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Cato is a tribute from District 2. As a Career tribute, he comes from a wealthy district where children are trained to compete in the Hunger Games all their lives. Cato is alarmingly aggressive and prone to violent, unhinged outbursts of anger. He is characterized as a predator who does not "wait for his prey to wander by.” Perhaps due to his wounded pride after Katniss "outscored him in training," Cato is hell-bent on tracking her down and making her suffer. As is the case with the boy from District 3, Cato takes human life unflinchingly, evidently motivated rather than disturbed by death and violence.
The casualness with which Cato kills is a byproduct of his upbringing. He has been conditioned to fight and kill since he was young. Consequently, Cato is a somewhat complex character. Though an antagonistic force in the novel, he is also just a child. He heartbreakingly kneels over Clove's body as she lays dying, "begging her to stay with him, " and his life is endangered and his death prolonged for the sake of entertainment. The Gamemakers let his death play out excruciatingly slowly in order to produce a good show for the audience. In the Capitol's eyes, his suffering is prime entertainment.
Collins purposely tricks both Katniss and the reader into thinking Cato is the main antagonist. As he hunts and threatens Katniss and Peeta, the reader and protagonists alike focus on Cato as the main hurdle keeping them from going home. Katniss reflects on "the real battle of the Games. Cato and me." But as the Gamemakers prolong his death, one must consider that he is as much a victim of society as Katniss and Peeta. Even Katniss seems to understand this and "pity, not vengeance, sends [her] arrow flying into his skull" to put him out of his misery. Cato is a child trained to fight by a government that knows it is in their best interest to fuel his hatred. His death serves as a reminder that division between the districts is intentional. The Capitol purposely pits the districts, represented by the tributes, against one another so that they will focus on internal division instead of turning their anger toward President Snow and the Capitol. Cato, therefore, is not the primary cause of Katniss and Peeta's suffering; the Capitol is.
