Before Suzanne Collins gave Hunger Games fans the story of Haymitch Abernathy’s games in Sunrise on the Reaping, she had already begun expanding the universe with the prequel novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which features new characters like Lucy Gray Baird and Sejanus Plinth. These new characters are not referenced in the original trilogy, but they are important to understanding the wider scope of Katniss’ story and the revolution in Panem as a whole.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set during the Tenth Hunger Games. The Games are still a fresh invention of the Capitol, and some of the children participating are even old enough to remember the first rebellion and its consequences. The novel and the movie are not set up the same way as Katniss’ original trip to the arena, as just as much of the story is set outside of the games as within them. As a result, the audience gets to know characters who are not the tributes just as well as those fighting for their lives.

Who Is Sejanus Plinth?

Sejanus Plinth Is A District 2 Mentor

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes allows Hunger Games fans to see how early iterations of the Games worked. They were not nearly the spectacle they were in Katniss’ time, and did not even have the setup of mentors from an existing district helping the new tributes in the games. That is where Sejanus Plinth enters the story.

Sejanus Plinth is a member of the wealthy Plinth family. The family is originally from District 2 and made their money in weapons manufacturing during the first rebellion. Because of their development of weapons for the Capitol (which helped to seemingly destroy District 13), the Plinth family is granted a rare opportunity – to leave District 2. In The Hunger Games franchise, the Districts are highly segregated with each one focused on a different industry. The further away from the Capitol the districts get, the less financial resources they have, and the more desperate the population is.

Because the Plinths are from District 2, they would not have been suffering the same way those living in District 12 are to begin with. Being invited to live and work in the Capitol, however, is almost unheard of because the Capitol is made up of the wealthiest families and the elite of the citizens. Sejanus becomes a student at the prestigious Academy and befriends Coriolanus Snow, future president of Panem and notorious villain to the fans.

Unlike Snow, whom he firmly believes is his best friend, Plinth does not aspire to climb the social or political ranks in the Capitol. Instead, he still has pride in the district he comes from and holds a lot of survivor’s guilt from his family’s involvement in the war. When it is announced that Academy students will compete for a prize by mentoring the Hunger Games tributes, Sejanus ends up with a tribute from his former district and genuinely wants to help him.

He also, however, understands that if he helps the tribute to win, he is effectively condemning the other 23 kids to die. That makes Sejanus Plinth a very conflicted character throughout much of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. When his tribute escapes, he is happy that he might get the chance to survive, but when he is caught and made a spectacle of in the arena, Sejanus fights to give him a proper burial and calls out those in charge of the games.

Sejanus Plinth might hold a lot of guilt, but he is one of the only characters to openly criticize the Hunger Games and the Capitol, which does not go well for him.

What Happens To Sejanus Plinth?

Sejanus Plinth Ends Up In District 12

During the Tenth Hunger Games, the tribute that Plinth was supposed to mentor is placed on display in the arena after his escape. Plinth, believing that his former classmate deserves more than being displayed as a warning, decides to sneak into the arena and attempt to get his body for a proper burial. Snow is sent in to retrieve him, which leads to an altercation between the two and some of the tributes.

In the movie, Plinth does not suffer consequences for this, but in the novel, it is this act of defiance against the Capitol that has Plinth forced to become a Peacekeeper in District 12 with Snow, who is also being punished for cheating to help Lucy Gray win. While in District 12, Sejanus Plinth is seen openly talking with rebels who are against the Capitol. He uses his family’s wealth and his new Peacekeeper connections to help Lucy Gray’s ex-boyfriend plan an uprising.

When Snow finds out, he tricks Plinth into admitting his involvement while a mockingjay records his words. Snow sends the bird back to the Capitol to Dr. Gaul, and Plinth’s essential confession sees him condemned to death in District 12. He is executed for his treason.

Why Sejanus Plinth Is Important To The Hunger Games Franchise

Sejanus Plinth Exemplifies Some Of The Franchise Themes

Sejanus Plinth might be a minor character in the grand scheme of the Hunger Games franchise, but the movie pushes him into more of a spotlight role, and rightly so. His place in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an important one. He is in direct contrast to someone like Coriolanus Snow, representing two very different ideologies in the franchise.

