What I don’t understand is people saying it was stupid to make him handsome. They don’t understand that that’s one of the reasons he got far in life. He was extremely charismatic and handsome, and basically blindsided everyone. Pretty privilege is extremely real, and all these fan girls are literally just proving one of the points of the book lmao.
@@trinaq yea me and my brother were homeschooled and he talks like he’s straight out of the 18th century or something 😭 I always talked normally though, maybe because I’m not half as smart as him
Lucy Gray turned on Snow, not because she figured out he was responsible for Sejanus’ death, but because he *lies* to her. Earlier in the movie, she said trust was so important to her, without it someone might as well be dead to her. It was her inability to trust him that caused her to leave.
I thibk this turn was not obvious in the movies, but I also feel like from the "logic" of what her reasons are for leaving, we forget that she was literally a survivor of the hunger games after she had returned from the capitol. Imagine realizing the man that has power over you from a place that has caused you severe trauma to you, who you have emotional attachements to, is blatantly lying to you because you are a manipulated possession to him. I'd panic and escape too, she has learned how to react to this impulse of fear in the hunger games! But I usually think when a movie doesn't convince the majority of its audience that there is deeper reasoning there, then it just failed. I had this conversation with people that defend the game of thrones series before. When the majority of the viewers were confused by Dany's twist in the end, then it doesn't matter if the logic is there that would make the twist make sense. I can see how technically these emotional reasons are there and that the facts are on screen for us to figure out what is going on in peoples minds, but if it is not obvious for most viewers and confuses, then it's not a matter of "does it make sense?" And instead it is just not successful with telling the story.
This film might have benefited from having Snow narrate certain scenes, or have shown him alone more often, to depict his hidden inner feelings. Novels have more of an advantage of exposing us to the protagonist's thoughts, which are a little clunkier to portray in visual media without resorting to over exposition.
Exactly, in the book, the narration made it clear that he was extremely manipulative and calculating and narcissistic. I was wondering how they were gonna properly translate all that internal monologue that made the book work into a movie, and I guess they didn’t lol
@@blabla187 There was someone on here who used the Sims 2 to tell the story before the actual movie came out and she actually did a really great job, using Katniss's actual dialogue to narrate it
Yeah, in the book he romantizizes himself, and ther should be narration scenes of him in the movie to make clear its his marrative. his point of view, or i guess hange to have it in the capital and stand on its own medium.
Lucy Gray: the performer forced to fight. Katniss Everdeen: the fighter forced to perform. Rachel Zeigler said that during an interview and it just perfectly describes both characters. Snow was ensnared by both of these women.
Idk how people think he's misunderstood. The guy gave me red flags like 20 minutes in and from then on i was terrified of what he was willing to do to win. I admit his handsome face gave me a false sense of security and i thought "oh maybe hes not so bad" but no the guy was higly self-motivated and used a facade of altruism to disguise his ambition which i thought was despicable. His father was a certified villain and from the get go Corio was desperate to fit in and restore his familys glory. Corio was always selfish, and i stand by the idea that he saved Lucy for purely selfish reasons. Even if he wasnted to live a life with Lucy he was so desperate for control they never wouldve worked out unless he did some serious soul searching. Coriolanus was never a good person, and I don't think there's anything to misunderstand about the guy! He'd betray you as soon as you were no longer convenient or useful to his plans! The actor was very handsome though and i did enjoy looking at him so i see why people are obsessed with him at least 😂 but Snow, the character, is a total bag of trash!
How was he trash exactly? By not listening and obeying a woman? Are you 12? He grasped opportunities, was very ambitious, and had a lot of successes. All good character traits. The big issue with the movie is actually that he wasn't evil, he did what most people would do in his shoes.
@@Retheraq…do you seriously think the only bad thing he did in TBOSAS was “not listening to and obeying a woman” 😂 what he did goes beyond just ambition
@@RetheraqBeing ambitious is not good if you use it for evil like he did, you can be smart, a common described good trait, and use it for bad things which makes said trait not good.
I think this is one of the best examples of the issues that come up trying to translate a book into a movie. In the book, he's presented as an asshole from the very beginning in his internal monologue, so it was hard for the audience to romanticise him (plus you didn't have the visual element of him being a sexy elven prince lol)
@@theauthenticobserver he's very possessive and creepy throughout, I'm sure some people into the whole bad boy thing still romanticised the book version, but they'd have less justification for doing so Also I'm so glad you ended up making this 😂
Galatea, please please please read the book! Its so subtly written and it has some compelling themes that I really loved. I love that Susan Collins doesn't force feed you the message of her books. She really let's you come to the conclusion. Snow in the movie wasnt all that sympathetic to me just because I knew about his selfish inner dialogue the whole time, but it was so subtle its easy to get manipulated by it. Its really masterful. If you didn't like the movie give the book a try.
It's an excellent book, beautifully written, and the story unfolds in a way that was so satisfying. Collins definitely took her time to make it perfect.
please please please stop telling people to read the book! We are discussing the film and people are upset because the movie didn't represent the character from the book. Wether or not Suzanne Collins lets your come to conclusions isn't relevant. The movie didn't show his decent into villainy. It showed nothing. Just because it made sense to you don't not mean that people think the movie in fact did portray his character like it was supposed to be. Not someone character made for fan service. Yes the actor is hot but that shouldn't have meant that they change his personality for a somewhat sympathetic outlook on The Hunger Games. So with all due respect. Don't let people to give the book "a try".
@@jksperson7745 I took the request the opposite way entirely from how you took it. As someone who did read the book and watched the movie, and doesn’t care to be nice about it, the movie is absolutely horrible as an adaptation. The literal only way you’re going to get the story with the intended characterization and themes is to read the book in this case, because the people in charge of this movie absolutely fumbled the bag. No, they actually threw the bag into a ravine and then bombed it. It’s horrible. Literally the worst book-to-movie adaption I’ve seen since the first Percy Jackson movie. If you want any chance of enjoying the story, please read the book. Judge the movie as the trash it is but don’t judge the story for the movie’s terrible execution of it.
@@morganherring6958Gosh, you book nerds are SO annoying! Books aren’t some sacred texts, movies don’t have to be faithful ALL the time; and you are not doing some holy rite protecting books’ sanctity. This movie is based on the previous movies, which have differences from the books. Get over it. So this is a good prequel of the movies!
@@jksperson7745This matches more with tone of the movies than books. The previous movies were different too. It would not make sense to make only this movie be book identical. I frankly couldn’t care less for the change. Book nerds are WAY too possessive.
Of course Lucy Gray cannot be trapped to be Corialus Snow's wife. This is just not a viable plot point. Lucy said it the best: "She's not going to be saved by a prince and she's not going to dream about true love. Her dream is to be the best leader she can be. Weird, weird."
His actions do make sense, though? He jumped on the chance to be sent to district 2 the second he heard about it, which made it clear that he wasn't okay with being in district 12, he wasn't happy. He wanted to see Lucy Gray, yes, and if he's going to be sent to a district to be a peacekeeper, why not go to 12 to be with her while he's suffering that 20-year punishment? But it was made very clear that he longed to go back to the Capitol. It was clear that he disagreed with any sort of connection to the rebels, which is why he betrayed his friend and recorded that conversation. I doubt he believed that his friend would be executed since the friend's family had money and Coriolanus probably believed that would save his friend's life. And not just that but the fact that his friend was from the Capitol so they wouldn't punish him, just the rebels from district 12. This is the point of sending him to be a peacekeeper in the first place. From the beginning of the movie it's obvious that he thinks people in the Capitol are civilized while the people in the districts are animals that just want to destroy everyone who has the fortune to live in the Capitol. He's buying into the Capitol propaganda that the districts are jealous of them and have to be subdued to avoid another war and a repeat of the Dark Days. When Tigris tells him to try to use empathy, he only does it to further his own goals and even after he develops feelings for Lucy Gray, they don't extend to anyone else from the districts. He is clinging to what he's been taught in the Capitol. Notice how Sejanus (his friend) is the only one who challenges the idea of the Games and the idea that people in the districts are less people than those in the Capitol? Sejanus used to live in district 2. Out of all the Capitol characters we're shown, he and Tigris are the only ones who believe in the humanity of the people from the districts. Everyone else is mostly buying into the divide between the Capitol and the districts, and especially Coriolanus. Lucy is just the exception to him because he likes her, and she did save his life instead of running. I find it a plus that it feels jarring for the audience when he's taken out of the Capitol to be sent to a district because that's how it would feel to him. His perspective is challenged when he sees life outside the Capitol, which is the point of taking him out of there, but he never budges. He sees people getting hanged and he doesn't care. He still believes the Capitol has the right to do that in order to maintain their dominance of the districts. He personally helps them do that by making the recording that gets his friend killed. He only leaves with Lucy Gray because he believes he'll be found out to have been involved in the murders and will be executed as well. The second he realizes that he can get rid of the murder weapons and proceed with his plan to go to district 2 and possibly return to the Capitol, he starts to perceive Lucy Gray as a threat - the same woman that gave up her chance at freedom to save his life. Even after that and after everything that happened between them, he doesn't trust in her humanity and in her love for him because of his own beliefs about human nature and about the difference between the people from the Capitol and those from the districts. It proves that his feelings for her aren't really that deep and that he puts himself first. It is exactly what he was discussing with Doctor Gaul once he returned to the Capitol. It's why she didn't save him from the punishment in the first place. She knew that if he saw the districts for himself, it wouldn't make him rethink his beliefs but rather reinforce them because she saw he shares her beliefs but is still young and doesn't have experience with the reality in the districts. Everything is about that divide and he had every chance to change his mindset and his behavior but he didn't. Audiences failing to perceive that is on them, not on the movie.
From the book, the point of Lucy’s arc in Snow’s journey to becoming the evil dictator is that he realizes she was a weakness to him and in the end he resolves to never get in a relationship that makes him soft and gets in the way of his ambition like she almost did. Which to me was like, oh, so whoever he married in the end he definitely didn’t have a very loving relationship with… I feel even more bad for whoever he ended up marrying! lol
He married one of his rivals from the school. Someone from a very wealthy family who hated his guts as much as he hated hers-but they both saw a political advantage to the union.
50:00 But he DID kill her, in a way. He DID become a killer. He first killed his "friend" (Sejanus). And then when Lucy didn't seem to fit into his plan anymore, he tried as best he could to kill her too, he really did. Whether we got to see a body or not is irrelevant. In our eyes he turned into that cold, vicious killer. The fact that we didn't get to see her be killed is simply more symbolical. It leaves us (and him) with the question: what really happened to her? Her spirit becomes a ghost, and it will haunt him forever, one way or another. I find this narrative to be more unique and special.
the issue with this movie is they've adapted a book where snow was ALWAYS like that - self centered to the point of narcissism, having little care for other people, putting his own interests (gaining power) first, extremely manipulative, literally just assassinates people whenever he wants for personal gain. and since the book is narrated by him, it's obvious from the beginning, though it gets more clear as the story progresses. this isn't a villain origin story, it's background information. mostly it's there to explain why exactly he was SO freaked out by katniss in the trilogy. the events of the rebellion in the trilogy were kind of this perfect storm to unsettle him. the source material isn't a corruption story (though i do like your idea for it). it's a story about someone who is already morally bankrupt starting his ascent to power. i think in the book it's actually extremely clear that he doesn't truly love lucy grey - he wants to POSSESS her. he gets upset whenever she starts talking about her family back home. the whole time he's in district 12 with her, he wants her to come back and live with him in the capitol, which is antithetical to her entire character. he knows this but he doesn't care about this at all. he just mentally adds another names to his list of people he wants power over but this time he thinks this is love. collins seems to have a decent handle on putting romance in her books without it undermining the message but the people who adapt her books into movies don't seem to understand her books
The ending of Lucy Gray is far more ambiguous in the book, and it reflects the poem by Wordsworth that her name is based on. Lucy Gray is a girl who gets lost in the snow and her parents track her footsteps, but when they reach the end, she isn’t there. Where did she go? We’ll never know, and same with our Lucy Gray. She’ll always be a mystery to Snow, a ghost that will always haunt him.
I knew nothing about the Hunger Games franchise before watching this movie. I was simply blown away at how masterfully, subtle and concise the character development of Snow was brought to the screen. From the beginning he is ambitious, charming and talented but also has a caring aspect which more and more starts to conflict with the opportunities life has to offer him. Snow isn't a psychopath, the urge to succeed in life simply overwhelms him at key points and leads him to suppress and unlearn his caring side. Having an inner monolog or making it more obvious that he is the bad guy would have ruined it for me.
This is exactly why I'm super interested to check out the book now. I absolutely adore the Hunger Games series, but never got around to reading TBOSAS because the concept of it alone made me a bit sceptical (reading a prequel from the "villains" perspective, who honestly doesn't even play that much of a vital role in the original series just didn't appeal very much to me at first glance). I watched the movie on a whim last week and was really captivated by it (though I have my criticism as to how it impacts the og series; and I do agree that the third part is weaker in comparison and this is where the more sympathetic portrayal of Snow in the first half starts working against itself a little) but I heard many people criticise that Snow's portrayal in the movie is "overly romanticised" and "too sympathetic" and how the book goes into detail about how narcissistic and self-serving he really is and how he views everyone as lesser than him through his inner monologue etc. And I'm really curious to see those differences because I'm not sure how much that would really add to his character arc. I really like how they handled it in the movie, because like you said he's not necessarily a good person, but he's not a sadistic psychopath who is incapable of caring for others either; what I find compelling and interesting is how it's all these small decisions, where his opportunism and sense of self-preservation wins out over his moral compass, that trickle down to him doubling down on this path of rigid control and paranoia. I think everyone who says "the movie makes it look like he just turned out this way because of a bad break-up" are really arguing in bad faith here and don't give it enough credit. The movie paints a pretty clear picture of how his environment, the relationships he builds (not ONLY Lucy Gray, but especially with Volumnia Gaul) and his own selfish impulses shape him into the person he becomes.
Is it dark? Yeah. But listen, if it’s not Snow and Lucy against the world, if the love’s not dark, if it’s not him and her against everything and everybody, I don’t want that love at all. (Wanted to comment for the algorithm but couldn't find anything not already mentioned...)
