Catching Fire : Characters

Haymitch Abernathy

Haymitch Abernathy is District 12’s only other living victor. His experience in the Games was psychologically devastating, and now he earns Katniss’s description of him as “surly, violent, and drunk most of the time.” Yet he also successfully mentors, and comes to care for, Katniss and Peeta.

Atala

Atala is head trainer in the Training Center.

Bonnie

Bonnie is a teenage girl who escapes from District 8 and meets Katniss at the lake while on her way to District 13. She had been a student and factory worker before she became a refugee.

Bristel

Bristel is one of Gale’s crewmates in the mines.

Brutus

Brutus is the male tribute from District 2, a former Career who, now middle-aged, is still strong and deadly.

Cashmere

Cashmere is the male Career tribute from District 1. Gloss is his sister; they won their Games in consecutive years.

Cecelia

Cecelia is the District 8 female tribute. She’s a middle-aged woman with children.

Chaff

Chaff is the District 11 male tribute in the Quarter Quell; he lost a hand but won the Games three decades ago.

Cinna

Cinna is Katniss’s stylist when she is in the Capitol or on the Victory Tour. Unlike many residents of the Capitol, Cinna is not taken in by appearances and disagrees with the oppression of the districts. He cares deeply and genuinely for Katniss and Peeta. His designs are brilliant.

Seneca Crane

Seneca Crane was Head Gamemaker for the 74^th Hunger Games; he was executed after the 74^th Hunger Games for allowing both Peeta and Katniss to live but is still a presence in Catching Fire.

Cray

Cray is the grizzled Head Peacekeeper in District 12; he also runs a liquor stall in the Hob and imbibes of his own wares perhaps too often.

Darius

Darius is a young, funny, red-headed Peacekeeper in District 12. Later, Katniss learns that, because he tried to protect Gale from whipping, Darius had his tongue cut out and became an Avox.

Maysilee Donner

Maysilee Donner was one of District 12’s female tributes in the second Quarter Quell. She died in the arena. She had been Mrs. Everdeen’s close friend, when they were girls, together with Mrs. Undersee, Madge’s mother. The mockingjay pin that Madge gave Katniss in The Hunger Games as a district token belonged to Maysilee.

Enobaria

Enobaria is the District 2 female victor and tribute in the Quarter Quell. She has sharpened her teeth to points for use as weapons and had them inlaid with gold.

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss Everdeen is the first-person narrator of Catching Fire.A serious young woman with “dark straight hair, olive skin, and gray eyes,” as she describes herself, Katniss is co-victor, with PeetaMellark, of the 74^th Hunger Games.

Primrose Everdeen

Primrose Everdeen is Katniss’s younger sister. Katniss affectionately calls her “little duck” because Prim’s shirt tail tends to come untucked and looks a little like a duck’s tail.

Mrs. Everdeen

Mrs. Everdeen is Katniss’s and Prim’s mother. Her first name is not given in the novel. She is a talented healer and herbalist and is training Prim.

Gloss

Gloss is the female Career tribute from District 1. Cashmere is her brother; they won their Games in consecutive years.

Greasy Sae

Greasy Sae has a stall in the Hob where she sells soup. Katniss is grateful to her for taking up a collection to help her and Peeta in the arena.

Gale Hawthorne

Gale Hawthorne is Katniss’s closest friend, her confidante and hunting partner, and possibly the man she loves. He certainly loves her. Gale works in the coal mines and helps his mother support his younger siblings.

Gale Hawthorne’s younger siblings are Rory (12), Vick (10), and Posy (4). Gale works hard to support them so that they will never have to buy tesserae and be entered in the Reaping more than once.

Hazelle Hawthorne

Hazelle Hawthorne is Gale’s mother. Widowed by the mining accident that killed Katniss’s father, Hazelle works to exhaustion to provide for her children. Katniss admires her.

BeeteeLatier

BeeteeLatier is the male tribute from District 3, an older man with glasses. A talented inventor, he’s fidgety but good with electronics; in his Games, he killed six tributes at once by dropping an electrified net on them.

