President Snow Quotes in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)

President Alma Coin: [message appears onscreen] Good evening. For those of you who don't know me, please allow me to introduce myself. I am President Alma Coin, leader of the Rebellion. I have interrupted a broadcast from your President in which he attempted to defame a brave young woman. "A face picked from the masses," he called her.

President Snow: Plucked.

President Alma Coin: As if a leader, a true leader, could be anything else. I had the privilege of knowing a small-town girl from the Seam in District 12 who survived the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell and rose up and turned a nation of slaves into an army! Dead or alive, Katniss Everdeen will remain the face of this revolution. She will not have died for nothing.

President Snow: I wanted to tell you how very sorry I am about your sister. So wasteful. So unnecessary. Anyone could see the game was over by that point. In fact I was just about issue an official surrender when they released those parachutes.

Katniss Everdeen: You released those parachutes.

President Snow: You really think I gave the order? We both know I'm not above killing children, but I'm not wasteful. I take life for specific reasons, and there was no reason for me to destroy a pen full of Capitol children. None at all.

[coughs up blood]

President Snow: I must concede, it was a masterful move on Coin's part. The idea that I was bombing our own helpless children to hold back the rebels. It turned the last of my guards against me. There was no resistance left inside the Capitol or the mansion. Do you know it aired live? There's a particular savvy in that, isn't there? I'm sure she wasn't gunning for your sister, but... these things happen in war. My failure was in being so slow to grasp Coin's plan. She let the Capitol and the Districts destroy one another, then she stepped in to take power with 13's arsenal. Oh, make no mistake, she intends to take my place now. But... I've been watching you. And you watching me. I'm afraid we've both been played for fools.

Katniss Everdeen: I don't believe you.

President Snow: Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we'd agreed never to lie to each other.

President Snow: Fear does not work as long as there is hope.

President Snow: Her entire species has to be eliminated.

Plutarch Heavensbee: Her species, sir?

President Snow: The other victors. Now, because of her, they all pose a threat. Because of her, they all think they're invincible.

[about Katniss]

President Snow: She's not who they think she is. She's not a leader. She just wants to save her own skin. It's as simple as that.

Plutarch Heavensbee: I think that's true.

President Snow: She's become a beacon of hope for the rebellion, and she has to be eliminated.

Plutarch Heavensbee: I agree she should die, but in the right way, at the right time. It's moves and counter-moves, and it's all we gotta look at. Katniss Everdeen is a symbol. Their Mockingjay. They think she's one of them. We need to show that she's one of us. We don't need to destroy her, just the image, then we let the people do the rest.

President Snow: What do you propose?

Plutarch Heavensbee: Shut down the black markets, take away what little they have, then double the amount of floggings and executions. Put them on TV, broadcast them live, sow fear, more fear...

President Snow: It won't work. Fear does not work as long as they have hope, and Katniss Everdeen is giving them hope.

Plutarch Heavensbee: She's engaged. Make everything about that. What kind of dress is she gonna wear? - floggings. What's the cake gonna look like? - executions. Whose gonna be there? - fear. Blanket coverage. Shove it in their faces. Show them that she's one of us now.

[laughs]

Plutarch Heavensbee: They're gonna hate her so much they just might kill her for ya.

President Snow: Brilliant.

[from trailer]

President Snow: You fought very hard in the Games, Miss Everdeen. But they were games. Would you like to be in a real war? Imagine thousands of your people, dead. Your loved ones, gone.

Katniss Everdeen: What do I need to do?

President Snow: She is preparing to fight.

Plutarch Heavensbee: That's our girl.

[from trailer]

President Snow: This is the 75th year of the Hunger Games. The tributes are to be reaped on the existing pool of victors!

President Snow: Whatever game you think you're playing, those out there are not playing it with you.

[from trailer]

President Snow: Miss Everdeen, it is the things we love most that destroy us.

President Snow: Ms. Everdeen, it's the things we love the most that destroy us. Did you think I didn't know your friends are in the Tribute Center?

President Snow: Seneca... why do you think we have a winner?

Seneca Crane: [frowns] What do you mean?

President Snow: I mean, why do we have a winner? I mean, if we just wanted to intimidate the districts, why not round up twenty-four of them at random and execute them all at once? Be a lot faster.

[Seneca just stares, confused]

President Snow: Hope.

Seneca Crane: Hope?

President Snow: Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it's contained.

Seneca Crane: So...?

President Snow: So, CONTAIN it.

President Snow: An eleven?

Seneca Crane: She earned it.

President Snow: She shot an arrow at your head.

Seneca Crane: Well, at an apple.

President Snow: Near your head.

President Snow: [voice over] War, terrible war. Widows, orphans, a motherless child. This was the uprising that rocked our land. Thirteen districts rebelled against the country that fed them, loved them, protected them. Brother turned on brother until nothing remained. And then came the peace, hard fought, sorely won. A people rose up from the ashes and a new era was born. But freedom has a cost. When the traitors were defeated, we swore as a nation we would never know this treason again. And so it was decreed that, each year, the various districts of Panem would offer up, in tribute, one young man and woman to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice. The lone victor, bathed in riches, would serve as a reminder of our generosity and our forgiveness. This is how we remember our past. This is how we safeguard our future.

President Snow: What a lovely pin.

Katniss Everdeen: Thank you. It's from my district.

President Snow: I like you.

President Snow: Welcome...! Welcome...! Tributes, we welcome you. We salute your courage and your sacrifice... and we wish you... Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.

Seneca Crane: Everyone likes an underdog.

President Snow: I don't.

President Snow: Welcome, and happy Hunger Games.