Hunger Games Prequel Reveals President Snow Is Related To Another Important Character

Donald Sutherland as President Snow in Hunger Games
(Image credit: (Lionsgate))

The Hunger Games trilogy author Suzanne Collins is gearing up to release a prequel book called The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes in just a few days that is already set to become a film too. Ahead of the book centering on an 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow hitting bookshelves, she has offered a major family connection concerning the Panem leader: his cousin is Tigris.

Now it’s been a while since most of us brushed up on the Hunger Games. Tigris is a character from the third novel Mockingjay, who made an appearance in 2015’s Mockingjay - Part 2. Katniss, Gale, Peeta and the gang come across her when they are seeking cover in the Capitol. She is a once well-renowned stylist who was thought to be fired from her job under President Snow for being too surgically altered to appear in the Hunger Games. Check her out below:

Eugenie Bondurant as Tigris in Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2

(Image credit: (Lionsgate))

No, that’s not a cast member from Cats. In Mockingjay, Tigris is a shopkeeper in the Capitol who helps the protagonists by lending them clothes to blend into the highly-affluent sector of Panem. Her lineage to President Snow was revealed on the official Twitter account for The Hunger Games when it released a reading of the first chapter of The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes read by Suzanne Collins.

The first chapter follows a young President Snow as he prepares for the reaping ceremony back when he was a teen, and Tigris is named as his cousin who helps him out with his fashion choices beforehand. Snow lived in the Capitol back in the day, but his family was not rich, so Tigris apparently helped him with his clothing.

Fans are certainly shocked about the early Hunger Games prequel reveal. One fan took to Mockingjay to reference an especially telling quote from the third book between Katniss and Tigris that now holds a completely different meaning. Check it out below (via @anirielluna):

‘Did Snow ban you from the Games?’ I ask. She just stares back at me. Somewhere her tiger tail flicks with displeasure. ‘Because I'm going to kill him, you know.’ Her mouth spreads into what I take for a smile.

Whoa! Sounds like there is going to be some major drama between the cousins in the Hunger Games prequel fans of the franchise can look forward to in the book and upcoming movie. Lionsgate is adapting the prequel, with Francis Lawrence, director of Catching Fire and Mockingjay 1 & 2, helming, and Michael Arndt and Nina Jacobson penning the script.

The decision for the Hunger Games franchise to go backwards in time to track a villain’s past is already one the likes of Star Wars has done, and this lineage ties it further to the decisions made in with the prequels in a galaxy far, far away. But the addition of Tigris is a really interesting one for the franchise to tackle.

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Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.