Chapter 14: Gunner Trillium

Games Genealogy, Season 2, Episode 30

Leto Coco: Good morning, and welcome to today's podcast of Games Genealogy! I'm your host, Leto Coco. I have the honor of welcoming today's guest, who is one of the premiere authorities on Hunger Games scholarship: the esteemed Stuart Finn. Good morning, Stuart.

Stuart Finn: Hey there, Leto, it's great to be here.

Leto Coco: Now, Stuart, you have written a book, I believe most of us have heard about it. It is just out; dropped last week, and is already making a run on the Capitol Times bestseller charts. It is called Suicide Games: The 14th Hunger Games & Self-Determination in the Arena. Before we get into the specific subject material, I gotta ask: what made you want to write this book?

Stuart Finn: Well, I think, first of all, I believe this is a book that needed to be written. We're all seeing in the districts how there has been an emphasis shift in how Hunger Games history is being taught in our schools, and that's a very good thing. It reflects a broader desire to come to terms with this… system of oppression that was in place until fairly recently. More specifically, I wanted to write this book because there are only so many Games that really stand out or are now generally understood to have been critical points in the history of the Capitol regime. And then, you think of the Victors behind those Games – you have Haymitch Abernathy, you have now-Governor Johanna Mason, you have Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen-Mellark, of course, the Star-Crossed Lovers. The 14th Hunger Games, by comparison, doesn't really register in most people's minds, though when you consider the events that followed it, it should.

Leto Coco: Let's get to that then, the subject of the book. The 14th Hunger Games. You write in the preface that this really should be called The Suicide Games, hence the title of the book. Why is that?

Stuart Finn: Well, in order to answer that question, Leto, we have to jump both backwards and forwards in time, and I try to do that in this writing. We have to look at the act of suicide and its relationship to the Hunger Games as a whole. In this… pageant, you had participants who were given only a very slight degree of control over what they could do with the rest of their lives, which for nearly all of them, had now been reduced to hours, days at best. Tributes could train how they wanted to train, say what they wanted to say (while, even then, being restricted to certain parameters… which still sometimes got broken). Then they were tossed into an arena and could run where they wanted to (again, within set boundaries, namely the force field). For me, it all comes back to control. To what extent tributes still possessed personal autonomy. I think as time went on and the Games continued, tributes were savvy enough to understand that what little personal autonomy they had was mostly wrapped up within their own bodies. What to do with their bodies, and when you start to ask those kinds of questions, you reach the conclusion, as many tributes did and in the 14th Games in particular, that, 'Oh, the only kind of autonomy I have is what to do with my body and how to essentially end my body. End my corporeal existence, and that I can do it myself, on my own terms, if I so choose.' That's why I asked Peeta Mellark to write the Introduction, because I think he understood, more than any other tribute we ever saw, that it's OK to declare that I decide what to do with my own body, all the way through end of life. At the time, that was a very rebellious statement to make, but also… a very empowering one.

Leto Coco: I was very taken with the Introduction by Peeta Mellark –

Stuart Finn: So was I. I… I was so pleased he agreed to do it. The man has just such a way with words…

Leto Coco: I was amazed at the way he framed it. He tells us this story – I had never heard of this, by the way – this story about… It's the night before the arena. He's up on the roof of the Training Center, and he has this pretty intense conversation with his wife, his future wife. And he expresses to her that he wants to show the Capitol that they don't own him. He quotes himself, what he apparently said that night, after he's just declared his love for this girl on national television.

Stuart Finn: I know. When I read the draft of it, I was stunned. I asked Peeta on the phone, 'Did that really happen?' He told me, 'Yes. It has taken me some time to come back around to the affirmation that yes, that was real…'

Leto Coco: Because of his hijacking, which has also been discussed at length on this podcast.

Stuart Finn: Yes.

Leto Coco: Do you think, in that moment, that Peeta Mellark intended to commit suicide in the arena?

Stuart Finn: No, and Peeta makes that clear in the Intro. While I do think it suggests some foreshadowing of what is to come, you have to remember that the decision to commit suicide was not Peeta Mellark's idea. It was Katniss Everdeen's. This is something I discuss towards the end of the book.

