Debunking My Subscribers' Hunger Games Theories | Episode 14

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:08]Hey guys, what's up? I'm CJ and welcome back to my Galaxy. Today I am back with another debunking series video where I debunk your Hunger Games theories. Now, if you guys haven't come across this series before, what happens is that I have a Google Form linked in the description where my subscribers are able to submit their own theories about The Hunger Games and then I react to them and tell you whether or not I believe it could be a possibility of being true. I only put a few of the theories in each video because I can only get to a few of them. Usually it's three or four. Today I have three theories and I think that you guys are going to really enjoy them. So, if you guys do want to add your own theories and have me react to them on this channel, please leave your theories in the Google Form which is linked in the description like I said. I would love to be able to read all of them. You guys have been submitting like a lot of them so I have like enough for like keeps of videos in the future. So, keep submitting them because I absolutely love reading them. You guys are so smart and I can't wait to hear more of your theories. I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled program to let you guys know that I'm trying to reach 5,000 subscribers here on my YouTube channel and when I do reach that milestone, I'm going to be doing a video where I'm deep diving into Peter Mellark's characterization. Now, I know you guys would absolutely love a video on that so definitely subscribe so I can make that video. I make Hunger Games content three times a week over here on my YouTube channel and I also make daily content on my TikTok. So, make sure you follow me here on YouTube and over on TikTok which is linked in the description down below.

[00:01:43]Now, back to the video. So, let's get into the theories for today's video.

[00:01:48]Theory number one, District 4 only sends one career tribute each year. I believe that District 4 only sends one career tribute each year. Districts 1 and 2 have sent two tributes that trained and volunteered. This way they double their chances of a victor each year. District 4 on the other hand chooses one tribute that is prepared / trained and allows the other to be chosen randomly. That would explain why Finnick was in the games. Even if he is the super impressive person who could win at 14, why would they wait a year so he could be bigger / stronger? They have no reason to even believe a 14-year-old can win. Same idea with it Annie. She's not a fighter. Why would she volunteer?

[00:02:28]Thank you for sending in this theory.

[00:02:30]Anyone who has sent in a theory is going to be credited in my description as well so you'll see like theory one and then someone credited. And if they it's only an option to send in anything you want credited like your name, your socials, whatever. So, not everyone's going to be credited in the description so if you haven't put your name down in the form and then this is your theory, then let me know in the comments below or if any of other theories are mentioned in this video or any future videos, comment down below that it was you that sent it in.

[00:02:58]But when it comes to this theory, it's actually interesting because a lot of The Hunger Games fandom actually believes in this theory as well. I hear it like quite a bit in the fandom space that people think that District 4 isn't actually as well off as Districts 1 and 2 and because of that they only send in one person. And it's mostly based around the fact that Finnick was placed into the games at 14. And I don't think it's necessarily in the books and remind me if I'm wrong, but in the movies Cato actually kills a District 4 boy who I think we assume is about 12, 13, like quite young compared to like the winning victors, like winning tributes. So, there is actually evidence that the District 4 is actually sending in tributes that are actually quite a bit younger than the rest of the careers. If we take a look at the other career tributes, we'll see characters like Cato, Clove, Marvel, Glimmer in the first games, all of which we assume are older and they're bigger and they've likely been pre-selected by the districts themselves to volunteer or they like volunteered themselves to go into The Hunger Games to bring glory to their districts. We even see with District 4 that Annie, she's widely believed and I don't know how confirmed it is by the text. I don't think they ever explicitly state how old Annie is, but we assume she's between 16 and 18. A lot of people believe that she is actually 18 at the time of her games meaning that Annie was quite a bit older and was likely pre-selected to go into The Hunger Games by her district and not just by the reaping bowl from the capital. So, Districts 1 and 2 very likely send in their toughest, their strongest, their oldest people to be tributes in The Hunger Games to give them a chance to win and then like bring glory to the districts and as well bring food and resources into their districts therefore making them like even wealthier as a district. They're not starving say like District 12. A part of the theory as well is suggesting that District 4 had no reason to believe that Finnick would win his games and that's because literally no one had at that point. Finnick was historically the youngest to win The Hunger Games at 14.