I dont know how the movie goes but the book his whole relationship with lucy grey and time in 12 is literally a summer break where hes doing some kind of field work internship for dr gaul. He doesn't realise it at the time but everthings a chore. He even considers not finding lucy because he gets bored spending his day off looking for her house. When they run he immediately knows its the wrong choice because his inner monologue is bitching about how its hot and humid and exercise urgh
It's funny how you explain Snow in the book to perfection when you mention how you want him to be. He literally goes after her because she's the only one left who could prevent him from having everything he wants. Power and returning to the capitol. He even sees it as a shame that she has to die but is so ready to do it all the same. I think the reason why Suzanne left it unclear if she died or not is because she wanted Snow to suffer with the knowledge that she got away and she knows all of his secrets. She was the one that truly got away with all he holds precious in her hands.
10:49 If I were going to give the film-makers more credit than they probably deserve, that might have been the point. Undercutting the emotional reaction is exactly why the character exists - he's there to impose an emotional barrier between the (in-universe) audience and the horror of what the games actually are. If not for him then there would be a far greater chance of the (in-universe) audience realizing just how messed up this entire thing is. In undercutting what should be an emotional moment for the _real_ audience, the film is trying to give them a sense of what that distancing feels like. I haven't seen the movie and I don't intend to, but you did say you wanted arguments in the comments, so... EDIT: 35:02 ...This is basically how Dungeon Masters and a good chunk of writers tend to work, actually.
It's not undeserved credit, it's very on point actually. Snow is the capitol, we are seeing Snow's pov everything is shown in the capitol mentality, so at the end you as an audience member can ask yourself "are we really that close to the capitol or not?" If we're laughing at the same jokes, cherring for one specif person to win, exited to see the games, how different are we from them? It's like people going around talking how Suzanne Collins message is so good and how evil the capitol was, and yet the book where the regime is put down is their least favorite book and they keep asking for books about Haymitch's and Finnick's games. It's all done in pourpose to see if the audience can make the conclusions by themselves, it's not spoon feed. Even Lucy Gray is presented very smartly from his view so at first he sees her as a sweet fragile girl and by the ends he sees her as a manipulative person, who is she really? The sweet? The manipualtive? Both? You're supposed to make your own mind about her, to believe in Snow's vision or not is the viewer's choice.
I honestly couldn’t really take Snow seriously, because his hairstyles just developed from Draco Malfoy to Eminem. My autistic brain was just too focused on the comparisons. I still enjoyed the movie though. Like you said it was entertaining and now I’m going to read the book to see the original material they worked with.
But you can see him struggling with the duality of his nature all through out the movie, its not just random hippie moment, he is battling between some of the humanity he still has and just because he chills out in a meadow with lucy doesnt mean that he wasnt debating about weather this is what he really wants. There are moments with Tigris where she makes him want to believe that he is good, but he chooses not to see the good in the world .Also the reason why he snitched on sajanus was because that was another way of him getting to the Capitol, once again, him choosing power over humanity. At the end of the day ofc he only cares about power, but as a young adult he is still making himself believe that his actions are justified, it is the progression of his calculation and basically in the end he chose the dark side :D and i think that the killing moment with lucy gray, he was just starting to get paranoid and seeing everyone just as calculating as himself. There is a possibility that lucy gray just said the things she did when he found the guns just random, but it was his twisted nature that did not trust her and I dont think the scarf was for real, it was possibly not intentional on her part, Snow was just losing his shit.
You keep saying that Coriolanus betrayed Sejanus for no reason, but I disagree. Just going off of what was in the movie (I haven’t read the book either), Coriolanus realized that being friends with someone who openly associated and sympathized with rebels could implicate him by association and possibly lead to him getting hanged himself, while throwing Sejanus under the bus would save his career, possibly his life, and potentially earn him brownie points with the regime (which it ended up doing). In other words, his thought process might have been”this guy is gonna get hanged eventually if he keeps talking like that, so I might as well turn him in to keep my hands clean”
You might feel differently if you read the book. When I read it, I never pictured Corio as being very handsome, even if he was described that way, because he never acts or feels as if that's an important part of his character. He and Katniss actually do have a fair amount in common, in that they are both rather emotionless, but because of harsh practicality, and a need to take care of their families in circumstances beyond their control. They also both don't draw many moral lines around what they'll do to protect them, but where Katniss merely becomes an effective killer, Snow transforms into a monster, and it's all down to what is different in their natures. The book presents Corio as perhaps even being led on by Lucy in the romance, he's really just trying to win the competition and sort of caring about her as a means to that end. when he's kicked out to 12 she becomes the best of a bad lot more than the girl he gave up everything for. The ending does come out of nowhere, but it's meant to show his broken and distrustful nature, and the whole story is meant to show the tragedy of how close he came to not creating decades of the hunger games, and just living a happy life in obscurity. It was his own choices, and not anything the world threw at him though, that spoiled it, and I found the book a more effective dramatic turn than the movie could accomplish. Oh, and if anyone cares, the book does establish that she did make it safely back to her people, The Covey, though it's not specific on how.
Just remember, the movie never romanticized Snow nor the relationship between Lucy and Snow. The naive viewer romanticized Snow. I saw the story as a test to your discernment of people’s motives and behaviors. Snow being passionate about a blood bath game was the first red flag. He wanted there to be a hunger games and even pitched ideas to make it more interesting but to the viewer he wanted to give the players comfort before they enter the game. He just wanted to win and get the money for him and his family
I think a lot can be attributed to people writing from accumulated intertextuality (all the stuff they previously read, all the accumulated tropes and cliches) rather than writing from real life. I think the great, still-successful female writers of the past (e.g. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Lucy Maud Montgomery) built their characters greatly from their own real-life observations of actual people. That's why Emma, Kingsley, Jane, Anne... still feel fresh and compelling.
After seeing the movie, I went home thinking "What was the point?" After reading the book, I decided it could be argued the plot has a similar lesson to Crime and Punishment. (When you ignore you conscience, it will drive you crazy in the end). But yes, the movie leaves you confused. I also don't like watching the games on screen, since this feels like being the audience in the book who "shouldn't enjoy watching". This franchise was never the most ethically fulfilling.
The hamfisted love triangle in the original series also ruined how seriously I could take it at the time. Although it otherwise had some interesting themes and the Capitol is an interesting parallel to certain things these days.
The manner in which you’re describing Lucy Gray is manic pixie dream girl - which I didn’t think about but makes sense. I went into that movie on a Friday night not familiar with either of the lead actors and came out feeling like it was Sunday but being very impressed by both of them.
I actually thought the ending was quite interesting. Did he kill her or not? I think if he had killed her, that would have been the end of it. However, the ending lets her haunt him. Forever. I think that for all the faults of the film (as I think I mentioned, the transition from page to screen meant we lost a lot of characterisation), I didn't have a problem with the mysterious ending. It fitted with Lucy Grey as a character out of a ballad-- she just vanishes into thin air at the end and is never seen again, to wander forever. Snow shoots at what he thinks is Lucy Grey, follows what he thinks is a trail of her footsteps, and then... no body. Just empty air. The trail of footprints just stops. There's no sign of her dead or alive. And Snow might never have seen her in the first place. She left a venomous snake under her cloak that bit him. He was probably losing his mind with snake venom at this point. He might be hallucinating ever seeing her in the first place, because snake venom is addling his brain. The interesting thing is: did she want to kill him? Was this snake to kill him before he kills her? Or just to punish him a little bit? In fact, I have a little theory. Snow puts the handkerchief in the snake box during the Games to try to save Lucy Grey. But he fails and the snakes kill her in the arena. The reason Act 3 is so inconsistent in terms of Snow's characterisation is because the Lake Hippy plotline is all in his imagination. Because the handkerchief, with which he *tried and failed* to save Lucy Grey is found and he's sent to District 12. He uncovers the rebels and reports them, gets Sejanus executed and all the rest of it. So that he can go back the Capitol, get a career, win back the family fortunes etc. But *in his mind* he sees Lucy Grey again in the pub and they fall in love and play lake hippies. And then the ending, his imagination is breaking down and colliding with reality. He runs away "with Lucy" (but she's not really there) and the whole scenario of her running away, leaving a snake under the cloak, his hallucination of her in the wood, shooting at her, following her footsteps and there's no body, is because *there never was*. She was eaten by snakes in the arena and the lake hippy storyline is only in his mind.
I liked the movie, but never thought it was a love story. It's a villain origin story (duh). Perhaps it's because, even though I haven't read the book, I understood that he's the snake and she's the songbird? Have people forgotten what he does in The Hunger Games? I guess they have. In any case, it peaked my interest enough to want to read the book, which I have bought and want to read this month, if possible. I want to add that there will always be people who get wrapped up in the good looks of someone (whether it's a man or a woman). And I guess I just have to say "good luck" to those people. I can only imagine that dating a narcissist isn't fun nor something to aim for. But some people blind themselves.
I felt the same way about this movie. I asked my friend what she thought of it and she was empathic towards Snow. She even said he was just 'misunderstood.' I really don't like how people see this film as a love story. When the main character kills children. He is not swoon worthy. And it was nice to hear someone say this. Thanks Galatea. (I hope that's how you spell your name). If I spelled it wrong, I am so sorry.
Yeah I never saw him that way. In fact I projected my poor dating experience on to his character. Fell for a guy like him and someone like Lucy Grey did what I couldn’t do for myself. I appreciated the movie not romanticizing him. We the viewers are at fault for romanticizing him. The movie was like a test to see how tolerable you are to cruel evil people.
I personally came into the movie knowing nothing except a few anecdotes that snow was the main villain of the original books/movies. I cannot stand the man....no he was not misunderstood, I just noted as many readers seem to think: that his internal thoughts are not portrayed well in this, but his unfavourable actions speak for themselves. He is heartless and had the chances to change in the movie, but he only sought what would benefit himself, without ever considering the consequences it would have for EVERYONE around him.
I felt like Snow was a Narc and good at the manipulating, gaslighting was all about him being spoiled rich child; lost money an wanted to not be poor and starve. He rather just destroy anyone in his way of it. And Lucy was also in his way to being the monster he just wanted to be. Using the girl as he convoluted, on going back to becoming rich again. With his heart not having to be used, threw away all feelings. So much PRIDE. THE MAN SAW FEELINGS AS A PROBLEM AND DIDN'T WANT THEM. USED Lucy to be stepping stone to greatness.
I have been saying this exact thing for ages! Every time the "bad boy" is made sad and gorgeous by a YA author the writer in me reminisces about teen me and RAGES
What about this: Dont have Snow rat out his buddy yet, but have them all be back at the capital like was suggested in the video, have him get away with his snake cheating with just a slap on the wrist because his other contributions to the games worked SO WELL to help sensationalize and engage with the audience to pull in more money and numbers. They're in the capital, she's his trophy prize, she's his little Songbird singing to the people, but Lucy's spirit doesn't die and she's using her platform to sneak in rebal code and freedom language, (something that Snow might even be aware of but actively chooses to not stop because is helps with his big-brain underdog engagement of the games and the districts since 'a little hope is helpful') but Lucy is doing TOO much, She's becoming TOO dangerous and manipulative as an Icon and Snow realizes as it's happening that he's "catching himself slipping" essentially and being TOO charmed by HIS Songbird. Lucy is just as much of a 'manipulator' in the sense of being a survivor and performer who knows the heart of the audience she's reaching out to and how to walk the line, but she's not Snow because she's not a controlling psychopathic child murderer... well not _voluntarily_ anyway. But Lucy is doing rebel shit behind the scenes, maybe even with Snow's Friend which makes him EXTRA jealous and pissed off, and the tensions between them reaches a breaking point as the other is too dangerous too survive. Moves are made, like Lucy tries to poison Snow or something while something gets sabataged, but it goes WRONG because Snow has ALWAYS been 5 steps ahead of Lucy the whole time. So Lucy, Sejanus, and two other rebel sympathizers flee in a vehicle and Snow has that shit SHOT DOWN. But only three bodies can be recovered (harkening to the Hanging Tree line) and Lucy's isn't there. Maybe she escaped the crash to die later, maybe she got obliterated, maybe she was dragged off by animals, who knows.... But Snow doesn't. All he knows is she will forever haunt him because he "can't catch me now." He'll never see her again, yet will see her EVERYWHERE, in the spirit of every child, in the face of determination, in the hope dancing in people's eyes. And he will kill it, over and over and over again. Because he _has_ to to bring order. But he can never CATCH the echoing of that songbird's melody. _But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze My footsteps on the ground You'll see my face in every place But you can't catch me now Through wading grass, the months will pass You'll feel it all around I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere But you can't catch me now._
Truthfully, your rambling thought process is one of the reasons I enjoy your channel. Your scripted videos are truly pleasurable as well as informative but your talking off the cuff videos are well worth the time spent enjoying them. When I see the length of the video, I usually get a snack and a drink so I can fully enjoy the coming excursion.
You know this bs quote 'A hero will sacrifice you to save the world, a villain will sascrifice the world to save you blah blah blah'? Apart from it being logistically unreasonable (you are in the world, if it ends, you're done anyway), it's not true. A villain will murder you with his bare hands to rule the world and it'll take him 5 minutes to persuade himself it's actually all your fault. That's what they should've shown us - Lucy Gray either being murdered or killing herself if they couldn't go through with the murder because she couldn't submit to his worldview and him having nothing else to lose and everything to gain. Shame. That being said, looking forward to hear you rambling about women abd bad boys!
also considering Lucy Grey was made out to be a rebel who hates the capitol, her falling in love with Snow within basically the first scene felt a bit weird.
I don't think she really did at first... I think she was trying to survive, and using feminine tactics, flirting and acting sweet, to do so. Snow was manipulating her too, but they both wanted to win the games. While they were using each other, their goals were the same. I think they were attracted to each other, but not in love....
If Snow’s internal monologue would’ve been made plain and obvious he wouldn’t have been able to manipulate everyone, nor would he have charmed Lucy Gray. I’m seeing a lot of comments about how Snow should’ve narrated the entire movie but that would’ve hindered the film’s quality. If we heard all of his thoughts we would’ve been babyfed the information we needed to foresee everything. Snow’s looks were his greatest asset in TBOSAS. Not only did his looks help him fool the characters in TBOSAS they also helped fool the viewers. There were constant red flags and even murder before Act 3 yet many people still didn’t assume he would do what he eventually did. Many people still think Lucy Gray was in the wrong and believe Snow was a good person manipulated by her. It’s important that we don’t hear his thoughts. That’s what’s so great, you don’t know because you’re in the same shoes as everyone else in the story.
