Movie vs. Book: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

As the prequel to The Hunger Games series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a fun origin story on the evil of Coriolanus Snow, who essentially develops the modern-day Hunger Games that is then ended (spoiler alert!) in the final book of the series. The movie adaptation of this prequel novel does a pretty good job of sticking to the story, which is long. The fun surprise of both is that the Hunger Games only make up the first half of the story, but there is much more to develop afterward. Here are the few differences the movie does make from the novel.

1. The movie allowed Lucy Gray to finish her “performance” at the reaping
   • In the movie, when Lucy Gray has her name called at the reaping ceremony, she take the stage and performs. She is allowed to complete her performance because the audience is so awestruck by her talent and charm. In the novel, however, the evil of the people in charge of the Games shines through, as she is dragged off the stage, mid-performance.
2. No funerals for killed mentors :
   • In both the book and movie, a bunch of mentors for the Hunger Games are killed before the Games even begin. In the novel, each of the mentors killed are honored in a proper funeral, which delay the start of the Hunger Games. The funerals are eliminated from the movie.
3. Clemensia isn’t seen again after being bit by the snakes
   • As part of the torturing of the mentors in the story, one of them, Clemensia, is bitten by snakes. Coriolanus Snow’s relationship with Clemensia is complicated, as are many of his relationships in the novel. He sees her in the hospital as he recovers from his own injuries, but avoids visiting her as she recovers in the hospital. He eventually apologizes to her, and they reconcile, but the instance emphasizes the damage caused by the snakes. Much of this is eliminated from the movie.
4. Explanation and severity of the snakes
   • Speaking of the snakes, their power and the damage they inflict is a bit of a mystery in the novel. Corio has to figure out what they do and how they operate and harm people so that he can use that as a tactic to help Lucy Gray later in the games. But in the movie, Dr. Gaul outright explains to him and the other mentors what the snakes do, which drops some of the creepy mystery of it all. The snakes also seem a little more severe in the film, in that Lucy Gray almost dies from them at the end of the Hunger Games. In the novel, her singing keeps them at bay. In the movie, her singing calms them a bit, but they continue to still move slowly up her body until the mentors convince those in charge to end the Hunger Games.
5. Cornucopia bloodbath
   • In the novel, the Hunger Games competitors die more slowly and one at a time. In the film, the start of the Hunger Games is a bloodbath — similar to that seen in the other books and movies — where the competitors fight over supplies and weapons and instantly kill many of each other just as the Games begin. The movie is clearly trying to speed the plot along here.
6. Love story between Lucy Gray and Snow
   • The biggest bummer to me is that the love story between Lucy Gray and Snow is much better and more believable in the book. I believe they kiss sooner in the novel, and because the book is told from Snow’s point of view, the reader is getting more insight into his strong feelings for Lucy Gray. That helps in making it difficult to see how evil he really is until the very end. In the film, the love story is not as heavy of a focus. This is not a problem for the romance, but for the evolution of Snow’s character. Because the viewer is not seeing him as infatuated with her, he seems evil from the start, so his dark actions at the end of the novel don’t appear to be that shocking or haunting.