The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion

by Lois H. Gresh

  THROWING AN AX

  The techniques for throwing an ax are similar to those of throwing knives and spears. But as you may have guessed, they differ in some ways. As mentioned in earlier sections, the tributes do have the option of training with axes before they compete in the Games. When Haymitch was in the Games, a girl tried to kill him with an ax, which flew over a cliff, bounced off a force field, returned to the playing field, and killed her (Catching Fire, 202). If not for this ax and Haymitch’s intelligent move—he ducked, knowing the ax would hit the force field and return—he would have died. And it’s this clue from Haymitch’s earlier Games that helps save Katniss later. In one of the many blood-drenched scenes in The Hunger Games trilogy, Johanna drives an ax into Cashmere’s chest while Finnick saves Peeta from Brutus’s spear but yields to Enobaria’s knife, which slices into his leg (Catching Fire, 333).

  As noted earlier, weapons such as knives, spears, and axes are central to The Hunger Games. And as with these other tools, axes have been used since the dawn of time. The earliest known axes had stone heads with wooden handles. Later, axes were made from cooper, bronze, iron, and steel. Modern axes tend to have steel heads and wooden handles.

  Since the late Neolithic time period, axes have had spiritual significance for many people. For example, axes have been found that clearly weren’t used in fights or wars. These axes were probably early gifts to the gods. Female priests used double axes in religious ceremonies in Minoan, Crete.

  For the early Romans, axes were symbols of execution, and later, axes symbolized Fascist Italy during Mussolini’s time.

  In folklore, people thought stone axes were thunderbolts that guarded them against lightning. To protect their crops from bad weather, people often put steel axes in their fields.

  The most common form of the ax as a weapon is probably the standard battle ax. Compared to a spear, knife, or sword, the battle ax can cleave into armor more readily.

  Other forms of the ax as a weapon include the tomahawks used by Native Americans; the Japanese ono—the Japanese word for ax—which was typically four feet long with a huge steel blade and was used by shei warrior monks; and the Slovak shepherd valaka, which looks like a walking stick. Throwing axes, specifically, tend to be smaller than other fighting axes, and if made exclusively from metal, can inflict a great deal of damage.

  USING A BOW AND ARROW

  Bows and arrows . . . the fighting, hunting, and pleasure choice of Katniss Everdeen. If not for her prowess with bows and arrows, her family wouldn’t survive the starvation, she wouldn’t survive the Games, and most of her friends would be dead, as well.

  Her weapon of choice, the bows and arrows are illegal, and while she hides them in the woods, she tells us how rare they are, how the officials would have “publicly executed” her father “for inciting a rebellion” had they found them (The Hunger Games, 5).

  The bow and arrow even help save her mother from the deep depression she’s been suffering since losing her husband in a mine explosion. Katniss, her mother, and Prim have been starving and without meat for months, and when Katniss makes her first kill with her father’s bow and arrows, it awakens something in her mother, a glimmer of hope. The meat, a rabbit, may have reminded her mother of life before her husband died. Unfortunately, when someone is depressed, it takes more than a memory wisp to break free, and Katniss’s mother sinks quickly back into deep depression anyway (The Hunger Games, 51).

  In the most basic terms, a bow is made up of a pair of curved flexible limbs that are connected by string. The draw weight of a bow is a measure of its power, the force required to hold the string stationary when you draw the string completely back. When choosing a bow, keep in mind that the draw weight is a measure of how much weight is required to actually draw the bow back. Hence, the archer’s strength is a prime factor in determining an appropriate draw weight for his bow. A larger draw weight means the bow is more powerful, which in turn, means the arrows can go farther and faster.

  Also, the actual size of the archer makes a difference: If your arms are long, you can draw the bow back further, and the arrows are going to fly farther and faster. If you have to hold the bow high in order to gain leverage and aim, then the bow is too heavy for you. If your muscles shake when you draw the strings back, then the bow is too heavy for you.

  Shooting arrows in the wild, say while hunting or aiming at other tributes, is different from shooting at a practice range. For one thing, drawing the bow smoothly becomes increasingly difficult as you become tired from running and hunting; and also as you become more tense or cold. If in a hunt to the death, as in the Hunger Games, the exhaustion and stress coupled with the use of a bow not fitted to your strength, weight, and body measurements could result in your death. In addition, if using a bow and arrows for a lengthy amount of time, you could very well suffer from chronic tendonitis and bursitis: overuse injuries that afflict archers using bows with the correct draw weight. With an incorrect draw weight, these shoulder and elbow injuries intensify. How Katniss copes with these issues in the Games and the Quarter Quell is truly amazing.

  The draw length of a bow is determined by the length of the archer’s arms and width of her shoulders. It is the distance between the grip and the string when you hold the bow at full draw. Arrows are often shorter or longer than the draw length.

