In Mockingjay, Katniss is said to have learned the song from her father and would sing it while making necklaces with her sister Primrose. Her mother banned the song from being sung in their house after hearing it.
How did Katniss Everdeen come to learn The Hanging Tree? Some 60 years after the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the song is memorised by District 12's Katniss Everdeen. Katniss originally learned the song from her father when she was a young girl.
In Ballad, Lucy composes the song and performs it in one of their shows. Afterward, she's asked not to sing the song anymore because it's too rebellious. Later, Katniss learns the song from her father, but she stops singing it because it's forbidden.
This rebel song was concocted not about a desperate lover, but a revolutionary whose plea was for his neighbors to follow him toward freedom, no matter the cost. Even if it meant they might end up hanging by his side.
How does The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes connections to Hunger Games?
In the book and movie, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes details a fundamental turning point for the Hunger Games and draws out Snow's backstory, adding dimension to the villainous character who later becomes Panem's tyrannical president.
Katniss Sings 'The Hanging Tree' | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
Was Lucy Grey Baird mentioned in the Hunger Games?
Collins says that while Lucy isn't mentioned by name in Hunger Games, she is responsible for bringing entertainment to the Hunger Games, and her legacy lives on through her songs like "The Hanging Tree" and "Deep in the Meadow."
Is Lucy Gray mentioned in the Hunger Games trilogy?
Either way, no one seems to know what became of the 10th Hunger Games victor. She's never mentioned again in any of the franchise's movies. Keep reading to see how the book handles Lucy Gray's disappearance, theories on what happened to the singer, and whether or not we could ever see more of her story.
According to Haymitch Abernathy, the song was the first memory Peeta associated with Katniss that did not trigger a "mental breakdown" after the Capitol propagandized him. After realizing this, Katniss uses "The Hanging Tree" as a remedy for Peeta's "Capitol-implanted hatred".
Katniss sings a song called “The Hanging Tree” about a man who has been hanged. In the song he calls out for his lover, still alive, to “flee,” but in the end, it becomes clear that he's asking her to die along with him, hanging from a tree.
Snow can't stand to see a young woman betray a young man's affection—his view of what happened 65 years ago. And so he takes out his old, festering wound on Katniss.
Fans also know who Katniss' mother is, so that rules out Lucy Gray being her mom. It's also important to bring back the fact that Katniss' father knows the lake well, meaning Lucy Gray and Katniss would more likely be related on her paternal side.
In the book (which is told from Coriolanus's point-of-view), during his final chat with Dr Gaul, Coriolanus is told that all recordings of the 10th Hunger Games have been deleted. It was wiped from the record as it led to the deaths of some of the mentors, potentially making the Capitol look weak.
What happened to Lucy Gray Baird at the end of the book?
Plenty of theories suggest that Lucy Gray died at the end of the book/movie. The biggest explanation for her death, as the film suggests, is that Coriolanus Snow killed her during his mad state when a snake bit him.
He married Julia Pompey but their marriage was loveless. It was suggested by many that he poisoned his wife because she tried to kill him and take their sons place. After this, he married 2 more people, one being from the Stone Family, and one being from the Willford Family.
In a pivotal scene, Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, sings the haunting “The Hanging Tree.” Despite her discomfort with singing, Lawrence herself performed the song, and the single was a surprise smash, charting as high as 12 on Billboard's Hot 100.
If you stuck around during the credits after your weekend showing of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2," then you probably heard a familiar lullaby: "Deep in the Meadow." The lullaby that Katniss sings to her baby girl at the end of "Mockingjay" is also the same song she sang to Prim -- and a dying Rue -- in "The ...
She says to hold the berries out because she wants everyone to see. She wants to make sure that the Gamemakers understand what she and Peeta are about to do and that if the Gamemakers allow this to happen, the Hunger Games will not have a victor this year. On the count of three, they pop the berries into their mouths.
"The Hanging Tree" has a brief backstory in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It was one of many songs composed by Lucy Gray Baird, and it was written about the execution of Arlo Chance.
The Hunger Games uses it as a symbol of defiance against the Capitol, adopted not only by Katniss but by members of the oppressed Districts who come to see her as their champion. The people in her home of District 12 use it as a long-standing gesture of respect, thanks, or good-bye.
Katniss is rendered deaf in one ear after she blows up the Careers' supplies, and she doesn't regain any hearing on her left side until afterwards when the Capitol gives her a hearing aid.
Katniss rarely sings because it reminds her of her father, but she now remembers a morbid song that her father taught her: “The Hanging Tree.” This moment in the story is significant in multiple ways.
Believing Lucy Gray planted the snake to harm him, Snow goes on a rampage, shooting his gun into the woods. For a moment, it seems like he has hit Lucy Gray but then she starts singing “The Hanging Tree,” causing countless Mockingjays to join in chorus.
In the movie, Snow and Baird develop a friendship as mentor and tribute after Lucy Gray saves Snow's life during an attack on Panem. After being sent to District 12 as a Peacekeeper in the aftermath of the 10th Hunger Games, Snow starts to deepen his relationship with Lucy Gray, which develops in a more romantic light.
At an unknown point in time years before the 74th Hunger Games, she was personally fired by Snow, the stated reason being due to her being too surgically enhanced.
