The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Coriolanus feels humiliated by Lucy Gray’s song; more so, by the implication that she lived a different life before him. Despite “Lucy Gray [belonging] to him” (172), her song ultimately disrupted his fantasy and he sulks about “how friendly she could be” toward other men (173). He is soothed somewhat by congratulatory remarks about his remarkable tribute.

Later that evening, Coriolanus and Tigris reminisce about their lives during the war. They recount the time in which their family received a turkey, among other rarities, in memoriam to Coriolanus’s late father. This memory helps Coriolanus complete Dr. Gaul’s assignment, adding “relief from deprivation” to his essay. He ends it on a far darker note: He felt “the grim satisfaction of seeing the Capitol’s enemies, who’d treated him so cruelly, who’d cost his family so much, brought to their knees. Hobbled. Impotent” (180). He deems the best aspect of war as “[t]he security that could only come with power. The ability to control things. Yes, that was what he’d loved best of all” (180).

Finally, it is time to send Lucy Gray into the arena, and Coriolanus brings her a feast akin to a last meal. He feels great tenderness toward her, in her fear and helplessness, and assures her that “you won’t be alone in the arena; we’ll be together” (190). As a token of his promise to keep her alive, he gives her his mother’s silver compact—sans its rose-scented powder. He hints that she gets powder of her own (i.e., the rat poison sprinkled throughout the arena).

Lucy Gray kisses Coriolanus before leaving, “[a] real kiss on the lips, with hints of peaches and powder” (193), and he is both aroused and confused by the gesture. While he finds Lucy Gray attractive, he reminds himself that she is “not Capitol, a second-class citizen. Human, but bestial. Smart, perhaps, but not evolved” (194). Dean Highbottom challenges Coriolanus’s views in an interview, suggesting that while the districts lack the Capitol’s advantages and resources, both of their citizens are equals: “Assuming [...] a physical, mental, or especially a moral superiority, would be a mistake. That sort of hubris almost finished us off in the war” (199). One of Coriolanus and Sejanus’s classmates, Lysistrata, complains that mentors and mentees are certainly equals in their both being the Capitol’s pawns.

Announcer Lucky Flickerman opens the Tenth Annual Hunger Games, screens coming to life with televised images of the arena. At its center is a crossbeam from which the “battered and bloody” Marcus—Sejanus’s escaped tribute—is “hung [with] manacled wrists,” barely alive (205).

Even Coriolanus is disturbed by this spectacle, thinking that “[i]t would have been horrifying to see any creature displayed this way—a dog, a monkey, a rat, even—but a boy?” (206). Horrified, Sejanus calls the Capitol residents “monsters” and runs off (207). In a horrific follow-up to this display, another tribute takes an ax to Marcus’s neck and relives him of his misery.

The rest of the day proceeds rather quietly. Dr. Gaul reminds the audience that the earlier bombing left more places for tributes to hide. She also suggests that the new addition of sponsorship—where Capitol viewers may buy supplies like food and water for the tributes—is “another game changer. With the audience providing food, the Games could last indefinitely” (213). Much to Coriolanus’s chagrin, Lucy Gray remains out of sight, her “charming songbird persona […] becoming less impressive with each grim moment in the Hunger Games” (219).

Coriolanus returns home, contemplating how to keep Lucy Gray alive—and more importantly, relevant. When he arrives, Mrs. Plinth, Sejanus’s “Ma,” is seen with Grandma’am and Tigris, distraught by her son’s sudden disappearance. Thinking Coriolanus his friend, Ma seeks his advice. But just as he tries to brush her off, they spot a figure sneaking into the dark arena: Sejanus somehow infiltrated the Games.

Coriolanus witnesses Sejanus performing yet another funeral rite, this time, on Marcus’s behalf. Ma explains that, in their district, bread crumbs are sprinkled over the dead so that they have food for their journey into the afterlife. Rather than interpret this act as one of compassion or reverence, Coriolanus sees it as “proof of the districts’ backwardness” (224).

Dr. Gaul notes Coriolanus’s faux friendship with Sejanus and his family—albeit, it being “respect” for their wealth. She calls upon a horrified Coriolanus to extricate Sejanus from the arena as she does not wish for any distractions.

Coriolanus and his assigned Peacekeepers find Sejanus, who wishes to die in the arena in protest of the Games. Desperate, Coriolanus convinces him that he must instead stand up to Dr. Gaul in order to enact lasting change. Sejanus insists that they bring Marcus with them, but as they attempt to exit, a group of tributes arrive on the scene.