*DON’T SKIP* The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes!!! | Hunger Games Book 4 Review & Summary | Bonus Minisode

Welcome back to Ashley & Liz’s dystopian sci fi episode bonus series: The Hunger Games!

Today we go back in time to discuss President Snow and his origin story. How exactly did he become a “villian” and what does his evolution into a tyrannical dictator say about the society that created him? How did Panem and the games themselves evolve into the world we know?

This book is full of so many amazing “easter eggs” and tie-ins to the original trilogy. We’re ready to pick those apart and make all of those connections with you as we gear up for our final book episode all about Sunrise on the Reaping. 

If you’ve been following along and watched our “From 1984 to Hunger Games” dystopian themes in media and literature episode then you know we’re fascinated with everything about this genre and need to delve into this discussion! It just happens to be a BIG bonus that Ashley had never read it before. 

The debate currently on the book talk table is whether or not books (and the act of reading) are inherently political. We’d encourage anyone who has a doubt in their mind to read this series… with themes like media control, a totalitarian regime, and rebellion, it’s hard to see how it ISN’T political.

Episode 4 covers book 4 (or 0.5?): A Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes by Suzanne Collins. The first five-ish minutes are spoiler free with our one sentence rapid star reviews. Then we jam pack this mini episode with an entire plot summary in five sentences (yes, with a keyboard…), discuss what our faves and fail characters and plot points are, our feelings, notable quotes, and add a fun piece of prequel trivia. 

Then we wrap this up with a little smash or pass and some big excitement to read the new book with all of you! 

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Check out these author interviews? ⬇️

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of Split or Swallow! Now a Barnes & Noble & Amazon best seller titled: Kiss of the Basilisk!  https://youtu.be/fknhocSNIKM

Watch our Author Interview with Indie Dark Romance Author Ember Nicole here | https://youtu.be/tHV9rXSTBpY?si=OwxdMVfPmtFkcYu6

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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 6:30 1 Sentence Star Review (spoiler free)
• 12:00 Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Book Summary and Deep Dive
• 17:06 Favorite and Least Favorite Things BOSBAS
• 48:30 Notable Quotes in The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes
• 52:20 Dystopian Themes in this book
• 58:43 Hunger Games Easter Eggs
• 1:02:00 Surprise Questions!
• 1:04:05 Hunger Games Fun Fact
• 1:08:20 President Snow Smash or Pass

