What Went Wrong with THE HUNGER GAMES | Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Explained

The Ballad of song birds and snakes The Hunger Games prequel bringing us back to the action of the 2012 dystopian ya in style with the story of a young President Snow just exactly the thing you were all itching to know about but seeing how firmly the dystopian ya genre kind of imploded on itself in the mid to late 2010s after the Hunger Games escaped mostly unscathed never forget that Divergent fizzled out after failing to milk their finale for two films the theatrical legs on ballot of song birds and snakes has been kind of remarkable I assumed it would do well because the Hunger Games were always pretty well received and were actually good movies to at times fantastic movies based on a set of really strong books and overall I thought it was pretty good though also quite conflicting there is so much working in favor of this movie but then it's the stuff that they can't include that I find the most lacking at the end of the day to the point that I found myself wishing that they did do the thing we all realized was a pretty bad idea split the sucker into or honestly more realistically give it a limited series this is a chunky boy this is almost two Mocking Jays and they decided that that book needed two movies and I'm saying that because at the Midway point of this book and a little bit further than that in this movie The Story hard shifts into something completely different and I do think that is so interesting but I don't think the movie handles it in the most effective way what could and should have been this just extremely jarring thing mostly felt like a little fizzle than rebuilding momentum the book definitely has that feeling but I also don't feel like that Midway point hits quite the same high that the movie choose to take it in which we will get to and that's not a complaining it's the movie that's actually one of the areas I think it excels but as mentioned the ballad of song birds and snakes tells the story of corena snow during the 10th Hunger Games as he and his classmates are chosen to Mentor that Year's tributes and The Hunger Games for those who may not remember or may not be aware are an annual event where one boy and one girl under the age of 18 are chosen from each of the 12 districts to fight to the the death this was put in place after the district rebellions as a way to punish them for the war and as an exercise of their total control and some other things that we will get into an event that should strike horror and disgust but has become this massive spectacle that feels more like a sporting event than the horror it is and the events of this book are really the turning point of making it that spectacle but you know what mentoring someone through a feed of survival that benefits from physical aptitude makes me think of today's sponsor co-pilot look I'm sorry I'm not trying to make light of the events of The Hunger Games but we're doing this co-pilot is a one-on-one remote personal training service that sets you up with personalized workouts designed around your goals and lifestyle for a fraction of traditional personal training costs as I've mentioned many times I really struggle with building routines cuz I either get so focused on work or I'm traveling to different film festivals with co-pilot my trainer Brooke took all this into account and has me set up with a series of exercises that I can do right from the comfort of my own home with the equipment I already have while also setting me up with a variety of extra workouts like body weight only only for when I'm traveling or flexibility for times like right now where I'm dealing with a respiratory infection and can't physically do my regular workouts and that remains to be my favorite part about co-pilot they meet you where you are with what you have whether it's a full gym or just your body just start up the workout and your coach will guide you through each exercise with tips while also showing you the movements being performed on screen by an actual person and if I have any questions or run into issues Brooke is always there to help me through but if you don't end up thinking that your coach is the right fit you can request a new one anytime time you want as many times as you want I know going into the new year a lot of you are going to be looking to build new habits and having helped to build that routine effectively at your own pace with encouraging reminders and personal care is so helpful with staying consistent I know I feel better when I'm staying active and you will too so if you're interested in trying out co-pilot for yourself and getting started on those goals make sure to check out my link in the description down below to get a 14-day free trial and 20% off your first month of personalized Fitness if you sign up before February 1st now as mentioned this is taking place during the 10th annual Hunger Games which means that a lot of the effects of the rebellion and War are still very present for those in the capital there's a lot of fear a lot of hate a lot of dehumanizing anything seen as other and a lot of old rich people pretending they still have money that's where the Snows find themselves for example but even with that present fear a lot of people in the capital find The Hunger Games to be distasteful even when their own kids aren't on the chopping block shocker people aren't naturally stoked in watching kids kill each other so what I end up finding the most interesting about this story if I may use that word for a concept so disturbing is seeing what the games were before they become that spectacle we know them M by the time Katniss volunteers during the 74th year and specifically what went into making them that spectacle but then outside that obviously it is very focused on snow and I very much understand how some people just would not remotely be interested in having a dictator humanized who empathize with his character but I do think it's interesting uh more so in the book to just be in his perspective to understand his upbringing and how the circumstances he's placed into drove him down a particular path while also seeing that he was very predisposed to have these beliefs and that's the area this movie really left me dissatisfied in snow is a character that's constantly concealing his thoughts from the people around him to charm