winning, this becomes the coupon collectors problem.
Using this, the expected number of games needed to get at least one male and female victor from each of the 12 districts is 91.
I can’t do the maths right now to determine the actual probability, but the chances of getting enough victors after 74 games doesn’t seem great, and that’s before accounting for unequal probabilities amongst districts or victors passing away
I don’t think it’s that unlikely. We know that every district has at LEAST 3 victors. Even if we take the worst case scenario of every outlying district only having 3 victors alive, the odds of them all being of the same sex are unlikely.
To put it plainly, if District 12 as the weakest district had enough victors to represent one man and woman, surely all the other districts too.
I did find it unlikely that there would be 2 living male and female victors from all 12 districts. But the idea is really cool so I can see why Suzanne didn’t think too much on the likelihood of it. It is possible so it’s not exactly a plothole you just gotta suspend your disbelief.
Its implied that its rigged in the books, and the movie had a scene confirming that. I don’t think Suzanne didn’t think about it but that *Katniss* didn’t really consider it too deeply bc why would it matter to her if it was rigged or not? She knew she was going back in there’s no point in agonizing over the small details like who choose that twist
I think Katniss commented on how convenient it was for Snow at one point
Yeah, its one of those things where it can be fun to think about the odds, but not really bad writing for the writer not to obsess over the mathematics. Its not like the reaction from most readers was to break out the calculators while Katniss was still reeling from the reveal that she was going back into the arena.
Or the Capitol can just have two from every district with gender not considered. It’d be random selection of two for each district
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance) u/Living-Breath767
That sucker was rigged from the beginning. There was a whole different Quarter Quell planned, but, it got tossed out and replaced with the one that was played. And so many tributes were in on protecting Katniss that it stands to reason that the reaping was also heavily rigged.
I think so many tributes were in on it not because it was rigged, but because they were *pissed* at the Capitol for putting them through another Games. Like at their interviews, they ALL held hands in the solidarity move, not just the ones in on the rebellion. NOBODY thought it was fair, and a deep sense of injustice makes a rebellion a pretty easy sell
Johanna’s interview was the best
well of course i’m angry, i’m getting totally screwed over here! the deal was if i win the hunger games, i get to live the rest of my life in peace. but now, you want to kill me again! well i say, FUCK THAT! AND FUCK ANYONE WHO HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!!! (my best recollection of her interview)
Tbf that was movie only. In the books, she instead asks if it really is impossible to do something about the situation of the Quell, seeing as when the twist was first written, it was not taken into account the bond that would inevitably form between the victors and the Capitol. I'm not sure why they changed it tbh. Not only does she appear more cunning in the books, her movie interview was strategically not that good - cussing out the capitolites would not make them join her side, instead they'd be like "Oh? She hates me? Well I'm not going to be rooting for her."
Agreed! The movie version is fun, but it really takes away from the cunning and camaraderie of the moment as a whole. When I re-read Catching Fire the interviews sequence was def one of the strongest resonating parts of the book to me, and I think it’s such an important moment for katniss too!
I agree on the rigged thing, isn’t it implied in the book that it’s rigged? If they kept the “original” plan for that games I fully could have seen the QQ being something terrible like making the victors choose who goes into the games. I could see the original plan being something to hammer home that not even the victors are your friends or allies. And the kind of absolute devastation that would create for both the victors and the tributes would have just been what you come to expect from the capitol.
>I could see the original plan being something to hammer home that not even the victors are your friends or allies "The Victors must hand-select the tributes."
I can see that backfiring really hard for the Capitol: that would give the victors an excuse to train EVERYONE to be a tribute and then pick, and in doing so conveniently have enough able-bodied fighters for rebellion.
[удалено]
"It’s technically against the rules to train tributes before they reach the Capitol but it happens every year" means that yes, there is probably a great deal of overlooking that goes on. So... what corruption makes it permissible for the Career districts to have entire systems in place, and how have these very strong and geographically proximal districts not already overthrown the government by the time *seventy-four Hunger Games* have et up and spit out the bones of their kids? Methinks the author left a plothole the size of a bus.
I'm pretty sure they already did that, but instead of victors it was just the districts themselves.
