#coriolanus snow analysis

[mitsuki91]

A reflection I made about Snow in a discord server, I copy-paste:

I suppose he loved again (implyed: after Lucy Gray) once... But his grandaughter, not a woman. I suppose his grandaugher has brown hair as in the movie and that sort of free happy spirit and innocence that somehow reminds him of Lucy Gray.... What she would have been without the games, in his mind, if she really doesn't have anything else to care about.

I think Snow in his old age started to see how pointless everything was. I think reality catched him somehow, even if at first he still deny and only allowed himself some "innocent" things as loving his own granddaughter. I think that at 74 hunger games he somehow was hit in the face by Katniss and was slow to react because he is mesmerised, like he really saw in her the chance of a better future for all Panem, and that's why censorship didn't work too much on her (everyone saw her with Rue, singing her song while putting flower on her). I suppose, at the end, he wanted her to deserve the chance of happiness, and that's why he fought. Like, she has to prove whorty in his eyes. He already knows he fucked up big time, so no point in holding back, but he is genuely happy when she won. And Katniss killing Coin prove that she knows who the real enemy is, so she is better than him, truly what Panem needs now - that's why he laugh.

[foxglovevibes]

Honestly, what is the bet that Coriolanus set the trend of the Hunger Games being primarily set into arenas fashioned after living/natural biomes during his time as a Gamemaker?

We can very clearly see in the prequel film that he is in no way comfortable in the outdoors, his only real interactions with nature in the og trilogy being secluded within his hyper maintained and sterile greenhouses/gardens. And with his background, it makes way too much sense that his past experiences growing up have heavily influenced his distaste for anywhere that leaves him overexposed.

So, would I be at all surprised if he took those memories/traumas and weaponized them against others? To keep himself in power? No. No I would not.

[daydreamer-in-reverie]

Started rereading the Hunger Games series and I feel like it’s so overlooked how in 74th and 75th Hunger Games, we don’t know every Tribute’s names, with Katniss only referring to them by their District numbers but in TBOSAS, we knew every single Tribute by name. We associated them with the clothes they wore on the Reaping Day and Suzanne even goes so far as to describe how they looked, however briefly. We see these Tributes and we’re familiarized with them by the little tidbits provided to the mentors and to Snow and Lucy Gray. But we never get this in the original trilogy.

In two generations, President Snow alienated the Districts from each other so much that Katniss didn’t even care to know all the names of the Tributes sent into the Arena with her, with the exception being those who posed great risk against her safety and those she felt great compassion for (e.g. Cato, Thresh, Rue, Mags, Betee, Wiress etc.). Katniss even went so far as to call the D6 Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games morphlings, for their affinity to imbibe in the drugs that help them forget their own traumas (an incredibly hurtful description, in my own opinion, to be known by the qualities you hate the most about yourself). We never know the real name of the 74th D5 girl, with Katniss only referring to her as Foxface and we don’t even know Marvel’s name until we get to the second book and he was Katniss’ first personal kill. Katniss even kills the D4 girl in the books with the same tracker jacker venom that killed Glimmer and yet still, we don’t know her name. We are so removed from the identity of the other Tributes that we don’t even know what some of them looked like beyond brief descriptions of mangled bodies and dead Tributes in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.

And, the thing is, Suzanne established the importance of names in the series. Even in real life, we recognize the importance of being named. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. If you’re ever in a perilous situation where a person might be placing your life in danger, we’re told to remind the person that you’re human. “Keep saying your name, how old you are, where you came from. Remind them you are a human being just like them.” Before any propaganda can work against a group of people, refusing to recognize a person’s name is the first step to dehumanization. And just like the people of the Districts, we don’t care enough about the other Tributes to even want to know their names. Their propaganda worked on us, the readers.

In two generations, President Snow completely wiped out any sense of familiarity and camaraderie the Districts may have shared with the other. In two generations, Snow sowed the seeds of distrust and division into the Districts so deeply that even we, the readers, were affected by the effects of Capitol propaganda. In two generations, the Districts ceased to genuinely care about the others beyond the vague sense of injustice they feel for their shared plight. It’s why Career Districts don’t seem to care about killing the other Tributes. How can you care, to show your compassion and humanity, when you can barely see them as people? Yes, they may have been in the Arena with you. Yes, they may have been starved and beaten and forced into labor like you were. Yes, they might be children just like you. Yes, they might be subjected to the same deplorable system that turned you into virtual slaves. But they are not your friends. They are not your allies. They are strange, with different customs and traditions that you have. You do not share the same values. They do not care about you. At the first chance they get, they will kill you with your bare hands and they will do it with alacrity if it meant their survival. There can only be one Victor and it can’t be them. It has to be you.

[tempestandwhirlwinds]

I find it so fascinating how Lucy Gray haunts the narrative and how Snow can't help but try to recreate the "man kills the woman he loves" dynamic in over Victors of District 12.

When Haymitch wins his games, Snow kills his family as both a punishment and warning. But he makes sure that Lucy Gray is killed by Haymitch's hand, using the poison that Snow has such an affinity for.

When Snow tortures and manipulates Peeta before allowing him to be rescued, we can clearly see the same setup. Snow was hoping that Peeta would kill Katniss, the girl he loves, in yet another recreation of what he (thought?) he did to Lucy Gray. But this time, it didn't work. Because Katniss was too valued by the people around her, and then later, because Peeta was able to overcome his brainwashing.

I can't help but see Snow's obsession with this dynamic as a way to prove to himself that love means nothing in the face of violence and self-preservation. Or perhaps it was his way to justify his actions, to show that he's not singularly monstrous for what he did. Or maybe he was trying to give himself closure with not knowing if Lucy Gray survived - Lenore Dove was dead by Haymitch's hands, so surely the same could be said for Lucy Gray?

But either way, we can see how the mystery of Lucy Gray Baird really, truly HAUNTED Snow until his dying breath. Even if she wasn't in the situations he was dealing with, he certainly found a way to put her there.

[evermarch]

now that we have sotr, i wanted to update this post about how katniss’ power comes not from her similarities to lucy gray, but in their differences. i’m still working out my feelings about katniss being canonically covey descended, because i don’t love the implications for the 74th reaping to begin with. but i am at least glad that the covey connection has no bearing on what makes katniss the symbol of the revolution.

lucy gray’s livelihood was music. she believed that her voice was the skill which kept her and her family alive. from the minute she started singing at the reaping, before they even met, snow recognized it as the only currency she possessed, and thus, the only power she wielded. it was her ticket to victory, and they both knew it. to her knowledge, it was her last line of defense in the arena against the snakes. in the end, singing to the jabberjays may have been what saved her from snow.

in sotr, we learn that burdock’s covey connection comes not from the everdeens, but from his mother’s side. unlike her singing voice, katniss’ skill with a bow is an everdeen characteristic, through and through. and archery, not music, is what katniss identifies as the source of her strength, as the skill which keeps her alive. and it’s true; she never would have been a real threat without that bow. she simply wouldn’t have survived long enough. not after burdock died, not in the arena(s), and not in the war. she also would never have been able to shoot coin and end the cycle of the dehumanizing “opinion” of governance.

