Wait, how are Haymitch, Katniss and Lucy Gray related? The Covey in The Hunger Games, explained

Sunrise on the Reaping (aka the new The Hunger Games book) has finally dropped and there are so many crucial changes to The Hunger Games lore. We finally have confirmation that Katniss Everdeen is related to Lucy Gray Baird from the other The Hunger Games prequel. Here’s a proper explanation of who the Covey actually are, and how they’re related to Haymitch Abernathy and Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games universe.

Er, who even are the Covey in The Hunger Games?

So, the Covey is a group of nomadic musicians. A few years before The Ballad of Songbirds of Snakes, the Capitol rounded them up and killed most of the adults. Six Covey children ended up in District 12. An old man raised them. The six kids are Lucy Gray Baird (aka the heroine who Rachel Zegler plays in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), her cousins Maude Ivory Baird and Barb Azure Baird, Billy Taupe Clade, his brother Clerk Carmine Clade, and Tam Amber. Maude Ivory is at least six years young than the others.

Covey people get their first names from a ballad and a colour.

Is Lenore Dove Baird related to Lucy Gray?

Lucy Gray being iconic in the The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes film
(Credit: Lionsgate)

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Basically, yes. Lenore Dove Baird is Haymitch Abernathy’s 16-year-old girlfriend in Sunrise on the Reaping. She’s a member of the Covey. She is raised by Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine, who she considers her “uncles”. Lenore Dove doesn’t know who her father is, and her mother died giving birth to her. Sunrise on the Reaping takes places 40 years after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Lenore has to be the daughter of Maude Ivory, or either the daughter or granddaughter of one of Barb Azure or Lucy Gray. Spoiler alert: There’s probably not a direct descendent of Lucy Gray kicking about in District 12. Yes, Barb Azure was getting with a girl in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book, but this doesn’t automatically mean she didn’t have children later on.

Sunrise on the Reaping finally confirms Katniss is related to Lucy Gray and the Covey

There were plenty of clues in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that Katniss and Prim’s father is related to the Covey. He was familiar with the katniss plant and the lake which the Covey know about. He also teaches Katniss and Prim the Covey’s Hanging Tree song, despite it only being performed in public once. Lucy Gray mentions the Baird cousins are all really good at remembering music, and Katniss thinks in Mockingjay “I could memorize almost anything set to music after a round or two.”

The Sunrise on the Reaping actually confirms this theory. Lenore Dove refers to Katniss’s father Burdock Everdeen as her cousin.

Er, so whose mother is who?

Barb Azure and Maude Ivory mid-show
(Credit: Lionsgate)

We don’t know for certain. But there are clues. In Sunrise over the Reaping, we see the Covey’s unofficial graveyard. Maude Ivory has a gravestone, but Barb Azure doesn’t.

“Burdock” is actually a barbed plant, which can be azure.

Surely this makes it more likely that Maude Ivory is Lenore Dove’s mother who died in childbirth, and Barb Azure is Burdock Everdeen’s mother or grandmother? But I’ll leave it to you to debate this endlessly on Reddit until Suzanne Collins drops another book and puts us out of our misery x

To summarise, it looks like Haymitch went out with the first cousin once removed of President Snow’s ex, and the cousin twice removed of Katniss and Prim. You still with me?

The Electric State is on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops, quizzes and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.