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Name: Cato
Canon: The Hunger Games
Canon Point: As he's falling off the Cornucopia.


Appearance:

At eighteen years old, Cato is one of the two biggest tributes reaped for the 74th Games along with Thresh from District 11. He's tall (his PB, Alexander Ludwig, stands at 6'2"), broad-chested, and extremely well muscled. Blue eyes and blond hair make him look like your typical primo Aryan youth.

History:

In a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by natural disaster and wars sometime in the distant enough future, the dictatorial nation of Panem rules over the majority of the North American continent. Originally demarcated into thirteen districts, with its Capitol safely ensconced in the Rocky Mountains, the Capitol keeps control by maintaining districts separately and effectively ruling them as a group of banana republics, each with its own very specific industry and exports. The products of each district are by and large exported for the extravagant Capitol's exclusive use and the residents of the districts are left to survive on what's left, with each district's wealth directly proportionate to its proximity to the Capitol. Few citizens within any district know details of the other regions of Panem, due to strict enforcement of the borders by the Capitol's troops - called "Peacekeepers" - and deliberately poor education.

For a while, the status quo went on peaceably enough until seventy five years prior to canon events detailed in the books. Dissatisfied with how things were going, twelve of the thirteen districts rebelled against the Capitol's totalitarian rule during a period later referred to as "the Dark Days". The rebellion didn't last long before it was systematically put down district by district, with District 13 being entirely annihilated by the Capitol (except where they actually weren't, but that's not really relevant to this character so we'll stick with 13 being 86'ed to keep things simple). As punishment for the rebellion and to serve as demoralization, the Capitol instituted the Hunger Games, a yearly tournament whose players are two children between the ages of twelve and eighteen from each district. These children - called "tributes" - are chosen by lottery - "reaped" - and then sent to the Capitol to be groomed and stylized before fighting to the death in a carefully orchestrated and controlled arena that changes every year. The last left alive is crowned the victor and is taken care of for the rest of his or her life whether they choose to live in the Capitol or return to their home districts, while the victor's entire district is given bonus rations for a whole year. What do the people of the Capitol do while all this is going on? Well, they enjoy the show and make bets on who'll last longest because, in case I forgot to mention? The entirety of the Games is filmed and broadcast for your viewing pleasure as mandated by your beloved Capitol.

In the wealthier districts of 1, 2, and 4, there's some slight bending of the rules in that some children are specifically brought up and trained for the Games long before they're eligible for the reaping. Called Career tributes, they spend years honing their skills before volunteering for the Games; with this advantage, a Career more often than not ends up winning the whole smack. For these "children", being the victor is a solemn duty, one that will bring honor, glory, and prosperity to their people as all families in the victor's district are rewarded with extra rations for a whole year.

( Due to the narration being unreliable first person and that deliberately poor education factor, not much else is known about the Career districts other than their particular export and the general fact they train children in advance of the Games. So here we start hitting the speculation and Word of God part of this! Fun stuff ahead. )

Cato hails from District 2, which is in charge of masonry, producing munitions and weapons, and training Peacekeepers. It's located close to the Capitol in the Rocky Mountains, consisting of small villages each pocketed around a local mine. This district was the sole one not to wholeheartedly join in the original rebellion against the Capitol (and will do the same in the second rebellion later in the series, making it the most drawn out stage of the war) and as such receives substantially preferential treatment from the Capitol for that loyalty, with possibly the best living conditions out of the twelve remaining districts.

Children in D-2 are raised on stories of past Games, and past victors are heroes. Potential tributes are volunteered early as age six to the district's training program, whereupon all candidates undergo extensive testing to make sure they're best suited for the Games. (I am assuming parents volunteer their children because if it were simply another extracurricular like soccer, no one would do it, and if it was random selection, it'd be as bad as the Capitol's reaping itself. There's also the possibility of a financial bonus if a family's child is accepted to the program - extra rations possibly?) Usually the candidates number somewhere between twenty and forty per year group to start with and they are thereafter scooped off to the tribute academy, which is somewhere between a very elite boarding school and army brat boot camp. For the next ten or so years, each candidate is tutored in all the things necessary to surviving the games: weapons proficiency, hand to hand combat, survival skills, and hunting and tracking. There are less intensive courses on the public relations aspect of the Games as well - how to behave during interviews, how best to curry favor with and gain sponsors, which role best suits each individual tribute-to-be. Those unfit are weeded out over the years, either through poor results or training accidents, leaving the best of the best. By the time eighteen rolls around, there's a rough dozen contenders for each slot. Then a month before the reaping, there's a last competition to determine who is the best and who should ultimately volunteer.

