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A review by porgyreads
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
5.0
Suzanne Collins is a genius tbh, not many could pull of what she has achieved. The hunger games trilogy is a juggernaut and cultural touchstone even now but to write a prequel that contextualises the trilogy, expands the world and remarks upon so many of the philosophical questions of the games in a completely new way? To challenge the readers years later now older and wiser to see the content of the books in a more nuanced light? Honestly she deserves all the flowers.
So impressive and courageous to choose to follow snow and this “forgotten hunger games” knowing that it’s relationship to what katniss faces 65 years later. It’s importance is held not in the action of the games footage but of its erasure.
Snow as a character is compelling, an accurately morally grey character from the first chapter. He is manipulative and sociopathic, his empathy although employed is always tinged with a readiness to play toward his own selfish causes, he is judgemental and smart and worst of all naive enough to be indoctrinated and manipulated by Gaul at times.
His moral decline chafes the reader in the most sublime way because as the main character we want to root for him. We are like - it or not - invested in his legacy. And though you can never justify the means to his end you don’t wish for a different end because you can’t! it’s fixed before you read the very first page. There is no will he or won’t he become a villain, it’s more so: how does his life experiences shape his villainy? what are the things that he believes to be true and how did these truths develop?
I’m sure lots of people hate this book because all the things that draw you to the OG trilogy are inverted here. The book is about the hunger games, but the actual games features isn’t even half of the book’s content. Every page is in conversation with the very essence of the hunger games ideology as well as the trilogy. We watch what they mean to snow and those around him evolve. And we watch how the past influences the future. He faces adversity like all protagonists must and yet, every piece that should make him as sympathetic to the rebel cause (as sejanus - the perfect foil - is) does the complete opposite.
The ending is a tragedy of multiple shades. It’s tragic for almost all characters apart from him (and Dr Gaul) his tragedy isn’t actually in these pages but in how the trilogy ends, in district 13’s triumph. It casts the spark of rebellion during his reign as the greatest tragedy for him to live through because of his main goal is to prevent chaos. At first in his own life and then in the entirety of Panem. His desires to control the population and prevent another rebellion are ultimately to prevent him from ever having his agency robbed. Making him the perfect protagonist and subsequent antagonist. All because he doesn’t have the imagination to invision a future where peace can be maintained without bloodshed.
That’s award worthy stuff.
I honestly have no idea how they’ll capture the tug of war invoked within the reader and their relationship to snow on screen, since I think the beauty of the book is that the audience must root for him one page/chapter and condemning him the next, knowing for 65 years he triumphs regardless. But i will be seated.
So impressive and courageous to choose to follow snow and this “forgotten hunger games” knowing that it’s relationship to what katniss faces 65 years later. It’s importance is held not in the action of the games footage but of its erasure.
Snow as a character is compelling, an accurately morally grey character from the first chapter. He is manipulative and sociopathic, his empathy although employed is always tinged with a readiness to play toward his own selfish causes, he is judgemental and smart and worst of all naive enough to be indoctrinated and manipulated by Gaul at times.
His moral decline chafes the reader in the most sublime way because as the main character we want to root for him. We are like - it or not - invested in his legacy. And though you can never justify the means to his end you don’t wish for a different end because you can’t! it’s fixed before you read the very first page. There is no will he or won’t he become a villain, it’s more so: how does his life experiences shape his villainy? what are the things that he believes to be true and how did these truths develop?
I’m sure lots of people hate this book because all the things that draw you to the OG trilogy are inverted here. The book is about the hunger games, but the actual games features isn’t even half of the book’s content. Every page is in conversation with the very essence of the hunger games ideology as well as the trilogy. We watch what they mean to snow and those around him evolve. And we watch how the past influences the future. He faces adversity like all protagonists must and yet, every piece that should make him as sympathetic to the rebel cause (as sejanus - the perfect foil - is) does the complete opposite.
The ending is a tragedy of multiple shades. It’s tragic for almost all characters apart from him (and Dr Gaul) his tragedy isn’t actually in these pages but in how the trilogy ends, in district 13’s triumph. It casts the spark of rebellion during his reign as the greatest tragedy for him to live through because of his main goal is to prevent chaos. At first in his own life and then in the entirety of Panem. His desires to control the population and prevent another rebellion are ultimately to prevent him from ever having his agency robbed. Making him the perfect protagonist and subsequent antagonist. All because he doesn’t have the imagination to invision a future where peace can be maintained without bloodshed.
That’s award worthy stuff.
I honestly have no idea how they’ll capture the tug of war invoked within the reader and their relationship to snow on screen, since I think the beauty of the book is that the audience must root for him one page/chapter and condemning him the next, knowing for 65 years he triumphs regardless. But i will be seated.