manipulate and curate every action he takes even when his thoughts are the opposite and the movie just can't fully Express that I don't feel like it ever really effectively manages to show exactly how he would become the person he is in the Hunger Games trilogy and then probably even gives people moments of Hope to think he's a significantly different person than he is we do get the seeds the desperation to get out of squalor the fear of rebels and the war that took his father and family fortune the struggle to maintain appearances with nothing but his name to keep him going the pride that comes with that name and the belief that he's so much more than what he's currently been dealt those are all things that I see contributing to him wanting to uphold the capital ideals and values and the power they exert over the districts but not necessarily the cruelty and total authoritarian way he ends up expressing it and I kind of assumed that that was going to be the main point of this movie and I guess in a lot of ways it was and maybe some people got what I got out of the book out of the movie but I've just seen a lot of reviews winding this all down to what heartbreak does to a mother and that is not remotely the case especially when you're in his head that's just basically like another nail in the coffin that was already pretty sealed up basically I just feel like the first Hunger Games movie managed to convey so much more of those smaller details from the book and a way this movie never manages and again that's because so much of this book are thoughts that Snow's not sharing with other people we'll get into those details in a bit I do still think the movie was quite good in a lot of ways and I enjoyed my theater experience watching it outside some slight awkwardness at the initial reaping Rachel zegler as Lucy gray Barrett is absolutely fantastic from the performance to the singing she really just embodies the character and I really feel like she understood what her character was and what she stood for which we will go into some detail in a bit Hunter shaver as fantastic as Snow's cousin Tigris someone else who just fully seems to embody this character she's bringing to screen via Davis is downright menacing as Dr Gaul and Tom blle is a fantastic young snow easily flipping through the different emotions and personas required of his character but the movie just mainly made me really excited to visit the book which starts with an epigraph that is largely filled with uh philosophy on human nature so I got to brush up on some intro philosophy stuff which we will get to as we go but let's dive into the movie and book so so obviously there will be spoilers so the movie itself starts with a flashback to a young Cory lanus and his cousin Tigris hiding from the war around them as they catch a neighbor cutting off the body parts of a dead person in a street as a mark of the desperation they're all experiencing to find food before immediately finding out that his father was killed by a rebel and it's going to sound like a dumb complaint cuz it is technically the exact kind of context that I want infused into the story more but this just feels jarring in the movie it's just this quick moment before we're jumped ahead to the present and I just really feel like it it would have been so much more effective if this was like a nightmare he was having so we get that part of his past and still know that it's something that defines who he is now because where they are now is managing on their name alone their Fortune went up in Flames with the destruction of District 13 spoiler for the original trilogy though District 13 wasn't destroyed they leveraged their nuclear power and a will'll take us both out if you don't [ __ ] off negotiations so the capital just spread the lie that it was destroyed when they're just living up there disconnected and that's interesting because the snow's family wealth was apparently all tied up in factories in 13 so its destruction and the death of their fathers what result in the total loss of their wealth but that led me to a side thought that means the capital allowed the snow wealth to be decimated when they dutifully provided Munitions to the capital for the war because they lied about that destruction in the district even happening I get that they'd be out the money either way because they just cut off from District 13 but that just means that snow remained loyal once he would have inevitably found that out though I guess it would be different when you're the one who's in control of that power it also made me wonder if it wasn't a rebel that killed him but somebody from the capital to avoid any kind of questions being asked about that whole scenario but even though their Fortune has evaporated the Snows maintain resident in their Penthouse only because they had it before the war and because his mother died when he was quite young he's left only with his cousin and their grandmother desperately clinging to appearance and the belief that Coro will go on to be presidents snowlands on top is the family motto and the thing he always comes back to when needs the pep talk when the universe hands him a hidden win and when he commits his own atrocities so with that name he's also granted access to the prestigious Academy for free but the facade and his ideal future will all come to an end if he can't find a way to pay for University so it's easy to see why he is a person so meticulously curates every aspect of his life if anything looks wrong seems wrong it's a hole in the armor a weakness to exploit so while all this could and potentially should have made him more sympathetic for people in his position people with even less in the districts not remotely the case she's District Tigers she knows we hate her and she wants us dead if anything he sees those people that could build themselves out of a lower position as a threat to his prosperity and the existing class kind of like non-royalty gaining success and being able to buy their way into those higher circles with greater influence and the story presents that with sanus plint a student who came from District 2 but was able to gain access to the capital because of how much his father made from arms dealing during the war another source spot because once the Munitions his family owned in 13 were allegedly nuked it moved to two and made the plin incredibly wealthy and what bothers