I think the reason he has a tantrum after his friend is executed is because he really didn't expect it. He knew Sejanus would get into trouble, certainly, but there's a theme in the movie where Coryo is kind of jealous of Sejanus because his father's money can get him out of anything. He even yells at Sejanus at some point saying that if he gets caught as a rebel his father will just pay his way out. I think he was genuinely surprised he was executed. As for the reason he betrayed him, I should it's pretty clear, if not well executed in the film. It's to get Gall's attention. To somehow convince her to get him back to the capital. Granted it's not well done, very unclear, but I think that's the reason. He never actually wanted to stay with Lucy Gray. You can tell he's always hesitating. The only moment he's sure is when he has no other option cause he's gonna be caught for the shooting. And then he jist kind of accepts the situation. But up to that point he's not really planning on staying there. He's just making the most out of a bad situation. He's fond of her, but I doubt he falls in love
There's another option for character dynamic between the two. He could start as the idealistic young rich man who wants to change society for the better (kind of a stereotype of the idelistic upper class college student) and he falls in love with this girl who is everything he would want the lower class to be. Full of energy, charismatic, talented, kind etc. Only for the story to reveal that it is an act from her part. She is the one using him. He is her way out of the lower classes. She is a manipulator and an opportunist. By the time he realizes what has happened she has "groomed" him to be more vicious, more ambitious, he is no longer doing anything to improve the lives of those less fortunate than him, he is doing everything for him and his new partner and he realizes that he likes it. As she believes she has reached her goal, living a confortable live and even helping her compatriots with charity work, improving living vonditions in her district etc she realizes that the one who is playing an act now is him. He ends up using her as a virtue signal, the poor girl from the lower districts he uplifted from poverty, his front a story to make him more sympathetic to people that are like him just a few years ago. His political pawn. He turns into the master manipulator, cold logic and ambition. When he starts changing the Hunger Games into this more extreme and cruel spectacle she tries to escape from him and he ends up killing her to remove the one weakness he had because in many ways both had developed genuine feelings for each other but the relationship was as toxic as it gets. Hell, make it that when he kills her she is pregnant. Go full edgy. She thought she was going to have a good life with a well meaning rich young man and even help people but she ended up helping create a tyrant. To summarize: Twist #1: Young Snow looks like a good guy Twist #2: "Esmeralda" is revealed to be self serving and a social climber Twist #3: "Esperalda" and Snow seem to make things better for the poor Twist #4: "Esmeralda" realizes he is the one manipulating her now, all the charity was a front and Snow has turned into a monster
I have soooo much to say but I'll start with this: Coryo did love Lucy Gray but the question isn't that. The question is what type of love was it and was it in the long run good? Now I agree the movie didn't do a good enough job fleshing that out especially in the third act since the thing was already 3 hrs long. But apparently there is a 4 hr cut laying dormant somewhere so lets hope that comes out some day. I'm going to leave this passage here: *After lights out, Coriolanus lay beaming. Lucy Gray was not only alive, she was in 12 and he would reunite with her next weekend. His girl. His love. His Lucy Gray. They had survived the dean, the doctor and the Games somehow. Afterall the weeks of fear and yearning and uncertainty, he would wrap her in his arms and never let her go.*
44:24 whilst i understand what you’re trying to say, I don’t think either of those two options would’ve done the story any justice. Lucy Gray would never double down on her morals or live in the Capitol. In the movie, when they’re talking about their futures she explicitly tells him that the Capitol isn’t for her. She wouldn’t want to stay somewhere where she was almost killed, away from the Covey and from music. Which is why the setting being in district 12 is important. Coriolanus is allowed to be away from Capitol pressure and expectations, and in the book he makes friends whilst also being able to fall in love. He was given everything but still made the decision and choice to leave. In the book he actually decided to take the officer training test himself rather than it being thrust upon him by the police guy. It answers the questions to “what if” because he was allowed to live away from the Capitol and he chose not to because he believes he’s superior to them and wants power. With the second one, Lucy Gray isn’t stupid enough to stay with someone who could possibly want to harm her. She’s a smart girl which is why she escaped as soon as she catches onto Coriolanus’s lie. Coriolanus hid the fact that he was supposed to leave for officer training, breaking her trust. She says “you were going to leave” and they didn’t talk about it since. That festered until the three men lie, which he didn’t answer. He did try to kill her and shot the bullet without hesitation, showcasing how despite loving her previously he wouldn’t mind killing people close to him. He just didn’t find the body, which suggests that she escaped. This makes the entire thing haunting when, 65 years later Katniss comes up. Coupled with the hanging tree song, it’s as if his past is haunting him again, like the mockingbirds in the forest. He’s paranoid now because he doesn’t know where she is or if he’s losing his mind.
Just parts I liked don’t mind me. 32:10 his ambition in forming the games 37:00 romanticism lmfao 40:11 moments of gentleness 45:15 power outside of circumstances 47:09 lucy gray the songbird and coriolanus as the snake 48:29 charming coriolanus 1:14:57 character study 1:18:48 controlling 1:28:59 lucy gray’s death 1:33:34 choice 1:35:35 mother
As someone who recently joined your cult, I must say it is a wonderful experience and I highly recommend everyone who watches this to sign up for it too. Not only are the videos fun, and Galatea engaging, but there's also heaps of cool-aid, so why wouldn’t you want to join and praise our lady Galatea? Please join, if you don’t I’ll be sent to the woodshed, and I don’t think I’ll make it out. I hope I haven’t said too much, oh God what have I done? Please help…
i totally get what you mean at 11:05 , and i agree i wish they had handled that scene better, but i thought it was very intentional. the book and movie are meant to be from snow’s pov, so i felt it was another way of making the audience witness the games the way someone like him would’ve experienced it? if that makes any sense
He snitched on his 'buddy'--Sejanus ain't his buddy, really, Snow never quite liked him because he thought it would help me go back to the Capitol. I think he was not fully prepared to watch him be executed. He likely thought Sejanus's parents would just buy the authority and in return, Snow would be considered 'loyal' despite his transgression and would open paths for him to return and successfully redeem his family's name.
This movie was so rushed, the scenes just seemed like a checklist. Plot - exposition. Even the character of Snow was barely established. The 3rd act was actually the strongest, when they were doing their own thing, where the film had time to breath and scenes were character building instead of rushing through the plot
The hunger games would’ve been great if it was just peeta without gale and an identical love story playing out but without gale involved. However the franchise wouldn’t have been nearly as popular without gales inclusion to the story. This is because It’s a young adult novel, young adults like to read young adult novels, and young adults love romance/love triangles.
@@briansledzzz3493 As a young adult, I read them DESPITE the love triangles, not because of them. Thought they'd be better without. Just like how agents and publishers demand everyone be an orphan for no good reason when families are infinitely more interesting.
@@briansledzzz3493it wouldn't be the same without Gale though. He provides major internal conflict for Katniss, not in an "omg which one should I choose" way, but he's an instance of the Capitol exerting their control in small ways that force her to choose between playing their game or doing what she thinks is right. He and Peeta are also symbols for Katniss's entire arc. It's not a simple "should I choose my hot bad boy childhood friend or my hot soft boy", it's a choice between peace or hate. The times that she leans toward Gale are also the points in the story that she's experiencing the most rage, pain, and turmoil. The points where she's with Peeta are when the world makes the most sense to her. Without Gale her choice to be with Peeta in the end would not be nearly as impactful. It's symbolic of her choice to be happy
I would venture to guess that most of us subscribers enjoy your obsessively long rants and have subscribed in anticipation of them anyway. XD Also I think it would have been interesting if he'd poisoned Lucy because, while not as personal as strangulation, it is still a point of no return, fits his character, and in his mind he could say he wasn't the direct killer (it was the snake) and it was "necessary".
I think she did die in the end- the poem she was named after is about a girl who dies in a lake, and I think them discussing it was trying to imply she meets the same fate. He shoots her, she tries to get somewhere safe, and falls into the lake. But obviously its left open ended
44:30 here's an idea I kind of like in a messed up way. As she sees more and more of Snow's evil actions, she begins to resent him and males attempts to rip his power from him. He stops here every time, and tension grows between them. She eventually gets so desperate, that she threatens to off herself if Snow doesn't change his ways, because her life is the only thing that Snow cares about that she has the power to ruin. She could either just do it, or Snow struggles to choose her instead of his power, leading her to take her life. Let her die with the power, and give Snow a reason why he's so desperate to hold onto power, so he never has to lose it to anyone again. Either this or him killing her is cool though. It would hit hard and actually fit with their characters.
Honestly, I watched the movie bc. of Lucy Gray (bc of her Esmeralda look). I adored her style and presence. The book is amazing and doesn't romanticize this relationship at all, it shows as doomed and impossible to realize. The absence of the inmer monologue of Snow takes off the heart of the story in the movie.
I think people who find YA unsatisfying should try The Chronicles of Narnia. Those stories have a lot of the charm of YA but were written by someone who really cared about both making sense AND making a point.
@@Butterfly-ll7mm they are written for kids and they are written on a YA reading level but still interesting for adults. That makes them a good alternative to current YA books which tend to have stupid plots, unbearable Mary Sue characters, and poorly articulated points.
@@themostbestwizardwritten for kids and written at a young adult level? I think that doesn’t mean what you think. Young adults today read on a child level compared to just a generation ago! 😂
I think there are 2 major issues with this movie, one is the book to movie problem of not getting the characters inner thoughts. But there's also the issue of missing red flags, like not visiting the his classmate in the hospital. The fact that they changed some of that storyline in the movie is a part of the problem. In the book she was so disthrought over the death of their classmate (that was btw also part of this project in the book and none of them volunteered themselves for it like in the movie) that she couldn't really do the group project. Both of them agreed to put it off but Snow cared so much for his grades and winning he decided to do the project anyway by himself. She also didn't know the snakes wouldn't harm her (neither did Snow tbf). So that combination of lacking his inner thoughts and the lack of some the red flags from the book seems to be the major issue with this movie.
I wouldn't say it's out of nowhere. She had a few times where she doubted him and even the scene where he tells her he got an order to go to district 1, and she repeated "You were going to leave?' and he didn't really respond he just passed it by and she remembered but still had hope she could have him.
As someone who only watched the movie and didn't read the book, Snow's turn toward the dark side definitely felt a bit sudden, but I had chalked it up to being a result of some kind of trauma reaction that initially kicked off when he killed a person for the first time. There was that moment in part 2 where he talked about that experience, as if in a state of shock, about how it made him feel powerful, and it was hard to tell if he was amazed and/or disturbed by it. It seemed to me that that experience tied into his words at the end of the movie, that the Hunger Games were there to remind everyone of their brutal animalistic natures. So I had assumed that this little revelation of his also gave him serious trust issues with everyone, since he maybe thought that everyone had a selfish, murderous shadow deep down inside, and that he was afraid that he could only trust himself to look after his own interests, which was how he could betray Sejanus while being so conflicted over it. He could certainly try to justify his own behavior by saying that he's also just a creature looking out for himself by any means necessary. Then he had that PTSD-like psychotic break when he tried to kill Lucy because he didn't trust her not to turn him in... ...well anyways, that theory is how I made sense of it all lol. Trauma causing someone already on the fence to take a turn for the worse. It's interesting to hear that he was actually a pretty rotten guy from start to finish, since the movie definitely portrayed him as more sympathetic in the beginning, though still a bit morally ambiguous or neutral. I'll have to pick up the book to check it out!
@10:53 Yeah, the fact you thought it made light of this tragedy sounds like the point. The people hosting and watching the games do not care, right? What is one more child after watching so many? Isn't the whole bit to show how little they value the life of others?
i think in your version where she ends up as his trapped wife who resents him it would be interesting if he still killed her through poison, which would keep the "snake" aspect of him and also be personal, as he would have to look at her in the eyes while they shared a meal. it would also keep some ambiguity on her end, on if she knew her food was poisoned but still went through with it as it would free her from her loveless toxic life in a way.
First, I just want to say I'm so happy you posted this video! Lately most of your content has been geared towards the current political discourse (which is fine, I still enjoy those videos), however, what I've always loved the most about your channel has been your commentary on storytelling, and I've missed it quite a bit. 10:58 About the glossing over of the child's death: I actually think it's fine the way it's portrayed in the movie, in the sense that that's the Capitol's POV, we get to see the "event" through their eyes and through their curated narrative. 13:28 Aaaah, I'm not here for the Rachel Zegler slander! Lol, jokes aside, I think she's a great actress, singer and performer, and truly believe they casted the perfect Lucy Gray Baird, but I kind of get where you're coming from here. 26:31 For me, in the movie, it didn't come across at all that Snow was enjoying district 12 more. You could see every now and then how he felt disgust and whatnot, and his superiority complex seemed to come out at times. Also, he's a bit of a liar here, sometimes even lying to himself. Of course, this is seen more clearly in the book, but I did see glimpses of his disdain about the districts throughout the movie and even during part three. 36:33 Ok, the part of his "attractiveness" being seen as something negative doesn't make sense to me. Does he have to look completely unappealing to showcase he's actually evil? I think it comes across quite clearly from the beginning that he's a selfish and truly horrible person. If there are people (girls, especifically), that after watching the movie become obsessed with his image and turn him into their new crush, well, I truly believe that speaks more on them than on the directors/writers/actors abilities. I don't think this is AT ALL the typical case of romantization of awful characters that we tend to see in YA. Snow IS the villain, and he's showcased AS the villain throughout the movie. Yes, he lies, and he betrays, and he attracts people with his fake smiles, and many times it's hard to discern what truly goes on behind his head just by following his actions, but that doesn't mean that they were painting him like the "good guy", or that they (the writers/directors) were giving us a romanticized version of a bad guy. There's nuance there. I've still got to finish the video, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Thanks, Galatea! Happy New Year! :)
I usually agree to the last note with your analysis, but having read the book, I interpret the part of the betrayal (the third act, so to speak) under a different light. The thing about the book is, it's narrated from his point of view, so you get into his mindset more easily, while the movie tried to be elusive about his real intentions instead (to what degree of success is up to each one to judge.) Again, having read the book, I don't think you ever really interpret the scenes with Lucy Gray as falling in love. It's another power play. Yes, at the beginning there is infatuation because she is charming and new, as you accuratedly exposed, but she is also wild like a bird and he wants to cage her. He's all about control, a control he feels like he's continually sacrifising in his everyday life when they change things around his plans. He's a plotter. I also feel like the romantisation of the country life from the upper classes is the theme of the third act; he's getting in touch with a more free, relaxed way of living, where nobody depends on him, he's just another number, no surname, no prestige to uphold, and for someone that always has someone's eyes fixated on his back, that's liberating. But the spell fades quickly, especially when Sejanus (in the book Snow more often dispises him than not, it's not much of a friendship that tolerating) is acting up and about to get him into unnecessary trouble. He betrays him because he knows that means points to him for returning to the Capitol, and he owes loyaty to nobody but himself. But it's the early stages of him totally cutting ties with the humanity he has left, and I believe that's the reason for the tantrum. The ending feels rushed, true, as in everything starts to happen, and all he thinks about is keeping Lucy (in the book he's learnt she might have prostit*ted herself for survival and is getting reaaaaaally paranoid and possesive about it), so thinking he just blew his last opportunity to go back home, he scapes. Until yet another opportunity presents itself...
as far as Lucy Gray goes you talked about her acting being "too much" like a kid putting on a mask, which I think was intentional to an extent because she is canonically 16 in the book, so it makes sense that the act would still be slightly out of place. also the proper word is romani/roma, not g*psy, that's considered a slur just for future reference. Also I think Snow's development makes sense. Snow has been thorn between being good and evil from the start, just think about him saving Sejanus and beating a kid to death in the same scene. His acting in act 3 makes sense. I think he saw a moment of reprise in lucy gray instead of genuine love and the moment anything went wrong he snapped out of it. Also snow was never a rebel, he wanted to protect Lucy, not the people
I noticed that a lot of AO’s thoughts on the movie were accurate but she assumed it was not intentional. I can’t blame her for it because I think the movie doesn’t make it super clear what it’s going for a lot of the time, but for example she was like “the scene where Lucy Gray sings for the first time was supposed to be empowering but I found it really cringe” - but the book makes it very clear that everyone’s reaction was to cringe.