Leevy

Leevy is a girl who lives near the Hawthornes in the Seam and who helps Katniss on the day that Gale is whipped.

Plutarch Heavensbee

Plutarch Heavensbee is Head Gamemaker for the third Quarter Quell and, though Katniss doesn’t know it, her ally against Snow.

PeetaMellark

PeetaMellark is Katniss’s co-victor in the 74^th Hunger Games. A baker’s son, generous and clever, he loves Katniss.

The morphlings are the unnamed male and female tributes from District 6. Called that because both are addicted to painkillers, they spend all their time in training painting each other, and anyone else who will let them, in beautiful colors.

FinnickOdair

FinnickOdairis a District 4 victor who won the Games at age fourteen, youngest ever, and who participates in the third Quell. Finnick is handsome, deadly with a trident, and a Capitol celebrity, but his charming smile masks a tragic love.

Peacekeepers

The Peacekeepers are ironically named, since the only “peace” they keep is the Capitol’s hold over the districts. They are featured in many scenes. Both men and women can be Peacekeepers; they are a well-armed, well-trained force that easily crushes the uprising, for example, in District 8. They wear white uniforms and helmets with face shields.

Portia

Portia is Peeta’s stylist when he is in the Capitol or on the Victory Tour. She manages Peeta’s prep team, who are not named.

Seeder

Seeder is the District 11 female tribute for the Quarter Quell. She’s about sixty but still strong and able.

President Snow

President Snow leads the government in the Capitol and rules Panem. Slightish, gray, and impeccably dressed, he is never without a white rose and, Katniss thinks, the aroma of blood.

Purnia

Purnia is a woman who lives in District 12 and who bluffs knowing the “standard protocol” for poaching offenses to keep Gale from being whipped to death.

Ripper

Ripper is a black marketer in the Hob. She sells the “white liquor” Haymitch drinks.

Rooba

Rooba is the District 12 butcher. She buys Katniss’s game and sometimes takes her part in conflicts.

Rue

Rue is the District 11 tribute who becomes Katniss’s ally and friend in the 74^th Hunger Games before she is killed (see The Hunger Games). Katniss adorns Rue’s body with flowers, in defiance of the Capitol.

Romulus Thread

Romulus Thread is the Head Peacekeeper who replaces Cray, without announcement, in District 12 and immediately begins brutal enforcement of the rules that Cray had winked at, such as hunting outside the district fence.

Thom

Thom is one of Gale’s crewmates in the mines.

Thresh

Thresh is the District 11 tribute who saves Katniss from death in the 74^th Hunger Games, out of gratitude for Katniss’s friendship with and care for Rue (see The Hunger Games).

Effie Trinket

Effie Trinket is District 12’s escort and liaison to the Capitol. Though she seems vain and often expresses disgust at the primitive manners of District 12 folk, Effie is also insightful and able. She comes to care for Peeta and Katniss, even at risk to herself.

Twill

Twill is a middle-aged woman who escapes from District 8 and meets Katniss at the lake while on her way to District 13. She had been a teacher and factory worker before she became a refugee.

Madge Undersee

Madge Undersee is the mayor’s daughter and Katniss’s friend. She gives Katniss the mockingjay pin, before the 74^th Games, that had belonged at one time to her aunt, who died in the Games.

Mayor Undersee

Mayor Undersee is mayor of District 12. His wife suffers from debilitating headaches, perhaps because her sister (possibly her twin) was killed in the Games when they were young. Mrs. Undersee had been close to Katniss’s mother when they were girls.

Venia, Octavia, and Flavius

Venia, Octavia, and Flavius are Katniss’s prep team. Silly and shallow, they love Katniss and would do anythingfor her—but they are also fearful and childish, creatures of the Capitol’s media-obsessed culture.

Wiress

Wiress is the female tribute from District 3. An inventor, she’s technologically savvy but mentally unfocused.

Woof

Woof is the District 8 male tribute, a “really old guy” who can’t hear much and seem disoriented during training.