The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

by

Suzanne Collins

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Themes and Colors
Propaganda, Spectacle, and Morality Theme Icon
Children Theme Icon
Government and Power Theme Icon
Human Nature Theme Icon
Trust and Loyalty Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Human Nature Theme Icon

As a prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy focusing on the original trilogy’s main villain, President Coriolanus Snow, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is naturally interested in showing how Coriolanus—who’s 18 in the novel—starts to become the elderly villain readers are familiar with. But Ballad is also interested more broadly in exploring how people—not just major villains—become who they are, and whether humanity as a whole is naturally evil (and learns to be good), or naturally good (and learns to be evil). Though Ballad never comes to a firm conclusion on whether people are naturally good or naturally evil, it does suggest that all people—good, bad, and in-between—are products of their upbringing and experiences, rather than born one way or another.

While the novel presents adults as more or less stuck in their ways, it portrays children as blank slates—they have the capacity to grow up to be anything, and it’s their upbringing that steers them toward good or evil. For instance, Coriolanus observes that Dr. Gaul, the Head Gamemaker who also runs a lab that creates dangerous muttations (modified animals intended for military use), is pretty set in her ways as an evil person. Whenever Coriolanus encounters her, she’s tormenting an animal—and she also often torments, abuses, or frightens her young students as well. She sees no issue with allowing Clemensia to suffer venomous snakebites that land her in the hospital for a week, and it seems second nature to her to come up with horrific ways to torture the tributes (such as hanging Marcus by his wrists in the arena as punishment for trying to run away). Other adults in Coriolanus’s life, from his grandmother to his other teachers, seem similarly good, bad, or somewhere in between—or, at least, Coriolanus seldom, if ever, observes that they have the capacity to change their ways. Children, on the other hand, do have the capacity to learn new ways of thinking, Coriolanus realizes. As he spends time at the zoo with Lucy Gray and the other tributes, for instance, he realizes that it’s only the Capitol’s children who are willing to approach the bars of the monkey house to give the tributes food. The children, unlike their parents, are willing to take the leap and trust that the tributes are indeed people, just like they are—despite what they’ve been told by their parents and Panem’s propaganda campaign designed to dehumanize the tributes.

The idea that the things children and young people experience form who they become as adults helps explain why Coriolanus ultimately becomes the sinister villain from The Hunger Games. Coriolanus’s early years were overshadowed by Panem’s war with the rebels. Because of the war, he was often hungry and afraid—as bombs constantly fell on the city, he witnessed neighbors engaging in cannibalism, and he was also orphaned. Thus, Coriolanus’s experiences as a child during the war taught him to prize his own comfort (he never wants to be hungry again) and his safety (so he agrees that the Capitol is right to continue punishing the districts through rationing food supplies and putting on the Hunger Games). In short, the war showed Coriolanus that he could—and really, should—only look out for himself, because he’s the only person he can rely on to keep himself safe, fed, and in control. And this belief that he can only count on himself influences his behavior in the Hunger Games. Coriolanus is hesitant to trust Lucy Gray, having never trusted anyone like her before—but the fact that he does briefly put his trust in her suggests that in the novel’s present, Coriolanus is still a child and, therefore, still has the capacity for goodness.

Dr. Gaul, however, ensures that Coriolanus’s positive experiences with Lucy Gray are far outweighed by experiences that continue to show him he can only rely on himself. She sends him into the arena at one point to rescue Sejanus, putting Coriolanus in a position where he has no choice but to defend himself against a tribute bent on killing him—and Coriolanus brutally murders the tribute. With Dr. Gaul’s guidance, Coriolanus comes to see that all people are brutal, violent, and dangerous, and therefore it’s best if he prioritizes his own success over anyone else’s wellbeing. This belief culminates in Coriolanus betraying his friend Sejanus; turning on Lucy Gray, possibly killing her; and even poisoning the Academy’s dean, Dean Highbottom. While Coriolanus’s brief romance with Lucy Gray offered hope that he’d be able to change his ways and become a moral person, his experiences throughout the novel teach him that the only way he’ll ever get ahead is by prioritizing himself—and getting rid of anyone who tries to get in his way.

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Human Nature Quotes in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Below you will find the important quotes in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes related to the theme of Human Nature.
Chapter 5 Quotes

A self-important little girl marched up beside them and pointed to a sign on the pillar at the edge of the enclosure. “It says, ‘Please don’t feed the animals.’”

“They’re not animals, though,” said Sejanus. “They’re kids, like you and me.”

“They’re not like me!” the little girl protested. “They’re district. That’s why they belong in a cage!”

Related Characters: Sejanus Plinth (speaker), Coriolanus Snow, Lucy Gray Baird
Page Number: 64
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“Who cares about these kids one way or another?”

“Possibly their families,” said Sejanus.

“You mean a handful of nobodies in the districts. So what?” Arachne boomed. “Why should the rest of us care which one of them wins?”

Livia looked pointedly at Sejanus. “I know I don’t.”