Coro even more is that sjana seems bothered to be in the capital even after 10 years he never stopped seeing himself as District 2 hating that his family just abandoned all those people that were just like them we got the pick of the letter you forget I'm part of that letter but he still likes to keep sanus close because of the power his family has at this point Coro thought his future was pretty secure that being at the top of the class would get him that prize money so he could go to university but this year there's a twist twist in order to win they have to Mentor someone through the games and depending on that performance they'll be awarded the prize and his good standing should have got him one of the top prospects but instead he is just handed The District 12 girl who would have been seen as one of the worst options the only upside to this scenario is that a victory isn't what would guarantee him the prize the aim is to get people to watch the games so while Coro may have received one of the worst physical Prospect he lucked out with the most marketable because instantly in the reaping she's making a name for herself dropping a snake down the 's daughter's skirt singing on stage after he decks her for it nothing you can take from me singing she out of her mind Capital says keep rolling cuz it's just a rumor yeah there's like a little moment of secondhand embarrassment when the singing starts but I assure you most of it is used very effectively in the movie and I greatly enjoy it but all that matters is the capital is watching this is something new for them these tributes are barely given a moment to be seen and here she is owning the stage after receiving what everyone including herself sees as a death sentence but it's not until he talks to Tigress that he even sees her potential and she's the one who makes him realize that it's all going to come down to trust I wouldn't sing a note for you if I was her unless I could trust you snow lands on to to the point that even his screw-ups work in his favor he goes to meet her at the station when they arrive to try to get her trust and ends up locked in the zoo with the rest of them you see that's a Academy Rouge no who are you and why are you in there with them we're live but because she's willing to play the game it turns into a success all eyes are on him and his tribute on it do you know my mentor clearly I got the cake with the cream cuz nobody else has even bother it to show up I thought well if Lucy gray is brave enough to be here then why shouldn't I be too and it's easy to game that situation when she is such a natural which ties into an answer Rachel gave during an interview that I just love she was asked what the difference was between Lucy gray and our original protagonist Katniss and it's just so damn good that Katniss was a fighter forced to perform and Lucy gray is a performer forced to fight it's just such a great and simple quote and instantly had me so interested in this movie even though I knew nothing about it outside being a snow prequel and she's not even the protagonist though it's very obvious that he's made most of his life a performance and it just ties in so nicely to what I find the most interesting aspects of this story are what turned the Hunger Games into that Grand Event and how long ago was that main contributor forgotten cuz we certainly don't hear about Lucy gray in the original trilogy this is also where we get lucky flickerman played by Jason schwarzman I'm lucrecias lucky flickerman a man who needs no introduction you'll know me as your favorite weatherman then amateur magician I don't know if I like that Caesar flickerman is a descendant of the first host of The Hunger Games but in a way it also makes sense that everything in the capital is legacy and this little stunt gain snow the attention of Dr Gul the game maker I came here to ask your star mentary question what are the Hunger Games for they're to punish the districts for their Uprising a shallow answer that she wants him to think more on but it leads to genuine push back from sanus the capital is supposed to be everyone's government now I don't see how making children fight each other to the death is protecting anyone pointing out that deep down people know that these tributes are human and know that the games are wrong and that's why they don't want to watch them which Coro man just to flip in a very gross way if people start to see them as human and start to care you can give them something to cheer for a reason to tune in people need someone to root for and someone to root against to make the stakes personal even putting out the idea of betting on the contestants or sending gifts to their favorites every little thing he's doing to help himself get ahead is fundamentally setting the games up to change in the most horrific ways this 10-year anniversary could have been its flickering send off but it's phase one of its horrific Evolution so he starts doing everything he can to give her an advantage starts stealing her food he'd never be caught stealing for himself even when his family has none he'll get the other mentors to bend those rules too so Lucy doesn't have a Target on her back and that's another big difference in The Hunger Games they're treated pretty well like yes they're paraded around like animals but they are wellfed comfortable places to sleep medicine whatever they need to enter the arena as ready as possible these tributes are treated worse than what they'd experience in the districts shoved into cargo carriages on trains completely denied food and water placed on full open display in a zoo with no beds or bathrooms it becomes pretty clear that these games don't last for more than a day and how could they when the tributes would be entering the arena already ready to die from lack of resources and the other big difference is the arena is just that a one room Stadium where people are always out in the open outside of some stands until the last person goes down again horrible to say but no wonder people weren't watching this it's horrific enax Pizzazz but honestly the future version of prettying them up feeding them building story lines out of them before sending them off to die feels a a lot more horrific in so many ways but while the more television friendly aspects of making personalities out of the tributes largely built from Coro suggestions the added cruelty and