[00:05:10]So, anyone below 15 was not going to win historically. Like it just wasn't going to happen. There's even a point at the very in the very first novel when Prim is reaped before Katniss volunteers that Katniss says in her inner monologue that people are disapproving. They're like shaking their heads. There's like mumbling in saying that they think that it's unfair that a 12-year-old was chosen for The Hunger Games because they have no reason to survive. They're too young to defend themselves. I was quite young when I read The Hunger Games so a 12-year-old to me like I didn't really make an impression cuz I was nine, maybe 10 when I first read The Hunger Games.

[00:05:47]But looking back now, I like I see 12-year-olds now and they're like tiny.

[00:05:51]They're so young. Obviously they're not going to be able to defend themselves.

[00:05:55]Even 13 and 14-year-olds, they're like super young especially compared to like a 16 to 18-year-old who has a much better chance at winning because they're bigger, they've grown up quite a bit more and they've like hit puberty and grown up and they're almost an adult at that stage whereas the 12 to 14-year-olds very much are not. So, the odds were never in the favor of the kids [clears throat] who were 12 to 14 and Finnick very likely was not going to win. District 4 is the only career district that we see this with where they send someone who is likely a bit older. We see I think it's the District 4 female tribute in Katniss's first games that is in with the career tributes and then we don't see the District 4 boy. So, they're the only people that we see that send one older tribute and one younger tribute like with Finnick. Finnick was just a fluke because people saw him as a desirable and he got the sponsor gifts of a trident so they supported him more. I am a believer that this theory is implied by the text that District 4 is the only career district that sends in one tribute that's older, one is and one who is less likely to win because once again they're the only ones that we see any sort of behavior like that from.

[00:07:08]Districts 1 and 2 have the strong tributes like Cato and Clove and Glimmer and Marvel. So, yeah, I definitely believe in this theory so thank you for sending it in. Theory number two, Bonnie and Twill were killed by President Coin.

[00:07:22]I'm always down for Hunger Games theories especially the creative and crazy ones. This one is pretty tame, but I've always believed that Bonnie and Twill, two District 8 girls from Catching Fire, were killed by President Coin and not by the elements or President Snow. My evidence is that Peeta who was taken after their supposed disappearance never saw them in the capital. And while the weather was bad and one of them was injured, they were close enough to District 13 to either make it or be found on the pathway / close by where Katniss hunts again and multiple times in the areas of District 12 / 13. Coin always shows that she's not above torture / murder of innocents if they pose a threat to her plans. They would be extremely loyal to Katniss which is not what she wants. And they wore Peacekeeper outfits and Coin seems to be shoot first, ask questions later.

[00:08:07]This theory is really intriguing actually. When I first read it, I in order to like outline this video, I was thinking like I've never heard something like this before. I've never even considered this to be a possibility, but honestly, I'm inclined to believe this one as like a real possibility. I think I agree way too much with the theories in these videos. I'm Usually I read you guys' theories out and I'm like, yeah, no, I believe that. Could be true. Who knows? But at the same time, I like the theory. But this one, I definitely think that it is a big possibility. Katniss actually speculates and we know that Katniss is a very much biased narrator and she whatever she says doesn't necessarily mean it's true. But the Katniss says at some point that Bonnie and Twill like we we never find out what happened. She assumes that they died in the elements because how could they have survived with the injury? Katniss only gave them so much food. Of course they died to the natural elements. And it's kind of left at that as well. We don't dwell too much on death in The Hunger Games series either and I think that's mostly because it's a trauma response from Katniss. I think there's one point in the novel that Katniss thinks about Madge dying and it's essentially confirmed at the end of the novel that Madge died in the District 12 bombings, but Katniss doesn't really dwell on it.

