The Presidents of Panem

 Two Sides of the Same Coin – The Presidents of Panem

Panem’s #1 Peacekeeper – Coriolanus Snow

Panem is a totalitarian dictatorship modelled on Ancient Rome. We know it is set in the remains of North America after an apocalyptic event. After a failed rebellion led by District 13, the other 12 districts were brought in line by the Treaty of Treason and the Hunger Games.

Coriolanus Snow ended up as an apprentice Gamemaker and he was instrumental in making the Hunger Games the spectacle they are by Katniss’ time. He took the ‘bread and circuses’ very seriously, and we learn a lot of this from the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Snow became President of Panem when still young and he remained so for a long time. He is 82 years old in the first Hunger Games book. He is cruel, manipulative and more than willing to kill those in his way. Even friends. His preferred weapon is poison.

He often drank the poison himself, to avoid suspicion, and this took its toll on him. The antidotes weren’t always perfect so he had to wear a perfumed rose to disguise the smell of blood on his breath from ulcers that would never heal.

We know from the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that he has a particular vendetta against District 12 after his relationship with Lucy Grey. We know from Catching Fire that he killed Haymitch’s family and girlfriend because of his rebelliousness. I won’t spoil Sunrise on the Reaping here so I’m sticking to the little bit we know from the original trilogy.

Snow manipulates people, exploits them, tortures them and kills them to suit his own ends. By his own words, he isn’t wasteful, only killing when he believes it necessary. He has always feared another rebellion and civil war and in his mind, he’s trying to prevent it by dealing with rebellious elements.

He forces Katniss to try and calm the unrest after her Hunger Games suicide pact with Peeta, but she fails. The spark is lit and cannot be controlled. So he goes to great lengths to unhinge her and make her unwilling or unable to stand against him.

It’s pretty likely that he had the card for the Third Quarter Quell changed to ensure she went back into the arena so he could kill her without implicating himself in any way. Of course, he likely didn’t know that some of the Victors were in on a rebel plot, nor that Plutarch Heavensbee, the head gamemaker was in on it. They were collaborating with President Coin of 13.

After the rebels break her out of the arena and set her up as the Mockingjay, the face of the rebellion, he employs what amounts to psychological warfare to disturb and unhinge Katniss. Leaving the rose in her house in 12, dropping the roses after the bombing of 13 and allowing Peeta to be recovered.

He used Peeta for propaganda, and he progressively looks worse with every interview so Katniss can see he’s being tortured. When they go to rescue the Victors, the Capitol let’s them go. Because Peeta has been hijacked and turned into a weapon, conditioned to attack Katniss and try to kill her.

When the rebels take the Capitol, Katniss is utterly distraught at losing Prim in the bombing outside the mansion. She finds her way to Snow to speak to him. He reiterates their promise not to lie to each other, claiming that the bombs that killed her sister were not from the Capitol. It was a rebel plot. Katniss says she doesn’t believe him but it’s enough to plant that seed of doubt.

Katniss and Peeta were used as pawns by both sides, manipulated and put through hell to preserve the status quo. Snow claims he too was being manipulated, because he and Katniss were focused on each other while Coin was waiting in the wings to seize power for herself. Which is true.

Alma Coin

We learn that Coin wanted Peeta, not Katniss, to be a symbol of the rebellion. He was better at speaking and convincing people, but I think she also thought Peeta was more easily manipulated and controlled. Katniss is a rogue element, unwilling to take orders she disagrees with.

Coin was one of the major players behind the second rebellion. She is military, as that was 13’s purpose before the Dark Days, and they survived with careful control and training. The thing about military leaders is they don’t like unruly people who ask too many questions and don’t follow orders.

Coin was resentful of Katniss’ conditions for her becoming the Mockingjay. So she twists it around on her, announcing that the deal will be off if Katniss fails in her task of uniting the Districts against the Capitol.

She only wants to use Katniss as a poster, for propaganda. They try to get her to do this within 13, in a TV studio with a greenscreen, but Katniss is not an actress. She can only create emotional responses in people when it’s real and raw. But Coin doesn’t want her in combat.

Once the districts were united, she had no further need for the Mockingjay. It’s clear from her sending Peeta, who’s been too busy recovering from his torture and hijacking to train as a soldier. Katniss talks to Boggs about this, as she is certain Peeta was sent to kill her. That the Mockingjay was now of more value dead, as a martyr for the cause.