tricks from the game maker interference all seem to be from Dr Gul who is a truly sadistic woman she's working on making genetically modified animals for the games potentially starting with these snakes harmless if they recognize your scent deadly otherwise and she has no qualms testing them out against a student who lied about contributing to the paper Coro wrote with his suggestions I'm not above using spectacle to create a little terror will she die the pleasure in breaking ground in one's research is one gets to find out I'll also say that the movie does a really good job making each of these different tributes memorable and driving home how cruel the capital can be like they chose to make one of the tributes wovie a little girl with Down Syndrome another girl is so sick she could die before the games even begin but the capital doesn't care oh you sick [ __ ] you know exactly what you're doing but things are going great with corus's plans until one of the tribute stabs her Mentor in the neck for being taunted with food though I must mention that in the book he is actively thinking about how he can put on a good show for television not quite the spectacle that they were all hoping for but it immediately has his grandmother worried about another Rebel Uprising she's not a rebel Grandam she's just a girl trust me that one hasn't been a girl in a long time damn ma'am that tone is saying things your words are not I think Grandma just called Lucy gray a [ __ ] but things do actually escalate Rebels planted bombs in the arena hoping to tear down the symbol of the games and some Capital kids with it Lucy could have escaped but sticks back to save Coro instead some tributes and mentors die with Marcus being the only one to make a grand escape and Marcus's s janus's tribute specifically selected for him by his father because he actually knows him from District 2 I think he thought it would help sanus accept himself as capital but my God what a stupid idea but a little murder and near death does nothing to change the plans from pushing forward they're even going to go ahead with introducing the tributes to the capital on live TV and Lucy absolutely abely Nails it everyone is so taken by her she's getting massive donations they're going to root for her too bad I'm the that you lost in the reaping I know the soul that you struggle to save record high for the evening people sending in donations see what happens when you do stuff a statement that definitely seems to parallel so much of modern society in terms of attention seeking and doing spectacles online and you know I certainly fall into that just with the sheer nature of having this channel but in the book we know that Coro is super jealous about whoever this song's being sung for yes that's right even he isn't immune to her charms so he is all in to get her the win he is scoping out the arena which now has a lot of places to hide since the bombing gets her to conceal rat poison in his mom's old compact so she can get some stealth kills which obviously is breaking the rules of helping a tribute win so I am sure that's going to come back to bite us later though it looks like those emotions might be going two ways that song was for someone who betrayed her cheated on her with the mayor's daughter which is why she got randomly selected for the reaping so with those shared affections on the table Snow's willing to risk it all but is he actually now we will say that the games are made more interesting in the movie for a couple reasons for one they took the time to add cameras to the areas that got blown open in the explosion so we can actually see what Lucy is up to in the movie where in the book she's just like gone for most of the time but before it even has time to start the Capal has to make a point against the rebels and anyone who thought they could cheat the games by strapping Marcus up to the pillars which just leads this dumbass to wander his way into the arena to prep Marcus for death which is like really sweet in some ways but then he's just going to wait to be killed so they forced Coro in to get him because he's the only person that sanus likes even though he doesn't fully consider himself SJ janus's friend just dangling that prize in front of his face a prize that high bought him all but assured he'd never have I will do everything in my power to ensure that you don't see a dime and that's Dean High bottom who just seems to hate Coro seemingly due to his father apparently at one time they were best friends but then had some kind of massive falling out and it was bad enough to make him just see all those negative qualities in corilanus and it's just so interesting going through this to see how one person trying to prevent a snow from succeeding in in ways that's like less altruistic and very bitter and personal but then someone else demanding a performance for the games created this perfect environment for him to become the exact type of person High bottom would have been trying to shut down and Gul sending him down there putting in the word to make sure he gets the plinth prize you get him out unscathed I'll whisper your name in his father's ear you still want that plinth prize don't you which honestly really shouldn't have been hard to manage after saving the plinth son leads to one of the most defining moments in Snow's life and probably sets him down the trajectory to where we get him once he finally convinces sanus that he could do more good for the districts alive and with his dad's money they make a break for it but not before the tributes finally notice they're there forcing corilanus to kill one let go it's this moment of kill or be killed animalistic rage the anger that comes from realizing they'd rather kill sanus someone who helped them who fed them rather than each other to actually make it out of this alive the senselessness to that brutality so that by the end he wants them all dead and it was all a lesson she wanted him to learn what happened in there that's Humanity undressed those tributes don't have a choice I was talking about you all your fine manners education background strip away in the blink of an eye Gaul takes the very harsh stance that if left to their own devices humans innately become violent and destructive and seeing the quotes from the beginning of the book from philosophers like Hobs and lock I would say that she is absolutely here representing