#instead of playing Lucy gray how she is in the book

[hamliet]

Coriolanus Snow: The Hanged Man

I still have yet to read Sunrise on the Reaping (hopefully this week). Instead, I'm going to fulfill my promise in this answer and write about Coriolanus Snow, because The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is, in my opinion, the most ambitious and successful narratively of The Hunger Games novels, and I constantly see people reducing the narrative from its tremendous nuance and complexity to a simple moral tale of "you can't fix him, silly girl" and/or "manic pixie dream girls aren't real."

Thinking Snow was a narcissist or born bad from birth misses the entire point of the novel. Thinking that he didn't really love Lucy Gray also misses the point. The point is that he did love Lucy Gray, and he still turned into a narcissistic villain because he has the freedom to make his own choices, and he makes all the wrong ones.

Sorry, Suzanne Collins likes love stories. She's going to keep writing love stories, because the love subplots play integral roles in the themes of both prequels and the main trilogy of The Hunger Games. They're part of the thematic point of each story, and while I do think you can make an argument that Gale's entanglement with Katniss is weaker than Katniss and Peeta, Lenore and Haymitch, and yes, even Lucy Gray and Coriolanus, you can't really argue that the romance is a "distraction" from the main themes and actually have a good understanding of the novels. Love is not extraneous to these books; it holds them together.

So, yes. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a love story. It just doesn't end happily ever after. See, Eren and Mikasa in Shingeki no Kyojin, or Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Not all love stories end well! Not all tragedies are romantic tragedies like Titanic or Romeo and Juliet! Sometimes love doesn't have so clear a role in saving the day--but it could have, and that itself is the tragedy.

Sejanus: Wounded Sons Bearing Sins of the Father

Yes, Coriolanus is self-focused and self-centered. He is constantly thinking of how certain aspects can benefit himself, how he can restore his family's name and honor, how he can end up on top. He clearly feels the tear between a mother who died in childbirth and a father who had high expectations, but whom Coryo can barely remember.

However, I'd argue that as portrayed in the novel until the last quarter of the story, Coryo's self-centeredness is not a sign of narcissism so much as it is a realistic portrayal of a traumatized child.

You see, children are by nature egocentric, and Collins portrays this well in her books. They don't understand that the world is greater than what exists in their mind, and grow to understand it more. Coryo is stuck in one place (the Capitol), starved, loses both his parents, and understandably, doesn't really see outside of his own perspective until he meets Lucy Gray.

This marks his chance to open his mind. Coryo actually gets an Empathy 101 course from the story: he rides in the filthy car with the tributes, gets dumped unceremoniously into the zoo, and then gets sent into the arena. The story repeatedly challenges him to open up his mind, and he starts to do so, only to fold back in on himself at the end.

But what if I told you that Coryo is at least on equal standing in terms of self-centeredness and only thinking about how he feels with another significant character (who also is working through trauma and the burdens placed by a father). Yes, I'm talking about Sejanus Plinth.

But wait, Sejanus wanted to stop the Hunger Games!

Yes, he did. He went about it in the most immature way that ultimately just harmed everyone around him. Marcus, whom Sejanus didn't fully empathize with. His own parents and Coriolanus, who almost got killed when he's forced into the arena to save him. Coriolanus kills Bobbin doing so, and is traumatized by it. The girl locked up. Sejanus doesn't think his plans through.

He's not a bad person. His goals are noble, righteous even. But he, like every young activist ever, doesn't fully comprehend the effect his actions have on others, doesn't comprehend that good intentions don't justify the means, and that a righteous cause doesn't mean innocents can't get hurt through it. And while it sounds like I'm being harsh on Sejanus, these ideas are all thoroughly explored in the main trilogy, so I'm guessing Collins was very aware of this and Sejanus is intentionally a parallel to Coriolanus.

Actually, Sejanus isn't just a parallel. He symbolizes a part of Coryo, the heart to his wisdom. If they'd combined forces, they could have changed the world.

I'd also argue that people who think Coriolanus never cared about Sejanus are misreading to the same level as people who think Katniss never really cared about Peeta. They aren't reliable narrators. Coriolanus looks at him with a certain disdain, yes. But that's because he's uncomfortable looking at his child self, being vulnerable, traumatized, humiliated, and poor. Yet Coryo warns him over and over again when he doesn't have to.

But that's wanting control!

Well, yes. Where do you think pathological needs for control come from? Often, it originally starts as genuine concern from a traumatized person who has had very little control in their lives and has no idea how to express it as concern.

Sejanus is also, in Jungian terms, Coriolanus's inner child. Sejanus is constantly focused on his childhood and outspoken about it, while Coryo is actually the same way but not outspoken about it. He represents the trauma of war, the difficulty relating to parents (even though Sejanus has parents, and Coryo does not), the desperation to both grow up and find one's own identity, stand up for what you believe in, and to please the parents who gave you life.

So when Coryo eventually turns Sejanus in, he in essence dooms himself, though he naively doesn't think this will happen. He--rather childishly--assumes that Sejanus will just be in trouble but that his daddy can bail him out. After all, that's what's always happened before. His parents are powerful. He even writes to Sejanus's parents asking them to help.

Except, at some point your parents can't save you. I do read Coryo's trauma after Sejanus's hanging as genuine--he vomits and clearly feels guilt. He wanted a parent to rescue him, but none can.

Even as Sejanus dies, he cries "Ma, Ma, Ma!" for his mother. The tragedy is that by killing Sejanus, narratively, Coryo ensures that he will never allow this wounded child within himself to grow up. The loss of his parents will never heal.

Coryo ending up being essentially "adopted" by Sejanus's parents who completely miss his role in their son's death symbolizes him not growing up, because he cannot ever be really honest with them. He's not integrating with Sejanus and becoming more himself; he's lost his identity. He gets parents, but they're a lie, and he'll never experience the love and comfort of parents that he's craved.

He also then carries out his father's legacy of the Hunger Games, trying to please a ghost rather than real people around him. He chooses the dead, not the living.

Dr. Gaul and Casca Highbottom: Fear

Fear is the opposite of love.

This idea is Biblical and also pretty much embodied by the philosophy of Dr. Gaul, the woman Coriolanus hates, is absolutely terrified of, but becomes just like. It's no coincidence that Lucy Gray and Dr. Gaul are constantly pitted as opposites in Coriolanus's mind, because they represent his two potential paths in life.

Dean Highbottom traced the silver rose on the compact with a finger. “So, what did she say when you told her you were leaving?” “Dr. Gaul?” Snow asked. “Your little songbird,” the dean said. “When you left Twelve. Was she sad to see you go?”

Dr. Gaul is actually a manipulative abuser. She isolates Coriolanus from his friends by strategically alienating him from Clemensia. She sends him into the arena to save Sejanus, reinforcing to him that she has total control over his life. She, like Highbottom, knows the truth of his family situation and exploits it.

She thrives on chaos and cruelty, using the fear of her students, and Coriolanus's particular fear of her, to create a bond and further her own malicious aims.

The irony is that Coriolanus is capable of cruelty and manipulation. We know this not just from the original trilogy, but from his whole persona in the story. Dr. Volumnia Gaul is Coriolanus's Jungian shadow, the part of ourselves we try to repress and deny.

However, the only way to healthily handle the shadow is to accept it. Coriolanus instead murders it and thus it consumes him. In the end, Coriolanus becomes most like the person he fears most: Dr. Gaul. It's a tragically childish way of protecting oneself.

You see, I said murders because Dr. Gaul isn't his only shadow. The other shadows are present in Casca Highbottom and in Coriolanus's own father, whose shadow Coriolanus is constantly trying to live up to.

He doesn't understand Highbottom's hatred of him, which is a projection of his inability to understand his father's loss as a child. He tries and tries to embody whom he thinks his father would like him to become, and he tries and tries to win Highbottom over. When Highbottom comments about Arachne's funeral being over the top, Coryo assumes he's actually trying to bond with him, and admits he felt the same way--a lowering of the guard. Instead, Highbottom informs him that he's just like his father, using that one moment of vulnerability to tell Coriolanus he's a bad person.

“My condolences on the loss of your friend,” the dean said. “And on your student. It’s a difficult day for all of us. But the procession was very moving,” Coriolanus replied. “Did you think so? I found it excessive and in poor taste,” said Dean Highbottom. Taken by surprise, Coriolanus let out a short laugh before he recovered and tried to look shocked. The dean dropped his gaze to Coriolanus’s blue rosebud. “It’s amazing, how little things change. After all the killing. After all the agonized promises to remember the cost. After all of that, I can’t distinguish the bud from the blossom.” He gave the rose a tap with his forefinger...

