Coriolanus and Rationalizing Evil
This post is sort of reading/listening journal for my consumption of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in audiobook form. It focuses on my growing understanding of Coriolanus as a character and how it differs from my expectations going in. I'm not finished with the audiobook yet, but it contains potential spoilers up the 9 hour in mark.
So, I've been distracted by work and a few other fandoms for my attention, but I got back to the audiobook of TBOSAS today as someone who watched the movie first. (I read the original trilogy before the movies back in college, but being an adult, I'm far less patient for books. Furthermore, because of unstable living circumstances, I don't particularly want the extra weight of having books to bring, though a part of me misses having a lot of books. In that way, the audiobook has been a lifesaver.)
Anyway, from YouTube and tumblr comments, I was anticipating that the books would twist my stomach at how terrible and psychopathic Coriolanus would be. People kept saying in various clickbait articles that the movie adaptation "ruined" his character by not allowing the audience to see the internal, wicked machinations of Coriolanus from the narration.
To my surprise, that's not the case at all for me.
For reference, I've most recently paused at 9:21:24 in the audiobook. Coriolanus is dejected at the fact that Mr. Plinth didn't offer him money as a reward for saving Sejanus.
What I am noticing, rather than someone who was born broken and beyond help (as I find is the case with many 'psychopathic' people from true crime podcasts that I often listen to), I find that Coriolanus is someone who is deeply traumatized and trying to rationalize his way into the callousness of psychopathy/sociopathy/simple apathy, or whatever you want to call it.
(Another side-note to come back to: I was absolutely stunned and fascinated by the revelation that Dr. Gaul started out as a medical doctor in obstetrics. I wonder if the narrative will loop back around to that, because damn. I want to know if she started out as a sort of ~angel of death~ medical practitioner, as serial killers in the medical profession are often dubbed, or if something broke her about the war. I want to know!!! Btw broad strokes spoilers for things I haven't read yet don't bother me! But if no one tells me, I guess I'll find out if it comes up again.)
Tigris, of course, seems to see the best in people, but more than once she has commented on how from her perspective Coriolanus wouldn't hurt a fly as a child. She seems to have admired his mother and disliked his father, and she is trying to encourage him to be the best version of himself.
Even back in the original trilogy, I notice that Collins seems to use parents less as full people than as humanoid Symbols for different influences of society. Katniss and Peeta's mothers are the most human-seeming of the parents, but even they exist as sorts of dichotomies and push-pull between two different aspects of society and their overlap through love triangles and disappointed desires. Katniss's mother is a pretty good image of depression and abuse-by-neglect-without-malice, which is a complex human condition, but the way the narratives treat them makes them seem more distant than the younger characters.
If we take it that Tigris isn't totally making up any innate reluctance toward harm that one might consider "good" or even "natural" in people before they are pushed to their breaking points, and I think we should assume that because of Coriolanus's own internal struggles with himself, then I do not see a boy/young man who does not care about other people, either on the macro level or the interpersonal level.
It is striking to me that Tigris and Coriolanus and others frequently use the world "children" when talking about the Capitol teenagers, and sometimes about the District "kids," but the teenagers -- even in the Capitol -- have some degree of adult responsibility placed on their shoulders. Well, I guess that's mostly true for Coriolanus due to his lack of parents and experience of poverty. However, it is still strange that this is juxtaposed with the way someone like Lucy Gray obviously isn't seen as a child, particularly by Coriolanus's grandmother. There is the ongoing suggestion that, especially as women, Lucy Gray and/or Tigris may have needed to engage in some sort of sex work to survive, though this is never made explicit. Furthermore, Grandma'am specifically says that Lucy Gray hasn't been a child for a long time. Furthermore, I think the weight of Lucy Gray using the word "lover" to refer to her past with Billy Taupe is intended to drive this reality home without ever needing to spell it out in black and white.
Coriolanus tries to think of himself as a child when he is in a state of high distress. Furthermore, he often thinks of his classmates' calling out for or waiting for their parents in times of need. Something he cannot do.
Coriolanus demonstrates a capable intellect, and he has been using it to mask poverty, suffering, and disadvantage for most of his life. However, he seems to genuinely care for most of his classmates as friends.
When I read others' meta analyses of the book or others comparisons of the book to the movie, I was expecting that Coriolanus would be someone who was unable to view other people as real people. I was expecting to read about someone who struggled to convince themselves that they had the emotions that are experienced by others. Someone who was, as I said earlier, born broken.
That is not what I find at all.
Instead, as I think I've read in other posts, Coriolanus reminds me a little bit of Katniss. They are both people who are dealing with dissociation and suspicion toward other people as the result of trauma, post-traumatic stress, and a lack of the safety nets that others may take for granted even in the midst of poverty and deprivation.
