Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Info Link: . /wiki/The_Ballad_of_Songbirds_and_Snakes
Plot
Set in the universe of The Hunger Games, 64 years before the first installment[a], the book follows young Coriolanus Snow, who is far from the cold, calculating dictator seen during the events of the original trilogy.
Following a long and costly war with the Districts, in which the Capitol was under direct siege for several months, the Capitol remains heavily damaged and is only beginning to recover. The once-wealthy and powerful Snow family, whose patriarch, General Crassus Snow, led the Capitol's forces as a key strategist and war hero until he was killed in action, has fallen on hard times. While determined to keep up appearances, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, his cousin Tigris Snow and their grandmother (nicknamed "Grandma'am") are running out of options and resources. Though faced with the imminent loss of both their grand apartment and the family's great social prestige, Coriolanus remains determined to restore his family to prosperity, taking pride and assurance in the family saying, "Snow Lands On Top."
Based on his academic excellence at the Academy, the Capitol's most prestigious high school, Coriolanus is chosen to mentor a tribute in the upcoming tenth Hunger Games. He is assigned the District 12 female tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, member of a traveling musician group known as the Covey, who were forced into staying in District 12 after the war began. Lucy Gray sparks the Capitol's attention after slipping a hidden snake into the clothing of the mayor's cruel daughter Mayfair, who had arranged for her to be reaped over jealousy about a boy named Billy Taupe, as well as singing during the reaping. Coriolanus is determined to make a good impression, since his success in the games will most likely guarantee he will win the monetary prize he needs in order to attend University.
Coriolanus decides to meet Lucy Gray at the train station where the tributes are set to arrive, but accidentally ends up with them in their transport vehicle. Some of the tributes consider killing him, but are dissuaded by Lucy Gray when she warns them that their families would likely be punished. The transport vehicle drops the stunned Coriolanus and the tributes inside a cage in the Capitol Zoo. He and Lucy Gray seize the opportunity to put on a show and begin earning the sympathy of the Capitol's citizens.
Coriolanus starts sneaking Lucy Gray food from the Academy, as the Capitol is not feeding the tributes. The other mentors follow suit, including Sejanus Plinth, the only child of Strabo Plinth, whose ingenuity constructing a munitions empire brought him considerable wealth and political favor, allowing him to buy the Plinth family's way into the Capitol from District 2 after the war. Sejanus gets nowhere trying to use food to build a rapport with his tribute, Marcus, a former classmate of his from District 2. Another mentor, Arachne Crane, mocks and taunts her tribute, leading to her being attacked and killed when she gets too close to the cage bars. Clemensia, Coriolanus's classmate, is distraught by the murder, leaving him to complete an essay on ways to increase viewership for the games – which they were supposed to do together – by himself. He presents the essay to the Head Gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, proposing a betting scheme and sponsorship of the tributes to engage the people of the Capitol in the outcome of the Games. Dr. Gaul drops the essay into a tank of genetically modified snakes. Coriolanus is forced to retrieve a few pages of the essay from the enclosure but is ignored by the snakes. However, they attack Clemensia when she reaches in, proving that Coriolanus was the sole author of the project since the snakes did not recognize her scent in the paper. Clemensia is severely envenomated and hospitalized, though Gaul brushes this off, only concerned with learning what she had wanted to.
During a tour of the arena – implied to be a former football stadium – undetected bombs explode and kill several tributes and mentors. Lucy Gray considers escaping in the chaos, but decides to help an injured Snow, saving his life. Despite the bad publicity this generates, the Games begin, with many tributes quickly dying from starvation, disease, or injuries, including Sejanus' tribute, Marcus, who tried to escape when the bombs went off and was punished by being chained in the arena and left to be killed by the tributes. Meanwhile, Dr. Gaul enacts Coriolanus's proposals for the Games. Sejanus, resentful of both the Capitol and the Games, enters the Arena at night intending to die as a martyr; Dr. Gaul orders Coriolanus to extract him. He convinces Sejanus to leave, explaining that his suicide would not be seen by anyone due to the footage being altered and that he could make more of a change if he decided to live. As they leave, they are attacked by a group of tributes who had noticed them. In the ensuing chase, Coriolanus is forced to bludgeon one of the tributes to death in self-defense, marking his first ever killing of another human.
