Lucy Gray Baird

**Lucy Gray Baird** was the female tribute from District 12 , a coal mine district in the 10th Hunger Games. Her mentor was Coriolanus Snow, a top-performing student at the Academy. She was the Victors|victor of the Games, and was a Capitol favorite. A member of the Covey, she and her kin were trapped in District 12 following the First Rebellion, but originally traveled throughout Panem. Lucy was a grand performer and singer/song-writer, the favourite song was the one about Snow - at the bar.

## Biography

### Early life

As members of a nomadic group known as the Covey, Lucy Gray and her mother, father, oldest sibling, and middle sibling, traveled throughout the country of Panem amidst the First Rebellion, a war between the Capitol and the districts. It is unknown which territories their people originated from.

### Covey genocide

Prior to the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Peacekeepers had rounded up the Covey and killed many of them. This included Lucy Gray's immediate family members, her father getting "shot dead" for trying to fight capture and her mother getting her "head broken" for trying to keep the family together. Lucy Gray's older siblings were killed as well, leaving Lucy Gray, some other members of the Covey, and her youngest cousin, Maude Ivory, the only survivors.They were trapped in District 12, where they were raised by a unnamed man, though he didn't really care for them, but didn't mess with them either. After the man died of the black lung, the Covey made their living doing musical performances. At some point, Lucy Gray had started a relationship with fellow Covey member Billy Taupe Clade, though it had ended by the time of the 10th Hunger Games, when Lucy Gray had learned that he was also dating Mayfair Lipp, the District 12 mayor's daughter, whom she would develop a rivalry with.

## Family

### Immediate family

By the time of the 10th Hunger Games, Lucy Gray was left as an orphan with no immediate family. Her father was shot dead for speaking out and trying to resist the Peacekeeper roundup, and her mother "[got her] head broken" for trying to keep her family together. Alongside her parents, Lucy Gray also lost her two unnamed older siblings.

### The Covey

After the deaths of Lucy Gray's immediate family, the six remaining Covey children were taken in by an old man for a fee. This included Lucy Gray and her two Baird cousins, Barb Azure and Maude Ivory; as well as Billy Taupe Clade, Clerk Carmine Clade, and Tam Amber. The man didn't raise the children, but he didn't "much mess with [them]" either, and Lucy Gray expressed gratitude towards him for housing them. He died of black lung the year prior to her reaping, but some of the Covey were old enough to manage things by then.

## Personality

Lucy Gray had a confident, seemingly effortless stage presence. She was able to quickly win over audiences at the Hob and in the Capitol alike with her charms. Coriolanus describes her usual show-characteristics as a glamourous stage personality. She was a girl filled with sass and heart, with nothing but love for her family. Despite this, she showed signs of trauma from her time in the Hunger Games, saying that she still had "one foot in the arena."

## Physical description

Lucy Gray was described with light, curly hair which was pulled up and woven with limp wildflowers at the reaping. During that time, she also wore her signature colorful dress made of a rainbow of ruffles of colors of raspberry pink, royal blue, and daffodil yellow ruffle, now raggedy but once fancy, which drew the eye as to "a tattered butterfly in a field of moths". Later, for her interview, Tigris made the filth and soot on her dress vanish, leaving fresh, starchy rows of rainbow ruffles. During the reaping and the interview, Lucy Gray wore makeup - her eyes were shadowed blue and lined with black, her cheeks rouged, and her lips stained a somewhat messy red. Pluribus Bell said she looked like "someone who knows how to have fun".

During the rest of her stay in the Capitol, she didn't wear her makeup, and her lips were chapped, her hair loose, her rainbow dress dusty and rumpled. She was also struck by the mayor, and the mark was described as a deep purple bruise, which Lucy Gray said she could only imagine 'how hideous' it looks.

When she returned to District 12, she wore a gray dress, like her namesake, as well as a black scarf during Arlo Chance's hanging. She also wore braids during the Games. Although no specific description is given of her speech within the novel, in a clip introducing the character, author Suzanne Collins read Lucy Gray as having an accent like those from the Deep South region of the United States.

## Etymology

Her name, Lucy Gray, originates from a real life poem, "Lucy Gray," written by William Wordsworth. The poem itself is performed as a song by Maude Ivory. She was the only member of the Covey to have both parts of their name pulled from a ballad. Her surname, Baird, is derived from the word "bard", meaning "poet" or a professional singer who tells stories through song. It is also only one letter off from "bird", which the Covey are often compared to in the novel.