Note: There may be spoilers for those who haven’t read Mockingjay or watched Mockingjay Part 1. Then again, you might know that Peeta was captured by the Capitol anyway at the end of Catching Fire. This song pertains to when President Snow has Peeta captured in the arena and has him tortured, hijacked, and brainwashed in order to break Katniss’s heart.

Yes, despite looking like a skinny and grandfatherly Santa Claus, President Snow is perhaps one of the most vile villains in contemporary literature. Seriously, the guy sees absolutely nothing wrong with making teenagers fight to the death on national television in order to keep the districts in line. And he runs a totalitarian regime as well as views murder as the go-to solution for almost any problem. But he doesn’t totally show his evil claws until Mockingjay when he captures Johanna, Peeta, and Annie Cresta (Finnick’s girlfriend) after Katniss, Finnick, and Beetee destroyed and escaped from the arena by breaking the force field. Well, they had help from Plutarch, Gale, and Haymitch who rescued them to District 13. And he tries to use Peeta and Annie to control Katniss and Finnick. Luckily for Annie Cresta, Snow doesn’t need to do much to her since she’s seemingly crazy to begin with. But with Peeta, Snow has him undergo physical, emotional, and mental torture as well as brainwashing with tracker jacker venom in order to turn him into a weapon against Katniss. I mean the Peeta almost strangled her to death because he saw her as an evil “mutt.” This makes Katniss brokenhearted and in a neck brace, feeling that Peeta has lost his love for her (i. e. he hasn’t, just fighting from the inside). Yeah, I know it doesn’t make sense but that’s what he does. Of course, he also forces Peeta speak out against the rebellion. And let’s just say if this wasn’t a PG-13 Young Adult trilogy, you can guess that Peeta would have a similar torture like Lawrence of Arabia or Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption (i. e. brutal prison rape). Then again, who says that Finnick’s relationships with his “patrons” was 100% consensual? (i.e. They weren’t).

As for the song parody, I went with “Music of the Night” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. Yes, the Phantom is trying to lure Christine into loving him. And yes, he’s a major creepy stalker of epic proportions. However, he’s not nearly as bad as President Snow. In the Hunger Games version, I have Snow tell Peeta exactly what he’s going to do to him and that he could do nothing about it. Of course, it also reflects the kind of genteel tone of voice he uses since Snow can be polite. Nevertheless, what he does to Peeta at the Capitol is just too horrible to imagine that it took a long time to recover and even that wasn’t at 100%. Poor Peeta.

 

“Torture of the Night”

Sung by President Coriolanus Snow

Nightmares sharpen, heightens each sensation
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defenses

Heard your girlfriend fled from the arena
Now you’re crying not sure when you’ll see her
Now I’ve got you in my grasp, I can act my plan at last
Hurt the Mockingjay so much that she cannot fight
Put you through the torture of the night

Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams
Purge your thoughts of the life you knew before
Close your eyes, let your nightmares start to soar
And I’ll make your life hell like it’s never been before

Softly, deftly, venom shall infect you
Feel it, hear it, closing in around you
Open up your mind, let bad fantasies unwind
In this darkness which you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the torture of the night

Let your mind put yourself under my control
I will make you a weapon against your squeeze
Your hands will lock her throat as she calls your name
Before you strangle her to death

Watch these Avoxes being tortured
Just so their deaths would bring you more horror
Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in
To the power of the office and my might
The power of the torture of the night

You are now my tool within my sight
Infected with the torture of the night