yes, a lot of katniss’ “power” over snow comes from her connection to the covey (her name, singing their songs, girl from district 12 “pretending” to be in love with a blond boy, etc.). and there is no doubt that the covey connection is imperative to katniss’ cultural identity and her relationship to her father. but not one of the qualities which make katniss the mockingjay for the people, which is her real threat in bringing about the capitol’s downfall, has anything to do with lucy gray or the covey at large.

beyond the bow which keeps her alive, katniss’ power comes from a variety of non-covey sources. cinna’s costumes, while echoing lucy gray in unforgettability, make her not appealing, but striking, as the “girl on fire.” tying the district 12 tributes together comes from haymitch, the rebellion, and most importantly, her luck of being reaped alongside peeta, someone willing to give his life to save hers. her compassion for prim, peeta, rue, thresh, and even cato is rooted in her mother, who snuck into the seam to treat people for free and left her privileged life behind to marry a coal miner. even katniss’ ability to heal both herself and peeta, which keeps them alive long enough to hold out the berries, comes from asterid.

the covey and their legacy touches katniss more than most in district 12, but that isn’t part of her appeal to the masses. there is music class in district 12, and peeta, asterid, and maysilee recognize and feel emotionally connected to many of their songs. the galvanizing effect of their music could have come from any mouth singing banned songs with provocative words. that’s clear because it works when no one, not even katniss, knows of her heritage. when katniss sings, her beautiful voice is not what moves people—it’s the timing, the moments when she sings: to rue, and to pollux and the mockingjays. ultimately, katniss is not a performer, which is, as haymitch points out, explicitly what people respond to about her.

katniss’ similarity to lucy gray is undoubtedly a rose thorn in snow’s side, and most certainly leads to his recklessness in exacting his vengeance against her. in fact, it’s snow’s attempted exploitation of that connection by trying to force katniss to be a performer that is his predominant failure. but the effect on snow, personally, isn’t what ignites the rebellion. it certainly isn’t what makes the revolution successful. that is a concerted, unified effort of decades, which results in katniss and peeta holding hands at the opening ceremonies in burning costumes. in no one being able to blow katniss and peeta in the air when they hold out those berries. in giving katniss the wire to fire into the force field.

as snow himself notes before her victory tour, no one would believe her death was an accident after she held out the berries. she is already a martyr before she really starts to perform. because, unlike for lucy gray, reaper, haymitch, finnick, and the other potential symbols, the people of the districts are already primed and ready to fight. katniss, in a burning costume, is the human manifestation of marching orders. she is a signal to something that already exists.

the kindling is laid. the logs are stacked. the gas is poured. the striker is not around her neck, but in maysilee’s pin on her shirt. all katniss would need to do to start the fire is find a striking rock on a berry bush in her arena. a striking rock which she could only recognize because of her father. whose true power she only understands because of peeta. power she only chooses to use because of her sense of justice, displayed through her solidarity.

solidarity, not an inherited musical talent, not twirling in a colorful dress at the interviews, not a “performance” as a lovestruck girl, is what lights the spark of revolution. it’s a quality katniss shares not with lucy gray, but with haymitch. of course, the difference between them is that haymitch did not have the benefit of a locked and loaded rebel movement in place to ensure the world would be watching. but snow’s lingering obsession with lucy gray is also not what makes katniss a success where haymitch failed. from haymitch, the rebellion learned that its symbol is needed not to build the fire, but to light the spark.

in a line of failed attempts ranging from beetee to haymitch to finnick, katniss is successful because, this time, the groundwork is laid to launch the districts into a planned, full-scale rebellion. in displaying her love for prim, for rue, and for peeta, her solidarity was the striker hitting the rock at just the right moment. katniss, the springtime daughter of asterid march, the prodigal archer of the everdeen line, the girl who fights not for herself, but for everyone else, is the mockingjay not because she bleeds covey blood, but because in selecting the moment she starts to burn, she is “luckier, [and] with better timing.” and that is a fire that even snow, the #1 peacekeeper, would never have been able to quell.

[orie-jai]

So if Katniss and Peeta are Penelope and Odysseus

And Haymitch and Lenore Dove are Orpheus and Eyuridice

Then that makes Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Jason and Medea

So i did end up writing that essay but I also wanna point out the amazing analysis included here and here 💛

[saptashati]

To everyone criticizing Snow’s characterization in SotR

“He’s a mastermind he wouldn’t do that!!!”

no he’s not he’s a fucking loser who could never get over a situationship he had 40 years ago.

Like look at some of our leaders today they’re fucking losers who literally broadcast their stupid little grudges on Twitter while repealing our basic rights and constantly making errors

If anything Snow being super cringe, vomiting everywhere, is like not enough

[buttercups-revenge]

I feel like the first year that they moved the games out of the old, rundown Capitol arena, they probably didn’t tell the tributes ahead of time, except maybe to sort of tease them. Imagine thinking you’re going into that crusty, well known old arena, and coming up the tubes and being somewhere COMPLETELY different.

Did the tributes feel safe at first? Did they find better places to hide and more to hunt and better shelter and natural water? Did they not realize that they were trapped and try to make a run for it? Were they shocked when the mutts started to appear? What deadly surprises were waiting for them that year? How soon did the Capitol start to add things like natural disasters or un-synching the sun to make it even harder for the tributes? Was there ever a game played completely at night? With no night at all?

By the time we get to Katniss’ game, she knows what to expect out of them, down to “oh, the gamemakers are getting rid of the water to bring the last of us all to one place”. How much harder was it for those early kids who didn’t yet know the rules of the new and improved arenas?

[mitsuki91]

Let's try to be real short on this.

This is the quote about the girl in the cage:

(Thanks to @booksandlighters for the screen 🥰)

Please read it in full, with lines above and after that specific line (that also starts with "in some ways" so you know he is not serious about caging his girl).

What do you read? Because I read a boy in love who can not be with his loved one and he is anxious (of course because he has this need to be in control, but not because of a power play or else, just to be safe and sure about the world around him). And also, ALSO, he was thinking about Billy Taupe who can try to win Lucy Gray back NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. He trusts his girl so much, it's not HER the problem (or her freedom, really), but THE OTHERS.

(Also you can read this thing like "he wants to keep everyone outside so no one can reach her" but that's another point for another day).

(ALSO you can see very well how he is the one to feel caged and in his fantasy him and Lucy Gray are together so there is no point to cage himself too - he already is and he hates it and he wants to be with her).

In the whole quote the important part of the line is "where he always have a general idea of what she was doing" and NOT the "looked up" part. And please let me remind you that this boy didn't know shit about Covey's routine now, he only know that they play and sing but he is not even sure he can find them at the Hob when he is free to go there... I mean... Even I would be anxious. I am sure that if he and Lucy Gray talked about their habits then at least half of the problem would be solved.

ALSO Lucy Gray is back in a District where the Mayor already tried to frame her, where her ex is a patetic mess who wants her back, and where the new girl of said ex is crazy and also the daughter of the mayor, whom Lucy Gray umiliated on air at the Reaping. I would be worried sick too.

