Did Coriolanus really love Lucy Gray and Sejanus? Why is his behavior in the books often so extremely contradictory? Why did he seem, most of the time, to feel more empathy toward Lucy than toward Sejanus? Why did he see Lucy as a forest nymph, and Sejanus as a privileged, usurping boy who complained all the time?
.*`Structural Narcissism:
Snow feels neither guilt nor remorse, because his psychic structure is built around a constant axis of self-justification. He cannot tolerate vulnerability or dependence, so he turns everything into a struggle for power. His intelligence and charm work as narcissistic defense mechanisms: he manipulates, seduces, or betrays, always to preserve the feeling that “everything is under his control.”
The fear of losing status (the collapse of the Snow family) is the core of his narcissism. His entire sense of self depends on maintaining that façade of control, purity, and distinction.
.*`Empathy toward Lucy Gray vs. Sejanus:
With Lucy Gray Baird, his empathy arises because she represents an idealized projection: beauty, creativity, freedom, and charisma, all the qualities he lacks but longs to possess. At first, he perceives her as an “object to be rescued,” which reinforces his narcissism (“I am the one who saves her, who elevates her”). Lucy fascinates him because he admires in her what he wishes he could be, and at the same time he wants to dominate her so as not to feel inferior. His empathy is instrumental, it doesn’t come from compassion but from aesthetic and symbolic identification.
In contrast, with Sejanus Plinth he cannot empathize because Sejanus is a moral mirror, not an object of idealization. Sejanus confronts him with everything Snow denies about himself: guilt, genuine empathy, ethical dissent. Moreover, Sejanus comes from a wealthy district family, which triggers class envy and threatens Snow’s fantasy of superiority. He despises him because Sejanus exposes the truth he cannot bear, that he himself is morally corrupt.
• Snow idealizes Lucy Gray because he can turn her into part of his narrative of greatness and control.
• Snow rejects Sejanus because Sejanus exposes his lack of humanity and makes him feel weak.
• His “empathy” does not come from feeling, but from the symbolic utility each person has for his ego. Lucy Gray feeds his narcissism; Sejanus endangers it.
.*`Did Coriolanus ever love Sejanus and Lucy Gray?
The answer is yes—but the word “love” can’t really apply, though it’s the only one we have for such an emotion, right? He did care for them, but in a twisted, disturbing way, always governed by his structural narcissism. That’s called narcissistic attachment.
What Snow feels for her seems like love, but it’s really a mixture of fascination, desire for possession, and fear of loss. Lucy Gray offers him what his environment never does: spontaneity, life, emotion. He admires her because she embodies what the Capitol has stolen from him—authenticity and freedom—but at the same time, he needs her subdued so he doesn’t feel vulnerable.
When he starts to distrust her, that “love” dissolves into paranoia. In his mind, affection can only exist as long as the other person belongs entirely to him; once Lucy escapes his control, she becomes a threat. That shift from “love” to “hatred” is typical of structural narcissism: the other ceases to be a subject and becomes an object to be eliminated if they no longer sustain his ego.
His relationship with Sejanus is more complex because Snow does feel an emotional bond, even if he experiences it with contempt and disgust. Sejanus is naive, compassionate, moral; he represents everything Snow cannot allow himself to be. Deep down, there’s a mix of envy, repressed admiration, and guilt. When he betrays him, he does it coldly, but the inner conflict shows—he needs to rationalize it, to repeat that “it was the right thing to do.” That indicates that, in his sick way, he did care for him, only his psychic system cannot tolerate the idea of owing loyalty to someone weaker or ethically superior.
Snow experiences affection, but filtered through his narcissistic structure: love that needs domination, empathy that turns into repulsion, attachment that demands obedience.
• His love is never about surrender, it’s always about possession.
• And when the other (Lucy or Sejanus) confronts him with his lack of control, his affection turns into punishment.
• So yes, he did love, but only within the limits of his own distortion.
.*`Arguments for saying that Snow did feel affection (though deformed):
• Contradictory behavior toward Lucy Gray.
Throughout the novel, Snow shifts from protecting and admiring her to wanting to possess her. That ambivalence (affection and fear, desire and control) shows that something emotional is driving him. If he felt nothing, there would be no such oscillation. The intensity of his reaction to the idea of losing her or being betrayed by her reveals hidden emotional dependence.
In structural narcissism, dependence disguises itself as dominance: “I need her, but I must destroy her so I don’t depend on her.”
• His contradiction with Sejanus.
If he only despised him, there would be no inner conflict. But the text shows moments where Snow feels uncomfortable, irritated, even frightened by Sejanus’s moral purity. Constant irritation is a sign of repressed attachment, not indifference. Moreover, when Sejanus dies, Snow obsessively rationalizes his betrayal, repeating that it was “necessary” and “for the good of the Capitol.” That defensive insistence is typical of denied guilt: he needs to justify himself to avoid psychic collapse.