Leto Coco: All right, so let's go in order, shall we? The 14th Games – we are sixty years before the Star-Crossed Lovers and any berries. Take us into Panem at that time. The rebellion has been done with for almost a decade and a half. What happens?

Stuart Finn: Well, first we have to study some of the Games that came before. I look at those as building blocks leading up to the Fourteenth. The first three Games are really of note because you had a bit of a learning curve, and it starts with the pedestals, the ones the tributes would stand on. The first…. The first decade of the Games can best be described as chaotic. Initially, the Hunger Games is not what you might call, 'the perfect system.' It is flawed, as most things in life are. There is, again, a learning curve to refining it into the process we saw in later years growing up… but much of that refinement, by the Capitol, was reactionary. The 3rd Hunger Games, the one won by Dell Fonio of District 9, is particularly important.

Leto Coco: Yeah, talk about that.

Stuart Finn: You have three district pairs, the tributes from 1, 5 and 8. And they all say, 'Fuck this. We're going out on our own terms. We just refuse to fight.' And they do it by absorbing a lesson from the year before. The 2nd Games with Acacia Ivy, I think twenty-one of the tributes all tried to move before the countdown was halted because they had seen, in turn, what happened with Maximus in the very first Games – he was just going around and shanking kids while they stood still and the clock was still ticking. And much of the field in Games #2 know they don't wanna end up like that. So they try and copy Maximus….. BOOM! All but three get blasted to smithereens. Fast forward a year and some tributes think that just blowing yourself up is a good way to go out. They step off the pedestals…. and fall into open air instead. In there, the way I did with most every chapter, is analyze and try to answer the question, Can this be ruled a suicide? I would say, in the case of the 3rd Games, Yes, though perhaps not in the way these kids expected. And what ends up happening is that the future tributes are scared out of committing suicide via the launch pedestals.

Leto Coco: But we come to learn, and you lay it out so beautifully, that this is not the only way a tribute can demonstrate self-actualization with their own body and life.

Stuart Finn: Precisely. Security for the Games in those days…. Again, it was very reactionary. The Capitol at that time was not very good at taking precautions. I found when doing my research, in the early years, the Capitol implemented new procedures on, again, a reactionary basis. It was done in reaction to some event. Tributes in the first ten Games, who performed in the Capitol Arena – this was before the outdoor arenas existed – they were under tight security and imprisonment… but only within the Capitol, and the Capitol Zoo, more specifically. And as we can see, with the Fourth Games, it is possible for a tribute to escape. But again, many of the Capitol's responses to these clear flaws in the system, they are done reactionary-style, or they are implemented gradually as the technology catches up.

Leto Coco: So set the scene for me. The Fourteenth Games. Capitol Security: what was that like?

Stuart Finn: Before the tributes were launched into the arena? Oh, it was terrible. And it makes me laugh because, really, it is a lesson that should have been learned following the escape of Vulcan Bronzedrop a decade prior. But by this time, there has been a change in how the tributes are treated. They're no longer seen as prisoners, they're seen as minor celebrities, and that has extended to Victors as well – which, by the way, that took a long time for the Capitol to come around to that way of thinking, something we can trace back to Wolfmark Redpath in the 7th Games. With that better treatment comes a weird lax in security. Down go the cages, up go the high-rises and luxury hotels – the precursor to the very first Training Center. Until the 14th Games, for those couple of years following the advent of the outdoor arenas, the Capitol was essentially like, 'You're being treated like kings and queens. Why would any of you tributes want to leave?'

Leto Coco: The answer to that comes apparently within hours of the Reaping. What happens there?

