Rags to Riches (Situational Irony)
Although Snow was impoverished and struggling at eighteen years old, he later becomes the President of Panem. For a character that is not an egomaniacal sociopath in the making, the events of The Ballad should awaken sympathy for the down-and-out Districts, or at least some awareness that conditions outside the Capitol are bad enough to inspire rebellion. Snow, despite actually having a romance with a District resident, instead resolves to take a hard-line approach. Ironically, he does not use his bad experiences of Panem to change things; under his rule, the Hunger Games will eventually become more lavish, more brutal, and more of a sign of how little humanity he actually learned.
The "Wrong" Tribute (Dramatic Irony)
Snow is set on winning the tenth annual Hunger Games, mostly as a way of improving his family's fortunes. Ironically, the tribute that he is given - a girl from District 12 who has no clear fighting prowess - seems perfectly designed to die off early in the Games. In practice, she is a formidable tribute despite her kindly personality and her folksy rainbow dress. She knows how to play an audience to her advantage in winning sponsors and gifts, and she is not afraid to kill in order to ensure her own survival.
Starving Tributes (Situational Irony)
The Hunger Games function as both political punishment and mass entertainment, but the Capitol undermines the second part of this mission in an elementary way. Tributes are not sufficiently fed when they reach the Capitol, a fact that ironically guarantees that they will be weaker when fighting. It is up to mentors - some of them already in reduced circumstances - to keep the tributes stocked with food. Together with the dismal state of the arena for the 10th Hunger Games, the spectacle of starving, dirty, neglected children promises "entertainment" that even the most vicious Capitol resident might find depressing.
The Plinths' New Son (Dramatic Irony)
By the end of the novel, Coriolanus has returned his family to a position of power and prosperity, largely with the help of the Plinths. Unknown to Ma and Pa Plinth, however, Coryo secured his new good fortune by effectually killing off Sejanus. Coriolanus's deceptive dealings are unmistakable to the reader, though. If anything, the list of backstabbings that accumulates in The Ballad - Sejanus, Lucy, Highbottom - is largely hidden from anyone but Coryo and the reader of the novel.
