When Scholastic announced last June that a fourth Hunger Games book would be published, my inner 12-year-old thought all her dreams had finally come true. I instantly imagined every possibility for a prequel—maybe it would feature Mags in her youthful glory days or Haymitch as he out-strategized and outmaneuvered his opponents in the second Quarter Quell. My heart could barely contain its excitement that the prequel might even be about Finnick and Annie’s sweeping romance, the one we saw meet its tragic end in Mockingjay.
So I can’t say that I wasn’t utterly disappointed and confused when Entertainment Weekly announced who the actual “hero” of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes would be—a young Coriolanus Snow.
Courtesy: Giphy
It only got worse when I read the description for the book in the same article, pitching the pre-fascist dictator Snow as “a teenager born to privilege but searching for something more, a far cry from the man we know he will become. Here, he’s friendly. He’s charming. And, for now anyway, he’s a hero.”
When I think of all the violent, devastating struggles that Katniss and the gang were put through for three whole books all because of President Snow, the dead last thing I would consider him is a hero. Where’s the fiery, rebellious spirit of the first trilogy we all fell in love with? In today’s world, don’t we need, more than ever, a story about fighting against current political and social powers for a better future? The last thing I want to read about is another rich white boy not getting his way.
Which, to be fair, is exactly what the EW exclusive excerpt seems to indicate the book will be about. The brief passage depicts Snow as he gets assigned a contestant to mentor on the reaping day of a new Hunger Games: “Something was amiss when a Snow, who also happened to be one of the Academy’s high-honor students, had gone unrecognized. Coriolanus was beginning to think they had forgotten him—perhaps they were giving him some special position? —when, to his horror, he heard Dean Highbottom mumble, “And last but least, District Twelve girl…she belongs to Coriolanus Snow.”
Courtesy: @RodLacroix on Twitter
Though I can appreciate the irony, I feel like we’ve been here before. Another day, another privileged boy pushed down by unforeseen circumstances that aren’t really all that bad, but who decides to destroy the world for the sake of his own power anyway. It sounds more like a sequel to Joker than a prequel to The Hunger Games.
For a few minutes after reading the announcement, I definitely sat and held a mental funeral for all the posters, mockingjay bracelets, movie soundtrack CDs and Team Peeta t-shirts still sitting at the bottom of my closet from middle school. I’d spent way too much of my time and money on this franchise to wind up celebrating a book about President Snow as the hero.
So what does one do when they’re grieving? Naturally, I messaged the link to all my friends and asked them to vent with me in my frustration over what seemed like such an obviously poor decision on the author and publisher’s parts.
Courtesy: @melissasee on Twitter
But, to their credit, a few friends responded with some ideas that hadn’t occurred to me. One pointed out that Ballad could turn out to be something akin to the Star Wars prequel trilogy (Episodes I-III)—less of a commentary on the villain himself than an assessment of how society allows tyranny to take control. Another expressed how she thought a prequel featuring a past contestant like Mags or Haymitch would simply result in the same storytelling formula as the first book (though, I still don’t know if this would be such a terrible thing, personally).
So I’m far from sold on the concept of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but I’m curious and hopeful enough that I might just keep an eye out for early reviews. And if you’re a fan of villain backstories, this could be the book you’ve been waiting for. In the meantime, if anyone needs me, I’ll be deep in a re-read of Catching Fire, “The Hanging Tree” playing in the background while I mourn long-dead fictional characters.
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