#anti the ballad of songbirds and snakes

[sparksinthenight]

I’m thinking about The Hunger Games. It … it somehow manages to represent the world we live in and more specifically the Global North - Global South power dynamics and oppression systems in a truthful and insightful way that no other media does, and yet it completely mischaracterizes the power dynamics within the Global South and the class and race hierarchies that characterize the internal power structures in the Global South. The prequel also horrifically mischaracterizes immigration, the immigrant experience, and what immigrants are like. To the point where that book literally psychologically triggered me and I had to stop reading it because it was such terrible representation, dear gods.

So like, the thing is, there is not and never has been and never will be solidarity between the poor and the comfortable in the Global South. Yes, the North oppresses the South and the North exploits and profits from and metaphorically and often literally enslaves the South. But the well-off in the South do all of these things too. And from what I’ve seen and experienced in my personal life and what I’ve heard from other people who grew up in or live in the South, the well-off Southerners are probably worse than the North when it comes to oppressing and exploiting and profiting off of the poor people of the South. You can say that America is the Big Bad and everything bad happens because of it. But the fact of the matter is that without comfortable Southerners doing all the direct things required to keep the poor in line, the international and intranational hierarchies of the world would fall apart. Global Southern police officers and military members and government and businesspeople and employers and bosses and moneyed people are directly the reason the poor people in the Global South are being exploited, even if the North benefits from this all a whole lot too.

And … what the hell was the mountain scene in District Two? Those guys were peacekeepers. They were COPS. The poor people of the Global South don’t need to and should not feel any sense of solidarity with the COPS that keep them held down. And I’m not only saying this because I’m anti cop but because the people in that mountain benefitted from harming and oppressing the poor people, they benefitted from keeping the poor people from gaining power, and they benefitted from the system that kept the poor people poor. Those peacekeepers and peacekeeper-adjacent were not oppressed in any way, despite being from the Districts (aka Global South). They were the oppressors. You could argue that actually they were oppressed because their kids could be reaped. But two kids get reaped a year and there’s thousands of kids in the district. But even ignoring that fact, the point is that the mountain scene was meant to parallel real-world dynamics. And no real world cops are oppressed. Even ones in the Global South, or perhaps especially them to be honest.

And we need to talk about TBOSAS and the way it paints immigrants. Immigrants are not worse than non-immigrants, but they’re not better either. They are not would-be rebels full of empathy and compassion for the poor people they left behind. They are not brave heroes who will die for the Global South. I’m saying this from experience, I have moved in immigrant circles all my life. Immigrants are no better than anyone else in the Global North, they are only tied to their homelands in the most superficial and shallow ways possible, and they ally and align themselves with the Global North and against the Global South most of the time, just like most Global Northerners do. They’ll wear traditional clothes but those clothes will be made out of fabric the cost of which could feed a whole family back home for a month. Yes, there are immigrants who are the brave hero-martyr with undying loyalty that the book showcases. But those cases are really rare, they are really more of an anomaly than anything else. And I’m not saying this to say that immigrants are bad. I’m saying this to say that immigrants are far more part of and loyal to their adoptive countries, and cannot be expected to act differently from non-immigrants in any way that substantially matters.

I also think that Primrose is an example of all that is wrong with Collins’ understanding of the South. Prim looks like and can be said to symbolize the more affluent parts of the district. She resembles her mother who is from the more wealthy part of town while Katniss represents her father who is from the Seam. Now the moderate wealth of the Town does not hold a candle to the extravagance and excess of rich parts of the South. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it, there are penthouse vacation homes blocks away from shantytowns. Literally. But still, the Town in District Twelve represents what Collins thinks is the wealthy part of the South. (And in my opinion the Town is also very guilty for not sharing what they have and not helping the literal starving people of their district. If you saw someone with no food and you had money and you spent that money on a party dress instead of food for them then guess what? You’re completely fucking evil and going to hell. But anyways, back to the actual point.) Prim has the Town genes and Katniss had the Seam genes. And who is good and pure and innocent and must be protected? Prim. And who is able to withstand inhuman amounts of hardship and do child labour? Katniss. Who has to sacrifice her own innocence and goodness and childhood to protect the other one? Katniss. Whose life and safety is considered not quite as valuable? Katniss.

And Gale and Peeta. I couldn’t care less who Katniss got with. She can pick who she wants. But just like Prim and Katniss, Gale and Peeta represent the rich and poor sides of the South. Despite Peeta not being nearly as rich as the most rich people in the South actually are. He’s still richer. He still fits into the metaphor and symbolism. And who is more kind and reasonable and right? Peeta. Who is more good and pure? Peeta. Who is shown as not being able to see past their emotions and grudges? Gale. Who is seen as stubborn and overly violent? Gale.

