Compared to the other citizens of Panem, he certainly has a great deal of power. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide.
By Suzanne Collins. Previous Next. President Snow Creepy, crawly President Snow is always a bearer of bad news. What's Up With the Ending? Tired of ads? Snow is a perfect token of the white stage because it is both water and white. The predominant symbolism of each book, too, is about light and illumination. Cinna puts Katniss and Peeta in white outfits with red or pink shoes for their interview with Flickerman in chapter 27 because we are transitioning to the white stage of Fire.
In Fire , instead of the light of fire on coal illustrating the alchemical end game, we have the symbolism of the pearl. And pearls are life-savers in Fire. Peeta even repeats this line as a joke in Fire before giving his pearl to Katniss in the arena as a token of his love. I expect, too, that we will be reading a lot about roses and blood in the last book, the red stage of this alchemical drama, as well as about gold and light, as we experience something of an imaginative apotheosis alongside Katniss.
As fire is to nigredo coal and pearl is to albedo water, so gold or light is to rubedo roses and blood. Collins will pull this off. Beginning with this prediction, though, that the roses and blood scents of President Snow will be central symbols of Mockingjay as rubedo , I hope to make at least one prediction per day until we have the book ourselves to enjoy.
Naturally, we jump there too, instead of focusing on the fact that President Snow is actually pretty stressed out in this scene. It definitely deserves a closer look. Thanks for your insights! After reading through all the details of your Pearl Plot, some of them seem to be able to be explained better if Snow or maybe a Muttation replacement? Perhaps his position is such that if he simply tried moderate reforms, they would be rejected by the people in the Capitol and he would be removed.
Great post, John! As I read it, I found myself thinking of Mrs. Undersee who also has headaches. So why repeat? An inside job?? The ultimate conspiracy to ignite rebellion throughout the Districts and remain in power? Wow, what if Snow is the Puppet Master? That would explain Mrs.
Probably a stretch. Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Odd vowels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter s. If so, to what end? Agreed it is a stretch since no other bad guy at least one with a face has been introduced. Snape twist or no, something is UP with Snow.
The media tells us how to dress, how to talk, and what to think. Great post! Snow is a weird character. And that the people who are hurt the most are the ones who have to act out their plans. Sunday or Monday, I hope.
Remind me if I forget! I read that about Harry Potter for six years and still hear about it from Twilight fans. I guess I should have expected it on this subject, too. Literary analysis is far beyond my scope of expertise! No offense, STS! She says in the selection quoted above:. How does Katniss know the motives or intent of President Snow? Why are we so quick to accept her summation? Is she wrong? The only thing that the Quarter Quell did was give Snow an out.
But to what end? Everdeen executed unless Katniss sacrifices herself by trying to go under the electrified fence, I think Katniss would comply. When the plot calls for a death and rebirth of sorts that will resolve the conflict between two groups, a character named rip Red takes care of that.
The characters with white names? And I think your arguments from Gregor names point to familiarity and facility with alchemical meaning. This is one smart writer.
Those with more level heads may want to lend their thoughts to that particular conversation over on HGT. What a great post and conversation! I also wondered if the blood smell indicates that Snow has a throat disorder he wanted lots of sugar in that hot tea or even TB the hot, sweet stuff is nice for a cough.
One wanted to be as pale as possible ideals of beauty generally are intended to make people look as the rich can look, thus, in the 16th century, when rich people stayed in big stone houses instead of working in the fields, pasty was in; today, when rich folks lounge around by pools and working stiffs sit in dimly lit cubicles, tan is hip. Snow, with his rose, is altered, but not, as Katniss notes, in a way that makes him look pleasant, and perhaps, something is ailing him.
The dark irony of that Elizabethan ideal of beauty? The pale complexion was usually achieved with white makeup, in which a frequent ingredient was white lead, which, of course, killed people.
Might the lips indicate anything symbolically, in context with the rest? As for times and context re wealth, because so few were rich enough to have plenteous food in times past, they flaunted wealth through corpulence. Ah, but beauty blows in the fashion winds…. I see your points about the alchemical meaning of the blood on the breath and I agree with them.
