The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Plot Summary
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel movie to The Hunger Games and is adapted from the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins. It is directed by Francis Lawrence who helmed the last 3 movies of The Hunger Games and stars Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera and Viola Davis.
It is based on the younger days of Coryo aka the sadistic President Coriolanus Snow when he was just a school student and on the brink of being thrown out on the streets. His family is not faring well after the war and his only hope is to win the expensive prize for mentoring the best tribute at the 10th Hunger Games.
He is assigned the District 12 female tribute Lucy Gray Baird who is more into singing and theatrics than killing and violence. As he tries to figure out how to save her and himself with limited resources, he starts falling for her. But the ending leaves us with more questions than answers and we’ve taken it upon ourselves to figure out the ending as much as we can.
Why is Sejanus Plinth killed?
Coryo gives a grand speech on how Sejanus can do good with his money if he is alive to get him out of the arena. This inspires Sejanus to follow Coryo to District 12, hoping to work from within to help the districts. He starts working with some of the rebels who want to escape Panem. It is harmless as he hopes no one gets hurt as he is giving them money to buy passage out.
Unfortunately for him, Coryo believes that Sejanus is bound to be caught and while his father can save him, Coryo will be killed for being associated with a rebel like Sejanus. Coryo betrays his friend by recording their conversation where Sejanus is trying to explain himself to Coryo on a jabberjay which is to be sent to Gaul’s lab. The Capitol is alerted and to make an example, publicly executes the rebels mentioned in the conversation along with Sejanus.
Why does Dean Highbottom hate Coriolanus Snow?
From the beginning of the movie, Dean Highbottom picks on Coriolanus Snow and finds ways to stop him from getting the Plinth Prize. He explicitly states that he will do everything in his power to see Snow fall and is over the moon when he gets to punish him for cheating in the Hunger Games.
Finally, when Snow returns to the Capitol, Highbottom reveals his reasons for his hatred. He was best friends with Snow’s father, Crassus Snow till one day, in a drunken state, Highbottom writes the outline for the Hunger Games as a joke when they are asked how to punish the districts for an assignment.
The next morning, he regrets it but it is too late as Crassus takes the assignment to Gaul, writing both their names and crediting himself for most of the ideas. But it is not the plagiarism that hurts Highbottom, it is the bloodshed and killing of innocent children. He had hoped that with the Capitol not watching the Games, it would die down gradually but Snow revives it with his ideas.
Since Coriolanus makes the 10th Hunger Games a hit, it seems that it won’t die down for generations now, and all that blood will partly be on Highbottom’s hands. Coriolanus doesn’t care as he simply poisons Sejanus’ morphling medicine and leaves it with Highbottom who is an addict. A frustrated Highbottom ingests the poisoned medicine after Coriolanus leaves and soon dies.
Why does Coryo change his mind about leaving with Lucy Gray?
After Commander Hoff assigns Coryo to District 2 as a training officer which will take him closer to home, he plans on leaving District 12 even though he loves Lucy Gray. On hearing that Tigris and his grandmother have been evicted from their home, he plans on doing his best to help them once he makes it back to the Capitol.
He only changes his mind when he kills the Mayor’s daughter, Mayfair and the gun used goes missing. The rebel in charge of getting rid of the gun is caught and executed. Coryo believes that it is just a matter of time before the peacekeepers find the gun with his DNA on it and kill him. So, the only option he has is to leave with Lucy Gray.
It is also hinted throughout the way in the woods that he is annoyed with the mosquitos and the foliage. He hardly seems to believe his luck when he finds the gun with his fingerprints in the hut by the lake. He is all smiles and doesn’t even see that anything is amiss with Lucy Gray. When she asks what will happen next, he doesn’t hide his happiness as he suggests that he will be going home after getting rid of the gun.
What happens to Lucy Gray Baird?
Lucy Gray Baird looks expectantly at Coryo to help when Sejanus is executed but it seems that it doesn’t affect their relationship as they go ahead with their plan to run away. While talking about their new life together, she hopes she doesn’t have to kill anyone else and Coryo agrees, saying three is enough. He doesn’t think much about it but she suddenly confronts him, asking who is the third person. She tells him not to lie to her.
Coryo’s first two known kills are Bobbins the tribute and Mayfair. The third is Sejanus but Lucy Gray doesn’t know that. Coryo is awkwardly silent and then says the third he killed is his old self. She doesn’t buy it and from that moment, she distances herself. In the hut, when he is excited to get rid of the gun, she mocks him saying that she is now the only loose end as she is the only one left who knows about him killing Mayfair.
Previously, Lucy Gray had shared that trust is everything. It is more important than love and that they trust each other. This ties in with her personality as she realises in the woods that Coryo has broken her trust by lying about his third victim. In the hut, she makes flimsy excuses and runs off in the rain. He doesn’t find anything amiss till he goes out to get rid of the guns.
He notices that none of the greenery is disturbed which is odd since she is supposed to be digging for potatoes. As he starts searching for her with a gun, he gets desperate. His last straw is when he finds his mother’s scarf that he had given her. It’s a trap as it is covering a snake, and the moment he picks up the scarf, the snake bites him.
This angers him and he starts hunting her in earnest. He thinks he has found her but she starts singing ‘The Hanged Tree’ but that’s a distraction as the mockingjays pick up the song. It overwhelms him and he starts shooting at the birds in the sky. In the end, he gives up and goes back to base. At the Capitol, Dean Highbottom’s sources claim that the District 12 Mayor may have killed Lucy Gray but no body is found and no one knows. She has simply disappeared.
Without giving away major spoilers from the books which hint at a different ending, Coryo’s thought process explains why he starts hunting for Lucy Gray. In the book, he spirals as he thinks that she is enacting revenge on him since she has realised that he wants to go back. His guilt also catches up to him and he thinks that she knows he got Sejanus killed from their conversation earlier.
In the movie, it is ambiguous but from the visual cues, it may seem that Movie Coryo too feels that she is getting back at him as he wishes to leave her and go back to the Capitol. For Movie Lucy Gray, it may seem that she may have realised he killed Sejanus and so thinks he will kill her too. Or since he lied to her, she doesn’t trust him anymore and may think that it is better to run away alone.
Read More: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins Book Ending Explained