There are ways in which The Hunger Games is revolutionary and amazing. But there are ways in which it feels like some kind of disguised psyop.

[iasirene]

I feel like a lot of fans don't like Sejanus because of the capitalist propaganda that's all around us. Now hear me out! Sejanus's family has money, a lot of it. So much that they were able to buy their way into the Capitol even though they were from the Districts. There is no denying that Sejanus grew up privileged and comfortable- and yet he STILL sees the cracks and injustice in the system that he lives under. He is a class traitor in the best way possible. Many people, including some fans of the Hunger Games, hold onto the belief that if you are wealthy and you fight for injustice, you're a hypocrite. "You're rich and can do whatever you want, you don't understand anything about the struggle." And while that can be a valid thing to express, it is also a reactionary tactic used to divide the people. Being a communist doesn't mean you don't have or use nice things, it means you don't want those nice things only being available to the top 1%. But back to Sejanus. I've seen some fans express that he could have used his wealth to reform the system from the inside, and while I can understand the sentiment, in a fascist government like Panem, reforming it is downright impossible. Fascism is not a system you can reform, it is something that needs to be rooted up and destroyed.

Snow, the boy who grew up during the rebellion poor and hungry, who saw and lived through the struggle, chose revenge and retaliation. Sejanus, the privileged boy with the soulful brown eyes, chose empathy and compassion.

[elainiisms]

personally, idc how hot young snow was or how "sad" his backstory was, none of that can EVER make me sympathise with a man who killed hundreds of children for amusement and sold the children he didn't kill into s*x trafficking.

[8ice8]

Why are there so many Coriolanus x reader one shots. Girlie that's a white boy. And a dictator??? And a murderer???? Get a grip??? Also Sejanus is right there!!! And Lucy Gray!!!

[megala-theia-praxidike]

[sylvies-chen]

I love the ballad of songbirds and snakes, don’t get me wrong. but the streets are comparing coriolanus snow to anakin skywalker and I just… somebody get me a gun! I need to buy a gun!

and listen, I totally get the idea behind it. they’re both young formerly promising men who spiralled downwards into violence and authoritarianism and, as a result, betrayed their best friends and the women they care for. on a basic level, they have some similarities. but again, it’s like… the most BASIC and SURFACE LEVEL comparison to make!

snow is not a fallen angel or tragic doomed hero. the entire point of the book + film was that he was always prone to thinking manipulatively, to being selfish, to being violent, to liking the system too much, to letting not just anger but genuine hatred inform his decisions. HE IS THE VILLAIN. and vader is a villain too— the most iconic villain of all time— but anakin is a whole other story, and coriolanus doesn’t hold a candle to anakin when you compare some deeper elements of their motivations.

first off, you only need to look at how they treat their ladies to understand what I’m saying. everyone loves the heartbreak of anakin and padme just as they love the heartbreak of lucy and snow, but that love for their tragic story seems to blind people to the absolute insanity that is snow’s thoughts about lucy. he lies to her, thinks she’s trying to kill him, her song doesn’t satisfy or please him, and in the books he even goes so far as to say she isn’t even that good looking??? anakin, on the other hand, delivers a minute-long monologue about how deeply in love he is with padme, how a single kiss from her haunts him, how he is willing to utterly devote himself to her and fulfil her every demand because there’s nothing else he can do. he expresses his love in a very immature way at times, but it is real and genuine. tbosas makes you question at times whether coriolanus really loves lucy, or whether just this idea of “taming” her seems appealing.

even their downward spirals are vastly different in nature. coriolanus snow becomes more paranoid in an attempt to maintain his image, in order to keep lucy under his spell. his ambitions are nuanced, not black and white by any means, but they are selfish. anakin’s spiral, though there’s no denying the horrific acts he commits, begins from a place of fear and love. he is so genuinely scared of losing his wife and his unborn children that he becomes susceptible to an outside force manipulating him towards the dark side. anakin also fulfils that element of the shakesperian tragic hero in that there’s this idea of potential that we see so present in him. he’s introduced as the one who would bring balance to the force, someone powerful beyond comprehension, a saviour of sorts. snow was never shown to have that level of promise. he was just a man who existed in a system and it is about him grappling with that system until eventually that disgusting fascist mindset takes over.