the Hobs side of human nature which I always thought said a lot more about Hobs human nature than like everyone's nature so I had some fun refreshing myself with the basics on some of those bigger philosophical views on human nature before finding an interview with Suzanne Collins that laid it all out pretty clearly with her thoughts but even without that the epigraph made it very clear that she had spent a lot of time thinking about Hobs luck and Russo's views so the basics of Hobs is that he believed that men would always do whatever they could to prosper themselves as he puts it a war of all against all that would lead to a life that was solitary poor nasty brutish and short really just bringing us down to the most anarchic and violent tendencies so he believed that the way out was giving up some of these absolute personal freedoms for the protection that would come from an absolute or Sovereign Authority so it is very easy to see how the President Snow we know also falls on the hobb's side of belief in how he runs the districts and the capital but this book is suggesting that Gaul is the one who brought the basics of that ideology to him that without the capital we're all animals we're all one step away from revolt and it's easy to see why she'd believe that because of how little she cares about the people around her to the point that she's orchestrated herself into a position where she can essentially do whatever she wants without facing the consequences of that social contract she worked her way inside The Authority but when you're reading the book it's very obvious that he's already leaning in that direction gaul's just kind of there to help push him over the edge by showing him what he's personally capable of so things get dicey in the ring Jessup the other tribute from District 12 contracts rabies and tries to kill Lucy gray and the movie in the book really take the whole Hydrophobia thing to literal levels he just has water hit him and goes falling to his death in reality he might have had some spasms if he thought about drinking the water because the spasms happen when they try to swallow it's not like this literal fear of water like it's holy water to a demon no water for me rabies causes fear of water solidarity Michael that's irrational I would have just gone with the Drone physically knocking him down cuz they haven't quite perfected the gift delivery system yet but I guess they like kind of already did the Drone attacks but it's fine as mentioned the movie does just manage to excel more in the areas involving the arena because they let it go into the perspective of the tributes and Lucy while the book just constantly keeps with Coro so we actually get to see that Lucy poisons people which in the book accidentally kills wovie but the movie goes in a very different Direction it's tobera Dill that falls victim to it so be real worried about how wovie is going to go another thing the movie does is make this like really big stand of Reaper using the capital Flags to cover the bodies of the Dead the book does say that the capital citizens were shocked but Reaper never makes it this huge show like he does in the movie because it's just not where his brain is but in the movie they use this to have Dr Gaul cut the feed so that she can strategically reveal that the president's son succumb to his wounds from that explosion justifying her plan to release these snakes she's created into the arena because everyone deserves to die a message must be sent to anyone who would stand against the capital's Authority even if it means there's to be no Victor in these games in the book it really is just like step one of the game maker intervention with genetically modified animals and isn't the grand finale in the way it is in the movie like Lucy still has to make it through a couple people after the snakes die off but in the movie they are the grand finale and they just overrun people it's like really horrifying cuz that's how they choose to have wovie go like it's so sad she thinks the games are over and wanders out and then just gets like mobbed by snakes I can get that maybe you didn't want to have her attacked by someone else you could have showed it with a security camera that was all fuzzy and like maybe you didn't like the Optics of Lucy accidentally poisoning her but like that would have been a much better way to go this kind of made me sick which I guess is the point can we go home now wiei W it's so [ __ ] I get it the capital is evil but this is the highest instance of cheating from corilanus the moment that really takes it above doing whatever he can to win by doing whatever he can to save Lucy he drops the handkerchief he used on her tears into the snake tank so they would recognize her smell and not attack something that could have potentially been overlooked because Lucy just sings to them in a way that does seem to calm them down while attracting them and since she's known to have a way with snakes outside the arena probably could have played it off as that I'm sure GA would have wanted to conduct some experiments after the fact but Lucy just keeps singing as the snakes cover her body now all colors lead to gray it's a harrowing moment we've seen tributes making desperate pleas for Humanity on camera and this is Lucy's turn for a bitter stand as she realizes that they fully intend to let her die even if she's the last one standing a spark that can't be left unchecked as the students chant for her release and You Must Be Wondering Why haven't we heard of this winner the singing girl the first Underdog spectacle of The Hunger Games where people across the capital were rooting for her Victory well for one barely anyone in the districts would have seen this because most of them don't have TVs but it's also all but erased from history the multiple student deaths Rebel Uprising and a winner who likely achieved it by cheating not necessarily the best optics for the capital but that cheating made so obvious by his mother's own compact in Father's pocket square conveniently makes way for coro's punishment exiled from the capital and forced to serve 20 years as a peacekeeper finally the sound of snow falling and that's a hate boner that's going to come back to bite him and pretty much everyone else in the ass man wanted the games to end and just set in motion over half a century of misery and that's our hardcut to part three Coro