Essentially, the future president of Panem, Coriolanus Snow, became a man capable of beating the Kobayashi Maru scenario by changing the conditions of the test. It started when Snow was assigned as a mentor to a tribute he realized would never be able to win, Lucy Gray Baird. Despite not being an obvious winner, she is capable of captivating audiences with her singing. This prompts Snow to do everything in his power to put the young woman in front of an audience and to make the games as much a popularity contest as they are a fight to the death so she has a chance.
Over the course of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” we watch as Snow comes up with elements that make the Hunger Games what they are in Katniss’ time. He turns the gladiator match into a barbaric soap opera where people are invested in and inspired by the fighters. Tasked with increasing the TV ratings for the games, he realizes that if audiences are invested in the tributes as people rather than merely fighters, they’ll actually watch the games and care about who lives and who dies. However, as he falls in love with Lucy Gray, Snow’s attempts at cheating or changing the game to keep her alive lead to the introduction of new rules, like those involving sponsors sending aid to tributes mid-game.
Basically, the more Snow worked to make the games more popular and long-lasting, the more he created the conditions that would inevitably lead to a tribute being so charismatic and beloved that she could start a revolution against the Capitol itself. His doomed romance with Lucy Gray ended up being his own death sentence.