Transcript

0:00

[Music] welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast guys i'm Liz and I'm Ashley and hello hello hello i'm so excited to talk about this book we are here officially for part four of our sixpart Hunger Games miniseries episodes every Friday we've been dropping Hunger Games related videos starting off with our dystopian sci-fi video that we and podcast episode that we talked like at length about dystopian themes origins why they're so popular in our media with books shows and movies and basically rolling us into the Hunger Games since obviously it's very dystopian and we've so far covered obviously Hunger Games book one book two which was Catching Fire book three Mocking Jay and now we're going back in time to the prequel that is Ballad of Songbirds and Snake so technically book four or.5 depending on you know how you like to categorize your books i would say though after reading almost all of them I haven't finished the brand new one that just came out i like the reading order of reading the trilogy and then going into the prequels you know gives all the context that you need so today we're going to be covering that it's President Snow's story kind of how he came into his power that we know of for the Hunger Games trilogy and we're we're going to be continuing to release more mini episodes as the series comes to a close you never know though i guess I found out when I was looking at fun facts which stayed to to the end because I got a lot of fun facts for Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes they you know Miss Suzanne Miss Suzanne Collins said at the end of the Hunger Games trilogy that she was done and then in 2019 said "Just kidding here's a new book." You know so and then here we go sunrise on the Reaping that just came out on March 18th what a nice little treat for us so next week Friday March I think it's the 29th will be our full sunrise on the Reaping like I you know we call these mini episodes but that one you guys buckle up buttercup cuz there is so much that we need to talk about lized no I mean it literally just dropped yesterday yeah um and of course my pre-order was delayed by day but it said it was because of weather so I don't know what that means um for once our road isn't flooded so I don't know they could have gotten it here yesterday um so I'm getting it today i'm starting it tonight i'm so excited to like yeah the full circle moments the Easter eggs like I live for that kind of thing i fully agree that you should read if you haven't done this yet read the trilogy first and then go back and read the prequels my husband just asked me about that he's like "Well why wouldn't you read the prequels first if you were new to it?" And I'm like "I don't know i just don't feel like you would have the same like you wouldn't care so much about finding out more about Snow if you didn't know what he had caused later on down the line like there's more at stake i feel there's more about his origin story that would be interesting but I don't know i mean that's my personal opinion yeah yeah agreed honestly agreed so yeah a ballad of song birds and snakes good old Suzanne Collins here we are we'll do a full wrap up too after Sunrise of the Reaping we'll do a final episode after that where we talk about like everything and we'll talk more about this what reading order we recommend cuz maybe we changed our mind after Sunrise on the Reaping who knows maybe so we'll talk about all that we talk about the movies liz and I watched them when she was down here so we got to watch that in person and we have a lot of maybe hot takes maybe not you know but a lot of opinions on the movies and versus the books and all that so we'll talk about all of that in that episode that will be super fun too we're excited so yeah i mean if you guys are here you know for episode 4 you know why we did this but lots of different reasons i think uh one of the big ones was because you know as we've been familiar with if you're in the bookish space you know that there's been a lot of talk about books not being political well hey we're not here to necessarily debate that with you but we are talking about these books yeah just read this book and then come back yeah exactly let let the books speak for themselves quite frankly exactly that's what I think yeah exactly like let the books speak for themselves like the themes are uh I don't know how you could separate politics from these themes so that's one of the reasons the other reason is because obviously with Sunrise on the Reaping coming out we wanted to be able to read that with you guys and have that fun time um and Ashley was new to the Hunger Games so that's extra exciting seeing all of her reactions so I think this was a reread for me but now I'm in the you know starting Sunrise on the rebate i'm going to be in the newbie category with all of you guys i'm so excited oh I love that yep yes um so again just to make sure that you guys know we've got all the books up on Fable including Sunrise on the Reaping now so you can read along with us over at Besties in the Book Club um we also have templates available to um post your reading updates and then tag us in them on Instagram and we'll be sharing those as well as we kind of make our way through this new book which I'm pumped to start tonight assuming the UPS guy drops it off oh my gosh so anyways before we get into the deep dive on this book we just wanted to say thank you for being here thank you guys so much for being here and joining us whether you're just joining us for the Hunger Games or you stick around for our normal Tuesday podcast episodes that we do every week covering all kinds of different bookish things thank you thank you for being here make sure to like follow and subscribe anywhere you like listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube we're there hanging out live and video and just chilling and having a good old time we appreciate your guys' support so much every like follow share or subscribe it helps our channel out so much and it lets us know that we're on the right track and we can keep bringing these things to you guys so thank you so much make sure to follow us also on Instagram and Tik Tok at besties in the Books podcast and like Liz mentioned the Fable app is a virtual book club app that can be spoilerfree so just search Besties in the Book Club there and you'll see all of our recent reads that you can follow along and you can jump in at any time so yep the water's fine let's just kick this off with our spoiler-free uh just one sentence star review okay okay um All right i'll just I'll go first on this one do it okay five stars mhm i absolutely love this book because I love a good quote unquote villain origin story um and as I said before I love full circle moments and Easter eggs and I feel like uh reading this book after immediately after coming off of reading uh the Hunger Games trilogy was like top tier full circle moments and so five stars for sure what about you five stars baby i was also one that was like I don't know it's going to be hard for me to like get into President Snow's story cuz if you read the trilogy he's the ultimate villain you know am I going to have compassion like what am I going to feel like it's going to make me feel weird like I I don't want to have that whiplash of starting back you know not just before the Hunger Games but like well before The Hunger Games and no you guys it was amazing 10 out of 10 would recommend if you're on the fence I'm finding out a lot of people skipped this one yeah yeah and that's like It's not It's not crazy to me it's crazy to me now reading it right it wouldn't be crazy to me when I was in the same boat but after reading it no you have to and it might be maybe it's slow at first because you're you're getting that whiplash of you know you started you just ended the trilogy on this crazy epic situation and then you're starting kind of over again but not so maybe takes like the first 15% but then guys it's crazy and if you saw the movie it goes in so much deeper just like the other movies the books go in so much deeper what they focus on in the movies isn't necessarily the entire story so they only have so much time they only have an hour and a half to two hours so um yeah obsessed loved it yeah we'll read all of these again so far totally i mean I can't relate to the not wanting to read it cuz I had read the trilogy a while back and then when the new one came out so when a Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes I've got my original copy here when this came out I mean I read it like immediately i was like "Another Hunger Games book." Kind of like what we're doing with Sunrise on the Reaping you know another Hunger Games book um I wasn't really too concerned with it being a I didn't care what it was prequel sequel like partner novel like I don't