on his way to District 12 if his life is over he might as well get the girl am I right and this whole section is just where I really felt the movie needed to be fleshed out more because it's where things get real it's where his beliefs should be challenged but just end up more solidified and his silly little idealistic friend s Janis decides to join up with him took coro's words to Heart thinks he can do some good the districts but too dumb to realize that he signed up for a military status quo enforcement Squad my guy you can do more things with your money in the capital where you have influence but he realizes all this pretty fast when his first assignment is watching a public execution a little bit too late to escape now though I'm surprised that he's surprised though because he has already expressed that he knows the capital doesn't align with his views of government the capital is supposed to be everyone's government now it is supposed to protect all of us which as Collins points out aligns more with John Lock's ideas that nothing should infringe upon someone's rights to Life Health Liberty or possession which yes is echoed in the American Declaration of Independence I'm Canadian and I know that one something the capital obviously is not and much of what they do to maintain that control directly violates those tenants again these characters aren't just like running around directly saying that they're quoting these different philosophers I don't even know if they necessarily remember that those philosophers exist anymore it's just that their actions and beliefs reflect those ideals so sanus is obviously going to have a lot of issues with that absolute Authority that he's seeing used in district 12 that just being associated with someone who committed a crime is enough to have you locked up as well while Coro still sees it as no that was a rebel she's lucky to only be locked up in the book one of the things that Gul really wants corilanus to think about is the idea of control chaos and contract and how that relates to the games so during the progression of the story he realizes that chaos is represented in the arena it's this smallscale version of a war and what it can turn people into reducing them back into something with no rule r or Consequences and how terrifying that is totally ignoring the fact that it only builds to those Heights and murders because this is literally a killer beill situation and again greatly overstating how his own actions and behaviors would be inevitable in others when he's seen the opposite his personal experiences growing up and his time in the games makes him see the worst in human nature he doesn't think people are quite as inherently violent as G does but he doesn't think it would take much to push them over whereas sanus went through that same situation of almost dying and still just thinks what a horrible thing we do to people to push them to that state Coro just chooses to see the worst case scenario of what could happen if there were no consequences to anyone's actions if we could all take and do as we please driven by survival and desire even the capital fell to such brutality during the war which finally makes them click on the idea of a social contract the agreement not to commit all these different actions in exchange for them not happening to you which is where control comes in you need something in place to enforce the social contract something powerful enough to not be effectively challenged and to Cory elanus that's the capital and even thought the girl was going to soften some of those harsher ideals you would be wrong he still agrees with most of what the capital does even while remaining ignorant to a lot of those realities like believing that people can and should say whatever they want while Lucy knows the reality of what happens when you do that they kill you B Coro doesn't see it that way doesn't see what people are giving up for this protection and truly believes that they need the capital to which Lucy gray simply replies people have been around a long time without the capital I expect they'll be here a long time after he just thinks that life would still be marked by destruction and even on this beautiful day by the lake the Simplicity of life he just has far too much ambition in his soul for that long term even if he tries to convince himself otherwise because the second he gets to 12 he starts studying for an officer test realizes that might actually get him further than the University track would have and pretty quickly ends up with the opportunity to go to District 2 for training coro's Ideal World was making her capital not him District he thinks he loves her but it is very possessive he doesn't think about building a life with her he thinks about keeping her he hadn't worked out all the details but the point was he got to keep her and he wanted to keep her safe and close at hand admired and admiring devoted and entirely unequivocally his the book really makes it clear what he's thinking internally he definitely has feelings for her but they're not pure I don't know how much they actually have to do with her and it is very obvious the direction his heart is actually going now because the movie can't in coro's head he does just kind of have to start being verbally aggressive with some of his beliefs but things heat up in 12 when sjana starts helping a group of people who want to escape which is illegal but they think there's a place up north where the capital has no control and those theories would end up being correct because District 13 does exist and obviously Coro is trying to shut this down so Janus has already almost gotten himself and Coro killed once the last thing he should be doing is helping Rebels they know we're friends s Janus but it's in this moment when he's revealing this plan that he's going to help them break that woman out of prison so she doesn't get executed snow makes a decision that seems almost outside of his own control he uses a jabber J to record everything sanus is saying the jabberjays are used in Catching Fire to mimic the cries of tributes loved ones and at this point they are still just a failed military experiment to record Rebel Intel Boro knows that these birds are being sent back to Dr Gul right along with s janus's confession you know the one he doesn't realize he's making the movie makes the exchange much more combative to just