.*`Guilt and remorse in Snow:
He feels no conscious guilt because his structure doesn’t allow him to see himself as an aggressor; he experiences his actions as “justice,” “order,” or “duty.” But there is unconscious guilt, expressed through his moral rigidity, his disdain for vulnerability, and his intolerance of emotional chaos.
After Lucy Gray and Sejanus, he becomes colder and more calculating: that repression shows that something emotionally marked him, even if he transformed it into political control and systematic cruelty.
In psychology, this is interpreted as defensive guilt: the subject doesn’t repent, but their entire life becomes structured around never again feeling loss, betrayal, or inferiority.
Snow becomes incapable of trusting or loving without manipulating. It’s his way of not repeating the pain of being rejected (by Lucy) or morally confronted (by Sejanus).
Snow’s search and compulsive repetition: how Coriolanus kept seeking Sejanus and Lucy in other people.
.*`Lucy Gray = Katniss Everdeen
This is the most evident repetition, even acknowledged by literary critics.
Katniss is the updated reflection of Lucy Gray:
• Both are girls from District 12.
• Both have an ambiguous relationship with the Capitol.
• Both use music and performance as resistance.
• And both awaken in Snow the same mix of fascination, fear, and desire to control them.
• When the older Snow watches Katniss in the Games, his reaction is almost identical to what he felt for Lucy Gray: he admires her for her cunning and charisma but immediately needs to reduce her to a threat.
This pattern reveals that Snow never overcame his bond with Lucy Gray, and his obsession with Katniss is a projection of that old wound: this time he wants to dominate what once abandoned him.
Katniss doesn’t know it, but psychologically speaking, she embodies the lost object, the free, unpredictable woman who cannot be subdued.
Sejanus = Peeta Mellark (and partly Seneca Crane or Plutarch Heavensbee)
With Sejanus, the repetition is subtler but just as strong.
Snow sees in Peeta Mellark a clear echo:
• He is compassionate, idealistic, incapable of hatred.
• He values humanity even in the midst of horror.
• And, like Sejanus, he follows a moral code that makes him appear “weak” to the system.
When Snow faces Peeta, he feels the same mixture of contempt and threat he once felt toward Sejanus. His hostility toward Peeta is more emotional than it should be, Peeta is not politically dangerous, yet Snow despises him in a visceral way. That intensity cannot be explained by political calculation alone; it’s an unconscious reaction to a human type that confronts him with his own lack of compassion.
That’s why Peeta irritates him so much: he is the Sejanus who survives, the one he cannot personally betray.
One could also argue that Seneca Crane (the Gamesmaker who shows compassion) and Plutarch Heavensbee (who manipulates him with ethical intelligence) are partial repetitions of Sejanus: both betray him from within, and both morally underestimate him. Snow eliminates or despises them just as he did Sejanus, as if replaying the same psychological drama on different scales.
.*`Plutarch and distorted affection:
• Affection disguised as control
Snow cannot tolerate direct emotional closeness, because he experienced it as a threat (with Lucy and Sejanus). Yet he still needs to feel a form of intimacy, even if it’s mediated through hierarchy or manipulation.
That’s why he develops a cold “cordiality,” an almost paternal or polite manner with people who interest him. With Plutarch, for instance, he shows a peculiar respect (a measured courtesy) as if he valued Plutarch’s intelligence and refinement, but always making sure it’s clear who holds the power.
That’s his version of affection: a relationship of mutual dependence where the other admires his authority, and he responds with a form of controlled “protection.”
• The unconscious reflection of Sejanus
With Plutarch, the pattern with Sejanus repeats, but inverted:
Sejanus admired him from a morally superior position.
Plutarch “flatters” him from an intellectually inferior one (or so it seems).
This dynamic makes Snow comfortable, because it removes the risk of being morally outshone. However, that pseudo-friendship still carries an echo of the previous bond: he’s drawn to surround himself with cultured, sensitive, creative people, but he needs them to depend on his validation.
It’s as if, unconsciously, he were looking for a new version of Sejanus, one who wouldn’t make him feel guilty.
That’s why when Plutarch betrays him, the blow isn’t only political, it’s symbolic. It’s the same trauma repeating itself with a new face.
• Repressed affection and its twisted form
Snow does show, in several scenes, something resembling genuine affection, but always tainted by calculation.
He speaks courteously, remembers personal details, grants small privileges: all of that is his warped way of saying “I value you.”
But he doesn’t do it out of empathy, he does it because he needs to feel that there’s loyalty toward him, that someone “understands” him.
His form of affection is possessive, hierarchical, and transactional.
In psychological terms, this is known as narcissistic attachment: the subject needs closeness, but manages it as a transaction that reaffirms their own worth. If the other person steps out of that structure, they are destroyed.
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