me: I loved the ballad of songbirds and snakes but I don't trust hollywood with the nuances, especially when it comes to portraying snow as evil and not turning the love story into something it is not. I don't think I am actually excited for the movie.

also me after watching the trailer: *starts vibrating violently and won't stop until november*

As The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds lingers in my head, I have grown to really understand that the 10th games are as much of a tipping point for the continuation of the games as 74/75 are the tipping point of their destruction. Highbottom, the creator of the games clearly does not want them to continue. No one even watches the games and tributes die before even entering the arena. Dr. Cual is the only one who seems to love that games but she’s too vicious to know how to expand the necessity of games “correctly”.

The tenth games are a mess and could have been framed as a mistake to continue with, as Highbottom seemed to be pushing for. Dr. Gual was pro- killing the 24 tributes in whatever way, not fully playing into the killing sport of it all. She was willing to have the snakes kill all of the tributes in one go, essentially ending the spectacle with all the blood on the capitals hands. Snow combines the essence of humanity, the notion of punishment and need for entertainment to build out the continuation of the games.

All the lessons Snow learns from District 12 are weaponized to full effect by the time we read about the 74th games. Adding tvs and holograms to every district, betting on the winner, having the districts route against each other, heroizing the winner and marching them around as a prop. The victors not being able to return to normal lives and being pimped out by the capital screams like a greater punishment for Lucy’s escape attempt. Snow knows how to add stakes and, in turn, flex the power the capital holds over its citizens.

Snow road the middle for so long that he could see the cracks in the foundation and smooth them over to continue the process for years to come. Without Snow’s experiences, the games would never be as brutal and brilliantly propagandized as we see in the future, and most likely would have ended far sooner.

Between the new percy jackson tv show coming and the hunger games prequel no-one will stop me from going back to my 2012 self

bringing my thread here in honor of the ballad of songbirds and snakes trailer today because the "lucy gray parallels katniss" people are out there and they are wrong, lucy gray baird is peeta mellark and sejanus plinth is katniss everdeen and i will die on this hunger games hill

Reading TBoSaS was an eye opening experience for me because for a minute I was like Katniss and Peeta had it so much better than Lucy and these other children who were treated like literal animals- transporting them like livestock and putting them in cages not to mention the very public, dehumanizing parades. But then I was horrified at myself because I couldn’t believe myself. It wasn’t better at all, Katniss and Peeta were brought there for the same exact purpose and putting them in fancy dresses and providing them with expensive amenities doesn’t take it away. It’s still the same horrible, wretched, gruesome tradition, I just thought it was better because it was also wrapped up nicely with a pretty bow which I guess was the whole point.

The Hunger Games Renaissance.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part. 1 (2014), dir. Francis Lawrence
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023), dir. Francis Lawrence

"It's the things we love most that destroy us. I want you to remember that I said that."

I think the saddest character in the Hunger Games franchise is Mags Flanagan. She is as almost as old as the Games themselves. She won the 11th Hunger Games. Then, for the entirety of her life, for over 60 years, she was forced to relieve that same trauma year after year, trying to train kids, save kids, just like herself. Over time Mags watched the Games get more brutal, more “entertaining”. She watched her community sacrifice two children over and over again. There is nothing Mags can do but bare it. She desensitizes herself. She reaches her 80s. She is old and almost free of the pain; the trauma has formed a callous. But Mags will continue to work until she dies. This is all she has ever known. 

Then, the 75th Quarter Quell is announced and Mags is back on the stage for the first time in 60 years. A reaping outfit. Her name in a glass bowl. The tension, the dread, the silence before the reading of the name – Annie Cresta. But to Mags, it never mattered the name that was picked. She knew her hand was going up. And for the first time since she was a child, she is back in the Games. 

During her the 11th Hunger Games, Mags was caged in the zoo with the other tributes. This time, she is presented with a gorgeous suite, the best food the Capitol has to offer, and the finest clothes. The 11th Hunger Games were televised on a blurry screen; now, all of Panem is going to watch her every move. Mags knows she isn’t going to win. But, as she spends the last weeks of her life walking in the shoes of every child she couldn’t save, as the trauma of her own Games is as alive and present as it has ever been, she knows that, for the first time in her long life, she was able to truly save at least one person from this fate. 

Hope is a funny thing. Mags picked apart the Capitol’s logic and the heart of the Games long ago. She knows why they allow one victor, and how every tribute goes into the arena hoping its them. She knows this is unrealistic; all of Panem knows that only one will come out alive. But even as she rises into the ticking clock of the arena, that stubborn feeling flutters in her chest. Maybe she will get out of there with the rest of the rebels. But if not –

Mags looks to Johanna. To Katniss and Peeta. To Finnick. Her hope for them is stronger, steadier, than the hope for her own self-preservation. She looks into the cornucopia of weapons, the familiar ring of twenty-four tributes, and allows herself to dream that maybe, maybe, this is it. This will be the last one. 

For the first time in over half a century, Mags won’t be watching the Games from the comfort and safety of a faraway room. This time, she has the chance to help directly. To be able to protect others with more than just a parachute full of supplies. To have the ability to save another life. To save multiple lives. To save all the future children of Panem. 

The gong sounds.

Mags smiles. 

She dives into the water.