Coriolanus Snow attends the Academy, a high school that educates the sons and daughters of the Capitol's most prominent and wealthy citizens. Both his parents died when he was five years old: his father General Crassus Snow from a rebel sniper's bullet and his mother and baby sister in childbirth. He is a teaching aide to the Academy communications professor, Salyria Click. She has been advocating on Snow's behalf for him to receive one of the twenty-four mentorships to the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a war reparation for the loss of Capitol lives by the district rebels as outlined in the Treaty of Treason. The reaping involves "twenty-four tributes, one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts, drawn by lottery to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death in the Hunger Games." This is the first Hunger Games where the tributes will be assigned mentors, young people from the Capitol.
Just months away from graduation and a stellar student, Coriolanus hopes to obtain one of the coveted Academy prizes given at graduation. A mentorship would help him obtain one of the monetary prizes that would pay his tuition to the University and guarantee a future career. Fortunately for Coriolanus, he is able to attend the reaping ceremony because Tigris returns with his shirt, now dyed cream with black velvet cuffs and collar and tesserae buttons.
In the massive Heavensbee Hall, Coriolanus along with his fellow students and the faculty watch the televised reaping. Among the attendees is Sejanus Plinth, aide to the gymnasium mistress, Professor Agrippina Sickle. Unlike the Snow family who had invested in munitions in District 13, the Plinths had placed their investment in District 2 and became wealthy, buying their way into the Capitol. With the destruction of District 13, the Snows were impoverished. Dean Casca Highbottom, creator of the Hunger Games, and now overseeing the mentor program, reads out the mentor assignments. To Coriolanus's horror, he is to mentor Lucy Gray Baird.
Lucy Gray turns out to be a firebrand who causes a commotion at the reaping in District 12. This makes Coriolanus wonder if Lucy just might be the gift he needs to score points and win a prize. Unlike the other mentors, Coriolanus meets Lucy at the train station to give her a rose and is taken along with the tributes to the monkey zoo enclosure. His presence among the tributes is shocking. There Lucy is interviewed by Lepidus Malmsey of the Capitol News. She tells him she is not really from District 12 as her people are Covey, musicians who travel from place to place. Coriolanus is also interviewed as to why he ended up in the cage with Lucy.
He is then taken by the Peacekeepers to the high biology lab at the Academy where he is met by Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Head Gamekeeper and Dean Casca Highbottom. When questioned, Coriolanus tells them that the purpose of his actions are to engage the audience. While Dr. Gaul is supportive, Highbottom is not and assigns Coriolanus a demerit point, telling him he is at risk of being expelled.
Coriolanus returns to the monkey house and encounters Sejanus who is attempting to offer the other tributes food, since his own tribute, Marcus will not accept anything. He offers Coriolanus food for his tribute. Sejanus tells Coriolanus that he could have easily been one of the tributes, if he wasn't wealthy and he tries to get out of the mentorship by offering Coriolanus his tribute. Coriolanus refuses, considering Lucy Gray to be the tribute who will help him win a prize.
At the Academy, most of Coriolanus's classmates congratulate him on his initiatives of the preceding day. Satyria tells him that Dr. Gaul is pleased and that she will praise him to President Ravinstall. But she warns him, he must be careful. The mentors spend the morning brainstorming ways to engage the people of the Capitol to watch the Hunger Games. While Festus wants to punish people who do not watch, Clemensia and Sejanus question why people should watch. Coriolanus however, suggests that they should allow betting on the tributes.
The mentors then interview their individual tributes who shackled and are seated at tables. Coriolanus slips Lucy Gray a slice of bread pudding Tigris has made. Lucy tells Coriolanus about her family and how she and her siblings were cared for after the deaths of their parents. Coriolanus suggests to Lucy that during their interview on television the night before the Games begin, that she should sing. However, Lucy is not interested as she can't see the point of doing so.
After the interviews, the mentors meet with Dr. Gaul who is mentoring the mentors. to discuss the interviews with the tributes. It is at this point that Sejanus Plinth confronts Dr. Gaul regarding the purpose of the Games and the injustice he believes they are perpetuating. Dr. Gaul isn't moved by Sejanus's arguments. Instead, she assigns the mentors a project to write up a proposal on how staking odds on the tributes might work. Coriolanus, Clemensia and Arachne are elected to draft the proposal but it is Coriolanus who actually writes it up.
