Name Meanings in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Tributes and Mentors

The district lack of last names dehumanizes and deprivileges them. Here the emphasis is even more on the mentors, who are introduced on their own list mentoring only “boy” or girl.” Later, the Tributes’ names are added but only Lucy and Jessop have last names revealed anywhere. In the original trilogy, Katniss doesn’t learn most Tributes’ last names and sometimes not even the first ones. All this emphasizes the Tributes’ pathetic fates, not even to be recorded or remembered. This time, exacerbating this angle, nearly half die before the games begin, and then the record of the games is buried as well.

District 1: Mentors and Tributes

Livia Cardew (her family run a bank) mentors Facet. He’s shot trying to escape during the bombing. His name, like Glimmer from book one, suggests part of a jewel, but he’s merely a facet, or small side of the Capitol’s plan. Livia was an empress of Rome, wife of Caesar Augustus, who chose her not from love but to be a politically worthy wife. Coriolanus chooses this Livia for similar reasons.

Palmyra Monty mentors Velvereen, whose name suggests a costly fabric that’s still a commodity. She’s shot trying to escape during the bombing. Palmyra, meanwhile, is an ancient Syrian city. As a silk road stop that blended Roman and Persian…