care like I'll read whatever you know um and yeah I mean I loved this book for sure i feel like I mean we'll talk about this more in the wrap-up episode where we discuss the movies but I feel like the movie was done so well it made me like the book even more and then rereading it even more so yeah I feel like it's one of those fandoms where like the it's been done so well that I feel like the more you consume it just like makes the overall experience better that would be my Yes yeah and I would say cuz I just gave this advice to one of our friends who was kind of struggling to get into Ballot of Songbirds but loved Hunger Games is kind of do what we did so Liz was down here visiting and I think we're both like 30% in obviously it's a reread for you but it was like oh I love watching the movies with Liz now and I have the context of what how I felt about the first books and the movies so let's just watch it and you know if I just feel like if I was struggling with the books watching the movie helped me because they cast everybody so well like Viola Davis as Dr gaul oh my gosh top tiering so you get that energy and vibe and kind of the feeling of everything and then go in and read the book so like if you're like I don't know I can't get through this you know it's not going to it's you're going to get some things spoiled for sure but there's so much more going on in the book than that like I said they can't cover in the movie so give it a chance i'm going to scream it from the mountains it's going to be like my new like thing like read Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes it's so good it's so It's different it is different than Hunger Games you're not getting it's different in the way that's like it's not like Harry Potter it's okay another year of school okay here we go i wanted to say it's not the same routine that you're seeing so no it's different the pacing is very different i think that that might be another thing that's hard for people it's like the chapters are longer the book is longer every chapter doesn't end on a cliffhanger it's not quite the same pacing but I feel like it's done differently but just as well well it's a different tone which is I think more authentic in my opinion because we have a totally different person that we're dealing with here so they're totally different point in time a different like completely different time period in like their world too yeah so I think that's brilliant of our author Suzanne Collins to do you know so give it give it a chance man just because we have to say it because we always say it this is also a zero spice um so you know this is in the YA category as well however very well written I feel like very engaging for uh adult audiences too um and there is a romance i mean that's a big part of this book for sure but it's definitely like very tame closed door like Yeah no spice yep okay so should we get into our spoiler section with our five sentence summary let's go i got to go get my Casio keyboard okay BRB spoilers on the way guys back off save it to your playlist watch it later if you don't want spoilers cuz they're coming in hot you've been warned i'm just going to preface this five sentence summary with uh the fact that a lot happens in this book i had a a much harder time writing this five sentence five sentence summary than the ones for the original trilogy yeah I had to leave a lot of stuff out because I just could not include all the side quests here um but hey it is what it is so here we go the ballot of songirds and snakes in five sentences okay okay coral Elena Snow lives in a recovering quote unquote post-war panm in the Capitol with his grandma and cousin Tigris because his mother died in childbirth and his father a cruel but renowned war general died during the[Music] war okay what does it mean what does it mean uh because the Snow family lost all their wealth in the war it is Coro's number one priority to win a scholarship from school to go on to the university as a model straight A student he was a shoein until it was announced that the winner of the scholarship this year will win not based on academics but on their ability to mentor and sell their Hunger Games tribute to the audience in the capital helping revive the games from something no one wants to watch to a mustwatch sensation oh it like sang a little bit to me with the subtle guidance of the arguably insane game maker Dr gaul Coro mentors his extremely charismatic tribute Lucy Gay Beard a beautiful singer with a rebellious nature from District 12 and helps her to not only gain the most popularity among capital citizens but win by giving her rat poison to use and by making her immune to the wrath of Dr gaul's snakes dash then they fall in love okay it's very ominous and foroding for sure got to like do it like a kear hang on i don't have my This is like awkward i'm in an office chair now not the couch so I don't got a lot of room all right go that was three so you got two more how you going to do it y lucy Gray goes back to district 12 and because of his cheating in the games Coro is sent to be a peacekeeper there as well where Senus his old friend from school who can't stand the Hunger Games because he used to be district joins him with the hopes of becoming a medic but instead gets caught up in the rebellion and hung because Coro secretly sells him out to Dr gaul[Music] okay the turn is taking a turn taking a turn coro and Lucy Gay decide to run away together lucy for safety and happiness and Snow because he loves Lucy Gay but sees no way out since the gun he shot and killed the mayor's daughter with is at large they make it to the cabin where they find the guns and Lucy Gay runs away from him and disappears for good knowing he would kill her to go back to the life he wants in the capital which is exactly what happens when Dr gaul invites him back to be her proteéé and Snow murders Dean Highbottom for being the one person left who understands the games were never supposed to happen but Snow's father pushed for them as an evil mastermind exactly what Coro is becoming[Music] and that is exactly the notes that I felt in my soul when I read that final page or saw that final scene in the movie like oh one more[Music] time oh I just messed that up hang on[Music] am I right what a beautiful shot that was like him re-entering the capital oh chills i still get him that was crazy it was crazy wow i agree so like I said I mean I had to leave a lot out but you know that's the gist it's five sentence summaries you guys just read the book or you know it you're here you're in the spoiler section we can't fit it all you know that's what she said let's digest this shall we yeah i feel like so much happened in this book and it was so freaking interesting to see i definitely have different opinions about it the second time around interesting so yes and after watching like re-watching the movie so when I watched it with with you that was my third time watching it um I actually went to see this twice in the theaters cuz I liked it so much um and it was my second time reading the book so I have very different thoughts about Coro's personality this time around so we'll get into that when we get to character portion nice but why don't you just kick it off with telling us what your favorite part of this book was honestly like that whole forest scene you know and them potentially running away together I felt like reading Snow's or Corolanus's monologue cuz we don't really think of him as Snow yet right he is really like fully understanding who he's becoming and kind of starting to accept it and I kind and Lucy Gay too like I felt like young people in love sometimes don't read the signs that they that they have in front of them they make a lot of changes of who they are at their core to please the other person or be with the other person and it was kind even though it's for bad even though it's awful like who Coralanus is becoming it was kind of refreshing to see them both look at life for what it is and what they want and what they're becoming and say "Wait maybe I don't want that." And be able to do it you know a few months in not years oh shoot you know now I'm 23 years old and I made these decisions and I'm not happy because look at where were they going with like literally where were they running away to it was bad you get to see Cory Lenus' internal monologues of like I freaking hate this this is the forest yeah like I don't even like being outside what am I gonna do here yeah these birds you get to see like his complete disdain for the birds building and building and building and the panic that he's kind of feeling but not in like an anxious way it was just like an interesting insight to the personality and then you see Lucy Gay seeing his red flags and because she is such a strong person already she's able to be like "Oo hang on wait a second red