The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
I’ve been meaning to finish this review for about two weeks now, but given the current climate, it got relegated to the back burner. Now that I’m finally wrapping it up, hopefully thinking about a fictional story can serve as a nice, lighthearted break from the many heavy articles (on CopyrightBro and other sites) about the distressing state of affairs in our country.
After waiting for about a year, the Hunger Games prequel we’ve been anticipating has finally arrived. A lot of people speculated that this would be a story about Mags’s games, but I didn’t think that was very likely nor a particularly exciting premise, so I was enthusiastic to learn that it was about a young Coriolanus Snow. Some easily-triggered fans considered that controversial because they didn’t want to “humanize a fascist dictator”. I want to address that before I talk about the actual story. My response is threefold:
This is fiction. You need to calm down.
Find a source of self worth that doesn’t require you to constantly exaggerate how oppressed and offended you feel all the time.
Don’t judge a book by its cover; this story does not make Snow out to be a perfect hero, it provides context and depth to an obviously flawed character. Nobody will walk away from this book feeling sorry for him.
Now, on to the fun part.
⚠️ Spoiler Warning
The Games
The games themselves are a bit different in this story than the ones we read about in the original series. While some differences could be reasonably expected, I was still surprised at how primitive and low-tech these games were. I suppose I didn’t think they would change much over the years because of the obsessive level of planning suggested by Katniss’s observation in Catching Fire. When the Quarter Quell announcement card is read after being picked from a box full of other Quarter Quell cards, Katniss remarks that the Capitol “had prepared for centuries of Hunger Games”.
The fact that they took place in a physical stadium wasn’t entirely surprising, but it does take a bit of the survival aspect out of it: Being able to start a fire or knowing what berries to pick wouldn't have helped the tributes in these games at all, and it’s interesting to speculate about how the games evolved from quick gladiator-style contests into a weeks-long AV production set in a custom-built, faux-natural arena where the tributes have to contend not only with one another, but also with Mother Nature, sponsors, and the Gamemakers throwing mutts into the mix.
The fact that the Capitol allowed the games to start with fewer than 24 tributes was also surprising; I expected that any tributes who died before they got to the arena would be replaced.
The Gamemakers are a bit less rigid and less concerned with fairness in these games (not that they didn’t have their hands in the later games as well, but they at least attempted to conceal their meddling). In these games, they allow (force) Coriolanus to enter the arena, where he smashes Bobbins’s head in with a plank. They also surprise the tributes when the games start by revealing that Marcus (aa tribute who escaped the Capitol’s custody) had been found, and as punishment for running, had been shackled to a metal bar high in the air with his teeth broken, waiting helplessly to eventually be murdered by one of the tributes. They make no effort to portray the games as a fair contest.
Characters
This book was full of Easter eggs, mainly in the form of names, from the original series. Surnames like Cardew, Flickerman, and Heavensbee are clear connections to the other books. In general, the characters in this story were quite as well fleshed out and three dimensional, but to be fair, this was one book compared to a whole trilogy.
Coriolanus
Coriolanus was initially a lot more likable than I expected. He had some problematic views in the beginning, but he also seemed open minded enough by the middle of the story that you think he may ultimately shed his more unjust beliefs. Obviously, his less pro-Capitol opinions don’t take hold in the long run: in the last third of the book when his life really seems to be falling apart, his experiences in District 12 have him teeter tottering between more progressive ideas and some even more Capitol-glorifying ideas than he had in the beginning. It isn’t that he lacks empathy, it’s just that he doesn’t have enough to counter balance his obsessive greed. The New York Times’ Sarah Lyall described his journey to finding his ultimate beliefs well:
His slide into evil seems the result of inertia and greed, not a specific come-to-Satan moment.
Towards the end, his obsession with his social status lead him to become quite annoying, and he whittles away any good faith he built up with the reader in the beginning.