  The basic parts of a bow are:

  The nock, which is a groove where the string is attached to the bow.

  The upper limb.

  The arrow pass.

  The grip, where the archer holds the bow.

  The lower limb.

  The bowstring.

  The belly, which is the side of the bow facing the archer.

  The back, which is the side of the bow facing the target.

  The bow can also come with different profiles, among them:

  Curved. This type of bow is cheaper than most recurved bows, and the same bow can be fitted to archers who are right or left handed. For beginners, this is the most common bow used today.

  Double curved.

  Asymmetric.

  B-shaped.

  Four curved.

  Triangular.

  Joined angular.

  Compound. These include pulleys and cams, and are often used by modern hunters. As far as we know, Katniss’s bow doesn’t have pulleys and cams, stabilizer inserts, sight windows, and so forth, so hers is not the type of bow used by most hunters today.

  Simple bows are made from one type of material, most commonly wood. Backed bows are made from one type of material plus a backing of resilient material for strength. Quite often, the resilient material is made from another type of wood or from sinew. Laminated bows are made from three or more types of material, though typically all are different woods. Composite bows are made from three layers of different materials, such as wood, sinew, and horn. Modern recurved bows might have wood cores coated by carbon and fiberglass laminates.

  Bow strings are made from all sorts of materials: sinew, flax, hemp, cotton, ramie, silk, etc.

  At the training center for the Games, Katniss encounters a wide variety of bows made from all sorts of materials, some so exotic she doesn’t know what they are. The arrows are perfect. But the practice range is nothing for her, offering only human silhouettes and bull’s-eyes.

  The bows are different from the ones to which she’s accustomed, and at first, her practice is way off target because of the tension in the bow. However after a lot of practice, her aim is dead-on again (The Hunger Games, 101). This makes a lot of sense because in reality, the elasticity of the bow directly affects the projection of the arrows. When you pull back the strings of the bow, potential energy is stored within the bow itself. When you release the bow, the string is released, as well, and the potential energy is transformed into projectile motion.

  In the actual Games, a tribute would have to use any bows she finds, and it would be impossible to train with them or get accustomed to them before using them in a life-threatening s
ituation. If someone is short, then a bow might weigh too much or be too big to hold. If someone is tall, then a bow might be too small for a good grip and release. If someone doesn’t have sufficient muscles in her arms, shoulders, and back, she may not be able to use a larger or heavier bow. So Katniss is actually quite lucky during both the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell to find bows that fit her size and physical abilities.

  For tributes without Katniss’s experience with the bow and arrows, the Games can prove deadly. Remember Glimmer? She tries to kill Katniss with arrows, but she doesn’t have much skill (The Hunger Games, 182).

  By 16000 BC, ancient people were binding flint points to split shafts using sinew. They were also binding feathers to the shafts. So people have used arrows for hunting and protection since very early times. As for bows, we’ve found fragments dating back to approximately 8000 BC, but these were lost during World War II. Fragments dating to 6000 BC still exist, however, from Denmark.

  Cave paintings show people using bows between 10000 and 5000 BC. The earliest bows we know about were made of wood and came in varying shapes and sizes. For example, the flat bow found in Holmegaard, Denmark dating back to approximately 6000 BC is straight with pointed ends. From the late Stone Age, circa 2000–1500 BC, an oak bow found in peat in Viborg, Denmark is slightly curved with pointed ends. An early Egyptian bow, made from acacia wood, dates to 1400 BC and has a double convex shape.

  Like bows, arrows come in many sizes and shapes. In general, the parts of the arrow are:

  Head or point.

  Shaft.

  Crest.

  Index feather or vane.

  Fletching or feather.

  Nock.

  Most of the common arrowhead shapes were developed during the Stone Age:

  Lozenge.

  Barbed.

  Swallowtail.

  Leaf.

  Triangular.

  Chisel.

  The shape of an arrow’s shaft is important to its projection toward the target. The shaft must be flexible, but not too flexible. If too stiff, it will swerve sideways in flight and miss the target. And if not stiff enough, it will continue to bend in flight and slow down.

  Also important is the type of arrow you use. Wooden arrows are the most common. Fiberglass arrows break easily but can be fitted to the archer’s draw length and weight. Aluminum arrows are durable and can use different arrow tips, but they’re expensive. Carbon and aluminum-carbon arrows are very expensive but quick in flight.

  The nock of an arrow is critical to the performance of an archer in hitting her target. Typically, it’s a tiny piece of plastic that is pushed into the end of the shaft or glued directly onto the shaft. It must fit snugly on the string but be loose enough to enable the arrow to fly when you release it.

  If the nook is at all crooked, you might aim perfectly but still miss your target. A slightly misaligned nook is all it takes to push an arrow sideways and make it fly way off target.

  Fletching refers to the feathers or plastic vanes on the bow. Most feather fletching is made from the primary wings of a turkey. While vanes might be more durable and quiet than feathers, the latter is much more effective when using a bow that doesn’t fit you perfectly. Feathers compress and enable a smoother aim at your target, whereas plastic vanes don’t compress and might flicker off target as you shoot. Feathers are also lighter and provide a faster initial speed to the arrow. So in the case of the Games, it would be to Katniss’s advantage to use feather bows rather than plastic vanes.

  The fletching size is also important, and today, it’s common to see arrows with three 5-inch feather or plastic vanes. To make the arrows lighter, some hunters use three 4-inch fletches. But as with everything related to archery, the fletching size is also affected by the arrowheads.

  Perhaps the most interesting aspects of bows and arrows in the trilogy are found in the third book, Mockingjay. When preparing for outright military combat, Katniss uses weapons that are loaded with “scopes and gadgetry” (Mockingjay, 68).

  Scopes attach to bows and enable more precise aim at the target. As with everything else having to do with bows and arrows, the scopes come in many types. For example, a laser scope projects a red dot onto the target, so you can pinpoint exactly where you want to hit before you release the arrow.

  For beginners, scopes are useful to reduce the anxiety caused by killing creatures. They enable you to focus on the red dot rather than the animal. Sad, but true.

  It’s unlikely that Katniss would prefer all the gadgetry to what she’s accustomed to using. Sometimes, if you have to think too much about what to twiddle and fuss with, you lose focus on your prime agenda, which is killing your target quickly. If an animal is racing away through a thicket, for example, it makes more sense to do what Katniss has always done: shift position quickly, aim, and shoot—without overthinking the situation.

  Scopes and Gadgets: A Partial List

  Fiber optic scope

  This is the most common type of scope on a bow. It channels light into the tip of a pin, and from there, emits a bright dot (usually red) onto the target. The scope includes a pin guard to protect the fibers.

  Single-pin scopes

  For close-range shooting a fixed single-pin scope may suffice. But for shooting at variable and longer distances, movable single-pin scopes make more sense. Here, the hunter can adjust her “sight” to the correct distance while pinpointing her target.

  Multiple-pin scopes

  Most pin scopes have four-to-five pins that you can set in increments of approximately ten yards. When the distances shift constantly between you and the target, these multiple “sights” enable you to stalk and kill prey with increased precision. But using this type of scope also requires that you pause and frame your target within the correct pins in your configuration, and then shoot. If battling to the death in a Hunger Games arena, good luck!

  Dot scopes

  Most of these scopes are electronic and illegal in some US states. They rely on batteries, which can die during the hunt. Also, a dot scope requires a heavy mounting bracket, so it’s not particularly useful when you’re running from killers and shooting tributes to save your own neck. The dot sight looks like a fancy, old-fashioned camera device, with a long, protruding “lens” and several focus knobs and handles. The red target dot is displayed inside the scope itself.

  Rife-Bar scopes

  This device has a rear “sight” as well as a front “sight” that’s on a foot-long steel bar. You have to adjust the “sights” for various distances, so this probably isn’t a great choice when using archery in battles to the death.

  Crosshair scopes

  A very common type of scope, the crosshair enables hunters to target their hits accurately without missing a beat. An added “peep sight” lets the hunter view the target although the vertical string of the crosshair scope might be obstructing her view.

  Laser scopes

  Laser scopes are electronic and illegal in some US states. Similar to a dot scope, the laser variety projects the red dot onto the target rather than displaying the dot inside the scope itself. If too far from a target, the red dot will not display accurately where you want it. The beam’s strength is highly dependent on distance.

  Mechanical release aids

  Most archers today use mechanical release aids, which grip the string at one point, thus enabling each arrow to fly from the identical place on the string. You squeeze a trigger on the mechanism to shoot the arrow. As with everything else, there are many types of mechanical release aids, among them, finger held, concho, and wrist strap.

  Shooting gloves

  These are typically made out of leather and have slots for three of your fingers. Also included is a leather strap to secure the glove to your wrist.

  Finger tabs and spacers

  A finger tab is typically a small leather pad secured to your middle finger with a tiny ring. A finger spacer is often used with a finger tab. You place the tab between your fingers and
the string.

  Arrow rests

  This device holds the nocked arrow in place and is considered vital by many archers. It helps keep the arrow aligned correctly at the moment you release it.

  Nock sets

  These are placed at the nock point of the string. They consist of either extra thread wrapped around the nock point or a couple of metal rings. Nock sets help prevent the arrow from slipping.

  String silencers

  As the name implies, a string silencer dampens the vibration noises of your string. Typically, you attach a rubber strip about six inches from the end of the string. You knot the strip in place, then use a knife or scissors to shear the strip into threads.