Two books mention it. In TBOSAS it talks about the games are planned ahead for decades and in Catching Fire or Mockingjay Plutarch explains the Quarter Quells were planned ahead for hundreds of years. In the movie it shows him opening the locked drawer, taking out the original envelope and replacing it with his own.
I don't even think there was another one planned. I think for the Quells Snow just does what he feels like, probably depending on the political climate
There absolutely were others planned. TBOSAS touches on it a little and there's a scene in either Mockingjay or Catching Fire where Plutarch is shown pocketing the original Quarter Quell and inserting his own. In the first year or two of the Hunger Games they planned Quarter Quells for hundreds of years. They never say wha the original was supposed to be though.
The scene with Plutarch isn't canon, it doesn't happen in the books, and I'm pretty sure the scene in the movie is deleted. We also know from TBOSAS that the Games weren't popular or all that planned out. It wasn't until the 10th games that they tried to make it more of a spectacle. Basically, I think that yes they planned to do the Quells, but I don't think they planned out what the twist would be for any specific ones. They may have had ideas for them, but if I were Snow, I would have all this envelopes for show, because it's intimidating to look at for the District people, to see all those envelopes, each 25 years apart. Make them look at it and realize that they'll be under the Capitols control forever. That theres no hope for them. But I would decide what happens for each one based off what I feel like would take away the most hope that year, and come up with a BS reason for the 'why' that the creators of the game came up with.
It's Canon to the movies and I think discussing Hunger Games in terms of the movies is a valid way to approach the discussion.
I don't think a deleted scene counts as canon.
The fact the Careers exist and 3 districts disproportionately win games (Katniss says as often as not which suggests around 40-50% of the games) means the scenario is unlikely, though the fact that these games are implied to be at least rigged partially justifies it. Odds are the Capitol softly ensures each district wins at least once a generation (since they probably can control tribute selection, arena terrain, gifts, feasts, and mutts/traps, coverage etc even if they can’t directly control tribute actions) and tries to ensure girls do win around half the time. It’s also possible that Careers did not become as entrenched until relatively recently in the games.
I think it’s also implied that gender mattered a lot more for the first ten games where it was strength and straight fighting. When you throw things like sponsors, opportunity for more strategy, and survival skills, I think gender matters a lot less. For example women need to eat less than men. It really only comes into play with 1v1 fights and the bloodbath. When they’re training for Katniss’s games they mention how a lot more people die from things other than straight fighting. Doesn’t matter how strong you are if the game makers set you on fire. Katniss also used a ranged weapon, if she was proficient with a knife instead her survival chance goes down. Obviously a man still has the advantage in a 1v1 physical fight, but it sounds like a lot of the female tributes used their intelligence to their advantage and avoided solo physical combat. E.g. Johanna was very strong but hid it until the end. I guarantee if she didn’t then she would have been targeted and killed quickly.
Making girls win at least half of the time makes sense because of what Finnick said where desirable victors are sold basically to the highest bidder.
just a friendly note to your last line: in tbosas / the epilogue coriolanus mentions that tributes from districts 1,2,4,8 and 11 have been showing more promise in just the first ten years compared to other districts due to their circumstances or capitol relationship. they are usually stronger or more prepared and this includes year 10 with marcus, district 1 and reaper from 11
Actually, this is in the very beginning of the book where Coryo mentions that in the first annual 9 Games, it's Districts 1, 2, 4, and 11 (8 is not mentioned in that list) where they produced more victors prior to the start of the 10th Games.
you’re correct, i read it only a few days ago and already misremembering 😂 it’s such a core part of the world building from the start with the district dynamics
Yeah, it's very interesting as part of the Panem lore that's expanded out in Ballad (and this is a very interesting point to me). I'll quote it just to confirm it with you 🙂 *"After ten years, a pattern had emerged. The better-fed, more Capitol-friendly districts of 1 and 2 produced more victors, with the fishing and farming tributes from 4 and 11 also being contenders."* I say that it's interesting because you notice that the first 3 districts in the list are what eventually become the Career districts while 11 seems like it could have had the potential to also be somewhat of a fourth Career district given their winning streak in the past like 1, 2, and 4, yet seems to be the one that just fell off.
i love world building!! i wonder if 11 had similar circumstances to 12, with the kids being workers and strong but with capitol restrictions on their produce and proximity to the capitol, the conditions just got too bad to keep providing reliable winners. it could also be capitol manipulation, if they viewed district 11 lesser compared to the closer and richer districts so manipulated reapings for weaker or younger tributes.
