Going back over the Hunger Games I started to wonder the what the impact of tributes initially refusing to kill each other would be. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes showed what the first arena looked like and how the tributes were initially treated, and how Snow impacted the development of the Games. If it wasn’t entertaining, the people of the Capitol wouldn’t watch it, and if they didn’t have this impression that the children from the Districts were beneath them and hadn’t dehumanized them so much it seems like it would be easy to paint the Capitol as the enemy by refusing to fight. Kind of like Civil Disobedience in a way, but inevitably ending up as martyrs. It's one thing to have them kill each other, cementing the idea in the Capitol’s mind that the districts are the enemy and are animals, but to just straight up kill the kids on camera would come across so differently. I think that is why rewards became so important. Survival, the promise of food and stability for the rest of your life, and just knowing that you could take your family out of poverty would be a huge motive for fighting instead of all joining together and refusing. It would be impossible to make it unanimous when the stakes are that high.
I think that’s why Katniss’ action of refusing to kill herself or kill Peeta showed their humanity, and showed the people that there is another way. It created a stalemate. If the Capitol killed them both right then, there would be unrest in both the districts, and the Capitol because they were fan favorites. This is also present in Catching Fire when all the tributes are at the last interview and all join hands together. They made Snow the enemy by pointing out that he has a choice, and all the prior winners were already fan favorites. So, by doing the Quarter Quell, Snow is killing off people the Capitol loves, too. He could have easily let them live and stayed in the good graces of the Capitol, but sends them all to the arena anyways. The stakes are a lot different for the tributes then, because now joining together and making alliances is about the rebellion, not just survival. They already have their basic needs practically met, so it is easier for them to make the choice to hold out for as long as they do. The choice to not fight, to have to prove their humanity to the people putting them in cages and killing their families, to paint themselves as resilient and peaceful even though they have been the victims all along. Suzanne Collins was really ahead of the game.
