“He did not want to die!
Especially not in that field, with those mutant birds echoing his last utterance.
Who knew what crazy thing you’d say in a moment like that?”
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – Chapter 29, Page 370
This line always had me curious—what would Coriolanus, of all people, spontaneously burst out with on the moment of his death? Would he speak of his father? Would he speak of his mother? Would he curse the districts?
Sejanus’ final outburst being addressed to his mother makes sense; he seemed the closest to her, and his first instinct was wanting for her to save him. Fairly typical. For Coriolanus, he may remember his mother as a symbol of when life was simpler, and safer, but it doesn’t seem that he looks at her and thinks of her as someone who can save him. Would he ever dare to look to his father to save him? Yes, we know that’s ultimately what happens later on when he uses Crassus’ compass to make it back to District 12. But would he consciously cry out for that figure to save him?
Would he even be in the type of mind state where he wants someone to save him, because wouldn’t he simply want to do that by himself anyway?
And we also know that, later on and at the end of his life, Coriolanus simply laughs and chokes to death from it. His death is mischievous and dignified in its psychopathy, similarly to how Coriolanus has lived his life since we’ve known him as a teenager.
Perhaps it’s simply his own assumption that he would have something to cry out hat leads us to think he would. Maybe he wouldn’t have anything to say, as his actual death already proves it.
Or maybe he would just cry for Lucy Grey to save him.
Any thoughts?
