the ballad of song birds & snakes: a true villain origin story
- paigenherbooks
- Nov 12, 2023
- 8 min read
5/5
Suzanne Collins woke up one day and genuinely just chose violence. She decided to write a literal villain origin story where our main character isn't the morally grey, dark vibe, sexy, character who you can't help to love and hate. No, she served a main character who was atrocious, awful, and just down right horrible to follow...and I loved it. The Ballad of Song Birds & Snakes was a story that holds deep thematic elements that are important and imperative for people to notice and think about. This novel holds rhetoric that creates and begs the reader to sit back and think about how society interacts with it's government, how we interact with each other, and the true concept of nature & nurture.
Synopsis: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes place in the dystopian world of Panem, during the tenth annual Hunger Games. It follows the story of Coriolanus Snow, who later becomes the tyrannical President Snow depicted in the original series.
I genuinely enjoyed this book. It was intriguing, thought provoking, and honestly just a great read. Suzanne Collins knows how to write a story that's going to make you sit down and really think about things, like everything. My boy and I decided to buddy read this in preparation for the upcoming movie (v excited), which has lead to a wide variety of deep conversations and remarking "what the hell" or "oh my gosh he is the worst". I adored every second of it. The overall plot of the book was great, I felt like Collins kept the story interesting and paced well enough that I wasn't too burnt out or every bored within the story. She constructed a story that invited thought, discussion, while delivering a main character that I couldn't stand, at all. For this review I'm going to focus on things & rhetoric that the book made me think about. Because who doesn't want to here me get real deep on a random weekday. I know I do.
Snow sucks.
That's the biggest thing that I hope you take away from my review. I literally couldn't stand him at all.
He was selfish, annoying, bigoted, prejudice, and right down an idiot.
Reading from his perspective was something that garnered quite a bit of eye rolling and just staring at the page in disbelief over what he had just thought or said. A majority of this book takes place within Snow's mind. You're seeing him act one way while he's thinking a totally other, this constructs a character that is manipulative, and you know it, but not everyone else does. His relationships with Sejanus and Lucy Gray are very large testaments to that. He regularly "talks" about his dislike for Sejanus and his family, but the rest of the world view the two as best buds, with Sejanus even christening Snow like "brother".
This whiplash feeling of seeing Snow doing one thing while you know he's doing another creates this bile like taste in the back of your throat. Knowing that he really always has been a monster, and people don't like that. Suzanne Collins gave readers a villain origin story that was in my opinion, original. Not once throughout this story do you ever root for Snow. You root for Lucy Gray to win the games because she's an innocent person but other than that, you're actively praying for Snow's downfall. He's not sexy or cool, inviting or remotely morally gray. This man has no empathy for anyone and genuinely thinks that people are less than him, all because of his last name.
*Side note: I think we should petition people we want to interact with to read this book and if they like Snow or think he's great...instant cut off.
Which brings me to a few points I want to talk about.
A lot of reviews that I dove into stated that they didn't like Snow due to his retched ways and how he was. That they didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel for his wicked behavior.
My response, you're not supposed to.
Snow has grown up in a world, society, and family that has put him up on this pedestal his whole life. Imagine being told one thing over and over and over about a certain group of people and never having any real world experience with them, and see how you would treat them. We, as a collective, have seen this horror played out in our world for decades, so it's surprising to me when people don't see that being the point within the novel. If you're environment is one of hate and prejudice, how on earth would people expect you to be any different.
It's Collins way of honestly taking a dig and showcasing the very real absurdity that is things like racism, bigotry, and general hatred towards any other person or people group.
The whole point is that Snow is a piece of shit because how would he ever be anything different? Her way of writing Snow and his story brings up very valid emotions and concerns of nurture and nature. Snow has been nurtured his entire life to think a certain way and his environment has only re-instated that through and through. The importance of having real world experiences and understanding different cultures, identities, people, and just the world is so abundantly clear with the way that Collins writes this novel. A person will always be hateful if they've never been shown anything else but hate. I mean guys, Snow only likes Lucy Gray because he basically convinces himself that she's not "really" district, so therefore he can and should like her.
