The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes P344 / P504

the thing about being nonbinary is that you really do start to forget that other people have such strict walls around what is and isn’t allowed for genders. i thought we all agreed that we made that up. could you climb out of the cave real quick and feel the sunshine for a minute.

having read tbosas right before going to see the movie i feel like i’m upset at key parts being left out which made the movie feel so rushed, i think this would have been a great opportunity to split the book into two parts…

the treatment of the tributes, the days that passed that showed how close lucy gray and coriolanus got and ma plinth’s character were some of the most important parts that were left out and could have added so much more depth to the film. and sure i get why they changed so much of what happened in the arena because it was described so graphically in the book and because it was a lot more boring since there were long periods of nothing but i really feel like they could have made the construction of the area better because the scene where coriolanus had to save sejanus was so downplayed. and there’s also all the little details from the end like the fact that the tenth hunger games was erased from the vault is HUGE in my opinion because it shows that they were willing to do everything to make sure something “uncontrollable” couldn’t happen again, and how snow was practically living off the plinths like it makes sense that it was left out of the movie because that relationship was practically nonexistent but i think it could have been huge to keep it in to show how snow lands on top…

but what i can’t lie about is that the actors did an absolutely incredible job with these character! viola, tom and rachel are so so talented! i would definitely go see the movie first then read the book because so many details about the way snow’s mind works helps bring the movie to a completely new level!!

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was an excellent movie adaptation plot wise. It also solidified to me 2 reasons why Snow knew Katniss was such a threat beyond the basics and they were that

He recognized Haymitch as a mentor rewarding romantic behavior within the arena with sponsored gifts because a) it was his idea and b) before the drone system was perfected he saw how mentors themselves could technically follow rules while influencing the games and

He noticed how much sympathy and connection the Capitol citizens could form with the Tributes from all the nurses crying at Lucy Gray’s “last performance” to his entire class chanting to get her out of the arena which forced someone as influential as Dr. Gaul to listen

Snow’s not an idiot he knows Katniss herself held very little power at least at the beginning. But he instantly recognized how her story could be marketed and used to turn both District and Capitol citizens against him especially by people like Haymitch or Coin who knew what they were doing

is coriolanus snow evil and vile? yes. yes he is. but you know what else he is? a big lame LOSER

maysilee and haymitch’s reaping outfits

OKOK SO I WAS SCROLLING THROUGH AN HP CONFESSIONS ACC ON HERE YESTERDAY, I REALIZED SMT AND I HONESTLY MIGHT BE STUPID CUZ I HAVENT NOTICED THIS BEFORE BUT OTHERS MIGHT HAVE??? IDK

It's not called "The Marauders Map" because James and his group were called "The Marauders".

It's because it can be used BY a marauder.

LOOK AT THE APOSTROPHE PLACEMENT

A marauder is a person who raids...and this map shows you EVERY PLACE AT HOGWARTS, EVERY PERSON WITHIN IT AND WHAT THEYRE DOING

IT COULD BE USED TO 'RAID' A SPECIFIC PLACE AT HOGWARTS IDK

AKA USED FOR A MARAUDER.

Everyone has been focusing mostly on Snow shitting his pants when he heard "The Hanging Tree" sung by Katniss but if I remember correctly, that clip of her singing wasn't transmitted in the Capitol so it's unknown if Snow saw it. But there is another clip of Katniss singing one of Lucy Gray's songs that Snow definitely saw and it definitely haunted him.

The Meadow Song.

And you know what probably made him shit his pants even more? How Katniss not only sang one of Lucy Gray's songs but she also honoured a dead tribute. In that moment he wasn't only haunted by Lucy Gray's ghost, he was also haunted by Sejanus'.

Theres something to be said about Sejanus recognizing the peoples’ humanity and using it to defend them, while Snow saw that same humanity and used it against them

to my knowledge (someone correct me) Snow never hears Katniss sing The Hanging Tree (that’s a movie invention, and it’s not even confirmed in the movies that he’s hearing it), but those are not the only songs Lucy Gray sings … and can you imagine the slow creeping paranoia beginning to crawl back up his spine when Katniss honors Rue in much the way Sejanus honored Marcus … when she then begins to sing Deep in the Meadow, Maude Ivory’s song … when Peeta tells the story of how he fell for his girl, when she was singing, of all things, the Valley Song … not to mention all the references to mockingjays throughout the first arena (whose idea was that?) … oh, it’s delicious … the first similarity Snow could dismiss as mere coincidence (it’s not uncommon, we know, for tributes to stay with a dying peer), the second, as a product of an insular backwoods culture (right? RIGHT?) but by the third … he must have felt a ghost-chill on the back of his neck … and I LOVE it … Snow lands on top, but as soon as that burning chariot burst out of the night, he should have known … his time was up

i’m obsessed with the significance of the hunger games’ utilization of food as a metaphor for a character, their perspective, and their story. on that note, coriolanus and tigrid witnessing a starving man eating his maid’s leg.

understandably, a large amount of coryo’s food metaphors are centered around his distaste for food he considers undesirable. or, food that doesn’t live up to that which he is entitled to.

but i’m stuck on cannibalism. coriolanus knows what its like to be starving. he has never literally eaten another person, can barely wrap his head around eating “poor people food”. but coriolanus knew, from a young age, that desperation turned a man into an animal. he decided he would never succumb to that hunger, would never let desperation control him. yet he still deluded himself into believing he killed in self defense, that he killed to survive.

coriolanus says the hunger games are intended to reveal what humans become when they are desperate to survive. president snow somehow convinced himself that district-born were subhuman, yet he acknowledges their humanity as a definitive statement. the purpose of his greatest achievement; turning humans into animals.

humans, if starved for long enough, will become cannibals, or die trying to be anything else. the districts have eaten each other, and then their own tails.

coriolanus, with an infinitely widening margin of what is and is not starvation, kills whenever he is threatened with the possibility of hunger. somehow, he thinks this is different. that he is not terrified of starving just like every child he has locked into a cage to secure his own fullness.

eat his own words, eat his past, eat himself whole; both the starving man and the maid. maybe he died realizing, for the last time, that he’s always been an animal. his final exhale around a mouthful of blood.