The Ballad of Power and Empathy
self-destruction though the lens of the hunger games

Power is a helluva drug. It makes you immune to realizing you have it and desensitizes you to the needs of others. It gives you the power to do what you want without the capacity to care about anyone other than yourself. Best of all, it sometimes tricks you into thinking you're doing all of the above. I recognize this in my own life, as well as the life of Coriolanus Snow.

Suzanne Collins' book The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes offers a prequel to the Hunger Games. It explains exactly how Coriolanus Snow came to be the president of Panam, ruler of the Capitol. There was an obvious incentive to write another book: the original trilogy was wildly popular. Any new stories in the Hunger Games universe would sell well and immediately be turned into a movie. It's an easy way to make more money off of her franchise. Despite all this, Collins doesn't fall into the same rut as other authors do when telling the tale of a tyrants rise to power. Instead, she shows us every step of the process of a boy's destined journey to unmitigated power in a way that presents a universal message: rulers must destroy their empathy.

At the beginning of the story, the Snows have to scavenge for food to survive. Despite the Snow's family's previous prestige, they are compelled by poverty to sell their belongings for rent and burn books for warmth in the winter. They are destitute. Their only hope for a return to power resides in young Coriolanus, who is determined to excel at his education to jumpstart his quest for greatness.

When Snow is forced to redirect his energy to mentoring a tribute for the annual Hunger Games, he forces his way into success there as well. He stretches the rules with daring feats and dishonest tactics. He will let nothing stop him from achieving greatness, and he becomes victorious. Lucy Gray Baird survives the Games.

The Gamemaster, the creative genius currently running the Hunger Games, has a special purpose for Snow. Her intention is to channel his ambition to transform him into a tyrant who can remaster the Games to ensure its survival despite public backlash. To do this, she puts him through many trials, such as banishing him to the districts, always intending to return him to power in the Capitol.

In many "rise to power" villain stories, the character starts out as an average person. The story describes the decisions they make to become a future tyrant. Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars prequels is a perfect example of this approach. He is a decent person at the beginning, but, through his own choices and circumstances, he gradually warms to evil as a better method of achieving his goals.

In contrast, Coriolanus Snow has a path carved out for him at the beginning. His father invented the Hunger Games, the Gamemaster is determined to give him power. He has an overwhelming obsession with greatness, but it is fueled and directed by an outside plan. It's his destiny to choose to become a tyrant. Superficially, this might be disappointing . We want to see a whole arc from good to evil. We want to empathize and think, "I could have been him."

In Western patriarchal society, young men are widely expected to become leaders in their own families and communities. This doesn't happen automatically, but is a social process that involves instructing the youth in how to wield this power as it is gradually given to them. Fathers and other male leaders are in charge of the active part of this process. Passive messaging from media and peers also play a major role. A kid begins to believe that they are supposed to fit a certain role, and begins to partake in reshaping themselves to fit it.

I experienced this myself. As the eldest of an Evangelical Christian family, I found myself immersed in messaging insisting that my future role was to be a father and a leader in my community. During my teenage years, the path to my own place in the patriarchy was well carved out. I was pushed to consider becoming a Biblical teacher. In several different churches, pastors offered to give me opportunities to teach or to mentor me personally. It was the obvious path, the one that would set me up as someone with influence in my community.

I was also supposed to become a father. In my mind, my future was to marry young, become a pastor, and teach what I believe God had for me to say. I was destined for a role in authority. I would leave my parents and start my own family where I would ultimately be in charge. Of course, I would have to follow the Bible and take my family's needs seriously, but I would ultimately be in charge. My wife would willingly submit to me as long as I was following God's will and my kids would be compelled to obey me by the threat of violence.

After Coriolanus is forced to leave the Capitol following his misdeeds during the Games, he becomes a soldier whose purpose is to crush resistance from the districts. He has the opportunity to apply the lessons on ruthlessness he learned form the Hunger Games to the real game of districts set up by the Capitol to keep the people under control. To successfully perform his tasks, he must kill the part of him that yearns for freedom, for empathy, and for people's humanity. Instead, he must cling to the Hobbesian idea that, without a higher power, humans will kill each other and cause life to become "nasty, brutish, and short."

Coriolanus is deployed to District 12, where Lucy lives. He finally gets the chance to see her in her own environment. Lucy is a part of a nomadic singing group called the Covey which brings life to the districts through their music and free spirits. Her culture and community breathes resistance after experiencing the constant threat of annihilation. Everything about her is embedded in opposition to the tyranny of the Capitol. She is free. To Snow, she is freedom.

