The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes adds a lot of brutal backstory to the world of Hunger Games, with even minor details revealing just how grim the setting really is. The Capitol is portrayed as a devastating totalitarian government, ruling over the twelve other The Hunger Games districts with an iron fist. They do this through starvation, bombings, and the annual Hunger Games, which require two children from each district as tribute. Their laws are carried out by the Peacekeepers, providing the story with an army for the heroes to overcome.
However, the fact that Peacekeepers are still people has always added a darker layer to the franchise. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes takes the time to showcase that they remain people under their helmets, yet are still capable of committing horrible acts of brutality. One of the details bluntly and quietly brought up about them in TheHunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes implies a horrifying aspect of their actions that makes them even more inhumane and tragic.
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Snow’s Peackeepers Comment From Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Explains A Lot About The Capitol
Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) casually revealing that many of The Hunger Games Peacekeepers are illiterate makes the villainous army far more tragic. After helping Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), Coriolanus is exiled from the Capitol Academy and sent to serve two decades with the Peacekeepers. The brutal arm of the Capitol’s control over Panem, Coriolanus’ education quickly provides him with the means to advance among their ranks. It doesn’t take long for Commander Hoff (Burn Gorman) to see his potential. Hoff reveals to Snow that his test scores severely outpace those of his peers.
During this scene, Coriolanus notes that his peers lack the resources he grew up with, pointing out that many of the other Peacekeepers can’t read. It’s a blunt appraisal of the Peacekeepers, especially the ones based in Lucy Gray’s home District 12. Despite this, Hoff and the rest of the Peacekeeper leadership don’t seem to be concerned about this and instead embrace it. That’s a quietly horrifying detail of the Peacekeepers as an organization, as it suggests that many of the Peacekeepers are uneducated — making them easier to manipulate and wield as a weapon against any dissent in the Districts.
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What Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Secretly Reveals About The Capitol
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes explores the world of Panem over sixty years before the events of The Hunger Games. At the heart of this domination are the Peacekeepers, who go on to serve as the foot soldiers and cannon fodder for the older Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) in his conflict with the rebellious forces spurred on by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence). In practice, it’s the same kind of faceless army that fills other spectacle-driven franchises like Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The horrifying difference is that the Peacekeepers aren’t robotic or magical constructions. They’re real-life people, with hope and empathy that they’ve been conditioned to ignore in exchange for security. Despite their loyalty to the Capitol, their leaders see them as nothing more than blunt instruments of domination. The Peacekeepers are just as much pawns as the Hunger Game Tributes. It’s almost a cruel mercy that the Tributes are only in this role for a short period, as opposed to the decades of forced service that can be hefted onto Peacekeepers like Coriolanus.
The Hunger Games’ Wars Are Even Sadder After Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes showcases the Peacekeepers as enthusiastic in their abuse, cheering when they capture Spruce (George Somner). These soldiers being largely illiterate implies they’ve spent their lives building to this brutal service, as there seems to be no formal education installed to inspire ambitions in other regards. They’ve just accepted the horrible system they were born into and become a part of it. This makes their role as the Capitol’s army in later chapters of the story all the sadder.
The Peacekeepers are used by the Capitol to defend an organization that’s made them inhumane, pitting them against an army that seeks to liberate them. The Peacekeepers are people, the same as every Tribute, rebel, or Capitol citizen. However, they haven’t been given the knowledge or critical thinking that comes with exposure to new ideas and education. The Peacekeepers reduce decades of people into faceless soldiers in service to the machinations of the Capitol ruling class. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes gives the Peacekeepers a tragic element, highlighting the full scope of the Capitol’s cruelty toward its citizens.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
- Director
- Francis Lawrence
- Cast
- Tom Blyth , Rachel Zegler , Hunter Schafer , Jason Schwartzman , Peter Dinklage , Josh Andrés , Josh Andrés Rivera , Viola Davis
- Studio(s)
- Color Force , Lionsgate
- Franchise(s)
- The Hunger Games
