Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker for the 74th Hunger Games, was forced to die as punishment for allowing Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark to both survive the Games by defying the Capitol's rules. President Snow held him responsible for this act of perceived weakness and rebellion. At the end of the first Hunger Games film, Seneca is shown locked in a room with a bowl of poisonous nightlock berries, the same berries Katniss and Peeta had planned to use for a double suicide. Snow gave him the choice to either eat the berries and die quickly or starve to death in the locked room. Seneca chose to ingest the berries to avoid a prolonged death
. However, there is some ambiguity between the films and the books. In the book "Catching Fire," it is mentioned by Plutarch Heavensbee that Seneca "decided to stop breathing," implying he may have committed suicide by other means rather than eating the berries. The exact method is unclear, as the books do not describe his death in detail, and the films suggest the berries were the cause
. In summary, Seneca Crane was executed by President Snow after the 74th Hunger Games for allowing the tributes to challenge the Capitol's authority, either by being locked in a room to die from poison berries or by committing suicide in another manner, with the exact details left somewhat ambiguous between the book and film versions
