Warning: Contains SPOILERS for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes!

Rachel Zegler weighs in on the theories surrounding Lucy Gray Baird’s fate after The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The movie is based on Suzanne Collin’s novel of the same name and acts as a prequel to the original Hunger Games trilogy and follows a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) as he gets his first whiff of the Capitol and Games while mentoring District 12 tribute Baird (Zegler). Like the book, though, the movie ends with some unanswered questions, including the fate of Baird as the mistrust between her and Snow leads to him shooting at her as she flees, though her body is never discovered.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Zegler addresses The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes‘ ambiguous ending. The star specifically looked to Lucy’s ultimate fate, expressing her belief that the District 12 tribute is “free” by the end of the movie and sharing her hopes for Collins to offer a more concrete answer in the future. Check out Zegler’s statement below:

Lucy Gray’s main goal throughout the film is survival. She’s surviving her fellow tributes, surviving Snow, and surviving herself. There’s a point when I think she realizes she’s taken a wrong turn, and we see her flinch a bit at Coriolanus touching her chin … those are the moments of sobriety. Those are the moments when she wakes up from her own performance and realizes it’s do or die. I always think about what happens to my characters while the credits roll for audiences. When it comes to Lucy Gray, I like to think she’s free. I hope one day I’ll get to hear that from Suzanne, though.

What Really Happened to Lucy Gray Baird?

Unfortunately, no one truly knows what happened to Baird after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Collins has never thoroughly answered the question of her fate, however, that hasn’t stopped theories from arising. One of the most common theories is the opposite of Zegler’s, in which there is a possibility that Snow did succeed in killing Baird, and that’s why no trace of her seemed to have ever been found. Though Snow thinks she hears Lucy singing, the nearby Jabberjays could’ve been mimicking her singing after she’d already passed. There’s a chance she was fatally wounded but managed to get to a place of hiding before succumbing to her wounds.

Baird’s death would make things less complicated, as it would explain how she evaded discovery from Snow and the powerful Capitol. However, others share Zegler’s perspective that she survived, with the actor making an excellent point that the whole story tracks how Baird is a survivor who overcame enormous odds to win the Hunger Games. As such, it seems unlikely she’d go out so easily. Still, that raises the question of where she went after escaping Snow in The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes.

There are some theories that she escaped and went to District 13, which existed in secrecy due to a peace treaty with the Capitol. One theory even posits that she may have married in District 13 and been the mother of President Coin, who seemed to have a personal vendetta against Snow. Another theory is that she is Katniss’ paternal grandmother, though it’s more likely Maude Ivory is the link between the Covey and Katniss. It’s unclear what happened to Baird in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but maybe viewers aren’t supposed to know, so she can always remain Snow’s loose end.

Source: Harper’s Bazaar