Despite being the anti-Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) when it comes to survival skills, Lucy Gray Baird wins the games and returns home. She doesn’t have much to go back to, seeing how District 12 remains one of the poorer districts. Simply having her life is enough, but there’s more to Lucy Gray’s story. We just don’t know what it is at this point.
Due to Coriolanus Snow’s cheating, he’s banished as a peacekeeper to District 12, where he starts up a romantic relationship with Lucy Gray in secret. But staying in District 12 isn’t good enough for Lucy Gray, who wants Snow to run away with her to a secret place where people live outside of the panopticon of the Capitol. Snow’s terrible secrets come to life, and Lucy Gray leaves him behind, and for now, that’s all we know about her.
Unlike “The Hunger Games,” which is based on an original book trilogy, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a single installment (for the moment), so it’s unclear what ever happened to Lucy Gray. She could’ve escaped and eventually reached a new home on her own. She easily could’ve been killed during the journey. In the book, it’s explained how Dr. Gaul wiped Lucy Gray’s victory from the archives, so she becomes nothing more than a memory.
Regardless of her fate, audiences understand Snow from the original “Hunger Games” series a bit better. It’s clear he despises Katniss a bit because she reminds him of Lucy Gray. And perhaps not knowing what really happened to Lucy Gray only drives him into further madness.
