Highlights
- Muttation is the practice of growing and enhancing animals by Capitol scientists, resulting in Mutts with deadly abilities.
- The mockingjay is the franchise’s most iconic mutt and symbolizes rebellion in the Districts.
- Mutts are used in the Hunger Games to increase pressure on tributes, force them to fight, and keep the Games engaging for audiences.
Some elements of The Hunger Games universe require no explanation. The story rests comfortably in a long line of dystopian works, arguably sparking a new wave in the genre. Though everyone understands a dictatorial government abusing and subjugating its perceived inferiors, the Capitol’s methods vary. The evil aristocrats make impressive strides in science to spice up their televised blood sport. They invented a process called Muttation to make weapons out of wild animals.
One of The Hunger Games‘ great strengths as a cultural phenomenon is its ability to build iconography. Anyone who sat through a Divergent or Maze Runner outing will discover how much of their material feels like Suzanne Collins’ work after a trip through the Find and Replace feature. The Mockingjay and its distinctive song remain recognizable beyond any comparable symbol in the genre.
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What is Muttation?
Muttation, a portmanteau of “Mutt” and “Mutation” that happens to look much like a typo, is the practice of Capitol scientists lab-growing, cross-breeding, and scientifically enhancing animals. The resulting creations are colloquially called Mutts. Early examples are generally comparable to unmodified creatures. Jungle predators could be gifted with increased speed and ferocity. Snakes could be trained to target enemies or ignore allies. By the time of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, scientists could create deadly mutts with unnerving resemblance to dead participants. The humanity in the creatures’ eyes made Peeta wonder whether the biologists used the victims’ body parts. In Mockingjay, Collins outlines the mutts’ place in the psychology of a Hunger Games Tribute:
No mutt is good. All are meant to damage you. Some take your life, like the monkeys. Others your reason, like the tracker jackers. However, the true atrocities, the most frightening, incorporate a perverse psychological twist designed to terrify the victim.
Notable Mutts in The Hunger Games
The franchise’s most iconic mutt is the mockingjay. The bird symbolized rebellion in the Districts, doubly so after Katniss Everdeen proudly wore her sister’s golden mockingjay pin. Mockingjays were unintentionally cross-bred between mockingbirds and another mutt species called jabberjays. Jabberjays record and reproduce sounds just as mockingbirds mimic other animals’ songs. They functioned like flying microphones, spying on areas throughout the Districts and returning to the Capitol to report their findings. When the rebels discovered the birds’ purpose, they deliberately fed an endless stream of lies to the Capitol’s avian espionage network. Any information the birds could gather became untrustworthy, mired in a sea of falsehoods so thick that the government abandoned the project. Jabberjays are all male, and after mating with native mockingbirds, they sired mockingjays. Since the Capitol didn’t plan for mockingjays, the Districts saw them as proof of their oppressor’s fallibility. Mockingjays proved that the Capitol couldn’t control everything, but they had a selection of other mutts.
- Volumnia Gaul’s Snakes were multicolored serpents with deadly venom and a powerful sense of smell. They could be trained to recognize scents and spare familiar humans. These were the first mutts deployed during the Games. Her first batch died after their appearance in the 10th Annual Games, but she developed a golden alternative.
- Gaul also developed a rabbit with a pitbull’s jaw.
- Tracker Jackers are wasps that can kill targets in two or three stings. They live in hives, often hidden high in the trees of Hunger Games arenas.
- Wolf mutts are disgusting canines with humanoid features, designed to resemble fallen tributes.
- Mandril mutts attacked during the 75th Annual Hunger Games.
- Lizard mutts carried similar human features and were taught to speak, hissing Katniss’s name to terrify her before she killed them.
- The 50th Games were bound by an event called a Quarter Quell, forcing them to dial up the danger to celebrate every 25 years. They released carnivorous squirrels, venomous butterflies, and pecking birds.
How were the Mutts used?
The young tributes competing in the Hunger Games rarely want to kill their enemies. Though some ferocious youngsters revel in the blood sport, most run, hide, form alliances, and enact whatever trickery might keep them from the central kill-or-be-killed of it all. Subsequently, many iterations of the competition end in ties or devolve into uninteresting survival tactics when the audience at home just wants to see kids murder one another. The mutts are a force multiplier, a sudden infusion of pressure to force tributes to fight or die. Gaul’s snakes were the first example. The Gamemaker dropped her serpents onto the arena as a punishment, deciding to let every tribute die as punishment for recent rebel actions. While the mutts have military applications, they’re most often used to entice TV audiences and keep the Games engaging.
The mutts demonstrate the depravity and cruelty of the Capitol. Not content with abusing every person beneath their thumb, they torment blameless wildlife into soldiers, then use them to garner better ratings. Somehow, using mutts feels considerably less morally defensible than explosives or firearms. They pervert nature into another tool for domination. The mockingjay represents the rare successful attempt at something natural existing despite the will of the Capitol. Even in their scientific genius, they are not gods, and forces older than them will always prevail.
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