| “ | What happened in the arena? That's humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy who beats another boy to death with a club. | „ |
| ~ Dr. Gaul to Coriolanus Snow. |
Dr. Volumnia Gaul is the main antagonist of the 2020 dystopian action-adventure novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy, and its 2023 film adaptation of the same name.
She is one of the most renowned scientists of The Capitol and the head Gamemaker by the time the 10th Hunger Games happen, having herself been the one responsible for approving them in the first place upon being presented the idea by Crassus Xanthos Snow and Casca Highbottom. For the tenth edition of the Hunger Games, Gaul decides to have the Academy's students involved in organizing the games in an attempt to spread her ideology that the competition unleashes humanity's true nature, specially Crassus' son Coriolanus Snow.
In the film, she was portrayed by Viola Davis.
What Makes Her Pure Evil?[]
In the Novel[]
- Asked her college class to create a hypothetical punishment for disobedience, leading Crassus Xanthos Snow and Casca Highbottom to come up with the concept of the Hunger Games, a competition where everyone would fight to the death until only one remains alive. After the war against Panem's Districts, Gaul made The Capitol implement the Hunger Games on the Districts, forcing the twelve districts to annually send one boy and one girl to The Capitol so they could fight to the death over 74 years.
- What's worse is that Gaul approved the Hunger Games without the consent of Casca Highbottom, who had merely come up with the concept as a theory, feeling that it was a such horrific idea that should never be implemented, destroying Highbottom's friendship with Snow and possibly playing a role in Highbottom turning into an addict to cope with his regrets.
- Is in charge of The Capitol's experimental weapons department, developing weapons for them to use against their enemies.
- She performed many unethical experiments on humans as a Gamemaker by fusing Avoxes with animals, leaving them in in constant pain and agony as they tried to beg for help to no avail, condemning these people to a fate worse than death.
- Tries to turn the Hunger Games into a festive event for all people in The Capitol despite how gruesome the competition is to begin with, as it basically sends children to violent deaths.
- Once had the Academy's nine years old students come to her lab for an expedition, where she melted a lab rat's meat with a laser in front of the kids and then asked them if they had a pet they no longer wanted to take care of so she could repeat the process with them.
- Decides to have the Academy's students, among them Crassus' son Coriolanus, involved in the 10th Hunger Games, selecting them to serve as mentors for the tributes of the Districts and letting them propose ideals to make the competition more entertaining.
- Forces Sejanus Plinth to work as a mentor in the 10th Hunger Games despite his wishes to quit due to not being able to stand seeing the event as a former District 2 inhabitant.
- Taunts Coriolanus and his friend Clemensia Dovecote over their classmate Arachne Crane's death (even though Aracna stupidly got herself killed by cruelly taunting her tribute) as she prepares for the games.
- Causes Clemensia to be bitten by one of her lab snakes due to her and Coriolanus lying about them working together on a proposal that she, Arachne and Coriolanus were going to write together, only for Coriolanus to write it himself due to Clemensia's grieving process for Arachne's death, leading Clemensia to be send to the hospital to treat her from the poison (although Gaul says that she doesn't care if she survives or not as she goes for her snack) and undergoing a major personality change with temporary mutations that briefly turn her against Coriolanus.
- Tortures Marcus, District 2's male tribute and Plinth's former friend, to punish him for trying to escape from The Capitol to avoid dying in the Hunger Games, which ends up happening anyway.
- Teases Coriolanus alongside Highbottom over his hopes that Lucy Gray Baird, his tribute of District 12, survives and wins the Hunger Games, remarking that she doesn't have too many possibilities.
- Decides to have Coriolanus enter the Hunger Games arena to retrieve Sejanus when he tries to commit suicide by letting some tribute kill him alongside Marcus' corpse to turn himself into a martyr, instructing her guards to not let Coriolanus exit the arena until he retrieves Sejanus despite his suicidal intent and not allowing Sejanus' mother to go instead despite her willingness. Due to taking some time in convincing Sejanus to leave, Coriolanus ends up being forced to kill the District 8 tribute Bobbin in self-defense, leading Gaul to reveal that she hoped he would be forced to kill someone to prove that all humans are inherently nasty.
- Drops a tank full of her poisonous snakes into the arena towards the end of the 10th Hunger Games to make things more exciting, causing some of them to kill the remaining tributes, with Lucy Gray even using one against one of the tributes.
