Coriolanus is actually the elder Plinth's son.
My only diegetic reasoning is the way he describes Coriolanus' mother as 'always gracious,' how he grills Coryo on if he's like his mother, and the way Sejanus sees Coriolanus as his brother- Alternatively, Strabo Plinth was in love with/attracted to Coriolanus' mother, a beautiful and presumably aristocratic Capitol woman (she did marry a pre-impoverished Snow) and the opposite of his homely, extremely District wife. His questioning Coriolanus and subsequent remarks indicate that he met Crassus Snow before the latter's death, undoubtedly picking up that the elder Snow disdained Strabo for his District background, and assumes Coriolanus, who looks very much like his father, to be the same. Coriolanus' resemblance to Crassus is noted several times, and would be extremely unlikely if Strabo was somehow Coriolanus' father unless the late Mr. and Mrs. Snow were cousins or something.
Lucy Gray died in the forest, and Maude Ivory is Katniss's grandmother.
Throughout the book, Lucy Gray points out that she's still alive and hasn't lost the games yet by telling Snow that "it's not over until the mockingjay sings." Well, the mockingjays do sing, and she disappears. She's a proponent of honesty, and if she'd suspected Snow was the reason Sejanus was hanged, she would have confronted him, not run away. She didn't leave the scarf and the snake as a trap, she lost them in a struggle with whoever the mayor sent after her. The mockingjays also follow a pattern of repeating last words, so that's what her song could have been. Maude Ivory never forgets a song, and was fond of the hanging tree, so she taught it to her son. The timeline also makes more sense — Maude Ivory was younger and, assuming she escaped the reaping, could more plausibly have been Katniss's paternal grandmother than Lucy Gray. Tigris Snow and Tigris the disgraced stylist are the same person.
Tigris Snow and Tigris the Disgraced Stylist both work in fashion and eat their meat raw. They end the prequel on good terms but 65 years is a long time. Tigris was stopped from participating in the games ten years prior to Katniss’s first games - the one Finnick won. We know, or at least can guess from implication in Ballad, that Tigris was reduced to sex work at a young age to keep food on the table. She may well have turned on her cold blooded tyrannical reptile of a cousin after finding out what was being done to Finnick, and been hidden from the public afterward, with the excuse of one too many surgeries. It’s also possible she actually was cast out for a few too many surgeries to protect Snow’s image, and is after revenge on him for abandoning her after all she did to watch his back. Lucy Gray isn't the previous Victor from 12 mentioned in the first book and there is another between her and Haymitch
Gaul says the Games are being erased and forgotten and it could be taken as meaning that they pretend she never existed as well. Granted this would cause problems for anyone tallying up how many victors there were but the Capitol could have rewritten history to invent a false, less controversial Victor (something done in the fanfiction story The Victors Project). Tigris and Coriolanus Snow's relationship disintegrated because of Finnick
In the prequel, Tigris and Snow are very close. But by the time of Mockingjay, Tigris wants Snow dead. A lot of time passed between The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Mockingjay, so something happened in those years that led up to them going from being Like Brother and Sister to being on total opposite sides of the war. The shift in their relationship probably started when Snow went back to the Capitol after his stint as a Peacekeeper. Snow always told Tigris everything, so he would have told her about how he betrayed Sejanus with the jabberjay. They probably further drifted apart when Snow became the President Evil of Panem and Tigris saw his tyranny and cruel actions. The last straw for Tigris was when Snow started prostituting victors. I don't know if Finnick was the first victor he pimped out, but assuming he was, the timeline seems to add up. Katniss says that Tigris had been fired as a Hunger Games stylist when she was a kid, which would have been around the same time as Finnick's win (Tigris may have possibly been Finnick's stylist). Tigris would have been horrified at someone being forced to go through the sexual abuse she did when she was young, tried to confront Snow, and ended up getting fired by him, which marked the point when any familial affection Tigris had for him was completely dead.- Alternatively (has it actually been confirmed that the two Tigris's are the same character?) it could also be that the one from the main character is the daughter or granddaughter of Snow's cousin, who followed her mother into styling and was disgusted for the same reasons mentioned as above, but due to the stories she'd heard form the original Tigris about that rather than personal experience.
Lucy Gray escaped to District 13.
Lucy Gray previously spoke of escaping up north with Coriolanus, which (according to the main series) is where District 13 is located. While it is unknown whether Lucy Gray knew that District 13 had not been annihilated, it's very likely that she may have stumbled upon one of its residents, who may have welcomed her into the underground district and helped her integrate with the rest of the population. Coriolanus Snow doesn't know the colours of the rainbow.
Lucy Gray's dress is described as being made of ruffles of raspberry pink, royal blue, and daffodil yellow. But yet Coriolanus often describes it as "rainbow", even though the colours of the rainbow are not raspberry pink, royal blue, and daffodil yellow, but red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. So it's fair to assume that Coriolanus never actually learnt the colours of the rainbow, and just refers to everything with three colours as rainbow, even if it's not actually rainbow.- It's more likely that 'rainbow' is here used as a euphemism for 'colourful', and not directly referring to the colours of the actual rainbow. Perhaps that would make more sense?
- I am the original author of this theory. I wasn't being quite serious, apologies if my attempt at a light-hearted joke WMG wasn't clear and ended up being a case of Humor Dissonance.
Coriolanus eventually murdered some of his classmates.
In Mockingjay, Finnick says that President Snow murdered his allies if he thought that the allies were a threat to him maintaining his power. In TBOSAS, Coriolanus attends school with the children of some of the most powerful people in the country, who would be in prime positions to become politicians when they're older. It's likely that Coriolanus ended up killing some of the people he went to school with. The popular Festus seems a likely candidate, as does his close friend Clemensia, who openly voiced her dislike of the Hunger Games.- He also likely killed Lysistrata for seeing the tributes as actual humans and also openly resented the Games.
In relation to the theory above, Snow killed his classmates, starting with Clemensia and Lysistrata, through a Synthetic Plague that Dr. Gaul helped produce.
Snow has a long-running habit of using poison to Make It Look Like an Accident. Having witnessed Clemensia's brutal poisoning, he would poison her again with infection, possibly claiming her "flu" made a comeback. From that point, Lysistrata, being from a family of doctors, saw potential inaccuracies and suspected foul play, leading to her death. From there, the plague "unfortunately" claimed many powerful families, and Snow used the unstable atmosphere to maintain control and earn favour with the Capitolites, especially after President Ravenstill "succumbed to it as well." Lucy Gray drowned in the lake.
In the poem she was named after, the main character gets lost in the snow and falls in a ravine. Lucy Gray was shot, fell in the lake, and drowned. That's why nobody ever found her. She's at the bottom of the lake with the weapons Snow threw in it, which we know were never discovered. Like the girl in the poem, she got lost in the Snow and drowned. Dr Gaul abducted Lucy Gray.
This isn't my theory, I saw it in a fan group on Facebook. But I find it interesting.The theory goes that since Dr Gaul took such an interest in Snow, she had him under surveillance in 12 (possibly by jabberjays). After what happened between Lucy Gray and Snow in the woods, Gaul had Lucy Gray abducted, never to be returned to the outside world again. Gaul placed the snake in the woods that bit Snow.
Related to the above theory, Gaul engineered the snake to manipulate Snow's feelings/interests, turning off his interest in romance, or perhaps making his interest in power and control even stronger. Lucy Gray is the mother of President Coin.
This theory has been floating around a bit, and it makes more sense than the similar theory that Lucy Gray became President Coin. Lucy Gray escaped 12 and went up North. She met a man and had a child with him. That child was a daughter, who grew up to be President Alma Coin. Lucy Gray told her daughter about her experiences with Snow, which is one of the reasons (aside from the dictatorship) Coin hated Snow so much. Sejanus would have become a powerful politician if he hadn't been executed
The most famous Sejanus in history is Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who Sejanus Plinth seems to have been named after (as evidenced by the fathers of both Plinth and the historical Sejanus being named Strabo). Lucius Aelius Sejanus was one of the most powerful figures in Ancient Rome, but was executed when it was feared that he would usurp Emperor Tiberius. Sejanus Plinth was passionate about human rights, and came from a well-connected family. Perhaps if Coriolanus had never betrayed Sejanus, Sejanus would have gotten into politics and used his influence to improve the circumstances of the citizens of Panem, possibly earning the ire of Coriolanus for making his oppression of the Districts less harsh and ending up poisoned by him.- Unlikely, as Sejanus' temperament - idealistic yet naive, impulsive, not given to forethought or concealing his emotions, and likely depressive - doesn't incline itself to politics, especially in the cutthroat Capitol; he also makes his disdain for the Capitol and its people clear, which would put a damper on political ambitions since it's the center of political power in Panem, and he's already an outsider due to being District-born. The historical Sejanus rose to power by being in the Emperor's good graces; for something similar to happen here, Sejanus would have to avoid tripping the Bad End Event Flag that convinces Coriolanus to cut him lose, likely by refusing to help the rebels, and then accompany Coriolanus back to the Capitol, and Coriolanus would still have to become President Snow. True, Snow would probably prefer having a suggestible idealist in place rather than someone who could actually be a threat, especially if Snow pragmatically allows for slight improvements in the Districts to placate Sejanus, but he'd likely still end up dead if he started demanding bigger changes or otherwise became too inconvenient. There's also no indication that Snow actually let anyone else make real decisions during his presidency, so the amount of change Sejanus could effect (without getting assassinated) would probably be small.
Alternate ending to the above 'Sejanus becomes a politician' theory:
Sejanus deals with his guilt and inability to effect real change by turning to morphling. It's implied that he was using it after being injured in the arena, and President Snow might be lenient to an old "friend" by allowing Sejanus to languish in his addiction rather than assassinating him outright. It might even be a Generation Xerox comparison if Sejanus realizes that he helped Coriolanus become President, especially if Sejanus' money helped smooth Snow's path to power, and Sejanus becomes an ineffectual and guilt-ridden morphling addict the way Dean Highbottom did after accidentally allowing Crassus Snow to set the Hunger Games in motion. Lucy Gray became Greasy Sae.
In Mockingjay, Greasy Sae was present for some reason at the small council of people with President Coin and Katniss wonders why she was invited. Greasy Sae is a woman who could cook any wild game Katniss and Gale brought her. She also is very present during Katniss' Hunger Games journey, organising a fundraiser for Katniss and Peeta, giving Katniss advice about the Victory Tour in Catching Fire ("Get through it to the end"), and takes care of Katniss before Peeta returns to 12 in Mockingjay. Katniss even says in Catching Fire that Greasy Sae is a priority to her. She really went above and beyond for someone she just did business with. Greasy Sae is elderly, so she's roughly around the same age as Lucy Gray would be. Perhaps Lucy Gray hid out in the Woods for a few years, learning how to cook wild animals, before returning to 12 after enough time had passed and changing her identity. Tigris didn't turn to sex work...
...Or at least, that's not what she was talking about when she told Coriolanus not to judge people for desperate things they did in wartime. She was talking about cannibalism.After she and Coriolanus saw their neighbour cutting a leg off a dead maid, she saw her young cousin home and then came back to get a piece herself. She didn't tell him, because she saw how badly freaked out he was, but the fact was they just needed the food. She kept the secret later when she saw how he looked at his classmate for unknowingly eating human meat, and didn't want him to know he'd done the same. She thought about bringing it up when Coriolanus was being judgemental about Lucy Gray's song, but couldn't quite bring herself to.
It would have a certain irony to it, if Coriolanus was being an unwitting hypocrite by looking down on his classmate. Also, if Tigris is the same Tigris from Mockingjay, then this might be the start of her obsession with herself as a tiger (say, if this was a fantasy she used to shield herself from what she was doing). So both Coriolanus and Tigris' psyches were impacted forever by this one event from their childhoods.
Casca Highbottom was in a relationship with, or at least had romantic feelings for, Crassus Snow.
Highbottom's grudge doesn't stem solely from the assignment that led to the Hunger Games, but from being betrayed by someone he was either involved with or had feelings for, along with self-recrimination for being so blinded by his feelings that he didn't see it coming. The dismissive way Highbottom speaks about Coriolanus' mother could be jealousy and/or resentment, but there's also a hint of pity or empathy when he says she "somehow convinced herself that [Crassus] would give her freedom and love"; she wasn't the only one who hoped for more from Crassus than he was either capable of or willing to give. Also, if Casca and Crassus were in a relationship, it might be why Pluribus Bell remembers them so fondly, as Pluribus is likely gay himself.It also explains Highbottom's venomous hatred for Coriolanus, who looks almost exactly like his father, and Highbottom's unusually considerate treatment of Sejanus and Lucy Gray, in addition to his guilt over the Games: He sees his younger self in Sejanus, an idealist too enamored of a Snow to realize he's being used, and echoes of Coriolanus' mother in Lucy, another girl who believes said Snow could save her.
Sejanus is only a mentor because of his father's money.
The mentors are supposed to be the top 24 students at the Academy, but while at least some of them have their academic achievements noted, nothing is mentioned of Sejanus' besides the fact that his father's rich. Sejanus is noted to still have problems adjusting to the Capitol even after ten years and may put little effort into school, whether out of depression/apathy, rebellion, knowing his father would pay his way anyway or just being a mediocre student. He notes that his father likely pulled strings to get him assigned a District 2 Tribute, to make a point, so it's possible that Sejanus' grades wouldn't have been good enough to become a mentor except for his dad's deep pockets. This adds an extra layer of meaning to Strabo's attitude when Coriolanus meets him in his study: Strabo set everything up in an attempt to keep Sejanus in line, only for the results to radicalize Sejanus and make him suicidal, ultimately leading to his death. Clerk Carmine is the fiddle-player from District 12 mentioned in the original trilogy.
Well, he does play the fiddle for the Covey. Also, he's a pre-teen in the prequel, so he could potentially still be alive when the events of the original trilogy take place; he'd be in his seventies at that point. Having said that, there is the matter of the low life expectancy among the people who live in District 12, so maybe the fiddle-player Katniss mentions is Clerk Carmine's son and was taught to play the fiddle by his father. Of course, that depends on whether or not Clerk Carmine escaped the reaping, with his son doing likewise. The District 2 marriage/courting tradition...
... involves carving a small token out of stone, possibly out of marble, and presenting it to the person you're courting/proposing to. Ma Plinth has a small marble egg in her kitchen, noted to be one of very few items that she brought from District 2; there are also rooster-shaped salt and pepper shakers, and being a cook/baker likely means that she raised chickens for eggs, making the marble egg a personal token for her husband to have given her. The egg is now relegated to the small area of the Plinths' apartment where Ma feels at home, as it's implied that she and Pa have grown apart and he spends most of his time in his study, far from "her" kitchen. The marble heart in Sejanus' locker was meant for Coriolanus.
Building on the above WMG, Sejanus secretly developed romantic feelings for Coriolanus, who was the only person Sejanus counted as a friend; he even noted that Marcus 'wasn't exactly a friend' despite being someone he'd known in District 2, and Sejanus would probably have been too young at the time of his family's move for a courting token to be on his mind. The "crude" carving of the heart is likely due to Sejanus' lack of skill, since he moved young and never had the chance to gain the skills of an actual stonemason; it might also be because it's unfinished, either because he had to make it in secret (Strabo likely wouldn't have approved), because he was sent to District 12 and couldn't bring any tools, or because he realized Coriolanus liked Lucy Gray and stopped working on it.It would add an extra layer of irony/tragedy to Sejanus' death, as the book makes it seem like Coriolanus' opinion tilts against Sejanus when he goes through Sejanus' things and doesn't find anything from the Capitol, taking it to mean that Sejanus' loyalties lie with the Districts and he thus can't be trusted. If this WMG is true, then that means there was a memento of the Capitol among Sejanus' belongings, and one specifically of Coriolanus, at that— It was just one that he didn't recognize.
Katniss is not the granddaughter of Lucy Gray or Maude Ivory, but a more distant relation.
Katniss clearly doesn't know who Lucy Gray was, as evidenced by her only acknowledgement of Lucy Gray being an off-handed mention that there had only been one other Victor than Haymitch. If she was related or aware of her relation to Lucy Gray, surely she would have mentioned her grandmother or grandmother's sister who was in the Games. Even if her grandmother died before she was born, wouldn't her father have talked about his mother or aunt being a Tribute before? It's a pretty big thing to not be aware of when it happened to a relative as close as a grandmother or great aunt. Perhaps Katniss was a great-granddaughter of one of the two, which is just distant enough that knowledge on past generations of family members might have started being forgotten. She might even a granddaughter or great-granddaughter of one of the other Covey. Although it's possible that she really is the grandchild of Maude Ivory and the reason she doesn't know about her great aunt's history with the Hunger Games is because Maude Ivory and the Covey were too depressed by what happened to Lucy Gray to be able to bring themselves to speak about her Games experience to their children and grandchildren. Or they may have been afraid to talk about Lucy Gray after Snow became president, in case passing on her legacy earned them Snow's ire. Clerk Carmine is the fiddler mentioned in Mockingjay
In Mockingjay, it's mentioned a fiddler made it out of 12 and went to 13 (he plays at Finnick and Annie's wedding). Perhaps Clerk Carmine lived to old age, left 12 and continued playing his instrument. After all, how many people from 12 would even know how to play an instrument? After becoming president, Coriolanus had Capitol Representatives be in charge of the reaping
In the 10th games the mayors of the districts announce the tributes instead of Capitol Reps like Effie. I think Snow changed this in order to prevent another Lucy Gray incident and to make sure to keep things “fair”. The Goat Man mentioned in Catching Fire was one of the Covey or their descendants
They did mention wanting to breed more goats. Arlo wasn't involved in the bombing - but Lil was.
That's why he shouted for her to run. He was taking the fall for her.