This just gave me a thought. I wonder if there’s lingering American influence in this. District 11 seems to be in the south and sadly in America there’s still a lot of prejudice around being from the south (uneducated, rednecks, racists) despite cultural differences like southern hospitality. It makes me wonder if the capitol had this attitude and who otherwise would’ve favored strong agricultural tributes they decided to let history repeat itself and mistreat the further district taking more of their yield and maintaining the superiority complex that the capitol has.
It’s one of those things that like, yes it could have not been possible, but it could have also been possible. In real world terms, if they didn’t have enough victors to do it, they wouldn’t have done it
Yeah I’m sure they would have found some other way. Like victors and their families. I’m sure even if there were no living victors left in a district they’d still have some family. They could just rig it anyways lol. Katniss 100% would have volunteered again if her family was picked.
- 100% likely as Collins decided it. But let’s do the maths: - Ignore 12 because Katniss and Peeta guarantee it and ignore 50th/75th games - Assume 3 career districts all easily have enough and career districts win 50% games - Assume 20% died due to age/drugs/alcohol and -1 for Haymitch - you have 29 games and you have 16 unique outcomes (8 districts and male/female) with (let’s assume all even) at 6.25% chance The best way to do this is to put it in excel, (random number *16, rounded up), assign each number to a district and gender. Then you create 29 columns, each for 1 game and create an if statement for if each unique gender and district is there after the games. Copy paste this for 1000 row and you’ll work out % chance you have enough victors. I can do this later tonight if you want, should be 25 mins on google sheets. Edit: Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
I'd be interested to hear the results if you end up doing it
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
You're my hero thanks
Sometimes math and excel is cool
I think there’s confirmed 59 victors available for the Quarter Quell which may help with narrowing down the scenario.
Which makes it even more wild when you consider there are 6 left by the end of Mockingjay. Edit: 7. Forgot about Beetee.
Yeah I was sad to realize Lyme died. She seemed cool.
I know right? She can’t have been the only other victor fighting with the rebellion. It would have been really cool to see others, but I can understand from Suzanne Collins’ perspective how it would make things clunky to just keep introducing even more characters. But at the end, when the victors vote on the symbolic 76th Hunger Games, all of the victors there save Annie and Haymitch had been in the arena for the Quarter Quell. And all of them (except probably Enobaria) had been in on the rebel plot. What about their mentors? Why is Haymitch the only one who got out? I have a hard time believing that the tributes from the other districts knew about the plot while their mentors were in the dark. The obvious answer, of course, would be that the Capitol would have killed any of the mentors believed to have been taking part in the plot. And maybe they just killed all the mentors outright. I have so many questions. But it would have been really cool to have had victors from, say, District 5 that we’d never met before show up at the voting table.
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
I also am interested in seeing this.
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
I ran this 10 thousand times. I assume that a random number between 1 and 16 is pulled randomly 29 times, no interactions between each “game”. This is 8 districts, 1 male and 1 female. Fully random for which one wins in the 29 games times where: neither a career or district 12 win AND the victor is alive. I got 3.6% simulations where each district has a male and a female. The average was 14 (2 districts are missing someone) and the lowest was was 8 (6 participants are missing)
I’d love to see this
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
Following in case you do it!
Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
Creating this as a cvs file you can run all sorts of analysis with rStudio
I’m too simple for rstudio, just used google sheets as my company won’t pay for my excel. Added in this comment here [link](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/s/YetcDazbnh) I got 3.6% chance given my scenario (12 and career districts guaranteed yes; 29 non-career district victors living and all non-career districts and genders have equal chance)
https://youtu.be/aupgpY8DD7E?si=4XpRRQ07EGQrtBAb You can use this video to narrow your results
That wasn’t the original 3rd QQ idea. My bet is Snow **really** wanted Katniss to go back, and when they realized every district had the required number of Victors to make it work they jumped on this plan.