However, I think there is a whole additional layer of meaning that in many ways is more basic. In Old Testament times, there was a widespread believe in the Near East that the blood was the life of animals. The prohibitions against partaking of blood in the Old Testament were largely based on practices where people would attempt to gain more life or extend their lives by partaking of the life of the animal by drinking its blood.
In light of that, I think the smell of blood on the breath is a metaphor of President Snow drinking in the life of the Districts and particularly the Tributes to increase his own life. It seems to me that a lot of these writers focus so much on the great work that they miss some golden opportunities to emphasize the plumbum pre-work and citrinus post-work.
Does anyone else feel this way? After listening to the first chapter of Mockingjay this morning on audible. He then tells Seneca Crane the reason they have a winner in the Hunger Games is because of hope and that hope is the only thing stronger than fear.
However, he believes that only a little hope is effective as long as it is contained, and orders Seneca to contain the hope. Later he is shown meeting with Seneca to discuss what he plans to do in response to the uprising in District 11 caused by Rue's death. He disagrees with Seneca's belief that the public love an underdog, as he has personally visited Districts 10 , 11 and 12, saying that there are a lot of underdogs there and warns Seneca to be careful. He watches the Games and becomes furious when Katniss and Peeta are both crowned victors.
He gives Katniss a long, dark look while he places her half of the crown on her head. At the victors' coronation Snow notices and examines Katniss' mockingjay pin , remarking "What a pretty pin. He has a party as usual at his mansion and observes her during the party. Later he plans to fix all that has been unbalanced due to Katniss and Peeta's rebellion. In Catching Fire , Snow plays a more antagonistic role. President Snow visits Katniss in her Victors' Village home and informs her of the rebellion in the other districts because of her suicide threat.
He threatens to kill the people she loves unless she proves to all of Panem that what she did was driven by love, not by rebellion, in order to stop the uprising in the districts. He observes Katniss from a distance and makes sure she stays in line. During the victory tour , Peeta proposes to her publicly but Snow is still unsatisfied. During a ceremony aired all over Panem, he tells them about the Quarter Quell and how they differ from regular Hunger Games. President Snow reads the card that holds the theme of the Quarter Quell which reads "As a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors," He announces that this year for the third Quarter Quell , the Hunger Games.
President Snow watching Katniss Everdeen 's interview before her dress turned into a mockingjay. Snow greets the tributes and gives a speech as usual. President Snow confronts Cinna before interview night and tells him to dress Katniss in her wedding dress. Snow is infuriated when Cinna turns Katniss' wedding dress into a mockingjay dress and orders him killed, because Snow already suspects Cinna is a rebel.
President Snow sends in a detail of Peacekeepers to apprehend Cinna and take him to be interrogated for information about the rebellion in front of Katniss to throw her off during the games. Cinna died during his interrogation because he refused to give information.
He watches the third Quarter Quell and is shocked when Katniss and a number of other victors escape the arena. He manages to capture three of them and demands the others be killed, and declares war on the rebel forces. In Mockingjay , President Snow holds Peeta, Annie , Johanna and Enobaria captive and tortures them for information about the rebellion. Snow lets Enobaria off easy since she is from the most loyal district and he fully trusted her.
During the interrogation, he had two avoxes , Lavinia and Darius electrocuted to death and executes Portia and the other stylists and prep teams.
He did this not for answers but for Peeta to see. He also at some point ordered Johanna's head shorn. President Snow keeps Peeta healthy so he can use him to break Katniss.
President Snow at some point went to District 12 and left a white rose in Katniss' room to give her a message only she would know: "I can find you. I can reach you. Perhaps I am watching you now. He makes Peeta do an interview with Caesar Flickerman so he can manipulate and break Katniss. President Snow appears on screen during Peeta's third interview and introduces him and Caesar. After Peeta implies there will be an attack from the Capitol on District 13, President Snow orders the interview stopped and for him to be taken away.
