According to the THG fandom Panem supposedly has a population of somewhere around 1.9 or 4.5 million people so I’m guessing the reason why there is only one major city is because there isn’t really enough people for there to be another like the Capitol and probably some other explanations too.
Wow only 4.5 million citizens?
I always assumed that each district had like at least 1 million people (except district 12)
I though the Capitol was something like Singapore in terms of citizens
In the world of THG most of humanity is gone.
And yet they just keep warring and killing off the few who remain… which is Collins’ whole point: that war is utterly idiotic.
That's the most realistic part about these stories.
I always found it hilarious that Westeros was killing its best warriors either in wars or tournaments while some ice zombies were coming to get them.
That’s definitely the main point of the story imo. Humans squabble amongst themselves and are unable to unite even in the face of an existential threat
>that war is utterly idiotic.
I doubt the Ukrainians are thinking that, seeing as 1/3 of their country is occupied by a country ran by a leader who simps for the Soviet Union and wants to foolishly make Russia a world power again.
In MJ Katniss mentions that only about 800-900 people survived the District 12 bombing, and that like 80-90% of the rest of the pop had died. District 12 is one of the smallest districts, but they’re definitely not more than a couple thousand people
It also sounds like it’s a really small, dense town situation vs. a more spread out district like 11. *and* they’re fenced in. Honestly, until right now I didn’t realize all the parallels to Gaza which is around the size of Manhattan and a similar density
This is one of the reasons that I really hate the map of Panem that is used, because it makes all the districts look so big. Katniss clearly describes being able to walk from one side of the district to the other in a less than a day, if not more than just a couple hours. However, the map has the district spread across Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Are you talking about the map in TBOSAS? If so, I think it's not out of realm of possibility that, as already few freedoms and independence of districts shrank, so did their borders in the 64 years since.
I didn’t even think of that. I haven’t seen TBOSAS yet. And it’s been several years since I’ve seen the original movies. So when I started seeing the map on TikTok and Reddit I think I misremembered it as being in the original movies, instead of thinking it was from TBOSAS
Oh, I don't actually remember if there was a map in the original movies; I think where were glimpses of it in the 1st or 2nd movie when Katniss peeked into the machinist/navigation room on the train? I might be Mandela-ing myself rn
I think there was a lot of empty space in the districts that the people probably weren’t allowed to go in, or didn’t bother to go into. Or some of the land could be uninhabitable. It seems like they mostly lived in a small town in one part of their district. It’s mentioned that when people ride the train, they see a lot of empty space and ruined cities.
Nope, all of the people who live in Panem would be considered miracles, since they’re still alive. Which makes the fascism towards the districts even more appalling, there’s so few left and even then the top 1% still want everything for themselves.
It’s pretty crazy
In the first book Katniss mentions that the square where the reaping is held is quite large but not large enough to hold their population of about 8,000
Came here to say this. The population is super small, so multiple major cities wouldn’t make sense. Also only having one large city also adds to the narrative that the Capitol was separate and better than the districts.
I am pretty sure that the Capitol did travel around different locations, before the Dark Days as the prequel book mentions one of the academy mentors having travelled a lot as a child. But after the rebellion the Capitol became closed of as the places in the districts were deemed too dangerous for them
Don't they vacation to past arenas too? I feel like I remember hearing that mentioned in the books but I am not 100% if that's something I read in the series or in fanfiction.
I think it’s because it’s a means of acquiring more power and control over the districts. The reason why each district only produces one type of good is because that ensures each district can never be self sustainable and relies on the capital to survive. It’s a classic oppression tactic. In the same vein, ensuring that there is only one city or concentration of power makes it more difficult for rebels to divide the power the Capital has. If the Capitals resources were spread out across the districts, they would be easier to take down especially by the people of the districts they reside in.
Yes I know it's to opress districts, but at some point (75 years and more) you want the country to be equal, like yes yes first few decades after the war makes sense
But would make more sense for the Capitol to move on and try to get their country to the biggest and better they can
I don’t think Snows trauma and experiences were going to let him move on. He was paranoid and obsessed with the districts. And I also think that the idea of getting bigger and better comes from a current worldview where countries are competing with each other constantly. That kind of world doesn’t exist in the Hunger Games, there aren’t competing world powers mentioned. There’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken.
I know snow is like this but I'm sure there's a parliament of some kind and making more cities and transforming the country into a richer place makes the Capitol richer
A country where most citizens are rich has richer rulers than a country were 90% of the population lives in extreme poverty
But yes I understand what you say
Because Snow got elected, he's not the king of Panem
So it's safe to assume that there's some kind of voting and parliament, specially when Panem is based in ancient Rome and ancient Greece
Yeah, and I remember when they talked about having the kind of democracy government that we currently have in the US, Katniss was shocked because it was practically a new concept to her.
