Lucy Gray bears similarities to Katniss, including their musicality, home, and experience in the Hunger Games.

Critics of both the book and film disapproved of the choice to center Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as it is known that he will become a villain.

Snow lives in Panem, set in future North America, where an elite Capitol rules over 12 Districts.

Each year, a Hunger Games takes place to punish the Districts for a failed revolution, known as the Dark Days.

In the tenth Hunger Games, 18-year-old Snow has an opportunity as a mentor to boost his status and fund his upcoming university studies to save himself, Tigris and Grandma’am.

Snow discovers and destroys the last evidence of his crimes as Lucy Gray begins to distrust him over the number of people he says he has killed.

Katniss demands to be the one to kill Snow in order to join the rebels' propaganda team, a moment removed from the films.

Snow begins to make Katniss believe that District 13 dropped the bombs that killed her younger sister Prim.

Instead, she shoots rebellion leader Alma Coin, leading Snow to laugh uncontrollably and die from coughing up blood or crushed by the frenzied crowd.

[10] Author Suzanne Collins thought of the William Wordsworth quote, "the child is the father of the man", when reflecting on how Snow's childhood influenced his views towards food, women and Panem.

She considered the idea of tabula rasa—that people are born as 'blank slates' and develop through life experiences—but noted that Snow's contemporaries have contrasting personalities despite suffering in wartime.

[13] According to Finnick in Mockingjay, Snow poisoned his enemies to ascend to the presidency, drinking from the same cups as them to gain trust and then taking an antidote.

[13] Snow's father was responsible for the Hunger Games' founding, submitting a drunken idea of Highbottom's as part of an assignment when both were students.

[13] Katniss may remind Snow of Lucy Gray due to their shared district, musical talent and relationship formed in the Games.

Snow believes that Peeta loves Katniss, but that she does not reciprocate; he forces her on the Victory Tour to "convince him" that the relationship is real.

[17] Collins said Lucy Gray's music "helped to bring down" President Snow, citing Katniss singing "Deep in the Meadow" to Rue during a Hunger Games.

[3] Sutherland, who had engaged in left-wing activism, wanted young viewers to organize and start a revolutionary movement to create political change in the United States.

[25] Blyth saw his character as undergoing three stages: naive and ambitious ("Coryo"); entering manhood ("Coriolanus"); and the guarded figure played by Sutherland ("future President Snow").

[23] Jacobson said the film required the audience to side with Snow despite knowing his fate, but also needed to portray his greed and ambition.

[28] Time's Megan McCluskey criticized that his character was "reverse-engineered" based on his role in The Hunger Games, with the "roots of his at-any-costs ambition" not justified.

[18] In contrast, Laura Miller of Slate praised Snow as a more relatable and realistic protagonist than Katniss, as he experiences "petty resentments, flashes of generosity, and moral failures".

Vulture's Roxana Hadadi reviewed that Snow's future villainy and a single year of his life prevent the movie from forming "a coherent portrait" of the character.

Frederick found it hard to be invested in the story when Snow's villainy is already known and criticized the implications of an oppressed woman of color—Lucy Gray—falling in love with her white oppressor—Snow.

[31] Sandra Hall of The Sydney Morning Herald described Blyth's Snow as "intimidatingly tall with icy blue eyes, blonde curls and a patrician demeanour".

[32] In Deadline Hollywood, Valerie Complex said Snow had "uncharacteristic hesitancy and lack of confidence", unlike the book's "chillingly dispassionate cunning", and that humanizing the character worked against the film.

[33] The Observer's Wendy Ide found Snow "oddly inconsistent" and undeveloped;[34] Time's Stephanie Zacharek questioned why Lucy Gray would be attracted to him.

[35] In contrast, Elizabeth Weitzman of Time Out praised Blyth's "understated charisma" and chemistry with other actors for providing the "steady centre" of the film.

Writing in The Globe and Mail, Geoff Pevere believed his role increased the dramatic tension of Catching Fire.