What's the Population of Panem?

[penfold_x]

This question is closely related to the geography of Panem, but unfortunately, we don't get as many clues to base speculation on, especially if you define canon narrowly. We know from the first chapter of The Hunger Games that there are about eight thousand people in District Twelve. Katniss tells us that the Capitol is a city, and speaks about

Comments

[lorata]

Personally I doubt that the districts' manual labour industry is mechanized (D4/7/9/10/11), at least the time-saving kind, just because that frees up too much opportunity for the people and requires more education and encourages autonomy. You want people poor, hungry, and tired, and giving them robots to take care of their field or machines to milk their cows or catch their fish is not the way to go about that. It would also be easier for people to sabotage on a large scale if things were automated. I think of it like the genderization of household appliance tech in Japan -- just because the tech exists and would make sense, doesn't mean it's going to be allowed. (For those I haven't ranted about tech, Japan is one of the most advanced nations yet does not sell dishwashers or washer-dryers for the home, because those would allow housewives more free time. This is a thing. There have been journals on this. I see it as a similar thing here.) Basically there's nothing wrong with the logic above, but I think in Panem it's probably more

[penfold_x]

I certainly take your point about the Capitol prioritizing control over efficiency. The problem I run into is that mechanization for the resource districts, I think, makes a huge difference in the amount of workers it takes to sustain Panem because some of the labor saving devices would take ten or twenty or more times the number of people to perform the same work without modern tools. The number of people dedicated to farming would, I think, need to skyrocket (I'm not sure what the upper threshold is for people who can be supported by traditional methods, but I think some African countries still have difficulty producing enough food to feed their populations because of the lack of mechanization). Maybe it is possible to maintain a large population with these means, though I think that would also mean that the casualties of the rebellion went into the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, which... I know they're not real, but it still gives me shivers

[lorata]

Thaaaaaat makes sense. Make up for what SHOULD free up workers for other things by making quotas insane and/or any other number of stupid demands. You can also do a lot of damage by insisting that all crop be given over with no seed held back to feed the family/protect against poor yields, or to reduce costs for next year's sowing. See: Monsanto forcing farmers to buy back their own crops for personal use and/or seeds to plant next year. (Actually just look at Monsanto, period...) You're right, there's tons of precedent for using modern methods to impoverish people and make everything awful/dependent on 'benefactors' and/or hamper autonomy. Hrm.

Ugh now I'm thinking about Monsanto. >>>>(

I'd love to ... whether the rebellion recognizes them.

Indeed eh?

[kawuli]

NEVER THINK ABOUT MONSANTO

I drove past a Monsanto seed plant every time i visited my parents from Lansing and every time I thought "firebombs, that's what I need"

ETA: IN RELEVANT COMMENTS,

I don't think Panem farming would be organized around "families", but more idk along the lines of collective farms in Maoist China or the USSR. And we know how well those work.........

Panem agriculture, depending on how much oil and natural gas you think is around at this point (oh and also phosphorous most of which now is in Morocco actually), may be incredibly reliant on huge spaces to make up for low yields if fertilizer doses have to be lower.

[penfold_x]

That's where the biochemists are developing new medicines and where you have people educated enough to synthesize them.

That makes sense. I'm not sure how much education is needed to run a mostly automated manufacturing line, but it would be more efficient to keep the line where the people who develop the medicines can check on it and change things as necessary. (Maybe industrial chemicals are in Three, too?)

might be a nice place for baby Capitol doctors to go on rotation. Like, have fun ~slumming it~ and hanging out on the beach in their off time, and get some hands on practice without the potential for damaging Capitol citizens.

Ah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. They're'd be a lot of advantages~ in practicing in One, too. :(

[lorata]

They're'd be a lot of advantages~ in practicing in One, too. :(

brb throwing up

[penfold_x]

YEAH SORRY :(((

[seta_suzume]

I haven't given much thought to numbers, but I definitely feel like Four would be around where you place it in the size-ranking

[penfold_x]

I haven't given much thought to numbers, but I definitely feel like Four would be around where you place it in the size-ranking.

:D :D :D

"Back in the day" with Mags, I believe the doctor she saw in town was a native citizen of Four, but had been educated in another district prior to the Dark Days and then once the fences were up and such, the ability to train anyone else, like Estelle from the Club, was up to how well someone like that could pass on what he knew...which just wouldn't do it for the most part, I think.

Yes, I think that's a problem. There's obviously a lot you can pass on through an apprenticeship-type system, but I think medicine is the sort of profession that needs a lot of hands-on training and resources (and is why it's so expensive to train doctors).

I figure district citizens never/rarely have a chance to interact with the bottom-rung Capitol people they would relate to betterYes, the doctors from the Capitol are probably all middle class and above, I suppose. They closest someone in Four could get maybe is

[seta_suzume]

^^

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking- it takes too many things that an apprentice-ship system can't handle.

They closest someone in Four could get maybe is if someone brought along their nanny or other household servant(s)?
That's an interesting thought! I definitely imagine upper class Capitolites traveling with their entourages.

And then I do think some of the less heavily monitored Victors and/or just the Victors in general in the pre-Snow days (when I let things be a bit more haphazard, ha ha) have managed to encounter a wider variety of Capitol citizens, but, of course, since a lot of the Victors are outsiders in their community anyone, how far does their word go? :/

[wendymr]

*waves*

Would you mind putting this under a cut? It's l-o-n-g, and a lot to scroll past for those who aren't interested in Hunger Games. Thanks! :)

[penfold_x]

Sure, no problem

[wendymr]

Thank you! :)

[roguedemon]

Very interesting. Thanks for putting in all this work in order to give us something to play around with

[penfold_x]

This is beside your main point, but I do take issue with something you said: that Annie is not an "ideal career". Why? Because she has PTSD?

No, I expect that all victors, career or otherwise, have PTSD to some degree. The reason why I don't think of her as an ideal career is Katniss' account of her actions upon seeing her districtmate beheaded--she screams and breaks from the pack, hiding for the rest of the games and only winning because the arena completely flooded (which I tend to think was not planned by the Gamemakers). I think that One and Two inure their tributes to death, to some degree, so that they are less likely to freak out when one of their number is killed. If Annie is a career (rather than the person who was reaped for her year), I think that indicates that Four's training is less brutal/rigorous than One and Two's.