His thought's during this novel are repulsive. He thinks that the districts deserve what they get and that the capital is infallible. In some ways this novel gives me a vague impression and reminiscence of 1984. Everyone just goes along with Big Brother because that's what they've always done, it's all they know and their line of information is being streamlined through the exact same people. The point of the novel is that you should close the book and sit there thinking about how awful Snow is, and why it makes sense why he was the way he was in the Hunger Games. Let's take the fictional out of it though, Collins basically wrote a long and creative essay on her rhetorical thoughts on government, people, and basic human interaction, and she did a damn good job. The rich do. not. care. about. you. Once corrupted there is no end to the gilded age that is our government or even people for that matter. They will watch you die and suffer from their mansions and not loose a second of sleep, in fact they might even sleep better. (Also the show The Fall of the House of Usher, explores this topic as well with a dash of Edgar Allen Poe-feel free to check it out). Snow showcases this in flying colors and a lot of real life people do too...
Something my boyfriend brought up was also how Sejanus was the likely and probably wanted main character. He was fighting back, a rebel, standing up for what he believed in and in some ways truly paid the price for it, and Snow hated him for it. Collins sits at her little computer (maybe it's big idk) and writes a story from the perspective of the antagonist all the while dangling Sejanus, the perfect main character protagonist in front of us, absolutely disgusting (I'm kidding, I loved it). Honestly, Alex brought this up and I haven't stopped thinking about it. How through the construction of the story we see Snow interact with this bleeding heart "main character" type and he resents him. He dives deep into his hatred for Sejanus but continues to socially stand by him for the fact that his parents are rich (even though he hates them too).
It further solidifies the fact that Snow is AWFUL. HE SUCKS.
This transitions into the last thing I want to touch on. The other characters. Alot, and I mean ALOT of people felt that the story was shallow due to the lack of character development from literally every other character save Lucy Gray & Sejanus.
What if I told you Collins did that on purpose?
It's lesson time.
Grab your popcorn I'm about to dive into what I wrote my capstone on.
Perception, perspective, and point of view.
Three P words that people love to interchangeably throw around and use in place of each other. Now, they're not always wrong, but let's deep dive.
POV or point of view. There's first person, second person, third person limited, and third person omniscient. That's basically the lens from which we see the story throughout the book. Are we in the main character's head and only theirs's (I statement's) are we in the "you" and the reader becomes the main character for a bit. Are we a fly on the wall watching everyone or just watching one person? Point of view.
Perspective. This is how a person see's things, literally, metaphorically, and emotionally. We read from Snow's perspective. Meaning that we see the world through Snow and his lived life. We see what HE does, how HE feels and HIS general understanding of the world and those he's interacting with. His ideologies and ways of thinking's are how the story is being told. It's through this lens that we are seeing everything.
Which leads me to Perception. The true tainting of a person's lens from which we see the "world". Perception is how people understand the world, through things like their perspective. How Snow see's things is because of his upbringing, his friends, the world he lives in. It's his own little Snow lens that we are reading the story through. Pale, ugly, and slightly tinged with red, because he is one envious and angry boy. His perception of people--the other characters of the book is seen through these three lenses. We see these characters the way that he does, they are unimportant and not really worth his time, therefore they have no "arc" they have no "development" because Snow couldn't give two shits about them. Collins has crafted a story that is just *chef's kiss*. And some of you might not believe me, which is fine.
But let me give you another example of this. Pride and Prejudice. I'm going to focus mostly on the movie because I think the visual sense will make it easier. In the beginning Lizzie Bennet hates Mr. Darcy. He's awful, I agree. While we follow her point of view mainly throughout the story though we see that Mr. Darcy starts getting "more agreeable". Now this, what, 35-40 year old man did not have a random personality change, no. Elizabeth's Bennet's perception of him changed and therefore we see a kinder, more mild, and agreeable Mr. Darcy. We started the movie viewing him through Lizzie's point of view, perspective, and perception of him and his friends/family. As the movie continues we see her perspective and perception of Darcy change therefore he's not a total asshole anymore.
See?
So, I applaud Suzanne Collins immensely for crafting a novel and character that truly brings the readers into his world, even if I hated every second of it.
I genuinely really liked this book. The content matter and the conversations that can be gleaned from it are so importantly needed within society that I would urge everyone to read this, regardless of who you are, where you come from, or what belief's you hold. More books like this need to be written and more people need to be talking about them. For that reason, The Ballad of Song Birds & Snakes has earned it's 5/5 rating, and I don't hand those out easily.
Cheers to books that make you think, characters you hate, and buddy reading with your favorite person 🤎
xoxo,
paige
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