50 Fun Facts About Catching Fire

Wiress's odd chant helps Katniss realize that the arena in Catching Fire is laid out like what?

A clock is the arena's secret: it is split into twelve wedges, and each one unleashes its own horror for a single hour before the next takes over.

Which lie about Katniss does Peeta tell in his televised Catching Fire interview, hoping to get the Games canceled?

Peeta's claim that she is pregnant throws the Capitol audience into uproar, with viewers demanding the Games be called off. They go ahead anyway.

Why do guests at President Snow's banquet in Catching Fire down a special drink midway through the feast?

Guests drink it to vomit and eat more, a habit Katniss's prep team treats as perfectly normal. She is appalled: the food laid out could feed her district for months.

Katniss's interview gown in Catching Fire burns away as she twirls, leaving her dressed as which bird?

A mockingjay, the emblem of the uprising, is what her stylist hid beneath the white gown President Snow ordered her to wear. The stunt costs him dearly.

Which special edition of the Hunger Games sends Katniss back into the arena in Catching Fire?

The Quarter Quell marks every 25th Games with a cruel twist. This time the tributes are reaped from the districts' living victors, so Katniss has no way out.

Which stylist is beaten by Peacekeepers in front of Katniss moments before she rises into the arena in Catching Fire?

Cinna pays for turning her interview gown into a symbol of defiance. Katniss, already locked in place for launch, can only watch as he is dragged away.

Which District 4 tribute, a Hunger Games champion at just fourteen, restarts Peeta's heart with CPR in Catching Fire?

Finnick revives Peeta while a panicked Katniss, who has rarely seen CPR, thinks he is kissing him. The rescue persuades her that the Capitol's darling can be trusted.

At the end of Catching Fire, the rebel hovercraft that lifts Katniss from the arena is flying to which district?

District 13 was supposedly wiped out in the first rebellion, yet it still exists and has become the headquarters of a new uprising.

What does Peeta do during a televised Capitol interview on the Victory Tour in Catching Fire to placate President Snow?

Peeta proposes marriage on live television and Katniss accepts, to the crowd's delight. Snow is not fooled, leaving her afraid for the people she loves.

Which District 12 character is publicly whipped for poaching by the new Head Peacekeeper in Catching Fire?

Gale Hawthorne is flogged in the square for hunting on Capitol land. Katniss takes a lash across the cheek when she steps in to stop it.

What gesture from a Victory Tour crowd in Catching Fire ends with Peacekeepers shooting the old man who whistled first?

A three-finger salute, pressed to the lips and then held out, is how the whole crowd honors Katniss. It was her own farewell to a young ally in the previous Games.

Which district, the first Victory Tour stop in Catching Fire, hears Peeta pledge part of his winnings to two families?

District 11 hears Peeta promise the families of two fallen tributes a month of his winnings every year. Nothing like it has been done before, and the visit ends in gunfire.

Which District 12 haunt, where Katniss once traded her game, do the new Peacekeepers burn down in Catching Fire?

The Hob was an old coal warehouse turned black market, and the coal dust left inside made it burn fast. Its regulars had to find other ways to sell their goods.

Which harsh new Head Peacekeeper brings a whipping post, stocks and gallows to District 12 in Catching Fire?

Thread replaces the easygoing Cray, who vanishes on the very day he arrives. He also imposes a curfew on the district.

What becomes of Darius, the friendly Peacekeeper who tries to stop the whipping in Catching Fire?

He is made an Avox, a servant whose tongue has been cut out, and is sent to wait on Katniss in the Capitol. She reads his presence as a message meant for her.

Which district's uprising, the first Katniss sees, does she glimpse on the mayor's television in Catching Fire?

District 8 rises first, and two runaways from its failed revolt later meet Katniss in the woods. She lets the news slip to her best friend, who wants District 12 to follow.

What disguise are runaways Bonnie and Twill wearing when Katniss finds them in the woods in Catching Fire?