The irony is that Highbottom ends up creating a tragedy of his own. In assuming Coriolanus is just like his father, he helps shape Coriolanus into becoming exactly just like his father. He reinforces to Coriolanus that he can't trust others. When Coriolanus murders Highbottom via his addiction (something he can't be free from), he allows his shadow to consume him.

Our assumptions about people shape who they become. This is at the core of the novel's themes, but it's also countered by Lucy Gray and her internal freedom.

Lucy Gray: Performance and Freedom

If Sejanus is Coryo's inner child and Highbottom/Dr. Gaul are his shadows, then Lucy Gray is his anima, in Jungian terms. Anima literally means "soul," and Lucy Gray does symbolize his soul (symbolism isn't literal--she was her own person, and that's part of Coriolanus's downfall: that he can't accept that).

Lucy Gray starts off the series as a child singing as she's dragged away to die, and in her Coryo sees himself. Him greeting her with a rose is a symbol of him acting like his own mother (as the roses are associated with her--the powder tin, etc), and him entering the truck and then being unceremoniously dumped into the zoo is not only a chance to empathize with Lucy Gray (which he actually does), but to see his own circumstances from a new perspective.

Being a "Snow" isn't a gift even if it seems like it is. It's a prison, and more than that, it's a zoo. People gawk at him because of his name, but in reality he's starving and desperate to survive even after the war. Him being locked in there and then seeing what Lucy Gray endures at the zoo is him being given the chance to look at his own circumstances as a child locked away in the Capitol and starving.

Coriolanus sitting and eating with Lucy Gray as an equal is a sign of maturity, and so is his determination to sneak her food and keep her alive. Yes, it's a bit egocentric in a childish sense, but he's literally a teenager.

While Coriolanus will later lose himself to the fear that Lucy Gray is just performing in her relationship with him because it would save her life (and I've read some interpretations agreeing with this, which I don't think the book supports at all), the irony is that Coriolanus Snow is performing too. Every action he takes he thinks about how it will appear--and that's not just with Lucy Gray and his role as a mentor in the Hunger Games. He's stuck performing too.

Both Lucy Gray and Coriolanus are both performers, and more than that, they have to play the role the Capitol gives them. The Capitol says Lucy Gray is District 12 and has to die for that, but Lucy Gray is actually Covey and never participated in the war. Coriolanus is a Snow and that commands respect and expectations, yet his family is actually still starving and on the verge of eviction. Neither neatly fit in the roles the Capitol declares they are based on heritage and setting, but they have to endure the expectations and burdens of those roles nonetheless.

However, Lucy Gray finds freedom in performing her songs and culture. Performing doesn't equate to fake, and once you strip the layers of someone, you can trust them even in their performances.

Coriolanus also faces a way to use his background and performance to help, and he does use it to save Lucy Gray in the arena. He also has multiple options of which Snow he wants to become: his mother. Tigris. Grandmama. Or, his father, the one he actually thinks about the least until the end.

It's Lucy Gray's free spirit, the way she turns her prisons and performances into art, that draws Coriolanus in. Yes, when he kisses her at first he does think of her in a jealous, possessive way. Given his background and given that he's a teenager, that's not abnormal. He's been trapped in one city his whole life.

So when Coriolanus is sent to District 12, he symbolically has the chance for freedom, too. He could choose to open his mind in the districts, to freedom. He has a chance.

Sadly, he hangs, lies to, and then shoots his chance.

The Hanging Tree

So, anima has four stages.

Eve (mother)

Helen (romantic interest)

Mary (religious devotion)

Sophia (wisdom, guide to the inner life)

In the beginning of Coriolanus's relationship with Lucy Gray, he associates her with his mother (the rose, the compact). He even gives her his mother's scarf (yes, there's some Oedipal imagery). Highbottom even calls it out:

“Your pretty, vapid mother, who’d somehow convinced herself that your father would give her freedom and love. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say.” “She wasn’t” was all Coriolanus managed. Vapid, he meant. “Only her youth excused her, and, really, she seemed fated to be a child forever. Just the opposite of your girl, Lucy Gray. Sixteen going on thirty-five."

Then he goes on to see her as someone he's pursuing romantically... and then he loses himself when given the chance to explore the religious devotion (so never approaches a wisdom phase).

See, as Coriolanus and Lucy meet up to flee, this happens:

“It’d be nice, in my new life, not to have to kill anyone else.” “I’m with you there. Three seems enough for one lifetime. And certainly enough for one summer." ... “Can you get this out?” He held out his hand, wiggling the compromised fingernail, hoping to distract her. “Let me see.” She examined his splinter. “So, Bobbin, Mayfair . . . who’s the third?” His mind raced for a plausible explanation. Could he have been involved in a freak accident? A training death? He was cleaning a weapon, and it went off by mistake? He decided it was best to make a joke of it. “Myself. I killed the old me so I could come with you.” She plucked the splinter free. “There. Well, I hope old you doesn’t haunt new you. We’ve already got enough ghosts between us.” The moment passed, but it had killed the conversation.”

Lucy Gray offers him the chance to confess. To trust her with the worst parts of himself. To truly be free.

And he lies, and in the end she removes the splinter like a mother removing one from a child, not as a person forgiving and setting another free.

The moment Coriolanus killed his future as a healthy, healing adult, was when he didn't take responsibility for Sejanus, when he says he killed himself. The irony is that this sentence itself kills Coriolanus''s development. It kills Lucy Gray's ability to trust him.

Coriolanus then embodies the lyrics of "The Hanging Tree."

They strung up a man They say who murdered three

He murdered three, and has strung himself up.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree? Where I told you to run So we'd both be free

He's fleeing with Lucy Gray, aiming to be free together.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree? Wear a necklace of rope/hope Side by side with me

In the books, it's "rope;" the films turned it to "hope," and Collins would have known about this by the time of writing this book. Hence, the scarf Coriolanus gave Lucy Gray that she leaves for him to find, and that this is the section of the song the mockingjays sing when he's hunting for Lucy Gray in the ending.

They are both hanged men, and him more so than her. Yes, Lucy Gray is never able to leave the arena, still afraid that everyone is trying to kill her, but she still has a sense of self. And Coriolanus, being part of the Capitol, is partly to blame for this.

Worse, Coryo lost his sense of self. He sees a snake and assumes she's trying to kill him, but it wasn't venomous, and the reader pointedly never knows whether it was deliberate or not.

Because Coriolanus cannot control Lucy Gray. She has herself, and she's chosen to be free. He can shoot up her sanctuary and make the rest of the world pay for his own mistakes, but he can never control her.

In the end, Coriolanus becomes both his parents. His better nature, his chance to grow and have freedom and love, his chance to live a new life, dies at the very moment he could have given birth to it. And he becomes a cruel, calculating war criminal.

And in the end, The Hunger Games as a series reinforces its main theme: hurting children forced to hurt children because the adults around them had petty conflicts.

[mswyrr]

“Dove!” He smacks his forehead. “Dove. I have always heard ‘dove color,’ though. It’s a bit of a cheat. But who could resist when you get both the color and the bird? And we know how they feel about their birds.” --Collins, Suzanne. Sunrise on the Reaping (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games) . Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition.

You know who else has a name that could fit in with Covey naming conventions as a "cheat" like that? Coriolanus Snow.* Collins gave him a name that might have fit in (which other people have mentioned before!), and then pointed that out in this book. The same book where it's clear that everyone might have been friends/family in a happier timeline. That the feathers of the mockingjay and the scales of the snake could be "indistinguishable" (SOTR, kindle ed, location 180).

When you combine it with passages like this:

“My family were Covey, first and last,” Lucy Gray asserted. “Not district, not Capitol, not rebel, not Peacekeeper, just us. And you’re like us. You want to think for yourself. You push back. I know because of what you did for me in the Games.” Well, she had him there. If the Hunger Games were thought necessary by the Capitol, and if he had tried to thwart them, had he not refuted the Capitol’s authority? Pushed back, as she said? Not like Sejanus, in outright defiance. But in a quieter, subtler way of his own? --Collins, Suzanne. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) (The Hunger Games) (p. 438). Scholastic Inc.. Kindle Edition.