I think we should try to separate mind and desires. You can be attracted by some bad boys because they’re hot, but deep down there should always be a piece of mind keeps reminding you that this isn’t a good partner and you should never let him come close in real life. Sometimes people are locked in loops of trauma. They just keep being attracted to the same type of toxic people again and again. Only with a conscious mind they can break free from the circle. It’s very important to understand what you actually need and what is just a desire/impulse of the moment. The red pill guys fail to understand that we are creatures with brain and the ability to choose. There are some annoying tricks embedded in our bodies that sometimes work against our best interests (like freeze response in many people while being sexually harassed), but as the most intelligent creatures on the earth, we can train ourselves out of these things we don’t like. We are coded a certain way, yes, but that’s not all who we are.
16:05 I think the word you're looking for is "alluring" or more so "beguiling" given the deceptive survivalist nature in which Lucy uses her feminine charisma.
I am so happy that I found your channel. Your thoughts are always so insightful. Thank you for sharing them with the world. Edit: And I say this as someone who only had - at best - a passing interest in the Hunger Games movies. Your analysis is far more interesting than the movies themselves, at least for me.
I think the simplest answer to the YA problem is the very best are adult writers who can think like a teenager lost in a fantasy, the majority of adults in a teenage, fantastical mindset are those who were/are abused, which leads to a disproportionate amount of idealizing abusive personalities. The "cream" rises to the top of the industry, but when all you drink is cream it makes you sick.
Ooh, I would love it if you were to read the book and review it. I do think the direction was poor and it felt like it was in fast forward, with many critical points exempted. The book tells us the story with his thoughts and motivations explained throughout, and the movie fell on its face trying to convey anything.
Galatea: "This video is too long so I'm going to record an insert where I explain that the video is too long and explain another video yet to come. By the way, did I mention this video is too long? This video is too long. Bye! Anyway, I have another video coming soon so let me talk about that for a little bit!" Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel. Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon. Like a carousel that's turning, running rings around the moon. Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face, and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space. Like the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind... 🤭 Anyway, to pre-empt the video on YA fiction: it'll be because of the female power fantasy of redeeming a man through virtue, therefore showing how great the woman is. All his bad deeds beforehand, and good deeds after the redemption by her hand will serve to show just how great the female protagonist is and also feed the female power fantasy. The male equivalent power fantasy is the "I can fix her!" saviour complex where the man believes he can rescue the damsel from all her often self-inflicted life troubles when he really shouldn't (Scott Pilgrim vs the World). In a way, Not-Esmeralda unintentionally taught Snow (an Evil Sorcerer archetype) some of the tactics of an Evil Sorceress archetype and, seeing the value of that approach, combined both together for a more effective blend of tyranny.
I've not read the prequel or seen the movie, but I have read and seen the original trilogy. To add onto what was said about the parallels and also differences between Lucy and Katniss. If you think about it, in the books a Mockingjay (if I remember correctly) is able to reflect back voices (I might be thinking the jabberjay but as far as I know Mockingjays are a mix of bluebirds and mockingbirds and aren't real birds irl??), but the idea that Katniss is a "mockery" or a reflection of Lucy in Snow's eyes
Jabberjays record voices when are programmed to and only repeat it when you want them to. Mockingjays repeat anything they hear and they don't stop. You are correct. "The show is not over untill the mockingjay sings" -Lucy Gray Baird about how mockingjays always repeat the last words of the hangged in the hangging tree for hours after their death. "She could fly around district 12 all she liked, but her and her mockingjays could never harm him again" -Coriolanus Snow's last thought about Lucy Gray in tbosas.
I'm so sorry Im at work so I haven't watched the video but... Snow is like not rebellious in any meaningful way, how is he a bad boy? I hate that guys like Kylo Ren and Draco Malfoy (wanna be fascists) are considered 'bad boys' while characters like Finn in the force awakens on the run, rebelling and essentially leaving a death squad style military, is a 'soft' choice. I'm sry but Kylo is no Han Solo, it's so odd what we classify as 'bad boys' now
I always return to your channel, whatever you do, but I have to admit, I'd love to see you doing more media analysis! I first came to your channel through the Shadowhunters reviews (only the first four parts were released at the time) and I always found your media-related video very interesting! But whatever you do, I hope you'll have a great year, in real life and in your creative life!
Had a thought concerning act 3. So, the rigging of the hunger games would have absolutely been massive news across the capital, and in response I think both the population of the capital AND the districts would want retribution, but for different reasons. The capital because their favorite television program was a farce, and the districts because if Snow hadn't rigged it, then maybe their kid would have been the one to make it home. I think it would have been far more interesting if Snow attempted to escape the capital after going full love bird with Lucy but is captured by the peacekeepers and forced to kill her on live television, or he and the rest of his family would be executed by the state. He kills her, causing him to backslide into his old ways, while coming to the conclusion that it is better to be the one holding the reins of power, than to be free of them. I believe this would also add to the ending of the first movie, showing that by being willing to sacrifice herself, Katniss achieved what he could not. Edit: I'd just like to point out that this would only work in a universe where Snow is someone who is actually capable of being redeemed, not a complete sociopath.
@ayoa1173 Good question. So after the execution, Snow devotes himself entirely to the capital and the hunger games. His experience having rigged the games before is utilized to catch other would-be cheaters, ensuring the games go off without a hitch. Each time Snow catches someone, the capital broadcasts the perpetrators punishment and Snow makes sure everyone knows it was him who caught the cheater, further increasing his notoriety while simultaneously propping him up as a paragon of the games, rather than a cheater. He then later uses this fame to propel himself into a career in politics, and eventually the presidency.
I haven't seen the movie or the book, so this may not be appropriate for the story. But I'd argue it is possible for a love story that starts from a genuine place, where there is real, sincere affection and care between two characters that could have lasted in different circumstances...which is then destroyed because of a divergence of values between them. Perhaps something similar to John Smith from Man in the High Castle, where Snow pursues his ambitions initially to protect himself and Lucy...only for his growth in power to drag him deeper into the evil ideals that drive the Capitol as a society, eventually leading him to sacrifice what he was initially trying to save. In this framing, his love isn't proven false, but is rather forsaken in favor of a new love. In some ways, that may even be worse: where you might say that the relationship with the false lover had been a lie from the start, the relationship with the true lover was something real that the true lover consciously destroyed. It's the difference between the spy and the traitor. The former is an outside threat to be wary of and your enemy by default; the latter is someone that only your friend can become, and is consequently the truer betrayal.
@10:12 Honestly, it seems like NOT letting the audience dwell on it perfectly sums up the themes of the Games, no? This is film is done from the PoV of the upper crust, is it not? The viewers(in universe) don't care. Thats kinda the point. You thought it should be a moment of reflection but it is simply a "Gee golly folks, that was wild! Anyways, a word from our sponsors." *A thing to note. I have not watched/read the books. Just going off of cultural osmosis and your summary.
I feel like we should have gotten more of the side of Lucy Grey making Snow fall for her despite knowing who he really is for the last part to make sense, it feels like there was a scene that was cut
@@GottEddy it's actually because a lot of women have unresolved trauma from their father that makes them attracted to assholes before they resolve it and then assholes are no longer appealing anymore. The problem is fiction encourages this idea that you can love toxic men into good men which is not reality. The majority of toxic men do not change.
Hey so I’m writing a Novel about a guy like this; from his demonstration of a never ending cycle of justification - its a really interesting perspective used for social critique - hopefully by next couple of videos ill be able to share a title. Also, incredible video. Your way of synthesis in combination with humour is, in many respects, an attitude thats certainly served me well - amazing to see it in someone else but at a higher level, really is extraordinary.
@11:05 By the sound of it they didnt drop the ball. They showed you the brutality of indifference, no? See, you had "tension" that needed "released", it was why you were expecting/needing a cathartic moment. But in this society, what is one more dead child?
@11:01 But there are already movies that show the brutality of this regime, no? Also, why would this one be "special"? Should not the first one have shown you how bad they are? Or the second? The third? How many were killed before this one? Did the others get an "anime flashback" moment that this one was denied?
This video was absolutely wild. I loved every moment of your mad ramblings. Subscribed! (also your version of the story was so much better. Thanks. Bye)
I totally agree with the fact that he should’ve killed her at the end. As well as strangulation being the method of doing so. It was scary how poetic it would've been. Like a snake, a python slowly tightening his grip around his prey. His eyes becoming more cold-blooded as he snuffs out her voice. It was the songbird’s power, her most effective tool. But by her “lovers” hands would never fly or sing again. And he would fulfill his role as the “snake” killing in order to survive the wild wicked whims of nature or in this case the capital. For someone who loves control he himself is a puppet controlled by his vices and the capital he hold in such high esteem.
In the book, we get Snow's inner voice. Snow in the book makes a lot more sense as a character than in the film. The problem is with the transition from page to screen. We no longer have access to his inner monologue so we no longer see his ambition and desire for power. We only see the charming façade he presents to the world.
this part being missing makes it so awkward to watch.....like no doubts tom blythe's portrayal as coriolanus is handsome, but i was like why are we just watching him barely make any facial expressions and staring blankly at people the whole movie in absolute SILENCE?
@@MikuHatsune159Right? His performance was so… emotionless most of the time. I don’t know if that’s his fault or the director’s but Snow had more personality in the book.
Slithering in your garden, catchin' me a mouse
He ruined the film because he wasn't that hot.
;)
For movies where there is sweetness that's actually manipulative, I would have to recommend Gaslight (1944 film.) Hope that helps :)
Where / How on Earth did you find the Snake guy?
😅😅@@MikAlexander
@@ehdrake which is where the term gaslighting comes from
What I don’t understand is people saying it was stupid to make him handsome. They don’t understand that that’s one of the reasons he got far in life. He was extremely charismatic and handsome, and basically blindsided everyone. Pretty privilege is extremely real, and all these fan girls are literally just proving one of the points of the book lmao.
I highly concur, extremely gorgeous people seem to get more privelges, simply because of their connections or appearances.
@@trinaq exactly! Also, I’ve never unironically seen someone say “I concur” besides my little brother 😭
@@cosas_de_gatos Haha, proof that I attended a private school back in the day. 😂
@@trinaq yea me and my brother were homeschooled and he talks like he’s straight out of the 18th century or something 😭 I always talked normally though, maybe because I’m not half as smart as him
@@cosas_de_gatos Ah, I see, you both must have read a lot, as did I!
Lucy Gray turned on Snow, not because she figured out he was responsible for Sejanus’ death, but because he *lies* to her. Earlier in the movie, she said trust was so important to her, without it someone might as well be dead to her. It was her inability to trust him that caused her to leave.
I thibk this turn was not obvious in the movies, but I also feel like from the "logic" of what her reasons are for leaving, we forget that she was literally a survivor of the hunger games after she had returned from the capitol. Imagine realizing the man that has power over you from a place that has caused you severe trauma to you, who you have emotional attachements to, is blatantly lying to you because you are a manipulated possession to him. I'd panic and escape too, she has learned how to react to this impulse of fear in the hunger games!
But I usually think when a movie doesn't convince the majority of its audience that there is deeper reasoning there, then it just failed. I had this conversation with people that defend the game of thrones series before. When the majority of the viewers were confused by Dany's twist in the end, then it doesn't matter if the logic is there that would make the twist make sense. I can see how technically these emotional reasons are there and that the facts are on screen for us to figure out what is going on in peoples minds, but if it is not obvious for most viewers and confuses, then it's not a matter of "does it make sense?" And instead it is just not successful with telling the story.
@justingary5322she did purposely take a life though by poisoning the water bottle. It just wasn’t the life she intended to take
This film might have benefited from having Snow narrate certain scenes, or have shown him alone more often, to depict his hidden inner feelings. Novels have more of an advantage of exposing us to the protagonist's thoughts, which are a little clunkier to portray in visual media without resorting to over exposition.
Exactly, in the book, the narration made it clear that he was extremely manipulative and calculating and narcissistic. I was wondering how they were gonna properly translate all that internal monologue that made the book work into a movie, and I guess they didn’t lol
I'm sorry, nothing against your comment but I just pictured him doing a Patrick Bateman-esque monologue on certain scenes and it cracked me up 😂
I mean his actions were pretty manipulative. Maybe it is because I am use to seeing red flags but for it was pretty obvious.@@cosas_de_gatos
@@blabla187 There was someone on here who used the Sims 2 to tell the story before the actual movie came out and she actually did a really great job, using Katniss's actual dialogue to narrate it
Yeah, in the book he romantizizes himself, and ther should be narration scenes of him in the movie to make clear its his marrative. his point of view,
or i guess hange to have it in the capital and stand on its own medium.
