I sincerely believe the hunger games is the best YA series made (his dark materials you're an affectionate best!) mainly due to its enduring significance, political relevance and worldbuilding potential.
which is why it's a disservice to this wonderful story (partially perpretated by suzanne collins herself) that a few narrative choices and the majority of fandom discussions point to snow's actions as president of panem being 100% determined, guided and inspired by lucy gray as an individual. I'll repeat it so you don't lose the plot: snow's actions as president of panem.
the final drop that led me to write this was seeing a post on tiktok of a list of panem punishments "inspired by lucy gray" (no hard feelings, OP). now, my point here isn't debating his feelings for her and how much she meant emotionally to him or not (personally no opinion on that). my point here is that it's a disservice to what the story teaches at large to individualize the strategic actions and decisions of an authoritarian leader, to put his system's cruelty, lack of morality and sadism in the personal context of his past failed romantic relationship when it simply can't be seen through that lens.
for a series that so brilliantly captures the landscape of an authoritarian regime and teaches young adults about political oppression, propaganda, bread and circus, entertainment as a weapon of moderation and system preservation in a more visible way than a good soviet union documentary could, all of this is lost the moment the fandom turn their heads to look at snow's politics and policies as president as an exclusive psychological reaction of a brokenhearted man seeking revenge against one dead woman. "the avox don't speak because lucy gray used to sing!!!!", "snow's quarter quells started because he wanted to double down on the celebration of lucy gray's death", "what if when snow saw katniss and peeta trying to break the system all he could think of was this was the spirit of lucy gray haunting him?". I'll try to say this politely: leaders of authoritarian regimes have more pressing concerns than high school teenage boy drama. when most people age, they overgrow teenage mindsets. I know it's hard being a teenager and trying to understand how the adult mind works but let's start with processing the fact he is an adult man and thinks like an adult man.
"he's just a frustrated guy who became president because he couldn't get over his first girlfriend so now he was going to make everyone pay because this is his revenge against every single being that has ever lived!!!!!" is possibly, deep down psychologically true about him but it's also definitely the least interesting way of understanding who he is and his role in the narrative as well as purely laughable and immature when you want to use the series to make comparisons with the real world. did stalin starved and killed millions because he was brokenhearted over his first girlfriend? did hitler? mussolini? not that I know.
what about all the other people, top officials in snow's system? did they have a slumber party where snow vented about his past and they all just hugged (very funny image, granted) and embraced the cruel strategies they continued to enable out of...revenge for...a teenager...they have never...met? see, you may think I'm being petty but if you follow the snow's personal drive logic there's no accountability for every single other person who was fostering and enabling the regime, from gamemakers and high-end sponsors to caesar flickerman. and I don't know about you guys but in my view there should definitely be accountability for all of them. power. snow's panem and its enablers are a story about power. that's why making snow's actions personal-focused makes the whole story weaker than it is. it turns it into a dystopian great gatsby caricature when its points are in a head-to-head conversation with george orwell and ray bradbury. or what, a woman's story motif must necessarily always be exclusively romantic-driven? hum.
I can see how trying to interpret the systemic cruelty of authoritarianism through this personal revenge lens creates a direct line between cause and consequence ("I was hurt so I will hurt", "an eye for an eye") that makes easier for teenagers to digest snow's character. however, just because a road is easier to take doesn't mean it's right the right road for the journey. snow is the president of an authoritarian regime that inflicts a myriad of acts of cruelty and lack of human rights that in order to be inflicted properly need an organized network of people aligned with the system. systemic cruelty is not meant to be easily digestable. it's not out of nowhere historians study what makes these systems work for decades. hannah arendt didn't talk about the banality of evil for nothing. it's not easy to understand such a large scale of cruelty but it's necessary to make an effort to.
to exchange all of this for a warped, gatsby-like snow and his district 12 green light is to spit on a full shared starter and send it back to the kitchen. you lose so much of the hunger games food (including the potential for constructive fandom discussions) by doing this. let's share the starter.