Peacekeeper uniforms are made in their home district, which is how the pair came by them. Katniss is ready to shoot until one of them holds up a cracker stamped with a rebel symbol.

Katniss's prep team lets slip that a district is in revolt in Catching Fire by moaning about a shortage of what?

Seafood comes from the fishing district, so weeks of empty Capitol tables tell Katniss it has risen up. The official excuse is bad weather.

President Snow, who visits Katniss at home in Catching Fire, gives off the scent of roses mixed with what else?

Blood is the smell the roses are there to mask. The sequel reveals why: sores left in his mouth by the poison he used to remove his rivals.

Why does Katniss drop from a tree and injure her foot coming home from the woods in Catching Fire?

The fence is electrified day and night now, so she drops 25 feet from a branch that overhangs it. Two Peacekeepers are already waiting at her house.

In a tape Katniss and Peeta watch in Catching Fire, Haymitch wins his Games when a rival's axe rebounds off what?

A force field at the arena's edge flung the axe straight back at the girl who threw it. The Capitol punished the trick: within two weeks his family and his girlfriend were dead.

In her private session with the Gamemakers in Catching Fire, Katniss hangs a dummy labeled with whose name?

Seneca Crane ran the previous Games and was executed for letting both District 12 tributes live. Reminding his successors of that is a taunt the judges do not forget.

Whom does Peeta paint on the floor during his private session with the Gamemakers in Catching Fire?

Rue is painted as Katniss left her in the previous Games, laid out and covered in flowers. The picture will not wash off, so the Gamemakers have to cover it up.

What does the District 4 tribute offer Katniss when he first flirts with her before the chariot parade in Catching Fire?

A sugar cube is his opening move as the tributes wait by their chariots, followed by a request to hear all her secrets. Katniss brushes him off.

At the Cornucopia in Catching Fire, Katniss trusts a rival tribute after spotting which of Haymitch's belongings on him?

A gold bangle patterned with flames, the one Haymitch wore in the Training Center, is on the rival's wrist. Katniss, about to shoot him, reads it as an order to team up.

Which elderly District 4 tribute walks into the poison fog in Catching Fire so her allies can escape it?

Mags, about 80 and the oldest tribute in the arena, knows the others cannot carry her and still outrun the mist. She kisses her fellow District 4 tribute goodbye and walks in.

The oldest tribute in Catching Fire, a woman of about 80, volunteers at the reaping to spare which younger victor?

Annie Cresta won her own Games by outswimming a flood but never recovered from what she saw there. Her screams are later used in the arena to torment the man who loves her.

Which sponsor gift lets Katniss and her allies tap the arena's trees for drinking water in Catching Fire?

A spile puzzles everyone until Katniss works out that it taps a trunk like a faucet. The trees hold the only fresh water in the arena.

What do Katniss and her allies soak in to draw out the poison after the fog attack in Catching Fire?

Salt water burns at first but forces the fog's poison out of their bodies. It comes from the round pool at the arena's center, where the Cornucopia sits on an island.

The District 6 tribute who dies shielding Peeta from the monkeys in Catching Fire is addicted to which painkiller?

Morphling has both District 6 tributes in its grip. As she lies dying, Peeta comforts her by talking about colors and she paints a flower on his face.

Which axe-wielding District 7 tribute cuts the tracker out of Katniss's arm near the end of Catching Fire?

Johanna knocks Katniss down and slices the tracker from her arm, which feels like a betrayal. It is really part of the secret plan to get her out of the arena alive.

Which District 3 tribute in Catching Fire, an electronics expert, won his own Games by electrocuting six rivals at once?

Beetee had also built much of the Capitol's own technology. In the arena he fixes on a coil of fine wire that a secret rebel has made sure is among the supplies.

Which Capitol muttations torment Katniss in the arena in Catching Fire by mimicking the screams of Prim?

Jabberjays can only repeat what they have heard, which raises a horrible question: where did they hear such screams? Katniss is trapped with them for a full hour.