However it isn't long before things begin unraveling for the Tenth Hunger Games. First Arachne Crane is murdered by her tribute from District 10 after taunting her with food. Her girl tribute is shot dead by the Peacekeepers for the attack. Then Clemensia is sadistically punished by Dr. Gaul for lying about working on the proposal. Dr. Gaul has her neon coloured snakes bite Clemensia, their genetically altered venom almost killing her and wreaking havoc on her body. This is followed by an attack in the war-damaged arena that leads to the death of both tributes from Districts 1, 6 and 9 and the death of the girl tribute from District 2. In addition, three mentors are hospitalized including Coriolanus. and the twin mentors from District 9 die in the bombings.
With Lucy Gray having saved Coriolanus's life, rather than attempting to escape, Coriolanus's perspective begins to change. Instead of using Lucy to enhance his own image and prospects, he now begins to work with her to win the games. But winning the Games leads not only to unexpected opportunities but puts Coriolanus on a path of cruelty, murder and power.
Discussion
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells the story of Coriolanus Snow, son of the late Crassus Snow, who eventually becomes President of Panem and his fellow classmate, Sejanus Plinth. The two boys are starkly different and it is this difference that leads ultimately to tragedy for both.
Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus is the surviving son of the once wealthy Snow family, his father Crassus dead and the Snow family now impoverished, having lost their munitions fortune during the war. Suffering starvation and privation during the war, now living in their indebted home, Coriolanus has no way to attend the University unless he can win a prize that will pay his way. In contrast is his classmate, Sejanus Plinth, son of the wealthy Strabo Plinth who owns the Capitol munitions. The Plinths once lived in District 2 but are now residents of the Capitol, eating well and living in a lavish home. It also becomes apparent that Coriolanus and Sejanus view the war, the Hunger Games, the Capitol and even humanity very differently.
The novel traces the complete corruption of Coriolanus Snow as his desire for power and control gradually lead him to betrayal and serial murder. It is Dean Casca Highbottom who recognizes Coriolanus's true nature early on and as a result dislikes Coriolanus. Many years earlier, Casca and his best friend, Coriolanus's father Crassus Snow, had been working together on an assignment. Casca had come up with the idea of the Hunger Games, mainly as a theoretical exercise which he never intended to be implemented. However, Crassus had gotten Casca severely intoxicated, written up the idea himself and submitted it. It was accepted and the Hunger Games were inaugurated, much to Casca's horror. During the mentorship for the 10th Hunger Games, Casca is not surprised by Coriolanus's approval of the overdone funeral procession for Arachne Crane. He hints to Coriolanus that he is no different from his father, which puzzles the young Coriolanus. He tells Coriolanus as much: "It's amazing how little things change. After all the killing. After all the agonized promises to remember the cost. After all of that. I can't distinguish the bud from the blossom." with Coriolanus being the bud and his dead father, Crassus the blossom.
During the 10th Hunger Games, Coriolanus comes under the mentorship of the cruel, perverse Dr. Gaul as he himself serves as a mentor to tribute Lucy Gray. Coriolanus is indifferent to the fate of the tributes until he becomes a mentor. However some of his classmates feel participating in the games is wrong. Lysistrata tells Coriolanus, "I know it's to punish the districts, but haven't we punished them enough? How long do we have to keep dragging the war out?" To Lysistrata, the party-like atmosphere for the mentors is revolting and she feels she is being used. This creates inner conflict for Coriolanus who considered mentoring an honor, "A way to serve the Capitol and perhaps gain a little glory... If the cause wasn't honorable, how could it be an honor to participate in it? He felt confused, then manipulated, then undefended. As if he were more a tribute than a mentor." At this point, Coriolanus doesn't realize he is being manipulated and trained by Dr. Gaul.
Dr. Gaul sends Coriolanus into the arena to retrieve Sejanus leading him to kill Bobbin in self defense, Coriolanus begins to realize that he is simply one of Gaul's test subjects. While Dr. Gaul considers the experience "transformative", Coriolanus is troubled by it. She asks him to consider "What sort of agreement is necessary if we're to live in peace. What sort of social contract is required for survival?"