People don't have to like what Collins did in TBOSAS and SOTR, but it's a pretty solid reading that she did do it. A real tragedy, where something real is twisted and lost. A boy who had the capacity for good and became Frankenstein's monster (Collins literally starts his book with a framing quote about that and has themes about how societies use and psychologically break down boys) instead. A girl who saw and felt something real and was betrayed, through no fault of her own.

*"Coriolanus" is a play by Shakespeare with poetry in it, and "Snow" is a color as much as "Dove"

[nyxanarchy]

SOTR SPOILERS

Other things in the books that are actively making me go insane + thoughts I had in these days:

-What do you mean lucy gray sang a funeral song!! When she thought she was gonna die!! I wonder if she sang it for her people back at home, rather than to herself.

-maysilee donner making all the tokens come to life. I wonder what she really wanted to be (she was her caged canary!! I say as they drag me to the asylum), maybe a goldsmith, or a stylist. I wonder how many of her jewelry were handmade. Ugh.

-ma and sid being buried together. Just this.

-read in some comments on tiktok that maybe the milk and bread was to ensure haymitch would have lived if he ate the gumdrops?? (Building his poison resistence) And been thinking about it for the last 24 hours. Because Snow couldn't have predicted the promise he would have made to Lenore Dove, no way he could. (He could never fathom a love that great.)

He needed him alive.

-Burdock singing and the mockingjay stopping. Ortho wasn't exaggerating. He never had any chance with Asterid.

-The snake eating the dove coloured bunny.

-the whole concept of the newcomers make me sob, but particularly "haymitch's doves". They make me sick to my stomach.Because he really saw children dressed in his love colour and thought it was reason enough to protect them. He really is the original lover boy.

-found the paragraph I was talking about, in the other post, about Lenore Dove and the dead mockinjay chick:

"A dead mockinjay chick, eyes still bright, feathers blue-black in the sunlight, clawed feet empty, on a bed of moss. Lenore Dove stroked its plumage with her fingertip. «Poor baby...poor little bird...who will sing your songs now?»"And later: "who will sing your songs now, Louella?"

Suzanne Collins you are a poet and a sacred monster. This made me weep.It's so telling of Lenore Dove's character. Made me think also of Rue's death. Devastatingly beautiful.

-What do you mean Wiress fear was to die in the dark? That is crazy work, I need a therapist.

-THE SWEARING IN THE BOOK. I WANT TO READ IT IN ENGLISH TOO BECAUSE I'M NOT SURE HOW THEY TRANSLATED IT BUT!! I wonder how many times was Katniss supposed to swear but they cut it to keep the book "clean". Also Haymitch thinking Lenore Dove could have been raped.

-Also I thought about Lenore Dove being kept in the prison without eating anything. It's obviously Snow's work, but thinking about him ensuring she doesn't eat, so she will inevitably eat the gumdrops, and also she won't be able to vomit... he is so vile. I hate him so much, I get heated just thinking about him.And the way she died?? She must have been so scared when Haymitch told her it's poison. It was calculated and cruel.

-also this is not about sotr but i keep seeing posts on tiktok about the ballad of snakes and songbirds about snow and lucy gray captioned like "he was so kind to her, he really loved her 🥹. He never trusted anyone again after he betrayed him, he never loved again. He married someone he didn't love so she couldn't manipulate him" SHE NEVER BETRAYED HIM. HE DID ALL OF IT ALONE. LUCY GRAY NEVER ACTUALLY MANIPULATED HIM, AND IF SHE DID SHE DID TO SURVIVE HIM. in rome we say "se la canta e se la suona" (he sings and plays to himself)he litterally betrayed her and himself, motherfucker never saw her as a real human being.If he was a decent human being his trip to district 12 would have made him realize the people of the districts were just like him, instead it made him worse. If he had even a crumb of goodness in him maybe he could have loved her, had a life with her, and even if he wanted to go back to the capitol he could have left her and tried to make panem better. He could have stopped the games. I'm going off at a tangent I fear, anyway i didn't need this book to understand how rotten snow is but maybe some movies fan should really read it.

I will keep adding my thoughts, as I'm rereading it, sorry about it but this book really did a number on me. I will also reread the original series after it.

[gudvina]

Your point about SC and the noble poor trope is so important and needs to be discussed more in fandom actually.

One of the things I struggled with most about the book was that LD was put on such a high pedestal her beliefs were meant to be seen as correct and virtuous but the issue is that Suzanne Collins was locked into having Maysilee and Haymitch team up. So we end up with Maysilee (who is a great character and the only thing I like about the book other than wyatt) who is sort of written with the reformed mean girl trope but then we also have LD who hates her because of her status and we’re not supposed to disagree with LD based on how she’s written the narrative is contradicting itself.

If SC could’ve just let LD be a flawed character it would’ve been a great opportunity to delve further into how division within the districts actually prevents rebellion and benefits the capitol. We could’ve explored more about the themes that were introduced in the first book with gales treatment of Madge.

Idk I’m biased because I love Maysilee as a character and dislike LD (not even speaking about them as love interests just as characters) and people refuse to acknowledge that LD’s hatred of Maysilee is unfair. Also her owning a caged canary is supposed to parallel Haymitch in a cage except Maysilee herself is in a cage too? Like she’s from the districts and is a tribute and is maybe better off than other people in district 12 but like she’s still a victim of the capitol and people refuse to acknowledge that? Idk I can’t stand the Maysilee haters out there LD included lmao

I also believe that showing Lenore Dove as a complex, flawed character would have benefitted way more to the story than the portrayal she had on Sunrise on the Reaping.

The way her character was written didn't leave any room for discussions, she was a sort of messiah who was rebellious in a reckless, inefficient way. A noble pure girl who was beautiful, smelled like honeysuckle, played the piano, was able to read proficiently but was also so poor she couldn't eat. She's written as the missing link between Lucy Gray and Katniss Everdeen. We are supposed to feel for her, admire her intelligence, be intrigued by her mystery, feel the ominous meaning of her words because, and that's important, it's all tied to a higher purpose.

And yet, she falls flat because her writing was inconsistent, underdeveloped and, at some point, incoherent. That pedestal she was put on by the narrative does nothing to help this, instead it just highlights these problems and makes her character feel even emptier than it could have been had she not been mentioned every two lines.

On the contrary Maysilee, the reformed mean girl as you rightly called her, was just a girl who happened to not be from the Seam, but instead from the Merchant Area, and because of that (and the fact that people have been interested in her dynamic with Haymitch, colliding with Lenore Dove's character) her writing considerably undermined the importance of her character in favour of Lenore Dove's. She's the owner of the mockingjay pin but she hates it, apparently, so much that Haymitch feels it appropriate to mention how Lenore Dove would have been glad to have it herself. The mockingjay pin. What would one day become the symbol of the rebellion that frees the District, not anymore associated to Maysilee only, but also to Lenore Dove. She is judged constantly by Haymitch and Lenore Dove and constantly implied to be like Capitols just because she's well off, when she's actually the real rebel of this story. Lenore Dove's rebellion is closer to Gale Hawthorne's than to Katniss Everdeen's, but Maysilee's acts of rebellion feel more real, more powerful and, in a way, they have a higher impact on the story.

These parallels between Gale and Lenore Dove could have been explored and could have given the latter much more complexity, but Suzanne Collins was afraid to go that way because she didn't want the reader to dislike her, she wanted the reader to root for Lenore Dove. And for people to make twitter posts about her haunting the narrative.

Especially considered the fact that Lenore Dove is like that™ because of what she was told about Lucy Gray, someone she idolised herself and wants to imitate.

This book could have gone a different way. Could have been a little more subversive than the others, but for that Suzanne Collins should have put some effort in writing it, and ultimately its main purpose wasn't to send a message but to make a few more pennies to add to her wallet.

[sanjarka]

Top 5 (or 10) things the books did better than the movies?

i am not the person you should be asking this. you have given me way to much power to shit on the movies. i already do that enough unprovoked.

if you love them please block my tag thg: movie criticism (or just block me😭). and trust me no one is happier than me if you enjoy them. i wish that i could too. but it's not happening.

