An analysis of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has kicked of an interesting debate comparing the villain origin stories of Coriolanus Snow and Anakin Skywalker — a.k.a. Darth Vader. The conversation started on the YouTube channel Cinema Therapy, where licensed therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright talk about blockbuster movies from a psychological perspective. Breaking down the forces at work to sculpt Coriolanus into the President Snow of the main series, Decker compared him to one of the most iconic movie villains of the last half-century, and in the process, found that Coriolanus Snow’s arc was actually written even better.
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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes related to modern talk therapy quite easily for Decker, as he compared Coriolanus’ conversations with Tigris Snow to the kinds of conversations a therapist and a patient might have. He pointed to the scene where Coriolanus confides to Tigris that he felt powerful after taking the life of a Tribute. Decker summed up Tigris’ advice to Coriolanus, saying, “In your father’s eyes, there was hate. Don’t become your father. People can be good. You can be good.”
“I would echo some of that, but the question I would ask Coriolanus in this moment is, ‘Okay, so you recognize and acknowledge this dyad of feeling, that you feel horrified about what you did and what happened, but you also feel powerful. The real question is what do you do with that?’” Decker said. “The greatest truth I can share with anybody is, you are who you choose to be.”
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This sentiment naturally calls to mind the arc of Anakin Skywalker, from the prequel trilogy through to his triumphant ending in The Return of the Jedi. The parallels don’t stop there, as Decker observed. “Coriolanus has several voices, you know, several people that he listens to,” he said. “He’s got Lucy Gray, who, even though she’s a victor, even though she’s been in the freaking Hunger Games, she still remains as much innocence and decency as she can. Not because she’s naive, but because she clings to it. And then he’s got Tigris, his cousin, who believes in the innate goodness of people. And then, there’s a third woman, the Gamemaker, and for whatever reason, he connects more with her.”
The difference here is that Coriolanus has every incentive to continue giving in to his more evil impulses after this, and on into the main series where we know him as the president of Panem. The social and political momentum swept Coriolanus away, which is more believable than the complacence of Darth Vader. Anakin had time to change his ways after the death of his wife, but he didn’t do so until he was forced to face his own actions by his son.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is streaming now on Starz. Every Star Wars movie is streaming now on Disney+.
