I think also there's this beautiful element where he just- gave up. Evil was the winning side and he was so tired of losing. Tired of being hungry and afraid and powerless. Tired of not being able to protect his family or feel proud of himself. He also surrendered to the vision of humanity Gaul was pushing by very effectively grooming a young person.

It was what it always is with people - a combination of choices and relationships and society.

And then, once he'd crossed certain lines, he kept doubling down every time what was left of his conscience twinged. I truly think the propaganda about how the things he does are necessary for "peace" and he's "Panem's #1 Peacekeeper" are lies he's telling himself as much as everyone else.

That's a far more useful moral narrative than "crazy people ruin everything with their in-born evil" or "Lucy Gray was a cautionary tale."

A lot of people don't want to hear what the real cautionary tale (teen Coriolanus) is saying because it's too real and human. Once fascists have all the food and safety and power, many people will mutilate themselves for that, bend themselves to fit the mold, and justify it even if what's left of their heart haunts them. Once they have all that power, even many people with consciences will crumple.

It's awkward rn in the US, since we seem to be teetering on the edge of an abyss.

But that's what it is. Lying and being ableist instead of giving the art a fair hearing won't change it.

We also have Haymitch, who is truly broken and complicated and even complicit (under duress) for decades- but he survives and remembers and keeps enough of his heart alive to see and help create the end.

Many people alive now will possibly have to endure like that. And even if they crawl into a bottle like he did or lose their minds like Peeta and Katniss, they can still see the dawn of a better day. It's not the end, to be broken and tainted. It doesn't have to be the end. It doesn't make someone evil. And many people alive right now who didn't have to will die like his friends and allies died, senselessly.

It's not a promise of easy victory. It's not a promise that evil is easy to spot and resist. It's better than that, it's truthful.

I keep thinking of this quote from the BTVS episode "Lie to Me":

BUFFY: It'd be simpler if I could just hate him. I think he wanted me to. I think it made it easier for him to be the villain of the piece. Really he was just scared.

GILES: Yes, I suppose he was.

BUFFY: Nothing's ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. It's just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.

GILES: I believe that's called growing up.

BUFFY: I'd like to stop then, okay?

GILES: I know the feeling.

BUFFY: Does it ever get easy?

GILES: You mean life?

BUFFY: Yeah. Does it get easy?

GILES: What do you want me to say?

BUFFY: Lie to me.

GILES: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.

BUFFY: Liar.

And people ignore the fact that though he didn’t buy wholesale into the propaganda of Panem as a place of righteousness, he did think the system was mostly fair and equitable and not just cruelty for cruelty’s sake. There are rules and if you follow those rules and you work hard, you’ll be rewarded — and then that ideal is completely destroyed. There’s a moment after Clemensia is bitten by Gaul’s snakes where it fully hits him that the system doesn’t truly care about any of them, and he’s completely unmoored by it. He compartmentalizes it because it’s such a world-shattering realization, but that broken trust sticks with him and it generalizes from “can’t trust the system” -> “can’t trust anyone.” That paranoia is only further reinforced by the events of the book.

And their conversation in the woods isn't a rigid moral lecture:

In his full blown villain form Snow is a Snowbaird anti lolololol

President Snow, up late at night writing meta about how he and LG were nothing and she never loved him that much actually and he got over her immediately!! Meanwhile, torturing some poor boy in his underground lair for daring to be in love. Playing the kid clips of Lucy Gray singing about love betrayed (!).

Seriously, as a villain Snow is like some kind of True Love Inquisition - hunting down believers who defy his orthodoxy and torturing them to recant their heresy. How dare you believe it can be real? How dare you stay true when I couldn't? I'll show you! It's all a lie, everyone betrays each other in the end and if they don't that means I let my fear destroy everything that will ever truly matter.

@shippersonfire These tags are brilliant! ❤️‍🔥

This is the other part of why I think of Sunrise as an "affirmation of life" - we see both the overcoming power of a "normal" person kind of love between Lenore Dove and Haymitch and we see how desperately empty Snow has become. He's this -- corpse, puking up blood, this poltergeist torturing children as he himself was tortured as a child. He's gained the whole world - and forfeit his soul. He doesn't know peace or love, just constantly fighting with himself against the knowledge of what he's done. And he will die one day--as we all do--having been too afraid to truly live. There isn't any escape from dying; but we can choose to live while we're alive.

It's not easy -- Collins spent 520+ pages showing how terrifying a fascist state like Panem can be! It can take so much from people. Their lives and hope. It can rip them apart. And Coriolanus was young enough that he let the terror of that consume him; there's meant to be pathos in that. Nobody should be put under that kind of terror.

And yet people are. But we can observe this tragedy and remember how much higher the cost of betraying yourself--your soul, your love--is ultimately. We can choose to have courage in the face of the fear that our love won't be returned or that we will be betrayed - we can choose to have courage in the face of fear and all the terrifying things powerful people can take from us. Knowing that they can't take what really matters. Only trick us into handing it over, ripping apart our own souls in the desperate hope for some reprieve.

*It's not worth it*, the story says. "Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred." Coriolanus chose the fattened calf and it turns his stomach. It's ashes in his mouth without love. He is this gorgeous object lesson (HE is the cautionary tale, not Lucy Gray! She did nothing wrong) in what becomes of someone when they make the other choice. I love it -- and, frankly, I needed to hear it right now.

In his full blown villain form Snow is a Snowbaird anti lolololol

President Snow, up late at night writing meta about how he and LG were nothing and she never loved him that much actually and he got over her immediately!! Meanwhile, torturing some poor boy in his underground lair for daring to be in love. Playing the kid clips of Lucy Gray singing about love betrayed (!).

Seriously, as a villain Snow is like some kind of True Love Inquisition - hunting down believers who defy his orthodoxy and torturing them to recant their heresy. How dare you believe it can be real? How dare you stay true when I couldn't? I'll show you! It's all a lie, everyone betrays each other in the end and if they don't that means I let my fear destroy everything that will ever truly matter.