One thing that isn’t explained is how Snow becomes president. It’s hinted at throughout the book that he could end up in that role, but there’s never any explanation of how or why that could happen. We don’t know enough about the Snow family’s position in the Capitol to assume that his name alone is enough to earn him the position, and we know it isn’t a dynasty: the current president is called Ravinstill. Was Snow elected by the citizens of the Capitol? Was he appointed? It just isn’t clear, and we’re forced to assume that he just works his way up via his ravenous ambition and newfound penchant for poisoning enemies.
Lucy Gray
I found Lucy Gray to be a bit boring. She’s extremely cunning and she likes music, but her personality felt a bit flat, otherwise. Her journey also felt too similar to Katniss’s: District 12 female tribute makes a splash at the reaping, captures everyone’s attention during the interviews, sings a song in the arena, and somehow wins the games against much stronger opponents. It felt a bit too familiar. Her presumptive death was also annoying to me. There was no explanation of how she knew Snow was going to leave her in the very end, and she disappears without any explanation, leading Coriolanus to go look for her. Had she not tried to run away, he wouldn’t have grown suspicious enough to try to kill her. For someone with a remarkable track record of self preservation, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
Sejanus
Sejanus was one of the purest, most well intentioned characters in the story. His death hit me like a ton of bricks. Coriolanus never treated him fairly, despite the fact that he cared deeply for Coriolanus.
Tigris
Assuming that this is the same Tigris from the original series, we never find out how she and Coriolanus came to their falling out. We didn’t even see any real hints at where fault lines could form in their relationship, aside from one brief moment of tension that’s quickly glossed over and never addressed again.
Dr. Gaul
Dr. Gaul seemed completely unhinged, to the point that it’s surprising she managed to actually accomplish anything. Given that the creator of the games only dreamt up the concept as a thought exercise and never intended to utilize it as an actual punishment, coupled with the fact that most of the citizens in the Capitol at this point weren’t totally sold on the games and were turned off by the brutality, the notion that she and a handful of accomplices managed to get them from an admittedly twisted homework assignment to a nationally televised form of retribution in just a few short years requires suspension of disbelief.
Dean Highbottom
The epilogue where you learn about Dean Highbottom’s past with Crassus Snow was one of the most interesting chapters in the book. It was fascinating to learn that while Highbottom was credited with the creation of the Hunger Games, they only actually came to fruition because of Coriolanus’s father.
The Covey
“The Covey” were very uninteresting. They’re more or less a band of musical misfits. They kinda travel but not really, and they've been in District 12 for years yet don’t want to label themselves as “district”. None of these characters added anything to the story, and I thought their chosen name was a bit dumb, even if it does mean “a small flock of birds”.
Unorganized Observations On Miscellaneous Story Elements
The pacing for this book was a little off. It moved fairly quickly for a while, but it really slowed down in the second half after the games were over. It rambled about for a while without any clear direction, and there was a significant segment where I wondered what sort of conclusion it could possibly be building up to. Eventually, you do get a conclusion, but it felt rushed and too unclear to feel like a satisfactory ending.
The Snow family’s poverty was unexpected. It made the story more dynamic.
As the title would imply, music plays a large role in this book. I was delighted to find out that Lucy Gray was the songwriter behind “The Hanging Tree”, but otherwise, the music part of the story was a bit boring and not incredibly useful for the plot. It does help Lucy Gray stand out and gain more sponsors than any of the other tributes, but given how cunning she was and the simplicity of her plan, she easily still could’ve won the games with an average number of sponsors.
Speaking of Lucy Gray winning the games, it wasn’t terribly difficult to predict. Though, I will say that her use of poison was an interesting plot point and I can only assume something of a genesis for Snow’s preferred method of murder.
The notion that the arena would have lax enough security that someone could sneak in seems far fetched. The idea that the Capitol would send another Capitol child into the arena to rescue the one who snuck in is preposterous.
Overall, I would give The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 3.5 out of 5 stars. I’m glad I read it and it provides useful context for the original series, even though some elements of the story didn’t knock my socks off. This is a good example of how to properly expand a series: I wish the Harry Potter people would take some notes. I am excited for the alleged movie to come out.