flag red flag alert where's the red flag guy?" So I just love that whole pivotal moment whatever you want to call it that was huge it took up a lot of time so just saying that scene is watering it down but it was like a huge time that it was my favorite part hands down loved it yeah it was a hu it was a big like huge amount of character building in that like chapter or whatever two chapters you know what I mean it was a very short amount of time but I feel like I agree with you like just to kind of piggyback off that cuz that was also my favorite part in the book and the movie also excellent job yeah i feel like uh you know to go back to what you were saying it's like they're just realizing like I don't doubt that they were in love like I think that they were in love um even like I don't believe that Coro you know is a sociopath like I think that he does have feelings even though he's um the villain for sure and so I think he was fully in love with Lucy Gray and but the thing is she was just she was the one who was able to outsmart him yep like I think they both realized that they weren't going to be together in that moment in the woods but he I 100% think would have just killed her you know I don't think that he would have like they would have been able to reason it out he so badly wanted to go back to the capital like he needs the you know he needs the opulence he needs the accolades he needs like that to like he's kind of a narcissist yeah like really truly at the I think in the core of his personality and so I think that he needs all those things to thrive um and she kind of like in some ways likes the spotlight obviously but I think she more does that like from just a jo like she needs joy in her somehow you know exactly an artist perspective and I So I think that they did realize they're very different but because of the fact that he he's looking out for number one he's looking out for himself i think he would have been completely fine to murder her and then just go on with his life and so I love that in the end she outsmarted him yeah and we don't know for sure but like we pretty much know yeah it's not We don't know if he accidentally did not accidentally but he doesn't know if one of the bullets hit her or not we just It's It's left open-ended and he is perfectly fine with that so we got to see that and he doesn't like loose ends so I think that's what it comes down to too is he wants to make sure even if she's not like actually a threat to him he can't take that risk he couldn't take that risk of the guns being found he couldn't take the risk of her you know she would tell that he did it you know or whatever them recognizing how different they really are you know i think it's very young it was very young love to me even though yeah sure it was love it was still that young love but they have to be so much more mature than they would be at freshly 18 years old because of the world that they're in that I think they're able to see the trees for the forest or whatever the saying is well I think it was also like really just that whole scene was very symbolic of in my opinion the moment where Coro snaps into it's like he finally like almost like breaks out of this shell of like who he thinks that you know he's supposed to be and realizes that you know for better for worse he could be much more than that mhm um and so I appreciated that it was like this whole imagery with like you know she's escaped he finds his mother's scarf she you know leaves the trap there with the snake to bite him he thinks he's going to die but then nothing happens and then he's kind of going crazy because all of the mocking jays are like all around him i think you know you can see him he's like literally like screaming with this gun in the woods like you know stumbling around with all of this like fury and the thing is I think that it's like in that moment she was the one on the reciprocating end of the fury but really it was like everything from his past finally surfacing in that moment or at least that's how I read it where it's like him having to deal with all this PTSD from the war and you know the expectation for him to succeed in a society that doesn't set everyone up for success even if you are living in the capital you know there's very distinctly a hierarchy even there um him dealing with his parents' deaths him dealing with I think the realization that he'll never get to live a normal life um and I loved that it was like a complete crumbling of like his almost like him trying to convince himself that he ever could have a normal life yep it's that and accepting like who he's destined to be you know it's like he's trying to suppress that and what the movies missed out on is is exactly that like they focus a lot on her love story but to me this book is a love triangle book between his love of Lucy Gray or just even love if you will and power he's he's trying to constantly choose cuz we hear and I have some quotes that I'll talk about later when we get to the quote section of just him quoting you know about wanting that power and to be someone and grappling with that and knowing that he has to fully decide between love companionship or absolute power so yeah lots of themes and tropes in this book that are crazy to watch happen and another huge theme for me was nature versus nurture you know oh huge so you can see you can see that it's both right you can see that's nature and nurture his father he like doesn't want to be like his father but then he does cuz it's so like ingrained in just his DNA cuz he wants to kind of be like his mother so his mother symbolizes Lucy Gay and his father symbolizes that power you know cuz he grapples with that memory constantly too so it kind of if you're just watching the movie it might feel kind of ambiguous or out of nowhere that he kind of snaps like that but when you read the book you're like no it's building upense like he's constantly trying to decide between these two paths in life even with Sanias like you get so much more backstory with him so yeah yeah well and even just like you know I like I said before I love a full circle moment like that whole realization that it wasn't Dean High Bottom who came up with the Hunger Games or he did but it wasn't him who like turned it into a real thing it was literally Cory Elenus's dad yeah and it was like he's just he's carrying on the legacy that he was set up from the beginning to carry on and he would have had to actively resist that and fight against it to not become that yeah and in the end he didn't want to yeah he didn't want to and it's also it's the Hunger Games he's just as much a part of the Hunger Games like he's just as much a uh victim of the capital as anybody else is not to victim victimize the villain but he is he is you know we are all a result of all of our influences around us and our experiences and he is trying to survive you know they are literally starving in the capital just as the people in the districts are in the Hunger Games trilogy and he doesn't want to go back to that ever and you know Lucy Gray is the unknown running off into the woods he knows he's not going to survive there's not some other you know that we know of district out there that's going to save them so it's like what am I going to go live in a a stick hut like give me a break he's like I don't know how to do that i don't know how to build that i've never built myself anything before i mean he even talks about how it's a waste of his potential yeah he thinks very highly of himself too which he is he's really smart yeah he's super smart he you know given the right opportunities he could be he exactly what he becomes exactly you know and so I think that he saw that opportunity and took it and I think that's what makes a really good villain is this idea that it's like you know maybe not all of us would turn into super villains but given the option of running away with a target on your back as a rebel into the woods where you essentially have to freaking Little House on the Prairie you know what I mean yeah or go back to the city with your family and the people that you know and what's comfortable and then have power and um you know like some kind of like familiar life where you can go up in the ranks i feel like most people would choose comfort most people would choose that well you got to see what happened to Sanas Janus you know these these names are difficult for me to say out loud for the first time but you know you got to see what happens with him and people that resist like he got a taste of things by being a peacekeeper you know of his he got to see a bigger picture and like that's why you kind of see him retreating into himself and accepting those parts of him because he knows what he knows what he's going to have to do to survive this world to live mhm not that it's okay but it's just it's just very interesting