The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes revealed a lot about President Coriolanus Snow’s past, and, according to one theory, it may have even hinted at his involvement in Haymitch Abernathy’s Hunger Games. Haymitch was the victor of the 50th Hunger Games, also called the Second Quarter Quell, and though the Hunger Games movie never detailed that year’s events, the Catching Fire book saw Katniss and Peeta watch reruns. The nature of the Haymitch’s games fit perfectly with Snow’s dark lessons and experiences in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which has led TikToker Dovemakes to theorize that the president served as Head Gamemaker for the event.
Throughout the history of the Hunger Games, District 12 has had three victors. The first was Lucy Gray Baird, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes details her victory in the 10th Hunger Games, for which Coriolanus Snow was her mentor. The Hunger Games trilogy follows Katniss’ games, the 74th and 75th. So far, no books or movies have followed the third victor, Haymitch, through his games. Regardless, it seems that the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as well as The Hunger Games, have provided some hints as to why the arena of the Second Quarter Quell looked the way it did (and why Haymitch’s victory would have been so personal to Snow).
Hunger Games: Every Known Winner (& How They Won)
The titular event at the center of the Hunger Games franchise lasted 75 years before it came to an end. Here’s every known victor of the competition.
The Second Quarter Quell Distracted The Tributes With Beauty & Killed Them With Poison
In the Hunger Games: Catching Fire book, Katniss and Peeta watched a recording of Haymitch’s games, hoping to learn as much as they could about the nature of Quarter Quells. Every 25 years, a spin was put on the reaping ceremonies, and in the case of the 50th anniversary of the Games, twice as many tributes from each District were chosen. Still, this wasn’t the end of the surprises for Haymitch and his fellow tributes. They were thrown into an arena that appeared to be a paradise. The cornucopia was set on a rolling green meadow full of beautiful wildflowers; the air smelled sweet, and breathtaking mountains surrounded them. The valley was so beautiful that many tributes forgot to run when the gong sounded.
Of course, everything in the arena was as poisonous as beautiful. The animals, adorable and graceful alike, were deadly killers, and aside from the food and water from the cornucopia and sponsors, there was nothing in Haymitch’s arena that was safe to eat or drink. In all, the entire place was a massive deception intended to lure the tributes into a false sense of safety and ease before seeing them to painful, miserable deaths. It’s precisely the sort of thing Coriolanus Snow would have thought up, especially after his experience with Lucy Gray in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Snow Learned Not To Trust Beauty (& To Kill With Poison) In Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes
In their theory on TikTok, user Dovemakes points out that Haymitch’s Quarter Quell greatly reflected Snow’s experience in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The future dictator saw his time in District 12 as a detour from his true future—a test to determine whether he deserved his grand destiny. Of course, for a time, he believed that Lucy Gray was his future, but he later saw her as a beautiful but poisonous distraction. She, her voice and guitar, and the beautiful meadow where she loved to sit and play were meant only to lure him into a false sense of security so she could easily strike—just like Haymitch’s games.
After learning the danger of beauty, it makes sense that Snow would want to punish the Districts with the same lesson. Still, the most damning evidence that Snow had been the Head Gamemaker for the Second Quarter Quell is the heavy use of poison in the arena. The Hunger Games established Snow’s preferred method of murder, but Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes provided further context. He had cheated by equipping Lucy Gray with poison when she entered her arena, so it makes sense that Snow would use the same weapon himself against the tributes within his games.
Snow Was Already President During The Quarter Quell But May Have Taken Special Interest
Finnick says in The Hunger Games that Snow was a young man when he became president of Panem, so he was most certainly no longer a Gamemaker by the Second Quarter Quell. However, the fact that Snow clearly manipulated the circumstances of Katniss’ 75th Hunger Games (dictating that the tributes would be selected from the existing victors), it seems likely that he was at the heart of the previous two Quells as well. These were meant to be grand demonstrations of the Capitol’s power over the Districts, and that’s something Snow just couldn’t have passed up on.
Since the Quarter Quells threw the rules of the Hunger Games out the window, they gave Snow an opportunity to exercise his cruelty without holding back. In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Snow had his first real kill in the arena himself, and he was disgusted by the brutality. He found poison to be a method of murder far more worthy of Panem’s elite. Typically, Gamemakers only killed a tribute or two using the arena’s features since the whole point was to force them to kill each other. However, Quarter Quells saw tributes die predominantly because of the arena—as if these special games were Snow’s chance to become a player himself.
Haymitch Winning His Hunger Games Would Have Felt Personal To Snow
It this theory is true and the Second Quarter Quell was something of a murder playground for Coriolanus Snow, then Haymitch, of all people, was the worst person to win. As of the 50th Hunger Games, there hadn’t been a District 12 victor since Lucy Gray. After the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, this is likely precisely how Snow wanted it. When Haymitch and one final tribute were left, it seemed impossible for the District 12 boy to win. However, Haymitch used the magnetic field surrounding the arena to launch an ax into his enemy’s skull.
Katniss mentioned in Catching Fire that this would have enraged the Head Gamemaker since they certainly hadn’t meant for the force field to be used as a weapon—it made them look stupid. Of course, if Snow indeed was responsible for the Second Quarter Quell, Katniss didn’t know the half of it. As a District citizen with the “Seam look,” as Katniss called it, Haymitch would have reminded Snow of Billy Taupe. It’s no wonder that by the time the victor of the 50th Hunger Games made it home, everyone he loved had already been killed. He knew he had wronged the Capitol, but Haymitch had no idea what his victory meant to Snow thanks to the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