( Here endeth the speculation. )

Seventy three games later, and the Capitol's still running strong and killing children every year. When the 74th Games come round, there's actually a volunteer from a non-Career district: sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, a miner's daughter from 12 who takes her little sister's place. It's a rare thing, especially from the poorest district of them all, but she gets reaped along with Peeta Mellark who has had a secret crush on her and a not so secret crush on baking since forever. They're sent along to the Capitol and into the arena with everybody else - including brutal, bloody Cato who's been waiting for this moment for all his life. Cue the Phil Collins. Few enough think Katniss has any kind of shot to win but through some timely confessions of the heart from bread boy and some finagling on her drunken mentor's part, Katniss and Peeta manage to sell the "star-crossed lovers" shtick enough that the rules for the Games are changed mid-slaughter: there could be two victors this year instead of one so long as they were from the same district. Through various deadly shenanigans it comes down to Cato versus the D-12's. ...Also versus some genetically engineered wolf-based "muttations" the Gamemakers thought would kick things up a notch. Katniss and Peeta are able to get to high enough ground to escape the mutts only to find Cato's already there! And is now debating the merits of tossing his new meatshield Peeta to the mutts to get in one more kill before Everdeen kills him and wins the Games. Except then she manages to shoot him in the hand and bread boy tosses Cato instead.

And he gets mauled and mangled and ends up screaming a lot before Katniss arrows him into being quiet mutt kibble.

...Oh, yeah, and through her various pre-Cato killing actions Katniss (and Peeta too kinda) inspires a whole new rebellion against the Capitol but that all happens in the other two books that Cato is not in cause he's dead. Yep.

Personality:

Now, some might say that Cato is a perfectly molded sociopath. ...And they're pretty much on point with that.

The first and last word in Cato's life is (naturally) the Hunger Games. In other districts, the Games are seen for what they are: the Capitol's boot on the throat of the people to demonstrate just how entirely powerless they are against the government; in the Career districts (much less so in 4 than 1 and 2), the Capitol's propaganda is taken as gospel. The Capitol maintains order, and without the delicate balance it maintains, the country would fall into chaos and ruin; meanwhile the Hunger Games are the highlight celebration of the year. All of this has been hammered into Cato from the time he could understand it, and he believes it wholeheartedly. To be a victor in D-2 means not only fame, wealth, and glory for yourself, but a guarantee of a year's prosperity for the entire district - thus it is noble and honorable to win for the benefit of all.

In reality? This means that Cato is highly desensitized to harsh autocratic rule and the measures taken to enforce said rule. It's all entirely normal to him, and perfectly rationalized. There is no forest to escape to where one can imagine how things could be different, no lax Peacekeepers who joke around: the Capitol's authority is the be-all and end-all and that's the way things are. He is a poster child of the system he was born into and if removed from that system? He'll be hard-pressed to adapt or even accept any changes, no matter how beneficial said changes are to him or the people around him.

Another thing Cato is highly desensitized to is violence. Raised and trained as a Career, he knows full well that only the way to win is for twenty-three other children to die and has received detailed, step-by-step instruction in how to kill as many of those twenty-three as he can himself. It's not murder with its undertones of shame, regret, and wrong - these are the Games, and you have to put on a good show for everyone watching. Snippets of previous Games are played around the clock on television, and part of Career training involves watching and studying prior Games to learn tactics and learn from mistakes. As a result of this, Cato is ruthless and remorseless when it comes to the thought of the Games - it's a fact of life as far as he's concerned, nothing more or less. He sees all children his own age or younger as competition and/or future prey - not fellow human beings with feelings or families of their own. Due to this disconnect and the nature of the Career training, he's had little to no interpersonal relationships with people his own age growing up and therefore his emotional maturity and cognizance are SEVERELY stunted. As an example in the film, we see Cato act out in a childish temper tantrum he had lost his knife and immediately turn on the nearest tribute, shouting and ready to strike. He does not look for his knife, it's simply gone and therefore someone must have stolen it from him. It's similar to watching a five year old screech about misplacing a favorite toy.

Conversely, Cato will listen to almost any adult with very few reservations. Yes, he's been trained to kill without remorse, but he's also been trained to unflinchingly accept authority and in his life, authority has been symbolized by adults: Peacekeepers, his instructors at the Academy, his mentors (victors from previous games who advise tributes). Again in the movie, during the altercation about his knife, Cato is restrained from actually striking the other tribute by various Capitol trainers - nearly all of whom are shorter and smaller than him - and though he still bristles at the offending tribute, Cato does not raise a hand against or even shoot dirty looks at the adults. Think of him as a superbly disciplined doberman that has no problem ripping your face off but still heels as soon as his master tells him to.

Possibly the most disturbing thing about all of this is that Cato takes enormous pride and pleasure in what he does. He was born for the Games, for the kill, and he knows he's damned good at it. There's no question in his mind as to what his place and purpose in the universe is: he's a Career, he's going to win, and then he'll spend the rest of his life training other Careers from District 2 to do the same. It's set in stone as far as he's concerned and anybody saying otherwise is either stupid or blind. Just look at him! He's destined for greatness, and he will easily discard or ignore anything that is not absolutely necessary to get to that destiny.

