Movies News Talk
Though The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was set 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games, Snow and Lucy Gray's stories gave Katniss's time in the arena important backdrop. From the songs Katniss sung to her Mockingjay pin, everything would have reminded President Snow of the girl he thought betrayed him. This also explains why Snow grew so preoccupied on Katniss and neglected District 13 creeping in on him: Katniss's rebellious victory would have felt personal.
Though the winner of the 10th Hunger Games is not expected to show up in Sunrise on the Reaping, her legacy is essential to the narrative. Lucy Gray's influence on President Snow also helps to explain why the despot was so enraged upon Haymitch Abernathy's victory in the 50th Hunger Games. Strangely given the president regularly used family and friends as leverage against his enemies, Snow was so outraged that he killed all of Haymitch's loved ones before the lad could even come home. Haymitch, the only District 12 tribute to win since Lucy Gray put him in great risk, knew nothing about Snow's past. Hence, even if the winner of the 10th Hunger Games is unlikely to show up in Sunrise on the Reaping, her legacy is essential to the narrative.
Another figure that participated in the 50th Hunger Games could be even more significant than Haymitch in some sense. One of the females from District 12—there were two boys and two girls from every District in the 50th Hunger Games—according to Catching Fire was Maysilee Donner, who had been best friends with Katniss's mother. Haymitch and she paired up in the arena, and Maysilee was an unexpectedly skilled survivor. Using the poison from many plants, she held her own in the arena and produced lethal darts to attack the other tributes.
Maysilee's original ownership of the gold Mockingjay pin—which Katniss finally received and utilized as a token within her own games—perhaps adds the greatest fascination to her. Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes found Snow hated Mockingjays, and the fact Lucy Gray employed them to disorient and harass her murdering boyfriend is quite important. Snow of Lucy Gray may have been reminded of by a District 12 girl sporting a Mockingjay pin, who was so effective in the arena and had Snow target Maysilee's back. For Snow, Katniss returning the Mockingjay pin into the arena would also be especially intimate.
Author Suzanne Collins of Hunger Games has shown that none of her works are random. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was not the kind of prequel meant just to forward Snow's narrative. Cleverly tiny bits of connecting fiber bind the precursor with Katniss's story, and Sunrise on the Reaping most certainly follows from this as well. It should be the last piece of the jigsaw, providing background that retrospectively alters both Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and The Hunger Games in mind-rattling fashion. Lucy Gray will surely find resonance in this somehow.
The book Sunrise on the Reaping will be published on March 18, 2024; the movie adaption will premiere November 20, 2026. The ending of Lucy Gray was left open for interpretation since it mirrored her eponymous song, in which a girl named Lucy Gray vanishes without any trace and turns into a ghost. This makes Sunrise on the Reaping unlikely to provide clear answers about what occurred to the 10th Hunger Games victor. Still, Haymitch's narrative contains some faint signals. Maybe Lucy Gray came back to District 12 leaving hints. Alternatively some enigmatic pearly white bones could be discovered in the forest. Though we can be sure Sunrise on the Reaping won't have forgotten Lucy Gray. Only time will tell.
Though Lucy Gray Baird most likely won't show up in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, she will still be vital to the narrative. Snow's Prequel tale, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, revealed this very first District 12 victor, and her ultimate fate left unclear has inspired optimism that she may once more resurfaced. Given the date and the way her character was left, this seems strange though. Still, Lucy Gray's narrative has enormous ramifications for the rest of The Hunger Games chronology and her indispensible significance to the main narrative cannot be emphasized.
Given the plot will cover the much sought-after 50th Hunger Games, the news of another Hunger Games book and movie is generating a lot of hype. Set forty years after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, this new prequel should follow Haymitch Abernathy through his own games, therefore augmenting the specifics of this section of the narrative for the first time. Lucy Gray's death or escape from District 12 obviously means she most certainly won't have a place in Sunrise on the Reaping, but her narrative is closely entwined with Haymitch's.
The author has said that the fresh narrative would center on the 50th Hunger Games, a turning point in Panem's chronology. Although The Hunger Games trilogy centers on the events of the 74th and 75th Hunger Games, this new narrative will set additional background for a period when the games were originally unveiled. This will cover the beginnings of the Games and the first Capitol policies employed to dominate the districts.
Of course, the narrative's central focus is probably on Haymitch and his path to become Katniss and Peeta's legendary tutor across the trilogy. Haymitch, the first District 12 victor since Lucy Gray, will be confronting issues not experienced by any other victor past him. This will undoubtedly suggest that the new narrative will explore more the corrupt character of the Capitol and the means of instilling terror using the games.