What Happened To Lucy Gray? The Hunger Games: Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes’ Ending Explained

Lucy Gray Baird’s fate is one of the most speculated subjects after watching The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, as the heroine is seemingly shot in the back by Coriolanus Snow, the man she loved and allied with. As the two escape District 12, Snow accidentally reveals that he’s responsible for Sejanus Plinth’s death, making Lucy suspicious of him.

After stopping at a cabin, Snow discovers the gun he used to kill Billy Taupe and his girlfriend, Mayfair Lipp. At this moment, he realizes that Lucy is the only one left who can testify against him. As Lucy ventures into the woods to find katniss plant, Snow follows with the gun, only to get bitten by a venomous snake.

Believing the snake was set up by Lucy to kill him, Snow hallucinates and shoots into the woods, seemingly killing Lucy. However, moments later he can hear Lucy’s voice singing The Hanging Tree, causing several Mockingjays around to sing along. 

Snow tries to follow the trail, but only finds Lucy’s earring on the ground, as the girl mysteriously vanishes. Desperate, Snow shoots at the Mockingjays before collapsing.

In the end, Snow survives, but they never find Lucy’s body in the woods. Her well-being remains a mystery until the end of the movie, leaving fans wondering whether she has died or not.

Thanks to the ambiguous ending, many theories have been popping up online, discussing about Lucy’s fate in the movie. Many believe that Lucy survives the gunshot and has already made her way to District 13, which makes sense, considering how the Capitol couldn’t find her body afterward, and how her singing voice is still imminent after getting shot at.

Meanwhile, some suggest that Lucy did get hit by Snow’s bullet, and while she managed to get out of the woods, she finally succumbed to her wound and died elsewhere. This explains why she’s nowhere to be found, or mentioned, in the original Hunger Games trilogy. These theories also believed that Lucy’s singing voice at the end was just part of Snow’s hallucination.

For people who believe that Lucy Gray survives and successfully reaches District 13, they also suggest that she has settled down, and got married. Some even believe that she’s President Alma Coin’s mother, which explains the latter’s grudge against President Snow.

Another theory claims that Lucy might be Katniss’s biological grandmother, though the film’s director, Francis Lawrence, debunked the possibility.

As fans are still bewildered about Lucy Gray’s ultimate fate, Nina Jacobson, the show’s producer, spoke about The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ ending in an interview with People. While Jacobson didn’t directly address whether Lucy lived or not, she confidently commented that the heroine had the capability to survive the situation.

“I 100% believe that she's a survivor. She's clever. She knows the woods. I think she knows how to take care of herself. And I would love to find out. I hope I'll get to find out someday,”said Jacobson.

For anyone who wants to learn about Lucy Gray’s fate in Suzanne Collins’ book, we’re sorry to inform you that the movie’s ending stays quite faithful to the original. Lucy’s well-being remains ambiguous even in the novel, and the author herself hasn’t addressed the matter either.

Rachel Zegler, who portrays Lucy in the movie, also believes that the character is a “survivor”, and is now “free” by the end of the movie. She also expressed her hope to hear about Lucy’s true ending from Suzanne Collins herself.

Do you think Lucy Gray survived the ending of  The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes? What happened to her in the original trilogy? Share your theories in the comments.