Even a decade after the premiere of The Hunger Games, this young adult book and movie franchise still holds major symbolism in our modern-day society.
Suzanne Collins recently published the Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The prequel movie adaptation recently came out on November 17, and though most people don’t read much anymore the movie can still add the same value and effect on the audience as the book did.
Here’s how:
This book not only shows the will to survive but also shows the hunger and need for power. The producers added the slogan “Everyone hungers for something,” showing that each character has something they strive for.
Coriolanus Snow’s growth of his power-hungry nature and misuse of the people around him is shown throughout the book, but without his inner monologue would the viewers truly see his change?
- This shows relevance to the wealthy and poor in our day-to-day lives. The children in the Districts would be dressed in their best outfits on reaping day, wearing these outfits in case they had to die in them; this tactic helped to make them seem human to the Capitol citizens. Each district child eligible to become a tribute was asking for mercy from the Capitol’s force. Later this wouldn’t matter since the tributes were forced to wear uniforms in the arena; making them lose their individuality and make them seem more like mutts, not humans.
- Most citizens of Panem wouldn’t watch the Hunger Games until the glamor and value of reality television were added to the games. This shows people will watch and get invested when entertainment is involved, even if it’s acts of violence. This can correlate to audiences picking sides in real-life wars and the multiple celebrity court trials people watch for entertainment.
- When the Capitol’s tenth Hunger Games failed they deleted every last copy of the game’s footage. Snow was glad because “It was just one more way to eliminate Lucy Gray from the world,” but he never could fully erase her when the Hanging Tree song, created by her, was still sung for generations.
- During the Dark Days, the Capitol created a mutt known as a Mockingjay, these lab-made birds were used to record messages and spy on the rebels; the birds were soon proven useless during the war. Lucy Gray Baird enjoyed the presence of Mockingjay, while Coriolanus Snow held an odd hatred for them.
At the end of the ‘Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’, it is stated, after Lucy Gray’s disappearance, that “She could fly around District 12 all she liked, but she and her Mockingjay could never harm him again.” This quote from the book was later debunked when Katniss Everdeen, a District 12 tribute, led a rebellion using the Mockingjay as hers and the rebellion’s symbol.
Later, in the franchise, the birds were only known as defiance against the Capitol.
The Mockingjay held significance in Snow’s mind; his “best friend’s” final scream before his death was repeated by the birds at the hanging tree, they would sing Lucy Gray’s songs, and were used as a symbol for the rebellion against him six decades later; Lucy Gray forever haunted him, until his death.
