Loyalty and Betrayal
The character dynamics of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes revolve around two of Coryo's central relationships: his tense bond with Sejanus and his troubled romance with Lucy Gray. In each case, Coryo is faced with choices between risking his welfare for someone important to him or promoting his own welfare through well-timed betrayals. Mostly, self-interest wins out. By the end of the book, Coryo has gone from risking his life for Sejanus in the arena to turning Sejanus over to the Capitol for treason; just as dramatically, he pivots from doing everything he can to save Lucy to trying to gun her down in the woods outside District 12. Although Coryo's family loyalties seem to run deep, even this situation is complicated. The events of Mockingjay hint that Tigris and Coryo had a vicious falling-out over the decades. In fact, betrayal of friends, as embodied by Snow's father and his manipulation of Casca Highbottom, seems to be a Snow family value.
Deprivation, Desperation, Dignity
Among the motivating principles in Coryo's life is the need to preserve reputation and self-worth in even the worst of circumstances. Dignity in the face of adversity emerges as a theme during war when deprived citizens of the Capitol are reduced to cannibalism. Coryo's family avoids such desperation, but the horrors of the hostilities—along with the desire to make the Snow name proud despite extreme hardship—stick in Coryo's mind. Indeed, the effects of the war linger in the Snow household during The Ballad. Food is still scarce, good clothes are still beyond the family's finances, and the once-great Snow fortune has been obliterated with the presumed annihilation of District 13. In the midst of these problems, Coryo works to preserve appearances and to fit in with Capitol students who have more resources than their family names and their wits.
Education
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes covers a formative period in the life of Coriolanus Snow: his transition from high school at the Academy to college at the University. Although he remains within the same Capitol clique in both institutions, the theme of education as a transformative force is still significant. Under Dr. Gaul, Coryo learns about the darker elements of political science—the fragility of some social contracts, the need for social control—in a disturbingly interactive manner. While some students encounter the breakdown of social agreement as a concept in a political science course, Coryo experiences such chaos during his night in the arena. Arguably, the lesson Coryo takes from his experiences is that life is nasty and brutish, though not always short. His education in politics and cynicism sets him up as a deadly successor to Dr. Gaul and prepares him to take control of Panem as a president who quite often functions more like a dictator.
Conflicted Teen Romance
Without a vigorous dash of teen romance, The Ballad would lack one of the ingredients that made the original Hunger Games trilogy so alluring. The 74th Hunger Games are complicated by the affection between competitors Katniss and Peeta, and this affection is not always easy to simplify down to romantic or sexual chemistry—and it is further complicated by the eventual Gale-Katniss-Peeta love triangle. Snow, at the time of the 10th Hunger Games, is caught in an opposites-attract romance with Lucy. While the Cory-Lucy-Billy Taupe love triangle creates some tension, it is largely treated as an afterthought until chaos erupts during Snow's time in District 12. The more abiding conflicts involve Snow's difficult choices regarding Lucy, the Games, and his future. Whether he can exhibit genuine love while still using Lucy for self-serving purposes in winning the Games is one of the book's loaded questions; in fact, with Snow's metamorphosis into a chilly creature of the Capitol in the Epilogue, the question of whether his love was ever genuine or pure reemerges.
The Spectacle of Politically Engineered Violence
If you remove political posturing, the casual cruelty, and the fight-to-the-death premise, the 10th Hunger Games starts to look a bit like an old-school contest show on Nickelodeon. (Suzanne Collins, incidentally, was once affiliated with the network.) The Ballad features gadget-assisted betting on audience favorites, musical performances, random interviews, and a zany host: Lucky Flickerman, whose pet parrot provides comic relief. This sense that the Hunger Games is a sociopathic version of the Kids' Choice Awards or Legends of the Hidden Temple only makes the spectacle more disconcerting. Imagine the tributes getting covered in comical green slime instead of blood, and you have wholesome family entertainment. In Panem, the Hunger Games are obligatory viewing, political revenge, and, unfortunately, entertainment that Capitol families deem wholesome.
The Immorality of the Hunger Games
As in the original trilogy, Collins emphasizes the violence of the Hunger Games and the moral conflict that, in some notable cases, the Hunger Games provoke even in the Capitol. Even before the games begin, the tributes are treated terribly; for example, they are put on display in the Capitol Zoo's monkey house, basically starved, and exposed to rabies. The 10th Hunger Games may lack the high-tech brutality of the 74th (with its walls of flame, landmines, and wolflike mutants), but it has plenty of gruesome features of its own (with its continuing food scarcity, deadly melee combat, and tank of mutated snakes). Here as well, a few disgusted Capitol citizens play poignant roles. While Coryo ends the book untroubled by his participation, Dean Highbottom is genuinely tortured over his hapless role in creating the games. He makes a few attempts to atone—sneaking Lucy some money, for instance—but it will take several more decades before Capitol residents such as Cinna and Plutarch become more assertive in opposing the immorality of the Games.
Strategy vs. Strength
This novel shows the intense strategizing needed to win the Hunger Games, largely from the perspective of a mentor who must use his and his tribute's wits to survive. In working with Lucy, Coryo must maneuver around tributes who would be more deadly in combat: Reaper, Jessup, and the pair from District 4. Evasion, trickery, and a few well-placed deathblows help Lucy to win a war of attrition. We see some of this "brains over brawn" emphasis in the original series through Haymitch, who helps Katniss and Peeta repeatedly from the outside, winning them sponsors and advising them to escape and outsmart the deadly Career tributes. Knowledge of the games and the ability to generate media attention overrides sheer physical prowess and contributes to the success of a tribute, in both the original trilogy and The Ballad.