I started to realize the choice I had when I started to learn about other ways of being outside of the way I'd been taught. My teenage years were spent reading a variety of perspectives on the world and talking with people with different views. In particular, an indigenous anarchist spent some time explaining basic principles of social justice and anarchism to me. I was intrigued and spent a lot of time looking into different ways human beings can relate to each other. I started to internalize the ethic of cooperation and think about ways to create a better society. This challenged my previously unquestioned view of society. I started to learn about feminism and about the way seemingly mundane actions can uphold unjust power dynamics. It was another way to think, to live.

At some point, I was given a choice. Was I going to grow up into the person I was supposed to become? Everything in my seemed to be pointing in one direction. I had mentors working to ensure I stayed in the fold. It would have been easier to keep going, to accept the path that was carved out for me. But I knew there was another path, one that involved something with more love than I could ever find in patriarchy.

Snow's duties as a soldier let him to horrific actions to show allegiance to the Capitol. We watch as he turns in his friend and kills a citizen out of survival. At this point we've seen him excise most of his empathy. It doesn't seem like anything could dissuade him from his passion for power.

During this time, Snow lives a double life. He's committed to power in the Capitol, but he's also enticed by his love for Lucy. Near the end, it seems like he might be willing to give it up. His love for Lucy and fear for the consequences of his actions overwhelms his desire for power and he decides to run off with her and leave his conquest for power in the Capitol. We think he's finally willing to choose love over hatred and empathy over selfishness. He has a lot to work on, but he could learn from Lucy.

But Snow had no change of heart, and Lucy soon realizes this as they plan the next step of their escape. She sneaks away from him into the woods, causing Snow to surrender every last pretense of empathy. He fires wildly into the woods, attempting to kill his former beloved. Not only was she the last one who knew what he had done, she was the last thing connecting him to his empathy. Dead or alive, she was now gone. Snow's dilemma is resolved. He no longer has to be torn between choosing love or authority. Power is his destiny.

In society, tyrants are forced to make a decision at some point in their life. Patriarchal society is everywhere, but there are some cracks in it. There are always opportunities to realize the path you are on and reject it. The other path is hard. People who choose it are refusing power, privilege, and comfort they have been told they deserve.

When I was forced to make a decision, I had to leave everything. I left my faith, my community, and my family. I rejected the false images and expectations I was supposed to live up to. Instead, I chose to pursue empathy. I chose love. I chose to reject the controlling aspects of my childhood and critically examine the ways I was perpetuating it. It's a continual struggle. Years of conditioning doesn't go away in an instant, and I'm often pressured to return to that role.

About a year ago, I visited a Christian Bible study group. Something in me was curious and welcomed the familiar environment. That was one of the places I knew I belonged before. I didn't profess belief when I visited, but I have studied enough of the Bible to be able to make complex biblical and theological arguments from it. I can engage in conversation with Evangelicals with ease, and they picked up on that. After only a couple visits and superficial conversations, one of the leaders suggested I run one of their upcoming events. Shortly thereafter, a leader of an external organization was trying to recruit me. This reminded me of how quickly Evangelicals try to shape those they perceive as young men into leaders in their communities. It's probably not even conscious on their part. I fit an image in their mind and they followed their social script. I was seen as someone who knew what they were talking about and could be trusted on some level.

Like Snow, the structure of power was pre-forged for me, with people pushing me to accept that prepared role and hiding the real costs. Also like Snow, I was offered another path, one defined by empathy and kindness, of equality and understanding. One of freedom. Snow had the choice to avoid being mutilated by power and pursue something life-giving. In the end, he chose to continue the death cult. I chose to escape.

Resisting this power is hard. When people are offered power, the easiest answer is to say yes, to let the position shape them into the person they are expected to be. This is how patriarchy becomes embedded into our culture. It becomes the way things just are. People forget about the parts of themselves they have killed and cling to the scraps that have been given to them to replace it.

But the consequences of embracing power are even more extreme. It is how we end up with domestic violence, police brutality, and rape. When people are given power, they are incentivized to keep it, even if it would be better for them in the long-run to give it up. That's why the worst abuse comes from those with power. To become a leader in society, one must revoke their humanity. So they become heartless, detached from others, and willing to treat people as objects.

For me, the story of Coriolanus Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes provided a powerful reminder of how power affects a person. I may have taken an unorthadox approach to the story, but its message still rings deep in my mind. Many of us are given a choice. Will we destroy ourselves in exchange for power? Or will we refuse to participate in this death cult and pursue empathy?