After Peeta is taken away, President Snow orders for him to be hijacked in order to use him against Katniss. During an interview Katniss and Finnick shot to distract the Capitol from the rescue team, Finnick reveals President Snow kills his enemies and allies who can become threats to him.
He also reveals that Snow forced Finnick into prostitution, selling his body to wealthy Capitol citizens for high prices. President Snow is enraged by this and becomes angry at them, but plans to kill Katniss by using the brainwashed Peeta. Boggs reveals that retrieving Peeta was far too easy and suspects that President Snow let them take Peeta so he could kill Katniss.
President Snow goes on television to discuss the death of Squad His broadcast is cut short after Beetee hacks into the system and airs a propo. President Snow's forces discover the remains of Boggs in an apartment of a Capitol citizen and realizes he has been fooled. President Snow figures out Katniss is still alive and sends a pod of lizard-human mutts to hunt her down and kill her and her squad.
During the final battle of the war, President Snow was in his mansion and was taking in Capitol children whom he was planning on using as human shields. Later on, President Snow was going to call an official surrender but before he could there was an explosion outside his mansion that killed the Capitol children and rebel Casualty Aides, including Prim.
Snow was arrested and found guilty. Katniss finds him in his rose garden and he tells her the bomb that killed Prim and the others was not from him but from President Coin. Katniss refuses to believe him but he reminds her of the promise they made not to lie to each other.
Katniss ends up believing him and ultimately kills Coin. After the overthrow of the Capitol in Mockingjay , Snow is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. As the Mockingjay, Katniss is given the opportunity to execute Snow.
Snow laughs and grins at the irony and the thought of Prim's death: he and Katniss were being used as pawns. When Katniss is supposed to shoot him through the heart with an arrow, she instead assassinates President Coin because she thinks Coin is worse than President Snow; who devised the idea for another Hunger Games where the Capitol's children would have to compete and was part of the cause of Prim's death.
In the chaos that follows, Katniss witnesses Snow roaring with laughter and coughing up blood as people surround them. When everything calms down, Snow is found deceased, speculated to be from choking on his own blood, or being crushed by the crowd. He came to her house in Victor's Village located in District President Snow was clearly angry that she did that, but acted calm the whole time. He pushed her enough to agree not to lie to each other.
While Katniss and the other tributes were in the arena she managed to destroy it, further angering him, and he subsequently ordered District 12 to be firebombed, destroying the district and wiping out the majority of the population. In Mockingjay , he continued to engage Katniss in a twisted game of psychological manipulation, though methods such as leaving roses in the District 12 Victor's village, torturing Peeta and forcing him to make various interviews, and using hijacking on Peeta to turn his love for Katniss into a weapon for the purpose of killing Katniss, and subsequently allowing Peeta to be rescued with the other Victors.
After his trial in Mockingjay , he reunited with Katniss where he was the only one to offer condolences to her for Prim's death and revealed Coin's role. It is somewhat unclear if Snow had genuine remorse for his previous actions and wanted to atone for his previous actions against Katniss, or simply wanted get revenge against Coin. Another likely factor in Snow's antagonistic relationship with Katniss was his past relationship with the first District 12 Victor, Lucy Gray Baird.
His time with Lucy left him with a deep bitterness for both her and District 12 that led him to later describe Lucy as "a ghost girl that could fly around District 12 as much as she wanted, but she and her mockingjays would never harm him again.
Snow likely began associating Katniss with Lucy when he saw Katniss' reaping, where Katniss also made a big first impression similarly to Lucy. This hated would only have increased when Katniss was dubbed "The Mockingjay," the bird species which Snow had developed a hated for during his time as a Peacekeeper in District Furthermore, a recording of Katniss singing the song "The Hanging Tree.
This in particular would likely have infuriated Snow, as the song was a reminder of his final encounter with Lucy, and the song was the final thing Lucy ever said to him. Despite his hatred for Katniss, Snow always showed her the respect of keeping their deal and being totally honest with her, something that Katniss recognized to the point that she ultimately believed him over Coin. In the end, Katniss realized that despite her and Snow's mutual hatred for each other, Coin was worse and Katniss chose to kill Coin instead when given the chance to finally kill Snow.