Flip side to that? Cato... Kind of has no real way to cope with failure or change. At all. He has a strategy, a set plan, and that's it - end of discussion. While the plan keeps working and going as it's supposed to, he's cockily sure of the outcome. Should anything happen to derail that plan, then we go right back to that emotional immaturity and lack of proper processing. In canon, we see this directly after Katniss has succeeded in blowing the Career alliance's food supply. The Careers had gone and gathered up all the food in a pile, and had an auxiliary ally from District 3 use mines to protect it - they were comfortably set to go and pick off the other tributes at their leisure. But after Katniss sets off the mines and destroys it all, Cato loses his mind and throws another tantrum because of it, swearing and screaming and snapping the D-3 tribute's neck like a twig. He doesn't have the imagination to adapt to changing circumstances - he's been trained to unflinchingly accept how things are, and that handicaps him terribly when it comes to thinking outside the box. He has no idea how to function outside of that box, outside of expectations, outside of the Capitol's system and it scares and confuses him, which means it comes out as more anger and violence because what is healthy emotional processing??? NO IDEA!!!

Coming from the canon point that he is, Cato will have an especially bad time dealing with things because... He's pretty much dead, but worse than that - he's lost the game. His entire reason for existence, the thing he's worked toward practically his whole life, and for all his training and strength he's still come up short, losing to a couple of whiny, soft, emotional weaklings from the poorest, most pathetic district of them all. His life wasn't supposed to end at the Cornucopia, he was supposed to win and be set for life and keep up the glorious tradition of his home district - this is not how it was supposed to go. So all the issues with adapting and change and failure will make him a ridiculously raging monster, and god help any Katniss in his vicinity because she will be the ultimate focus for that rage. Until something pretty epic shifts his way of thinking, Cato's going to keep thinking that the Games are still on because it doesn't end until there's only one of them left standing. And guess what, he's still here. The rules have been changed before, and they've changed now because he has a second shot and he absolutely has to make it good because failure is not an option. Ever.

But even with all this, there's still some small part of Cato that is still just a child, despite what his world has made of him. We see this just briefly due to, again, the nature of the narration: Katniss spends almost no time with Cato, and only directly speaks with him directly before his death. But during the Feast, there's a single instance of Cato showing real emotion. Clove, the girl tribute from D-2, is about to be killed by Thresh, the boy tribute from D-11, and she screams for Cato to help her - but Cato comes too late, and Katniss sees him clutching Clove to him and begging her to stay. He's broken up enough about it that he stays with her until she dies and her body is taken away. Several days prior to the Feast, the rules had changed and now two could win if they were from the same district; while this change was implemented for Katniss and Peeta's angle of star-crossed lovers, it could also have feasibly gone for Cato and Clove as well since they were the only other pair alive. Both were Careers, so it's more than probable they had known each for a while before volunteering for the Games, and while Cato can't handle change, this was one that could actually benefit them. There was the possibility that District 2's tributes would be so good as to get two Victors for the first time in the history of the Games - more for the glory, for the honor, for the fame. For the first time, Cato experienced hope - and then had it taken away with all the subtlety of, well, a rock. However, the main thing to take away from this is that he is capable of actual feelings, he just hasn't had the chance to develop that capability. ...Said development would most assuredly be slow-going, difficult, and full of massive amounts of confusion and setbacks, but he could theoretically get there. ...Maybe.

Lastly, Cato has been brought up to crave attention. The Games are, at their most basic level, a reality show. In order to win well, one has to put on a show for the audience to keep it entertaining and while in the Arena, everything is recorded and televised across Panem. Combined with the fact that he was happily raised in a totalitarian state, this means Cato doesn't really understand the concept of privacy. At all. His whole life is up for scrutiny and examination, and that's what he's used to, so. Whatever. That's how it is. He doesn't know how to function on his own, for his own purposes - everything is geared for the Games, for the show, for the audience. Without that, he will be more than less at a loss of what the fuck to do with his life.

Abilities:

Badass Normal, and proud of it. Cato's been training for practically his whole life in order to be the best there is so when he volunteers for the Games, he'd be the biggest, the baddest, and the strongest. As such he's in peak physical condition, having been put through a regimen of extreme strength and endurance training and having received nothing but the best nutrition. In canon he's shown as being strong enough to snap another tribute's neck with ease. He's highly experienced in armed combat, showing particular skill with (but not limited to) a short sword and using it to good effect.

He's also been instructed in various survival skills, so as to be able to survive in whatever arena the Gamemakers might imagine. So hunting, tracking, building a fire and a shelter from the basic elements are all within his capabilities, but... He's not that great at it. His strength is stabbing people and that's what he'll stick to if given a choice.

Weaknesses:

Despite his major Badass Normal skills, Cato is still a flesh and blood normal. Thus all the normal human frailties apply. Obviously so, since he's kind of... Pretty much dead at his canon point. Yeah. That happened.