Six of Crows characters in the Hunger Games

Game Makers

Lorinda Snow

"Let's look at the most popular victors..." The gamemakers had been conferring for hours. According to the residents of the Capitol, tributes were dying too fast. If it kept going on this way, there could be riots. They wanted to keep the bloodshed going for as long as possible. So, they had to kill the people who had caused it. Their group of six had already been reduced to three, so they had less work to do.

That was how the gamemakers saw it, anyway. Lorinda had been listening in, as she did when she grew bored, and maybe she was only young, but she couldn't see how they could be so cruel. Her father had made the games, but she couldn't find a way of seeing it as right. Would he still be so happy about it if it were her in the arena? If he were? These were real people. People with lives and people who should have a right to live their lives the way they wanted to if everyone in the Capitol did.

And here they were, not just forcing them to kill each other, not just filming it for other's enjoyment, but killing them, too, to get the desired effect. It just seemed so cruel. Lorinda's book were all about how the people of the districts had rebelled, and how they deserved the games. How it was their atonement. But she had seen footage of the districts, and couldn't see why it was so wrong for them to want better conditions. 

The stories her father told her were all about naughty rebels who got what they deserved, but the books she hid, the books she had scavenged... They told of battles for freedom, of forbidden love. The heroes of those stories were the ones who stood up for themselves, for what they believed to be right. The villains were the ones who pushed them down, locked them up, forbid them to do what they most wanted to. She couldn't help think that the Capitol had more in common with the villains than the Districts. 

She could stop this, though. They would listen to her. She was President Snow's daughter. She had learnt from when she was very little that unless you were very good at it, sneaking got you nowhere. If you moved with authority, you were usually allowed access to places you weren't meant to be. She could be the hero, could save these innocent people. So, she stood up, back straight, head in the air, and strode into the room.

"I don't think what you are about to do is right."