move things along but in the book sanus is literally only telling Coro this because Coro said he thinks of him like a brother which he literally only did because he thought sanus was lying to him again we are just missing so much from not being inside corus's head and obviously he thinks this is a horrible thing to be doing that their plan might not just be to break her out like sanus has provided them with the layout of the Peacekeeper base they have weapons this is breaking the social contract with the capital the one he's now holding so tightly even though they exiled him but obviously the people in the districts aren't benefiting from this contract and sanus sees that it's just a total difference in ideology that situation does quickly go out of control though because SJ janus's money didn't go to supplies it went to guns in the book he's aware they already have guns and he plans to steal one for himself to escape but the movie really just seems to be saying look they were going to kill people What brings the situation to a head is that the guy who cheated on Lucy gray with the mayor's daughter Billy taupe I didn't know I'm sorry is involved with this Escape Plan and thinks that Lucy gray and the other cvy are going to come with them which obviously upsets Mayfair yes the mayor's child's name is Mayfair oh These Are cuby by the way I don't know if I ever mentioned that they're just nomadic musicians that were eventually rounded up in 12 cuz again whatever District you're in that's where you stay so to save their asses from hanging Coro shoots her and Spruce shoots Billy Spruce then gets caught after hiding the guns and Coro assumes it's only a matter of time before it gets linked back to him so no point going off to officer training better leave with Lucy gray who needs to leave before the mayor kills her in the book she's completely unaware of the officer training but again cuz we can't be in his head he just says that out loud to her in the movie and obviously takes her off guard I just learned HF is sending me to two for office of training but none of that matters now you were going to leave and then sanus is hanged not for the murders but for planning a rebel Escape Coro really believed that the worst case scenario there would be jail time but assumed that his father would be able to buy him out of trouble his action led to the death of one of the only people who actually considered him a friend so you might think that this is a moment where Coro realizes the flaws of the capital that maybe they go too far with their exertion of power but no he's bothered by the death in his role in it but he's mostly thinking like what choice did he have so Janis was hellbent on ruining his life and most likely taking Coro down with him so somehow it hardened those beliefs even more even when he could be up next to hang and has to escape with Lucy gray which is where we get her stance on human nature the people aren't as inherently bad as coro's grown to think it's what the world does to them that can become the issue I think there's natural goodness born into us all and it's our Liv's work to stay on the right side of that line that your life's challenge is to stay on that good side of the line even if you've had to do things you wouldn't otherwise like killing in the arena or killing the mayor's daughter to save the girl you love even though that was a lot more about self-preservation but then he lets this slip sure it will be nice not to have to kill anyone else up north though huh three's enough for me and she only knew about two it would have been so easy for him just to blame himself for Billy tae's death here or just say that he didn't feel like he did enough to keep sanus out of trouble and that weighs on him but in that moment he can't think just pulls out the most 2003 butt Rock line from his back pocket my old self I killed him so I could come with you obviously she sees through that you're not emo enough to pull off that line but then he finds where Spruce stashed the murder weapons and he's instantly thinking I'm free I just need to get rid of this gun and I can go train in District 2 there's nothing connecting me to the murders except Lucy the movie is really trying to convey all of that it just in a look on his face and it can only go so far so then he just has to say a bunch of stuff out loud and then have her look looking guilty as hell he wouldn't tell anyone of course not his logic in the book just really lets you know how shallow this has all been for him he thinks he loves her but he's the brightest the world has to offer he's too exceptional to leave Humanity abandon what's rightfully his the movie almost makes it seem like she's betraying him in this moment but the book is so different she would never tell she wouldn't be thrilled obviously when he told her there had been a change of plans that he was returning to peacekeeping and heading to District 2 tomorrow at dawn as essentially leaving her to her fate [ __ ] love he's got a game plan back to his old life but once he realizes that she's definitely hiding from him probably because she realized he may want to clean her up as a loose end and that he was definitely involved in s janus's death he starts to think about what would happen if she did turn on him the levels of self-preservation she has what she'll do to protect herself finally realizing that she could be concealing as many of her own thoughts as he is two people who trusted because they thought the other trusted them and he kind of snaps very quickly and decides to kill her which only becomes more more firm when she sets a snake trap on him it falls apart so quickly in the movie in a way that kind of makes you feel bad for him almost like this is entirely a reaction to her betrayal and not way more about him suddenly being worried that she'd sell him out but in the end he can't catch her I'm pretty sure he hits her with a bullet but he never finds a body her Footprints disappear in the mud before she starts to sing one last time is she gray that's enough the mocking Jay's matching The Melody of the Hanging Tree concealing wherever she may have gone this parallels the song she was singing about her names sake earlier based on a poem by Wordsworth and I really just love what aspects of society have endured in panm cuz if you didn't know it's like North America 2 to 300 years in the future and so much