At first, Cato fights the mutts off, as the sound of his sword against the Cornucopia can be heard for a long time. Eventually, despite his great strength and skill, he is disabled, and the mutts brutally attack him for what seems like hours, as he is too exhausted to defend himself.
Since Cato had many bloody marks on his face, its assumed that he got these from either Thresh, or the mutts. It's assumed that it's the mutts, since they were claw marks. Cato fights Katniss and Peeta on top of the cornucopia.
As he does so, Cato cuts his way through the brush and realizes what Peeta has done. Enraged at Peeta's betrayal, Cato engages the other tribute in a fight, a fight which Peeta swiftly loses, escaping only with a severe leg wound, tracker jacker strings, and burns retained from the fire.
The principle is best exemplified in Cato's slow death at the end of the novel. Once the muttations have defeated Cato, they don't kill him immediately, and Katniss realizes that the Gamemakers want Cato to remain alive because it creates an exceedingly gruesome spectacle.
When he quotes 'I'm dead anyways, I always was right' I feel like he is referring to how even if he did win, what was left for him? Feeling no excitement or adrenaline rush or even pride but only fear, not the fear of the games but of loneliness.
In the end of the movie when Katniss is about to kill Cato he says "I'm dead anyway. I always was". What does he mean by this? It means that during the arena, during his killing spree, he realizes that there's more to life than killing, and he's just a pawn in the whole scheme of things.
It is unknown why only Clove went in for the backpack, but by the time she is fatally wounded by Thresh, Cato is too far away to save her. As Katniss flees the feast, she sees Cato kneel beside Clove and beg her to stay with him.
Cato releases Peeta and falls off of the Cornucopia. The dogs immediately attack him. When Katniss realizes that the dogs intend to kill Cato slowly, she fires her last arrow at Cato, putting him out of his misery. His death marks the end of the 74th Hunger Games.
Though both were cruel toward the other tributes, they had formed an emotional connection with each other. However, in the film, Cato and Clove seemed to have no relationship with each other beyond that of allies.
He survives the encounter with Cato but suffers a stab wound on his leg. He camouflages himself into the rocks and mud alongside a riverbank, slowly dying of blood poisoning until Katniss finds him days later.
In the film, Glimmer acts flirtatiously toward Cato. They talk and joke around the fire, she sleeps beside him that night, and even snuggles into his arm. However, the relationship is largely one-sided, and Cato leaves her to die to the tracker jackers.
In the film, Thresh's odds of winning change from 10–1 to 11–1. Afterward, they increase from 11–1 to 8–1. In The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, Katniss states that Cato killed Thresh. However, this is not in-line with the film continuity, as Thresh was killed by the wolf mutts in the first film.
He and his political allies advocated a policy of confrontation and brinksmanship with Caesar; though it seemed that Cato never advocated for actual civil war, this policy greatly contributed to the start of civil war in January 49 BC.
Cato's moans are never-ending, and Katniss feels only pity for him and wants his suffering to stop. Morning finally comes and Katniss is able to see Cato below. Out of pity, she uses her last arrow to end Cato's life.
In the 74th Hunger Games, Clove was the only Career tribute who came close to killing Katniss twice — at the Bloodbath and at the Feast, and certainly seemed to have a deep hatred for her, perhaps because Katniss received a higher score than her.
These wolf-like mutts are not just murderous creatures created to kill those remaining but horrific monsters that resemble the now-dead tributes. The wolf-like mutts act as a physical representation of how the remaining tributes have themselves become murderous monsters throughout the course of the game.
Katniss eventually awakes and realizes that a day or two has passed. Then she remembers that Peeta saved her life and wonders why he did it. She also remembers that she got the bow and arrows, and finally she feels like she has a chance in the Games.
While a prisoner of the Capitol, Peeta was hijacked into believing that Katniss was not human, but in fact one of the Capitol's mutts. Conversely, Johanna Mason suggested that the Capitol's torture replaced Peeta with an "evil-mutt version" of himself. This sentiment was later echoed by Katniss.
She loved Cato, and he loved her, but they couldn't tell anyone. No one would sponsor a Career Tribute who loved anyone, especially someone in the arena with them. They had tried to keep it secret, but, since they see the Comittee of Victors every day in training, it's hard to keep anything secret from them.
Whereas at the feast when clove was dying, Cato ran and held her in his arms and begged her to stay with him. But this could have been merely because Cato was trying to survive himself with the tracker jackers and didn't have time to help glimmer. Or because clove was simply the last ally alive.
Marcus Porcius Cato, (born 234 bc, Tusculum, Latium [Italy]—died 149), Roman statesman, orator, and the first Latin prose writer of importance. He was noted for his conservative and anti-Hellenic policies, in opposition to the phil-Hellenic ideals of the Scipio family.
Why didn't they let Katniss and Peeta eat the berries?
If Katniss and Peeta had eaten the nightlock berries, they would've died, and there wouldn't have been any winners for the 74th Hunger Games. The rebellion would've moved forward with Katniss and Peeta as martyrs for the movement.
Rue dies and Katniss realizes just how much she hates the Capitol for doing this to Rue, for doing this to all of the tributes. She wants revenge on the Capitol and wonders if there's a way for her to do it.
