Remember how it was mentioned in the original movie tetralogy that there’d previously only been one other Hunger Games victor from District 12? Well, Lucy is that victor. She’s a 16-year-old who, much like Katniss and Peeta, ends up surviving largely due to her ability to win the Capitol viewers to her side.
Maybe more accurately, she lives because she wins Snow over to her side, convincing him to not just help her out but to break the rules to give her an edge. Snow’s subtle interference in the games is discovered, and as punishment for his crimes, he’s kicked out of the Capitol, seemingly forever, and forced to spend the rest of his days as a Peacekeeper in the worst of the districts, District 12.
It’s that final section of the book, where Snow has the option to give up his Capitol ambitions and live an honest life with Lucy, that’s filled with the most parallels to the original books. Lucy is a singer who ends up singing “The Hanging Tree” to haunting effect, just like Katniss would 65 years later. There are also countless mentions of the literal katniss flower that Katniss would one day be named after, as well as constant talk about mockingjays.
Snow and Lucy’s relationship doesn’t work out — once Snow sees a path toward regaining his power in the Capitol, it all falls apart — but it’s not the end of Snow’s District 12-related woes. In the end, Snow thinks to himself about Lucy, “She and her mockingjays could never harm him again,” but this will hardly be the last time a mockingjay hurts him.
