The Hunger Games: Why Katniss Had To Kill Coin

Here’s why Katniss shot that fateful arrow at President Coin in The Hungers Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. The Hunger Games movie franchise is based on the bestselling books by author Suzanne Collins. The story takes place in a future where a totalitarian government rules over “Districts” in the country of Panem, and each year candidates are chosen to take part in a brutal, televised game of death. The franchise heroine is Katniss Everdeen, who takes the place of her younger sister and becomes a symbol after she wins – which eventually leads to rebellion.

The Hunger Games helped propel Jennifer Lawrence to stardom alongside X-Men: First Class. Lawrence returned for all the sequels and Katniss became one of her defining roles. The success of the franchise also created a thread of big-budget, dystopian YA adaptations, including The Maze Runner and The Divergent Series. The weak box-office of the latter franchise’s third entry Allegiant led to the planned final movie being abruptly cancelled, which marked the end of the YA boom. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 was also considered a mild financial disappointment, though it was still a success.

A major player introduced in the final two Hunger Games movies is Alma Coin, played by Julianne Moore. Coin was the former President of District 13 and led the rebellion against President Snow and the Capitol. While she initially seemed in line with Katniss – especially with her promise to end the Hunger Games for good – it’s gradually revealed her quest for power will see Coin stop at nothing. Coin comes to realize she can’t control Katniss either, though they must work together since Katniss is the rebellion’s symbol. After Katniss’ sister is killed Prim in a bombing raid she learns from the captured President Snow that it was Coin, not him, who ordered the bombs dropped.

Coin later gathered the remaining survivors of the Games and proposed they hold a symbolic Hunger Games that uses the Capital’s children, in a bid to quench the people’s desire for revenge. Needless to say, Katniss is horrified by the suggestion and comes to realize that – just like Snow – Coin is ruthless and will do anything to hold on to power. Katniss then agrees under the condition she can execute Snow personally. At the execution, Katniss aims at Snow before quickly taking aim at Coin instead, shooting an arrow into her chest. In addition to gaining revenge for Prim’s death, this also stopped Coin before she could become another monster like Snow, who is later stomped to death by rioting crowds.

In showing a willingness to use the Hunger Games to score political points, President Coin made it clear she had learned nothing from the bloodshed, and this is one key reason Katniss had to stop her. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 at least showed Katniss went on to lead a quiet life following her nightmare, even though she’d probably be living with the trauma of what happened for the rest of her life.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3484 Articles Published)

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It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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