every single person in that world is just trying to survive you know yeah mhm so it's crazy so what about a part that you didn't like if you had to choose a part that you really didn't like uh yeah you know Sias's hanging was pretty brutal you know with the freaking birds sorry not to laugh but like I love that you're just like well you know you know when one of the main characters gets killed off in this horribly terrible way yeah and the birds flapping and like uh screaming ma ma cuz that was his last word that like made me cry and not that it's hard in these books to get me to do that but you can see like you almost have a little bit of empathy for Cory Lanus that like these birds are so symbolic because like yeah his first experiences with the mocking jays like that's PTSD like he's hearing people get hung and their last words you know being ridiculed above them hey you know what we got to see exactly where the inspiration was in the Hunger Games 2 in the 50th quarter you know the 75th quarter cool my gosh whatever quarter quell quarter quell where Katniss is in the clock arena and they have the birds that are tormenting people that's like exactly where he got it so that was kind of cool about reading these prequels is that you get to see oh that was the inspiration for that that was the idea for that totally you know cuz he's freaking lived it especially knowing that his main mentor ends up being Dr gaul yeah oh my gosh yeah that was so I loved that as much as she's crazy I loved being able to see oh this is where all that comes from yeah like literally a mad scientist mad scientist it's like then that's the thing it's like nature versus nurture i think that he's extremely intelligent he has all these ideas on his own but without the philosophy that Dr gaul bring like the political and I guess like I don't know philosophical like ideas that Dr gaul brings to like his mind i don't know that he would have used them in that same way you know it's like she really throughout the whole entire book was guiding him cuz she saw his potential i think Yes 100% 100% and she I mean she knew his father too so she knew how to probably guide that as well like and manipulate him too what about you what was your least favorite part uh my least favorite part was I mean obviously Senus dying was terrible for sure um my least favorite part though was when um Senus goes into the arena and Coro has to go in there and get him out I really disliked that part because truthfully as much as like I get S Janice's perspective i understand why he's so you know torn and upset and conflicted and like having such a hard time it's like dude don't do that though that's so dumb well that's basically what Cory Elena tells him so I liked that and but it was like his character was very frustrating yeah but how many people I mean I don't know that we know cuz we're not in a in the situation but like there's a lot of people that would be very similar to him you know very like throwing themselves out there doing whatever being you know cuz he wasn't the smartest and he's just doing whatever he thinks he has the power to be able to do to make a stand yeah yeah and I I mean he was a super you know intentionally I think problematic character and so it was important for him to do the things that he did to move the plot along i just really hated that part i was like "Dude this whole situation could have been avoided." And it's like you and I get it it's like money is literally buying his freedom yeah and he feels an insane amount of guilt for that which I'm sure a lot of people would but then at the same time it's like imagine being a tribute who is being forced into the Hunger Games and you have this rich kid coming in choosing to be in there on purpose because they just feel bad it's like dude what are you doing like we're all have starving to death having to fight to the death and you're like coming in here because like boohoo it's like Chandler you know your golden shoes are too tight you know it's like that just really frustrated me like I get it and I know why it's important but I had a really hard time reading it the first time and I had a hard time reading it the second time i was like "Oh dude." Yeah that was the but the ending of that scene that was first kill and you know he had to grapple and he liked how it felt and we got to kind of see all of the the three kills he did have with the fourth one being kind of like maybe maybe not well no fifth gosh how many people did he kill in this book oh my gosh now I'm just now realizing it no he killed the boy in the arena you know cuz that was a major point of contentions when he said"I killed three people." Yeah exactly and she was like "Who's the other one?" Cuz Sanjanus is the third one cuz he ratted him out so he takes responsibility for that the second one okay the second one was the ex-boyfriend right um or the second one was Lucy the girl okay so yeah those are all different types of people and symbolism in each of those kills you know crazy well yeah because the first one was literally like Dr g put him in there intentionally because she wanted him to have to do something like that so it's like the first one pretty much like convinced him that on our basis level we're all just you know we'll do whatever is necessary to survive we'll become violent creatures she was converting him to her Yeah philosophy like her way indoctrinating him if you will indoctrinating him fully so that was like step one so then step two was him Yeah killing in the heat of the moment like not out of defense necessarily covering his tracks though covering his tracks yeah so she's going to stop him from gaining power well what that symbolized to me is that is an important theme and I was going to talk about this a little bit in dystopian themes so this might not necessarily be a dystopian theme i don't know maybe just a theme of this book but like the idea that Coro is smart enough to understand and so is Dr g that it's like rules are meant to be broken it just depends on who you are and the status that you are at of whether or not you can break them for sure and so it's like this idea that they're controlling obviously the districts with all of these rules with the Hunger Games with all of these things but really that's all made up and I think that it's like that was kind of the moment where Coro is realizing too like not just like what can I get away with but how can I also play the powers that be to get what I want cuz he's like literally killing the mayor's daughter so and getting away with it um so I think that that was important too and then obviously the betrayal of his friend in the end to save himself was kind of I felt like the one of the last like ties that he had to he was cutting the last tie that he had to like his I don't know like a piece of his humanity in that way yeah totally yeah so what about characters favorite character favorite character was Lucy Gay i feel like for obvious reasons yeah loved her and uh least favorite character was Dr gaul what a creep what a creep you know as much as I enjoyed her character cuz she's so freaking crazy yeah she's my least favorite character and we get to see her extreme manipulation when she sent Cory Elanus into the arena like we just talked about um half forcing him to see true human nature it was essentially grooming him even though it was already she saw that it was there but that's kind of what grooming is right they have a certain person that they're going for and when they see it they can groom certain things out of them so um and then we saw in his essay that he wants that control that she saw obviously too so Mhm least favorite character but golly Viola Davis killed it oh my gosh yeah so nailed it she's so perfect how about you well my favorite and least favorite character both snow ah yes yeah um I was thinking about it and I was like obviously I love Lucy Gay like so much you know honestly if I had to pick least favorite or most favorite Dr gaul might be in one of my favorite characters um she was great i But yeah when I really thought about it it's like I feel like for me Coro was both because you really got to see his like mental switch yeah like you know from becoming a you know quoteunquote regular person to becoming a villain or what we would perceive to be a villain yeah and so and I thought that yeah Suzanne Collins wrote that in such a way that it's like did I necessar it's like we have empathy for him and his plight but at the same time we understand that like what he's doing is like super wrong yeah but it I feel like we got enough of both perspectives to really be able to see that how that was like a gradual descent into almost like madness for him like he's slowly going like crazy i feel Yeah so many villains I think that we you know hear stories about in real life and in in stories is like oh they're