Lucy Gray: the performer forced to fight.
Katniss Everdeen: the fighter forced to perform.
Rachel Zeigler said that during an interview and it just perfectly describes both characters. Snow was ensnared by both of these women.
Idk how people think he's misunderstood. The guy gave me red flags like 20 minutes in and from then on i was terrified of what he was willing to do to win. I admit his handsome face gave me a false sense of security and i thought "oh maybe hes not so bad" but no the guy was higly self-motivated and used a facade of altruism to disguise his ambition which i thought was despicable. His father was a certified villain and from the get go Corio was desperate to fit in and restore his familys glory. Corio was always selfish, and i stand by the idea that he saved Lucy for purely selfish reasons. Even if he wasnted to live a life with Lucy he was so desperate for control they never wouldve worked out unless he did some serious soul searching. Coriolanus was never a good person, and I don't think there's anything to misunderstand about the guy! He'd betray you as soon as you were no longer convenient or useful to his plans! The actor was very handsome though and i did enjoy looking at him so i see why people are obsessed with him at least 😂 but Snow, the character, is a total bag of trash!
How was he trash exactly? By not listening and obeying a woman? Are you 12?
He grasped opportunities, was very ambitious, and had a lot of successes. All good character traits.
The big issue with the movie is actually that he wasn't evil, he did what most people would do in his shoes.
@@Retheraq…do you seriously think the only bad thing he did in TBOSAS was “not listening to and obeying a woman” 😂 what he did goes beyond just ambition
"I admit his handsome face gave me a false sense of security"
Jesus christ 😂
@@RetheraqBeing ambitious is not good if you use it for evil like he did, you can be smart, a common described good trait, and use it for bad things which makes said trait not good.
@@juanmanuelmoramontes3883 for what kind of evil did he use it exactly? Killing a traitor to the regime? I guess you are all 12.
I think this is one of the best examples of the issues that come up trying to translate a book into a movie. In the book, he's presented as an asshole from the very beginning in his internal monologue, so it was hard for the audience to romanticise him (plus you didn't have the visual element of him being a sexy elven prince lol)
FOR SURE, I referenced what you told me about that! He definitely sounds like he was worse in the book
@@theauthenticobserver he's very possessive and creepy throughout, I'm sure some people into the whole bad boy thing still romanticised the book version, but they'd have less justification for doing so
Also I'm so glad you ended up making this 😂
@@erinrhianne got you to thank for that!
@@theauthenticobserver between this and AN HONOURABLE MAN I'll be expecting my royalty cheque soon 😤😤😤 (kidding)
@@erinrhianne 😆
Galatea, please please please read the book! Its so subtly written and it has some compelling themes that I really loved. I love that Susan Collins doesn't force feed you the message of her books. She really let's you come to the conclusion. Snow in the movie wasnt all that sympathetic to me just because I knew about his selfish inner dialogue the whole time, but it was so subtle its easy to get manipulated by it. Its really masterful. If you didn't like the movie give the book a try.
It's an excellent book, beautifully written, and the story unfolds in a way that was so satisfying. Collins definitely took her time to make it perfect.
please please please stop telling people to read the book! We are discussing the film and people are upset because the movie didn't represent the character from the book. Wether or not Suzanne Collins lets your come to conclusions isn't relevant. The movie didn't show his decent into villainy. It showed nothing. Just because it made sense to you don't not mean that people think the movie in fact did portray his character like it was supposed to be. Not someone character made for fan service. Yes the actor is hot but that shouldn't have meant that they change his personality for a somewhat sympathetic outlook on The Hunger Games. So with all due respect. Don't let people to give the book "a try".
@@jksperson7745 I took the request the opposite way entirely from how you took it. As someone who did read the book and watched the movie, and doesn’t care to be nice about it, the movie is absolutely horrible as an adaptation. The literal only way you’re going to get the story with the intended characterization and themes is to read the book in this case, because the people in charge of this movie absolutely fumbled the bag. No, they actually threw the bag into a ravine and then bombed it. It’s horrible. Literally the worst book-to-movie adaption I’ve seen since the first Percy Jackson movie.
If you want any chance of enjoying the story, please read the book. Judge the movie as the trash it is but don’t judge the story for the movie’s terrible execution of it.
@@morganherring6958Gosh, you book nerds are SO annoying! Books aren’t some sacred texts, movies don’t have to be faithful ALL the time; and you are not doing some holy rite protecting books’ sanctity. This movie is based on the previous movies, which have differences from the books. Get over it. So this is a good prequel of the movies!
@@jksperson7745This matches more with tone of the movies than books. The previous movies were different too. It would not make sense to make only this movie be book identical. I frankly couldn’t care less for the change. Book nerds are WAY too possessive.
"Corialanus? What a WEIRD name!" said Galatea.
Yeah, a classical name from ancient Greece is definitely as strange as a name that was made by picking random letters from a bag.
@@rosskwolfe Coriolanus is from Ancient Rome. It's the title of a Shakespeare play. About the Roman General.
@@THEJohnMcNee Really. Well, crap. I just exposed my ignorance didn't I?
@@rosskwolfe 🤣🤣🤣
@rosskwolfe I respect someone that can say when they were wrong
Of course Lucy Gray cannot be trapped to be Corialus Snow's wife. This is just not a viable plot point. Lucy said it the best:
"She's not going to be saved by a prince and she's not going to dream about true love. Her dream is to be the best leader she can be. Weird, weird."
His actions do make sense, though? He jumped on the chance to be sent to district 2 the second he heard about it, which made it clear that he wasn't okay with being in district 12, he wasn't happy. He wanted to see Lucy Gray, yes, and if he's going to be sent to a district to be a peacekeeper, why not go to 12 to be with her while he's suffering that 20-year punishment? But it was made very clear that he longed to go back to the Capitol. It was clear that he disagreed with any sort of connection to the rebels, which is why he betrayed his friend and recorded that conversation. I doubt he believed that his friend would be executed since the friend's family had money and Coriolanus probably believed that would save his friend's life. And not just that but the fact that his friend was from the Capitol so they wouldn't punish him, just the rebels from district 12.
This is the point of sending him to be a peacekeeper in the first place. From the beginning of the movie it's obvious that he thinks people in the Capitol are civilized while the people in the districts are animals that just want to destroy everyone who has the fortune to live in the Capitol. He's buying into the Capitol propaganda that the districts are jealous of them and have to be subdued to avoid another war and a repeat of the Dark Days. When Tigris tells him to try to use empathy, he only does it to further his own goals and even after he develops feelings for Lucy Gray, they don't extend to anyone else from the districts. He is clinging to what he's been taught in the Capitol.
Notice how Sejanus (his friend) is the only one who challenges the idea of the Games and the idea that people in the districts are less people than those in the Capitol? Sejanus used to live in district 2. Out of all the Capitol characters we're shown, he and Tigris are the only ones who believe in the humanity of the people from the districts. Everyone else is mostly buying into the divide between the Capitol and the districts, and especially Coriolanus. Lucy is just the exception to him because he likes her, and she did save his life instead of running.
I find it a plus that it feels jarring for the audience when he's taken out of the Capitol to be sent to a district because that's how it would feel to him. His perspective is challenged when he sees life outside the Capitol, which is the point of taking him out of there, but he never budges. He sees people getting hanged and he doesn't care. He still believes the Capitol has the right to do that in order to maintain their dominance of the districts. He personally helps them do that by making the recording that gets his friend killed. He only leaves with Lucy Gray because he believes he'll be found out to have been involved in the murders and will be executed as well. The second he realizes that he can get rid of the murder weapons and proceed with his plan to go to district 2 and possibly return to the Capitol, he starts to perceive Lucy Gray as a threat - the same woman that gave up her chance at freedom to save his life. Even after that and after everything that happened between them, he doesn't trust in her humanity and in her love for him because of his own beliefs about human nature and about the difference between the people from the Capitol and those from the districts. It proves that his feelings for her aren't really that deep and that he puts himself first. It is exactly what he was discussing with Doctor Gaul once he returned to the Capitol. It's why she didn't save him from the punishment in the first place. She knew that if he saw the districts for himself, it wouldn't make him rethink his beliefs but rather reinforce them because she saw he shares her beliefs but is still young and doesn't have experience with the reality in the districts. Everything is about that divide and he had every chance to change his mindset and his behavior but he didn't. Audiences failing to perceive that is on them, not on the movie.
I ain’t reading all that 😂😂
you know Collins is a good writer when most of the audience missed the point of his character lmao
Yeah it makes sense. It's like he now has the proof of his divisive ideology.
Honestly young Snow comes across as your classic narcissist
@@TheVioletMagic29bingo
From the book, the point of Lucy’s arc in Snow’s journey to becoming the evil dictator is that he realizes she was a weakness to him and in the end he resolves to never get in a relationship that makes him soft and gets in the way of his ambition like she almost did.
Which to me was like, oh, so whoever he married in the end he definitely didn’t have a very loving relationship with… I feel even more bad for whoever he ended up marrying! lol
He married one of his rivals from the school. Someone from a very wealthy family who hated his guts as much as he hated hers-but they both saw a political advantage to the union.
@@rivendells_shonaif what are saying is true i am sure there’s a fanfic about that with a “enemies to lovers to enemies” trope
Poor Livia Cardew
50:00 But he DID kill her, in a way. He DID become a killer. He first killed his "friend" (Sejanus). And then when Lucy didn't seem to fit into his plan anymore, he tried as best he could to kill her too, he really did. Whether we got to see a body or not is irrelevant. In our eyes he turned into that cold, vicious killer. The fact that we didn't get to see her be killed is simply more symbolical. It leaves us (and him) with the question: what really happened to her? Her spirit becomes a ghost, and it will haunt him forever, one way or another. I find this narrative to be more unique and special.
Yeah, I don't think not seeing the body matters. He kills her because he shoots her with no hesitation.
the issue with this movie is they've adapted a book where snow was ALWAYS like that - self centered to the point of narcissism, having little care for other people, putting his own interests (gaining power) first, extremely manipulative, literally just assassinates people whenever he wants for personal gain. and since the book is narrated by him, it's obvious from the beginning, though it gets more clear as the story progresses. this isn't a villain origin story, it's background information. mostly it's there to explain why exactly he was SO freaked out by katniss in the trilogy. the events of the rebellion in the trilogy were kind of this perfect storm to unsettle him. the source material isn't a corruption story (though i do like your idea for it). it's a story about someone who is already morally bankrupt starting his ascent to power.
i think in the book it's actually extremely clear that he doesn't truly love lucy grey - he wants to POSSESS her. he gets upset whenever she starts talking about her family back home. the whole time he's in district 12 with her, he wants her to come back and live with him in the capitol, which is antithetical to her entire character. he knows this but he doesn't care about this at all. he just mentally adds another names to his list of people he wants power over but this time he thinks this is love.
collins seems to have a decent handle on putting romance in her books without it undermining the message but the people who adapt her books into movies don't seem to understand her books
The ending of Lucy Gray is far more ambiguous in the book, and it reflects the poem by Wordsworth that her name is based on. Lucy Gray is a girl who gets lost in the snow and her parents track her footsteps, but when they reach the end, she isn’t there. Where did she go? We’ll never know, and same with our Lucy Gray. She’ll always be a mystery to Snow, a ghost that will always haunt him.
I knew nothing about the Hunger Games franchise before watching this movie. I was simply blown away at how masterfully, subtle and concise the character development of Snow was brought to the screen. From the beginning he is ambitious, charming and talented but also has a caring aspect which more and more starts to conflict with the opportunities life has to offer him. Snow isn't a psychopath, the urge to succeed in life simply overwhelms him at key points and leads him to suppress and unlearn his caring side. Having an inner monolog or making it more obvious that he is the bad guy would have ruined it for me.
This is exactly why I'm super interested to check out the book now. I absolutely adore the Hunger Games series, but never got around to reading TBOSAS because the concept of it alone made me a bit sceptical (reading a prequel from the "villains" perspective, who honestly doesn't even play that much of a vital role in the original series just didn't appeal very much to me at first glance). I watched the movie on a whim last week and was really captivated by it (though I have my criticism as to how it impacts the og series; and I do agree that the third part is weaker in comparison and this is where the more sympathetic portrayal of Snow in the first half starts working against itself a little) but I heard many people criticise that Snow's portrayal in the movie is "overly romanticised" and "too sympathetic" and how the book goes into detail about how narcissistic and self-serving he really is and how he views everyone as lesser than him through his inner monologue etc. And I'm really curious to see those differences because I'm not sure how much that would really add to his character arc. I really like how they handled it in the movie, because like you said he's not necessarily a good person, but he's not a sadistic psychopath who is incapable of caring for others either; what I find compelling and interesting is how it's all these small decisions, where his opportunism and sense of self-preservation wins out over his moral compass, that trickle down to him doubling down on this path of rigid control and paranoia.
I think everyone who says "the movie makes it look like he just turned out this way because of a bad break-up" are really arguing in bad faith here and don't give it enough credit. The movie paints a pretty clear picture of how his environment, the relationships he builds (not ONLY Lucy Gray, but especially with Volumnia Gaul) and his own selfish impulses shape him into the person he becomes.
Is it dark? Yeah.
But listen, if it’s not Snow and Lucy against the world, if the love’s not dark, if it’s not him and her against everything and everybody, I don’t want that love at all.
(Wanted to comment for the algorithm but couldn't find anything not already mentioned...)
lmao, snows gonna take lucy on a magic carpet ride through space and time
Lol J Waller wishes he were considered a hot bad boy instead of a sleazy creep
The problem with a love like that is one person has to lose in order for it to work.
Oh God no😂
I dont know how the movie goes but the book his whole relationship with lucy grey and time in 12 is literally a summer break where hes doing some kind of field work internship for dr gaul. He doesn't realise it at the time but everthings a chore. He even considers not finding lucy because he gets bored spending his day off looking for her house. When they run he immediately knows its the wrong choice because his inner monologue is bitching about how its hot and humid and exercise urgh
It's funny how you explain Snow in the book to perfection when you mention how you want him to be. He literally goes after her because she's the only one left who could prevent him from having everything he wants. Power and returning to the capitol. He even sees it as a shame that she has to die but is so ready to do it all the same. I think the reason why Suzanne left it unclear if she died or not is because she wanted Snow to suffer with the knowledge that she got away and she knows all of his secrets. She was the one that truly got away with all he holds precious in her hands.