Snow is an example of someone who sees taking power for himself and making everyone else his subjects as the only way he can survive in a society set up like Panem that has already caused his own family so much suffering. Plinth, on the other hand, does not believe the wealthy should hold all the power. He believes the people should, and he is determined to make up for the actions of his family and help the people.

They are at opposite ends of reactions to the control of the Capitol, and their own reactions to their circumstances demonstrate just how a handful of people can remain in control of a larger group for decades. Sejanus Plinth’s death demonstrates how a second rebellion was always in the cards for the franchise. Just 10 years after the unification of Panem, the cruelty of the Capitol was on full display, and the citizens of the districts were restless.

Sejanus Plinth’s death is made even more tragic and important when a few changes from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book are taken into account as well.

How Sejanus Plinth’s Story Plays Out Differently

The Movie Makes Plinth More Tragic

The approach to Sejanus Plinth’s place in Coriolanus Snow’s story is different on screen than it is on the page. In the novel, Snow’s own thought process reveals that he was never truly friends with Plinth. Plinth sees himself as Snow’s best friend because Snow is his only classmate at the Academy who does not ridicule Plinth for his family originally coming from a district instead of the Capitol. Plinth sees it as kindness, but Snow simply does not think Plinth is worth his time.

That changes when Snow understands that he can manipulate Sejanus Plinth and those around him while they are all mentors in the Games. He uses the perceived friendship to get what he wants from them and gets himself one step closer to the Plinth Prize – because it is Sejanus Plinth’s father who shares his fortune with Academy Students to keep favor with the Capital.

Sejanus Plinth is much more naive in the novel than he is on the screen when it comes to Snow. In the movie, whether or not Snow sees Plinth as a true friend is a little more ambiguous. After all, Snow sheds a few tears after he is responsible for Plinth’s death, but he does not in the novel.

Of course, Plinth also proves himself to be naive in a different way in the movie when he volunteers to become a Peacekeeper. Plinth puts himself in the exact position that gets him killed. He does not realize that Peacekeepers are essentially cultivated as mindless soldiers to do the Capitol’s bidding, but thinks being in law enforcement will put him in a place to help others. That is not how Panem’s Peacekeepers are set up.

Snow even points out at one point that most of the Peacekeepers he encounters in District 12 are illiterate, hinting that the people employed in this way likely have no other options in Panem. They are recruited and taught to use a weapon and to uphold Capitol law, and many of them embrace their place in society and the violence ᴀssociated with their position, as is seen throughout the franchise.

Why Sejanus Plinth Deserves His Own Story

Sejanus Plinth Provides A Different Perspective

It seems unlikely that Sejanus Plinth will get his own Hunger Games book. Sunrise on the Reaping has already sold three times as many copies of Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, for starters. Plinth also dies very young, so his character would not be able to tell a sequel story. His perspective on the Hunger Games, however, is a unique one that Suzanne Collins’ franchise has not offered to her audience yet, which is why he should get his own story, even if it’s a short story in an anthology or something similar.

The point-of-view characters in The Hunger Games franchise have all either been rebellious victors in the Games from District 12 or the villain who seeks to keep them in line. Sejanus Plinth is someone caught between the districts and the Capitol. He is someone who offers a unique way of seeing the franchise compared to those other characters.

Plinth is not a character looking to escape Panem like Lucy Gray or someone who accidentally stumbles into the rebellion like both Haymitch and Katniss when they are teenagers. Plinth seeks out rebellion. He wants to bring about change. He knows what it is like to be a district citizen with upward mobility and a Capitol society member who is looked down on because of it. He recognizes the machinations of the government as cruelty in action, but unlike Katniss, who seeks to hide from it, he wants to expose it.

As Josh Andres Rivera pointed out to Entertainment Weekly while promoting the movie, Sejanus provides part of the emotional heart of the story because of his reaction:

So much of his character has to do with the situations he’s put in and how those are at odds with the things he believes in. He’s got a very big heart. He’s the moral compᴀss of the movie, along with Tigris, in terms of pulling [Coriolanus] over to make good decisions.

If a story featured Plinth as a young boy moving from District 2 to the Capitol and witnessing the changes to his family and the formation of the Games themselves, that would be a fascinating way to expand the universe and see how the Hunger Games world, as the fans know it, was even created.