THE BREAD SCENE - i know that time doesn't work the same way in a movie and in a book. i know that. but when a scene in a book is as well written as this one, as important as this one you can give it more than two fucking seconds. find a way for it work i literally don't care. that's your job. this is THE moment that established who katniss is/was who peeta/is was. their connection. asterid's mental health issues. and honestly maybe there is no way to do it justice in a movie format. BECAUSE IT SHOULD BE A SERIES. cause the timing would work so much better. you could basically do an entire episode with how detailed this scene is.

the seam/merchant divide in d12 - which is yet another thing the bread scene established that isn't just not done well but doesn't even exist in the movies. and that's not okay. suzanne plays it safe honestly by not explicitly stating that katniss is not white and i really dislike that. cause she can't be white and she isn't white. obviously this is a story set in future and race is a socially constructed thing. it changes with time. who knows what is going to be considered non white or white in the future. katniss or anyone really isn't even aware of race as a concept but that doesn't mean the effects of it don't exist. they just have a different name for it. the seam people work in the mines but merchants have shops. seam kids take out the tesserae and because of that are more likely to be reaped. i mean peeta's mom treatment of katniss in the bread scene *is* racism. and considering the american history and the fact that d12 is in appalachia katniss should be played by a native actress. then we have the coveys being obviously inspired by romani people. and the fact that after the "new" panem is established almost all of them are killed. it's a literal genocide. and while i really loved rachel zegler's portrayal of lucy gray she, and all the rest of the coveys, should've been played by romani people. it was the decent thing to do. and ignoring race in a story that is set in what is left of america feels wrong. is wrong.

katniss and peeta feeling like actual teenagers and being compelling as characters - they are immature and they're petty and they're impulsive and they are kids. katniss does try to appear and treat herself as an adult but she truly rarely succeeds. cuting out her crying after shooting the pig was so incredibly stupid. and i really dislike jennifer lawrence's performance. is it the script or the director or her i don't know but there isn't a single moment where i feel like i get katniss from her. the acting isn't bad it just isn't katniss. because katniss - she cries... a lot. she leans onto peeta... a lot. she's sensitive and soft inside. she's also often more vulnerable with him than he is with her. and it's the same shit with josh. his lines were so often changed into things peeta would never say and instead of a complex interesting kid we get that stalker from the cave. he doesn't get pissed on the roof, he doesn't get hurt on the train, we don't see him with a black eye after the bread scene. he doesn't throw a lamp and a statue when angry which isn't good but it opens up his relationship with anger. which is a very heartbreaking one. and then his hijacking looses its narrative value.

haymitch's alcoholism being treated as a joke most of time is awful. it's just so sanitized. any pain and trauma is. maybe i'm remembering it wrong but doesn't katniss trial last a day instead of weeks in the movies. the games are to clean as well. especially the aftermath of the first ones. it's not supposed to be pretty.

on the topic of the first games - katniss and peeta not being back to back and putting the berries in their mouth. i know people love him touching her braid but it's wrong. in the movie they are really amping up the difference between the two katniss is looking up and he's touching her but in the book they are a team. and they trust each other. they.are.back.to.back. AND PEETA IS THE ONE SAYING HOLD THEM OUT I WANT EVERYONE TO SEE. and just in general everlark's dynamic is awful and boring. they don't fight on the roof, they don't challenge each other, they're not kids playing catch with the force field, katniss doesn't fall in love with his eyelashes and peeta doesn't fall in a love with a song. not really. the magic is gone. the music is gone and i'm watching a soulless action movie. and i hate it.

[becauseimamastermind]

expanding on this post

it's come to my attention that apparently it's not common knowledge that Coriolanus has mommy issues so let me make one thing extremely clear

CORIOLANUS SNOW HAS MOMMY ISSUES AND THAT IS LITERALLY THE PLOT.

(will be using the book and movie as my sources)

(will also be spelling it "mommy" not "mummy" even though I'm Australian. I don't want Americans freaking out over British/Australian English)

(I will not be sugar coating Coriolanus' fucked up self in this btw so if you want to call me mean for being rude to this fictional character who literally tries to kill his girlfriend, kills his best friend, and is responsible for over 2000 children's deaths, call me livia cardew, bitch, and move on, my god, stop dick riding)

(that got really mean for no reason, I'm sorry, I had an attitude)

First, let's just talk names.

Coriolanus Snow, after the Shakespearen play, which is about the Roman General, Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus

Dr Volumnia Gaul, after Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus’ mother.

basic overview of Volumnia's character in the play, Coriolanus

- bold and domineering.

- powerful and influential character who encourages her son's military success and political ambitions.

- able to control Coriolanus in a way that inverts the typical Shakespearean dynamic between fathers and daughters.

Second, how Coriolanus (tbosas) views women.

He views women as their usefulness. If they can not provide him anything, he doesn't like them, care for them, keep them around.

and, he sees women through the madonna-whore complex.

The madonna whore complex, for those who don't know, is a psychological complex that basically states "where men desire, they can not love and where men love, they can not desire" because they only see women as either saintly Madonna's (Madonna in the 'my lady' 'lady, virgin mary' kind of way, not in the singer-songwriter kind of way. im making this clarification because i was confused the first few times i heard this term) or whores to satisfy their physical urges.

another way it's presented is madonna/mother-whore complex. so madonna is interchangeable with mother in this sense

it's important to remember that this complex doesn't mean that these men could never possibly have sex with a madonna, especially if they have mommy issues. They're actually more likely to want to be intimate with a madonna if they have mommy issues because it feeds into the lack of love from their actually mothers.

We'll get to that in a very disturbing way in a moment!

so in Coriolanus' lense, Tigris? she's a madonna. Arachne? she'd be a whore. Dr Gaul? she'd be a mother in Coriolanus' eyes. Lucy Gray? she can't be a whore in his eyes because he's disgusted by her previous mention of romantic relations, so mother it is.

Third, Mrs Snow's and Lucy Gray Baird's similarities and how Coriolanus tell us himself he is attracted to his own mother.

1. Lucy Gray looks like his mother.

" "Just like your father's," the Grandma'am frequently reminded him. He wished he had his mother's eyes instead, but never said so. " -line 18-20, page 78, Chapter 6

now, Mrs Snow either had green or brown eyes then. and based off how he mentions Persephone Price being the prettiest girl in the Academy because of her hazel eyes, second to only maybe Clemensia, who's is described as having golden brown skin and raven black hair in the book and is played by Ashley Liao in the movie, who has brown eyes. And Tigris, a mother figure to Coriolanus, having brown eyes, I'm leaning towards Mrs Snow having had brown eyes.

Coriolanus doesn't straighten his hair at the end of the book. That was added to the movies to visually demonstrate how much like Crassus Coriolanus had become. Meaning straight hair was a Crassus Snow thing. Crassus is always depicted with straight hair. Meaning Mrs Snow was most likely who Coriolanus got his curls from.

okay, so Mrs Snow had curly hair (lets say for the hell of it that her hair was brunette) and brown eyes. Who else has brown curly hair and brown eyes? Lucy Gray.

not to mention her youthful appearance.

2. She sings like his mother and Coriolanus directly compares the 2

" "it was beautiful," he said. "it made me feel like when my mother . . . She died when I was five. It made me remember a song she used to sing to me." " - line 22-25, page 88, Chapter 6, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

he falls for a girl who makes him feel the way his mother made him feel. how much clearer can it get!?!?

Highbottom recognises the similarities and the only difference he points out is Lucy Gray's maturity.

"oh but just because Lucy gray is like his mother, doesn't mean he wants his mother, doesn't mean he had mommy issues"

Coriolanus was Professor Satyria Click's favourite student. You aren't usually the favourite student of a teacher you don't care about. And that teacher certainly doesn't call your home phone, come by your house, praise you endlessly just because. They usually have some sort of dynamic of care with you.

Or how fast he attached himself to Dr Gaul. He doesn't go to anyone else after the arena, just Dr Gaul to get his back stitched up and soaked up every word she spat at him while he was vulnerable. (I hate Dr Gaul so much omg actually don't get me started). When he found out he was getting sent out as a peacekeeper, he ran to her, to beg for her mercy.

idk how well I just listed that because I felt it wasn't too necessary but my point is, ITS CRYSTAL CLEAR HE HAS MOMMY ISSUES. not even to mention his insistence on roses being his thing long after his mother's death and the 10th annual Hunger Games.

now, feel free to skip this disgusting detail because it's not necessary for my overall point, however I would just like to say, he gives Lucy Gray his mother's scarf. that scarf that still smelt like his mother. like roses. also, coriolanus is a teenage boy and not above physical relations, especially not in alleyways behind train stations, anyway! so, Lucy Gray wears this scarf when they head up north, and idk if you know how scent works but it transfers, not to mention it was raining which meant the scent would've bleed more, meaning Lucy Gray would've smelt like his mother. Lucy Gray, his girlfriend, would've smelt like his mother, when they were alone in a small cabin together with no one for miles. do with that what you will.