10:49
If I were going to give the film-makers more credit than they probably deserve, that might have been the point.
Undercutting the emotional reaction is exactly why the character exists - he's there to impose an emotional barrier between the (in-universe) audience and the horror of what the games actually are. If not for him then there would be a far greater chance of the (in-universe) audience realizing just how messed up this entire thing is.
In undercutting what should be an emotional moment for the _real_ audience, the film is trying to give them a sense of what that distancing feels like.
I haven't seen the movie and I don't intend to, but you did say you wanted arguments in the comments, so...
EDIT:
35:02
...This is basically how Dungeon Masters and a good chunk of writers tend to work, actually.
It's not undeserved credit, it's very on point actually. Snow is the capitol, we are seeing Snow's pov everything is shown in the capitol mentality, so at the end you as an audience member can ask yourself "are we really that close to the capitol or not?" If we're laughing at the same jokes, cherring for one specif person to win, exited to see the games, how different are we from them? It's like people going around talking how Suzanne Collins message is so good and how evil the capitol was, and yet the book where the regime is put down is their least favorite book and they keep asking for books about Haymitch's and Finnick's games.
It's all done in pourpose to see if the audience can make the conclusions by themselves, it's not spoon feed.
Even Lucy Gray is presented very smartly from his view so at first he sees her as a sweet fragile girl and by the ends he sees her as a manipulative person, who is she really? The sweet? The manipualtive? Both? You're supposed to make your own mind about her, to believe in Snow's vision or not is the viewer's choice.
exactly - that's why the most problematic reality tv shows have really charismatic hosts.
Lucy Gray is based on a poem; her fate is meant to be unknown.
I honestly couldn’t really take Snow seriously, because his hairstyles just developed from Draco Malfoy to Eminem.
My autistic brain was just too focused on the comparisons.
I still enjoyed the movie though. Like you said it was entertaining and now I’m going to read the book to see the original material they worked with.
But you can see him struggling with the duality of his nature all through out the movie, its not just random hippie moment, he is battling between some of the humanity he still has and just because he chills out in a meadow with lucy doesnt mean that he wasnt debating about weather this is what he really wants. There are moments with Tigris where she makes him want to believe that he is good, but he chooses not to see the good in the world .Also the reason why he snitched on sajanus was because that was another way of him getting to the Capitol, once again, him choosing power over humanity. At the end of the day ofc he only cares about power, but as a young adult he is still making himself believe that his actions are justified, it is the progression of his calculation and basically in the end he chose the dark side :D and i think that the killing moment with lucy gray, he was just starting to get paranoid and seeing everyone just as calculating as himself. There is a possibility that lucy gray just said the things she did when he found the guns just random, but it was his twisted nature that did not trust her and I dont think the scarf was for real, it was possibly not intentional on her part, Snow was just losing his shit.
"Snow lands on top."
Coriolanus Snow: 🤴
Thirsty people: 👀
"No. Show the teenage girls that's not how it works."
*Throws backlash at you* darn… you dodged it just in time…tsk
*helps you escape* you're not wrong.
I haven’t seen/read it. Never heard of it, in fact.
You keep saying that Coriolanus betrayed Sejanus for no reason, but I disagree. Just going off of what was in the movie (I haven’t read the book either), Coriolanus realized that being friends with someone who openly associated and sympathized with rebels could implicate him by association and possibly lead to him getting hanged himself, while throwing Sejanus under the bus would save his career, possibly his life, and potentially earn him brownie points with the regime (which it ended up doing). In other words, his thought process might have been”this guy is gonna get hanged eventually if he keeps talking like that, so I might as well turn him in to keep my hands clean”
You might feel differently if you read the book. When I read it, I never pictured Corio as being very handsome, even if he was described that way, because he never acts or feels as if that's an important part of his character. He and Katniss actually do have a fair amount in common, in that they are both rather emotionless, but because of harsh practicality, and a need to take care of their families in circumstances beyond their control. They also both don't draw many moral lines around what they'll do to protect them, but where Katniss merely becomes an effective killer, Snow transforms into a monster, and it's all down to what is different in their natures. The book presents Corio as perhaps even being led on by Lucy in the romance, he's really just trying to win the competition and sort of caring about her as a means to that end. when he's kicked out to 12 she becomes the best of a bad lot more than the girl he gave up everything for. The ending does come out of nowhere, but it's meant to show his broken and distrustful nature, and the whole story is meant to show the tragedy of how close he came to not creating decades of the hunger games, and just living a happy life in obscurity. It was his own choices, and not anything the world threw at him though, that spoiled it, and I found the book a more effective dramatic turn than the movie could accomplish. Oh, and if anyone cares, the book does establish that she did make it safely back to her people, The Covey, though it's not specific on how.
Just remember, the movie never romanticized Snow nor the relationship between Lucy and Snow. The naive viewer romanticized Snow.
I saw the story as a test to your discernment of people’s motives and behaviors. Snow being passionate about a blood bath game was the first red flag. He wanted there to be a hunger games and even pitched ideas to make it more interesting but to the viewer he wanted to give the players comfort before they enter the game. He just wanted to win and get the money for him and his family
exactly
@@TheVioletMagic29 I’ve fallen for a “Snow” before. Once you’ve lived it, you can’t unsee it when it’s in your face again.
Yeah I never let like he loved her or vice versa. Uncompelling movie all throughout. Except for maybe the last scenes.
I think a lot can be attributed to people writing from accumulated intertextuality (all the stuff they previously read, all the accumulated tropes and cliches) rather than writing from real life. I think the great, still-successful female writers of the past (e.g. Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Lucy Maud Montgomery) built their characters greatly from their own real-life observations of actual people. That's why Emma, Kingsley, Jane, Anne... still feel fresh and compelling.
After seeing the movie, I went home thinking "What was the point?" After reading the book, I decided it could be argued the plot has a similar lesson to Crime and Punishment. (When you ignore you conscience, it will drive you crazy in the end). But yes, the movie leaves you confused. I also don't like watching the games on screen, since this feels like being the audience in the book who "shouldn't enjoy watching". This franchise was never the most ethically fulfilling.
Exactly.
I agree. The ending of the Hunger Games books was the most frustrating, disjointed and painfully dissatisfying thing.
The hamfisted love triangle in the original series also ruined how seriously I could take it at the time. Although it otherwise had some interesting themes and the Capitol is an interesting parallel to certain things these days.
Same, I felt that the shoehorned romance in the originals was distracting and forced.@@lunalee3021
The point of the movie shows you why he became a tyrant a hole. That was the purpose of the movie
1:35:20
Imagine if Snow had strangled Lucy with his mother's scarf.
The manner in which you’re describing Lucy Gray is manic pixie dream girl - which I didn’t think about but makes sense. I went into that movie on a Friday night not familiar with either of the lead actors and came out feeling like it was Sunday but being very impressed by both of them.
I actually thought the ending was quite interesting. Did he kill her or not? I think if he had killed her, that would have been the end of it. However, the ending lets her haunt him. Forever. I think that for all the faults of the film (as I think I mentioned, the transition from page to screen meant we lost a lot of characterisation), I didn't have a problem with the mysterious ending. It fitted with Lucy Grey as a character out of a ballad-- she just vanishes into thin air at the end and is never seen again, to wander forever. Snow shoots at what he thinks is Lucy Grey, follows what he thinks is a trail of her footsteps, and then... no body. Just empty air. The trail of footprints just stops. There's no sign of her dead or alive. And Snow might never have seen her in the first place. She left a venomous snake under her cloak that bit him. He was probably losing his mind with snake venom at this point. He might be hallucinating ever seeing her in the first place, because snake venom is addling his brain. The interesting thing is: did she want to kill him? Was this snake to kill him before he kills her? Or just to punish him a little bit? In fact, I have a little theory. Snow puts the handkerchief in the snake box during the Games to try to save Lucy Grey. But he fails and the snakes kill her in the arena. The reason Act 3 is so inconsistent in terms of Snow's characterisation is because the Lake Hippy plotline is all in his imagination. Because the handkerchief, with which he *tried and failed* to save Lucy Grey is found and he's sent to District 12. He uncovers the rebels and reports them, gets Sejanus executed and all the rest of it. So that he can go back the Capitol, get a career, win back the family fortunes etc. But *in his mind* he sees Lucy Grey again in the pub and they fall in love and play lake hippies. And then the ending, his imagination is breaking down and colliding with reality. He runs away "with Lucy" (but she's not really there) and the whole scenario of her running away, leaving a snake under the cloak, his hallucination of her in the wood, shooting at her, following her footsteps and there's no body, is because *there never was*. She was eaten by snakes in the arena and the lake hippy storyline is only in his mind.
Yeah but how often are we gonna go with the 'it was alllll imagined ' twists and theories
I liked the movie, but never thought it was a love story. It's a villain origin story (duh). Perhaps it's because, even though I haven't read the book, I understood that he's the snake and she's the songbird? Have people forgotten what he does in The Hunger Games? I guess they have. In any case, it peaked my interest enough to want to read the book, which I have bought and want to read this month, if possible. I want to add that there will always be people who get wrapped up in the good looks of someone (whether it's a man or a woman). And I guess I just have to say "good luck" to those people. I can only imagine that dating a narcissist isn't fun nor something to aim for. But some people blind themselves.
I felt the same way about this movie. I asked my friend what she thought of it and she was empathic towards Snow. She even said he was just 'misunderstood.' I really don't like how people see this film as a love story. When the main character kills children. He is not swoon worthy. And it was nice to hear someone say this. Thanks Galatea. (I hope that's how you spell your name). If I spelled it wrong, I am so sorry.
Yeah I never saw him that way. In fact I projected my poor dating experience on to his character. Fell for a guy like him and someone like Lucy Grey did what I couldn’t do for myself. I appreciated the movie not romanticizing him. We the viewers are at fault for romanticizing him. The movie was like a test to see how tolerable you are to cruel evil people.
I personally came into the movie knowing nothing except a few anecdotes that snow was the main villain of the original books/movies. I cannot stand the man....no he was not misunderstood, I just noted as many readers seem to think: that his internal thoughts are not portrayed well in this, but his unfavourable actions speak for themselves. He is heartless and had the chances to change in the movie, but he only sought what would benefit himself, without ever considering the consequences it would have for EVERYONE around him.
I felt like Snow was a Narc and good at the manipulating, gaslighting was all about him being spoiled rich child; lost money an wanted to not be poor and starve. He rather just destroy anyone in his way of it. And Lucy was also in his way to being the monster he just wanted to be. Using the girl as he convoluted, on going back to becoming rich again. With his heart not having to be used, threw away all feelings. So much PRIDE. THE MAN SAW FEELINGS AS A PROBLEM AND DIDN'T WANT THEM. USED Lucy to be stepping stone to greatness.
I have been saying this exact thing for ages! Every time the "bad boy" is made sad and gorgeous by a YA author the writer in me reminisces about teen me and RAGES
Came for the Vaush drama, stayed for the multiple hour discussion on YA writing tropes.
Came for the YA writing tropes, stayed for Andrew Tate getting thoroughly roasted.
Yeah they've had a problem with letting villainous protagonists actually be fully villainous in recent years
What about this: Dont have Snow rat out his buddy yet, but have them all be back at the capital like was suggested in the video, have him get away with his snake cheating with just a slap on the wrist because his other contributions to the games worked SO WELL to help sensationalize and engage with the audience to pull in more money and numbers. They're in the capital, she's his trophy prize, she's his little Songbird singing to the people, but Lucy's spirit doesn't die and she's using her platform to sneak in rebal code and freedom language, (something that Snow might even be aware of but actively chooses to not stop because is helps with his big-brain underdog engagement of the games and the districts since 'a little hope is helpful') but Lucy is doing TOO much, She's becoming TOO dangerous and manipulative as an Icon and Snow realizes as it's happening that he's "catching himself slipping" essentially and being TOO charmed by HIS Songbird. Lucy is just as much of a 'manipulator' in the sense of being a survivor and performer who knows the heart of the audience she's reaching out to and how to walk the line, but she's not Snow because she's not a controlling psychopathic child murderer... well not _voluntarily_ anyway.
But Lucy is doing rebel shit behind the scenes, maybe even with Snow's Friend which makes him EXTRA jealous and pissed off, and the tensions between them reaches a breaking point as the other is too dangerous too survive. Moves are made, like Lucy tries to poison Snow or something while something gets sabataged, but it goes WRONG because Snow has ALWAYS been 5 steps ahead of Lucy the whole time. So Lucy, Sejanus, and two other rebel sympathizers flee in a vehicle and Snow has that shit SHOT DOWN. But only three bodies can be recovered (harkening to the Hanging Tree line) and Lucy's isn't there. Maybe she escaped the crash to die later, maybe she got obliterated, maybe she was dragged off by animals, who knows.... But Snow doesn't.
All he knows is she will forever haunt him because he "can't catch me now." He'll never see her again, yet will see her EVERYWHERE, in the spirit of every child, in the face of determination, in the hope dancing in people's eyes.
And he will kill it, over and over and over again.
Because he _has_ to to bring order.
But he can never CATCH the echoing of that songbird's melody.
_But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze
My footsteps on the ground
You'll see my face in every place
But you can't catch me now
Through wading grass, the months will pass
You'll feel it all around
I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere
But you can't catch me now._
Truthfully, your rambling thought process is one of the reasons I enjoy your channel. Your scripted videos are truly pleasurable as well as informative but your talking off the cuff videos are well worth the time spent enjoying them. When I see the length of the video, I usually get a snack and a drink so I can fully enjoy the coming excursion.
You know this bs quote 'A hero will sacrifice you to save the world, a villain will sascrifice the world to save you blah blah blah'? Apart from it being logistically unreasonable (you are in the world, if it ends, you're done anyway), it's not true. A villain will murder you with his bare hands to rule the world and it'll take him 5 minutes to persuade himself it's actually all your fault. That's what they should've shown us - Lucy Gray either being murdered or killing herself if they couldn't go through with the murder because she couldn't submit to his worldview and him having nothing else to lose and everything to gain. Shame.
That being said, looking forward to hear you rambling about women abd bad boys!
also considering Lucy Grey was made out to be a rebel who hates the capitol, her falling in love with Snow within basically the first scene felt a bit weird.