of it just seems to be the songs and the poems passed on from generation to generation but it's the story of Lucy gray a young girl who gets lost in the snow when by the end you don't know if she's vanished died or been a ghost does she survive Lucy gray in the song I'm sure she's out there somewhere but it's a mystery sweetheart just like me it's fun that in the book the song bothered him so much because now it's his reality he's the snow that Lucy gray gets lost in could have been the cause of her death but he'll never really know what happened to her I like to think she got away though I'm sure she's out there somewhere and as much as he'd like to deny to let Lucy gray Fall Away in time it's absolutely something that haunts him pushes him to swear off love because it made him vulnerable it also adds a lot of depth to how we might have felt about catniss singing those same songs Lucy gray did seeing his hatred of mocking Jay's bill just to have her appear on stage with a pin what he would have felt when Hanging Tree became a rebellion chant but his love for Lucy was selfish and possessive and really just gets through to the base of who he is as a person and it's not the Romantic people thought he almost was in this movie so he heads back for officer training but surprise surprise he's been granted a full pardon he's become the perfect little specimen G wanted him to be people watched and I have you to thank for that he'll go to university be prepped to take over his game master all graciously paid for by the plinth family for being such a good friend to their son sanus the book really drives home how extra [ __ ] that is they basically pseudo adopt him to make up for their losss and it just bankrolls his entire future bringing it all back to what the book already touched on that Coro sees the world as the arena that the games are a necessity to remind us all who we are at our core which to him is just one step away from self- serving brutality never realizing that his own brutality might not come so easy and others and who are you do you determine the Victor and that could have been a great line for it to end on but the movie just takes it a few steps further showing him all done up with tigers giving him the most backhanded dejected compliment what do you think you look just like your father Cory elus and we have not heard a single good thing about his father but I remember the most about him in his eyes it was just hate bringing us to Dean High bottom the main snow hater because he came up with the games as a joke assignment but but Snow's father passed it in for both of them so he could get ahead so that's why he hates all the Snows and his guilt over the games is what led to his addiction I tried to stop them however I could but then you came along well if you had just given him a Brute Force Contender instead of trying to screw him over he might not have been incentivized to create that spectacle that led to many prosperous years in the arena snow lands on top and this is a moment that shows why it's so easy for snow to believe the worst of human nature because his final Act is poisoning the morphling he'd found in s janus's belongings knowing High bottom would drink it just like go there's no reason to worry about the consequences of actions against the contract when you're playing from inside the system of control ending us off with it's the things we love most that destroy us pulled that right out of the mocking J movie and it's easy to take as his broken heart pushed him over the edge but I think what snow loves most is control and now he has the ultimate kind knowing he won't ever feel weak or lesser again never experiencing the fear of his childhood his affection for Lucy gray and the weakness it presented in him proved he loved the rest of it more her being something he couldn't control it never would have lasted and that control aspect to his personality is probably why his experiences resulted in his authoritarian beliefs because we don't see the same thing in Tigris who grew up right alongside him but now that he's so closed off to empathy from the things he's had to do the things he chose to do and the perceived betrayal from Lucy gray lived only with his manipulation and ambition it's clear how he to President Snow the man who insists on total control but no matter what he does or how hard he tries Lucy gray will always live on in the music my contacts inform me that she's just disappeared it's a mystery and Mysteries have a way of driving people mad so there is just so much more in the story that we could go over I didn't even get to mention that snow realizes that Tigress most likely had to sell her body at times to support them and like that still doesn't turn him against the way things are and that so much of what the capital citizens are is us you you know going back to Russo he believed that we naturally have a form of self-love but it often gets corrupted by society that self- Lov can become destructive and highly dependent on the approval of those around us and I don't know if Russo ever could have anticipated exactly how far that concept could go even snow with all of his wit and charm and manipulation is falling right into that yeah there is just so much to talk about with this and how it relates to the Hunger Games as a whole but I think we've been here long enough I've had to record this video in multiple sections but thank you all so much for watching and for another incredible year of getting to do what I love I hope you are all having fantastic time this holiday season thanks again to co-pilot for sponsoring the video check out that link down below and thanks as always to my patreon supporters and YouTube channel members subscribe to the channel if you're new leave a like on the video if you're into that kind of thing all my social media links are down below which feels fun to say after some of the stuff we've been saying here today I hope you're all having a fantastic day I'm mostly okay and we'll catch you all later

Channel: Amanda the Jedi

Views: 380,755

Keywords: rachel zegler, the ballad of songbirds and snakes, tom blyth, rachel zegler interview, rachel zegler snow white, ballad of lucy gray baird, lucy gray and coriolanus kiss, lucy gray and coryo, ballad of songbirds and snakes book

Id: UL1RF8tHOfM

Length: 43min 4sec (2584 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 30 2023