Snow laughed at Katniss' actions, his final act before his death. President Snow had no known relationship in the book. But in the film, there were scenes with Snow and Seneca in Snow's rose garden in his mansion, where they met to plan strategies, tactics, and what was going to happen next in the Games. The girl appeared to be unaware of her grandfather's evil nature. Snow was disapproving of the fact that she looked up to Katniss, but nevertheless, he appeared to care about her to some degree.
She is the only person in the entire Hunger Games franchise to whom he has shown at least a basic level of attachment, prior to the release of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. In his youth, Coriolanus Snow and Tigris lived together, cared for by Snow's grandmother, the Grandma'am. Although the two were cousins, their relationship was really more like that of brother and sister. Snow relied on Tigris and despaired at the idea that people might take advantage of her sweetness and vulnerability.
Nobody at all stopped to help, but Tigris, despite being ill herself, found him and got him home. She was also shocked by the behavior of Dr. Gaul in setting snake muttations upon Snow's classmate, Clemensia Dovecote. This is born out by her happiness at hearing from Katniss Everdeen that she plans to kill Snow. Snow first met Sejanus Plinth at the playground when they were both around eight years old.
As Plinth and his family were "new money," having originally come from District 2, they represented a threat to everything that the Snows held dear. Despite this, while most of the children took to baiting and belittling him, Snow simply ignored him.
Most people took this as meaning that belittling Plinth was beneath him, though Plinth took it as decency. Neither was entirely true. The two both ended up as mentors in the 10th Hunger Games, and for some reason, Snow found that he kept covering for Plinth when he made disparaging remarks about the Hunger Games.
After the death of his son, Strabo Plinth took on Coriolanus Snow as his heir. He could not legally adopt Snow, as Snow was 18, and Snow would have been unwilling to give up his name in any case. Despite this, Snow treated Strabo somewhat like a father, referring to him as "sir. The two were very compatible and Strabo never questioned any of Snow's expenditures, nor additions to his wardrobe.
He seemed pleased at those times when Snow asked him for advice. Snow first encountered Dr. Gaul, a woman who wore several hats, during a class field trip when he was nine-year-old. He watched in horror as she melted the flesh off a lab rat with a laser beam and then asked the class if anyone it had any pets that they were tired of.
He first met her in person shortly before the 10th Hunger Games after being retrieved from the Capitol Zoo where he had met with his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird.
She commented that he had fallen in a cage and he decided to play it cool, saying that he landed onstage. She seemed impressed by his nerve, saying that he could one day be a Gamemaker. She said that he understood the importance of keeping the games alive and that she had a good feeling about him. Gaul, which was good, as she would give a good report to President Ravinstill. Snow was initially pleased at his good fortune at finding an apparent ally in Dr.
However, things took a turn after she set a class project to put together a formal proposal regarding the idea of a sponsorship program for the Hunger Games.
Although it was supposed to be a group project, Snow himself ended up doing almost all of the work, as most of the other mentors were too shaken up by an incident in which the mentor Arachne Crane was killed by her tribute, Brandy. He then ended up paired up with Clemensia Dovecote in presenting the project to Gaul, but Gaul correctly sussed out that Dovecote had not touched the proposal, setting snake muttations upon her.
When Sejanus Plinth sneaked into the arena to rescue his tribute, Dr. Gaul made Snow go in to rescue him. She was unapologetic about his experience in going to the arena and killing Bobbin, and set him a paper, telling him to reflect on the themes of chaos, control and the social contract required for survival. Still impressed by his potential, she saw to it that he received an honorable discharge from the Peacekepers.
As a youth, Snow had been raised on the belief that his family name meant prestige and power. His experience, however, was tempered by the fact that he was an orphan and that the loss his family's fortune due being invested in District 13 munitions meant that he had spent much of his early life in poverty.
He a had a strong bond with his cousin Tigris and was a studious student, one of 24 top-performing students at the Academy. He had a tendency to fixate on a single problem, convinced that if he could just fix it, then he could fix everything about his life.
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