The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Ending Explained: Snow Always Lands On Top
This article contains major spoilers for "The Hunger Games: the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes."
Welcome to the 10th annual Hunger Games! The methods are cruder (and crueler), the batch of unwilling participants are much less marketable, and the masses haven't been successfully distracted by bread and circuses just yet. When "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" begins only a decade after the First Rebellion tore Panem apart, over 60 years before the events of the first "The Hunger Games," we find the country in a very different place than last we saw in the original movies. Although the government bears all the hallmarks of a dystopian, post-apocalyptic hellhole, power hasn't yet been consolidated under the office of a single figurehead — namely, one Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), future President of Panem.
Instead, the Francis Lawrence-directed prequel tells a much less refined story about an authoritarian regime rising from the ashes and learning in real-time how to put down future rebellions for good. (You can read my review for /Film here.) And it does so, interestingly enough, through the unlikeliest of love stories. When Rachel Zegler's Lucy Gray Baird enters the film with her grand introduction at the Reaping of District 12, stealing the hearts of many an audience member even before she bursts into a melancholy song, it might as well be written in the sky that she's doomed for a tragic end.
After narrowly surviving the Hunger Games with Snow's help and at least flirting with the possibility of running away to start a new life together far away from the Capitol, the inevitability of the story can no longer be avoided. Snow, having progressively taken a darker turn throughout the events of the film, loses Lucy Gray's trust and his own soul.
In the process, the Snow family words are proven bitterly true: Snow lands on top.
What you need to remember about the plot of Songbirds and Snakes
The basic structure of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" can be neatly broken down into distinct sections. There's Coriolanus and Lucy Gray's prep for her participation in the Hunger Games (which doubles as relationship-building for their early romance), followed by the prolonged stretch in the middle act, showcasing the actual Games in all their harrowing detail, and the extended denouement. Here, the films charts Snow's exile to the Districts, his reconnection with Lucy Gray, and eventually the decisive choices he makes that forever put him and Lucy Gray on opposite sides of the political and moral divide.
To understand the downer of an ending, however, one has to remember the journey Snow took to get to that point. With his once-wealthy family left bereft after the war, Coriolanus focuses all his energy on becoming a top student in the war-torn Capitol. Presented with a chance to show his ambition through mentoring tributes for the Games, Snow is paired with Lucy Gray and soon bonds over their shared struggles — though, at the same time, his suggestions to spice up the show also help shape the sadistic future of the Games. His efforts to help Lucy Gray survive the ordeal eventually end up with him briefly in the arena itself, saving a fellow mentor and forced to kill a tribute with his own hands. When it's discovered that he cheated to help Lucy win, Snow is exiled to the Districts to live as a Peacekeeper for a minimum of 20 years ... where he reunites with Lucy Gray and faces a series of crossroads that decide his fate.
Choosing to turn against his own rebel-sympathizing friend Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera), as it turns out, is the beginning of the end.
What happened at the end of Songbirds and Snakes?
The real tragedy of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is that, despite ample opportunity to do the right thing several times, Coriolanus Snow consistently follows his worst inclinations instead. Early on, Head Gamemaker Dr. Gaul (Viola Davis) once posed a question to Snow and his fellow students about why the Hunger Games are needed in the first place. As he ruefully admits by the end, Snow initially thought they were meant as a simple punishment for the Districts, reminding them never to rise up in arms without paying the ultimate price. Then, Snow changes his mind and looks at the Games as a punishment directed towards the Capitol itself — a warning to never let their guard down against rebels. But, finally, Snow decides that his experiences have taught him a much harsher lesson. Having had to shed blood and become someone he never could've imagined himself to be, Coriolanus decides that the Games are meant as a reminder to everyone, Capitol and Districts alike, that they're all capable of throwing out morals in favor of savagery when the situation calls for it.
This realization comes only after Snow and Lucy Gray finally reach a boiling point. Having been responsible for turning Sejanus in as a traitor, Snow decides to cover up the blood on his hands and lie. He joins Lucy Gray when she decides to escape from the District and begin all over again with a brand new start, but he inadvertently gives away the game and admits what he's done. Angrily chasing her through the forest to keep her quiet, he instead gets bitten by a snake and can't be sure whether he actually shot Lucy Gray or not. He never sees or hears of her again.
What the end of Songbirds and Snakes means
Although this turn of events might seem somewhat abrupt, much of the movie concerns itself with whether Snow's cynical and pessimistic view of humanity will win out — or if Lucy Gray's innate sense of hope will sway Snow over to her side. Not quite as reductive as the political "debates" between Anakin and Padme (believe it or not, arguing with a democratic senator about the merits of authoritarianism usually won't sound as compelling as one might think it does), this fundamental disconnect between the two lovers in "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" ultimately spells doom for them both. In terms of plot alone, it's kept purposefully ambiguous whether or not Lucy Gray actually survives Snow's raging tirade in the forest, after she finally sees through his lies and makes a run for it. But whether she dies that day or lives out the rest of her life in self-imposed exile, the end result is sadly the same.
And that's the point of this story, which takes the rare step of using its own sense of inevitability as a source of dramatic tension throughout the film. Where other prequels struggle to fight against what audiences already know will happen, "Songbirds and Snakes" wisely focuses on the motivations and arcs of its characters, as opposed to simply spinning its wheels until Snow becomes the tyrannical ruler we know he'll eventually be. Now willing to kill whoever stands in his way (like Peter Dinklage's Dean Highbottom, who admits he once drunkenly came up with the idea of the Games in the first place, only for his friend Crassus Snow, Coriolanus' father, to steal the idea for himself), Snow's transformation is all but complete.
Snow lands on top ... but at what cost?