Of course, knowing how it ends, Coriolanus finally finds a way to "let the dark side win," or whatever. The devil of Dr. Gaul talking into his ear about the nature of humanity is something that he finally comes to embrace. I haven't gotten there yet.
But the thing is, Coriolanus's callous nature most demonstrates itself in the way that he views Sejanus. He calls his demonstrations of "civility" toward Sejanus just that and nothing more. It is obvious that he does this because he resents certain things about who Sejanus is. However, he has been taught to resent the fact that he is from the Districts and rising above his station while Coriolanus's family is falling from their birthright of grace.
What I feel there is an undercurrent of, however, is that Coriolanus distances himself from Sejanus with his rational mind while his emotions tend to cause himself to align himself with Sejanus. This is not a particular statement of shippy feelings, though I don't blame people who see it that way, and if you can use my thoughts to further your shipping manifesto/justification, knock yourselves out!
I was just really stricken with how Coriolanus handled the realization that everything Sejanus chooses to do, even things Coriolanus things are embarrassing, risky, and dangerous, are motivated by doing the right thing.
Early on in the book, Coriolanus indicates that he began to treat Sejanus with civility because it was beneath the dignity of a Snow to treat him as lesser and with disdain simply because he was from the Districts. However, later in the book, it is obvious that Coriolanus's father would not have held the same sentiment. His father was a "District-hating" man, and even with his spotty memories of his father, he is aware of this description as part of his character.
Rather, it seems like Sejanus is the stage for Coriolanus's internal morality play.
He is drawn to doing the right thing. He enjoys the shining silver lining that people could want to be good, even when it doesn't benefit them. Even when choosing to be good would disadvantage them. However, he is terrified of his prospect because the veil of seeming to be more privileged than he is is like a form of armor for Coriolanus.
Drawing back to the parallels between Katniss and Coriolanus, I remember that Katniss went to great lengths to mask her mother's neglect because, apparently, even out in District 12 there was something like social services that may have taken Katniss and Prim away from their mother had the neglect and starvation been apparent enough. However, Katniss considered the Capitol's administration of "child protection" to have been worse than remaining in the Seam and dealing with living on the knife's edge of poverty and starvation on her own.
Coriolanus is much the same, even in a less obviously dangerous position. In fact, his motivation to hide the danger he is in is even greater because he has "more to lose" in some ways. Not only would be lose his position in society and access to food and opportunity for a better life, but he would also lose his sense of identity. In some ways, it's hard to say which one is worse. Katniss, on the other hand, has a hard time defining her sense of self and self worth, but that's a different post.
In some ways, Sejanus's opportunities and the idea that he is "replacing" Coriolanus in terms of station in society is a natural source of envy for Coriolanus. However, he rarely directly acknowledges this envy. Rather, he tries to find ways to pity Sejanus without allowing (or admitting?) any sense of emotional attachment to him.
But, as the saying goes, sometimes actions speak louder than words.
It seems to me that Coriolanus is, at least thus far in the book, drawn into acting in ways that align himself morally with Sejanus. However, he resents this, because his life thus far has taught him the propaganda of the Capitol about the people of the Districts and the cold pragmatism that, in theory, best assures survival. He resents how opening up toward other people, especially people like Sejanus, makes him vulnerable.
People, especially traumatized people, hate being vulnerable.
But Sejanus is like the siren song of having a less Hobbesian view of human nature. Sejanus represents the belief that treating other humans with dignity and decency is the baseline for a functioning society. He holds this view openly while people like Highbottom can only suggest this in ways that confuse and anger Coriolanus because he perceives their presentation as a resentment of and threat toward him.
Again, actions speak louder than words.
Another thing that makes me think this is an accurate reading of what Coriolanus is going through is the way he participates in Sejanus's laughter when he is sent in to get him in the Arena. Of course, Coriolanus has plenty of internal justifications for why he is doing what he is doing. He is, of course, motivated to survive. He is making pragmatic decisions that Sejanus himself refuses to make. Given the chance, he wouldn't have gone in after him, because Coriolanus is, at minimum at this point, not as good a person as Sejanus is (though I could write more on how guilt and self-destruction are not necessarily demonstrations of moral character). It is not necessarily evil not to be totally self-sacrificial. However, when he is given no choice but to go in and do this, he doesn't take the quickest path of least resistance. He rationalizes his way through it, as he's trying to rationalize his way through everything, but when Sejanus comments on how Coriolanus can't stop saving him, he laughs.
There is no narrative detail to indicate that this is a forced laugh or a calculated response, as so many of Coriolanus's demonstrations of emotion or lack thereof are. Instead, he laughs, and it's just a description of basic action, and this indicates that, perhaps, he is not being honest with himself about who or what Sejanus is to him, rather than that we should take it as absolute truth that he does not care about him at this point in the narrative.
I could be proven wrong by finishing the book, but as I said... actions sometimes speak louder than words.