How are Gloss and Cashmere, the District 1 tributes who ambush Katniss's alliance in Catching Fire, related?

Brother and sister, the pair won their Games in back-to-back years. They die within moments of each other in the fight at the Cornucopia.

Which feature did District 2 tribute Enobaria have altered after her first Games, as Catching Fire describes?

Her teeth were sharpened into fangs after she won by tearing out another tribute's throat. The look made her a favorite with Capitol crowds.

Which keepsake does Peeta give Katniss on the beach in the arena in Catching Fire, shortly before they are separated?

A pearl turns up in an oyster Peeta opens during a meal on the sand. Katniss keeps it close long after the Capitol takes him prisoner.

Which of the arena's dangers does Katniss harness with her final arrow in Catching Fire to bring the whole arena down?

The lightning strikes the same tall tree twice a day. Katniss ties a wire to her arrow and fires as the bolt lands, and the surge knocks out the arena's defenses.

Which sponsor gift in Catching Fire secretly tells the rebel tributes the day and hour of the planned breakout?

Bread rolls carried the code: the district they came from gave the day and the number of rolls gave the hour. Katniss and Peeta were never told.

What makes the 75th Hunger Games in Catching Fire unlike every other edition of the Games in Panem's history?

It has no winner because the rebels break Katniss out while six tributes are still alive. The Games are simply never finished.

What has happened to District 12 by the final page of Catching Fire, as Katniss learns after her rescue?

It has been bombed by Capitol aircraft sent out once the Games collapsed. Her mother and Prim were led out in time, but the district itself is gone.

Which former children's television writer is the author of Catching Fire and the rest of the Hunger Games novels?

Suzanne Collins built each book of the original trilogy in three sections of nine chapters, a three-act habit she picked up as a playwright.

Which publisher brought Catching Fire out a week early so that it reached shops before Labor Day and the school year?

Scholastic moved the hardcover from September 8 to September 1 after retailers asked for it. The first printing ran to 350,000 copies.

The author of Catching Fire traced the Hunger Games' premise of sacrificed children to which Greek myth?

Theseus and the Minotaur begins with Athens forced to send seven youths and seven maidens to die in a labyrinth. The author said the cruelty of it stunned her as a child.

Before the Hunger Games, the author of Catching Fire wrote for which early-1990s Nickelodeon show?

Clarissa Explains It All is one of several Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. shows she wrote for, alongside Little Bear and Oswald. Her television career began in 1991.

Which director took over the Hunger Games films with Catching Fire after Gary Ross chose not to return?

Francis Lawrence was chosen from a shortlist that included Bennett Miller and Joe Cornish. He had the cameras mounted to avoid the shaky look of the first film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman joined the Catching Fire film as which Head Gamemaker secretly working with the rebels?

Plutarch Heavensbee runs the Games while masterminding the plan to break the tributes out of the arena. In the novel he drops Katniss a hint about its design at a Capitol party, but she misses it.

Which actor was cast in the Catching Fire film as the trident-wielding District 4 tribute who allies with Katniss?

Sam Claflin was announced in August 2012 for a part Garrett Hedlund had turned down. Taylor Kitsch and Armie Hammer had both been reported as frontrunners.

Where did the Catching Fire film shoot its jungle and beach scenes after the main shoot in and around Atlanta?

Hawaii supplied the arena's jungle and beach, though the Cornucopia scenes were filmed in Georgia. The shoot ran 14-hour days, six days a week.

Which band recorded Atlas, the lead single from the soundtrack of the Catching Fire film?

Coldplay earned Grammy and Golden Globe nominations for the song. The band's four members also co-wrote one cue on the film's orchestral score.

The star of the Catching Fire film flew to its set the day after winning an Oscar for which film?

Silver Linings Playbook won her Best Actress at the 85th Academy Awards. She left the next day for nine final days of filming with two of her co-stars.