[00:09:24]I think she says something along the lines of being a mayor's daughter doesn't exempt you from like the bombings or being killed in a war. The one thing I don't necessarily with when it comes to this theory is that you said that Peeta was taken by the capital and he never mentions Bonnie and Twill being in the capital area. Like we see characters like Darius and I think her name's Lavinia, the red-headed Avox girl that Katniss knew from outside of like being captured outside of District 12 and eventually becoming an Avox. Like they're tortured and killed in the capital when Peter, Johanna, and Annie and Enobaria, I forgot her name for a second, Enobaria were being tortured in the capital, but Peter never mentions Bonnie and Twill potentially they were captured by the capital and were turned into A boxes, but I think the thing that I disagree with in that part of the theory is that Peter actually doesn't tell us a whole lot about his time in the capital. We don't get a whole lot of stories. It's mostly when we find out about Peter's time in the capital, it's him like just blabbing about whatever comes to mind because he's trying to heal and he's not really paying attention to things that he potentially shouldn't be saying in that social situation. At that point, Peter's kind of lost his mind, so he's just saying anything that comes to mind. So, when it comes to Peter knowing whether or not Bonnie and Twill are in the capital, I don't think we would necessarily know. I don't think Snow would necessarily know that Bonnie and Twill are associated with Katniss either. So, if Bonnie and Twill were captured by the capital, then I think that they could be A boxes literally anywhere. That is if they weren't killed by President Snow for escaping, but I assume there are a lot of people who did escape their districts more than the people we see in District 13 when Katniss arrives there. So, I think it's just a matter of figuring out like what happened to these refugees.

[00:11:09]There's not a whole lot of refugees in District 13. We see a couple of people, one specifically, I don't remember his name, but he's from District 10 and he's working with Coin or closely with Coin in the military. And where did everyone go because District 12 were the most recent refugees to enter District 13?

[00:11:27]Surely during the war there were other people escaping the districts trying to find District 13 and more of a safe haven because the other districts were being directly targeted. There is one occasion where District 13 is directly targeted, but it's rare, especially since District 8 is being targeted so often like we see in the books and the movies that District 8's hospital is attacked. There are surely people who are running from District 8 other than just Bonnie and Twill. Although at some stage they do mention that Bonnie and Twill were the only ones that made it out during that wave of attacks that they list left District 8 during. I think this theory fills in the gaps of where did all of the refugees go? I don't think it's necessarily just Bonnie and Twill that were potentially killed by President President Coin. It could have been multiple refugees. I almost want to say that District 12 was reluctantly accepted into District 13 by Coin and it's only because that there were so few people after the epidemic that I think it was like a pox epidemic.

[00:12:25]I don't know if they explicitly state it's a pox epidemic, but it was an epidemic of some sort in District 13 that killed a bunch of people. So, they accept District 12 in in order to build back their population. And where I'm getting the reluctance to accept District 12 into District 13 from is the fact that they actually have their own like meal table. They all interact with each other and that could be because yeah, they know each other and they kind of congregate with the people that they do know, but District 13 doesn't interact with 12 that much when they're in the underground base of District 13.

[00:12:58]Not to mention as well on top of the rest of the theory is that Katniss' prep team was actually very much tortured in District 13. Coin has a history of torturing people and starving them and trying to get information out of them if they don't serve her agenda. There is one difference that yeah, Bonnie and Twill were from District 8 and the prep team were from the capital. So, like the prep team is from the opposing side and that's why they tortured as well, but Coin has a lot of reluctance to let them into District 13 even when she discovers that they were there is nothing wrong with the prep team. Katniss is the only reason that they're protected and let into the rest of the District 13.

[00:13:37]There's definitely a lot of things that could mean this theory is true. Another thing that's like legit just came to mind is the fact that District 13 actually discovered District 12 after the bombing. So, when Gale is looking after everyone who survived, I think it's something like 400-ish people that survived from District 12. District 13 stumbles upon them. They likely were searching just outside of the area of District 12 after it was bombed to see if there were any survivors, but that means that District 13 very much has the capability of finding people in the wilderness near them. So, if there's any refugees during the war, especially if District 13 is frequently being bombed, then District 13 could be going out and searching for survivors. So, why didn't they do that with Bonnie and Twill? It's very likely that they did find Bonnie and Twill when they were searching for survivors after the initial District 8 bombing that resulted in Bonnie and Twill escaping, but perhaps they were too weak and they weren't serving Coin's agenda, so she left them to die in the woods or she directly killed them like this theory suggests. The idea of this theory is really fascinating, so thank you for sharing. I definitely agree with this one. It's something to definitely think about and think through like is there a possibility that Bonnie and Twill were found, but they didn't serve Coin's agenda, so she killed them or left them for the dead. Theory number three. Barb Azure is the Donnor twins' grandmother. Barb Azure is the only Covey member who gets absolutely no mention in Sunrise on the Reaping except Billy Taupe who is dead by the end of Ballad. We know Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine are alive. Lucy Gray either died or spent her life in the woods. Maude Ivory is in the graveyard and likely Lenora Dove's mother. Barb Azure gets not so much as a mention. If she is alive, she could have easily been thrown in there perhaps performing with the others. And if she was dead, she could have been in the graveyard. I see people say she's possibly Burdock's grandmother, but I don't believe this.