Anyway, all this to say, Coriolanus Snow has mommy issues and it's not some 'theory', it's canon.

[aaronfj77]

Major spoilers for Sunrise on the Reaping and all of the Hunger Games books

Now that SOTR has established with Burdock that Katniss is Covey and the scene of Haymitch being confronted by Snow, I think it puts a whole new twist on the "convince me" line from Catching Fire.

Katniss interprets the line as "convince me that you and Peeta can fake it enough for the cameras"

In the Haymitch scene, Snow and he talk about Lenore, and Snow says "You love her, and oh how she seems to love you. Except sometimes you wonder, because her plans don't include you at all"

Haymitch snaps back that Lenore loves him and Snow replies "No doubt she says so."

Over the course of the books we basically have three covey love stories. Corialanus and Lucy Gray, Haymitch and Lenore, and now confirmed... Katniss and Peeta. She's a descendant of the covey with her dad Burdock being a cousin of Lenore. That means Snow witnesses three covey relationships. His own, Haymitch's and Katniss's.

He believes in his own twisted way that Lucy never really loved him and he straight up tells Haymitch he feels that Lenore doesn't either.

When we get to the scene in Catching Fire, instead of being in his own head or talking to Haymitch, he's taking to the covey counter part... and I think "convince me" means "convince me that a covey woman can love and it be real"

I feel he truly couldn't feel love himself and didn't believe Haymitchs but in a moment of old age and sadness and powerfully, he went "show me I was wrong my entire life"

And while I do believe Katniss loves Peeta, Snow is right 😂 Katniss does leave Peeta out of her plans for a lot of the things going on. While Katniss thinks she failed because she couldn't convince Snow they were playing pretend, the truth is Snow was never going to accept it, because he's bitter, angry and he knew she was keeping Peeta in the dark still, especially when he got grabbed and knew nothing of the plans. Katniss never stood a chance that poor girl 😭😭

[headpanemaniac]

sotr liveblogging, chapter 7

today I'm thinking a lot about Lenore Dove, because she feels like a really peculiar flavour of doomed by the narrative, and yet she's such a fascinating character, especially for someone who I expected to be out of the story for most of the time. In the catching fire recap of the 50th games, she's barely there, just an afterthought to add more trauma to the character whose background we're exploring, and I was ready for her to play a similar role in this one, just a setting-the-scene encounter at the beginning and then a dramatic death at the end. Instead, she's ever-present, driving the story more than anyone else really so far, the active counterpart to haymitch's passive or maybe reactive side. By this point I'm absolutely convinced that her end would have much more to it than the initially suggested punishment for haymitch exploiting the arena, because the way she's set up suggests she still has a significant role to play here and I am absolutely down for it. No fridged women in my books yes please.

But another thing that's been on my mind is that so far, she feels actually the closest to the general idea of a stereotypical dystopian ya protagonist - the determined girl with strong convictions and a certain disregard for authority - and you would be excused think that the hunger games of all series would have such a character already but the more I think of it the more I realize that no, they didn't. Cause this archetype is absolutely not the one-goal survival-focused Katniss, but it's not really Lucy Gray either, who was more of a dreamer than an activist. When I looked for an existing character who matched Lenore Dove's vibe the closest I could think of was ballad's Sejanus, except that she's much more focused and headstrong when he felt very hesitant and vulnerable (not a complaint at all, I actually related to him the most out of all thg characters in existence, but I digress).

And I can't help but wonder if it's a coincidence or if these two main thoughts that I have about her are in a way connected. How this story has the girl with rebellious protagonist energy not be actually a protagonist, but a side character and a motivator to the actual protagonist, and yet - or maybe because of it - have her drive the story anyway, from beyond the front lines, so to say. Fascinating.

[spacy-snail]

Parts of the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie that did the book dirty

Spoilers!!

…

• Snow is the one to suggest feeding the tributes, not stumbling across Sejanus already doing it

• The downgrade of the whole rat problem/rat poison thing

• Grandma’am is nice now???

• The almost total removal of Clemensia’s character, her being a weird suck up instead of her making a normal teen lie, and the fallout showing the absolute apathy Dr Gaul has (and also making Snow realize he can’t even trust the Capitol)

• Dr Gaul literally spelling out what the snakes do and Clemensia still sticking her hand in that stupid snake tank

• Not having Snow calling Lucy Gray “mine” in a creepy way even once to show how he feels he has ownership of her from the very beginning

• The EXTREME downgrade of Snow and Sejanus’ relationship, and the weird bond he has with the Plinths in general

• Ma Plinth erasure

• Tigris erasure

• Getting rid of Arachne’s funeral

• Snow not going out of his way to get Lucy Gray a guitar

• Having a blink and you’ll miss it throwaway line of the tributes and Academy students that died in the explosion

• Not showing the other tributes that did the interview

• Not showing Mama Snow’s compact until Coriolanus deciding to give it to Lucy Gray

• Lucy Gray and Snow didn’t kiss before she went into the games??? I feel like that added and extra layer of her wanting to survive but idk

• The erasure of the iconic “it’s not over until the mockingjay sings” line

• The drones never being fixed was a super weird choice and I’m not sure if I liked it or not

• Snow being super suspicious and running out to put something with Lucy Gray’s scent in the snake tank instead of just getting lucky and putting it in there on the off chance instead of it being predetermined

• The Games ending with the snake scene instead of Lucy Gray having to be clever to outwit her opponents, like I get it’s dramatic but that scene with Dr Gaul was just so weird to me

• Highbottom TELLING Snow to sign up for the Peacekeepers instead of just implying it and also telling him to keep his identity anonymous instead of Snow doing it out of pride

• Sejanus not telling Snow about the diploma he literally bargained for for him

• Sejanus showing up on the train instead of after Snow gets to District 12 and has to wallow in what his life is now before having finally having someone that actually knows him

• Snow not having IMMEDIATE beef with the mockingjays

• Snow not calling Sejanus his brother until the moment he betrayed him

• Them playing the Jabberjay audio at the hanging instead of Snow having to sit with his guilt and finding out via the commander was so so SO cringy omg

• Snow finding out he was going to District 2 BEFORE finding out about the hunt for the guns and who killed the mayor’s daughter was so so weird like why did they choose to do it in that order I feel like it took away all suspense of wondering when the other shoe was going to drop

• Lucy Gray looking that man in the eye and calling herself a loose end while he has a gun in his hand and not getting shot then and there was the most unrealistic part of the movie istg

• Not showing the Plinths in the apartment with them at all and just kinda having a throwaway line about where the money’s coming from

• Dr Gaul never says that she destroyed all evidence of the 10th game because of everything that happened with Snow, Lucy Gray, Sejanus, and the other dead Capitol children

• Snow not throwing away the morphine and Highbottom digging to get it, and instead just leaving it on the desk, idk it takes away the agency of the murder to me, less like an accident and less thought out (and on top of that, not showing how meticulous he was with poisoning the morphine so it couldn’t be traced back to him)

[wintermoth]

So I just saw The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and i gotta say, they did a damn good job.

But I'm not altogether happy with how much they changed the Games from how they played out in the book. I get needing to condense them for runtime and I get needing to change certain things like having cameras in the tunnels. The 10th Games were literally bursts of activity followed by hours upon hours of nothing because they couldn't see underground.

But it's the progression of events, the kill order & swapping of kills, and the omission of events which bothers me. Rest under the cut cos Long Post.

First of all: the Bloodbath. In the book, there is no Bloodbath. The kids literally grabbed supplies and hauled ASS to safety. You know. Like terrified children would. I personally think it was a mistake having the Bloodbath at all but I'm guessing some studio execs pulled rank on this one. >_>

Weaponizing the drones was something which...should've only worked once but whatever.

Coral getting properly fleshed out to be the main antagonist in the arena? Cool shit. They combined various aspects of other characters like Treech (7) and Teslee (3) into her. It gives us someone to root against and, narratively, I understand why they did it. She wasn't someone who'd trained her whole life like, say, Cato. She was just a kid who was doing what she thought she had to to get home. She was a bully, yeah, but not a villain.

