Not really a stretch because am elimination tournament but there is a great video that goes into willy Wonka and how fucked up the character and setting is 😂
I’ve always felt like someone should remake that story except the kids don’t come out alive. Or at least we don’t see them come out alive. Especially with Burton’s take on the tale, it truly is a horror story
Hunger games copies tend to forgive their own "battle royales". It's either a magical coming of age ritual, a test to prove oneself, a necessary game to weed out the weak, etc. The hunger games were explicity an evil tool created by evil people who wanted to control the districts. Every single tribute was a victim of the games whether they were a victor or not. In these copies, the evil people are the enemies in the arena and the battle royale is just a fact of life that everyone accepts.
Literally. The way Collins wrote innocent kids being forced to kill each other and see each other as competition and villains was absolutely chilling. Biggest part of what these battle royale games fail to mimic.
I think what makes the Hunger Games so good, is that the cost of life has impact on the characters and story. I've only seen the movies, but the start of the tournament was gnarly. I wasn't entertained, it was actually pretty hard to watch. The fact that the rich people are entertained by seeing dead children, really says something about the world. And it also makes the story more realistic. In a lot of action genres, people dying is nbd (unless it's like a best friend, mentor or lover). It gives people the appearance of desensitisation to death. But what if you're actually standing there, seeing it, being in danger yourself? I think the Hunger Games really succeeded in communicating that fear and desperation.
They did a good job with the movies, but the books are even better in this respect! Because you are in Katniss’ head, you really feel the emotional and psychological toll it takes on her.
@@kbird6208 the first book was so gruesome, especially Cato’s death . it was changed in the movie but he was wearing armour which prevented him from dying straight away at the hands of the mutts . katniss and peeta literally lie on top of the cornucopia while cato is slowly being mauled underneath them for hours …… and i read the books at twelve 😭😭😭
I love when books show the arc of becoming desensitized to death is non-linear. That first ever death you hear about/witness impacts you, but that becomes common place then it’s the deaths you have a hand in that cause the emotional distress but you have to accept that it’s a reality of your world and you have to cope in some way. Then it’s seeing people that you thought were invincible being killed and realizing no day is guaranteed even when you are the most skilled and lethal person. I think Rebecca Yarros’s Empyrean series does this well, it makes even the characters used to murder question the ethics of their war college and culture.
The hunger games really isn’t a rip off of Battle Royal basically because Battle Royal is a critique of Japanese society and Hunger Games is a critique of American society. The only similarity is the death tournaments
Exactly. Not to mention BR is one book. THG has 3 and deep dives way more into the world around it as well as the toppling. The games were plot point but not the whole plot
Yeah I also thought of that! They also do it because for them, the stakes aren't as high as other people's, because they are actually trained for the games and have an advantage, therefore not having such a high threshold to join the games!
most career tributes do volunteer (district 1, 2, 4 in the books). katniss said that since they usually do volunteer, the whole volunteer process can get complicated in those districts
@@amelieclemens3201 not just that, but people from their districts tend to have more sponsors in the capitol too because they have that training and receive the best scores.
Which in of itself is still commentary on the power dynamics: the volunteer tributes and the districts that raise their children idolising the games where 96% of the contenders die represent military propaganda and the Capitol's message of them as trials of skill and cunning so successfully that they believe getting their children killed or exploited for the benefit of their oppressors for increments of wealth over the other districts is an _honour._ Again, leaning on the clear Roman inspirations scattered throughout the book, it's Divide and Conquer: show favouritism for one subject and beat down another, and they'll be too busy hating each other to unify against you.
i love that the hunger games does a death tournament that shows how hard it is to bring yourself to kill someone, even in a fight to the death. katniss shows mercy to fox face, and thresh shows her mercy when they could easily have killed one another. suzanne collins also explores the mental toll killing someone directly takes on katniss, showing her nightmares, ptsd, and the substance abuse issues other victors experience, creating a very realistic view of what it would actually be like to experience this world for yourself
I think you overlooked one very big reason why Battle Royals are so popular: people love to imagine how well would they do in these tournaments. This is exactly why Squid games and Battle Royal exist in the public consciousness less like "stories about certain characters", and more like a "tournament with certain rules". People love to recreate SG challenges during Halloween bcs they want to know how would they do it (the fact that this one doesn't force you to outright murder people but just asks you to win games makes it easier to imagine yourself in their place). Meanwhile other settings coerce the reader into Raskolnikov's dilemma of "am i cut out for the murder? can i do it?". That brings me to another point about what makes this trope shine: you really have to spend a lot of time with your characters, their feelings, their motivations, and with the world itself before you move onto the game itself. Because if characterization of your MCs isn't strong enough, their personal tragedy will be overshadowed by the games. Yeah, we do talk about Hunger Games as a tournament with its rules, we love playing in Hunger Games simulator and make our blorbos fight to death. But we remember as much of both Katniss and Panem, because we spend a lot of time with both of them before and after the games. Because good death tournament the book has to make sure that personal tragedies and the world-building isn't overshadowed by the game.
In multiple interviews I have seen with Suzanne Collins, she states that the inspiration for the hunger games concept actually came from a story from Greek mythology.
It came from several things. The Greek myth of Theseus, the Iraq war, reality television, and her own experiences as a child after her father was drafted into the Vietnam war.
It's been a hot minute since I read Hunger Games, but I'm pretty sure that in the first book, the richer districts had kids who trained outright for the Hunger Games and volunteered annually, because beyond abducting children and then telling them to fight, the capitol also gave a bunch of perks to the entire district of the winner to incentivize compliance from the tributes, such that winning districts faced less starvation and scarcity. It was a combination both of tyranny and exploiting desperation. Without the incentive, you can force kids to fight for their lives, but you risk having too many who would choose to sacrifice themselves rather than turn into a killer just to die before the end anyway. With the incentive, you get a lot of kids who find moral justification in what they're doing.
oh yeah ive always thought about how i would simply kill myself as soon as the games started if i was ever put in that position instead of becoming a murderer with the slightest chance of survival. it's the hope of making it and essentially becoming a celebrity, escaping a horrific life that makes them keep going. even president snow talks about the importance of hope for the system to work and how too much of it is dangerous. the 'careers' who train in order to volunteer have all been brainwashed into believing that being a victor is a big honor; which mirrors how war propaganda works in real life
I'd kill for a video about The Bad Boy. In my opinion, bad boys first started out as Greasers (example: The Fonz from Happy Days). They had a similar feeling to punks in the way that they broke rules and were pretty counter culture. The Bad Boy, was a guy that was poor or from the "bad part of town". He's anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, and cares more about people than the laws. They wear leather cuz they ride bikes and that's just biker gear. Bad Boys, when done correctly, are supposed to be the rough guy that will risk harm and arrest in order to do the right thing. Bad boys are NOT bigots and definitely not wealthy. If he's toxic, he's not a bad boy. The "bad boy with a heart of gold" isn't "he mistreated me but he loves me" it's "he get's his hands dirty and is rough around the edges but he always stands up for the little guy and does what's right (not what's lawful)." Edit: what people think of nowadays as The Bad Boy is a severely mishandled and bastardized version.
I'd love to see this done, too! I feel like some authors just wanted a "bad boy" as the ML and figured so long he was hot/confident they only needed to add "be an AH to everyone but (gradually) not to FL" and it'd be OK cause it was OK from the FL POV.
in other words, the bad boy changed from a working-class hero to an owning-class accessory, as the affluent copied what made him dangerous, legal transgression, without understanding what makes him appealing. damn rich people, always ruining everything with their shortsightedness
@@theheirslair9581 It wasn't more so rich people who did this. It was the authors themselves. Because being rich is seen as appealing. I don't think a lot of people wanted to have their hero boy crush to be from lower classes, because money allows for cool accessories and fancy dates and gowns. I think also, at the time the troubled rich artist trope (which in itself used to be beautifully done) was becoming popular. So the authors cherry-picked their favourite bits from each trope and mangled it into a mess as they understood neither trope well. It's not rich people's shortsightedness, it's the face value admiration for a thing based simply off of their aesthetics today which has caused trouble in many areas.
