Sejanus and Lenore Dove are two characters that are defined by a deeply rooted empathy, standing in contrast to a world that’s adamant on diminishing it. Their presence and the way they view the world affects the main narrators of their stories in different ways.
Lenore Dove loved life, and she loved her people. Her rebellion was emotionally driven because she couldn’t stand watching them suffer. She wanted change and dared to hope for a better future because she refused to accept that the world she knew was all her people would ever have.
“And that’s part of our trouble. Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible.”
“But Lenore Dove’s convinced there must be people outside of Panem, far to the north.”
Just like Lenore Dove, Sejanus spends the majority of the book wishing for a better world. He was desperately trying to find a way to help the Districts, and that is ultimately what Snow uses against him in the end, and what caused his demise.
“They say there are people in the north, but even if there aren’t, there’s no Capitol.” Sejanus told him. “And that’s the main thing for me, isn’t it? living in a place where they can’t control my life.”
They both want to be free, to live a life where they and their people aren’t being controlled, and where the Capitol no longer exists. This is precisely why they want to believe there are people out there, far beyond the Capitol’s reach. They want to believe that freedom is possible, that it is within reach, and that their lives will not be spent in vain.
They both act on impulse, guided by their feelings and their hurt. For Sejanus, that despair leads him into the arena, convinced he has no other way to help, and so he chooses death as his final act of protest.
“Coriolanus pressed him. “That’s it? That’s your only choice?”“It’s the only way I might possibly make a statement. Let the world see me die in protest,” Sejanus concluded.”
Lenore Dove reacts similarly when her boy gets a one in training. She’s overcome by the desperation and the fear of losing him, and her instinct drives her to sing those forbidden songs in front of the Justice Building, not only as an act of defiance, but also an attempt to follow him to what she thinks will be his death.
“You? It’s entirely my fault you’re there! And I know I’m why you got that score. I as good as killed you, and that’s not something I can live with.” And so she’s doing what she can to get herself killed? Now I’m mad.”
They both understood the power of words and used them to move people, weaponizing the Capitol’s own empty promises and propaganda into quiet acts of defiance.
“NO CAPITOL, NO HANGING TREE! It’s a rebel play on the Capitol’s propaganda. NO CAPITOL, NO REAPING! Tucked away in this alley, a rallying cry beyond the Peacekeepers’ radar. This is Lenore Dove’s work. Her sign. Her message to me now. Her reminder that I must prevent another sunrise on the reaping.”
“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?”
Their difference lies in the way the narrators view them. While Lenore Dove’s words directly influence Haymitch to keep going and to find a way to stop the reaping, Sejanus’s words unsettle Coriolanus. He is so far beyond feeling any sense of empathy that he cannot relate to his despair, and instead sees him as foolish and naive.
They have similar beliefs, both believing that it’s up to humans to reject the Capitol ideals. The world doesn’t have to be terrifying; cruelty is a choice, and so is compassion.
“Because the world doesn’t have to be so terrifying. That’s on people, not the world.”
“Who wants to watch a group of children kill each other? Only a vicious, twisted person. Human beings may not be perfect, but we’re better than that.”
“Lenore Dove explained to me once that the common was land anyone could use. Sometimes the Peacekeepers chase her and the geese off the Meadow for no reason. She says that’s just a teaspoon of trouble in a river of wrong.”
“You’ve no right to starve people, to punish them for no reason. No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they’re not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn’t give you that right. Having more weapons doesn’t give you that right. Being from the Capitol doesn’t give you that right. Nothing does.”
Lenore Dove’s love for gumdrops served as an important reminder of her childlike innocence, of the fact that even after everything, she was only a child whose life was cut short so abruptly.
Snow decides to take her life with something he himself had associated with innocence and hope, with something familiar.
“As Sejanus gets escorted to the hanging tree after Coriolanus betrays him, they lock eyes. The only vivid image he can see, is the eight-year-old boy on the playground, the bag of gumdrops clenched in his fist.”