Dill dying to the poison instead of her illness...um okay? This one I really don't get. IMO Lucy Gray seeing little Wovey die to the poison as she did in the books would've been much harder on her and the audience considering earlier events. Deadass, I think it was their way of dealing with the Reaper Problem - more on this in a minute Wovey's death was a cheap attempt at shock value and, surprise, no one was shocked. EVERYONE knew that container was bad news--audience, capitol, tributes--except perhaps Wovey herself. We'll blame the trauma.

And as for Lucy Gray herself, of her three book kills, one was removed entirely, and two were changed. The first being Dill instead of Wovey. The second being the way in which she killed Treerch. She was supposed to use a snake mutt as a weapon which she'd protected and hidden in her dress--which served as both a callback to her Reaping with the mayor's daughter.....and a premonition of what would eventually happen in the woods outside 12. And she was supposed to outwit/outmaneuver Reaper, which was removed entirely.

So, Reaper Ash. Big guy from District 11. The Thresh of these games. It's like they didn't know what to do with him. They dedicated his little screen time before the Games to making it clear he was 100% That Bitch and there were several lines (most from Lucky) indicating he was a strong contender. One of a handful of instances of Checkov's Gun, a rule of writing which states if you're going to call attention to a detail, it better fucking be important.

Allow me to summarize book events for those of you who don't know: The night before the Games, he apologizes to the surviving tributes for having to kill them and Jessup, who has rabies, spits in his eye. At the start of the Games, he was one of the few to run to get weapons at the start and was ready to fight, but everyone else was gone. So he heads out to hunt them down. Reaper was the only one proactively looking for a fight. Later, Reaper finds Dill down in the tunnels and carries her out into the open and lays her down in the sun because she's dying already and he's not going to kill her. He leaves her to her own devices and moves on. The next time we see him, he mercifully lets Lucy Gray flee from him. Afterwards, he strikes up an agreement with Lamina, the girl from 7, who's cleverly holed up high off the ground, and shows himself to pragmatic, fair, and good to his word.

Lamina warns him of oncoming tributes and he flees. When he eventually returns, he finds her and another murdered. Incensed, he begins assembling his morgue. During this, he uses part of a Capitol flag to make himself a cape, which makes him happy. The next day, he added Wovey to his morgue. When the Snakes are released into the arena, he is out of the line of fire, up in the stands, and survives.

By now, though, the rabies is really starting to affect him. He continues to obsessively add to and protect his morgue. On the last day, when Lucy Gray tries to add the third place tribute to it, he scares her off. But it's just them now and he doesn't even try to kill her. All he cares about is maintaining the morgue and keeping their bodies covered. He is eventually run ragged by Lucy Gray, who knows he's sick, and meets his end by drinking a poisoned puddle. He crawls to his morgue and dies. Lucy Gray wins.

In the movie, there's a Bloodbath and kids start killing each other, and he's right in there with them. We see him throw down ONLY to defend Dill. Then they just kinda....disappear. And they stay disappeared throughout everything which follows. None of his moments with the other tributes occur. When they emerge, Dill is significantly ahead of him--which tbh makes little sense since, as her protector, he reasonably should've gone out first to ensure it's safe--and dies by drinking poison. He is devastated and screams dramatically. He then begins to make his morgue and offend the capitol by disrespecting the flag before making a big dramatic speech to the cameras daring them to punish him. He apparently stays by his morgue for the rest of the day and when the snake mutts get dropped into the arena, he is keenly aware of the danger. He warns Wovey away, though she doesn't listen. He is almost immediately engulfed by the snakes. He holds still, sits up straight and tall, closes his eyes, then falls forward dead, followed swiftly by the remaining tributes except Lucy Gray.

So, that being said.

Book Reaper's story is a young man who expected to win and was prepared to do it, only for his degenerating mind to focus on protecting the dignity of the murdered children around him. His death was ignoble.

Movie Reaper's story is a young man who expected to win and was prepared to do it, but was also determined to protect his weak district partner with his life, and upon losing her, presents the Capitol both middle fingers. His death was ignoble.

I get why they cut the rabies plotline for the movie. It definitely saved time.....and it REALLY wouldn't look good if the filmmakers had both black guys die of rabies. Just saying. What bothers me about his movie story is just how unfulfilling it was. Going back to Checkov's Gun, he was supposed to be a Threat. And then he just. Wasn't. All for a over-dramatic and tbh unnecessary moment of glory.

so yeah that's my two cents.

anyway go see the movie.

[flameraven]

Watched the movie for Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Great adaptation as always, although I do think the book gives us a much better look at Snow as a character and how he became what he became. The movie misses out on his intense classism and entitlement, his gross possessive attitude towards Lucy Gray, and the way he makes EVERYTHING is about him.

Like, in the movie it just looks like he's having a moment of grief over Sejanus' death. In the book he does grieve... for like half a second, and then he turns it into 1) well actually I did the right thing if you think about it and 2) how can I avoid getting hanged by association. And then he steals Sejanus' stuff, preparing to send the money off to Tigris! What a piece of shit! Cannot believe people trust this guy.

Other notes:

- I do wish they'd kept the arena from the book, which is pretty clearly described as a bombed-out football stadium. Feels like it would have made the whole point that Panem Is America much clearer. The movie arena makes it too fantastical I think, gives it too much distance. And also leads to some plot questions like, why exactly can't get they reach the District 7 girl on top of the easily-climbable rubble (instead of balanced on a football goal)?

-I did not think much of Dean Highbottom in the book, but Peter Dinklage did a fantastic job with him in the movie. You can clearly see how Done he is with the whole thing, he was clearly hoping that maybe THIS year is the one the Games are finally retired, and then nope! fucking Gaul is roping him and his students into it. He's so Over It. Excellent performance. -Speaking of actors, the lady playing Gaul was fantastic. Not how I pictured her at all in the book but she was great. So unhinged.

-I did really enjoy the music and Lucy Gray's clear Southern accent, very much rooted the story in place in a way you can't hear with a book (though I'd be curious if the audiobook gives her an accent). And you can see how important the music is to the community, how lively the Hob is. People's lives are hard but they're still able to cut loose and relax sometimes. Of course, the songs are also VERY rebellious and we can't have that. :( -It made sense to cut things like the other mentor's deaths and Clemensia's snake-ifying from the movie, given it's nearly 3 hours long already, but I wish they'd been able to keep some of it. I felt like that really underlined the point that even Capitol citizens are seen as disposable. Also I wanted to see the cool makeup effect of someone all covered in neon scales. Maybe I'll have to do fanart. :( -I liked the skirt + pants design of the Academy uniforms. A nice subtle bit of fashion that makes them distinct from modern fashion and maybe hinting at the Capitol's future extravagance (cloth is expensive, a Capitol that is struggling to rebuild maybe shouldn't be wasting extra cloth on skirts). -Another costuming note: gotta love the way the Peacekeeper officer uniforms are just straight-up Nazi outfits. No subtlety there (versus by Katniss' time I think they have a more futuristic body-armor look. Which also fits with the Iraq War inspiration tbh)

Overall: solid movie. I don't know if I liked it quite as much as the Hunger Games movies but a good adaptation. And it was nice to hear the songs. Will have to pick up the soundtrack.

[sun-stricken]

i love gray's friendships with female characters, at least through tenrou arc! like that he's at once the "cool guy," sweet underneath, kinda flirty, and embarrasses a little easily - it's very easy to come up with HCs for his female friendships and you can't often say that about the cool rival guys(TM) in anime!