just they're like you said psychopaths they're this they're that they've always been that way and even though he had these characteristics you see that he grows into who he becomes in the Hunger Games so well imagine imagine like let's just paint a scenario imagine if his mentor Mhm was someone who was interested in restoring prosperity and peace to the world i've thought about that right mhm like he probably being the super intelligent person you know and arguably power- hungry person he is may have utilized his skills for good under the right like tutelage or whatever you want to call it yeah yeah totally so I feel like that's all it takes for some people yeah totally totally that's where that nurture nature comes back into question again it's like well you know he's the victim of the Hunger Games just as much like that's why Dr gaul is my least favorite as a person because like she's just freaking crazy she doesn't even care about anybody she just wants to make these crazy hybrid animal humans at any cost like using people to make the you you know axes to make these mad Frankenstein science experiments she's just nuts obviously super smart too but she knows he's a tool to be able to get all of that to continue well and they're letting That's the thing though is they're letting her they're letting her and so really it's like at the end of the day it's like yeah we can see that she's evil but when the whole government functioning around her is encouraging her to do what she's doing it's like okay you know it's Yeah exactly like as a crazy complete lunatic like she is like why would she not use that opportunity to further her agendas yeah totally yeah it's crazy it's crazy how would you say that this book specifically out of all of them made you feel dude whoa crazy crazy whoa crazy[Music] yeah it gave me a lot to think about what about you yeah I feel like it's like that i don't really know how to explain it it's the satisfaction you get from checking things off a physical list you know as a person with that type of brain like um I get that satisfaction out of very few things but I feel like with books it's one of the major ones where I love being like "Oh that's where that came from oh that's why that character is this way." Like that's why prequels and in particular one of my favorite types of books to read are like let's say you read a whole book and you're like wow that was so good and then it comes out from a different character's perspective the same story some people really don't like that cuz they find it repetitive i freaking love that because it fills in all the holes that we didn't see before and that's how this book made me feel and so that's why I'm so excited to read Sunrise on the Reaping because I can't even imagine like what more things we're going to learn yeah yeah it's like this is how villain origin story should be done i think we get a lot of when we hear villain origin stories i don't know about you but I think of like the Disney ones that are like "Oh look at they're good but they mean to be good but everything's good they they started with good intentions." Nope this didn't like he didn't i mean he did like you got to see the full he's very humanized you know you get to see the full growth and change in him but that was always there though so it didn't water down it didn't sugarcoat it it didn't paint it cuz that's kind of what I was worried about you know going into the prequel like "Oh they're going to try to make us like him." And you know like you said you're it's your favorite and least favorite character because you can appreciate that he's a fully conceptualized person now doesn't make him good like but it makes the story and the plight crazy and good so I Yeah that's how I felt well cuz I feel like lots of times with those typical quote unquote villain like origin stories or even with hero origin stories there's always one pivotal event right or usually one pivotal event that will change the course of that individual's story or life right mhm i feel like in this case because that does not make sense as you're saying for a fully actualized uh you know human character who's being created with agency right like it's usually more than one thing and I think that's what the author did so well here was showed the no this was a series of events societal and personal that led to this occurring and it also did not exist in a vacuum at all like there were many outside factors that were influencing the outcome um and I thought that was really good too really interesting yeah and she did that in what 500 pages like dude that's so crazy so she's like the queen of telling stories that you really care about without having to like get bogged down in any information that's unnecessary it's like 100% that's amazing it's amazing amazing wow so what about like unanswered questions now that we're done with the trilogy and we're done with Snow's story like what unanswered questions did you have like moving forward um or going into this new book i just am dying to know what happened between Tris and Snow yep to make her want Katniss to kill him yep cuz that was crazy coming off of Hunger Games book three mocking Jay no mocking Jay yeah mocking Jay is to know that Tigris was one of the was the one to harbor the you know rebels Katniss and the other rebels in her cellar and when she said I'm going to kill snow she's like come on in sounds great you know cuz you're waiting for her to turn on her but she really doesn't turn on her and then going into ballads and song birds and it's like the first chapter that we're introduced to Tigris she's like we're going to find out what h we don't find out what happens I mean I suspect you know she sees how evil he's becoming later on and you know turns away but so much so that she wants a rebel to kill him you know something happens in there so I'm hoping we get that in Sunrise and the Reaping i don't know if we do yet but I'm hoping for the best if not we better have another book coming or I'm going to rage yeah i mean I have the same un unanswered questions and things that I wanted to know after we finished you know because we talk about this at the end of every book but specifically once we were done with the trilogy i just want to know more she does such a good job of character like writing characters i just want to know more about the characters so yeah I want to know what happened to Tigris to get from point A to point B yes that's a huge question I have i want to know what happened to Lucy Gay where did she go what where did her story continue on to you know it might be as simple as you know she made it to District 13 and just lived out her days right i don't know we don't know but like that I'd want to know more about um pretty much just that like just I want to know more like it's not you get a prequel and you get an orig like let's just keep them coming down the pipeline as long as they're good let's go yeah it's not necessarily like a frustrated like oh my god this was unanswered and now I don't know what to do and I'm feeling weird about it and it's going to haunt me no it's more like this world is just so thoroughly built with characters I really enjoy reading about i mean even getting more of Snow's story because I mean it ends when he's only what 19 years old I think so it's like there's a huge chunk of time mhm from then until even even Hay Mitch's book you know where it's like we have blank space and so I don't know maybe 40 years in between yeah 19 and 50 a quarter a quill so it's like I just want more i just want more that's it it's not unanswered questions in a bad way it's unanswered questions in a please give us more books way yeah i did like because of Dr gaul we got to find out what's going on with the muts you know and that kind of origin so we got to find out that so we got questions answered in this book for sure and we got to find out like where' the poisoning come from well it started with Lucy Gray giving her the rat poison and then you know uh Dean Highbottom be poisoned so that was his first poisoning he saw how simple that was so Oh could we give a shout out to your nickname really quick of Dean High Bottom cuz I was thinking about the other day and it cracked me up ashley called him drunklage and so we just kept calling him Drunklage the whole time i'll never not know cuz he's all high well high bottom is good enough right but you know it's also Drunklage with Peter Drinklage you know I was like who's that drunkage guy again you know cuz I was trying to relate in the book yep it's perfect yep are you officially I mean you've already started reading the next one right i was going to ask you if you're excited to read the next one but like you're already how far in you know after going to the release party not excited to read it no after pulling myself out of my house to be at a release party at

Luckily it was 9: 47:53

00 p.m so they were going off of Eastern Standard Time uh yes I would say I'm excited nice good yeah what about you me too i just need the UPS guy to drop my book off and then we will get started actually I'm almost done with Phantom by HD Carlton right now so once I'm done with that I'm starting i'm excited um yes so what yeah we're super excited yeah we based our whole miniseries off of the release of this but then we're like ah you know not really oh no i can't watch it i can't read it we give up don't care yeah just kidding um okay so do you have any notable quotes you would like to share with the group yes okay so my favorite thing like throughout this book was you know the love triangle that Coranus was having with power and actual real love so I had went through and quoted you know highlighted quotes anytime he mentioned power because I noticed it pretty early on so one of the things he was like dealing with was his past and the PTSD from the war and everything and so one of the quotes that I highlighted was the ability to control things yes that was what he loved best of all that right there like set us up um and then there's multiple so we control it he said quietly if the war is impossible to end then we have to control it indefinitely just as we do now with the peacekeepers occupying the districts with strict laws and with reminders of who's in charge like the Hunger Games in any scenario it's preferable to have the upper hand to be the victor rather than the defeated so he saw what he would need to do to not just be someone who's defeated constantly yeah i thought this was a really interesting part in the book where he gets so triggered by the mocking jays that he says we should kill them all he says the words slipped out before he could stop them um and they say kill them all why and he says they're unnatural and so I really liked that because it was a lot of foreshadowing for sure whatever you want to call it um and the quote is "He didn't mind the Jabberjs so much they seemed rather interesting from a military standpoint but something about the mocking jays repelled him he distrusted their spontane spontaneous creation nature running a muck they should die out and die out soon." So I liked that a lot interesting um and then let's see when they're talking about like human nature I liked this part as well lucy Dre I can't even talk lucy Gay drew back a bit that's what you think people would do i do unless there's law and someone enforcing it I think we might as well be animals he said with more assurance like it or not the capital is the only thing keeping anyone safe hm so they keep me safe and what do I give up for that she asked cory Elenus poked at the fire with a stick give up why nothing the CVY said or the CVY did she said can't travel can't perform without their say so can only sing certain types of songs fight getting round up and you get shot dead like my daddy try to keep your family together and you get your head broken like my mama what if I think that price is too high to pay maybe my freedom's worth the risk so I like that like debate between like both of them where he's saying like what did you have to give up like you didn't have to give up anything she's like literally like I have given up everything but you were just naive to that you know okay I liked this part he didn't like love the way it had made him feel stupid and vulnerable if he ever married he'd choose someone incapable of swaying his heart just this idea that like from the very beginning like he was equating love to like weakness and basically something standing in the way of like his ultimate goals yeah which I really liked that part because I felt like it really showed how he could have so easily gone the other way because he is capable of love he and so he could have with the right you know as we talked about before like uh mentorship gone to a completely different place for sure for sure so were there any dystopian themes that you feel like we have not addressed that you want to make sure to bring up up until this point i would say the different forms of rebellion mhm you know that were going on the rise of power within those dystopian places and just extreme poverty that we saw from everyone that everyone was affected how these oppressive oppressive governments it affects everyone negatively mhm yeah what about you totally yeah even the people who are supposedly doing really well it's like really only the tippy tippy top were there any dystopian themes you wanted to make sure to mention um I mean I feel like we've pretty much talked about them all just kind of like obviously we've got the the government control the media control war rebellion i feel like yeah the different kinds of rebellion i mean because even like we even notice like with Cory Elus's character like with him taking food to feed to her like that he was like fairly rebellious as well so I think that's why I'm saying it's like he could have easily been swayed either way um yeah i feel like a big theme in this too was like how do I like word this just because something is an idea doesn't mean that it should become reality so it's like this i don't know exactly how to say that but it's almost like you know with Coro's dad and Dean Highbottom coming up with this idea or whatever and like pitching it and it turn being turned into reality it's like I don't know what dystopian theme that would be necessarily but it's like the classic like Jurassic Park warning like just because we thought we should do it doesn't mean we should i can't remember what the exact like you know um quote is but it's that you know what I mean mhm um just cuz we can have self-driving cars doesn't mean we Yeah exactly it's the cautionary It's the cautionary tale it's like you know it's the cautionary tale so yeah i feel like we pretty much covered all the rest of the dystopian themes pretty thoroughly i think that's what I liked so much about this prequel too is it it did kind of humanize the capital as well the people the citizens of the capital not the capital of what it stands for but like you saw that they didn't like the Hunger Games either yeah like they were forced and manipulated into what we see them become when Katniss enters the arena you know they were constant they were dehumanized like there were mixed people that were in Katniss's capital society at that time frame was punishable by death to speak of anything against the capital within the capital as a capital citizen whereas when we see the capital that snows in people are constantly talking about it and debating it and still debating the ethics of war and postwar because they're only 10 years out so I appreciated that you know that it wasn't uh no matter what right from the beginning you can see its slow like decline into pure evil you know well and it's intent and it's intentional i think that's the other thing it's intentional because the people of the capital didn't want to watch The Hunger Games like it was not entertaining to them it was depressing and terrible and horrifying and they wanted nothing to do with it it was not doing well it was literally going to be cancelled because what's the point and all the people in the districts were too poor to have TVs so literally it's like no one's even watching it so what's the point so it's important to note that yeah i mean this is where the dystopian theme of media control and propaganda comes into play because it had to be specifically made into what it was by people intentionally yeah trying to search for that outcome yeah it's a weird moral like thing to think about with what we know of Snow right so we find out yeah the Hunger Games were going to be cancelled so he took the information he gained within being a peacekeeper in District 12 and used it against people for control tightened up security like he probably that's how he probably finalized coming into power is cuz he knew oh they just go off their merry way into the woods and do whatever they want you know life isn't that bad compared to what Katniss deals with yeah you know it's still suppressed and they still have issues going on but they're pretty loose you know and he goes and uses all those things against them and then but he also does things that are better like okay if the Hunger Games has to happen he feeds them he houses them he's not putting them in the zoo anymore you know he makes it into a spectacle yeah they need to be humanized otherwise no one will care about their plight i mean you know that was part of it is like you have to Yeah it's weird you have to humanize them but also still dehumanizing them by sending them to their bloody death so it's very interesting this is very interesting yeah yeah um crazy i feel like there was Oh the other thing that I wanted to say too I don't know if this is a dystopian theme or just like a takeaway from it is this idea that um yeah this is his you know quote unquote vill villain origin story however like villains wouldn't be able to succeed in achieving the ends that they desire without a society that is literally most of the time creating an atmosphere that makes that possible so I think that that's also really important like he would have not been able to get to you know the snow we know in the Hunger Games trilogy without having a society that has laid the frame framework for that type of villain to emerge you know victorious within that framework so yeah i think that that's important to know too like he does not like Yeah he doesn't exist in a vacuum he's not just one bad guy like making all this stuff happen it's like a lot of moving parts are necessary yeah yeah for sure it's crazy so okay let's talk about the Easter eggs because there were many and they were super fun i made a list of some of my favorite ones okay what do you do you want me to just go okay so one of my favorites was the fact that uh Lucy Gay Bear wrote the Hanging Tree song yeah that was pretty cool yeah that was crazy yeah like that clicked the second time around and I was like "Oh that's like literally like she's out on the you know grassy null like writing it you know?" And now that we know who it was about it makes it even more interesting because she didn't write it from nothing she like literally wrote it about this whole thing happening with you know the rebels and senus and like all that stuff it's crazy that was cool um I liked the cabin being the same cabin by the lake that was really cool yep um I liked finding out you know about Snow's obsession with roses and the reason why he's he loves that rose smell because of his mom's compact and everything yeah um I I just wrote here Tigris like obviously we have a huge tie-in with Tigris um we want to know more about that please that was one of my favorite Easter eggs for sure um and then I put the mocking jays being used in the Hunger Games because they made Snow feel like he was going crazy so like that whole you know kind of mental warfare kind of situation um finding out kind of where that came from um so those were some of my favorites do you have any that you want to mention yeah so birds going off of that they play an integral role in this series and we see Snow's disdain build from the birds from this prequel so the hatred of the symbol of the mocking jay he hated the mocking jay even existed like you previously quoted and it was and it was seeing Katniss like as a mocking jay i think that like really set off that totally you know full spiral um Lucy is a song bird so is Katniss right and Snow is the snake mhm cuz there's a lot about snakes in Bad Songs and Snakes obviously um so Lucy keeps saying that snakes love her in the book snow was a snake to so many people throughout the series snake eyes he's described as so she's the song bird he's the snake so that civilism there is crazy um this was something I found on Reddit it says maybe not an Easter egg but we definitely got the origins of snow poisoning his enemies i mean that's an Easter egg for sure starting with Dean High Bottom and Lucy in the arena so all those tie-ins love it eat it upum yep same same same so I wonder what kind of you know because there's bird there's a bird and a snake on the next Hunger Games book too sunrise on the Reaping so be curious to see what goes on there a lot of symbolism with that okay um do you have any surprise questions for me today before we get into fun facts surprise question should Snow have run away with Lucy Gay instead i mean I wish that they did yeah because I would say Yeah i mean because then who knows things may have gone completely differently like let's say he runs away the alternate universe right he runs away with Lucy Gay let's say that they um Well I just thought of another alternate universe i was going to say let's say that they leave they make it to district 13 and they just like live happily ever after right i don't think that Snow regardless of his location would have ever lived happily ever after with her yeah i don't think he was capable of having a simple life same so I feel like that's why I was like "Oo another alternate ending." Maybe they would have made it to district 13 and then Snow would have taken that over hostile takeover style but like in a very manipulative like way um so that could have gone completely differently i you know I think that it would have been interesting to see where that would have gone but either way you know now that I'm talking this out with you I think that no matter where he would have been I don't know that they would have worked out because of his like kind of insatiable need for power as we've talked about yeah i mean in his quote he's quoting to say power and ability to control things that is what he loved best of all so yeah I mean he even talks about you know how Lucy Gay is his he owns her he wishes he could keep her in the district just so he could keep tabs on her all the time like he very much talks about her like his property also which is problematic in a lot of different ways but honestly for him I don't know that it was coming from a misogynistic standpoint i think it was just coming from a like literally he just is power hungry and needs control yeah regardless of who the person is you know yeah who or what or when or where yeah totally agreed on all points all right so fun fact about a ballot of song birds and snakes this refers to the movie because that's the only time ever we could find fun facts really is that Rachel Ziegler I think it's how you say her name yeah yeah she sang all of Lucy's Gay's songs including The Hanging Tree live on set so all of the performances you hear in the movie were done live nothing was pre-recorded love that i love her she's so great i love when movies do that it's like wow she did an incredible job too she really did just I realized not too long ago she's Snow White so guys how exciting i'm going to go see it I think this weekend when it comes out and I'm so excited to see her play Snow White i think she's going to be really good um I also had a bonus that this was not a fun fact I found on the internet this is one that I did of my own research for some reason i It was

