Warning: This article contains spoilers The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023).
By that time, young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) has committed to escaping the dystopian nation of Panem with Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Ziegler) in the final act. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the seeds have already been sown for the future dictator’s rise to evil. Not only has he deliberately tricked his best friend, Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andres Rivera), into plotting against the Capitol by sending a forceful recording of their conversation to the villainous Dr. Gaul.widows star Viola Davis), but she’s also been given a one-way ticket to a better, Capitol-adjacent future by her Peacekeeper boss.
The only thing preventing Coriolanus’s return to social prosperity is the illegal gun he used to kill one of Sejanus’s co-conspirators, Mayfair Lipp (Isobel Jasper Jones), which he loses shortly after her murder. . If found, the gun would implicate Coriolanus as a member of Sejanus’s failed conspiracy and he would likely be charged with treason and subsequently hanged. Knowing all this, Coriolanus agrees to run away with Lucy Grey, who has a long-standing rivalry with Mayfair, the daughter of the mayor of District 12, who has placed a huge target on her back after Mayfair’s death.
It is clear that Coriolanus is only going with Lucy Gray because he wants to avoid punishment for his actions. It’s less clear whether or not he actually cares for her as much as he says. However, when he and Lucy Gray decide to camp at a remote cabin located near the outskirts of District 12, they unexpectedly find the same gun they used to kill Mayfair, lying near the cabin. Was hidden under the floor. Suddenly, Coriolanus is forced to choose between a peaceful existence spent in exile with Lucy Gray and a second chance at the glory he has long desired. What’s worse, as Lucy Gray herself notes, she and the gun are the only things that can link Coriolanus to the Mayfair murder.
How does The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes end?
As he begins to formulate a new plan for his future, Lucy Gray goes away to gather supplies. Time passes and Coriolanus decides to go in search of her. Shortly after doing so, she finds her mother’s shawl, which she had given as a gift to Lucy Grey, dumped in the nearby woods. When he attempts to retrieve it, he is bitten by one of Lucy Grey’s snakes, which had been carefully placed under the garment. Angry and distraught, Coriolanus begins to search for Lucy Gray – suddenly realizing that she was not as blind to his many lies as he thought. However, he briefly spots her and attempts to shoot her, however, Lucy Gray uses a flock of nearby mockingjays to confuse him with repeated echoes of her voice. hanging tree,
In doing so, Lucy Gray manages to escape Coriolanus and informs him that she knows he is responsible for Sejanus’s execution. Coriolanus fires his gun in every direction, but it is never revealed whether any of his bullets connect or not. Her ultimate fate is left unclear and she has, in fact, become as much of a mystery as the legendary Lucy Grey, about whom she sang in one of the film’s earlier scenes. Meanwhile, Coriolanus abandons his pursuit, hides his gun at the bottom of a lake, and returns to District 12, where he is informed that he has been ordered to return to the Capitol. When he does so, he meets Dr. Gaul again, who asks him for a second time what he thinks the true purpose of the Hunger Games is.
Coriolanus tells him that the purpose of the Games is to remind the people of Panem who they are. When she asks him who? He He replies, “The winner.” Thanks to Gaul’s recommendation, he was later given the wealth and position within the Capitol for which he spent his entire life fighting. However, it is not until he meets his longtime rival, Dean Highbottom (game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage), that he celebrates his victory. Standing atop Highbottom, Snow gloats about the power he has acquired with the influential family of Sejanus through his and Gaul’s lies, while his rival uncovers a shocking truth. Despite what its reputation might suggest, Highbottom is not actually responsible for The Hunger Games.
Who really made the Hunger Games?
Highbottom claims he came up with the games as part of a school assignment while drunk one night. When he woke up the next morning, he immediately tried to destroy the idea, only to discover that Snow’s father, his former classmate and now long deceased, had already adopted the idea and introduced it to his Capitol teachers. Were taken close. As Highbottom mourns all the blood on his hands, he desperately drinks some military-grade morphine that Coriolanus had stolen from Sejanus’ Peacekeeper suitcase, unaware that Coriolanus had secretly poisoned him. . As a result, Highbottom is left to die quietly on his desk.
songbirds and snakes song Then ends with a shot of the triumphant Coriolanus looking at various pieces of the Capitol’s propaganda – burning ambition burning in his eyes. The film cuts to black and reprises a line spoken by Donald Sutherland’s older Coriolanus in previous films: “It is the things we love most that destroy us,” says the character. Makes comments.
How does The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes connect to the original Hunger Games trilogy?
bridge the moment brilliantly and subtly songbirds and snakes song A nod to the original Hunger Games trilogy, and in more ways than one. Not only does it remind the audience of what Blythe’s young Snow ultimately becomes, but its use directly after the final shot of the film also makes it clear that it is Coriolanus’s love of power that lifts her up and tears her down. Is.
Ultimately, he is defeated by Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), a character who takes the nickname of the “Mockingjay”, the same bird that Lucy Gray uses to escape his wrath and defeat him. songbirds and snakes song, It turns out that some victories last longer than others.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Now running in theaters across the country.