[00:15:34]If she was his grandma and he is still close to the Covey, then why does he not have a Covey name? It makes no sense. I think after she stopped seeing her gal cuz homophobia was on the rise, she started a fling with a marketplace man.

[00:15:48]The Covey disapproved of this cuz of what happened with Snow and Lucy Gray.

[00:15:52]Barb Azure gets pregnant and stops seeing the man. On his deathbed he asked to see her again. She agrees. The Covey gets mad and she abandons them.

[00:16:00]He died and she gains all his money. She raises her daughter as a marketplace gal and does not tell her of her origins.

[00:16:07]The daughter marries a man named Mr. Donnor and they have twins. Barb Azure dies and is buried with her husband. The reason I suspect the Donnor twins are Covey is because of a few reasons.

[00:16:17]Maesley loves color and her gold necklaces and uses color to remember the tributes. She is decently rebellious.

[00:16:24]She has an odd fascination with Lenora Dove. Her grandma told her Lucy Gray's song. Her grandma was wild. And they were given pins by Tam Amber. Perhaps he sold them or perhaps he knew they were Covey. Please reference Barb Azure's ballad Barbara Allen as I believe it works well with this story I've laid out too. The back and forth, the deathbed, the being buried together. Could this show up in a third prequel set during the time of the 25th games? I like the concept of this theory that perhaps the Donnor twins are related to the Covey in some form. I don't necessarily believe Barb Azure is directly related to them by DNA. I'm working on a series where I'm analyzing the Covey's poems to kind of assume like what happened with their fates and I have read the Barbara Allen poem. Essentially the Barbara Allen poem is a man who asks for I think it's his lover or someone who he is in love with on his deathbed and it essentially follows the man saying look after Barbara Allen like what he adored about Barbara Allen and it goes into him being buried and I think at the end Barbara Allen is buried next to the man. I've mentioned on the channel before that I don't like the idea of Barb Azure being in a lavender marriage. I'm not saying it's not necessarily something that would happen in District 12. I know there's also a lot of speculation around Otto Mellark, Peter Mellark's father, that he was in a lavender marriage and he was actually in love with Burdock Everdeen and that's because Otto describes Burdock's singing voice and he seems like low-key kind of in love with Burdock instead of actually Astrid. I understand the idea of perhaps rising homophobia in District 12 because the capital is very much into traditional marriages and heterosexual marriages and we don't see a lot of that later in Katniss' time as much as we see in like the prequels with like queer relationships. However, I do know that they mention that Clerk Carmine had a lover in Sunrise on the Reaping that they broke up. He broke his heart, but Clerk Carmine is actually also gay and explicitly gay in Sunrise on the Reaping. The Covey has no issue with their family members being queer. Barb Azure like the series states that she had a gal down the road. She was seeing a gal down the road and that's mentioned in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I don't like the fact that she would be in a in a lavender marriage because the Covey doesn't have an issue with it. I think that they would hide Barb Azure's queerness in District 12 even if she couldn't be with someone or they would hide her relationship. They're a very rebellious group of people, so the fact that they're queer would mean that they'd be open and proud about it because that's rebelling against the traditional system. So, I do think Barb Azure would have continued being queer and in relationships because like she's rebelling. She doesn't care if that was going to get her killed. And in that same train of thought, I suspect and from reading the Barbara Allen poem, I suspect that there is actually a relation to the Donnor family. We don't necessarily take the poems literally in the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes out of like all the Covey names. They're not literal meanings. They're translated to the Hunger Games world. So, there are things that can be literal, but there are things that can be like metaphorical or symbolic in that way like Lucy Gray disappears into the snow in the Lucy Gray the William Wordsworth Lucy Gray poem, but Lucy Gray disappears into the snow as in the snow the character. So, when it comes to Barb Azure potentially being related to the Donnor family, I think that potentially she had a lesbian relationship with maybe the Donnor's mother or grandmother. And the idea of increasing homophobia that the theory mentions in District 12 is that they had to keep their relationship secret or they eventually had to split up because there was like a lavender marriage involved, but it wasn't Bob Ascher. It was the Donnor family, either mother or grandmother, who entered into a lavender marriage simply because she's a merchant girl and had to have that like upper class life, that upper class traditional life like Ortho Mallark might have had.