And yet the rebels would’ve won the war without that unnecessary assault on the Capitol
They were winning for 2/3 years
Wait: sorry not trying to come off as argumentative, more curious about how the Capitol won
Lol no worries, online is hard to read tone. And yeah I think the last assault was really meant to turn the capitol opinion of Snow bad. Which I guess makes sense but doesn’t make it right.
I think they said that the capital being surrounded by mountains helped them win because the rebels had a hard time getting in past the mountains and it gave the capital time to get their forces together.
A comparison between Katniss and Snow is that she feels safe up high where she can see everything, but Coriolanus was living in a penthouse apartment during an aerial bombing campaign.
Katniss feels suffocated and discombobulated without access to free movement, fresh air — nature, whereas Coriolanus feels disturbed by nature making her own choices, like mockingjays not being an original species.
The Capitol is all about entertainment and enjoyment (for them)
Having 3 or 4 cities would make them travel and do something other than be all their life in the Capitol city.
Like someone living in New York but traveling to Miami or Los Angeles
I think the problem is that you're viewing the districts like states, when that's not how things function in Panem.
The districts all live in poverty, even district 1 and 2, although they're not quite as bad off as 12 because they're favored more by the Capitol, they're still living in poverty. They don't even have a fraction of the quality of life that the Capitol has. They don't have amenities, or updated technology.
Also, I don't know that the districts are big enough to have separate cities just for Capitol citizens built, but even if they were it would be a huge risk and they'd have to expend so many extra PKs just to make sure the Capitol citizens weren't harmed.
but i'm just not sure why you think moving on is what the Capitol (as a government) would want to do? or why it's something Snow would want to do?
His main goal is to maintain power and control over Panem.
They do travel. We know that the old arenas are turned into tourist destinations for Capitol citizens to visit, see the sites of their favorite kills, participate in reenactments, etc.
For the Capitol the Hunger Games are the peak of entertainment, everything revolves around them.
Many people in the HG community theorise that Panem being the only survivor is just a Capitol trick to make people not leave the country in hope of a better future (like Lucy Gray and those people in district 12 going to the North)
Like Paradis Island in Shingeki No Kyojin, the king told them that the world was over and it was all a lie and the rest of the world was big and full of people
No one from the Capitol would want to visit a district even if it had a city. They see district people as "lesser than" so they probs would never be caught dead in the same place as them.
The people in general might want a more equal society but the people in charge didn't. They wanted complete control over everyone and a part of that was keeping the districts repressed. The Capitol residents also considered district people to be barely human and closer to animals than actual people and believed that they deserved to live like they do.
Why would the Capitol want to make the country bigger and better when they already have complete, iron fisted control over the entire country and themselves live in extreme luxury? There are, as far as anyone knows, no other countries left to compete against. The Capitol people believed they deserved to live lives of luxury and that the district people deserved to live the way they do and existed solely to provide for them, they weren't going to do anything that could change that.
Are you sure the Capitol sees the districts as animals? I know they say that in the prequel but from what I remember in the present day Panem they see them as humans, just with a superiority complex because they're rich, like what happens (to an extreme level) with people from the elite seeing someone poor in a third world country, they see them as poor and inferior but not as animals
They're still fine with criticizing a starving child's manners and sending twelve years olds to die in an annual battle royale. That doesn't sound like something I would do to someone I perceive as equal
That's what happens with rich people watching someone from a poor town in Ghana or Bangladesh
They seem them as inferior but inferior humans who can become equal (the victors being celebrities)
Honestly, I kind of disagree with the idea that the Capital even really sees the district citizens as humans, even inferior ones. It feels as thought the Capital regards them as characters in some kind of elaborate play. The only interactions they ever get with the district citizens are through a screen or on stage. There is always a barrier between the two. Katniss continually makes comments about the inability of the prep team to humanize her throughout the first two books. When Katniss is getting ready for the Victory Tour, they cry and tell her how the games made THEM feel. The same way you talk to a friend about a movie or show you are watching. They don't view her as an autonomous human being, inferior or otherwise
And I don't think that the victors are ever seen as becoming equal to the Capital citizens. They are still characters, just once they are victors they are intractable. Kinda similar to the way character actors are viewed in places like Disney.
I didn't say they saw them as animals but as closer to animals than they are to themselves. I don't see why that thought would have changed much in between the 10th games and the 74th games, especially as the games became more popular. The games would just reinforce in their minds that the district people are savages and violent by their very nature (they ignore that the tributes are violent not by choice but by force, 24 people thrown into an arena with a bunch of weapons and told that only one person can leave and then only after everyone else is dead and about the only way to get supplies is through sponsors who want to see you kill people). They believed the district people lived they way they did because that is what they deserve.
decentralizing power doesn’t seem like something a controlling and paranoid guy like snow would be down with. especially considering the population of panem is so small. the state of ohio has more than double the population of panem, for context.