Coryo trusts his Lucy Gray, he only wants to know where she is and what she is doing, NOT like a stalker, but more like a "Okay I came home and my husband is not there even if he was supposed to be there and there is no note he didn't send me a message WTF is that what happened where is him?! Why didn't he tell me something? I am worry sick!" combined with "And now I have to leave for my shift in 10minutes so I can not even search him/ask any of his family/friends if they know something!".

This is it. This is the feeling Coriolanus Snow was feeling.

[foxglovevibes]

Fully just realised that Coriolanus' hair being shaved off when he was forced to join the Peacekeepers is a metaphor for him shedding who he had, and could have, been.

His messy golden/blonde curls gave him a cherubic, youthful appearance. Indicative of the remnants of the boy he had been once, the one who Tigris desperately tried to keep alive both literally and figuratively, who she believed wholeheartedly had the strength to be good in a city that leeched away at them both each and every day.

When they were shaved away, it served as a physical representation of those last few shreds of that little boy being brushed off like nothing more than a stray hair. Which is why this is where we see him stripped down to his bare roots. Where we see him finally lose his cool in a way we hadn't seen at all in the rest of the film. Where we see how easily he turns to the bad and how easily he ignores any opportunities to be good if they don't serve a purpose.

Which makes when we last see Coriolanus even more jarring, when he is back in the Capitol and fully embracing the corruption of who he had been. His hair is absolutely pristine. Not a single strand out of place. Now a platinum blonde/white shade compared to the golden curls we first see him with. A near carbon copy of the man his father had been and somehow managing to be worse.

[mitsuki91]

... you make me cry, thanks I hate it 😭😭😭

i guess it's left the consciousness in the US? but there were so many stories from the Vietnam War era of boys beaten by their fathers for having long hair and/or forcibly shorn of their long hair by the military or parents. collins is older and would know those stories.

her father was in the military, so she knows what it does to young men (intentionally)- it's valid to find tom blyth hotter with the look -but the *textual point* of being forced to join the military as a punishment and the entire forced shearing of his hair/etc is about how boys are dehumanized into tools to dehumanize others

i grew up near a military base, so i saw it all the time. it's awful and the techniques they use are very deliberate and effective.

it's about a whole young person, whose personhood involved all kinds of traits and possibilities, being "shaved down" into a tool and dehumanized - and when he becomes the mask of his father, that's him colluding and doing it to himself in order to secure a safer spot in this system

the costuming/hair/makeup/behavioral androgyny of his wholeness before all of this is very pointedly in stark contrast to the soldier boy he is made into and the Capitol Man he makes himself

he's *textually suicidal* after the series of violations/acts of dehumanization the military uses on him

and his intimate name--the name he says is for people who love him in the book--"Coryo" dies with the second, willing self-mutilation - no one speaks it anymore. he betrayed the friend who called him that and Tigris refuses to call the person he is now by that beloved name

the visuals are not treating his more masc looks as a "glow up" or him becoming more - they're him becoming less himself. and i think this is important to read in contrast to peeta - a soft boy who Collins depicts as heroic and courageous for fighting to retain his softness and traits associated with femininity.

imo part of why people are so adamant that coriolanus' heel turn is him becoming "his true self" is because it meshes with the narrative that a boy must shear away his softness & anything associated with femininity to become his true self. that it's a good and necessary thing for boys to let go for their wholeness and "man up." Collins doesn't do that with Peeta though

she doesn't push the idea that boys need to cut themselves down to fit narrow ideas of gender, so i think this (and her knowledge of military culture and older discussions about gender re: Vietnam in the US) all fit together for me

collins has said she writes about war - and this is a very important part of how war *functions*. how do you get a lot of young men who are complex, whole people to become tools you can order to kill each other?

[justafewberries]

Sejanus Plinth, Lenore Dove, and the Impulsive Rebel

Both Sejanus Plinth and Lenore Dove rebel impulsively. Sejanus, foremost, enters the arena with the intention to give last rites to Marcus. He begins to act in accordance with other rebels in District Twelve, but his trust of Coriolanus becomes his downfall. Lenore Dove takes to the stage to sing about the injustice of oppression. It was not her singing that necessarily got her arrested, rather, the crowds that gathered. Both characters suffer from impulsive and emotional rebellion, which often befalls the characterization of immaturity. However, in the context of an oppressive and isolating Capitol, their Bradburian rebellions, akin to Guy Montag’s rebellion in Fahrenheit 451 and Winston’s in 1984, speak to Plutarch Heavensbee’s greater continuum of revolution. 

Sejanus Plinth

In The Rebel, Albert Camus defines a rebel as “a man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation”. In that, a rebel is someone who recognizes the authority has moved beyond the limit of its power. It has begun to encroach on the rights of others. However, the rebel is also someone who believes that there is moderation in which the authority has power before said limit. (This definition hinges on the difference between revolution and rebellion, but for the sake of the scope of this essay, I will omit Camus's broad section on the differences. It's long enough already.)

For example, Sejanus Plinth rebels against the idea of the Games and the inhumane treatment of the districts. He believes instead of punishing the districts, the Capitol should seek to protect everyone in Panem, but he still believes in the government having power. The line for him would be the abuse of the districts. 

Sejanus represents John Locke’s idea of natural law, which denotes that people are born with natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Any government must then recognize said rights, and it cannot expect obedience from people who have not freely consented to its rule.

This encompasses Sejanus’s impulsive rebellion:

“But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected.”

In the Capitol, Sejanus is isolated in his perception of injustice. Unlike his classmates, he has insight into the humanization of people beyond Capitol borders. He recognizes they are not animals, like his classmates believe, but instead, people born with rights just like him. He must grapple with the knowledge of the harm the Games are doing and the conflicting role of being a mentor- a cog in the machine of the Games. Still, he is around people who do not perceive the “long train of abuses”, and thus feels he must convince them of the prevarications. 

“Hardly rebels. Some of them were two years old when the war ended. The oldest were eight. And now that the war’s over, they’re just citizens of Panem, aren’t they? Same as us? Isn’t that what the anthem says the Capitol does? ‘You give us light. You reunite’? It’s supposed to be everyone’s government, right?” “That’s the general idea. Go on,” Dr. Gaul encouraged him. “Well, then it should protect everyone,” said Sejanus. “That’s its number one job! And I don’t see how making them fight to the death achieves that.” “Obviously, you don’t approve of the Hunger Games,” said Dr. Gaul. “That must be hard for a mentor. That must interfere with your assignment.” Sejanus paused for a moment. Then he sat up straight, seeming to steel himself, and looked her in the eye. “Perhaps you should replace me and assign someone more worthy.”

He wants to be freed from the Games. He expresses this proposal to Dr. Gaul, who refuses to oblige. Yet, even Sejanus knows freeing himself from the Games is not something that would end them. Even after he no longer has a stake in the Games when Marcus goes missing, he continues to show up to classes and chime in to discussions on the Games. He rebels through free thought, as it is the only rebellion he can manage under the oppressive restrictions of the Capitol. 