like for cana - -they're were the OG kids in the guild and i like the idea that cana felt like she could complain about boy troubles to gray -they were also friends with benefits at some point 👀 they broke it off very amicably and cana still rants to him about "girl stuff." he always finds it boring when she starts but eventually he gets invested and starts ranting with her, by this point mira also joins in on their gossiping <3

for erza - -she was definitely his first crush/love around his own age and one of the reasons he responded so strongly when he saw her crying alone, was because he was reminded of when ur used to do the same thing since she lost ultear (like the flashbacks in tenrou island arc of her sobbing while clutching ultear's old baby clothes). except back then, he didn't know how to help and just pretended he never saw anything, and it's one of his biggest regrets. so he decided to do something about erza even if he was really clumsy at it. -eventually he learned ice-making and wielding all those weapons because he asked erza to help teach him (even if he had to swallow his pride to do it). at first it's just between them but eventually a lot of the guild gets invested and watches their sparring sessions - levy helps him find books about specific swordplay techniques based on erza's recommendations -once, erza criticizes his fighting style and says she can read every move because he keeps playing it safe and is constantly on the defensive; she urges him to be more spontaneous and unpredictable because that kind of creativity is well-suited for maker mages. so during the fight, she's got him pinned (as usual) and the guild thinks it's over until, on a whim, he suddenly kisses her... and in erza's shock he manages to unpin himself and hold his own ice dagger at her throat instead. the guild's holding their breath and thinks erza's gonna beat him up LMAO, and gray also immediately tries to apologize and grovel, but erza simply brushes it off and says he was the smarter fighter that time, so he won fair and square. they both don't know that it was the other's first kiss 👀 -to thank erza for training him, gray gifted her those diamond-knife earrings (i figured bc he also wears that cross necklace and occasionally earrings...) - he's not really sure if she even likes them because she didn't show too much interest in jewelry/makeup/anything that isn't strictly practical, but to this day, he's never seen her take them off -erza made him quit smoking lmao, he used to be smoking buddies with mira until they both quit. he still doesn't do it but sometimes at a town event or similar occasion, he might indulge in a cig or two - nothing more. but he never does it in front of erza -gray standing up to erza in galuna island arc is like a guild legend now. people always bring it up when they introduce him to a newcomer; gray feels kinda embarrassed and uncomfortable by it and tries to apologize to erza about it, but she says she doesn't mind at all and he taught her a valuable lesson that day

for lucy - -sometimes he sits in on her and levy's discussions about the short stories she's writing and her eventual novel. he doesn't really throw out too many ideas, he just prefers to listen because he's reminded of the tales of adventure that ur used to tell him and lyon after dinner. sometimes lucy asks him about his home country and stuff so she can write short informational articles about it in sorcerer weekly, and he's happy to reminisce. -he really does find lucy's apartment comfortable because it has multiple thermostats. lucy always keeps the laundry area a little cooler just for gray whenever he drops by, since she knows he likes sitting there

for ultear - -it's a little hard to look her in the eyes sometimes because she resembles ur so much, but gray always appreciates her presence. sometimes ultear asks him to talk about little things about her mother, like her favorite foods or a story about her, and gray's always happy to indulge. lyon joins in too when he can! -once lyon hit on her in front of gray much to the latter's complete mortification, but ultear just burst out laughing and lyon turned brick red (there's an unspoken plea from lyon to never bring that incident up, but gray's just waiting for the chance to use it against him) -he always feels a little jolt in his chest when there's something ultear subconsciously does that's just like ur - they both put their hands on their hips the same way when they're pleased, she dots her "i's" with big circles like ur did, and they have similar tastes in food. gray doesn't know whether to feel pleased or pained -ultear thinks gray's stripping habit is endearing -ur was kinda gray's first puppy crush in the early says of being her student (before she became like a mother to him), and sometimes he wonders if he might end up feelings similarly about ultear if they spent more time together -ultear gave him a very rudimentary communication lacrima where you can tell the other person's mood/general state of mind if you let a little of your magic flow into it. sometimes gray uses it at night to see if she and crime sorciere are doing okay <3

i love exploring Grays relationship with others so much, also this is so long and as much as i love it i cant think of things to add on to it

but this absolutely needs to be shown to the world and praised bc holy shit this great and im definitely stealing at least 90% of these

[msshadowqueen]

Snowbaird one-shot for @burntblueberrywaffles

This was the most insane thing he had ever done, but Coriolanus had no choice. His dream had shown him the truth of the matter: he was simply not built for life in the wild. But he didn’t want to give up Lucy Gray; not if there was another way.

Instead, he stood there in the silent streets, the sun minutes away from rising. He was supposed to meet Lucy Gray in an hour and a half at the Hanging Tree. This was utter madness, far more insane than running away…but he couldn’t stop thinking about that dream.

Like maybe it was warning him about something. What would happen if he tried to run away. Funnily enough, his dream had also inspired this crazy idea.

Coriolanus wore thick gloves, his heart fluttering like a hummingbird as he prayed they were thick enough to protect him. This was so stupid. Unbelievably stupid. This was quite possibly the craziest idea he’d ever head. So crazy that it just might work.

It was almost too easy to sneak around the back of the house, to jiggle the window locks and slide the window open ever so slightly, just enough for it to slither inside, and Coriolanus watched as it slithered over the bed right beneath the window, crawling over the sleeping figures there.

He was already running when a shriek emanated from the house. Mayor Lipp had been bitten by a poisonous- no, venomous; apparently there was a difference- snake. Coriolanus then ran to the hanging tree, where exhaustion overtook him.

He was gently shaken awake by his Lucy Gray. Her beautiful multicolored eyes peered at him curiously, a mischievous smile on her face. “Been waiting for me, have you, handsome?”

Despite his drowsiness, Coriolanus blushed. Lucy Gray offered a hand, and Coriolanus took it, standing up. “Something like that. I have great news.”

Lucy Gray raised a brow. “Really?”

Coriolanus nodded vigorously. “I’ve found a way to make our problems disappear forever.”

Lucy Gray went still, though the wind dared to tousle her dark curls. “How?” she whispered.

Coriolanus took her hands in his, lifting them to hover near his chest. “Mayor Lipp is no more.”

Lucy Gray gasped quietly. “What did you do?”

Coriolanus smiled grimly. “I took a page out of your book.”

Lucy Gray shook her head. “Do you think they’ll just let the murderer of Mayfair and now the mayor himself get away?”

“It was the mayor who was pushing the investigation of the murder. You know that.” Coriolanus’s words came out in a rush. Maybe he was insane, but the plan had had some sense to it when he’d just woken up.

“Yes, the mayor’s death will be investigated, but without any evidence of foul play, the case will quickly die down. And we will be long gone, happily living in District 2.”

Lucy Gray’s eyes widened. “District 2?”

Coriolanus nodded. “I passed the officer’s exam. I’ve been transferred to 2.”

Lucy Gray’s jaw dropped. “You mean…?”

“The flight is today,” he breathed. “We can leave this place.”

Lucy Gray squeezed her eyes shut, and Coriolanus noticed a tear streaking down her cheek. Tentatively, he leaned down, brushing away the tear with his lips.

The Justice Building was eerily silent at this time, which was lucky because they had to do this fast. Coriolanus had quickly shoved himself into one of the few nice clothes he had left: the dress uniform meant for special military occasions he had received upon becoming a peacekeeper. Lucy Gray was wearing a lovely dress with butterfly sleeves that seemed to be made of lilies. They made a strange paid in the back mirror: the stunning Hunger Games champion beauty, and her beastly mentor beside her.

For that’s what he was: a beast. He had killed twice before and was partially responsible for Sejanus’s death, but this was different. This was premeditated; he had planned this. He had gone there with the intention to kill. What was he, if not a beast?

But it was worth it if it meant he could be with Lucy Gray forever.

When Lucy Gray spoke her vows, Coriolanus could not stop the tears, overwhelmed by fear and love and emotions as he was.

“I love you, Coriolanus Snow,” she said softly. “For though others may despise you for all you’ve done, I see your truest, deepest self, and know you to be pure as the driven snow you were named for. I have loved and lost, but never have I trusted so deeply as you, which is why our bond is incomparable. I vow to love you and protect you for the rest of our lives.”

Coriolanus sniffed as he tried to come up with vows. He had (though he would die before admitting this) written practice wedding vows to Lucy Gray, imagining their wedding, in their journal, but those words seemed so far away and highly inadequate. He tried to take deep breaths before he began.

“My Lucy Gray. While others saw my looks and my charm, you pierced my heart with your incandescence, bringing my true self to light. For the first time in my life, I felt free to be vulnerable. When you could have saved yourself, you saved me while potentially damning yourself. Every day I look at that burn on my back, I remember you saving me, and I vow to protect you and love you the same way you have protected me.”

They kissed sweetly on the lips, quickly turning to the next part of the ceremony. They had already toasted small pieces of bread over a fire before coming into the building to save time. Lucy Gray teasingly hovered the piece she’d toasted before his mouth. Coriolanus scowled slightly, while not at all annoyed. He quickly darted out like a snake, capturing the piece in his mouth. Then he offered his piece to Lucy Gray.

Without breaking eye contact, Lucy Gray parted her lips and took Coriolanus’s whole finger inside her mouth, sucking. He swallowed, feeling a heady sense of desire overtake him when the officiant cleared his throat.