While in Dr. Gaul's lab, Coriolanus notices a tank of the same genetically modified snakes he and Clemensia encountered being transported. Deducing that they are going to be dropped in the arena, he drops a handkerchief with Lucy Gray's scent inside the tank to accustom the snakes to her. As Coriolanus predicted, the genetically modified snakes are dropped into the arena. They attack several tributes except Lucy Gray, surrounding and climbing inside her dress, but not biting. After several days, Lucy Gray wins the Games thanks to the snakes and a compact full of rat poison Coriolanus had given her earlier that belonged to his late mother. At a celebration party at the Academy, Coriolanus is smugly confronted by the academic dean, Highbottom, with evidence implicating him in cheating in the Games and stealing food from the Academy. Threatened with being publicly disgraced unless he agrees to enlist, Coriolanus reluctantly joins the Peacekeepers and is sent to the garrison in District 12.
Coriolanus reunites with Lucy Gray in District 12, and develops romantic feelings for her. Sejanus, who was forced into the Peacekeepers due to trouble of his own, has grown further opposed to the Capitol's authoritarianism and soon plans to help a group of District 12 residents escape to a place north of the district, rumored to be beyond the Capitol's control. Coriolanus surreptitiously sends word to Dr. Gaul in the Capitol using a jabberjay that recorded the evidence. Lucy Gray's former lover Billy Taupe and Mayfair overhear a conversation between Sejanus and a rebel named Spruce, and are subsequently shot dead by Spruce and Coriolanus (who stumbled upon the meeting with Lucy Gray) to prevent them from blowing their cover. A few days later, Spruce is found severely injured and eventually dies, while Sejanus is arrested by the 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 because he fears being found out for Billy and Mayfair's murders.
On their way to the North, Coriolanus accidentally finds the hidden guns used to shoot Billy Taupe and Mayfair. Coriolanus realizes that with the evidence in hand, he could bury what had happened and make a new life for himself. Worried that Lucy Gray had discerned that he was responsible for Sejanus's death, he goes after her with a rifle. He is bitten by a snake and, after expending his ammunition and hyperventilating due to the bite, is unable to tell whether he killed her, or she managed to get away. 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 arranged for him to be sent to District 12 so he could obtain more experience and ultimately come to terms with her view of human nature as inherently violent, and the need for an authoritarian government to keep this nature in check. Coriolanus is given a spot at the University under her tutelage. He is effectively adopted by Sejanus's parents as their heir, with neither knowing the central role Coriolanus played in their son's death.
Coriolanus pays a visit to Dean Highbottom at the Academy, where he learns that, while Highbottom did indeed co-author the original proposal for the Hunger Games, he never intended for them to become a reality. While he and Crassus Snow were classmates and friends at the University, they got drunk one night and Highbottom told Crassus of his idea for the Games, but as a simple, theoretical experiment. Seeking to gain favor, Crassus took the idea and submitted it to Dr. Gaul, who made the Games a reality soon after. Highbottom never forgave Crassus for this and adds that he sees much of Crassus' deceitful, manipulative nature in his son. Thoroughly tired of Highbottom's obstructive actions and antagonism towards him, Coriolanus slips rat poison into Highbottom's drug stash, marking the first of the trademark killings that would fuel his rise to power. In the meantime, Coriolanus implements many of his ideas into future Hunger Games as a Gamemaker. Having either died or successfully escaped the country of Panem, Lucy Gray is never seen or heard from again.
Notes:
As depicted in The Hunger Games (2008).
