A large number of prequels try to create sympathy for familiar characters. But something a little different happens in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
Instead of making you forgive a villain, it shows how a villain is built. By the end of the movie, you’ve reached the uncomfortable realization that the line between “good” and “evil” isn’t as clear as we’d like to think.
Before he becomes the icy, manipulative president we see in the original movies, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes focuses on a young Coriolanus Snow, played by Tom Blyth. In this movie, he is just a troubled student trying to make a living in the Capitol after the war. He is charming, ambitious, and, to be honest, not evil at first.
That’s what gets the story going. You aren’t instantly seeing the horrible acts of a villain, but instead, Snow is portrayed as someone who is carefully protecting himself.
The way the movie builds Snow’s character through his small choices, rather than through big dramatic moments, is one of its best qualities. His plans seem logical at first. He wants stability and wealth, and he hopes to find ways for his family to improve its status.
But these motivations change into something more evil as the plot continues. Every choice Snow makes is a little more assertive and more selfish. It’s not a sudden shift, and the villain’s turn is much more realistic, and it’s more disturbing since it’s so gradual.
Snow’s friendship with Lucy Gray Baird, played by Rachel Zegler, is another way that the movie highlights this change in his morality. He becomes more focused on control and order, while Lucy Gray represents something unpredictable and free. He seems to really care for her at first, but slowly, you begin to question his intentions.
Does Snow simply want to control Lucy Gray, or is he in love with her? To be able to understand his character, this question becomes important. A key factor in his final transition into a ruler is his failure to deal with other people’s uncertainty and independence.
Compared to earlier villain backstories, this movie stands out in that Snow’s crimes are not excused. The film explains them but does not defend them, and therein lies the difference.
The movie shows how Snow was raised, following a war, the fear of poverty, and the constant judgment of others, all of which affect his views on the world. However, it also shows that he still has a choice in every situation, and ultimately, he always values power over empathy.
This is the main reason why villain backstories are so interesting to watch. They force us to think about whether people are shaped by their surroundings or are they simply born naturally evil.
It’s clearly a mix of both in Snow’s case. He has times when he could choose to act honestly or kindly, but he chooses not to do so. Instead, he likes to control and manipulate people because it benefits him. The scary thing is that, at the time, his reasoning seems to make sense, and this makes him more dangerous, as he considers himself to be the hero of the story.
The movie does a great job of showing this change, both emotionally and visually. As Snow’s views begin to devolve, the Capitol begins to feel less elegant and more tense. Everything feels harsher and more realistic because the Hunger Games themselves appear in a less polished and more unfiltered way than in the original series. It demonstrates that this is not the end of something bad, but instead it’s the beginning of something far worse.
Snow changes from the beginning of the film, but it doesn’t feel like a forced change. Even if you don’t want this devolution to occur, it appears deserved. You remember the story because of this, and it all goes past a simple villain’s climb to power. It has something to do with how easy it is for someone to justify becoming a bad person.
In general, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes concentrates more on psychology than action. It takes a character that we thought we understood and gives him a fresh perspective, which all makes him both more dangerous and more human. Instead of making you feel sorry for a villain, it makes you question how villains are created in the first place. And that’s far more interesting.
