Summary

  • In The Hunger Games series, Katniss killing President Coin instead of President Snow surprised many. Still, it was because Coin was revealed to be a ruthless leader with her own political interests.
  • President Coin manipulated the rebellion for her own gain, willing to let people die to achieve her goals while portraying herself as a hero against President Snow's cruel government.
  • By killing Coin, Katniss ensured a chance for a peaceful and fair country, avenged her sister's death, and liberated Panem from the fascist government.

The Hunger Games franchise is still an iconic series of books and movies, with the latter truly cementing the property as an international phenomenon. Main character Katniss Everdeen is now well-known as a movie heroine, with her actions throughout the series affording her a level of depth usually not seen in Young Adult fiction. Amid these were some rather dark developments, which culminated in Katniss killing President Coin.

Alma Coin was the true villain of The Hunger Games, with Katniss actually seeing her as more of a threat than Coriolanus Snow. At the same time, it was Snow who was made out to be the bad guy in previous movies, making some question why Katniss killed Coin and spared him. This gave the Hunger Games' ending a much different outcome than many expected, with the odds ultimately not being ever in President Coin's favor.

Updated by Timothy Blake Donohoo and Robert Vaux on March 14, 2024: Interest in the Hunger Games movies and books has increased, with many now having nostalgia for the franchise. That's especially the case with the recent release of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. This prequel takes place several years before Katniss was born, with one theory tying its protagonist to President Alma Coin.The article's formatting has been updated to meet current CBR guidelines.

Who Is President Coin in The Hunger Games?

Julianne Moore as President Coin in The Hunger Games

Title

Written by

Directed by

Run Time

Release Date

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

Peter Craig & Danny Strong

Francis Lawrence

137 minutes

November 20, 2015

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After winning The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen had an ongoing rivalry with the cruel leader of the dystopian nation Panem. President Coriolanus Snow viewed Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) as a threat for defying the rules of the games, and she proved him right by becoming the face of the Rebellion against the Capitol. Of course, he wasn't the only threat to this sudden sense of rebellion.

Played by Donald Sutherland, Snow was set up as the big bad throughout the series. Yet, when Katniss is given the chance to kill him, she instead shoots her arrow at the nefarious President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 didn't explicitly state why Katniss killed Coin instead of Snow, but there were some clues along the way that explained her decision and why this moment saved Panem from being doomed once again.

Introduced in Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, President Alma Coin was the leader of District 13, a secret colony located near District 12 with the technology and the human resources to face President Snow. Alma Coin was the leader of this District, and most of the people who followed her thought she was a good counterpart to President Snow. Slowly and steadily, President Coin showed her true colors and proved to be as ruthless, if not more, than President Snow. President Alma Coin was a strict, no-nonsense leader who was willing to let people die so that her mission could be fulfilled, and eventually, Katniss figured this out. This was a big reason why Katniss eventually killed President Coin.

Katniss and President Coin didn't get along during their time in District 1, with Coin not believing that Katniss had what it took to lead a rebellion. Coin appeared to be a fervent supporter of the Rebellion, but she took advantage of the movement to further her own political interests. She was an intelligent and manipulative character who made her people believe she was going to change President Snow's cruel form of government in Panem. In reality, she planned to amass as much power as possible without caring about the human cost.

Katniss Passed Up Killing Snow To Avenge Prim

Primrose in a white room  in The Hunger Games

Before turning her arrow on President Coin, Katniss was determined to kill President Snow in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 and led a team of rebels into the Capitol to find him. She and Gale made it as far as Snow's mansion, where Snow had announced that children would be allowed in for safety. As Katniss neared the entrance, a hovercraft flew overhead and dropped gift packages into the crowd. However, the presents turned out to be explosive bombs that killed people in the surrounding area. A group of rebel medics, which included Katniss' younger sister, Prim, went into the crowd to help survivors, but they were killed by a second bombing. Since then, many believe Gale was aware of this, as he was one of the people who helped create the bombs.

Katniss visited an imprisoned President Snow, who revealed that he didn't order the bombing. He deduced that President Coin had sent the bombs in aircraft emblazoned with the Capitol seal to turn the last of his supporters against him. Katniss also suspected that Coin deliberately sent Prim to the frontline with the hope that her death would push Katniss over the edge and make her an unsuitable choice for a leader. This moment proves the kind of heartless and dangerous strategist President Coin could be since she had the intelligence and the cruelty to create terrible situations.

Why Did Katniss Kill Coin Instead of Snow?

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Near the end of Mockingjay - Part 2, President Coin gathered the surviving victors for a meeting to discuss the future of Panem. She announced she would be stepping in as interim president until the country was ready to hold an election. She also suggested they hold a symbolic Hunger Games with the children of Snow's allies instead of executing hundreds of Capitol citizens. Although Katniss knew the turmoil that came with being a player in the games, she voted in favor of the symbolic games. She claimed that she wanted to avenge Prim, but her decision also allowed her to gain Coin's trust.

Katniss saw that Coin was already showing signs of being as ruthless as Snow, which could be dangerous for the future of Panem. Coin was willing to sacrifice children to turn the Capitol against Snow and make herself look like the hero who swooped in to save Panem. This is why Katniss chose to kill Coin at the execution instead, putting an end to her reign of terror before it could begin. Katniss would never agree to a president who could justify killing children. More importantly, she couldn't forgive Coin for planning an attack that got her sister killed, especially after she worked so hard to keep Prim safe.

The moment when Katniss decides to shoot her arrow at President Coin instead of President Snow is the most crucial scene in The Hunger Games series. Even though Katniss didn't kill President Snow, the public killed him in the confusion of the aftermath of President Coin's death. This led to the deaths of both ruthless leaders by the end of the series. By killing President Coin, Katniss risked her safety in order to not only avenge Prim's death but also gift the people in Panem a chance to live in a peaceful and fair country for everyone.

Katniss was incarcerated for a time, and she was sent back to District 12 after she was deemed unsuitable for a trial. After all, she had technically betrayed the current government since the public wasn't aware of why Katniss would kill President Coin. However, Katniss killing President Coin was necessary to ensure that Katniss, the Capitol, and the 13 Districts were liberated from the fascist government of Panem.

Is President Coin in the Newest Hunger Games Movie?

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the latest Hunger Games movie, but like the book it adapts, it takes place before the rest of the series. Set 64 years before the original movie, the movie is centered on a young Coriolanus Snow as he mentors Lucy Gray Baird. The movie sets up Snow's rise to power, with the future President Snow far from the man he is in the series' later series by this point. After the release of the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes novel, some fans actually speculated that Lucy was related in some way to President Alma Coin. The most common permutation of this theory was that she was President Coin's mother or merely a younger version of her.

That's not proven in the text of the novel or the movie version of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. President Coin is not in the movie whatsoever, and the timeline doesn't match up for her to actually be Lucy Gray Baird (who was closer in age to Coriolanus Snow than President Alma Coin is). Thus, the new movie merely sets up Snow and his backstory, with Coin absent in every way. Likely gone for good from the franchise, it's possible that Katniss killing President Coin is the last that Hunger Games fans will ever see of the villain.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is currently available for digital download.

Katniss stands facing posters of her and Peeta with the Mockingjay symbol on fire in the center in The Hunger Games First Film Poster
The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games film series is composed of science fiction dystopian adventure films, based on The Hunger Games trilogy of novels by American author Suzanne Collins. The films are distributed by Lionsgate and produced by Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik.

Created by
Suzanne Collins
First Film
The Hunger Games
Upcoming Films