Returning to Camus’s The Rebel, he writes that to remain silent means to consent to the malpractice of the authority:

“To remain silent is to give the impression that one has no opinions, that one wants nothing, and in certain cases it really amounts to wanting nothing. Despair, like the absurd, has opinions and desires about everything in general and nothing in particular. Silence expresses this attitude very well. But from the moment that the rebel finds his voice—even though he says nothing but "no"—he begins to desire and to judge.”

Sejanus rebels through continuing to show up. He earnestly believes that speaking in front of his classmates and Academy staff will change someone’s mind. He believes if he can convince someone to understand, then maybe, he will make a dent in the Games. It is why Lysistrata’s speech when Jessup dies is impactful. Lysistrata, who was born and raised in the Capitol, begins to see the people in the districts beyond their characterization as animals. 

“What I’d like people to know about Jessup is that he was a good person. He threw his body over mine to protect me when the bombs started going off in the arena. It wasn’t even conscious. He did it reflexively. That’s who he was at heart. A protector. I don’t think he would’ve ever won the Games, because he’d have died trying to protect Lucy Gray.” “Oh, like a dog or something.” Lepidus nodded. “A really good one.” “No, not like a dog. Like a human being,” said Lysistrata.

While I do not intend to reduce Lysistrata’s revelation to a sole factor, Sejanus’s insistence must have impacted her thoughts. She shows empathy towards his rebellious outburst after Sejanus sees Marcus in the arena. She even attempts to get Snow to console him. Snow, in fear of association, the opposite of Lysistrata, refuses.

We see more emotional rebellion in Sejanus when he attempts to give last rites to Marcus via the breadcrumbs in the arena. The rebellion of this act can be construed two ways: a boy trying to give someone passage into an afterlife, or a rebellious student attempting to humanize someone in front of the Capitol and willing to die for it. Both of these options convene in emotion. 

Dying in the arena as a sole rebel will not accomplish the same messaging as working strategically with a team of conspirators. Rather, his emotional rebellion is personal and impulsive. He cannot depend on anyone to rebel with him. Again, he is isolated from any inklings of rebellion or rebellious thought leaders. Any time he attempts to bring the ideas to the classroom, someone shuts him down. Therefore, he deems it necessary to act in accordance with his own ideologies even if it means going at it alone. To him, a fleeting rebellion is better than none at all. There is no greater conspiracy other than the ideologies in his dialects: people deserve rights. 

When he sprinkles the breadcrumbs on Marcus, he accepts his own death. To him, as to Camus, rebels who are willing to die recognize that some causes transcend that of a single man:

“If he prefers the risk of death to the negation of the rights that he defends, it is because he considers these rights more important than himself. Therefore he is acting in the name of certain values which are still indeterminate but which he feels are common to himself and to all men. We see that the affirmation implicit in every act of rebellion is extended to something that transcends the individual in so far as it withdraws him from his supposed solitude and provides him with a reason to act.”

Sejanus’s impulse is driven by the idea that rights (or, rites) are more important than himself. He has accepted death, even if his actions will not lend themselves to a greater movement. He acts on his own, isolated from his district and alone in his ideas. He recognizes that he must act, even if it will end in his own death. The injustices occur before his eyes, and he realizes he cannot wait to recruit more people to his cause. He has tried and failed, and now his friend is dead. He cannot wait for a rebellion. To him, there is no such thing. Of course we as readers know about Plutarch and the later rebellion, but Sejanus is not given such insight. Nor is he aware of anyone who may even consider the district citizens as humans. To him, he is alone in life and thought, and thus he accepts this as true and rebels on his own. 

It is why, in District Twelve, farther removed from the Capitol’s watchful eye, he feels more emboldened. He latches on to the first signs of rebellion and devotes his life to it. He works with Billy Taupe and the rebels to try to free a prisoner, because once again, he believes people have rights. With people behind him, he has something he has never had before- a community of like minded people. 

For the first time, he is no longer alone. He realizes his ideas all along can come to fruition. While his tactics are unrefined, such as drawing a map in the dirt where anyone can see, his rebellion is still appropriately limited.

Sejanus’s rebellious plot lacked a direct attack on the Capitol. While he believed in ending the Games, he set the bar lower. He likely realized the Games were too big of a target, and, unlike in the Capitol, escaping became a viable option. His goal was never to blow up the arena or free the tributes. He just wanted to get the imprisoned girl and run.

His greatest fault was trusting Snow. To him, they are brothers. He has been his confidant before, and Snow has saved him countless times. He refused to graduate unless the academy allowed Snow to graduate, too. Inasmuch, he is misled to believe he can tell Snow the plan. 

For once, Sejanus found people who believed in the same things he did. Had he not told Snow, his rebellion likely may have worked. However, just like Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451, he placed his trust in someone he believed to be his brother, and it got him killed. He felt emotionally compelled, just as he did in the arena, to give a final goodbye or an explanation. He trusted Snow, and it got him killed. 

Lenore Dove

Lenore Dove’s acts of rebellion are reactionary, but still emotional. She does not act without a cause in front of her. 

Assuming she was the one to cut the gallows rope and burn the flag, her actions of rebellion are always focused on one event. She sawed the rope to permit it to snap, and she burned the flag to create drama around the reaping ceremony. Neither of these events end with anything other than someone getting arrested. She acts out of necessity, but her acts are impermanent. Like Sejanus, she lacks an overarching goal and an overall movement.

However, unlike Sejanus, she is raised with rebellious media- books, free thought, and music. She idolizes the raven on the tree that can say what she desires. She admires people who can speak freely, going so far as to tell Haymitch she hopes to be able to speak her mind when she’s older:

“And nobody tells them what to say. That bird is who I want to be when I grow up. Someone who says whatever they think is right, no matter what.”  No matter what. That’s the part I’m worried about. That she might be saying something rash. Or even doing something beyond dangerous words. Something the Capitol won’t warn but whip her for. The year she turned twelve, she crossed that line twice.

Yet, Lenore Dove respects the wishes of Clerk Carmine by singing only in the meadow. She complies with her uncle's wishes by refusing to play the Goose and the Common in public. She censors herself, and she will not sing in public because she “says it makes her too nervous to sing in front of people. Her throat closes up.” 

However, her ultimate rebellion has her doing both things: Freely singing what she wants and gathering a crowd in the square. She immediately gathers like minded people:

“Less about what I played, more about how it drew people. Everybody’s real upset this year, so many kids. They needed a place to be together, to raise their voices. Sometimes the hurt’s too bad to bear alone.”  So it wasn’t just her, playing her heart out in front of the Justice Building. A crowd had gathered. Sung the forbidden songs. “Did they say the charges?”  “Disrupting the peace or something. And you know, ‘No Peace, No Anything.’”

She became, for a moment, a voice for District Twelve, who sang along with her forbidden songs. Had this occurred during the 75th Games, when tension was already high, it may have spawned something greater. Instead, with the ever present threat of the peacekeepers and propaganda in the square, the people complied by dispersing without issue. There was no compelling call to rebel. It was, as Camus says, “Rebellion is, by nature, limited in scope. It is no more than an incoherent pronouncement.”. She struck a spark that did not catch. However, in doing so, she placed herself, literally by being on the reaping stage, on the same level as the Capitol’s propaganda. She demanded respect for the ideas present in her songs. 

