A criticism heard often from long running movie series is that the movies get repetitive. It gets hard to watch the Avengers beat bad guy after bad guy because, after all, variety is the spice of life. And where’s the variety in watching the same characters fight a battle that, maybe be different, but has the same end result every time? To overcome this criticism, The Hunger Games series took us back in time and forced us to root for the bad guy.
The villain in The Hunger Games has been different across the movies, but at its core, the real bad guy has always been the institution. Katniss may have fought many foes over the years, but the heart of the problem was always the capital, and who better to personify the capital than its president, Corilanious Snow.
In The Hunger Games: Battle of Songbirds and Snakes, we are taken back to president Snow’s youth as we watch him become one of the first ever mentors in the hunger games. We see him confide in his cousin, who we know he later banished from the districts, asking her what he should do, how should he support his contestant? She tells him to care for her, be the one person out of everyone she knows she can go to. And he does.
Unlike the other mentors, Snow greets his participant, Lucy Gray, as she arrives at the capital. He brings her food, and even introduces her to all the viewers watching the games from their homes. Even after the games begin he bends the rules and even flat out cheats to ensure Lucy’s safety.
After the games are over he gives up his place at the capital for her. He becomes a peacekeeper in district 12 and even agrees to run away with her when things take a turn for the worse. And soon enough, you’re sitting in the theater with your nerds gummy clusters and you forget you’re watching the making of a murderer.
You root for Snow as he helps Lucy through the games, and at that point you can rationalize it. He seems like a good guy, helping an innocent girl, but by the end of the movie when he slips up and Lucy catches on, you still find yourself rooting for Snow. You know he is in the wrong and you know Lucy should get away, save herself from his impulsivity. But when he’s running through the woods like a mad man, you start to hope he will find Lucy. That he will get her back for what she did to him. How could she leave him, he would have given her the world! After everything he did for her? She’s just going to leave?
Just two hours have gone by, and suddenly the hate you have harbored for President Snow through the entire Hunger Games Series is gone. You get to the end of the movie, you are walking out of the theater, gummy clusters gone thinking how did I let this happen.
After years of being criticized for being repetitive and predictable, The Hunger Games threw long time fans for a curve ball, and engrossed an entirely new audience as well. The movies have always been thought of as provoking and emotional, but The Hunger Games: Battle of Songbirds and Snakes is truly something never seen before. So if you are tired of superhero movies and the guys guys always winning, step through the gates of the capital and start rooting for president Snow.