“I get more excited over a dogfight,” admitted Festus. “Especially if I’m betting on it.”

“So you’d like it if we gave odds to the tributes?” Coriolanus joked. “That would make you tune in?”

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow (speaker), Sejanus Plinth (speaker), Arachne Crane (speaker), Festus Creed (speaker), Livia Cardew (speaker)
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

It was like the Hunger Games. Only they weren’t district kids. The Capitol was supposed to protect them. He thought of Sejanus telling Dr. Gaul it was the government’s job to protect everybody, even the people in the districts, but he still wasn’t sure how to square that with the fact that they’d been such recent enemies. But certainly the child of a Snow should be a top priority. He could be dead if Clemensia had written the proposal instead of him. He buried his head in his hands, confused, angry, and most of all afraid. Afraid of Dr. Gaul. Afraid of the Capitol. Afraid of everything. If the people who were supposed to protect you played so fast and loose with your life…then how did you survive? Not by trusting them, that’s for sure.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow, Sejanus Plinth, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Clemensia Dovecote, Arachne Crane
Related Symbols: Snakes
Page Number: 116
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

His girl. His. Here in the Capitol, it was a given that Lucy Gray belonged to him, as if she’d had no life before her name was called out at the reaping. Even that sanctimonious Sejanus believed she was something he could trade for. If that wasn’t ownership, what was? With her song, Lucy Gray had repudiated all of that by featuring a life that had nothing to do with him, and a great deal to do with someone else. Someone she referred to as “lover,” no less.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow, Lucy Gray Baird
Related Symbols: Roses
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:

What had mattered then, what mattered still, was living without that fear. So he added a paragraph about his deep relief on winning the war, and the grim satisfaction of seeing the Capitol’s enemies, who’d treated him so cruelly, who’d cost his family so much, brought to their knees. Hobbled. Impotent. Unable to hurt him anymore. He’d loved the unfamiliar sense of safety that their defeat had brought. The security that could only come with power. The ability to control things. Yes, that was what he’d loved best of all.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow, Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

But Lucy Gray was his tribute, headed into the arena. And even if the circumstances were different, she’d still be a girl from the districts, or at least not the Capitol. A second-class citizen. Human, but bestial. Smart, perhaps, but not evolved. Part of a shapeless mass of unfortunate, barbaric creatures that hovered on the periphery of his consciousness.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow, Lucy Gray Baird, Tigris Snow
Page Number: 194
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

“What happened in the arena? That’s humanity undressed. The tributes. And you, too. How quickly civilization disappears. All your fine manners, education, family background, everything you pride yourself on, stripped away in the blink of an eye, revealing everything you actually are. A boy with a club who beats another boy to death. That’s mankind in its natural state.”

Related Characters: Dr. Volumnia Gaul (speaker), Coriolanus Snow, Bobbin
Page Number: 243
Explanation and Analysis:

“So, if I’m a vicious animal, then who are you? You’re the teacher who sent her student to beat another boy to death!”

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow (speaker), Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Bobbin
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 25 Quotes

It reminded me of my stint in the arena. It’s one to thing to speak of humans’ essential nature theoretically, another to consider it when a fist is smashing into your mouth. Only this time I felt more prepared. I’m not as convinced that we are all as inherently violent as you say, but it takes very little to bring the beast to the surface, at least under the cover of darkness. I wonder how many of those miners would have thrown a punch if the Capitol could have seen their faces?

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow (speaker), Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Page Number: 400
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 29 Quotes

Everyone’s born as clean as a whistle—
As fresh as a daisy
And not a bit crazy.
Staying that way’s a hard row for hoeing—
As rough as a briar,
Like walking through fire.

Related Characters: Lucy Gray Baird (speaker), Coriolanus Snow, Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Page Number: 479
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 30 Quotes

Many fluttered into the sky, but the song had spread, and the woods were alive with it. “Lucy Gray! Lucy Gray!” Furious, he turned this way and that and finally blasted the woods in a full circle, going around and around until his bullets were spent. He collapsed on the ground, dizzy and nauseous, as the woods exploded, every bird of every kind screaming its head off while the mockingjays continued their rendition of “The Hanging Tree.” Nature gone mad. Genes gone bad. Chaos.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow (speaker), Sejanus Plinth, Lucy Gray Baird
Related Symbols: Mockingjays
Page Number: 504
Explanation and Analysis:

He went to the bathroom and emptied his pockets. The lake water had reduced his mother’s rose-scented powder to a nasty paste, and he threw the whole thing in the trash. The photos stuck together and shredded when he tried to separate them, so they went the way of the powder. Only the compass had survived the outing.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow, Sejanus Plinth, Crassus Snow, Coriolanus’s Mother
Related Symbols: The Compact and Powder, The Compass
Page Number: 506
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

“Because we credit them with innocence. And if even the most innocent among us turn to killers in the Hunger Games, what does that say? That our essential nature is violent,” Snow explained.

Related Characters: Coriolanus Snow (speaker), Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Dean Casca Highbottom
Page Number: 515
Explanation and Analysis: