It’s been said before, but I am all for the idea that, to Snow, Katniss Everdeen was Lucy Gray Baird rising up from the dead to haunt him.
This small, dark-haired Seam girl, making a scene at the reaping. Drawing the Capitol’s attention in the parade, and in the interviews, and with her training score. Haunted by tragic love as she enters the arena. Singing to Rue as she dies, and adorning her body with a rainbow of flowers. Cheating the Games to bring her and Peeta out alive.
And then - unwillingly - figureheading a revolution. Being hailed the mockingjay - the very thing that Snow so hated, that he so passionately wanted destroyed. Refusing to relinquish her own agency, refusing to play the Capitol’s game by its rules. Singing The Hanging Tree, by the lake. Dancing with Prim at Finnick and Annie’s wedding, spinning around the room to folk music.
It must have felt, to Snow, like Lucy Gray (and a little of Sejanus) reincarnated - Lucy Gray, coming to haunt him. Coming to destroy his empire from beyond the grave. Taking her revenge, after all those years.