In the Hunger Games Coriolanus attempts to ensure the odds are in his tribute's favour by cheating. He gives Lucy his mother's compact to store rat poison and later on by placing a handkerchief Lucy used into Dr. Gaul's snake tank so they won't attack her when they are released into the arena. He knows he's cheating and his conscience bothers him. He wonders "What else might he be capable of? Well that was it. It stopped now. If he didn't have honor, he had nothing."
Punished for cheating and sent to District 12 as a Peacekeeper, Coriolanus reconsiders Dr. Gaul's question to him. In the arena there were no laws, no rules, no consequences and survival was the most important thing. For Coriolanus, prevention of chaos means enforcing laws and that requires control. "Without the control to enforce the contract, chaos reigned. The power that controlled needed to be greater than the people -- otherwise, they would challenge it. The only entity capable of this was the Capitol."
In District 12, Coriolanus begins to further define his beliefs about chaos, control, contract and humanity. He tells Lucy Gray that the Capitol must be strict "...to keep things under control." to prevent "choas and people running around killing each other, like in the arena." "Unless there's law, and someone enforcing it, I think we might as well be animals." Lucy is shocked by Coriolanus's view and questions him what the price for this "control" might be. Coriolanus believes they give up nothing.
Ultimately, Coriolanus's belief in the Capitol leads him to betray his friend Sejanus who considers him more than a brother. Initially he feels conflicted over using a captured jabberjay to record Sejanus's plans with the rebels. But this quickly changes to anger and then satisfaction over his actions. "This breaking of the contract. This invitation to chaos and all that would follow." He believes everything would collapse without the Capitol and that they would live like animals. Sejanus's actions are consider treason and he is hanged. But Coriolanus is more concerned about the possibility of being "tainted by association" than for his role in betraying his friend.
Coriolanus murders Mayfair Lipp, the mayor of District 12 to protect himself from being hanged. He rationalizes Mayfair's murder as "Just another form of self defense." Believing that he will eventually hang for her murder, Coriolanus plans to run away with Lucy, only to discover that he's been offered a place at officer school. When he discovers the missing rifle that could implicate him, Coriolanus hunts down Lucy who has fled into the woods after realizing that it was he who betrayed Sejanus. After abandoning Lucy to her fate (it's uncertain if he's murdered her), Coriolanus completes his betrayal of Sejanus by taking his place in the Plinth home as heir and beloved son. "The Plinths paid for everything now: the taxes on the apartment, his tuition, the cook. They gave him a generous allowance as well. This was helpful because, ...university life was expensive when done right."
In a final act of cruelty, Coriolanus murders Dean Highbottom. He has murdered all who came between him and regaining the Snow family power and wealth. As a student of the poisonous Dr. Gaul, Snow is on his way to the top. In the Epilogue, Coriolanus has come to fully embrace Dr. Gaul's principles - "That our essential nature is violent." and that the Hunger Games proves this because even children, the most innocent will kill. Embracing this and believing it is natural leads Coriolanus to have no conscience in killing Highbottom.
The character of Sejanus Plinth is the conscience of the Hunger Games and the Capitol. His situation is ironic because he is the pacifist son of Strabo Plinth who is a munitions mogul. He is also an excellent sharpshooter who has joined the Peacekeepers naively believing that he can work as a medic and help others. Sadly it prove to be his undoing.
Sejanus, more than any other character, recognizes the injustice of the Hunger Games and that the games are perpetuating war through this injustice. Although other characters such as Clemensia suspect this injustice, it is most fully expressed through the character of Sejanus. Originally a citizen of District 2, Sejanus's father's new-found wealth allowed the family to move to the Capitol, sparing Sejanus from ever having to compete in the Hunger Games. Having lived briefly in District 2, Sejanus understands the games from the point of view of the districts. He is now having to experience them as a mentor to a tribute, one from his own district that he knew growing up.
He considers forcing children to fight one another to the death inhuman. He tells Coriolanus, "It's just this whole Hunger Games thing is making me crazy! I mean, what are we doing? Putting kids in an arena to kill each other? It feels wrong on so many levels. Animals protect their young, right? And so do we. We try to protect children! It's built into us as human beings. Who really wants to do this? It's unnatural!" As a result he tells Coriolanus he can't be a part of the games especially when it involves a boy who he knew when he lived in District 2. "It's evil. It goes against everything I think is right in the world. I can't be a part of it."
