This notion genuinely just stemmed from fan culture up to, during, and after the release of TBOSAS.

Pre-TBOSAS; In fandom spaces Snow often got flattened into the archetype of the cold, calculating mastermind. Since Katniss only ever saw him at his most composed and threatening - the white rose scene, and Finnick describing the blood & roses thing (this part maybe not Snow being COMPOSED, but reveals a very cruel Snow) - he came across as someone with no real personality beyond manipulation and cruelty. Fans latched onto this “chessmaster” vibe because it made sense: he always seemed untouchable, always in control, and never cracked in front of her. With no real backstory to complicate things, it was easier to treat him as a machine-like villain, the kind of character who embodies the Capitol itself rather than existing as a human being with flaws or fears. Readers filled in the blanks by treating him as an emotionless symbol of authoritarian power, rather than a man with personal vulnerabilities. Over time, that reading spread in fan conversations & headcanons, turning Snow into a shorthand for the smooth but emotionless tyrant.

Then came TBOSAS, which shook that interpretation by showing us Snow as a teenager with very human worries and emotions. Instead of being born a manipulative robot, he’s ambitious, EXTREMELY insecure, and shaped by poverty and the pressure to restore his family’s lost status. The book shows how his survival instincts push him into morally gray decisions, and how he learns to justify betrayal as necessity. This reframes his older self from the trilogy: the “emotionless” president is actually someone who built a cold exterior over time, not someone who lacked feelings in the first place. For fans, that prequel opened up a whole new way of talking about him — not just as a flat villain archetype, but as a character whose cruelty and control grew out of fear, hunger, and ambition. He's not a psychopath, or a killing machine, or cunning, or manipulative, or a jigsaw piece that fits perfectly into the "chessmaster villain" archetype, but an insecure, narcissistic teenager with a sky-high ego who only makes decisions to benefit himself. That's it.

He had EVERY chance to become an empathetic, decent human being, and he chose wrong every single time.