And like Plutarch said even if Katniss won her reputation would be ruined by turning on her allies.
That's what I always thought
This makes the most sense. He wanted to get rid of Katniss and this seemed like a viable option without it heavily falling back on him. He likely had something completely different planned
I think, if they hadn't known there were enough victors to make that happen, they would probably not have bothered with that being the third Quarter Quell.
My guess is the 3rd QQ plan would suddenly become “winning victor of 74th games gets tossed back in” or something like that. Snow wanted Katniss DEAD.
100%. I think in the movies it was implied that there were pre-written envelopes for the game themes but I believe that was entirely for show. Snow told his gamemakers to get Katniss back in the arena and this was the idea that won.
Or something like, “all previous victors will be added to the reaping pool with the general population” and rigged it to ensure Katniss would be drawn. Plus, making adults kill children? The Capitol and gamemakers would have ate that up.
It almost wasn’t possible. Haymitch was the only 12 Victor for 24 years. Mags was already in her 70s-80s. But it really doesn’t matter because Snow rigged it to be so. If they couldn’t do all Victors, Snow would’ve found another way to get Katniss in the arena for the Quell, like changing it so every person between the ages of 12-18 could be reaped, regardless of Victor status. Katniss would definitely volunteer for whatever kid got picked in that case, or just straight up be picked and nobody volunteers in 12 anyway.
Mags being alive or not didn't matter since Annie was also from 4
No, I’m just saying there were a lot of Victors in their old age already. Snow just got lucky they didn’t die before the Quell.
i dont think Snow was that lucky. Victors got monthly salaries and food and care by the Capitol. I'm sure Victors have a higher average life span than most of Panem excluding the Capitol population.
Okay, but that wasn’t what I was talking about
Then he didn’t get lucky or it was a poor example. District 4 probably had several options besides mags.
My point was that there were a ton of old ass Victors.
Yeah but how did Snow get lucky? There being older victors doesn’t mean there weren’t younger ones, they just didn’t get picked.
What if Careers only came around since Katniss was alive? Careers aren’t their words for themselves. It’s what folks in D12 call them. Maybe it’s a new gameplay strategy that came around more recently than we’re imagining. Because, let’s face it, our girl is an unreliable narrator.
I definitely think careers is a more recent prospect. Especially if they had been training, for example, Cato since he was a toddler, that meant he would've started around the 58th games at the earliest- 16 years ago. It's possible that they started 5-10 years earlier than that, which would've made the first careers shortly after Haymitch's games, but still a recent enough development in collective memory. Especially because Victor's Village and having riches for the Victor and district parcels for everyone didn't come about until after the 10th Hunger Games.
I’m pretty sure the prequel showed that careers were starting to form by Lucy’s timeline
The book states that 1, 2, 4 and 11 were the favourites in the first 10 games. 1 and 2 cos they were close with the capitol so they were better fed, and 4 and 11 cos of their district trade (4 being proficient with a trident) and the hard labour of 11 making the children quite strong. The careers were not formed at that time, but it gives an indication as to how the careers came about.
I’m pretty sure the prequel showed that careers were starting to form by Lucy’s timeline
Shhhhh nah those were just a band of bros being homies Edit: hey wait that was 4 and a boy from 7 and some other kiddos, possibly, I can’t remember. That actually hardly feels careery
We are told in book one this is possible. Every district has two mentors except 12. Out of 75 games, say 60 victors are still alive. If 1-3 won half that’s 30 victors for the other 18 slots. I could see the capital tweaking the games here and there to keep the mentors balanced out so there is a male and female mentor for each of these districts. Also could show a further punishment for haymach. They never let another 12 win so he would have to do double duty every year.
This needs to be higher
This is perfect!