and lastly, of course, you can’t ever mention these two in tandem without remembering the fact that anakin did the right thing in the end! and coriolanus did not! luke fought to bring anakin back when vader had taken over for so many years, and in the end it paid off. anakin does the truly selfless thing in sacrificing himself to save luke. he lets love inform his decisions, as he once did before, only the fear is gone and so that love orients him towards good instead of darkness. anakin is a fallen angel, but he’s also a man who loved too much and didn’t know what to do with it. snow, comparatively, admits he isn’t above killing children and then laughs in the face of the masses he’s worked to oppress for over half a century right before his death.

anakin skywalker’s story is of the destruction and reconstruction of his good heart, of light, of balance, of love. it is cyclical, and it is tragic. coriolanus snow’s story is not. it is a story not of something sinister growing in an otherwise good heart, but a story of something sinister unravelling and revealing itself.

they are not the same.

[thisdayhappensonce]

i truly disagree with and resent the idea that “everlark is what snowbaird could have been”. rachel zegler said it recently in an interview, and in my opinion it couldn’t be farther from the truth. describing coryo as “a kind eyed blond” is so inaccurate it’s laughable. even in the film tigris says about the hatred in coryo’s eyes. from even the beginning of the ballad of songbirds and snakes novel, we see how highly coryo deifies power. from the start, he keeps up his image as a charming but humble rich boy, regardless of the fact he’s starving and penniless, simply because its the best way for him to maintain control over others.

coryo only ever is kind to others when it is convenient for him - take sejanus for example. his parents gave him gifts and fed him and treated him with great respect (to the eventual point of leaving him their fortune when sejanus dies) simply because coryo pretended to care about their son to receive those effects.

with lucy, it was, to use her own words “written in the stars” that their relationship would end up in ruin, because ultimately coryo was never a person who valued love over power. i stand by the fact that while he may have cared for and loved her, the ultimate truth is that that love did not trump (in coriolanus’ values) the inheritance of power he believed he was owed generationally, from his father and every other snow before him. he would have done anything to get back to where he ���belonged”, in the capitol. even had she not run from him, it would have happened a different way eventually.

SHJDJFN STOP PUTTING SNOW ON A PEDESTAL AND SAYING U CAN FIX HIM NO YOU CAN’T HE’S HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!! THE WORST!!!!!!

i don’t think any love of his would have led him to a redemption!!

[vasilissadragomir]

i do enjoy olivia rodrigo’s music and i think the new song is really nice, but i just wish they’d chosen a roma singer, or even an indigenous american singer, for the ABOSAS single. especially since they didn’t cast a roma actor (no shade to rachel) as lucy gray, it does feel like they’re minimizing the overt roma-coding of the covey, which is SUCH a massive layer to understanding the oppression of the capitol not just as an authoritarian regime, but as a colonizing entity of an indigenous and nomadic population

[rewrite-canon]

“[insert character] should have been evil!” let people be good and nice goddamn it.

[saintsdarlings]

His girl. His love. His Lucy Gray.

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Coriolanus Snow is insufferable:

On the one hand, this is genuinely a fascinating character explore that area of the world through. They didn’t have enough to eat elders, and it’s fun to see how that affects him (or not)

On the other. The fandom is so insufferable with this white guy. He’s not even that attraction quit saying that like it’s a good thing

Hurr durr, the girl I like runs away because I admitted to killing and then lied about it

the worst internal monologue. bigoted, classist , future fascist. like if patrick bateman was a 17 year old honors student that read too much thomas hobbes

Propaganda why Scott McCall is insufferable:

The town keeps being terrorized by monsters and he is too caught up in his teenage romance with the girl whose family kills werewolves like him to even care!

Guy gets turned into a werewolf and decides that the most important things to care about now are his newfound stardom in high school sports and his weird Romeo and Juliet relationship with the new girl, who happens to come from a family of werewolf hunters. Meanwhile everyone else is dealing with actual monsters and murder mysteries, and yet Scott still maintains his holier-than-thou attitude

he's literally the most uninteresting motherfucker I've ever laid eyes on. Stiles should've been the main character and everybody knows it.

[riddlemefuckingthis]

Having Josh Andrés Rivera play Sejanus is such a move in BOSAS. The actor is from Puerto Rico which is part of the US but the people don’t have any rights to vote or do anything political there. It’s just part of it but the people aren’t viewed as an American even tho they would be viewed as American by law. Bur with Rivera playing Sejanus it makes it ten times even better because Sejanus is from district two but moved to the Capitol at such a young age. Snow doesn’t even view him as from the Capitol but Sejanus is from the Capitol because he fucking lives there! It’s just a cool move that they made in the movie.

