In Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” which was adapted into a successful 2023 film of the same name, we learn about the early life of future Panem president Coriolanus Snow and the woman he fell in love with. That woman’s name? Lucy Gray Baird.

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Coriolanus, played by Tom Blyth on-screen, starts his story in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” as a Capitol denizen whose previously high-status family has fallen in favor after the death of his father — so he’s desperate to prove himself during the 10th Hunger Games, during which he serves as a mentor alongside other students from the Academy. When he’s given the assignment to mentor a scrappy tribute from District 12, he meets Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler in the film), he’s immediately struck by her powerful strengths as a performer and figures out a way to draw attention to his tribute from a “lesser” (meaning poor) district by essentially turning her into a dancing monkey. Armed with a powerful voice and a guitar, Lucy Gray ends up getting a handful of sponsors before she enters the arena with the other tributes, but perhaps more importantly, she and Coriolanus form an intense bond.

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Coriolanus’ manipulation of Lucy Gray’s talents ends up reviving flagging interest in the Games, which weren’t bringing in a ton of viewers. When there’s an explosion at the arena the day before the Games during a tour attended by Coriolanus and Lucy Gray, there’s even more attention drawn to the Games. They begin the next day — so what happens?

Before she goes into the arena, Coriolanus, concerned for Lucy Gray’s safety and acutely aware of what awaits her in the arena, cheats. Not only does he get poisonous snake mutations used to her smell (using a handkerchief) so that they don’t attack her in the arena — Lucy Gray also has somewhat of an affinity for snakes and is seemingly able to charm them — but Coriolanus also slips Lucy a compact full of rat poison to use against her fellow tributes. The two of them are also correctly able to figure out that the bombing of the arena opened up access to tunnels within the space that Lucy Gray can easily use to her advantage.

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Lucy Gray ultimately poisons two tributes with the compact — one from District 8 and one from District 11 — and when the Gamemakers release those poisonous snakes into the arena, Lucy Gray uses them to her advantage just as Coriolanus hoped. Here’s how it goes down in the book, from his perspective:

“None of the snakes were inclined to attack her, though. In fact, she seemed to be drawing them from around the arena. The bunch under Teslee’s pole thinned, a few dropped from the stands, and dozens slithered out of the tunnels to join in a general migration to Lucy Gray. They surrounded her, flocking in from all sides, making it impossible for her to continue retreating. The bright bodies undulated over her bare feet, curling around her ankles as she lowered herself gently onto a chunk of marble. With the tips of her fingers, she spread her ruffles out in the dust, as if by way of invitation. As the snakes swarmed her, the faded fabric vanished, leaving her with a brilliant skirt of weaving reptiles.”

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The snakes can’t and won’t attack Lucy Gray … so eventually, she simply outlasts her competitors and wins the Games. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of Lucy Gray’s story.

In the aftermath of Coriolanus’ scheme, Academy dean Casca Highbottom, played in the movie by Peter Dinklage, shrewdly figures out what the young mentor did for his tribute, and Coriolanus is forced to leave the Capitol and join the Peacekeepers (which is basically the brute police force in Panem) under significant duress. He does get assigned to District 12, though, which allows Coriolanus to reunite with Lucy Gray, and the two strike up a relationship in earnest now that she’s survived the Games.

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Yet another problem arises when Coriolanus’ schoolmate and friend Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera) starts colluding with rebels in District 12, and even though Lucy Gray supports his venture, Coriolanus sees an opportunity to get ahead and finds a jabberjay — a mutated bird that basically works as a recording device — to get Sejanus’ plan on the record for Capitol forces. This all escalates to a point where a rebel named Spruce (George Somner) and Coriolanus kill Lucy Gray’s ex-boyfriend, Billy Taupe (Dakota Shapiro), and his new girlfriend, the mayor’s daughter and Lucy Gray’s nemesis, Mayfair Lipp (Isobel Jesper Jones). Spruce hides the gun but is later killed for his crime.

Coriolanus and Lucy Gray escape District 12, intending to make a run for it … but when he slips up and says he murdered three people instead of two, Lucy realizes that Coriolanus reported on Sejanus’ treason and got him killed, and then the two find the murder weapon. Coriolanus turns on Lucy Gray, who flees, leaving poisonous snakes behind as a trap … and singing “The Hanging Tree” to draw his attention. Here’s how it goes in the book:

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“He took a step in her direction just as a mockingjay picked up her song. Then a second. Then a third. The woods came alive with their melody as dozens joined in. He dove through the trees and then opened fire on the spot the voice had come from. Had he hit her? He couldn’t tell, because the birdsong filled his ears, disorienting him. Little black specks swam in his field of vision, and his arm began to throb. ‘Lucy Gray!’ he bellowed in frustration. Clever, devious, deadly girl. She knew they’d cover for her. He lifted the rifle and machine-gunned the trees, trying to wipe out the birds. 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.”

Lucy Gray is never seen or heard from again after that, and Coriolanus goes on to become the deeply evil President Coriolanus Snow, a man known for poisoning his enemies.

In the 2025 “Hunger Games” sequel “Sunrise on the Reaping” — the standalone origin story of Haymitch Abernathy that’s already being turned into a movie set to release in late 2026 — we do hear a little bit about a girl who is quite obviously Lucy Gray Baird, despite the fact that Haymitch doesn’t actually know who she is. When he’s chosen to represent District 12 in the second Quarter Quell — the 50th Games, which “celebrate” the occasion by doubling the number of tributes from 24 to 48 — Haymitch notes, in his head, that he’s not sure who will mentor him and his fellow tributes. Typically, past winners serve as mentors, but as Haymitch puts it, that whole thing is complicated:

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“In 50 years, we’ve only had one victor, and that was a long time ago. A girl who no one seems to know anything about. Back then, barely anyone in 12 had a television, so the Games were mostly hearsay. I’ve never seen her in the clips of the old shows, but then those early efforts are rarely featured, as they are said to be badly filmed and lacking in spectacle. My parents weren’t born yet, and even Mamaw couldn’t tell me much about the girl.”

After Haymitch wins his Games — and his family and girlfriend Lenore Dove are all murdered for his insolence in the arena — he’s stuck in his mansion in District 12’s otherwise empty Victor’s Village when he awakens to noise coming from a television to see “a girl in a rainbow of ruffles [singing] a familiar tune with unfamiliar words.” In that moment, Haymitch realizes that she must be the victor. “Why else would a Covey girl be in the Capitol?” Haymitch wonders to himself. 

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“Could this girl be District 12’s one and only victor? Suddenly, I’m sure she is. No wonder Lenore Dove never wants to talk about her. She knows the story, but it’s too secret, or perhaps too painful, to share even with me. I think about the bits of color Lenore Dove adds to her wardrobe, the bright blue, yellow, and pink. Are they scraps from this girl’s dress? A way to keep her memory alive? What color name did this rainbow girl carry to the Tenth Hunger Games? What happened to her after? Did she come home? Did she die in the nightmarish lab?”

Years after Lucy Gray Baird’s disappearance, Haymitch doesn’t know what happened to her with any certainty … so it seems like we’ll never get a complete confirmation of her fate either. “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is available to stream on Starz.