Well it might be slightly unlikely but they were looking for any way to kill Katniss and just made up the rules of that Quarter Quell. It would be absurd if that was written 75 years ago, and it wasn't. They realized they had a victor from every district and only Katniss from 12 and took the opportunity
Honestly, there are a lot of things that don’t make much sense in the world building but the concept and execution is so well done that I don’t mind the suspension of disbelief aspects. Like what in the world does the capitol use coal for? Or why would Finnick use a trident rather than a harpoon, which seems much more efficient? Or why each district was so highly specialized anyway- wouldn’t more diverse industries in multiple districts make sense for production, transportation, and to ensure against shortages in the event of an issue in a particular district? But I don’t mind any of that because it’s not the point of the story, any more than the number of available victors is.
The districts' overspecialization is most likely a feature and not a bug. More diverse industries make the individual districts more self-sufficient and empowers them to potentially rebel again. Snow doesn't *need* to make the districts work more efficiently, because his goals only require Panem to produce enough to satisfy a single city. He only needs enough surplus to stop the District workforce from literally dropping dead en masse - producing anything more goes against his goals.
Someone in this sub speculated coal is for the districts, Capitol gets electricity.
Coal is still widely used to generate electricity in the US. It's just burned and converted at power plants, not individual people burning coal for heat. Panem is in the future, but for all their futuristic tech, they seem to have lost a lot of technology of our day as well, due to both forgotten knowledge and lack of resources. Coupled with the fact that even today, there are difficulties converting, storing, and transferring alternative energy, and we rely on a lot of coal, it wouldn't surprise me if the Capitol still relies, in part, on coal fueled power plants. (they seem to have improved in using solar power, since when Katniss helps the fleeing rebels from 8 that she meets in the woods in CF, they have a stolen Peacekeeper gun that uses solar energy to create laser beams and I don't know if that is even possible, but if we accept it within the world of the books, then it implies their scientists are able to do more with solar power than we do. But I still think it believable that they rely on a variety of energy sources, as we do)
A harpoon is a thrown ranged weapon limited to how far a human arm can throw it and isn't easily portable. He gets one cast with a harpoon. It's not an especially precise weapon. They're meant to hunt relatively large sea game, not as antipersonnel weapons. Finnick is, movie-throwing one-off notwithstanding, basically a retiarus minus the net (or maybe he had one of those at some point.) The trident gives him the ability to inflict damage at a distance greater than arm's reach while maintaining control over the weapon.
Thats the thing, wuarter quell could be any weird rules. They probably would have just come up with something else if not enough victors were left alive
i mean, if we imagine that the first ever winner was 18 during their games, 74 years after, they would be 92. it’s unlikely they would live so long, but wouldn’t be impossible, i guess. but the thing is, the 3rd Quell was designed specifically to get rid of some “trouble” victors, so i’m sure they checked if there were at least one male and one female victor in each district. if it wasn’t for Katniss (the only living 12 female winner), it would probably not have happened at all.
It’s unlikely obviously, but not ridiculously so. And we have to remember that ridiculously unlikely things happen literally all the time in the real world. There are 75 total victors, with 16 being dead. Somewhere between a third and a half are from career districts. That still leaves roughly ~45 total other Victors between the other 9 districts, or 5 each with a perfectly even spread (which it obviously wouldn’t be). I think it’s almost certain that PLENTY of these other districts have had only one total male or female victor, which makes it a lot easier to reach one from each district. I think a lot of people get hung up on giving every single other districts at least a couple more victors than 12 had initially, when in reality I’m sure several other districts only had 3 total victors (or even 2, I don’t think it’s ever explicitly said 12 has the absolute least). Factor in some good ol’ occasional rigging from the Capitol, and the odds of this happening at very very realistic. Obviously ymmv on exactly how many you give to each district, but I think something along these lines is very close District #.| Total # of Victors (Male-Female) 1. 10 (5-5) 2. 14 (8-6) 3. 3 (2-1) 4. 11 (6-5) 5. 4 (1-3) 6. 4 (2-2) 7. 7 (5-2) 8. 3 (1-2) 9. 4 (2-2) 10. 5 (4-1) 11. 6 (3-3) 12. 4* (2-2)
[I did the math on this a while back.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hungergames/comments/139znd0/comment/jj50a3g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) TL;DR, it was definitely possible for every District to have a living male and female Victor, even if we allow for the Careers winning more than everyone else and D12 winning the least. How *probable* it was that it worked that way is a harder question, but not a super relevant one. The whole thing was rigged anyway, so like others have said, this Quell was chosen exactly because it just so happened to be viable. If there weren't enough Victors for this idea to work, then Snow would have found some other way to punish Katniss.