[snowangeldotmp3]

i do have to wonder if snow's capture and torture of peeta was more than just dangling something in front of katniss's face. ik we've had our talks of katniss being more like sejanus rather than lucy gray, and that peeta is more aligned with lucy gray in terms of personality. so i wonder if snow capturing peeta and torturing peeta is also him getting an inch of revenge on lucy gray all those years ago. he's able to control peeta in the way that he couldn't control lucy gray, and to him it's just the cherry on top to ruining katniss and her little rebellion.

[everdeensmellark]

snow allowing katniss to live following her defiance of the capitol is so much more interesting knowing his past with lucy gray. i'm curious if he assumed, because of his experiences, that katniss would run away, just like lucy gray had? and she would have, had it not been for gale's insistence that he stay and help the rebellion grow. idk just very interesting to me

[megala-theia-praxidike]

My Thoughts on Impulsiveness and Carelessness of Sejanus Plinth

There is no doubt Sejanus is smart but he has a big fatal flaw. He is an impulsive, self-destructive teenager who feels so much guilt that sometimes has no regard for those he could possibly hurt with his actions. Sejanus' guilt of being able to live a quality life in the Capitol made him want to compensate by being loud about how he hates being there.

He's compassionate and cares for his fellow districts, yes, but ultimately he feels guilty.

When he failed to connect with Marcus, he wanted, then, to give up or exchange tributes to lessen his guilt (cuz at least it wasn't someone from his district or one he knows).

If Coryo had taken his offer of exchanging tributes, would he have done what it takes to save her? Would he cheat? Ally with other mentors? Kill another tribute? Would he have stomach having appeal to the horrendous sponsors? Would he be willing to give her poison to kill other tributes? Would he create a thesis of new horrendous rules and spectacle that would give her advantage inside the arena like the betting and sponsor system? Or would he not participate at all and leave Lucy Gray to her whims aside from perhaps feeding her before the games?

When he entered the arena, he did not think what would happen to his parents, to his mother, to anyone associated with him. In the Arena, he laments about his father buying his way into power and how they left district 2 and how guilty he is about having to be safe. He didn't think that power, that money, that buying could make changes.

Sejanus wanted to become a medic, he wanted to help, he wanted to end the suffering but he didn't think that ambition takes time and takes more than gut, but also ruthlessness and efficiency. He has to stomach horror and morally grey actions.

Sejanus was careless in 12, he knows the reaping in 12 was rigged He knows Billy Taupe is with the Mayor's daughter who got Lucy Gray reaped. So associating with him is dangerous especially when he wants to break rules and help people in the district.

Sejanus and Coriolanus witnesses what happens to rebels in the district (Arlo Chance) and those associated with them (Lil). He is always with him. Coriolanus witnessed Sejanus drawing maps and out in the open, conspiring with Billy Taupe, the very day he and Lucy Gray reunited, even Barb Azure witnessed and knows what they were doing.

so it wasn't really hidden. Sejanus knows Coriolanus lurks and Coriolanus already knows he is doing some kind of trouble. It's just that Sejanus promised he'd stop for his sake but lying about it made Coriolanus even more paranoid.

Coriolanus is smart as well, thinking of the worst possible outcomes is his biggest hobby, he said so himself in chapter 1 but he is stressed and anxious for a month now. He is paranoid that hecould die by being associated with Sejanus so he snoops into Sejanus' stuff only for his fears to be affirmed.

Sejanus goes with Coriolanus everytime they go to the covey because he is the only one in the peacekeepers who knows Coriolanus and Lucy Gray's relationship. He is always with him and he is conspiring with rebels, Billy Taupe of all people, that could get Coriolanus hanged even if he won't do anything. And even if Coriolanus didn't tattled with the Jabberjay and followed Sejanus to Spruce, Mayfair would still be there and would have tattled or Spruce would have shot her and would have doomed them both.

Sejanus is a compassionate and kind boy who has the potential to be so clever and perhaps even become some one who could have helped aid the rebellion. He may be district and knows their plight but he is also a rich boy who never had to grow up, scraping to survive. He had his father protecting him so he never got to be as afraid for his life and be careful with it the way Lucy Gray and Coriolanus have to. He wants to be the hero, the doer, not dreamer. But it seems like he can't handle or don't know that he had to walk through burning coals to get results.

[topperscumslut]

call me coriolanus snow the way i be fumbling two bad bitches at once