spoilers for ballad of songbirds and snakes
People ignoring the philosophy and Suzanne Collins’s exploration of what it means to be human and what a government should treat its citizens like by calling The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes boring or bad because it “reads like fanfiction” (which it doesn’t) because of “name dropping” is … an interesting take. No Hunger Games fanfiction that I’ve ever encountered has touched on these ideas, let alone let it be its story’s primary driving force. The five quotes Suzanne Collins included before the prologue were very specific and almost like a thesis statement. I can’t believe people are saying Collins didn’t do anything to counter Snow’s views within the text, claiming she’s irresponsible, when Sejanus Plinth and Lucy Gray Baird are obviously meant to not only be foils to Snow but are also her own voice coming through in the text. Sejanus represents the ideas of what a responsible and caring government should do, while Lucy Gray speaks about how people are inherently good and that people aren’t naturally evil or violent, only forced to do awful things to each other when the governing power is deliberately creating situations in which there is no other option or when they aren’t being properly taken care of by the government.
I’m so frustrated about people’s takes on the romance as well. Suzanne Collins didn’t write that in for people to sympathize with Snow or for shipping. Snow’s relationship with Lucy Gray and how he perceives her lines up with his own morals/beliefs. It’s not love that drew Snow to her - it was possession, control, order. He didn’t have much in his life, and less that he controlled, but Lucy Gray was something he “owned” and could exert his influence over. His jealousy over her past lover wasn’t because he was afraid she didn’t love him, it was because he wanted her loyalty to belong only to him and if she loved someone else, he couldn’t control her.
Suzanne Collins wrote a character who believed the world owed him, who wanted everything to fall in line for him because of the privilege of his name, who felt he was entitled to money, wealth, and power. He blamed everyone but the Capitol and his parents for his family’s downfall after the war. He blamed Sejanus for coming in and “stealing” the things he felt entitled to, just because Snow was Capitol-born and Sejanus was an outsider from District Two. He blamed his bad fortune on the districts trying to overthrow a totalitarian government, rather than the Capitol for not taking care of him and his family. The government didn’t care for them during the war despite having the resources to (the frozen turkey, the basket of goods, the electricity “magically” coming on everywhere just in time to watch a parade to promote Capitol propaganda - those came from somewhere). He’d rather be on the brink of starvation and scavenging for scraps than believe it’s the responsibility of the government to take care of its citizens, Capitol- or district-born. Hello? Remind you of anything? Or anyone? But no, Suzanne Collins clearly wrote this book for fan service and to paint Snow as a “good guy” (which is so far from how the book framed Snow’s perspective) rather than commenting on our society and the direction it’s heading in and how valuing law and order over taking care of people with plenty of resources at its disposal is not what a government should do.
On motivation: not every character needs a tragic backstory. Just because Snow’s family suffered during the war doesn’t mean he has a tragic backstory. He was just too busy obsessing over status and power, feeling entitled to wealth and being prideful instead of, you know, reaching out to the government for aid. I’m sorry that Snow’s character doesn’t follow the traditional villain backstory, but his beliefs on order and entitlement are far closer to real-life villains’ “motivations” than characters who are bad because a single event corrupted them and took a hard right turn into villain territory.
The origins of the games and Snow’s rise to power were only vehicles used to explore and lay out the philosophical ideas that Suzanne Collins wanted to write about after observing the world for the past decade since Mockingjay was released. I don’t know how anyone could have ignored that when every conversation and character interaction hinges on that.
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
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theartofmadeline
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