Stuart Finn: Yeah, so, you have this girl from District 3 – little twelve-year-old by the name of Elecc Tesla. Her ancestor... and I'm talking great-great-great-great, at least eleven greats…. invented the alternating currents we see in electricity and have understood for centuries. Anyway, Elecc Tesla, she gets Reaped her very first go-round. She has no mentor – District 3 still didn't have their first Victor yet. In those days, districts with no Victor had to rent a Victor from another district out on loan to help them. Vulcan Bronzedrop, interestingly enough, was assigned to Three that year since he had a new Victor himself from 1 to look after their pupils. And on the train ride to the Capitol, Elecc just loses all hope. She knows she's going to die. According to a Peacekeeper who was stationed on the train, she asks to go up on the roof of the train to watch the sunset, and she's given permission, which…. In today's world, or even the Capitol of ten, fifteen years ago, that's just wild. The train passes over the Great River, and suddenly, everyone on board hears a scream, and then a splash. The train finally stops after about another mile, has to back up, and battalions are sent down to fish poor Elecc's body out of the river.

Leto Coco: And that's not the end of it.

Stuart Finn: Oh, no. Meanwhile, the District 6 tributes – again, interestingly, also still without a homegrown Victor…. They're already there, in the Capitol, in the Citadel Hotel (eventually the first Training Center), they go up to the roof of the building. Allegedly, they have sex, just to learn what it feels like, as apparently they were both virgins… and then they jump to the street holding hands.

Leto Coco: Whoah.

Stuart Finn: Yeah. So, you have three tribute suicides within… I think it was the span of less than an hour apart from each other, and this is before the Games have even started. Three dead bodies. The Capitol City Police is going crazy. And there's kind of a panicked chatter going on within the Ravinstill administration, asking, 'What do we do?' You know, 'Should we have another Reaping? Do we need to have another Reaping?' And Commodus Ravinstill, he is disgusted by this. Absolutely refuses to re-do the Reapings in Three and Six, because he thinks it will make him look weak, and that will open the floodgates. Everyone who's Reaped will be trying to just kill themselves and force slips to be pulled again and again. All this really dark stuff that he and his aides think will just – you know, they think this could lead back to war. We're gonna have death at numbers seen in the Dark Days.

And it gets worse. Move on to the tribute parades – by then, only in their second year – and the girl from 5, sort of… she fakes falling off her chariot but lands in the Avenue of Tributes in such a way that the stallions trample her and she's crushed under the wheels. I watched the tape in the National Archives…. If she was trying to feign falling, she didn't do a very good job. She kinda goes over the front, has to fling her body a little to get ahead of her own chariot. Which is kinda stupid, you think, why not just naturally fall out the back of the basket and let the District 6 chariots – which, at that point, just have…. [laughs] I'm not even kidding, Leto, it has two dead bodies propped up in the basket, and everyone knows they're dead…

Leto Coco: Oh, man.

Stuart Finn: Death toll is up to four. And Ravinstill says, 'That's it. If we don't do something, we won't have enough kids left to hold a Games.' He orders the Joint Chiefs and the Gamemakers to ring the roof of the building, the Citadel Hotel, with force field fencing. Anyone else tries to jump, they're flung right back. Plans are drawn up to give the roofs of the tribute trains the same technology. The twenty remaining tributes are literally chained to their beds at night. Doors to their rooms locked.

Leto Coco: OK, so Gunner Trillium, the eventual Victor from District 2 – tell us about him. What is he thinking during all of this?

Stuart Finn: Well, I got to interview both his son and his grandson for the book, and from what they told me, and the memories he shared with them…. He's disgusted by this. He sees absolutely no sense of district honor in tributes just essentially choosing their own means of death. However, and this is where it gets really interesting, he disagrees with President Ravinstill – he thinks Reaping re-dos should and need to happen in the districts affected. Gunner actually is open about his opinion and suggests it publicly during his interview with Lucky Flickerman. I dug and dug into the National Archives to see how Ravinstill and his administration responded to this, and from the little I could find…. It seems they kinda just ignored him. This request from a tribute. Tributes, even patriotic ones like Gunner Trillium, aren't supposed to make requests of their government. My guess is the Ravinstill White House didn't want a repeat of Wolfmark Redpath telling them what to do, lecturing them on, 'Hey, this is how you should handle your tributes.'