[00:20:28]I'm definitely going to make an entire video of like analyzing the Barbara Allen poem so I can extend on this theory further. But essentially what I think is Bob Ascher's lover, who was a woman, a merchant class girl, she asked for her Bob Ascher on her deathbed and eventually the family found out about this relationship and they were buried together. The reason I've been saying the Donnor's mother or grandmother is because I don't think the timing's actually perfectly line up. I think that if Bob Ascher was related to the Donnor's, she'd be more in the generation of mother / friends or girlfriends with the Donnor's mother rather than grandmother. I don't think Bob Ascher was that much older than the rest of the Covey or Lucy Gray. She'd be around about the same age as Tam Amber and maybe in between like Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine in ages. Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber raised Lunor Dove. They were a little bit older than say Maude Ivory, but I don't think they were quite old enough to be a grandmother or grandparents at this stage. But this theory talks a lot about the Donnor family having like indications that they're related to the Covey in some way because one of the biggest things is that Tam Amber actually creates the necklaces or not the necklaces, the pins, the mockingjay pins specifically.

[00:21:37]And I can't remember what the other bird was that Marylily got. Remind me in the comments below. But Tam Amber made the mockingjay pin and it went to Mazily and then Marylily got a matching pin. So Tam Amber had a business, of course, in order to like make a living. I imagine a lot of seam people actually bought from his business rather than merchant class people because of the way that the class division was in District 12. Of course, merchant class people could always buy from Tam Amber, but there's a very specific connection there with Tam Amber, especially since he actually creates a mockingjay pin for Mazily that was connected with Lucy Gray. It's connected to the Covey as a whole. Those songbirds, they represent the Covey.

[00:22:16]Mazily has a weird hate for Lunor Dove as well. So potentially like Mazily knows that the Covey is connected to her family in some way and she hates maybe Mazily has a little bit of internalized homophobia and hates the fact that Bob Ascher could have like torn apart her family in some way. Or maybe she just hates the fact that like her family was being torn apart because of Bob Ascher and it's not based in homophobia, but you guys get what I mean. There's definitely a connection to the Covey in some way with the Donnor family and I really love that part of the theory. I just don't think it's necessarily meaning that Bob Ascher was the Donnor's mother or grandmother. I think there's every chance that the Donnor's mother was a lover of Bob Ascher and the reason that Bob Ascher is not buried with the Covey in the Covey graveyard with Lunor Dove, Lucy Gray, and Maude Ivory is because she's buried in the merchant area with her lover that she was not allowed to be with in life, which reflects, like I said earlier, the Barbara Allen poem. But yeah, it's a really interesting theory. So thank you so much for sharing as well and thank you everyone for sharing your theories today. Speculating around the Donnor family is something that I love to do as well since Mazily is a very interesting, very rebellious character that I would love more information on. Or like we have a lot of information on her, but we don't have a lot of information on her like day-to-day life because we're not in her head, but I would love to like know what's going on in Mazily's head specifically. And I love her relationship with Haymitch in the books.

[00:23:43]I would just love to be in Mazily's head to know exactly what her day-to-day life was because I just I find her a very interesting character in the same way like Lucy Gray and Lunor Dove are because those characters were very rebellious and they went against the system and we didn't get insights into their own heads because we didn't have the personal narration from them. And in saying that, that means Mazily very likely is Covey because her characterization is similar to Lunor Dove and Lucy Gray. But that is it for today's video, guys. If you'd like, please like and subscribe and comment down below what you thought of today's theories. Do you agree Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you want to add any evidence of your own to these theories?

[00:24:20]And if you have your own theories that you want me to debunk in this series, let me know by filling out the form in the description down below. Once again, thank you so much for everyone who shared their theories and if you're going to share a theory or if you have in the past, thank you for sharing that and they will very likely be in a video in the future. Once again, guys, I hope you enjoyed this video, but I've been CJ and I'll see you guys in the next video.

[00:24:45]Bye.

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