The Unofficial Hunger Games Companion (17 page)

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.

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: