The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes demonstrated how the Games were changed thanks to Snow’s involvement, but the movie didn’t cover all the alterations he made after the fact. One of the greatest shocks of the prequel was the significant difference between how the Hunger Games were conducted in the early days compared to in Katniss’ story. At the start of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the brutal event was highly unpopular with Capitol audiences, and it was up to Snow and his classmates to turn them into a spectacle they would actually be excited to watch. Coryo especially was successful in this, but that wasn’t the end of his contribution.
The first nine years of the Hunger Games saw tributes thrown into a colosseum-like arena and forced to fight to the death. As part of his assignment from Dr. Valumnia Gaul, Snow came up with the idea of turning the tributes into celebrities by allowing Capitol citizens to sponsor and bet on their favorites, and this made all the difference. Still, the catastrophes surrounding the 10th Hunger Games proved that further changes were necessary. So, after Snow became a Gamemaker (and later President of Panem) at the end of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, he implemented several more big changes—but this wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart.
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6 Snow Moved The Hunger Games Arenas Out Of The Capitol
Using the same arena in the Capitol every year invited terrorist attacks.
The 10th Hunger Games would have been one of the last years that the Capitol arena was used as a venue for the games. During The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, District rebels bombed the place, and Snow was nearly killed as a result. Still, the rubble made the games more interesting, and this, combined with the necessity to keep rebels from executing future attacks that could delay the games, is likely what inspired Snow to make a change.
The complex arenas seen in later Hunger Games were a benefit to Gamemakers for a variety of reasons. First, the built-in technology made it easier to manipulate the events of the games. They could push tributes toward one another to speed up the action or separate them to prolong it. The elements could be controlled, and every year, the Capitol citizens had a new setting to watch everyone kill each other. Additionally, more places to hide allowed the tributes to live longer, but Snow made this change to make the Hunger Games more interesting, not to spare anyone’s life.
5 Snow Established The Hunger Games Escorts
Capitol Escorts ensured the District reapings couldn’t be rigged (like with Lucy Gray).
In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Lucy Gray was reaped when the mayor of District 12, who was responsible in the 10th Hunger Games for drawing the names of the boy and girl tributes, rigged the reaping so she would be chosen. He did this at the request of his daughter, Mayfair Lipp, who was secretly having an affair with Lucy Gray’s lover, Billy Toupe. This is likely the reason that, by the 74th Hunger Games, it was the job of a Capitol escort to carry out the reaping.
With each Districts’ mayor performing the reaping ceremony in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Lucy Gray probably wasn’t the first to have been unfairly chosen. Though Snow didn’t care about the lives of District citizens, the sanctity of the games was deeply important to him. As seen in The Hunger Games, he grew to believe that the Games were the key to keeping control. The District citizens needed to think that they had a chance of avoiding the Games, or they would rebel (just as Lucy Gray did with her snake and song), so the reaping needed to be controlled.
4 Snow Gave The Tributes The Training Center Instead Of The Zoo
Safer living quarters ensured better fighters in the Hunger Games arena.
During the 10th Hunger Games, the District tributes were thrown into a zoo enclosure, where they were left unfed and uncared for until the games began. By the time they were taken to the arena, many were too ill to fight, and some had even already died. This hadn’t been the case in Katniss’ Hunger Games, where she and the other tributes stayed for two weeks in the training center, which was equipped with luxury apartments and all the food they could ever dream of.
The ending of Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes revealed that this was Snow’s idea, which he implemented in the years following his experience with Lucy Gray. Once again, this change was entirely self-serving. By giving the tributes a place to eat, rest, and train, Snow was ensuring they could put on the best show possible for the Capitol citizens. Moreover, the “good” treatment served to assuage the guilt of those in the Capitol who had been uncomfortable with the games, as evidenced by the common belief that being reaped gave tributes the chance to experience luxury for the first time.
3 Snow Established The Hunger Games Stylists
Stylists helped make the District tributes more appealing to Capitol audiences.
Another change in the Hunger Games that came after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was the inclusion of stylists. Since fashion and appearances are so important in the Capitol, this was a necessity for the tributes if Snow wanted them to get sponsors. This is likely another feature that was inspired by Lucy Gray. Her colorful dress had impressed the Capitol citizens and made her just human enough that audiences cheered her on. By taking this to another level with all the tributes, the stylists could make them seem like something spectacular.
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2 Snow Made Watching The Hunger Games Mandatory For The Districts
The Hunger Games are only effective if the Districts are actually watching.
The 10th Hunger Games were easy enough for everyone to forget about because hardly anyone watched, to begin with. Though the changes implemented that year meant more Capitol citizens tuned in, the poor District households didn’t have the means to watch and wouldn’t have even if they did. At the end of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book, Snow decided this would no longer be an option. It was difficult to send a message to the Districts if they weren’t paying attention, so the Hunger Games were essentially useless. So, if a home didn’t have a television, they were required to watch the big moments in the Districts’ central squares.
1 Snow Created The Hunger Games Victor Incentives
Prizes for the winners ensured that the tributes fought harder.
Lucy Gray received nothing for winning the Hunger Games. She was shipped back to District 12 with little ado and she went immediately back to life as usual. However, the victor of the 11th Hunger Games, District 4’s Mags Flanagan, was the first to win a cash prize and a house in the newly built Victor’s Village. This was, yet again, the work of Coriolanus Snow. He ordered mansions built in every District that would serve as the homes of the victors, added the sizeable cash prize, and rewarded the winning Districts with monthly gifts in the year following the victory.
These prizes would seem a lot kinder if not for the fact that the Districts were purposely starved every other year. By withholding necessities and only grading rewards when a child successfully murdered 23 others, Snow ensured that the tributes were hungry enough that they would do whatever it took to win. This meant a better show for the Capitol following the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and a reminder to Panem that even the most innocent of humanity are monsters who need to be kept under control.
