The Ballad of Songbirds of Snakes: a prequel like no other

 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: investing in prequels

I approach prequels with great caution. My worry whenever I see one being advertised - literary, cinematic or otherwise - is that the story exists simply to be a cash cow, because the creator doesn’t want to be forgotten about, or because they’re making a half-hearted attempt at satisfying the fans (see my earlier tirade against Amazon’s The Rings of Power for more of my thoughts and feelings on this matter. Spoiler alert: it’s not good.) What could make this worse? Well, probably a really bad adaptation. That would really be taking the biscuit. 

With all of this in mind, you can imagine my concerns when Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was published, and its film adaptation announced shortly after. My copy of Collins’ book even has one of those stickers-that-aren’t-actually-stickers on the front cover announcing its impending transition to the big screen. To be honest, I didn’t approach The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes entirely pessimistically. I’d read The Hunger Games a good few years ago and thought they were some of the best-written YA dystopian novels available at the time - a belief I still hold. I knew Collins had a talent for writing, for imagining complex ethical scenarios and transferring them into a story that felt alien, but still too close for comfort. If I’d thought The Hunger Games were good, surely this new story promised to be half-decent at least. Sure, its main protagonist is the notorious villain of the original trilogy, Coriolanus Snow (you’ve got to give it to her, Collins comes up with some fantastic character names), whose fate is very explicitly outlines in The Hunger Games, and who is decidedly unpleasant and tyrannical, but that’s the great creative challenge Collins has set for herself, so let’s see what she does with it. 

I did not expect to be drawn into Coriolanus’ story by the novel as much as I was, nor did I expect to be made to think quite so much. I positively devoured The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in a matter of days. I was reminded of why younger me had found Collins’ writing so compelling, why her stories made my brain tick, and why her characters made me genuinely wonder what I’d do under such circumstances. But this wasn’t just a nostalgic ride back into Panem; this was unchartered territory. It was full of unfamiliar faces and places that kept me on my toes. Coriolanus was the crucial anchor between this story and The Hunger Games, but even her was an unknown entity. And then I slowly became acquainted with him. I began to see how his mind worked. I began to understand - even start to anticipate - his decisions. And that made me uncomfortable. Why should I feel so intimately familiar with the inner workings of a tyrannical beast? How could I accept his justifications for his actions, even as I understood them? How could I let his internal monologues and moral code go unchallenged? It is, alas, the fate of a reader to be a sitting duck while the (fictional) world burns around them. This is no token prequel. This is not a mere cash cow (although I don’t doubt Collins’ pockets feel somewhat heavier) or crowd-pleasing stunt. This is literary craftsmanship. But then comes that other beast: the film. Now, where do we begin with that? 

I would argue film adaptations of books will always fall short of the mark. This isn’t to say that good adaptations of novels don’t exist, because they certainly do, just to say that there will always be a sense of something lacking. In this case, Coriolanus’ internal monologue is crucial for readers to understand him and follow the story. The written expression of his thoughts in the novel is something that doesn’t necessarily translate into film. Don’t get me wrong, Tom Blyth did a fantastic job in the role, but because the film doesn’t give the audience the same insight into Coriolanus’ mind, some of the nuance and subtlety of his thought processes and ethics are lost. 

On the flip side, music was really brought to life in the film. On the page, the reader only has the lyrics and a written description of Lucy Gray’s performances, but because music and performance are so crucial to her character, the film form gave a fullness we don’t have on paper. We can be moved by music and performance because it’s happening right before our eyes, not just in our imaginations. And Rachel Zegler was absolutely the right choice for the role of Lucy Gray. Zegler understands the power of the performing arts to move people, to make a political statement, to express oneself. In a similar vein, brutality as a spectacle is made very apparent on screen. When we read about violence, it’s perhaps more easy for us to dismiss it as merely a figment of our imaginations, but there’s something very pressing and disturbing about watching violence on screen, where we have to confront the things we can see with our own eyes. This is a challenge that is at the heart of The Hunger Games, I believe, where the Games are premised on punishment in all its extremity, and the spectacle of brutality as a message of domination and a demand for submission. Being able to watch The Hunger Games or The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes at the cinema at all is a privilege we cannot underestimate when the possibility of violence looms so near. Violence has a very real presence in our world, even perhaps in our everyday lives, and the brutality we see in this story I think serves as a poignant reminder of human beings’ capacity for hatred and anger. It’s certainly something we ought to think about seriously, as individuals and as a society. 

All in all, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a powerhouse of a novel, and its film adaptation holds its own by taking advantage of the film form to elevate the novel. Together, they are a force to be reckoned with.