When the mentors are discussing ways to entice the residents of the Capitol to watch the Hunger Games, Sejanus continues to voice his opposition after Clemensia notes that people don't want to watch children killing one another because it's "sickening". He tells them, "Who wants to watch a group of children kill each other? Only a vicious, twisted person. Human beings may not be perfect, but we're better than that."
Sejanus confronts the barbaric, cruel Dr. Gaul when she labels the children "rebels" telling her, "Hardly rebels. Some of them were two years old when the war ended. The oldest were eight. And now that the war's over, they're just citizens of Panem, aren't they? Same as us? Isn't that what the anthem says the Capitol does? You give us light. You reunite? It's supposed to be everyone's government, right? ...Well then it should protect everyone....And I don't see how making them fight to the death achieves that."
Sejanus continues to confront Dr. Gaul later on when his tribute, Marcus escapes during an attack on the mentors during the arena tour. He tells her that they have no right to do what they are doing to the children during the Hunger Games. "No right to take away their life and freedom. Those are things everyone is born with, and they're not yours for the taking. Winning a war doesn't give you that right. "
When mentor Livia remarks that she believes the war is over despite what happened in the arena during the tour, she questions the ongoing Hunger Games, "And if the war is over, then technically the killing should be over, shouldn't it?" However, it's clear that Dr. Gaul continues to believe they are at war with the districts and that the war is never ending and she seems to relish this state of affairs. She views the Hunger Games as a means of control, keeping the rebels in check by reaping their children and impoverishing them.
Collins fills The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes with plenty of foreshadowing for the story told in the original trilogy. There is the mention of katniss, a kind of wild potato that Lucy Gray's Covey people grow for food. The roses which are a signature of Coriolanus Snow in the trilogy have their origin in his family with his Grandma'am growing roses on the roof of their Capitol penthouse. And the origin of the mockingjay which becomes a symbol of rebellion and revolution in the trilogy is more deeply explained in this novel.
While serving in District 12 as a peacekeeper, Coriolanus encounters the jabberjays and mockingjays at a public hanging. Coriolanus dislikes the mockingjays "on sight". The jabberjays are mutants that were created by Dr. Gaul to spy on the rebels during the war. Jabberjays are male birds who are attracted to human voices and can be controlled to record human conversation for up to an hour. In the wild they have mated with native mockingbirds, creating a new breed, mockingjays. The mockingjays cannot be controlled nor can they record but can mimic music and song.
As Coriolanus's irrational response is to kill all the mockingjays whom he considers to be "unnatural". "He didn't mind the jabberjays so much - they seemed rather interesting from a military standpoint -- but something about the mockingjays repelled him. He distrusted their spontaneous creation. Nature running amok. They should die out, and die out soon."
When Dr. Kay attempts to trap the mockingjays, she is unsuccessful and must resort to using nets. Coriolanus's aversion to them is so great that he organizes a hunt to slaughter as many as possible. And the aversion seems to be mutual. As Coriolanus helps capture mockingjays in the nets for Dr. Kay, "Coriolanus's bird began a tortured screaming the minute he touched it, and when he gave it a squeeze designed to dissuade it, it drove its beak into his palm." The dislike appears to be mutual.
On a trip into the wilderness of District 12, Coriolanus notes that the mockingjays "infest" the woods. Further out near the lake, there are no jabberjays, only mockingjays. Out further near the lake, Coriolanus notes "...This elimination of the Capitol birds from the equation deeply disturbed him...He didn't like it one bit."
In the novel the jabberjay and mocking jay are symbols of the Capitol and the rebels respectively, foreshadowing the rebellion which will play out years later and Coriolanus Snow's part in it. By mating with the jabberjays, the mockingjays have subverted the Capitol, removing their ability to record. Coriolanus, who supports the Capitol and the Hunger Games, comes to recognize that this subversion is indicative of the Capitol's loss of control. Forty-six years later, Katniss Everdeen would become the mockingjay - the symbol of the revolution to overthrow the Capitol.
Overall, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a fitting prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy with many interesting themes to explore. As with the original series, there is much violence and cruelty in the novel and there is a passing mention of diverse relationships; it is therefore recommended for older teens.
Book Details:
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
New York: Scholastic Press 2020
517 pp.
517 pp.