Leto Coco: Fascinating. OK, take us into the arena. What happens there?

Stuart Finn: So, we open on this rocky desert – the first of at least a couple we will see in the years following. What is really macabre about the tributes who are already dead is that their bodies are lifted onto the pedestals so that no one watching at home can see that any of the pedestals are empty. So, you have twenty terrified living, breathing kids and four dead ones in plain view. And of course, during the countdown…..

Leto Coco: Suicide by pedestal.

Stuart Finn: Bingo. Five of them, actually. The boy from 4, the girl from 7, both from 10 and the girl from 11 – they see the four bodies and just freak out and step off. By the time the gong goes off for the Games to start, over a third of the field is gone. And, you know, this just sets Gunner off all over again. He and the fourteen others who still live…. the tapes show they all rush for the Cornucopia. Gunner gets his hands on a machete and just starts hacking. Six more go down, and the rest get away.

Leto Coco: And you theorize Gunner would have gotten more if his district partner…

Stuart Finn: Yes, his district partner, who was a girl by the name of Beatrix Eliasa, she gets mortally wounded, by the boy from 11, one of the Bloodbath survivors. He and his allies from 1 and the girl from 4, they stay guard and Gunner holds Beatrix as she dies. First thirty, thirty-five minutes. It's the fastest Final Eight since Maximus's games – no other arena comes close to beating it.

Leto Coco: The 3rd Quell did, though.

Stuart Finn: The 3rd Quell did, that Final Eight was set in about 36 hours, as you might remember. So anyway, this pack – really the first true Career pack – they begin to hunt for what amounts to four other survivors through the desert, and at intervals of every few days, one of them drops from heat exhaustion. The Pack is sustained a little bit by sponsors, who send whatever water they can. Gunner makes only one kill in that time – the boy from 11 who killed Beatrix. And then, when it's down to three – Gunner, boy from 1 and girl from 4 – they finally crack under the pressure and turn on each other. Gunner comes out the winner.

Leto Coco: And how long did the 14th Games last, all told?

Stuart Finn: [laughs] Despite all the death in the lead-up, I think I write it was about ten days.

Leto Coco: Great. So: the aftermath. What happens?

Stuart Finn: Again, the Capitol thinks reactively. The force field tech on the Citadel Hotel and the tribute trains – those will obviously remain in place. There is another, brief debate about getting rid of the pedestal landmines entirely, and apparently, Ravinstill considers it. But then, I think he looks at bloodthirsty guys like Gunner and Maximus Meridius and what happened there thirteen years prior and he concludes, 'No. It's worse to have a killing machine unchecked then to risk this mechanism of order being exploited.' And I think, ultimately, Ravinstill is proven right, because you don't see for many years after that, decades even, any tribute even using the landmines as a means for suicide.

Leto Coco: You conclude at the end of the book by discussing the 14th Hunger Games, and their influence, particularly on the 74th Games with, of course, Katniss and Peeta and the berries. How do you think… to what extent do you think these Suicide Games influenced that moment at the end of the 74th with the berries, if at all?

Stuart Finn: You know, Leto, I have to conclude that if there was influence, it wasn't anything at the conscious level. I got to sit down with Katniss Everdeen-Mellark briefly, and let me tell you, she's a pretty shy person. Doesn't really speak much about her time in the Games. I write about this in the book, she says that she remembers watching the Fourteenth when she was a student in school, but that it never…. In that moment, with the berries, it wasn't something that registered as a kind of direct, deliberate inspiration. Even so, I do think you can plot a throughline from the 14th Games all the way to the 74th in terms of a tribute's psychology and what makes them think that suicide is better than murder. That self-determination is better than imposing your own morbid will on someone else.

Leto Coco: Amazing. Well, Stuart Finn, thank you for taking the time to speak to us. Again, for those of you listening in, Stuart Finn is the writer of a book about the 14th Hunger Games. The book is titled Suicide Games: The 14th Hunger Games & Self-Determination in the Arena. Stuart, thank you so much for being here.

Stuart Finn: My pleasure, Leto.