Ballads of Panem: TBoSaS Fandom Read

Here are some thoughts I had while reading chapter three of The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes.

Coriolanus uses Tigris as a personal confidant and she gives him advice which he follows – meeting Lucy at the train station with a rose. This conversation parallels a similar “woe is me” exchange Katniss has with her confidant Prim in chapter three of Mockingjay when Prim suggests a way Katniss can get immunity for Peeta. Like Coriolanus, Katniss acts on her relative’s advice.

Suzanne Collins sure knows how to set a tone with her name choices. I giggled when I read about Coriolanus’ neighbor Gamemaker-in-Training Remus Dolittle. The tributes are treated like livestock and taken to the zoo so it’s ironic that one of the gamemakers is named after Dr. Dolittle, the book and movie character who can “talk to animals in their own language.” The first name of Remus also brought to mind the “Uncle Remus” character from the old Disney movie Song of the South. Uncle Remus was a black slave. Personally I think it indicates that everyone in Panem, whether Capitol or District, was in a form of bondage to a corrupt system.

There’s something about Lucy Gray that I can’t quite put my finger on. I commented in a previous chapter review about Lucy Gray’s makeup and Coriolanus’ question about where she got it. We find out later in a further chapter that Lucy is part of The Covey (traveling performers) and supposedly they got caught in Twelve after the war. This is supposition on my part (and maybe the plot of a future fanfic), but I’m wondering if The Covey historically were informants for the Capital since they were traveling from district to district. Maybe Lucy got makeup from Peacekeepers because of information she passed along. Maybe her boyfriend was plying the mayor’s daughter for info, and fell for her instead. At any rate, I can’t help but think it wasn’t a coincidence that Coriolanus got Lucy Gray as his tribute.

Lastly, I got a definite sense that the tribute names were rigged in many districts. On page 45 the girl from District 11 tells Coriolanus that her fellow tribute killed a Peacekeeper back home. “They never found out who did it.” But maybe they did. Maybe that’s why his name was called. In chapter two, Jessup was described as bigger than average and strong looking. Supposedly his slip was not the first pulled, the others fell to the ground. But who knows what name was on the slip the mayor read. The mayor could say whatever name he liked. No one appeared to be checking him. This line of thought made me wonder about Thresh who was so huge, and Peeta who was a wrestling champ. I’m not saying they only picked strong, healthy people because Katniss talks about smaller kids being chosen. But maybe The Capitol tried to eliminate young people from the population that were physically strong, who might be potential threats to the Peacekeepers as they grew older. Or maybe they picked kids from families that needed to be kept in line.

I wanted to draw my interpretation of my favourite Capitol girls before the movie (and pictures of the cast etc) comes out so I can get on paper how they look in my head. They're all casted now, but I did my best to not let the actresses change my view of them!

Hosted by @mega-aulover + @lovely-tothe-bone

It’s finally here! This week we are cracking open TBOSAS. Each week (Sun-Sat) we will read three chapters and then meet up on discord to hangout and chat about them on Saturday evenings, 6 PM PST. Just like our Tumblr rereads this is a participate as you can; it’s all for fun, there are no requirements. You don’t even have to chat, you can show up just to enjoy the discussion or throw questions at us. Reblog to spread the word. Send us a message to receive the server invite :) Send an ask if you have a question!

SCHEDULE

7.10 ch 1-3

7.17 ch 4-6

7.24 ch 7-9

7.31 ch 10-12

8.7 ch 13-15

8.14 ch 16-18

8.21 ch 19-21

8.28 ch 22-24

9.4 ch 25-27

the ballad of songbirds and snakes headers

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins

Let’s talk about this line. So Coriolanus is thinking about Lucy Gray and how having her locked up in the Capitol was better than her being free because he could know what she was doing. And although we see many red flags with his obsession towards Lucy Gray, this line sticks out to me the most.

Perhaps because he doesn’t even try to hide it. He blatantly says that he would rather her be locked up and subsequently unhappy as long as he knew what she was doing. Coriolanus sees nothing wrong with this idea throughout the book.

And, honestly, this is just another example of how entitled he is. He’s definitely a product of his narcissistic environment, but to a certain point, he’s had the ability to form his own opinions on the people around him. Yes, he’s from the Capitol, but he interacts with people of opposing viewpoints all the time; if he wanted to put effort into being compassionate, he would have.

Although I also think Coriolanus has a tendency to assume that everyone thinks the same way he does, so it’s easier to dismiss his own flaws and outright disregard for anyone but himself.

— the ballad of songbirds and snakes headers

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In the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, the mockingbird (and ancestor to the mockingjay) symbolizes innocence. It's a sin, it explains, to kill something innocent:

In the Hunger Games, the same can be said of the mockingjay (though it has many layers of symbolism, including resilience and defiance against the capitol). The bird doesn't harm anyone, they don't do anything but sing. Which is why it's telling when young Coriolanus Snow first encounters the mockingjays in District 12, and he immediately decides that they should die.

This is symbolic of Coriolanus's descent into President Snow and the loss of his innocence. That he would kill something innocent is also foreshadowing that he would kill innocent people (this is before he killed Mayfair/Sejanus/Lucy).

Gale Hawthorne has a similar moment in Mockingjay where Beetee shows him and Katniss a hummingbird:

While Katniss recoils at the idea of killing a hummingbird as Beetee points out, she doesn't kill for sport, she doesn't find joy in harming animals, she only ever killed them to feed herself/her family. Hummingbirds, like mockingbirds and mockingjays, don't harm anyone either.

Gale, meanwhile, finds it as an interesting challenge, thinking of how he could kill the hummingbird. This is a precursor to the inventions that he and Beetee later create together that prey on human sensibilities and vulnerabilities and it starts with imagining killing an innocent bird.

Like Snow, this moment is symbolic of Gale's descent. When discussing the issue of the hummingbird, he has never killed a person before, but later reacts to killing people without regret: