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Summary
Chapter 19
Coriolanus, feeling overwhelmed and guilty, hides in a park to calm himself. He rationalizes his decision to give the snakes the handkerchief, but he knows he has crossed an ethical line. His feelings for Lucy are too intense.
Visiting the Plinth family, Coriolanus eats pie with Mrs Plinth, who then sends him upstairs to see Mr. Plinth. He expects to be thanked and possibly rewarded for saving Sejanus. Instead, Plinth interrogates him about his character and then sends him home. Coriolanus tries to work on his essay but doesn’t get much done before falling asleep.
In the arena, the situation intensifies. Wovey, Hilarius’s tribute, emerges and Hilarius immediately sends her food. However, she quickly keels over and dies, drooling silver fluid. Coriolanus hopes for a sighting of Lucy, but she doesn’t appear. In the afternoon, a huge drone flies over the area and drops off the tank full of Dr. Gaul’s snakes.
As the genetically engineered snakes are released, Treech and Teslee escape but Circ is immediately bitten and dies. Dr. Gaul explains onscreen that the snakes have been specially designed to hunt humans. Coral and Mizzen, caught off guard, also have a run-in with the snakes, and Coral dies. A hush descends over the mentor’s room as faint music can be heard. Lucy Gray enters the arena, walking backwards out of a tunnel, singing and moving cautiously and continuously. She seems to mesmerize the snakes with her song, and they gather around her without attacking. More appear, and she sits down in the writhing mass.
Chapter 20
Coriolanus watches as every snake in the arena gathers around Lucy, who continues to sing. The cameras cut back to Lucky, who praises Dr. Gaul for the extraordinary invention of the snakes. Gaul dismisses the praise, suggesting that everyone focus on mourning the dead Gaius Breen. The mentors gather in Heavensbee Hall that evening to sleep, and Coriolanus takes a rare opportunity of privacy to apologize to Clemensia. The two reconcile.
When the televised games begin again the next morning, all the snakes have died of exposure. Reaper collects the corpses and puts them with the others, and Teslee appears on the scene directly under Mizzen’s perch. She’s holding an altered drone, which begins to fly in a circle around her. She’s hacked the homing devices of the other drones, so they all attack Mizzen’s face, killing him. Teslee looks briefly satisfied, but the camera then pans out to show Treech sneaking up behind her. When Lucy Gray emerges from the tunnels that afternoon, Treech also tries to murder her. However, she falls into his arms to escape his ax, releasing a pink snake she had sheltered onto his neck. He keels over, dead. Clemensia and Coriolanus are now the final two remaining mentors.
Lucy decides to draw Reaper out, playing a grim game of tag with him as she steals the flag and forces him out into the open. Reaper takes it back, but is stumbling and disoriented. He drinks from his puddle, but then collapses. He drags himself to the line of other bodies and dies. Lucy and Coriolanus have won. All is not well, however. After the many toasts he receives, Coriolanus is directed to the biology lab. Dean Highbottom sits there alone, with the items that Coriolanus gave Lucy spread in front of her. He’s been found out. Coriolanus’s dreams are dashed, and he’s sent away for Peacekeeper training.
Analysis
The split second when Coriolanus decides to drop Lucy's handkerchief into the snake tank is one of the more complex moments surrounding his morality. Coriolanus is certainly not a hero, but in his relationship with Lucy, he learns to think about somebody else's welfare before his own. It's almost as if he acts on instinct when he drops the handkerchief into the snake tank. Collins tells the reader that Coriolanus finds the handkerchief in his hand “without knowing quite how,” and that he “watched it fall and then disappear” into the tank. This language makes it sound as though he is a spectator, not a participant, but the fact that Coriolanus risks his own safety and teaches the snakes Lucy's scent probably saves her life.
His feelings for Lucy appear to have a direct result on his physical body beyond the usual feelings that attraction and desire cause. His affection for her seems to cause his body to disobey him or act in ways that he doesn't expect when matters concern her. Indeed, he seems to be shocked by the fact that he's dropped the handkerchief into the tank, immediately feeling terrified that he's going to be disqualified from the competition or expelled from the Academy. Lucy is the only element of Coriolanus's life that he routinely prioritizes above his own safety. Somewhat predictably, his irrational attachment to Lucy and his actions with the handkerchief and silver compact prove to be his downfall. When he emerges from the post-games party to go to the appointment Dean Highbottom has requested, he’s sitting at his desk with the items that Coriolanus gave Lucy laid out in front of him. In failing to cover his tracks while impulsively trying to help her, he has destroyed his carefully planned future. It’s a slowly unfolding disaster that comes to a head very rapidly after Lucy wins.
The scene when the enormous box of neon snakes is dropped into the arena seems like it’s going to be a disaster for all of the tributes, including Lucy. Coriolanus hasn't seen her all day when the snakes arrive, and he knows that it’s probably because she's hiding in one of the tunnels off to the side of the arena. He also knows that snakes like cold, damp places underground. He believes that as soon as they escape from the box, they will hunt one of these out, possibly also hunting out Lucy. He's right to be concerned about the role that snakes play in tribute deaths, as they immediately finish off almost everyone who encounters them. However, it's actually unclear whether it’s the handkerchief he gives them or Lucy’s singing and movement that prevents the snakes from biting her. She's a talented musician and dancer, and has previously mentioned liking and knowing how to handle snakes. The rhythmic movements and sounds she's making certainly seem to play a role in hypnotizing and calming the snakes, especially as they stir angrily when she stops. Indeed, Lucy is so aligned with the snakes that she actually picks one up and pockets it, using it to kill Treech. It’s unclear whether Coriolanus’s brave action or her own ingenuity saves her, but either way, she isn’t bitten.
When Lucy realizes that she and Reaper are the only tributes left, she decides that she wants to force the moment to its crisis. She runs back and forth, stealing many separate parts of the Panem flag from Reaper. He’s infuriated, but he’s also already suffering from heatstroke and in no state to run after her. It quickly becomes apparent that Lucy's tactic in making him run isn’t to make him collapse from exhaustion: she's trying to make him thirsty. Reaper has been drinking from a puddle for the entire duration of the Hunger Games. Lucy draws him out to the center of the arena and back several times so that he’s overcome with a need for water. He drinks deeply from the puddle without realizing that Lucy has poisoned it. As soon as he keels over, Lucy has won the Games.
