Every time I try to see the Hunger Games through Snow's eyes I laugh so fucking hard, because from his perspective it must've looked like each person from District 12 inherited the desire to fuck him up. Like, everyone in that district, generation after generation, is born with an intrinsic propensity to be his personal nightmare.
It started when he was a teenager and the girl that was supposed to be his personal little songbird pet decided she wasn't into wanna be dictators and not so slightly concerning inner monologues. She got a snake to bit him and made a run for it. Good riddance, he thinks, she was smart as a whip and a great charmer with an emotional power over him, so she could've actually been dangerous to him and his ambitions. Good thing she's gone and she, her family, or her horrible district of poor paesants can do nothing to hurt him anymore right?
Enters Haymitch Abernathy. He is in love with a rebellious Covey girl, and generally is all that Snow could've been if he had let go of his narcissistic ambitions.
That alone must've been upsetting to a great degree, but then, first chance he got, this little shit chugs down the milk that could've saved Snow from suffocating and then looks at him straight in the eyes, white mustache still on his lips, and tells him "oops", just to turn around and proceed to try blowing up the arena and still win! Fuck him, right? So obviously Snow destroys everything Haymitch holds dear as revenge thinking that would get him to keep his head low and be a little obedient victor. Nope, Haymitch takes alcoholism by the hand and walks backwards to self destruction with his middle finger raised high. He becomes unsellable to anyone in the Capitol and generally speaking a nuisance. But at least he's harmless, another threat from 12 is gone, so he's good now.
Sike, Katniss and Peeta enter the picture. Now, one of them is clearly a Covey descendant. Good thing she surely is too weak to go far- wait why is she good with a bow and arrows? why is she so scary? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SONG, YOU MOTHERFUCKER?
And she isn't the only problem, because fuck it, another boy in love with a Covey girl that basically slaps him in the face with the "what I should've been" card, and he's cunning and blonde too, just like Snow.
Just, this two are not like him and Lucy Gray. They actually manage to wreck his games and he can't even punish them for it! He's forced to do damage control, and the more he tries the more damage is done and oh look, a rebellion with Katniss's face slapped in the front, nice. So now he has three victors from District 12 that in their own way are walking middle fingers to him specifically and are active threats to everything he stands for. Oh well, no other choice than to exerminate them all in a brilliant strategic move right? well nope, the strategic move was actually meant for him and now he has been fooled twice on national TV.
So he has finally enough of District 12 as a whole, and decides to wipe them out. Bombing the whole place should do the trick right? But nooooo, the 19 years old, very capable hunter, very close friend with Katniss, is still around. He manages to save more than 900 people, including the family Snow really wanted dead, bring them to the woods and actually make them survive trough sheer stubborness and spite till they are rescued. The cockroaches that he has gas sprayed persist because of this fucker and Snow is three seconds away from an aneurysm.
Snow is like that dude that pissed off a bunch of crows and has been tormented by them and their offsprings ever since. He hurt Lucy Gray, and even when her face and story was erased, when no one remembered what had been done to her, they never forgot that he was the one who did it.
People from District 12 never stopped hunting him in a way that, on their part, was unintentional and yet disturbing. It was always Covey girls and the boys who loved them, it was blonde hair and gray eyes, songbirds and snakes, rebels and performers, music and fire. It was Lucy Gray and all that he could've been if he had chose her, and an ever recurring omen of what was waiting for him.
I think he actually didn't crush out enough.