To return to Camus:

“The act of rebellion carries him far beyond the point he had reached by simply refusing. He exceeds the bounds that he fixed for his antagonist, and now demands to be treated as an equal. What was at first the man's obstinate resistance now becomes the whole man, who is identified with and summed up in this resistance. The part of himself that he wanted to be respected he proceeds to place above everything else and proclaims it preferable to everything, even to life itself. It becomes for him the supreme good.”

Lenore Dove’s emotions drive her rebellion, and, like Sejanus, she doesn’t think about the consequences until they occur:

“No, darling, that’s not how it went down at all. I overstepped, just like my uncles always warn me about. I lost my temper and started hollering and now you’re — oh, Haymitch . . . I don’t want to be on this earth without you.”

Both characters do not consider the consequences because they act according to the urgency of the situation. They recognize no one else is making a move to rebel, and they rebel without support, because to them, none exists. To them, it is better to rebel than to sit by and watch, even if the fall out is worse than staying silent. 

Haymitch says it best:

“It’s not like she’s part of some big conspiracy, so, hopefully, they won’t use methods to force her to talk. Just view her as an emotional sixteen-year-old whose boyfriend got reaped.”

She is not part of some “big conspiracy” because she is not given the opportunity. To both, there exists none. There is not even a chance, nor the liberty of joining. Their acts, then, are often mischaracterized as immature. Rather, the existence of the acts themselves is enough of a threat for the Capitol to silence them. Sejanus’s intrusion into the arena is never shown, and Lenore Dove is arrested. Their acts are significant in themselves, as they exist as moments of rebellion. The existence of rebellion itself is dangerous, as Drusilla says:

“You can’t say that!” Drusilla protests. “You’ll spoil the brilliant work I did covering up the riot!” “What riot? Woodbine ran and your people shot him.”  “I know a riot when I see it! Never mind. That’s forbidden. It won’t win you any points with the audience anyway. They’ll respond to a bad boy, not a rebel. You need to be naughty, not dangerous.”

Any instance of rebellion is dangerous for a tyrannical authority, monumental impact or not.

Bradburian Rebellion

Both Sejanus and Lenore Dove rebel in a very Bradburian way- impulsive, emotional, and immediate. In Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag begins to read directly from banned books, one in the same as Lenore Dove’s banned songs. Both acts ultimately lead to stamped out embers of rebellion. Montag’s fruitless rebellion results in the death of an innocent man. Lenore Dove’s rebellion results in a fortification of the state. Through her, the peacekeepers send a message of free speech and free thought are not allowed, as they disturb the peace. Sejanus’s rebellion culminates similarly to Montag’s in that he ultimately trusts someone who betrays him: 

“Millie?” He paused. “This is your house as well as mine. I feel it's only fair that I tell you something now. I should have told you before, but I wasn't even admitting it to myself. I have something I want you to see, something I've put away and hid during the past year, now and again, once in a while, I didn't know why, but I did it and I never told you.” He took hold of a straight-backed chair and moved it slowly and steadily into the hall near the front door and climbed up on it and stood for a moment like a statue on a pedestal, his wife standing under him, waiting. Then he reached up and pulled back the grille of the air-conditioning system and reached far back inside to the right and moved still another sliding sheet of metal and took out a book. Without looking at it he dropped it to the floor. He put his hand back up and took out two books and moved his hand down and dropped the two books to the floor. He kept moving his hand and dropping books, small ones, fairly large ones, yellow, red, green ones. When he was done he looked down upon some twenty books lying at his wife's feet. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't really think. But now it looks as if we're in this together.” Mildred backed away as if she were suddenly confronted by a pack of mice that had come up out of the floor. He could hear her breathing rapidly and her face was paled out and her eyes were fastened wide. She said his name over, twice, three times. Then moaning, she ran forward, seized a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator.

Montag, Lenore Dove, and Sejanus Plinth are all impulsive rebels. Their emotions and personal constitutions compel them to act. In every case, they do not fight with a greater cause, because the rebellion is so subdued they perceive no other choice than to act alone. They see the urgency in their situation, and they act accordingly. Often, as we see in both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, this type of impulsive rebellion does little in the grand scheme of things. It is fleeting and, in the case of Winston, completely quelled into naught. However, in the context of Plutarch Heavensbee’s continuum, every act of rebellion is important, even the fleeting one-off ones. To put it simply, it all adds up.

As Camus continues:

“Rebellion is, by nature, limited in scope. It is no more than an incoherent pronouncement. Revolution, on the contrary, originates in the realm of ideas. Specifically, it is the injection of ideas into historical experience, while rebellion is only the movement that leads from individual experience into the realm of ideas. While even the collective history of a movement of rebellion is always that of a fruitless struggle with facts, of an obscure protest which involves neither methods nor reasons, a revolution is an attempt to shape actions to ideas, to fit the world into a theoretic frame. That is why rebellion kills men while revolution destroys both men and principles.”

Yet, all three characters rebel due to hope for a better future, because hope is all they have:

“The slave and those whose present life is miserable and who can find no consolation in the heavens are assured that at least the future belongs to them. The future is the only kind of property that the masters willingly concede to the slaves.”

The purpose of the Games, according to Snow, is to give the districts hope, and they do. To Sejanus and Lenore Dove, they hope for a better future, and they both rebel under the idea that their acts may have no greater consequence than an “incoherent pronouncement”, and yet, they are compelled to act. 

Because, finally, as Camus says:

“Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.”

[danyllura]

Despite Snows focus being on Katniss, I would argue Peeta played a far more of a rebellious role in his part of the “star crossed lover” during their first games than her. From the moment Cinna gets them to hold hands during the opening ceremony their pairing is shrouded in a “touch of rebellion” - we know alliances among district partners is normal/expected but it is also clear that the terms of agreement are temporary and built upon the goal of their individual survival. Peeta is the one that breaches that agreement, by pushing their relationship beyond district partners to that of “star crossed lovers” with the admittance of his crush on Katniss. It is the intent behind why he chooses what to share that is shrouded in rebellion. Early on Peeta is aware of Katniss’ potential as a tribute and beyond that he recognizes that “spark” that can make her “desirable” to others. Yes, he genuinely loves her. But he shares so not to be honest, or to make himself a sympathetic character for the capitol, but to hopefully benefit her in the arena. He pushes this further by his continuous reiterating of his feelings to the audience, during his time with the careers, alone, and then eventually with Katniss. Time and time again he displays that her survival is his ultimate goal in the games, willing to prioritize her victory over his own life. And while yes, Peeta does this because he does truly love and care about Katniss, he is intentional with his actions. He broadcasts his feelings because it benefits her. And every aspect of that goes against what the games are meant to do to people; divide them.

Comparatively, in regards to the “star crossed lovers” Katniss is much more obedient to the rules of the games. She doesn’t initially portray herself to return Peetas feelings. She plays as a solo player, and Katniss quite literally states she appears “heartless” because of this when they watch back over their time in the arena. When it’s only one promised victor and she believes Peeta to be allied with the careers, she drops a nest of tracker jackets over where Peeta is sleeping and showing she views him as any other competitor. Katniss only reciprocates the role of “star crossed lovers” when the capitol has allowed that type of alliance to work within the games. And if anything her later trick with the berries, is a scene of the capitols own making. It is a final act of desperation. Katniss’ knows Peeta is on the brink of death and it’s even a possibility for the Mutts that had just killed Cato to reappear. When she’s handing the berries to Peeta and as she spills them into her mouth, Katniss is not thinking of the significance of her choice or the potential consequences it may illicit. It’s an emotional decision, not a calculated one. In comparison, laying Rue to rest in a bed of flowers was a far more calculated act of rebellion from Katniss.

But despite all this, President Snow almost solely blames Katniss for the oncoming rebellion. And while Katniss does do many things that help initiate that spark, such as volunteering for Prim, singing to Rue, risking her life for Peeta at the feast- it isn’t that he blames, but rather her lying about loving Peeta back. Because Snow is stuck in the past with his belief that Lucy Gray tricked him into loving her. And Katniss, with her singing and her Mockinjays, is such an obvious parallel of Lucy Grays ghost- he misses the fact that Peeta has been a far more calculated player that has actively rebelled from everything the games are meant to turn you into from the moment he was reaped.

[tempestandwhirlwinds]

SPOILERS FOR SUNRISE ON THE REAPING (long post)

One major thing that surprised me about this book was how involved and active the rebels were in Haymitch's games. They clearly weren't incredibly organized yet, but they had plenty of smart people in their numbers (Beetee, Mags, Plutarch, etc) who were bold enough to try interfering directly with the Hunger Games arena. But despite all this, the sparks from the rebellion never caught fire (despite Haymitch's token), even though Haymitch and his allies did WAY more outright rebellious things in his game then Katniss did in hers (blowing up the arena, killing gamekeepers). So why didn't the rebellion start with him, and why wasn't he the "mockingjay"?

Here are my theories as to why in no particular order:

1. Haymitch betrayed his rebel spirit to Snow BEFORE the games started (making Snow 'claim' Louelle's death after the parade) which made him a clear and obvious target for Snow to focus on.

2. Once Snow started paying attention to Haymitch, he clearly saw some similarities between Haymitch's relationship with Lenore Dove and his own with Lucy Gray (that whole conversation they had at the Heavensbee manor). We know now for sure that Snow was haunted by Lucy Gray throughout the rest of his life (💅), and any reference to his lost "love" who betrayed him makes him a bit trigger happy, to say the least. Which means that-

3. Snow clearly paid VERY close attention to what was happening in the arena, to make sure he could punish Haymitch for any rebellious actions or censor them from the footage. This is the critical piece here. Snow knew the power of televised rebellion (the stunt with the Panem flag covering the corpses as a way to hold the Capitol accountable in Lucy Gray's games was a big one), and Haymitch had already demonstrated a similar sentiment in the parade. Because of this, it's clear to see that he had an EXTREMELY heavy hand in the games - he sent the (poisoned?) milk directly to Haymitch, and he heavily censored and manipulated the footage to remove any traces of deliberate rebellion and district solidarity, changing the narrative of Haymitch's games completely.

4. Because Snow was able to prevent the Capitol and the Districts from seeing the rebellious acts (or doctoring a propaganda film of the games that erases ppls memories of the actual events), Snow was able to neutralize Haymitch and the rebellion before it could spread past the arena. And his brutal punishment of Haymitch after the games only served to guarantee that Haymitch wouldn't step out of line again, removing the possibility of Haymitch being the face of the rebellion after Snow has taught him what will happen to those Haymitch cares about.

This led me to the next question: how was Katniss able to spark the rebellion and become the "mockingjay"?

Here are my thoughts:

1. Snow was clearly past his prime by the 74/75 Hunger Games, relying on his reputation of fear and control to keep people in line instead of continuously poisoning people outright. This may be because his body can't handle the poison as much anymore, or because he's slowly dying, but the scene we see in SOTR with Snow vomiting poison (and being unbothered by Haymitch witnessing it), combined with the fact that we don't see Snow as anything less than perfectly presentable in the Trilogy, shows how his older self is reaping the reward of fear and control that his younger self set the pave stones for with all the poisoning. By the time Katniss' games come around, he's like a lazy CEO who has everyone else and his reputation doing the work for him. He only starts picking up the slack once egregious mistakes start being made and his position at the Capitol becomes less stable with the rise of the Rebellion. Crucially, he was less involved in Katniss' games than he was in Haymitchs.

2. Katniss clearly wasn't trying to be a rebel in either of her games, unlike Haymitch, and Katniss and Snow were so similar (survivor's at heart) that Snow wasn't worried about rebellion from her at all. He wouldn't have liked her winning, obviously (Lucy Gray the icon that you are) and he would've been sneering over the star-crossed lovers angle, as he's absolutely certain that self-preservation will always prevail over love. After all, that's the same dilemma that happened between him and Lucy Gray, and they both chose self-preservation over each other!

3. I would bet money that Snow was fairly hands off during the 74th Hunger games, with the exception of the two-victors-from-the-same-district rule. Knowing what we know now about how Snow handled Haymitch and Lenore Dove, he would've been itching for a recreation of "killing the one you love" situation between Katniss and Peeta, the same way that it happened between him and Lucy Gray and Haymitch and Lenore Dove. He didn't believe that Katniss and Peeta were in love, but he also very sincerely believed the foundations of love crumple to nothing when someone's life is on the line - and he had to believe that, bc that would mean that he killed(?) Lucy Gray for no reason at all.

4. When Katniss teamed up with Rue, their alliance was so clearly different from the careers' in a way that was dangerous for the Capitol - it showed genuine comradery between districts. With the Careers alliances, there's no threat because they all turn at each other at the end (furthering the 'Disticts are subhuman/animal/inferior' perception with the Capitol), but Katniss very visibly treated Prim like a sister. Katniss showed that the Districts were family. This portrayal could not be allowed to continue. This was the first spark to the fire.

5. When Rue was killed, the cameras almost certainly lingered on her so they could capture her dismissively walking away from the body (because everyone is out for themselves, after all) but instead, they capture Katniss grieving and giving Rue a clear funeral in the only way she can - transforming Rue from a number and a bet into a dead girl and a child to be mourned. This is the clear moment that sparks the rebellion and keeps it aflame. Snow clearly didn't expect Katniss to do this, and was unable to avert the cameras in time. The rebellion is past the arena now.

6. This, I believe, is the moment where Snow tried to punish her and work some damage control. He implemented the 2 Victors rule as a bait and switch, to prove to himself and the Districts that even if Katniss will care and protect someone else, she will still choose herself, even if it means that she has to kill someone from her district. This, obviously, would make her a pariah back at home (tributes from the same district killing each other was confirmed to be social suicide in the first HG book) and squash out the face of the rebellion before it could spread.