“Would the newlyweds sign here, please?” he said. The lovebirds snapped out of the trance and quickly signed the paperwork. The officiant gestured at them, indicating the deed was done. They were officially married.

Coriolanus Snow could hardly contain his glee. Within a day, he went from a disgraced criminal to a noble officer and husband. Not bad at all.

Snow always lands on top after all.

[ladyhindsight]

Thoughts on Grace Blackthorn as a character? In my opinion, she was the most interesting one in the bunch of TLH. She had a really good backstory, some goals of her own and truly spoke to me as a domestic violence survivor. I loved reading about her relationship with Christopher (can I say that I think CC only killed him because he and Grace weren't liked enough by the fandom? This and her obsession with murdering the Lightwoods or the minor characters instead of the main ones for shock value) and, to me, she felt like a true person. I noticed that in the fandom she's mostly hated because of the s*a on James and Matthew. I can't say that I condone her actions .. but some of those scenes (with Matthew especially) felt unnecessary; for what reasons CC did write them? She absolutely didn't for the plot—I'd say, she wrote them so we could feel pity for James. Anyway, I think Grace's maybe one of the truest morally gray characters of TSC. CC kind of cooked with Julian... but I believe in the end she was too afraid to have a “ bad guy ” as a love interest (even though Julian isn't really a saint)

Grace has great amount of bite and commitment to her as a character. The same bite that disappears, for example, with Alastair, because Clare is not interested in exploring or properly resolving conflicts surrounding her. Grace fulfills certain purposes, and that is to act as the buffer in the relationship between James and Cordelia, but conversely as the accelerator for Lucie and Jesse, because Lucie needs motivated help to save Jesse. In other words, Grace fills a third party role in these relationships of which she is never the main star, especially when Jesse's loyalty easily and inevitably turns to the side of a future romantic relationship. But these two storylines do bring out different sides of her character.

The problem arises in that Clare is not interested in finishing Grace's own story because of the aforementioned fact. As has often been noted recently, many of the problems in these books are closely intertwined. When you bring up one, you inevitably have to mention the others. I'm so sorry you've had to experience domestic violence, but as you mentioned, domestic violence is very much at the core of Grace's character, what her character arc and development stems from.

It's particularly "interesting" that this perspective is completely ignored in the narrative. Since Grace has done wrong, manipulated, and used "good" people to get by, Grace doesn't need to be understood. In fact, the only characters who do (or even attempt at extending that grace) are Christopher and, at least to some extent, Jem. As to this, one very important aspect to her story previously introduced was completely dropped: Tatiana acquiring/buying Grace like she was a commodity, a petty doll, an object to play with and abuse.

I like characters like Jessamine and Grace because Clare doesn't try to disguise their actions as milder, like she does with many of her other personal favorites. On the contrary, I find myself hating the characters that Clare herself feels sorry for and clearly wants me to feel sorry for, while these characters (Jace, Clary, Simon, Tessa, Will etc.) are given significantly more depthless understanding than their actions even necessitate.

Going back to Alastair and the differences between him and Grace. I've mentioned somewhere that when the focus falls on characters who were previously in the background, some of their characteristics disappear. The same thing happens to Alastair when conflicts (which aren't even properly addressed, considering how much pity was reveled in their existence in the first place) between him and James and Matthew become more or less water under the bridge. This happens because Alastair starts dating Thomas, and Thomas can't date someone who doesn't blend into the same beige mass that his friends, the Good Guys, represent. Grace never fully fits in. She's there, but the conflicts still live on to some degree when the story ends. Even in the end, Grace is alone.

Which brings me to the point where I completely reject the idea that Julian is in any way a morally gray character. If we think of Jessamine or Grace, who are constantly at odds with the main characters, who make selfish but at the same time ethically questionable decisions, Julian has no place alongside them. Julian being “ruthless” does not equate to morally gray. Jessamine and Grace are not villains either, because there are many redeeming qualities to them—they, in the end, have conscience as well, but none of Julian’s actions require “redemption” as he doesn't do anything that would put him at odds with the status quo (that is represented by the Good Guys in the series). Julian is ruthless no more than necessitated, no more than, say, Jace is. They are just assholes.

Anything coming close to actually being ruthless would’ve been Julian intending to break all the parabatai bonds instead of Emma. It would’ve aligned more with Emma’s character to stop him instead how it was written. But what is consistency. It is a well-known problem in Clare’s works that, no matter the smoke screen of whatever at any given occasion, characters remain morally polarized, fundamentally good while bad guys have no redeeming qualities (see Inquisitor Aldertree, Zara, Horace, Centurions, whatever bigoted character that needs to be the wrench in the works etc.). I’d say Maryse is grayer than Julian and Jace combined just for the sake of being wildly into the Circle and Valentine’s ideas and traumatizing Isabelle with Robert’s adultery, lol.

Maybe it's just a deeply ingrained habit of disagreeing with Clare every time she tries to push other characters into being sympathetic while leaving a character like Grace on the sidelines. There is a lot of tragic backstory to Grace that is ignored because it doesn't serve her main function, which is to serve the other characters' relationships by being a conflict or helping them move forward. Like I said in my review of Chain of Thorns, I generally regard the treatment of Grace’s character just painful.

[the-sun-and-the-sea]

My take on Snow's future fixation with Lucy Gray

So I've seen this take floating around that Snow hates Katniss because of her connection to Lucy Gray, that Snow hates D12 because Lucy Gray left him, or other variations of it. And for a while it just hasn't sat quite right with me, and I think now I can articulate why.

First of all, I get why this take is so appealing, especially to those who have only seen the movie. There's a sense of cosmic justice in it. It's satisfying to think that someone as abhorrent as Snow will be reminded of his first atrocities, not only with Lucy Gray but with the Games in general, until his dying breath. But this take hinges on the idea that Snow is thinking about Lucy Gray at all, and I don't think he is.

Reading the book makes it incredibly apparent that Coriolanus does not care about Lucy Gray on a personal level. He does not find her wants or needs significant, unless they align with his own. There's even a line where he says that he'd rather have Lucy Gray locked up in the Capitol, so he can always have an idea of what she is doing. I think there absolutely was some attachment there, I won't deny that, but I'm not sure how much of it was the selflessness that we associate with love.

I find it really hard to believe that Coriolanus spent any extended period of time thinking about Lucy Gray after her disappearance, and certainly not 64 years in the future. He does not care about her. After leaving District 12 I have to imagine he'd be ready to forget the experience and look forward to his future, which as we know became quite promising.

I don't mean to say that Coriolanus wasn't effected by this experience, because he definitely was. I just don't think his feelings were fixated on Lucy Gray. Instead, the situation in 12 just confirmed what he already thought he knew: that people are inherently evil, self-serving creatures, and even those you trust will betray you at the slightest provocation. He developed a contempt not just for Lucy Gray, but for people in the districts in general. Or even humanity as a whole. That's why Katniss is such a threat to him. Without the Capitol to keep everyone in line, humans will revert to what they truly are.

This belief may have stemmed from his experience in District 12, and was certainly exacerbated by Dr. Gaul's manipulation. But I don't think that he hates Lucy Gray specifically, because to him, she's not even worth thinking about on any individual level. Instead, he holds humanity as a whole in low regard, especially the people in the districts, and we see this play out as he becomes president.

Hopefully my thoughts make sense here, and I'd love to know what you think!

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Coriolanus Snow is portrayed by a white man and Lucy Gray is played by a woman of colour and Romani coded, so guess what the hot takes are:

Lucy is an evil seductress who manipulated Snow.

It’s Lucy’s fault Snow turned evil, she abandoned him.

Snow was the real victim because he felt bad sometimes, Lucy never did.

Lucy deserves to die for hurting Snow’s feelings.

It actually makes me grateful Katniss was played by a white woman, Lord only knows what awful takes we’d be getting if Shay Mitchell had been cast instead.

ugh I was hoping to avoid the tags (I wasn't going to see the movie in theaters but my family does but I don't think we'll see it until xmas eve) but I guess since Rachel is getting racist hate I should start calling this out.

but just a few things

I knew this was going to be a shitshow based on reading the book alone.

I'm not sure where you're getting that Lucy is Romani coded? Is that coming from Collins?

Coriolanus snow was literally a conniving manipulater/murderer how is this Lucy's fault? (again based on the book).

Not sure where you're getting that Shay Mitchell should have been Katniss (don't get me wrong I love shay she's the main reason I watched so much of pll but like... this fancasting is news to me).

mod ali