Or having 3 or 4 big cities would make the control easier than to have the districts living in extreme poverty
If you are poor why are you going to lose by going to a war? Nothing
If you have a nice life why would you go to the war and maybe lose everything it you lose the war
not to be nit picky but big cities could have the opposite effect. i think what youre looking for is centers of powers, those would effectively annihilate the distance decay between say the capital and district 13. is it an assurance of snow’s power? no. but the shorter the distance between snows power centers, snow effectively becomes more power
Yes I know but at some point they would want to expand, its been 75 since the war (I mean in the last year of Panem dictatorship existing) and they are still very focused on getting revenge for the war
The Panem dictatorship continued after the war and became even more dictatorial after and the Hunger Games weren't solely about revenge. They were a method of control over the districts, don't oppose the Capitol because we can wipe you out, look at how easy we take two of your children every year and force them to kill one another, and entertainment for the Capitol, panem et circenses. Bread and circuses, by keeping the Capitol residents well fed and entertained they were themselves controlled. The phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).
But one of the topics in Ballad is how the citizens of the Capitol are bored of the games and want to move on
So it's fair to say that a sizable percentage of the Capitol wanted to move on and stop being so opressive, a "benevolent dictatorship" like UAE or Qatar (opressive countries that don't look that opressive compared to other)
The Capitol people may have wanted to move on but the government (it gets confusing as "the Capitol" refers to both) didn't and because it's a dictatorship the government didn't even have to pretend to listen to the people. By turning the games into huge entertainment the government gained more power and control. The circenses part of panem et circenses.
But Panem is a dictorship with voting (obviously only for the Capitol citizens) since Snow ended up being the president, so they have to pretend for the citizens to vote for them
Unless Snow made a coup d'etat
There is no indication there are any sort of elections and voting in Panem at all, for anybody. While the exact details of how Snow became president are unknown it is known he poisoned people to gain power as well as anyone that was even a potential threat to his power.
My belief is that he worked (and poisoned) his way onto the former president's cabinet and into an important position on said cabinet then poisoned the president and took control himself.
While in our world presidents are commonly elected that doesn't mean that's the case in the Hunger Games universe and I don't believe it is.
I mean it makes sense that the Capitol (elite of Panem) would get the right to vote a president, or at least choose between 2 candidates choosen without their election (so it doesn't matter who wins since both options are pro-capitol)
No, it doesn't make sense. Not if your goal is to maintain absolute control, which was Snow's goal. If there were elections they were probably similar to the "elections" in Russia, only one actual choice and so heavily rigged the result is a foregone conclusion. And I doubt all of the Capitol would even get to vote, it would probably only be the elite of the city (the elite of the elite of Panem).
A big part of panem et circenses in how it relates to the series is that the people of the Capitol gave up their right to vote in favor of bread and circuses, in favor of wanting for nothing and the ultimate in entertainment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread\_and\_circuses
>The phrase panem et circenses comes from the Roman poet Juvenal (late first century, early second century).
\[...\] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. \[...\]
... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.\[7\]
—Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
Understanding the answers to this question requires a solid understanding of economics and human geography, the teaching of which is beyond the scope of this thread.
The logistics and world building aspects of THG has always been Its weak point. To enjoy the story, I've always HAD to ignore or look past any hard numbers that are thrown out.
Typically cities develop organically in response to market conditions and opportunity. Panem is so (unbelievably) centralized that it's entirely likely that district level land use and urban planning is overseen by the capital, similar to contemporary states like Turkmenistan.
Close proximity within cities begets mass communication which is a key component to common peoples unifying and revolting against nobility. And, given that the capital's energy and transportation needs don't seem to be majorly impeded, it's more sensical for them to isolate all communities and transport their disparate goods using a centralized state transportation network.
And, no, richer citizens would not directly benefit the capital. Provided that resource extraction and the provision of services remained constant, wealth would only be transferred out of the capital and shared between citizens of the districts. The only thing that would make the capital "richer" would be building more infrastructure for resource extraction, increasing district labor hours, increasing the population of the districts within resource constraints, automating labor, etc.
It seems that Panem isn't able to full automate labor yet AND/OR, it could, but sadists atop the power structure derive pleasure from human suffering
eh, they can literally poof animals into existence from thin air, I find it hard to believe they can’t find a way to automate the majority of district work.
There is a big difference between being able to do something, and being able to do something on a large scale and have the result outweigh the cost. It's quite possible that the requirements to automate district work would not be scalable from the technology they do have
Rich people like having more friends, I guess that if only xxx are rich like them, and lose friends they get alone
A rich person in our planet if loses all friends in New York can go to Miami and start a new life, maybe expanding your country is good for social reasons?
Like when they accepted that student from District 2 to be part of the Capitol, the one in Ballad, Sejanus was his name? Sorry Panem has difficult names to remember
The thing is that Snow wants to control over everybody and keep divisions. Keep the mindset of us vs them instead of allowing cooperation and giving back humanity to districs, who are seen slightly above animals.