I don't think she really did at first... I think she was trying to survive, and using feminine tactics, flirting and acting sweet, to do so. Snow was manipulating her too, but they both wanted to win the games. While they were using each other, their goals were the same. I think they were attracted to each other, but not in love....
If Snow’s internal monologue would’ve been made plain and obvious he wouldn’t have been able to manipulate everyone, nor would he have charmed Lucy Gray.
I’m seeing a lot of comments about how Snow should’ve narrated the entire movie but that would’ve hindered the film’s quality.
If we heard all of his thoughts we would’ve been babyfed the information we needed to foresee everything.
Snow’s looks were his greatest asset in TBOSAS. Not only did his looks help him fool the characters in TBOSAS they also helped fool the viewers. There were constant red flags and even murder before Act 3 yet many people still didn’t assume he would do what he eventually did. Many people still think Lucy Gray was in the wrong and believe Snow was a good person manipulated by her.
It’s important that we don’t hear his thoughts. That’s what’s so great, you don’t know because you’re in the same shoes as everyone else in the story.
I think the reason he has a tantrum after his friend is executed is because he really didn't expect it. He knew Sejanus would get into trouble, certainly, but there's a theme in the movie where Coryo is kind of jealous of Sejanus because his father's money can get him out of anything. He even yells at Sejanus at some point saying that if he gets caught as a rebel his father will just pay his way out. I think he was genuinely surprised he was executed.
As for the reason he betrayed him, I should it's pretty clear, if not well executed in the film. It's to get Gall's attention. To somehow convince her to get him back to the capital. Granted it's not well done, very unclear, but I think that's the reason. He never actually wanted to stay with Lucy Gray. You can tell he's always hesitating. The only moment he's sure is when he has no other option cause he's gonna be caught for the shooting. And then he jist kind of accepts the situation. But up to that point he's not really planning on staying there. He's just making the most out of a bad situation. He's fond of her, but I doubt he falls in love
There's another option for character dynamic between the two. He could start as the idealistic young rich man who wants to change society for the better (kind of a stereotype of the idelistic upper class college student) and he falls in love with this girl who is everything he would want the lower class to be. Full of energy, charismatic, talented, kind etc. Only for the story to reveal that it is an act from her part. She is the one using him. He is her way out of the lower classes. She is a manipulator and an opportunist. By the time he realizes what has happened she has "groomed" him to be more vicious, more ambitious, he is no longer doing anything to improve the lives of those less fortunate than him, he is doing everything for him and his new partner and he realizes that he likes it. As she believes she has reached her goal, living a confortable live and even helping her compatriots with charity work, improving living vonditions in her district etc she realizes that the one who is playing an act now is him. He ends up using her as a virtue signal, the poor girl from the lower districts he uplifted from poverty, his front a story to make him more sympathetic to people that are like him just a few years ago. His political pawn. He turns into the master manipulator, cold logic and ambition. When he starts changing the Hunger Games into this more extreme and cruel spectacle she tries to escape from him and he ends up killing her to remove the one weakness he had because in many ways both had developed genuine feelings for each other but the relationship was as toxic as it gets. Hell, make it that when he kills her she is pregnant. Go full edgy. She thought she was going to have a good life with a well meaning rich young man and even help people but she ended up helping create a tyrant.
To summarize:
Twist #1: Young Snow looks like a good guy
Twist #2: "Esmeralda" is revealed to be self serving and a social climber
Twist #3: "Esperalda" and Snow seem to make things better for the poor
Twist #4: "Esmeralda" realizes he is the one manipulating her now, all the charity was a front and Snow has turned into a monster
I have soooo much to say but I'll start with this: Coryo did love Lucy Gray but the question isn't that. The question is what type of love was it and was it in the long run good? Now I agree the movie didn't do a good enough job fleshing that out especially in the third act since the thing was already 3 hrs long. But apparently there is a 4 hr cut laying dormant somewhere so lets hope that comes out some day. I'm going to leave this passage here:
*After lights out, Coriolanus lay beaming. Lucy Gray was not only alive, she was in 12 and he would reunite with her next weekend. His girl. His love. His Lucy Gray. They had survived the dean, the doctor and the Games somehow. Afterall the weeks of fear and yearning and uncertainty, he would wrap her in his arms and never let her go.*
No that’s possession not love she’s his, it’s literally in your quote
44:24 whilst i understand what you’re trying to say, I don’t think either of those two options would’ve done the story any justice.
Lucy Gray would never double down on her morals or live in the Capitol. In the movie, when they’re talking about their futures she explicitly tells him that the Capitol isn’t for her. She wouldn’t want to stay somewhere where she was almost killed, away from the Covey and from music. Which is why the setting being in district 12 is important. Coriolanus is allowed to be away from Capitol pressure and expectations, and in the book he makes friends whilst also being able to fall in love. He was given everything but still made the decision and choice to leave. In the book he actually decided to take the officer training test himself rather than it being thrust upon him by the police guy. It answers the questions to “what if” because he was allowed to live away from the Capitol and he chose not to because he believes he’s superior to them and wants power.
With the second one, Lucy Gray isn’t stupid enough to stay with someone who could possibly want to harm her. She’s a smart girl which is why she escaped as soon as she catches onto Coriolanus’s lie. Coriolanus hid the fact that he was supposed to leave for officer training, breaking her trust. She says “you were going to leave” and they didn’t talk about it since. That festered until the three men lie, which he didn’t answer.
He did try to kill her and shot the bullet without hesitation, showcasing how despite loving her previously he wouldn’t mind killing people close to him. He just didn’t find the body, which suggests that she escaped. This makes the entire thing haunting when, 65 years later Katniss comes up. Coupled with the hanging tree song, it’s as if his past is haunting him again, like the mockingbirds in the forest. He’s paranoid now because he doesn’t know where she is or if he’s losing his mind.
Just parts I liked don’t mind me.
32:10 his ambition in forming the games
37:00 romanticism lmfao
40:11 moments of gentleness
45:15 power outside of circumstances
47:09 lucy gray the songbird and coriolanus as the snake
48:29 charming coriolanus
1:14:57 character study
1:18:48 controlling
1:28:59 lucy gray’s death
1:33:34 choice
1:35:35 mother
Yes! A new Galatea video! I’m so excited!
As someone who recently joined your cult, I must say it is a wonderful experience and I highly recommend everyone who watches this to sign up for it too. Not only are the videos fun, and Galatea engaging, but there's also heaps of cool-aid, so why wouldn’t you want to join and praise our lady Galatea?
Please join, if you don’t I’ll be sent to the woodshed, and I don’t think I’ll make it out. I hope I haven’t said too much, oh God what have I done? Please help…
i totally get what you mean at 11:05 , and i agree i wish they had handled that scene better, but i thought it was very intentional. the book and movie are meant to be from snow’s pov, so i felt it was another way of making the audience witness the games the way someone like him would’ve experienced it? if that makes any sense
He snitched on his 'buddy'--Sejanus ain't his buddy, really, Snow never quite liked him because he thought it would help me go back to the Capitol. I think he was not fully prepared to watch him be executed. He likely thought Sejanus's parents would just buy the authority and in return, Snow would be considered 'loyal' despite his transgression and would open paths for him to return and successfully redeem his family's name.
This movie was so rushed, the scenes just seemed like a checklist. Plot - exposition. Even the character of Snow was barely established. The 3rd act was actually the strongest, when they were doing their own thing, where the film had time to breath and scenes were character building instead of rushing through the plot
If you write an actual good YA book with interesting themes and without any love triangles or bad boys, I will support
The hunger games would’ve been great if it was just peeta without gale and an identical love story playing out but without gale involved. However the franchise wouldn’t have been nearly as popular without gales inclusion to the story. This is because It’s a young adult novel, young adults like to read young adult novels, and young adults love romance/love triangles.
Many of us already did. In fact I personally have a policy against love triangles and bad boys, among other things.
@@briansledzzz3493not really true. In fact the ones who love, and demand that, are agents and publishers.
@@briansledzzz3493 As a young adult, I read them DESPITE the love triangles, not because of them. Thought they'd be better without. Just like how agents and publishers demand everyone be an orphan for no good reason when families are infinitely more interesting.
@@briansledzzz3493it wouldn't be the same without Gale though. He provides major internal conflict for Katniss, not in an "omg which one should I choose" way, but he's an instance of the Capitol exerting their control in small ways that force her to choose between playing their game or doing what she thinks is right.
He and Peeta are also symbols for Katniss's entire arc. It's not a simple "should I choose my hot bad boy childhood friend or my hot soft boy", it's a choice between peace or hate. The times that she leans toward Gale are also the points in the story that she's experiencing the most rage, pain, and turmoil. The points where she's with Peeta are when the world makes the most sense to her.
Without Gale her choice to be with Peeta in the end would not be nearly as impactful. It's symbolic of her choice to be happy
I would venture to guess that most of us subscribers enjoy your obsessively long rants and have subscribed in anticipation of them anyway. XD
Also I think it would have been interesting if he'd poisoned Lucy because, while not as personal as strangulation, it is still a point of no return, fits his character, and in his mind he could say he wasn't the direct killer (it was the snake) and it was "necessary".
1:39 please do more videos like this, not only about Cassandra Clare’s books
I think she did die in the end- the poem she was named after is about a girl who dies in a lake, and I think them discussing it was trying to imply she meets the same fate. He shoots her, she tries to get somewhere safe, and falls into the lake. But obviously its left open ended
I thought the girl's fate in the poem was also left vague and open-ended
44:30 here's an idea I kind of like in a messed up way. As she sees more and more of Snow's evil actions, she begins to resent him and males attempts to rip his power from him. He stops here every time, and tension grows between them. She eventually gets so desperate, that she threatens to off herself if Snow doesn't change his ways, because her life is the only thing that Snow cares about that she has the power to ruin. She could either just do it, or Snow struggles to choose her instead of his power, leading her to take her life. Let her die with the power, and give Snow a reason why he's so desperate to hold onto power, so he never has to lose it to anyone again. Either this or him killing her is cool though. It would hit hard and actually fit with their characters.
Honestly, I watched the movie bc. of Lucy Gray (bc of her Esmeralda look). I adored her style and presence. The book is amazing and doesn't romanticize this relationship at all, it shows as doomed and impossible to realize. The absence of the inmer monologue of Snow takes off the heart of the story in the movie.
I think people who find YA unsatisfying should try The Chronicles of Narnia.
Those stories have a lot of the charm of YA but were written by someone who really cared about both making sense AND making a point.
Are those books even considered YA? I don’t think so
@@Butterfly-ll7mm they are written for kids and they are written on a YA reading level but still interesting for adults. That makes them a good alternative to current YA books which tend to have stupid plots, unbearable Mary Sue characters, and poorly articulated points.
@@themostbestwizardwritten for kids and written at a young adult level?
I think that doesn’t mean what you think.
Young adults today read on a child level compared to just a generation ago! 😂
I think there are 2 major issues with this movie, one is the book to movie problem of not getting the characters inner thoughts. But there's also the issue of missing red flags, like not visiting the his classmate in the hospital. The fact that they changed some of that storyline in the movie is a part of the problem. In the book she was so disthrought over the death of their classmate (that was btw also part of this project in the book and none of them volunteered themselves for it like in the movie) that she couldn't really do the group project. Both of them agreed to put it off but Snow cared so much for his grades and winning he decided to do the project anyway by himself. She also didn't know the snakes wouldn't harm her (neither did Snow tbf). So that combination of lacking his inner thoughts and the lack of some the red flags from the book seems to be the major issue with this movie.
I wouldn't say it's out of nowhere. She had a few times where she doubted him and even the scene where he tells her he got an order to go to district 1, and she repeated "You were going to leave?' and he didn't really respond he just passed it by and she remembered but still had hope she could have him.
As someone who only watched the movie and didn't read the book, Snow's turn toward the dark side definitely felt a bit sudden, but I had chalked it up to being a result of some kind of trauma reaction that initially kicked off when he killed a person for the first time. There was that moment in part 2 where he talked about that experience, as if in a state of shock, about how it made him feel powerful, and it was hard to tell if he was amazed and/or disturbed by it. It seemed to me that that experience tied into his words at the end of the movie, that the Hunger Games were there to remind everyone of their brutal animalistic natures. So I had assumed that this little revelation of his also gave him serious trust issues with everyone, since he maybe thought that everyone had a selfish, murderous shadow deep down inside, and that he was afraid that he could only trust himself to look after his own interests, which was how he could betray Sejanus while being so conflicted over it. He could certainly try to justify his own behavior by saying that he's also just a creature looking out for himself by any means necessary. Then he had that PTSD-like psychotic break when he tried to kill Lucy because he didn't trust her not to turn him in... ...well anyways, that theory is how I made sense of it all lol. Trauma causing someone already on the fence to take a turn for the worse.
It's interesting to hear that he was actually a pretty rotten guy from start to finish, since the movie definitely portrayed him as more sympathetic in the beginning, though still a bit morally ambiguous or neutral. I'll have to pick up the book to check it out!
@10:53 Yeah, the fact you thought it made light of this tragedy sounds like the point.
The people hosting and watching the games do not care, right?
What is one more child after watching so many?
Isn't the whole bit to show how little they value the life of others?
i think in your version where she ends up as his trapped wife who resents him it would be interesting if he still killed her through poison, which would keep the "snake" aspect of him and also be personal, as he would have to look at her in the eyes while they shared a meal. it would also keep some ambiguity on her end, on if she knew her food was poisoned but still went through with it as it would free her from her loveless toxic life in a way.
First, I just want to say I'm so happy you posted this video! Lately most of your content has been geared towards the current political discourse (which is fine, I still enjoy those videos), however, what I've always loved the most about your channel has been your commentary on storytelling, and I've missed it quite a bit.
10:58 About the glossing over of the child's death: I actually think it's fine the way it's portrayed in the movie, in the sense that that's the Capitol's POV, we get to see the "event" through their eyes and through their curated narrative.
13:28 Aaaah, I'm not here for the Rachel Zegler slander! Lol, jokes aside, I think she's a great actress, singer and performer, and truly believe they casted the perfect Lucy Gray Baird, but I kind of get where you're coming from here.
26:31 For me, in the movie, it didn't come across at all that Snow was enjoying district 12 more. You could see every now and then how he felt disgust and whatnot, and his superiority complex seemed to come out at times. Also, he's a bit of a liar here, sometimes even lying to himself. Of course, this is seen more clearly in the book, but I did see glimpses of his disdain about the districts throughout the movie and even during part three.