- Makes Coriolanus join the Peacekeepers of District 12 through Highbottom, supposedly for allowing Lucy Gray to cheat in the Hunger Games by familiarizing the snakes with her, but doesn't tell him that the punishment is only temporary, causing a lot of strife for Coriolanus to the point he seriously considers killing himself.
- Orders Sejanus to be executed by hanging once he tries to help some rebels, brushing his execution off when confronted by Coriolanus by saying that his death wasn't that bad.
- Feeds a baby mouse to her golden snakes, asking Coriolanus upon his return from District 12 for him to attend college to hold her pink metal vase full of mice so she can feed her snakes.
- While she warns one of her snakes to not get gluttonous with its mice, she gives it the mouse it wanted anyway.
- Has all evidence of the 10th Hunger Games erased because of the disastrous way it made The Capitol look, opining that involving the Academy's students was a mistake even though it was her own idea and essentially rendering all the deaths caused by the edition pointless, only keeping one copy to sadistically entertain herself.
- Over time, her influence ends up turning Coriolanus into the ruthless, tyrannical and sadistic man he is by the time Katniss Everdeen and President Alma Coin's rebellion choose to fight him (even though at the very least he is an extremist with good motives for his actions), convincing him that the Hunger Games are necessary becaue of humanity's natural sadism, alienating him from his cousin Tigris and kickstarting the events of The Hunger Games trilogy.
- One can argue that she does like Coriolanus due to always calling him "her prized pupil" and showing some concern for him when he returns from his Peacekeeping duty, but at the end of the day, it's clear that she cares more for him to carry out her legacy by the time she is gone, considering how she taunts him repeateadly.
- Despite her being certainly deceased by the time the trilogy takes place, there's no confirmation that she ever paid for her crimes, as she could have well lived out the rest of her life unpunished despite Snow's distaste of her, letting her get away with her crimes.
In the Film[]
- Expresses an openness to punish the Districts of Panem in other ways like bombing them, denying them food supplies or executing its inhabitants every once in a while if not for the need of the Hunger Games.
- Has Clemensia Dovecote bitten by a snake by telling her to retrieve papers supposedly written by her from her snake tank and then taken away by her scientists for lying to her about her working with Coriolanus in his paperwork for the Hunger Games when in reality he did all the work, asking Coriolanus to not tell her mother. While Clemensia was an opportunistic jerk, she did nothing to warrant such punishment, and given how she never appears afterwards like in the book, it's plausible to assume she died here.
- Promises to have the Peacekeeper likely bribed by Sejanus to let him enter into the arena punished for his corruption by getting his tongue cut off, presumably to make him an Avox.
- Forces Coriolanus to retrieve Sejanus from the arena despite the dangers it poses, leading Coriolanus to nearly get killed by District 4 tribute Coral and her alliance.
- Decides to have all the snakes in her tank let loose in the arena so they kill every tribute because of the death of President Ravinstill's son Felix at the hospital after the bombing on the arena before the competition started, declaring that no districts will enjoy their act of "rebellion" by making sure the 10th Hunger Games have no victor at all, resulting in the unfair deaths of Wovey, Mizzen, Reaper Ash and Coral, with Lucy Gray only surviving thanks to Snow making the snakes familiarize with her scent, although Gaul tries to let the edition continue until the snakes kill her, only relenting due to Snow, his classmates and the audience pointing out that if no one wins, no one will be interested in watching the games.
- While one can say that her dropping her snake tank on the arena suggests she may have cared for her students and fellow Capitol citizens as she says that the districts will pay for Felix's death, she clearly tells Snow that she can't tolerate any rebels trying to "sabotage" her games and then says that no one will interfere with the competition, implying that she cares more for her invention and sees any negative effects to it as an attack to her ego.
- Declines to tell Strabo Plinth about the specifics on why his son Sejanus was executed as he served at the Peacekeepers at District 12, likely preventing Strabo and his wife from getting any closure over Sejanus' death in spite of the former's services to the Academy.
Trivia[]
- Dr. Gaul is so far the only Pure Evil in the Hunger Games franchise (though she was originally considered Near Pure Evil).
External Links[]
- Dr. Gaul on the Villains Wiki
- Dr. Gaul on the The Hunger Games Wiki