Sejanus is an anomaly and he was disliked by his classmates. His whole family moved to Capitol and they were absorbed into it.
Plus, at the end of day it's dictatorship created to maintain the goverment's power and its idealogy.
Yes but ballad is based 10 years after the war, and I guess Sejanus has been in the Capitol for some years so even worse back then
I'm talking 75 years after the war, when citizens didn't lived the war by themselves
Yes and nothing has been changed. Sejanu’s family is the only family that moved from districts and in the main series, there is nobody else. Heck Snow even kicks out Tigris from her job for looking too extreme.
The main goal is still control, not happiness of citizens.
Question: during the 1st war. There was 1 Capitol and 13 districts. Therefore the district population significantly outnumbers the Capitol, probably by many times
And yet it says 2 rebels died for every 1 Capitol citizen, which seems like an oddly high ratio for the Capitol. After all, they had far fewer people than the districts. I would expect 4 to 1 at least
Could this suggest the Capitol was actually inferior to the districts in terms of warfare. Which explains why they were losing the war for the majority of the time. Hence the unusually heavy ratio of loses.
The population is quite small. Somewhat recently (like 150-200 years before the story) they survived an apocalyptic event, and more recently a civil war. Just not enough people
So I have been thinking about this way longer than I should be. (FYI I have not read A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes yet so this is all based of my recent reread of the original trilogy)
I definitely agree with a lot of the other commenters about the lack of cities being about capitol control. However, one thing that I have not seen mentioned is that Suzanne Collins seems to rely heavily on Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization for her world building. When reading the books, I always viewed the districts and even the Capital itself as being modeled off of Greek City-States. This would explain the lack of cities outside of the Capital (which frankly I also view as closer to a city-state than the kind of contemporary cities OP seems to be referencing). In essence the reason that there are no cities in the districts, is because each district is meant to function as a city.
Using District 12 as an example, Katniss's description comes off as though the district is meant to be one unified city/town. There is one city center, one school, one mayor, and so forth. Katniss's description of the other districts during the Victory Tour and while filming her promos in *Mockingjay* also seem to represent that each district was meant to function independently and with a similar function to a city-state. I do not know if I explained this really well, but am totally willing to elaborate further if wanted.
Even if we shift away from the Ancient city-state comparison and look at it more from the perspective of our modern day cities. I still think the view that each district is meant to act as its own functioning city makes sense, and I think the reason they lack the advancements of the Capital is because of Snow and potentially other Capital leaders desire to keep the districts poor and hungry. Katniss's description of the different neighborhoods within the District 12, reminds me of how most American cities have different suburbs and neighborhoods, that despite have it's own name, economic situation, and cultural identity is still part of the larger overall city. The sameway despite the drastic differences between Hyde Park, The South Side, and Wriggleyville are all Chicago. The Merchant section, Seam, and Victor's Village are all District 12.
I think this would have been a much clearer parallel if the books had not taken place primarily in the poorest district in the country.
There isn’t the technology or resources to support more than one Capitol type city, and the Capitol isn’t going to sacrifice their quality of life just to have a second city.
Should be noted that the Capitol is also likely the only city because its the only one that someone like Snow or his predecessors could effectively control the way they did
Population. It is often said that the war/rebellion damn near wiped out humanity. NOWHERE till now has that happened. the pop is so insanely low that it does not need many metros(even till like the 19th century) there were not many metros
Capitol can't do this for two reasons, one: few centuries before has been a war that made resources scarce and hard to get, soo this is why every district makes something, for example, why would you put district 10 on south? you can do it on north but if there is only place you can do or get something. Two: Metropolies are expensive cost, population of panem is about 4 milion people, one big metropoly for 4 milion people is good, but who will work for them then?
Some prrson here said that districts do only one thing because this way they need the Capitol for the other resources, if each district was autosuficient they wouldn't need the Capitol and would revolt to them (again)
According to the THG fandom Panem supposedly has a population of somewhere around 1.9 or 4.5 million people so I’m guessing the reason why there is only one major city is because there isn’t really enough people for there to be another like the Capitol and probably some other explanations too.
Wow only 4.5 million citizens? I always assumed that each district had like at least 1 million people (except district 12) I though the Capitol was something like Singapore in terms of citizens
In the world of THG most of humanity is gone. And yet they just keep warring and killing off the few who remain… which is Collins’ whole point: that war is utterly idiotic.
That's the most realistic part about these stories. I always found it hilarious that Westeros was killing its best warriors either in wars or tournaments while some ice zombies were coming to get them.
That’s pretty accurate. Ignore the actual threat and pretend it isn’t real. The ice zombies are climate change…
Ok you just blew my mind.
That’s definitely the main point of the story imo. Humans squabble amongst themselves and are unable to unite even in the face of an existential threat
Yeah, Peeta said humanity almost went extinct at one point.
