- "Mockingjay, may your aim be as true as your heart is pure."
- —President Alma Coin to Katniss Everdeen at Snow's execution[src]
President Alma Coin was the president of District 13 and the leader of the rebellion against the Capitol by the people of the districts of Panem. While President Snow is still the antagonist of the series, she is the hidden but true main antagonist of Mockingjay. She was first introduced when Katniss Everdeen met her in District 13.
Although initially appearing to fully support the rebellion, Katniss soon realized that Coin only cared about herself, and was just as bad as President Snow. After the death of Prim due to Coin's bombs, Katniss makes the decision to go against Coin at the last minute, killing her.
In the films, President Coin is portrayed by Julianne Moore. She appears in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 and Part 2. Immediately after her introduction near the start of the first film adaptation of Mockingjay, she becomes a key character of the last two films.
Early life
Coin was presumably raised in, and served as the leader of District 13 and the rebellion. She had a husband and a daughter, who both died during the pox epidemic in District 13.
Mockingjay
Due to Katniss Everdeen's unique position as a symbol of rebellion to the districts, Coin had Katniss, along with Finnick Odair and Beetee rescued from the arena following the 75th Hunger Games, after Katniss destroyed the force field surrounding the arena. This action effectively prompted the Capitol to bomb District 12. However, she was not able to rescue Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, and Enobaria. With Katniss safe in District 13, Coin was forced to cooperate as she recovered from her physical and mental traumas, although she was rather impatient. Like the other rebels, Coin needed Katniss to don the label of Mockingjay, and help fuel the districts into rebellion.
Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee.
After orchestrating many propaganda films with Katniss and the other members of the rebellion, she started to realise what winning the rebellion would mean for her. After Peeta attacked Katniss and her anger was enhanced, Coin started to see her as a threat to her power, however they still remained allies due to the fact Katniss was the face of the rebellion.
After Katniss was better, she snuck into the Capitol alongside the rest of Squad 451 without Coin's knowledge. When Coin found out, she remarked that Katniss was hard to control. During the mission, Boggs tells Katniss that Coin may view her as a threat which Katniss thinks is ridiculous. After Boggs' death, she tells the others that she has been sent by Coin on a mission to kill Snow in an attempt to make them co-operate with her. When she later reveals that there was no mission set by Coin, they tell her that they already knew but followed as she knew what she was doing.
During the invasion of the Capitol, Coin managed to contact Snow by intercepting one of his broadcasts when Katniss and the team were thought to have died. She makes a speech about Katniss and her bravery, but it's likely Coin was doing this to back the rebellion and also because she no longer saw Katniss as a threat.
After President Snow's capture, Coin brings the seven remaining victors for a meeting in the President's mansion on whether they should hold one last Hunger Games with the Capitol's children. Johanna and Enobaria vote yes, whereas Peeta, Annie and Beetee vote no. Katniss votes yes in order to gain Coin's trust and asks if she can kill Snow, to which Coin agrees. Haymitch then sides with Katniss. However, prior to this Katniss attributed Prim's death to bombs dropped by President Snow, however when she goes to visit him, he tells her that it was Coin who dropped the bombs, as he wouldn't have any reason to kill innocent civilians of the Capitol.
Death
Coin as president of Panem, shortly before her death.
During the execution of President Snow, Katniss remembered the conversation she had with Snow and realized President Coin was behind Primrose Everdeen's death, along with the death of a great number of rebel medics. So instead of shooting Snow, she turned her single arrow from Snow to President Coin and shot Coin instead, partly to avenge Prim's death. President Coin fell off the balcony as the people looked on in fear and horror. It is possible that she didn't die from the arrow but from the fall itself. This resulted in Katniss being taken away and declared mentally unstable. President Snow also died from coughing up blood from "the many mouth sores that will never heal" when he drank poison that let him rise to power. Besides the desire to avenge her sister, Katniss recognized that Coin, now in control of Panem, would simply take the exact same road as Snow to keep her position.
When Katniss first began to fight the Capitol, President Coin's stance was to end the Hunger Games and there would never be another one, securing Katniss' support. However, after defeating the Capitol, Coin asks the remaining victors about using Capitol children for one last Hunger Games, intended to appease the District citizens rather than exterminate most of the Capitol population. Realizing that this was the same justification that the Capitol had used for the Hunger Games after defeating the Districts, Katniss recognizes that the Games are unlikely to end when Coin comes to power also uses this reason to kill President Coin.
Physical description
President Coin is described as being about 50 years old. She has grey hair that falls in an unbroken sheet to her shoulders, her eyes a pale grey, described by Katniss as looking like "all the color was sucked away" and "slush that you wish would melt away."
Personality
Not much is known about President Coin initially, but Katniss soon realizes how power-hungry Coin is, possibly even more so than Snow. It is unknown if she truly sympathized with the people of Panem, although as she grew up in District 13 she certainly shared some of their hardships, at least initially. Katniss mentions in the book that she "certainly doesn't have the sole claim against Snow's life... I can count on her getting the job done." indicating that Coin may also have personal motivations to bringing down Snow. Coin certainly proved herself a more able leader than Snow, as she did not immediately resort to repression at the slightest infraction; she managed her complex, militarized district with extraordinary efficiency.
However, Coin was narcissistic, callous, patient, arrogant, self-focused, cynical and charismatic to the extreme. She was deceptively intelligent, to the point of arrogance, and was able to outthink President Snow himself, who didn't realize her plan until it was already in action. She possessed extraordinary degrees of Machiavellianism, in that she was flawlessly able to influence the whole of Panem into civil war so that President Snow eventually dies, allowing her to become president of Panem.
Coin as President
She is devious, unmoving, and will do whatever it takes to attain her goals. She makes it clear that she views Katniss as an inferior and a mere icon for the rebellion, and is miffed when Katniss makes demands, and is forced to go along with them in the face of the public. She was an official who did nothing for anyone except herself.
Even so, Coin viewed Katniss as an eventual threat, and meant to have her die and become a martyr, inspiring the rebellion with Katniss' supposed "sacrifice". This would have aided her in her plans in that she would be rid of Katniss, who was too independent and selfless to control, and she would be able to take charge of the rebellion without Katniss' intervention. Nevertheless, President Coin possessed a massive amount of patience, in that she was prepared to wait years before she was in a position to seize power in Panem.
Coin and Katniss in District 13.
In the end, after the rebellion is victorious, Coin attempts to secure the remaining victors' loyalty with the proposal of a final Hunger Games, using the children of the Capitol higher-ups, and in her arrogance she believed herself to have secured Katniss' loyalty. This shows that her self-obsession and narcissism knows no limits, but on the other hand it proves to be her undoing: Now that Snow is finally at her mercy, she becomes overconfident and unaware that Prim's death has traumatized Katniss against Coin, especially when it is discovered that Coin was the one who had Prim murdered. She saw no hesitation in executing President Snow, since Snow's death would finally grant her absolute, unlimited power.
However, Katniss had realized the supposed Capitol bombs that rained down on the Capitol refugees and Coin's own medic corps that killed many, including Katniss' sister, Prim, was ordered by Coin, and turns her arrow on the President of District 13, ending her threat before it truly begins.
Trivia
- In the film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Prim mentions to Katniss that Coin lost her husband and daughter during a smallpox epidemic in District 13, providing a partial explanation for her cold, controlled nature.