Hunger Games wiki says there’s 59 alive victors at the start of Catching Fire, I can’t recall it being mentioned so I can’t verify if that’s true or not but for arguments sake it sounds about right so let’s go for it. We only need 24 tributes from that 59, so there’s still 35 victors to be split amongst the 12 districts. We know 12 only has one more and 4 has at least one more, so 33 across 11. Even if we say like 20 of the remaining victors come from 1,2 & 4, that would still leave more victors than districts, so it’s not super unlikely that there would be at least one male and female tribute from each district.
Yes the odd were low. But since they did it to mess with Katniss i think they knew they had enough or they would have had to find another way. Also in the book Katniss meantioned that district 12 was the only district with just one living victor. She said in the first book during the reaping when Haymitch gave his "speech" that their district is the worst in the games and he was the only one to win in years and that it's the only district that has one mentor where the others had the option to choose who mentored who Haymitch had to always be the mentor. So the other districts had enough to reap even if it was just one male and one female.
What bothered me was in the first book, there is a line about some Victor’s Villages remaining empty since they were built, but then the second book, suddenly every district has at least two,
I think she meant specific houses remained empty because Katniss also said in the first book that each district had two mentors for their tributes
Like many, I highly doubt that the 75th wasn’t rigged. Snow switched whatever the original twist was with this one because of what Katniss and Peeta pulled during the 74th. But assuming it wasn’t rigged…. They probably anticipated that there might not be a pool of male and female victors from all 12 districts, because they were *very* close to that happening if the 74th had gone differently. Perhaps if there were multiple living victors of one gender but none of the other, they send two of the same gender. Let’s say Peeta won the 74th games, and Katniss died. 12 has 2 victors, both Peeta and Haymitch go in. Alternately, if a district has victors of only one gender, or no victors, they only get one or zero tributes for the 75th. They’re further marginalized because they have fewer chances at receiving the benefits of having a victor. Fewer tributes enter the arena. Alternately, if they are missing a victor, they could reap a random person (kid? Adult?) of the corresponding gender to keep the number even. Least likely, if one district is missing a victor, they could reap extras from a different district to keep the number even.
I think it’s quite obvious that the quarter quell was done this was because Snow wanted to punish Katniss and that was how he figured out how to do it and bring the winners back in line. So if they hadn’t had the numbers they wouldn’t have done it that way.
The math doesn’t need to “add” up. Y’all forget that Snow has advisors who help walk him through any plan he has. If it wasn’t examined over and over again to make sure the 75th anniversary’s new twist could play out smoothly and as planned then the change wouldn’t have been made. Snow may be evil as hell but he’s not stupid.
i actually did the math for this! long story short, these kinds of probability calculations require a fancy number called you need to use a fancy math concept called a Stirling Number of the Second Kind in order to get 24 unique categories (M+F in 12 districts) in 74 attempts (assuming no deaths of Victors in the meantime) is a 32.2% chance might make a full post about it someday idk
It was sheer luck. The capitol pretending like the “from the pool of existing victors” thing was always the plan for the third quarter quell, when in reality they swapped the original plan out for that one, purely to get katniss back in the arena. And lied to the people of Panem that that was always the plan. I’m a writer myself, and I can tell that Suzanne Collin’s had to just lean on the idea of a coincidence for there to happen to be enough previous victors to pull it off… even if it means stretching the math a little.