at 6: 1:04:56

48 a.m in the morning one morning so I honestly feel like my brain does some of its best work before it's fully awake i don't know nice okay so I decided to look up um let's see Leedus so he was one of the journalists right yeah okay so I decided to look up what his name meant and it looks like Okay so just based on the like Kindle dictionary definition um he was a Roman statesman and a supporter of Julius Caesar in the civil war against Pompei which I thought was really interesting that she chose that name for him because you know as we know you know media control and propaganda is huge in these books and so to have literally his name mean the same thing as a major supporter of Julius Caesar during their civil war is so fascinating and just shows that like these authors when they're like picking names to name characters or like places or like world building in general like lots of times these things do come from history in one way or the other and so I found that I'm glad I screenshot that I did that because I completely forgot i was like I have to remember to share that later um but it just shows that also like you know whatever you want to call them Snow the dictators the evil dictators the evil villains you know wouldn't get far without the ability to control the media narrative that's huge and it's arguably almost entirely responsible for the success of any type of regime coming to power because yeah without that kind of media control what do you have you don't you know you have what word of mouth like good luck you know so it's important and I feel like you know as benign of a character as I feel like you know Leedus or Lucky Flickerman or whoever you know he's painted as being just this very like is he's a likable character the journalists are typically very likable characters I feel like in this series Lucky in particular who I feel like a lot of us you know enjoyed his character and whatever we wouldn't wish for evil to befall him necessarily right but it's like he's contributing hugely as is like the whole mainstream media situation um to the atrocities so it's an interesting way to just make sure that we're not forgetting about that yeah i think of every dictatorship that we know of and that was like the number one thing media control it doesn't get far without propaganda guys it doesn't get far and there's usually someone there's someone smart behind it like like you know that's the thing about Coro as they saw his potential in creating that yeah well even though that leaves us on a depressing note we get to read Sunrise on the Reaping now yeah yeah so that's awesome assuming I think that I heard the dogs barking a little bit ago so maybe my package is outside in the mailbox so that would be exciting yay we should probably wrap it up but yeah next Friday look forward to Sunrise on the Reaping and then the Friday after that we'll got we've got the movies and our wrap-up crazy i think because this is Snow's book okay we're going to take into account at the end of the book he's like a college kid okay I want to preface it by saying that so Corolanus Snow Unhinged in any form you know as long as he's of age smash or pass it's like I always forget that guy's name but we watched a documentary when I was at my house the Smash Smash Smash guy or when we were at your house you don't remember he got like really popular for a while oh and there was like a true crime documentary about him he smashed smash smashed someone you don't remember that oh the uh Kai axe guy yes the axe guy i only remember it because of that person's license plate that we saw that said Kai axe right after that was so weird but I always see it all the time and I'm like when I think smash smash smash so there you go there you have it yeah i mean yeah watch the movie if you're unsure yeah hey listen Lucy i get it i get it Lucy yeah I get it we all get it what can we say what can we say yep all right you guys i think that's it for today so make sure to like follow and subscribe anywhere you like listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube we'll be back Tuesday for our normal episodes and then Friday Sunrise on the Reaping make sure notifications are turned on so you don't miss out on that and we'll see you all the time all the times Tuesdays and Fridays all right guys bye[Music]