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Jabberjays are some of Dr. Gaul’s muttations. They’re birds that were originally intended as surveillance devices during the war with the rebels; using a remote, a person can tell jabberjays to record human speech and then replay it. The jabberjay project ended up being a failure, as rebels figured out what the birds were. Through breeding with local mockingbirds since they were released into the wild at the end of the war, the jabberjays have fathered a whole new species: the mockingjays.
Jabberjay Quotes in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes quotes below are all either spoken by Jabberjay or refer to Jabberjay. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 23
Quotes
Human speech had vanished, and what remained was a musical chorus of Arlo and Lil’s exchange.
“Mockingjays,” grumbled a soldier in front of him. “Stinking mutts.”
Coriolanus remembered talking to Lucy Gray before the interview.
“Well, you know what they say. The show’s not over until the mockingjay sings.”
“The mockingjay? Really, I think you’re just making these things up.”
“Not that one. A mockingjay’s a bona fide bird.”
“And it sings in your show?”
“Not my show, sweetheart. Yours. The Capitol’s anyway.”
This must be what she’d meant. The Capitol’s show was the hanging. The mockingjay was some sort of bona fide bird. […] Coriolanus felt sure he’d spotted his first mockingjay, and he disliked the thing on sight.
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Chapter 30
Quotes
Many fluttered into the sky, but the song had spread, and the woods were alive with it. “Lucy Gray! Lucy Gray!” Furious, he turned this way and that and finally blasted the woods in a full circle, going around and around until his bullets were spent. He collapsed on the ground, dizzy and nauseous, as the woods exploded, every bird of every kind screaming its head off while the mockingjays continued their rendition of “The Hanging Tree.” Nature gone mad. Genes gone bad. Chaos.
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Jabberjay Term Timeline in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The timeline below shows where the term Jabberjay appears in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 23
Coriolanus shivers as “Run! Run, Lil! Ru—” echoes around him. He realizes what’s speaking are jabberjays, like he saw in Dr. Gaul’s lab. The refrain changes and becomes musical as Peacekeepers...
(full context)
Chapter 25
...Capitol wants the recruits to help a team of Dr. Gaul’s scientists trap about 100 jabberjays and mockingjays. Coriolanus is certain the scientists will recognize and hate him. Sejanus insists Dr....
(full context)
Chapter 26
...school. Dr. Kay shares that she was in 12 during the war and headed the jabberjay project. This makes Coriolanus feel better; the jabberjays were a major failure. Coriolanus engages Dr....
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After Bug brings a caged jabberjay down from a tree and runs back up another tree with an empty trap, Dr....
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...distrusts “their spontaneous creation.” By the end of the day, the group has caught 30 jabberjays and no mockingjays.
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...for the birds. A few days later, on Saturday afternoon, Coriolanus and Bug clean the jabberjays’ cages and help scientists run them through drills. Quietly, Bug suggests the birds would be...
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...Coriolanus thinks that she always uses bird imagery. He tells her about working with the jabberjays, but this makes her sad—she thinks it’s torture to control their voices. Coriolanus insists there’s...
(full context)
Chapter 27
...and bites him, so he carries cages instead. But Coriolanus has come to enjoy the jabberjays and the scientists allow him to play with the birds. Coriolanus enjoys making them sing...
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...trip to the Capitol. Coriolanus gets through the mockingjays and has just started on the jabberjays when Sejanus leaps into the hangar with news that Ma sent another package of sweets....
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Chapter 28
...know where he went. At this, Coriolanus presses the “neutral” button on the remote. The jabberjay sings as Bug returns to the hangar to take the bird to the hovercraft.
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Coriolanus continues to prep the jabberjays, but he half wants to erase the recording of Sejanus on the jabberjay already in...
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...says Sejanus was arrested for something else. Coriolanus realizes Dr. Gaul must’ve listened to his jabberjay.
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...crowd. He closes his eyes, but he still hears the trapdoors and Sejanus’s cries. The jabberjays echo his last words: “Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma! Ma!”
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Chapter 29
...his friends and family. He doesn’t want to die at the hanging tree, where the jabberjays will repeat his last words and the mockingjays will turn it into a song. Then,...
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...for Sejanus. Hoff explains that Dr. Gaul sends praise for Coriolanus’s choice to send the jabberjay. Coriolanus pretends to not know how Sejanus might be connected to the murders or that...
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