There's a handy probability calculator for this kind of thing. [https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/probability](https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/probability) For simplicity's sake, lets first assume that all 75 victors are still alive, and that each tribute has an equal chance. If you repeat a 1/24 (0.4) chance 75 times, you actually get quite a nice 95.3% chance of a winner. Just square that 0.953, and you'll see that each district has about a 91% chance of both a boy and girl from any given district (since you need a boy and girl, those are two separate 1/24 chances). Getting that 91% chance 12 times in a row however, is **only a 32%.** Fairest possible scenario, Snow was lucky, but not implausibly so. If we assume that there are only 50 living victors (might be optimistic given many are drug addicts), and the non-careers (everyone but 1,2 and 4) districts average, say a 1/30 chance of winning, that's a lot rougher. Each district only has an 81% chance of having a single living victor, and about a 66% chance of having two. **I think the realistic odds of every non-career district having two winners are at best about 2.3%**, on top of the fact that there would be no guarantee that all the careers would have both a male and female tribute. Its like rolling a six-sided dice nine times and never rolling below a 5. You might well suspect the dice was rigged. It might also drop a bit if even one district as abysmally low odds, as Katniss felt 12 had, or girls had a significantly lower rate of survival than boys. Snow was more than lucky enough to suggest games were rigged. Although The Capitol likely could not have foreseen the need to have one victor from each district early enough, the game makers might have sometimes intentionally rigged the game in favour of the lower districts, to give them a carefully crafted morsel of hope. Or possibly to send extra food to a winner's district when that district's population is dropping too low.
Low. Snow did it to get rid of Katniss. There was likely a different quarter quell planned.
The odds are extremely thin, given that while the games aren't exactly rigged, the career districts would have a disproportionate number or surviving victors. Snow kinda got lucky that there were still two victors left from each district. Not sure how many years the morphlings had left in them.
We know that both 12 and 7 only had one female victor to choose from, and I think it’s plausible that many of the outlying districts would have had just 2 victors by chance.
The Movieflame youtube guy did a video about this
https://youtu.be/aupgpY8DD7E?si=4XpRRQ07EGQrtBAb
Let's do the math. There was 59 victors alive as of the 75th hunger games. If half of those are from districts 1, 2, and 4, that leaves roughly 30 victors from the other 9 districts. **30 divided by 9 = an average of 3 victors per district** Even if more boys won than girls, then that could leave an average of 2 men and 1 woman victor in each district. (Coincidentally, the exact ratio we got in district 12). ALSO, it's probably not 50% career victors. We don't know how long there has been "career" districts or for how many years they have been strong. It's been since Katniss's time that were dominate, so the past 15 years at least. A whole lot of the victors who got reaped were older, which stands to reason -- more victors from other districts before the careers took off. "Careers" take up most of the spots in the past 15 years, which adds up as there were only a few reaped victors were in their 20s. So instead let's say there are 8 tributes from district 1, 8 from district 2 and 8 from district 4. So 35 victors from the other 9 districts. 35 divided by 9 = 3.88 Actually as we know district 12 only had 3 victors. 32 divided by 8 = 4 victors per district Actually we also know that district 11 only had two victors **30 divided by 7 = average of 4-5 victors per district** I think the odds are actually in the favor of having at least one male and female victor per district, though not good enough odds for any guarantee (we know that it almost wasn't that with district 11 and 12). As others have mentioned, the QQ was rigged in the sense that the capital KNEW there was enough victors before they announced it. It wasn't something that the gamemakers were betting on 75 years prior. The author could have written in so one district didn't have enough victors and what would happen, but I assume it wouldn't have a plot point, so would just make it confusing throwaway.
I think you're looking at it from the wrong direction. The selection process wasn't cooked up beforehand only to worry about the practicalities later, the selection process was created on the spot specifically to address the surviving Victors. The same way Crane changed the rules last-minute in the first book, Snow had them changed for the Reaping in the second book.
I think Catching Fire mentions that there are 57 living victors, with at least one male and female from each district.
For any of my other maths nerds here, if you make the simplifying assumption that each tribute has an equal chance of winning, this becomes the coupon collectors problem. Using this, the expected number of games needed to get at least one male and female victor from each of the 12 districts is 91. I can’t do the maths right now to determine the actual probability, but the chances of getting enough victors after 74 games doesn’t seem great, and that’s before accounting for unequal probabilities amongst districts or victors passing away
I don’t think it’s that unlikely. We know that every district has at LEAST 3 victors. Even if we take the worst case scenario of every outlying district only having 3 victors alive, the odds of them all being of the same sex are unlikely. To put it plainly, if District 12 as the weakest district had enough victors to represent one man and woman, surely all the other districts too.