7. But, of course, Katniss didn't do this and stepped out of the rules of his little "checkmate" entirely, which left Snow in a VERY sticky situation. Either they both died (showing the Districts that the Games are truly just a fancy way to murder their children, without the fame of the victor to distract from it) or they both lived (showing that 2 teenagers are able to hold power over the Capitol itself). Either way, the Capitol doesn't look good and, most importantly, it proves Snow wrong about his perception of humanity. Some people do choose love over survival - even the most brutal of survivalists like Katniss - and that is just too much for Snow to handle. No wonder he's obsessed with Katniss for the rest of the Trilogy, desperate to prove himself right after sixty plus years of the blood on his hands justifying his belief in people being inherently violent and selfish.

TLDR/In conclusion? Haymitch had a little too much boldness and a little too much bad luck, while Katniss had an overwhelming amount of love and loyalty within her, decades of people consoldiating for rebellion behind her, and just enough luck to truly spark the flame of rebellion and keep it lit until it burned the Capitol to the ground. Suzanne Collin's entire story focuses on strength of the power of the many, but how even then, there still needs to be a person to rally behind. This person, this symbol of resistance, can never be the person you want, only the person you need. You just gotta hope the stars align enough to make that person step forward and lead us to victory.

Suzanne Collins, the author that you are.

[evermarch]

on the mortality of president snow

this post has been in the works since i finished sotr, but i wanted to revisit ballad before sharing my thoughts. one thing i absolutely loved about sotr is that snow was not the #1 Main Antagonist so much as The Capitol, abstractly, because it hammers home one of the most essential points of the trilogy. we have this image of tyrants like snow as all-powerful, hyper-intelligent demigods four steps ahead of everyone else. like a snake charmer, they woo a population into submission with superhuman charisma. we have that concept of snow because that's katniss' view of him, and certainly the view he has of himself in ballad. snow in sotr entirely disrupts that perception. in fact, during each substantial interaction between snow and haymitch, snow appears, more than anything else, weak. in haymitch's words, "he's just a man, as mortal as the rest of us."

in private, snow's fragility is a striking juxtaposition with the young man he presents himself as in his own narrative. in the meeting at the heavensbee home, snow is retching and shuddering from poison. he seethes over how, half a century ago, the heavensbees were rich enough to keep books when he had to burn them. though haymitch doesn't, we know that he's word vomiting about the covey because he’s still not over a girl he had a thing with 40 years ago. the implications of this doomed tribute are so concerning to snow, a man with indefinite and unlimited authority and resources, that he arranges a meeting with haymitch under the guise of warning him that, should his behavior continue, his family will be harmed.

only, that's exactly what happens. publicly, snow and haymitch are caught in a chess match in which, each time the audience is paying attention, haymitch forces snow to forfeit a pawn. when haymitch slow claps over louella’s body, snow has no escape. he is "mocked" on camera by a boy wearing a covey necklace. later, the most snow can do on stage at the victor's ceremony is issue a subtle threat to "enjoy your homecoming." yes, haymitch's family will pay. but that wasn't what snow wanted. it wasn't sid who drank his milk. it wasn't willamae who flooded his watchful eye with its own tears. snow had been unable to kill haymitch, even in the middle of a televised battle royale. amongst the roaring applause for the victor, snow must crown him victorious, kneecapped by the demands of his own people.

not only is snow astonishingly fallible, but he is never solely responsible for any of his horrors. in ballad coriolanus was powerless, and he had to take matters into his own hands. he killed bobbin personally. he used highbottom's weakness against him by poisoning the morphling. only sejanus was not his death blow—but he, a lowly, rank-and-file peacekeeper, reported his friend knowing it would inevitably result in his death, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise. in sotr, not a single one of the atrocities snow orchestrates happens by his hand. from lou lou to beetee and ampert to the games themselves to the deaths of sid/ma/lenore dove, each one involves a substantial number of people. each requires scientists and escorts and gamemakers and arsonists and peacekeepers willing to execute his plans.

so why would people back someone so feeble? someone who is not only personally weak, but whose power depends entirely on other people? because it's not snow they're supporting. it's not even the games, for which people still need convincing. it's what they represent. the message, even 50 years later, must be constantly reinforced to every citizen of panem with posters painted in blood to spread the narrative of "no capitol, no peace." in the districts, "no peacekeepers, no peace" means that, without the peacekeepers upholding the system with their guns and whips and ropes, they will be obliterated for their crimes. just like district 13. in the capitol, "no hunger games, no peace" means that, without the games to punish the enemies responsible for "starting" the war, they will forget and try again. and the capitol will fall besieged once again.

this messaging works because both sides still have people who remember the dark days. they remember the brutality of the capitol and the siege of the rebels. to the survivors, capitol and district alike, giving up their rights and self-determination is unequivocally worth preventing a return to war. it's not a conscious choice, of course. it's implicit submission. and the critical point is that people implicitly submit not to their specific role in upholding the system, and not even to snow, but to the narrative. to the opinion of government. to the inevitability of the system itself. and snow, as the #1 peacekeeper, manifests that narrative.

we meet characters from the districts and capitol alike who represent various points on the spectrum of implicit submission. people who swallow the propaganda wholeheartedly like drusilla, someone who lived through the aftermath of the war, who has dehumanized her enemies so much that she channels her cruelty and selfishness to abuse "their" children. ones who, in the face of hopelessness, forfeit their morality, like jethro callow and the booker boys. those who believe, as mr. donner does, that whatever facade of power their wallets provide is enough to spare them from the system which fuels that facade. and people like effie, whose kindness and humanity remains intact, who feel true sympathy for those who suffer in the name of upholding the system, but swallow like sugar the belief that it is for the greater good.

snow, specifically, appeals to each of these people, whether as a villain or as a savior, not because he is so intuitive or charming or brilliant as he considers himself to be, but because no one believes the propaganda more than coriolanus himself. throughout ballad, he constantly questioned his theory of governance, but he never, not once, questioned his core belief that the capitol is superior to the districts. that capitol people are superior to district people. when lucy gray threatened this fundamental reality by becoming someone worth loving, he first tried to distance her from his enemy by emphasizing her covey background. but when he went to 12 and saw her among his enemies, he decided he'd rather kill the piece of himself capable of love than consider that his belief system might be flawed. 40 years later, he's still not past her because she is the lock on the dam which keeps his cognitive dissonance from spilling over.

snow only learns one lesson in those 40 years, the one he adopts in the epilogue of ballad during his gamemaker internship: the value of a group project. he is successful in coming to power because he realizes that, whether they’re the intoxicated capitol crowd cheering on haymitch’s scar or the gamemakers who maysilee and maritte kill, every capitol citizen is fundamentally necessary to upholding the system over which snow now presides. regardless of their degree of complicity in its maintenance, the implicit submission of the feeble-minded masses is what keeps it running. what snow does not learn by the 50th games is that he is one of them.