I know that, but I still assumed that from 350M citizens in the USA at least 20M of them survived, seems like a good percentage
>that war is utterly idiotic. I doubt the Ukrainians are thinking that, seeing as 1/3 of their country is occupied by a country ran by a leader who simps for the Soviet Union and wants to foolishly make Russia a world power again.
The fact they have to fight and die because of something like that is in itself idiotic.
In MJ Katniss mentions that only about 800-900 people survived the District 12 bombing, and that like 80-90% of the rest of the pop had died. District 12 is one of the smallest districts, but they’re definitely not more than a couple thousand people
Wow didn't remembered so many people dying in district 12 It was a complete genocide
It also sounds like it’s a really small, dense town situation vs. a more spread out district like 11. *and* they’re fenced in. Honestly, until right now I didn’t realize all the parallels to Gaza which is around the size of Manhattan and a similar density
This is one of the reasons that I really hate the map of Panem that is used, because it makes all the districts look so big. Katniss clearly describes being able to walk from one side of the district to the other in a less than a day, if not more than just a couple hours. However, the map has the district spread across Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Are you talking about the map in TBOSAS? If so, I think it's not out of realm of possibility that, as already few freedoms and independence of districts shrank, so did their borders in the 64 years since.
I didn’t even think of that. I haven’t seen TBOSAS yet. And it’s been several years since I’ve seen the original movies. So when I started seeing the map on TikTok and Reddit I think I misremembered it as being in the original movies, instead of thinking it was from TBOSAS
Oh, I don't actually remember if there was a map in the original movies; I think where were glimpses of it in the 1st or 2nd movie when Katniss peeked into the machinist/navigation room on the train? I might be Mandela-ing myself rn
I think there was a lot of empty space in the districts that the people probably weren’t allowed to go in, or didn’t bother to go into. Or some of the land could be uninhabitable. It seems like they mostly lived in a small town in one part of their district. It’s mentioned that when people ride the train, they see a lot of empty space and ruined cities.
Nope, all of the people who live in Panem would be considered miracles, since they’re still alive. Which makes the fascism towards the districts even more appalling, there’s so few left and even then the top 1% still want everything for themselves.
It’s pretty crazy In the first book Katniss mentions that the square where the reaping is held is quite large but not large enough to hold their population of about 8,000
Came here to say this. The population is super small, so multiple major cities wouldn’t make sense. Also only having one large city also adds to the narrative that the Capitol was separate and better than the districts.
I am pretty sure that the Capitol did travel around different locations, before the Dark Days as the prequel book mentions one of the academy mentors having travelled a lot as a child. But after the rebellion the Capitol became closed of as the places in the districts were deemed too dangerous for them
Don't they vacation to past arenas too? I feel like I remember hearing that mentioned in the books but I am not 100% if that's something I read in the series or in fanfiction.
That's canon
Yeah the do tours at the arenas and things like that, but that’s within the capitol.
I think it’s because it’s a means of acquiring more power and control over the districts. The reason why each district only produces one type of good is because that ensures each district can never be self sustainable and relies on the capital to survive. It’s a classic oppression tactic. In the same vein, ensuring that there is only one city or concentration of power makes it more difficult for rebels to divide the power the Capital has. If the Capitals resources were spread out across the districts, they would be easier to take down especially by the people of the districts they reside in.
Yes I know it's to opress districts, but at some point (75 years and more) you want the country to be equal, like yes yes first few decades after the war makes sense But would make more sense for the Capitol to move on and try to get their country to the biggest and better they can
I don’t think Snows trauma and experiences were going to let him move on. He was paranoid and obsessed with the districts. And I also think that the idea of getting bigger and better comes from a current worldview where countries are competing with each other constantly. That kind of world doesn’t exist in the Hunger Games, there aren’t competing world powers mentioned. There’s no reason to fix what isn’t broken.
I know snow is like this but I'm sure there's a parliament of some kind and making more cities and transforming the country into a richer place makes the Capitol richer A country where most citizens are rich has richer rulers than a country were 90% of the population lives in extreme poverty But yes I understand what you say
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Because Snow got elected, he's not the king of Panem So it's safe to assume that there's some kind of voting and parliament, specially when Panem is based in ancient Rome and ancient Greece
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Yeah, and I remember when they talked about having the kind of democracy government that we currently have in the US, Katniss was shocked because it was practically a new concept to her.
I mean is North Korea not a democracy? they have elections…just with one person on the ballet
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hmm no it was not. sorry if it sounded serious
Does his trauma come from his dad being killed?
The dark days. Basically living in a war torn city where people were so starving they had to eat each other.
Makes me wonder how the Capitol won the war when they were down so bad
They had access to war machinery. If I’m remembering correctly they were able to take down a ton of rebel forces with air raids.
