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The Ballad of Songbirds and SnakesThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a dystopian action-adventure novel by American author Suzanne Collins. It is a spin-off and a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy. It was released on May 19, 2020, by Scholastic. An audiobook of the novel read by American actor Santino Fontana was released simultaneously with the printed edition. The book received a virtual launch due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A film adaptation from Lionsgate is expected to release in the first half of 2023.
Plot
Set in the universe of The Hunger Games, the book follows Coriolanus Snow, who is chosen to mentor a tribute in the upcoming 10th Hunger Games. He is assigned the District 12 tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, who sparks the Capitol's attention after singing during the reaping.
Coriolanus begins sneaking Lucy Gray food from the Academy as the tributes turned out to be hungry. The other mentors follow suit, but the arrangement ends when one mentor, Arachne Crane, is murdered by her tribute. Clemensia, Coriolanus's team member, is distraught by the murder, leaving Coriolanus to complete an essay - which they were supposed to do together - by himself. He presents the essay to Head Gamemaker Volumnia Gaul, proposing a betting scheme and sponsorship of the tributes to engage the people of the Capitol in the Games. Dr. Gaul drops the essay into a tank of genetically modified snakes. They attack Clemensia, and she is severely poisoned, proving that Coriolanus was the sole author of the project.
During a tour of the Arena, undetected bombs explode, killing several tributes and mentors. The Games begin, and many tributes quickly die from starvation, disease, or injuries, while Dr. Gaul enacts Coriolanus' proposals within the Games. Sejanus, resentful of both the Capitol and the Games, enters the Arena at night to die as a martyr, and under the orders of Dr. Gaul, Coriolanus extracts him.
Eventually, after several days and the introduction of "muttations" that kill other tributes, Lucy Gray is the victor of the Games. At a celebration party at the Academy, Coriolanus is confronted with the evidence that implicates him in cheating in the Games and stealing food from the Academy. Facing punishment and public humiliation, he chooses to become a Peacekeeper in District 12.
Coriolanus reunites with Lucy Gray. He discovers that Sejanus, who is now a fellow Peacekeeper, plans to help District 12 residents escape to the North, which is rumored to be beyond the Capitol's control, and surreptitiously sends word to Dr. Gaul in the Capitol. Lucy Gray's former lover Billy Taupe, and the Mayor's daughter, Mayfair, overhear a conversation between Sejanus and a rebel named Spruce, and are shot dead by Spruce and Coriolanus to prevent them from blowing their cover. The bodies are discovered by the Covey after the concert. Soon after, Spruce is found severely injured and eventually dies, while Sejanus is arrested by Peacekeepers and hanged for treason, leaving Lucy Gray and Coriolanus as the only remaining witnesses of the murders. Lucy Gray tells Coriolanus that she is going to escape to the North and he decides to leave with her, despite being offered a spot in officer training school in District 2.
On their way to the North, Coriolanus accidentally finds the hidden guns used to shoot Billy Taupe and Mayfair. Worried that Lucy Gray will think he is planning to escape, and that she has discerned that he is responsible for Sejanus' death, he tries to kill her, but she disappears. After dumping the incriminating weapons into a lake, Coriolanus returns to District 12 and is sent back to the Capitol, where Dr. Gaul explains that she had sent him to District 12 to help him obtain more experience and ultimately come to terms with her view of human nature as inherently violent. Coriolanus is given a spot at the university.
In the epilogue, Dean Highbottom, who is the dean of the Academy, reveals he had developed the idea of the Hunger Games simply as a cruel, but theoretical, event for a school project with Coriolanus's father, Crassus. Crassus would later present the idea to Dr. Gaul, making the Games a reality and causing animosity between Highbottom and Crassus. Coriolanus poisons Dean Highbottom, starting the trademark killings that will fuel his rise to power. Meanwhile, Coriolanus implements many of his ideas into future Hunger Games as a Gamemaker. Lucy Gray is never seen or heard about again, having either died or possibly escaped the country of Panem.
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