not, of course, that he had the opportunity to understand that before—it was the heavensbees, after all, not the snows, who got to keep books for reading and not kindling. by the 50th games, however, coriolanus has no such excuse. yet, he still decides to send haymitch the milk pitcher in the arena. he could have had haymitch killed at any point before now, but he needs haymitch to suffer more than just an agonizing death. he needs him to die a selfish being, who deprived a poor, starving girl of her salvation, or live as a pariah, who poisoned her to survive. it is not just haymitch who needs to die. it is his poster. the opposition to the narrative. to the essence of snow's being. but it's that very choice which causes snow's plan to collapse. because his catch-22 is cut off by silka’s axe.

this moment, not his performance of illness to plutarch and haymitch, not his notice of a covey necklace while haymitch stands over a dead girl, not even his crowning haymitch victor, is what best portrays snow's weakness. that best demonstrates that he doesn’t have ultimate control over the depravity of the games and panem’s system of stratification and subjugation. snow fears chaos more than anything in the world, swallows the propaganda and rises to the top of the government in search of unimpeachable control. yet, despite his supreme power, he does not find what he seeks. because the fear, the pain, the oppression, and the deaths do not serve him; he serves them. his efforts are undermined not by some powerful capitol usurper, but by a scared and brainwashed teenager from district 1 desperate to get home to her family and to glory. his authority is undermined by his own belief system.

snow does not learn his true place during the 50th games. but the lesson is still there to be learned. and people do. plutarch, beetee, wiress, mags, and every subsequent member of the rebellion learn that snow is only one step of the battle. coin, too, learns it, training the focus of her most problematic adversaries like katniss and finnick on him so that they don't notice her. but no one learns the lesson better than haymitch. over time, he comes to realize that the threat to be defeated is a pitcher of milk, not a bag of gumdrops. the real enemy, the true antagonist, is not one man who positions himself as the villain, but the movement from where he sources his power. the real enemy has always been the capitol itself. snow was never the snake charmer. he was always just a snake.

which is why, when the war finally comes, haymitch is not among the parade of people clamoring to kill snow, but rather in the control booth directing the mockingjay. undoubtedly, haymitch wants snow dead. but, at this point, he has the perspective to recognize that his failure in the 50th games was snow's failure, too. which is why, when the war is won, he aligns his vote with katniss. because, after 25 years, he's come to know exactly what she's known from the minute she held out the berries. the lesson she learned from peeta, who's always understood that everyone, even snow, is a piece in the capitol's games. that snow’s death changes nothing. because the power is in the message, not the voice. and if the message isn't contained, its voice can change with a flip of a coin.

coriolanus snow is just a man, a mortal being. he has never been who the real enemy is. the enemy has always been the idea, the propaganda, that fueled him. from the words of a ballad and a declaration of love to the guidance of a mentor shifting the aim of an arrow, all four of the victors from district 12 learn in their own time how to fight this opinion of government. they learn not to implicitly submit. and it's because they do so that the the sun did not rise on a reaping ever again.

[retrowitchy]

some of my favorite hunger games movie costumes as a costume design student ✶✧

y'all really liked my lucy gray costumes post so here's a few more! i was trying to fit this all into one post but i just have too much to say and i think i'm going to have to do a part two later. my thoughts on some of my favorite costume design work in thg franchise as somebody is trying to do this for a living!

[in no particular order]

1. annie's wedding dress

yes, we know in book canon that her wedding dress was one of katniss' old options (which i think is a very sweet detail, and i always thought someone should write that scene because there's a whole bit where katniss and annie go through the dresses together), but obviously there wasn't time to explain that detail in the movies. i like that the focus bart mueller and kurt swanson put on these little details that make the outfit feel very district 4. it flows in a very watery way. the veil is obviously OBVIOUSLY the best part, there's a clear 1920s influence that works soooo well with her bangs, and we never get to see it in the movie but i love the little scooped details at the bottom of the skirt as well. it's just so tasteful and very well suited to stef.

2. barb azure's 1st stage outfit

this is so insanely up my alley. this is one of those costumes that has so many details it's screaming at you, and yet as the audience we barely get a glimpse of it on screen. i love how many layers barb azure is always dressed in, and how she's paired with these close toned colors in most of her outfits. this is another headpiece that is truly a marvel- and her little velvet capelet ugh! i especially love all of honor's costumes because i think her outfits have the most nods and references to romani traditional clothing, and that's very intentional.

i think it's interesting as well because in my opinion, this outfit seems more fancy and showy than what she wears on reaping day (blouse, long skirt, little vest). we know that the people of 12 are forced to wear their very best to the reaping, and i like to think that barb azure's very best was not what she wore that day. she's got much more elaborate outfits, but she saves that for the covey shows, because the reaping and the government don't get to partake in that corner of their lives. it's a quiet rebellion.

3. the butterfly dress

it's hard to narrow down all of effie's costumes to just one, but this one has been my favorite ever since i was a kid. i think it's unique from her other outfits because it's so singularly on theme, which speaks more to book effie and the people of the capitol in the books than a lot of her other looks. the capitol loves a hyperspecific theme, and this costume nails that.

it's hard to see in these pictures, too but her makeup details with tiny butterfly wings that match the ones coming off her dress and the ones looking like they're going to take flight in her hair and on her arms- perfection.

this is also effie's most orange look, and you could argue that there's a tie there with this reaping being a big moment for peeta. i think there's an intentional color theory thread there somewhere.

4. coral

shoutout to my they/them butches!!!

the details. EVERYTHING about this costume. oh i could do a whole post on every single tribute from the 10th games, because it's so interesting to me how all of their reaping day outfits so deeply signify the culture of their district. their home is where their honor lies. it's the only thing they have left. i also think there's a note of pride found there that isn't as apparent in the 50th or 74th/75th games. much less time has passed since the war, and the districts still have a sense of identity much more distinct than they do in the future. people remember a time when they weren't living under the capitol's heel, existing only to help operations run for the rich. the culture is stronger. and lucky for us, we get to notice these details in the costumes all the more, because the tributes never change, so we have plenty of time with them.

i want to know everything about this. who embroidered the fish and the starfish, was it her mom? grandpa? sibling? who cut her hair like this, and why? did she wear it like this as long as she can remember? her ears are pierced, when did that happen? there's just so many little things that hint at a whole lifetime lived by coral before this all happened, and that just makes everything so much sadder of course.

5. the academy uniforms

the brilliance of these costumes cannot be understated. in the tbosas episode of the art of costume podcast, trish summerville talks about how the thematic element behind the academy uniforms is basically this idea that everyone is one. a singular entity, with no one rising above the rest- thematically ironic, since the whole idea of the plinth prize and coryo's whole character journey is this struggle to be elevated above his peers. it's androgynous, so there's no gender attached to it. red and grey are two of the signature colors of the capitol. the academy logo is on all of the buttons. it's brilliant, truly. and of course, there's the symbolism of all of it being red, because they all have blood on their hands.

also much love to hmu, because the hairstyles EAT. the way all of them have a signature look is so delicious, and the inspiration that a lot of the styles take from the 1940s and early 50s is so wonderful and classic looking (palmyra's bumper bangs!!! arachne's bows!! persephone and vipsania's victory roll-esque pony tails!!!).

that's it for tonight fellas (i have a lot more favorites so i will probably definitely make a part two of this)