The Hunger Games Prequel Releases First Excerpt to Fan Backlash
The first excerpt of the highly anticipated Hunger Games prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is finally here — but fans aren't exactly pleased with what they've read so far.
News of the prequel was confirmed back in October, with author Suzanne Collins explaining the premise of the book: "With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival," she said in a press release. "The reconstruction period 10 years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days — as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet — provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”
The novel is set 64 years before the first Hunger Games novel, so way before Katniss Everdeen was born. But as readers quickly realized when exploring the excerpt over at Entertainment Weekly, the protagonist for the prequel appears to be none other than the villainous ideologue President Snow.
EW explains in its writeup that young Coriolanus Snow is "a teenager born to privilege but searching for something more, a far cry from the man we know he will become. Here, he’s friendly. He’s charming. And, for now anyway, he’s a hero." The excerpt shows that young Snow will become a mentor to the girl tribute from District 12, a position he isn't very excited about.
On Twitter, that concept isn't going over well. And the backlash isn't surprising, considering that Hunger Games helped usher in an era of inspiring young-women action heroes and teen-girl-centric YA entertainment. "Literally who asked for this? Out of all the stories to tell Snow’s is one no one is interested in," one reader tweeted. Another added, "Me when I discovered President Snow as a teenager is the main character of the new Hunger Games books," with an appropriate gif of Nicole Scherzinger saying, "no baby no."
Author Aiden Thomas perhaps summed it up best, tweeting, "I couldn’t be more disappointed by the next HUNGER GAMES being about f*cking President Snow and trying to paint him as a 'misunderstood hero' are you kidding me. the very last thing i’m interested in is humanizing a fascist dictator because he has a tragic past."
While it's obviously still early days for the book's release and we don't know the full plot of the novel, it does seem like a waste to devote time to Snow's backstory considering all the destruction he brought into Katniss's life. It's not like there isn't a wealth of other characters to elaborate on in a prequel. When news of the prequel first broke, fans were hoping that it might be the backstory to District 4 victor Mags, the woman who sacrificed herself in Catching Fire.
As a passionate fan tweeted, "Let me get this straight: There's a prequel to THE HUNGER GAMES--set in the time of MAGS' Hunger Games. AND A TEENAGE PRESIDENT SNOW IS THE PROTAGONIST INSTEAD?!"
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
