#thinking abt grandma'am... nevr let them guess your next move abyssal thats what i say!

[felixravinstills]

I think when I started reading tbosas I knew very little and it and I was like. It’s a book for children how bad could it be. And then Sejanus and Lucy Gray die (?) in the space of fifty pages. and Lucy Gray is so young. She’s so young. And I keep thinking about her dying alone and afraid in that forest. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. Also the fact that u have thoughts on the Grandma’am is so funny to me. I think she constantly berates Tigris for not being married and for wearing wacky clothes. When she sees someone in a mini skirt for the first time she almost has an aneurysm.

I unfortunately had those death(s?) spoiled for me, but I remember learning about the characters and being like "wait no, maybe i read wrong or misunderstood. their lives are already so bad! and they're making the most of it!".

My real "oh shit moment" while reading was I remember when the tributes got dropped into the zoo I was like "oh? so we're doing this, huh? no glitz or glamor. we're going all on the horror stripped bare and then seeing it covered up with glamor? kinda like roses to hide the scent of blood"

Thanks for the ask! The rest of this post will now be taken over by the....

Grandma'am Thoughts No One Asked For (under the cut)

Grandma'am, What Is Going On in Your Head?

In my mind, the Capitol works primarily on absolute primogeniture and not male primogeniture. I also think that men would take their wives' surname if their wife was from a more influential family, so it's entirely possible to me that Grandma'am is a Snow by birth and her husband is not.

In this case, it's kind of strange that she puts all the pressure on Coriolanus and not Tigris given that Tigris is older . (it's possible that Crassus is older than Tigris' parent so inheritance/responsibility would follow Crassus' line, but you'd think being a Snow woman herself, she'd have as high of expectations for Tigris as Coriolanus and make them clear on the page)

A part of me thinks enforcing a kind of patriarchal view might be a really traditional Capitol view, and reinforcing it is a way to deal with the Snow's loss of fortune. If they can't have wealth or influence, at least they have tradition as an old family that would mean something... (Grandma'am Snow pulling up the ladder behind herself at the expense of her own granddaugher...). I mean her singing Gem of Panem seems to be her clinging to the Capitol to cope too.

Alternatively, if Grandma'am is not a Snow by birth, it seems that she's completely adopted the Snow identity. Her roses are seen as the Snow's roses and she never talks about other family. She's gone all in on Snow. This too can be interesting to explore. It indicates a complete belief in the Capitol's hierarchy of influential families. She married into one of the best families and that makes her one of the best.

Grandma'am potentially not being a Snow by birth and "rattling on about the Snows’ legendary grandeur." (Ch. 1) is wild behavior. What's going on in her head?

Alternatively, there is a third option, and that is she's from a distant Snow branch family marrying into the main line... This would be in line with old nobility... It also raises some uncomfortable questions that I will not be going into, lest I make other people uncomfortable. People are free to ask, I just will save that for a more warned post.

...

In a throwaway line in a Max fic, I named her Gloriam, and that's where the first section got developed in my head and forgotten... curse the tier list for giving me thoughts....