If you were a kid who liked to read in the early 2010s, you probably had a Hunger Games phase. Published in 2020, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins dives into the backstory of the infamous Panem leader, President Snow. This book is a prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy, following an 18-year old Coriolanus Snow as he mentors Lucy Gray Baird, the female District 12 tribute in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Snow tries his best to help Lucy Gray, who he’s developed feelings for. He resorts to slipping a handkerchief with her scent on it into a container of snakes that are about to go into the arena so that the snakes won’t attack her. Lucy Gray’s fate sends President Snow to District 12 as a Peacekeeper. His former classmate, Sejanus, is also a Peacekeeper in District 12, but Sejanus has dreams of district rebellion. When Sejanus confides in him about the rebel plot, Snow betrays him to the Capitol, resulting in Sejanus being publicly hanged. Snow ends up shooting and killing one of the other people involved in the plot, Mayfair. He decides to flee with Lucy Gray to avoid the consequences, but when they stop at a cabin frequented by Lucy Gray and her family on the way out, they find the guns used to kill Mayfair. Snow realizes that if he just gets rid of the guns, he can return to his old life, but at the same time Lucy Gray realizes that she’s become the only loose end. She makes an excuse and ducks out of the cabin, and Snow gets very paranoid, very quickly. Snow does go back to the Capitol, and he later becomes President Coriolanus Snow, Panem’s ruthless dictator.

This book is narrated by Snow, and the view into his internal monologue lends a lot of depth to his character. Snow’s charming public persona gets him far in the Capitol, but as the audience we see a side of him that the book characters do not. Many people automatically assume that the protagonist of a book must be the hero, but Snow certainly isn’t. He’s a deeply unreliable narrator. His perception of events is colored by his own paranoia, which gets more and more obvious as the book continues. When Snow and Lucy Gray have their final interaction Snow starts assuming that she’s left him completely in order to sneak back to District 12 as she hasn’t been gone very long. He believes this so wholeheartedly that he runs out to go hunt her down, and when he hears mockingjays singing one of her songs he starts firing randomly into the air to try to hit her. His paranoia has led him to construct an entire scenario that he has no proof for, that’s so convincing to him that he is willing to try to murder Lucy Gray. The insight into Snow that we are given through his internal monologue and his actions makes him a deeply interesting character, because it adds another layer of complexity to him. 

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a commentary on modern society, such as the complexities of human nature and people’s treatment of anyone who is different. The Hunger Games have yet to solidify into the Games that we see in the original trilogy. The mentors have the job of trying to make the Games as interesting as possible in order to draw in viewers. The tributes aren’t treated or thought of as people, but instead as animals and opportunities. This is solely because they’re from the districts, which reflects the way that people in the US are treated when they’re from places deemed less civilized. Snow describes people from the districts as “Human, but bestial. Smart, perhaps, but not evolved.” To him, Lucy Gray is desirable despite being from the districts, because he can rationalize loving her if he convinces himself that she’s better than the districts. He says about Lucy Gray, “Again, that was behavior you’d expect of a Capitol girl, but one from the districts? It was something to think about, how much they rewarded character in the Hunger Games victor, how much she reflected their values.” The depth of human nature and the treatment of those who are othered become intertwined, because the district kids and the Capitol kids aren’t so different deep down. When Snow is in the arena, he reacts the same way that the tributes do. Dr. Gaul says, “What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed… A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.” This might take place many decades after our time, but this idea that people are all the same deep down can apply to us now. 

Control is one of the central themes of the novel, and it’s shown in both the way that Snow handles his own image and in the way that the Hunger Games are run. Snow keeps such a tight handle on his own impulses, in small ways like not eating his fill and in larger ways like his behavior towards others, in order to keep up the persona that he wants people to see. When the control he has is challenged, like when he’s sent into the arena to retrieve Sejanus, his mask slips. He ends up killing one of the tributes when they attack him, but he doesn’t just kill him. He hits him with a board over and over, and he probably would’ve kept going if more tributes hadn’t shown up. He tells himself that it’s self defense, which it is, but he chooses to blame Gaul. Dr. Gaul says, “You can blame it on the circumstances, the environment, but you made the choices you made, no one else.” When Snow was in a situation where his control was put to the test, he lost it. The way that he scrambles to find someone else to shift the blame onto reflects how he can’t handle acknowledging this loss of control, even though he was protecting himself. It also plays back into him being an unreliable narrator, because he puts blame onto everyone but himself when something happens.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a worthwhile addition to both the Hunger Games universe and to the world of literature as a whole. Snow isn’t painted as some sort of misunderstood villain, but as someone who had many opportunities to become a better person and didn’t take them. We may feel sympathy for Snow when hearing his internal monologue and his actions, but both the book and the trilogy make it clear that Coriolanus Snow is not a good person.