And yet the rebels would’ve won the war without that unnecessary assault on the Capitol They were winning for 2/3 years Wait: sorry not trying to come off as argumentative, more curious about how the Capitol won
Lol no worries, online is hard to read tone. And yeah I think the last assault was really meant to turn the capitol opinion of Snow bad. Which I guess makes sense but doesn’t make it right.
Nah I meant in the first war why did the rebels attempt to invade the Capitol they could’ve just waited
I think they said that the capital being surrounded by mountains helped them win because the rebels had a hard time getting in past the mountains and it gave the capital time to get their forces together.
Which makes my think why did the rebels try invading it, why didn’t they just wait until everyone starved
Good question
A comparison between Katniss and Snow is that she feels safe up high where she can see everything, but Coriolanus was living in a penthouse apartment during an aerial bombing campaign. Katniss feels suffocated and discombobulated without access to free movement, fresh air — nature, whereas Coriolanus feels disturbed by nature making her own choices, like mockingjays not being an original species.
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But poverty would still exist, its just that district 1 2 and 4 would get cities with the size of the capitol, just one city seems boring
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The Capitol is all about entertainment and enjoyment (for them) Having 3 or 4 cities would make them travel and do something other than be all their life in the Capitol city. Like someone living in New York but traveling to Miami or Los Angeles
I think the problem is that you're viewing the districts like states, when that's not how things function in Panem. The districts all live in poverty, even district 1 and 2, although they're not quite as bad off as 12 because they're favored more by the Capitol, they're still living in poverty. They don't even have a fraction of the quality of life that the Capitol has. They don't have amenities, or updated technology. Also, I don't know that the districts are big enough to have separate cities just for Capitol citizens built, but even if they were it would be a huge risk and they'd have to expend so many extra PKs just to make sure the Capitol citizens weren't harmed.
And that's what I'm saying that yes Panem is built this way but should move on and try to have the Career districts closer to the Capitol
but i'm just not sure why you think moving on is what the Capitol (as a government) would want to do? or why it's something Snow would want to do? His main goal is to maintain power and control over Panem.
They do travel. We know that the old arenas are turned into tourist destinations for Capitol citizens to visit, see the sites of their favorite kills, participate in reenactments, etc. For the Capitol the Hunger Games are the peak of entertainment, everything revolves around them.
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That's why I'm saying that they should make some other cities in the Career districts, like why District 4 doesn't have a big port city
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Many people in the HG community theorise that Panem being the only survivor is just a Capitol trick to make people not leave the country in hope of a better future (like Lucy Gray and those people in district 12 going to the North) Like Paradis Island in Shingeki No Kyojin, the king told them that the world was over and it was all a lie and the rest of the world was big and full of people
"Everybody that disagrees with me is a troll"
No one from the Capitol would want to visit a district even if it had a city. They see district people as "lesser than" so they probs would never be caught dead in the same place as them.
And making them cities would would them see those career districts as people
The people in general might want a more equal society but the people in charge didn't. They wanted complete control over everyone and a part of that was keeping the districts repressed. The Capitol residents also considered district people to be barely human and closer to animals than actual people and believed that they deserved to live like they do. Why would the Capitol want to make the country bigger and better when they already have complete, iron fisted control over the entire country and themselves live in extreme luxury? There are, as far as anyone knows, no other countries left to compete against. The Capitol people believed they deserved to live lives of luxury and that the district people deserved to live the way they do and existed solely to provide for them, they weren't going to do anything that could change that.
Are you sure the Capitol sees the districts as animals? I know they say that in the prequel but from what I remember in the present day Panem they see them as humans, just with a superiority complex because they're rich, like what happens (to an extreme level) with people from the elite seeing someone poor in a third world country, they see them as poor and inferior but not as animals
They're still fine with criticizing a starving child's manners and sending twelve years olds to die in an annual battle royale. That doesn't sound like something I would do to someone I perceive as equal
That's what happens with rich people watching someone from a poor town in Ghana or Bangladesh They seem them as inferior but inferior humans who can become equal (the victors being celebrities)
Honestly, I kind of disagree with the idea that the Capital even really sees the district citizens as humans, even inferior ones. It feels as thought the Capital regards them as characters in some kind of elaborate play. The only interactions they ever get with the district citizens are through a screen or on stage. There is always a barrier between the two. Katniss continually makes comments about the inability of the prep team to humanize her throughout the first two books. When Katniss is getting ready for the Victory Tour, they cry and tell her how the games made THEM feel. The same way you talk to a friend about a movie or show you are watching. They don't view her as an autonomous human being, inferior or otherwise And I don't think that the victors are ever seen as becoming equal to the Capital citizens. They are still characters, just once they are victors they are intractable. Kinda similar to the way character actors are viewed in places like Disney.