36:33 Ok, the part of his "attractiveness" being seen as something negative doesn't make sense to me. Does he have to look completely unappealing to showcase he's actually evil? I think it comes across quite clearly from the beginning that he's a selfish and truly horrible person. If there are people (girls, especifically), that after watching the movie become obsessed with his image and turn him into their new crush, well, I truly believe that speaks more on them than on the directors/writers/actors abilities. I don't think this is AT ALL the typical case of romantization of awful characters that we tend to see in YA. Snow IS the villain, and he's showcased AS the villain throughout the movie. Yes, he lies, and he betrays, and he attracts people with his fake smiles, and many times it's hard to discern what truly goes on behind his head just by following his actions, but that doesn't mean that they were painting him like the "good guy", or that they (the writers/directors) were giving us a romanticized version of a bad guy. There's nuance there.
I've still got to finish the video, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Thanks, Galatea! Happy New Year! :)
I usually agree to the last note with your analysis, but having read the book, I interpret the part of the betrayal (the third act, so to speak) under a different light.
The thing about the book is, it's narrated from his point of view, so you get into his mindset more easily, while the movie tried to be elusive about his real intentions instead (to what degree of success is up to each one to judge.) Again, having read the book, I don't think you ever really interpret the scenes with Lucy Gray as falling in love. It's another power play. Yes, at the beginning there is infatuation because she is charming and new, as you accuratedly exposed, but she is also wild like a bird and he wants to cage her. He's all about control, a control he feels like he's continually sacrifising in his everyday life when they change things around his plans. He's a plotter. I also feel like the romantisation of the country life from the upper classes is the theme of the third act; he's getting in touch with a more free, relaxed way of living, where nobody depends on him, he's just another number, no surname, no prestige to uphold, and for someone that always has someone's eyes fixated on his back, that's liberating. But the spell fades quickly, especially when Sejanus (in the book Snow more often dispises him than not, it's not much of a friendship that tolerating) is acting up and about to get him into unnecessary trouble. He betrays him because he knows that means points to him for returning to the Capitol, and he owes loyaty to nobody but himself. But it's the early stages of him totally cutting ties with the humanity he has left, and I believe that's the reason for the tantrum. The ending feels rushed, true, as in everything starts to happen, and all he thinks about is keeping Lucy (in the book he's learnt she might have prostit*ted herself for survival and is getting reaaaaaally paranoid and possesive about it), so thinking he just blew his last opportunity to go back home, he scapes. Until yet another opportunity presents itself...
as far as Lucy Gray goes you talked about her acting being "too much" like a kid putting on a mask, which I think was intentional to an extent because she is canonically 16 in the book, so it makes sense that the act would still be slightly out of place. also the proper word is romani/roma, not g*psy, that's considered a slur just for future reference.
Also I think Snow's development makes sense. Snow has been thorn between being good and evil from the start, just think about him saving Sejanus and beating a kid to death in the same scene. His acting in act 3 makes sense. I think he saw a moment of reprise in lucy gray instead of genuine love and the moment anything went wrong he snapped out of it. Also snow was never a rebel, he wanted to protect Lucy, not the people
I noticed that a lot of AO’s thoughts on the movie were accurate but she assumed it was not intentional. I can’t blame her for it because I think the movie doesn’t make it super clear what it’s going for a lot of the time, but for example she was like “the scene where Lucy Gray sings for the first time was supposed to be empowering but I found it really cringe” - but the book makes it very clear that everyone’s reaction was to cringe.
I think we should try to separate mind and desires. You can be attracted by some bad boys because they’re hot, but deep down there should always be a piece of mind keeps reminding you that this isn’t a good partner and you should never let him come close in real life.
Sometimes people are locked in loops of trauma. They just keep being attracted to the same type of toxic people again and again. Only with a conscious mind they can break free from the circle. It’s very important to understand what you actually need and what is just a desire/impulse of the moment.
The red pill guys fail to understand that we are creatures with brain and the ability to choose. There are some annoying tricks embedded in our bodies that sometimes work against our best interests (like freeze response in many people while being sexually harassed), but as the most intelligent creatures on the earth, we can train ourselves out of these things we don’t like. We are coded a certain way, yes, but that’s not all who we are.
omg there has to be another one your version of the story is just so compelling and i hope we get to see that movie.. im getting hadestown vibes
This upcoming YA and women ☕ video is not a random development. It's been a long time coming.
you genuinely deserve 1 million followers I hope you get there one day
I'm so glad you said you think they're doing this on purpose, I thought the same but thought I was being a bit paranoid.
16:05 I think the word you're looking for is "alluring" or more so "beguiling" given the deceptive survivalist nature in which Lucy uses her feminine charisma.
Nubile maybe
I am so happy that I found your channel. Your thoughts are always so insightful. Thank you for sharing them with the world.
Edit: And I say this as someone who only had - at best - a passing interest in the Hunger Games movies. Your analysis is far more interesting than the movies themselves, at least for me.
39:25 You could say she becomes a songbird trapped in a birdcage. Guarded by a toxic snake.
I think the simplest answer to the YA problem is the very best are adult writers who can think like a teenager lost in a fantasy, the majority of adults in a teenage, fantastical mindset are those who were/are abused, which leads to a disproportionate amount of idealizing abusive personalities. The "cream" rises to the top of the industry, but when all you drink is cream it makes you sick.
I love the stream-of-consciousness feel your videos have. Most of the time thats not a method I enjoy but you manage to make it feel fun.
Ooh,
I would love it if you were to read the book and review it.
I do think the direction was poor and it felt like it was in fast forward, with many critical points exempted.
The book tells us the story with his thoughts and motivations explained throughout, and the movie fell on its face trying to convey anything.
Galatea: "This video is too long so I'm going to record an insert where I explain that the video is too long and explain another video yet to come. By the way, did I mention this video is too long? This video is too long. Bye! Anyway, I have another video coming soon so let me talk about that for a little bit!"
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel. Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon. Like a carousel that's turning, running rings around the moon. Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face, and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space. Like the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind... 🤭
Anyway, to pre-empt the video on YA fiction: it'll be because of the female power fantasy of redeeming a man through virtue, therefore showing how great the woman is. All his bad deeds beforehand, and good deeds after the redemption by her hand will serve to show just how great the female protagonist is and also feed the female power fantasy. The male equivalent power fantasy is the "I can fix her!" saviour complex where the man believes he can rescue the damsel from all her often self-inflicted life troubles when he really shouldn't (Scott Pilgrim vs the World).
In a way, Not-Esmeralda unintentionally taught Snow (an Evil Sorcerer archetype) some of the tactics of an Evil Sorceress archetype and, seeing the value of that approach, combined both together for a more effective blend of tyranny.
I've not read the prequel or seen the movie, but I have read and seen the original trilogy. To add onto what was said about the parallels and also differences between Lucy and Katniss. If you think about it, in the books a Mockingjay (if I remember correctly) is able to reflect back voices (I might be thinking the jabberjay but as far as I know Mockingjays are a mix of bluebirds and mockingbirds and aren't real birds irl??), but the idea that Katniss is a "mockery" or a reflection of Lucy in Snow's eyes
Jabberjays record voices when are programmed to and only repeat it when you want them to. Mockingjays repeat anything they hear and they don't stop. You are correct.
"The show is not over untill the mockingjay sings"
-Lucy Gray Baird about how mockingjays always repeat the last words of the hangged in the hangging tree for hours after their death.
"She could fly around district 12 all she liked, but her and her mockingjays could never harm him again"
-Coriolanus Snow's last thought about Lucy Gray in tbosas.
I'm so sorry Im at work so I haven't watched the video but... Snow is like not rebellious in any meaningful way, how is he a bad boy? I hate that guys like Kylo Ren and Draco Malfoy (wanna be fascists) are considered 'bad boys' while characters like Finn in the force awakens on the run, rebelling and essentially leaving a death squad style military, is a 'soft' choice.
I'm sry but Kylo is no Han Solo, it's so odd what we classify as 'bad boys' now
I always return to your channel, whatever you do, but I have to admit, I'd love to see you doing more media analysis! I first came to your channel through the Shadowhunters reviews (only the first four parts were released at the time) and I always found your media-related video very interesting! But whatever you do, I hope you'll have a great year, in real life and in your creative life!
Had a thought concerning act 3. So, the rigging of the hunger games would have absolutely been massive news across the capital, and in response I think both the population of the capital AND the districts would want retribution, but for different reasons. The capital because their favorite television program was a farce, and the districts because if Snow hadn't rigged it, then maybe their kid would have been the one to make it home. I think it would have been far more interesting if Snow attempted to escape the capital after going full love bird with Lucy but is captured by the peacekeepers and forced to kill her on live television, or he and the rest of his family would be executed by the state. He kills her, causing him to backslide into his old ways, while coming to the conclusion that it is better to be the one holding the reins of power, than to be free of them. I believe this would also add to the ending of the first movie, showing that by being willing to sacrifice herself, Katniss achieved what he could not.
Edit: I'd just like to point out that this would only work in a universe where Snow is someone who is actually capable of being redeemed, not a complete sociopath.
After this public spectacle which he would almost never live down, how would this Snow become president?
@ayoa1173 Good question. So after the execution, Snow devotes himself entirely to the capital and the hunger games. His experience having rigged the games before is utilized to catch other would-be cheaters, ensuring the games go off without a hitch. Each time Snow catches someone, the capital broadcasts the perpetrators punishment and Snow makes sure everyone knows it was him who caught the cheater, further increasing his notoriety while simultaneously propping him up as a paragon of the games, rather than a cheater. He then later uses this fame to propel himself into a career in politics, and eventually the presidency.
I haven't seen the movie or the book, so this may not be appropriate for the story. But I'd argue it is possible for a love story that starts from a genuine place, where there is real, sincere affection and care between two characters that could have lasted in different circumstances...which is then destroyed because of a divergence of values between them. Perhaps something similar to John Smith from Man in the High Castle, where Snow pursues his ambitions initially to protect himself and Lucy...only for his growth in power to drag him deeper into the evil ideals that drive the Capitol as a society, eventually leading him to sacrifice what he was initially trying to save.
In this framing, his love isn't proven false, but is rather forsaken in favor of a new love. In some ways, that may even be worse: where you might say that the relationship with the false lover had been a lie from the start, the relationship with the true lover was something real that the true lover consciously destroyed. It's the difference between the spy and the traitor. The former is an outside threat to be wary of and your enemy by default; the latter is someone that only your friend can become, and is consequently the truer betrayal.
@10:12 Honestly, it seems like NOT letting the audience dwell on it perfectly sums up the themes of the Games, no?
This is film is done from the PoV of the upper crust, is it not?
The viewers(in universe) don't care. Thats kinda the point.
You thought it should be a moment of reflection but it is simply a "Gee golly folks, that was wild! Anyways, a word from our sponsors."
*A thing to note. I have not watched/read the books. Just going off of cultural osmosis and your summary.
I feel like we should have gotten more of the side of Lucy Grey making Snow fall for her despite knowing who he really is for the last part to make sense, it feels like there was a scene that was cut
I just hate the romanticization of toxic men or relationships in media. It has become a trend and is not good for young people to model after.
They just appeal to the female fantasy.
@@GottEddy it's actually because a lot of women have unresolved trauma from their father that makes them attracted to assholes before they resolve it and then assholes are no longer appealing anymore. The problem is fiction encourages this idea that you can love toxic men into good men which is not reality. The majority of toxic men do not change.
Hey so I’m writing a Novel about a guy like this; from his demonstration of a never ending cycle of justification - its a really interesting perspective used for social critique - hopefully by next couple of videos ill be able to share a title. Also, incredible video. Your way of synthesis in combination with humour is, in many respects, an attitude thats certainly served me well - amazing to see it in someone else but at a higher level, really is extraordinary.
@11:05 By the sound of it they didnt drop the ball.
They showed you the brutality of indifference, no?
See, you had "tension" that needed "released", it was why you were expecting/needing a cathartic moment.
But in this society, what is one more dead child?
The film took him out of the capitol because the book did. It's pretty faithful to the book in a lot of ways, to be honest.
@11:01 But there are already movies that show the brutality of this regime, no?
Also, why would this one be "special"?
Should not the first one have shown you how bad they are? Or the second? The third?
How many were killed before this one?
Did the others get an "anime flashback" moment that this one was denied?
Glad I found ur channel u have a unique perspective on everything u talk about!
The whole killing of Lucy Gray concept reminds me of the padme-anakin romance in star wars.
I sympathize with going of on tangents. They're hard to resist. Glad you got a whole new video out of it. :D
This video was absolutely wild. I loved every moment of your mad ramblings. Subscribed! (also your version of the story was so much better. Thanks. Bye)
I felt like they were trying to make him the new Anakin
I don't like snow. It's cold, it's irritating, and it gets everywhere.
@@Azdaja13 when you unlike the ice type skin for your character
Hmm, he didn't read that way to me at all. For once, Anakin actually loved Padme. Can't say the same about Snow
@@LB-xz9ub no I know, there's only some surface level similarities plot -wise, but I feel like that's what they were going for
Happy New Year Galatea, anymore videos with your sisters coming up?
I totally agree with the fact that he should’ve killed her at the end. As well as strangulation being the method of doing so.
It was scary how poetic it would've been.
Like a snake, a python slowly tightening his grip around his prey. His eyes becoming more cold-blooded as he snuffs out her voice. It was the songbird’s power, her most effective tool. But by her “lovers” hands would never fly or sing again. And he would fulfill his role as the “snake” killing in order to survive the wild wicked whims of nature or in this case the capital.
For someone who loves control he himself is a puppet controlled by his vices and the capital he hold in such high esteem.
In the book, we get Snow's inner voice. Snow in the book makes a lot more sense as a character than in the film. The problem is with the transition from page to screen. We no longer have access to his inner monologue so we no longer see his ambition and desire for power. We only see the charming façade he presents to the world.
this part being missing makes it so awkward to watch.....like no doubts tom blythe's portrayal as coriolanus is handsome, but i was like why are we just watching him barely make any facial expressions and staring blankly at people the whole movie in absolute SILENCE?
@@MikuHatsune159Right? His performance was so… emotionless most of the time. I don’t know if that’s his fault or the director’s but Snow had more personality in the book.