Thirteen years ago, Suzanne Collins released Mockingjay to the world. Readers farewelled Katniss and Peeta, closing the cover on Panem and the Hunger Games for good. Or so they thought.
Prequels are no new concept. We’ve seen this with Star Wars, which has three prequels to the original saga. Monsters University was released twelve years after Monsters Inc. (2001), and Minions: The Rise of Gru also has twelve years between itself and the original Despicable Me (2010) movie – and serves as both a prequel and a sequel.
But who doesn’t love a good origin story? Specifically, a villain origin story! It’s certainly a creative and intriguing concept to explore the history of characters or settings, a concept appreciated by many fans who just can’t get enough of what is already available
– including myself.
Suzanne Collins decided to deliver us a special gift. Just one, not a companion series, not an extended epilogue of Katniss’s life, but the story of Coriolanus Snow. He’s one of the characters I feel the most hatred for, second only to Dolores Umbridge. How can one man be so evil, a mastermind in the worst way possible?
Spoilers ahead!
Most of the reviews I’ve seen about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes were pretty average. I was a bit nervous going into it, but overall, I enjoyed it. Here are my thoughts.
The whole time I was reading, I was trying to figure out whether Lucy Gray was playing Snow the whole time. I don’t believe she was, as she follows through with the plan to run away together, and unlike Snow, doesn’t find killing people powerful. Lucy Gray isn’t the villain in this story.
I loved all the connections between Lucy Gray and Katniss, and we can see how Katniss reminds Snow so strongly of Lucy Gray. It is pretty pathetic on Snow’s part, but he is just another example of a man who never learned how to express his emotions healthily. As I’ve seen many people online saying: never underestimate the power of that two-month
situationship!
Something I will say is that I don’t believe Lucy Gray and Snow’s relationship was developed enough to warrant Snow’s reaction.
Listen, I would be angry if someone I thought loved me tried to kill me, but there’s really no excuse for Snow and his reign of terror. I don’t think they got to spend enough time together or harbour a deep enough connection for it to be as powerful as it could’ve been.
However, Snow is an unreliable narrator, and he puts a lot more stock into his relationship with Lucy Gray than is actually there. His inner monologue before he tries to hunt down Lucy Gray reveals a lot about his character and his thought processes.
I do think this ending was a bit rushed. The rest of the book is quite slow-paced in comparison, and I would’ve liked the ending to be a bit more fleshed out. For example, if Snow had found the guns a few days earlier and spent that time mulling it over, gradually growing distrust for Lucy Gray, I think this could’ve helped the ending be a bit less abrupt.
Lucy Gray would still realise she couldn’t trust Snow, and her hiding from him would confirm his suspicions, giving him a stronger motive, and a more realistic switch-up.
Moving on, I was shocked to learn that Tigris and Snow are cousins. I did not see this coming, and it really added a new layer to The Hunger Games for me. I wish we got to see more of their fallout and why Snow turns on her. Tigris mentions it to Katniss and the others briefly in Mockingjay, but I really would’ve loved to see exactly why Snow did this.
This goes back to Snow’s character development. Throughout the story we can see his Capitol upbringing conflicting with his feelings, like his feelings for Lucy Gray, and even his feelings towards Sejanus. To betray his closest friend, or defend the Capitol? Snow is
deeply rooted in Capitol thinking, and it constantly clouds his ability to be an honest person. He also decides he hates the way love makes him feel, and I wonder if that’s why he ends up shunning Tigris.
Now a few notes on the movie – I loved it, however there are a few things I wish were different. I wish they gave Clemensia more screen time, especially after she was bitten by the snake, I wished they included a little more of Snow’s and Tigris’s home life, I would’ve loved to see the other characters from Peacekeeper training, and I wish the
movie focused a bit more on the Covey. In the film, Lucy Gray might as well have been the only person from the Covey.
I understand every detail of a 500+ page book cannot be squeezed into a film, and as I said, I still thoroughly enjoyed it.
And a final thought to finish: how are Tom Blyth’s teeth so white?