“If your immediate answer isn’t Coin, then you’re a threat.” – Boggs, Mockingjay Chapter 19

Coin sees Katniss as a threat because of her influence on people. She used that influence to her own ends but when Katniss refused to bend the knee, she wanted to eliminate Katniss. When that failed, she sent Prim to the Capitol. Primrose Everdeen was thirteen, not old enough to be a soldier by District 13’s own laws.

So why was she on the front lines? Sure she had a lot of potential as a medic, but she was too young to be sent there. It had to be on purpose, so that when the Rebels used their double bomb trap, Prim would be killed. So Katniss would either lose it completely (which she almost did) or be firmly on Coin’s side by blaming Snow for her sister’s death.

When Katniss confronts Snow, he tells her it wasn’t his doing. It was Coin and the Rebels that killed her sister because killing all those children like that would be ‘a waste’ and he wasn’t wasteful like that. At first, Katniss doesn’t believe him but it was enough to plant the seed of doubt.

When Coin proposed the Hunger Games using the Capitol’s children, instead of mass executions, Katniss said yes. Her purpose here was not to actually endorse a new Hunger Games, simply to gain Coin’s trust.

Haymitch seems to be the only one to understand what Katniss is doing here. Katniss then kills Coin, very publicly instead of Snow. Avenging her sister and intending to end her own life. Peeta stops her, but she’s finally seen the truth.

Coin is as bad as Snow. There is no difference as far as Katniss can see.

“Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now.”

Haymitch’s choice of words is interesting. He says he’s “with the Mockingjay” not that he’s with Katniss. He knows the difference between the Mockingjay and the real Katniss Everdeen. He understands what she sees and what she intends to do. I won’t spoil it but Sunrise on the Reaping really shows the truth about Haymitch Abernathy and gives a lot of context to his character.

Are They As Bad As Each Other?

It certainly seems like it. Coin clearly envisioned herself as the next President. She declares herself ‘interim’ President with the intention of holding an election when things ‘settle down’ but no time-frame is given for this. What’s to say she waits a year, five years, ten years to hold this election? Or just decides she’s not going to do it.

Coin underestimated Katniss, as did Snow. They both made assumptions about her nature and her motivations. They both tried to use her for their own ends with little care about how this would impact Katniss and the people around her.

The thing that the Hunger Games trilogy wants us to learn is how corrupt politicians never change. These powerful rulers that show no care for their people, lie and manipulate, punish and abuse them for the crimes of others. Keeping the people subjugated through brutality, forced poverty and a tiny glimmer of hope, an illusion of hope anyway.

President Snow outright states this in the movie. Hope is more powerful than fear, and a little hope is a good thing but it must be contained. Too much hope is dangerous to his regime. Coin too sold the illusion of hope, seeing herself as the ‘saviour’ of Panem while seizing power for herself.

Katniss eventually saw through her and I believe she was right to assassinate Coin. Her proposal to hold another Hunger Games proved it. Katniss had only wanted to save her loved ones, to protect Prim, Gale and Peeta. Both presidents sought to use her for their own gains and didn’t expect her to resist or push back. They didn’t expect her to get wise to their machinations.

In the end, snow fell and the coin landed heads down. Because Katniss saw the truth and seized her chance to prevent either of these dangerous people from letting more people suffer under an oppressive dictator.

Is it a happy ending? Kind of, but also not really. Katniss gets her life, her and Peeta heal and end up falling in love for real. They have a family, something Katniss only would consider when she knew it was safe and her children would never be in a Reaping. But there are only survivors, no winners, and everyone who survived bore the scars forever. Both physical and mental scars. So it’s a peaceful ending but not entirely sunshine and rainbows.

They put together a book of remembrance, about all the people lost and everything that happened. Because while history doesn’t repeat itself, it very often rhymes. Suzanne Collins is warning us of what can happen if we let it. The rise of far right extreme politics, the ability to justify any atrocity by claiming it’s ‘for the greater good’ when it’s not and the ways in which the media can manipulate us and desensitise us to human suffering. We need to listen. These books and movies are entertaining, but they are also showing us what our world could become if we let it. Remember, you cannot take politics out of books. Politics affect everything in our lives and the act of reading, and writing is inherently political. So make sure you are on the right side of history.

Emi the Cat Lady 💜