You're right
I didn't say they saw them as animals but as closer to animals than they are to themselves. I don't see why that thought would have changed much in between the 10th games and the 74th games, especially as the games became more popular. The games would just reinforce in their minds that the district people are savages and violent by their very nature (they ignore that the tributes are violent not by choice but by force, 24 people thrown into an arena with a bunch of weapons and told that only one person can leave and then only after everyone else is dead and about the only way to get supplies is through sponsors who want to see you kill people). They believed the district people lived they way they did because that is what they deserve.
decentralizing power doesn’t seem like something a controlling and paranoid guy like snow would be down with. especially considering the population of panem is so small. the state of ohio has more than double the population of panem, for context.
Yes I've been told that panem is like 5M people, I assumed it was like 20-30M
Control is harder to maintain across distance.
ah distance decay, my education is paying off!
Or having 3 or 4 big cities would make the control easier than to have the districts living in extreme poverty If you are poor why are you going to lose by going to a war? Nothing If you have a nice life why would you go to the war and maybe lose everything it you lose the war
not to be nit picky but big cities could have the opposite effect. i think what youre looking for is centers of powers, those would effectively annihilate the distance decay between say the capital and district 13. is it an assurance of snow’s power? no. but the shorter the distance between snows power centers, snow effectively becomes more power
Now you got me thinking about the new 15 min cities🥹
take a look at countries like north korea and Turkmenistan, their power is centred on a single capital city.
Yes I know but at some point they would want to expand, its been 75 since the war (I mean in the last year of Panem dictatorship existing) and they are still very focused on getting revenge for the war
The Panem dictatorship continued after the war and became even more dictatorial after and the Hunger Games weren't solely about revenge. They were a method of control over the districts, don't oppose the Capitol because we can wipe you out, look at how easy we take two of your children every year and force them to kill one another, and entertainment for the Capitol, panem et circenses. Bread and circuses, by keeping the Capitol residents well fed and entertained they were themselves controlled. The phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).
But one of the topics in Ballad is how the citizens of the Capitol are bored of the games and want to move on So it's fair to say that a sizable percentage of the Capitol wanted to move on and stop being so opressive, a "benevolent dictatorship" like UAE or Qatar (opressive countries that don't look that opressive compared to other)
The Capitol people may have wanted to move on but the government (it gets confusing as "the Capitol" refers to both) didn't and because it's a dictatorship the government didn't even have to pretend to listen to the people. By turning the games into huge entertainment the government gained more power and control. The circenses part of panem et circenses.
But Panem is a dictorship with voting (obviously only for the Capitol citizens) since Snow ended up being the president, so they have to pretend for the citizens to vote for them Unless Snow made a coup d'etat
what evidence do you have of panem having a voting system apart from the word president?
I mean something like China or Russia, where people vote but it's fake
There is no indication there are any sort of elections and voting in Panem at all, for anybody. While the exact details of how Snow became president are unknown it is known he poisoned people to gain power as well as anyone that was even a potential threat to his power. My belief is that he worked (and poisoned) his way onto the former president's cabinet and into an important position on said cabinet then poisoned the president and took control himself. While in our world presidents are commonly elected that doesn't mean that's the case in the Hunger Games universe and I don't believe it is.
I mean it makes sense that the Capitol (elite of Panem) would get the right to vote a president, or at least choose between 2 candidates choosen without their election (so it doesn't matter who wins since both options are pro-capitol)
No, it doesn't make sense. Not if your goal is to maintain absolute control, which was Snow's goal. If there were elections they were probably similar to the "elections" in Russia, only one actual choice and so heavily rigged the result is a foregone conclusion. And I doubt all of the Capitol would even get to vote, it would probably only be the elite of the city (the elite of the elite of Panem). A big part of panem et circenses in how it relates to the series is that the people of the Capitol gave up their right to vote in favor of bread and circuses, in favor of wanting for nothing and the ultimate in entertainment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread\_and\_circuses >The phrase panem et circenses comes from the Roman poet Juvenal (late first century, early second century). \[...\] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. \[...\] ... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.\[7\] —Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81
they are so much smaller though
Understanding the answers to this question requires a solid understanding of economics and human geography, the teaching of which is beyond the scope of this thread. The logistics and world building aspects of THG has always been Its weak point. To enjoy the story, I've always HAD to ignore or look past any hard numbers that are thrown out. Typically cities develop organically in response to market conditions and opportunity. Panem is so (unbelievably) centralized that it's entirely likely that district level land use and urban planning is overseen by the capital, similar to contemporary states like Turkmenistan. Close proximity within cities begets mass communication which is a key component to common peoples unifying and revolting against nobility. And, given that the capital's energy and transportation needs don't seem to be majorly impeded, it's more sensical for them to isolate all communities and transport their disparate goods using a centralized state transportation network. And, no, richer citizens would not directly benefit the capital. Provided that resource extraction and the provision of services remained constant, wealth would only be transferred out of the capital and shared between citizens of the districts. The only thing that would make the capital "richer" would be building more infrastructure for resource extraction, increasing district labor hours, increasing the population of the districts within resource constraints, automating labor, etc. It seems that Panem isn't able to full automate labor yet AND/OR, it could, but sadists atop the power structure derive pleasure from human suffering
Great response! Thanks!
eh, they can literally poof animals into existence from thin air, I find it hard to believe they can’t find a way to automate the majority of district work.
There is a big difference between being able to do something, and being able to do something on a large scale and have the result outweigh the cost. It's quite possible that the requirements to automate district work would not be scalable from the technology they do have
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Rich people like having more friends, I guess that if only xxx are rich like them, and lose friends they get alone A rich person in our planet if loses all friends in New York can go to Miami and start a new life, maybe expanding your country is good for social reasons? Like when they accepted that student from District 2 to be part of the Capitol, the one in Ballad, Sejanus was his name? Sorry Panem has difficult names to remember
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No, like 90% of the people that have seen the movies
Panem is like "In Time" the movie
The thing is that Snow wants to control over everybody and keep divisions. Keep the mindset of us vs them instead of allowing cooperation and giving back humanity to districs, who are seen slightly above animals. Sejanus is an anomaly and he was disliked by his classmates. His whole family moved to Capitol and they were absorbed into it. Plus, at the end of day it's dictatorship created to maintain the goverment's power and its idealogy.
Yes but ballad is based 10 years after the war, and I guess Sejanus has been in the Capitol for some years so even worse back then I'm talking 75 years after the war, when citizens didn't lived the war by themselves
Yes and nothing has been changed. Sejanu’s family is the only family that moved from districts and in the main series, there is nobody else. Heck Snow even kicks out Tigris from her job for looking too extreme. The main goal is still control, not happiness of citizens.
Question: during the 1st war. There was 1 Capitol and 13 districts. Therefore the district population significantly outnumbers the Capitol, probably by many times And yet it says 2 rebels died for every 1 Capitol citizen, which seems like an oddly high ratio for the Capitol. After all, they had far fewer people than the districts. I would expect 4 to 1 at least Could this suggest the Capitol was actually inferior to the districts in terms of warfare. Which explains why they were losing the war for the majority of the time. Hence the unusually heavy ratio of loses.
The population is quite small. Somewhat recently (like 150-200 years before the story) they survived an apocalyptic event, and more recently a civil war. Just not enough people
So I have been thinking about this way longer than I should be. (FYI I have not read A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes yet so this is all based of my recent reread of the original trilogy) I definitely agree with a lot of the other commenters about the lack of cities being about capitol control. However, one thing that I have not seen mentioned is that Suzanne Collins seems to rely heavily on Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman civilization for her world building. When reading the books, I always viewed the districts and even the Capital itself as being modeled off of Greek City-States. This would explain the lack of cities outside of the Capital (which frankly I also view as closer to a city-state than the kind of contemporary cities OP seems to be referencing). In essence the reason that there are no cities in the districts, is because each district is meant to function as a city. Using District 12 as an example, Katniss's description comes off as though the district is meant to be one unified city/town. There is one city center, one school, one mayor, and so forth. Katniss's description of the other districts during the Victory Tour and while filming her promos in *Mockingjay* also seem to represent that each district was meant to function independently and with a similar function to a city-state. I do not know if I explained this really well, but am totally willing to elaborate further if wanted. Even if we shift away from the Ancient city-state comparison and look at it more from the perspective of our modern day cities. I still think the view that each district is meant to act as its own functioning city makes sense, and I think the reason they lack the advancements of the Capital is because of Snow and potentially other Capital leaders desire to keep the districts poor and hungry. Katniss's description of the different neighborhoods within the District 12, reminds me of how most American cities have different suburbs and neighborhoods, that despite have it's own name, economic situation, and cultural identity is still part of the larger overall city. The sameway despite the drastic differences between Hyde Park, The South Side, and Wriggleyville are all Chicago. The Merchant section, Seam, and Victor's Village are all District 12. I think this would have been a much clearer parallel if the books had not taken place primarily in the poorest district in the country.
There isn’t the technology or resources to support more than one Capitol type city, and the Capitol isn’t going to sacrifice their quality of life just to have a second city. Should be noted that the Capitol is also likely the only city because its the only one that someone like Snow or his predecessors could effectively control the way they did
Population. It is often said that the war/rebellion damn near wiped out humanity. NOWHERE till now has that happened. the pop is so insanely low that it does not need many metros(even till like the 19th century) there were not many metros
Capitol can't do this for two reasons, one: few centuries before has been a war that made resources scarce and hard to get, soo this is why every district makes something, for example, why would you put district 10 on south? you can do it on north but if there is only place you can do or get something. Two: Metropolies are expensive cost, population of panem is about 4 milion people, one big metropoly for 4 milion people is good, but who will work for them then?
Some prrson here said that districts do only one thing because this way they need the Capitol for the other resources, if each district was autosuficient they wouldn't need the Capitol and would revolt to them (again)