Only Dutch people ever criticize others' Dutch accents. If she would have said it with an American accent it would probably be a worse pronunciation of the name in its original language.
@@saram5659I personally smirked at that because I would say it the exact same way. It's funny how easily an English pronunciation goes out the window when it comes to foreign words, even though your whole essay is in English.
ohhh i was wondering what accent she had. also its cute that she reverts to her native accent for words in other languages cuz when i speak english i even pronounce words in my native tongue with an english accent for some reason?? lmfaooo
I actually very rarely read a magical competition book that actually pulls the trope off, but the death tournament is invariably worse as a trope. Partly because since the hunger games most authors don’t have the balls to kill most of or all of the participants.
@@Joeysaladslover OH HAHAHA my tired brain thought you read a book that managed to pull the trope off because the author killed most of the participants
The Hunger Games and Battle Royale came from the same source, simple, The concept of there being only one "winner" has existed since the ancient Romans,the era of the gladiators. + Suzanne tells us she was inspired by the The Tale of the Minotaur,her father used to tell ancient greek stories to her as a child(he was a soldier too) So all of these experiences impacted on her work And this is very clear in Susanne's work,from the names of people to the concepts The Hunger Games is not just another gratuitous bloodbath, it goes further, it is pure social criticism
21:56 Great video! One small thing though that does change a bit of the dynamic (its been a long time since Ive read this series so the details are fuzzy) but Katniss isnt the only one to volunteer. Shes just the only one to do so from her district. The higher districts get volunteers because the kids train their entire lives just to compete. Its a money/wealth thing.
it's the hope of making it and essentially becoming a celebrity, that makes them do it. even president snow talks about the importance of hope for the system to work and how too much of it is dangerous. the 'careers' who train in order to volunteer have all been brainwashed into believing that being a victor is a big honor; which mirrors how war propaganda works in real life. i've heard the prequel explains more about how that became a strategy but i haven't read/watched it. it's classic divide and conquer tho, capitol shows favoritsm towards the first three or four (and btw, white) districts. they're wealthier so they can afford to train instead of just trying to survive, therefore they are a bigger threat and the other districts can hate them instead of realising who the real enemy is. the careers are also victims of the capitol and that is why when cato realizes how he has ''always been dead anyways'', he just wasn't aware; it is heart breaking cuz you see that he is also just a scared kid.
On the whole power dynamic aspect, I never hear anyone talk about how Katniss in the books is actually Indigenous. Her father was. How most of the residents in district 11 are mostly Black and how that district is heavily policed and guarded, and how district 12 is mostly Indigenous people and it's basically abandoned and forgotten. Also, how Peeta, who lives in the "richer" part of town and is white, does have more privilege than Katniss and they have their own power dynamic between them because of this with the bread. It's not just about money, it's about race. It would have been interesting to see all of that explored in the films.
I don’t think district 12 is primarily indigenous given the common grey eyes there (correct me if I’m wrong), and I’m not sure if Katniss’ dad was indigenous given I don’t remember his character description… but it would make sense if he was given the foraging in the woods thing. Definitely an interesting thing I’ll think about next reread.
I don't remember Katniss being indigenous, she was described as olive skin in the books, which could mean from arabic decent to latin american, also indigenous. Anyway, she was not described as white
that and also its exemplified by katniss’ mother and prim. she makes comments about how they stand out in the seam because of their blonde hair and blue eyes. district 12 is def racially and socially segregated. ive always thought of book katniss and her dad/sister, gale, haymitch, and the other seam characters as native appalachian
@@sasha9465 The 5th-century Greek historian Herodotus describes the Budini of Scythia as red-haired and grey-eyed. Ethnically Russian (data from research of the Russian ethnic group 1957-1959): 43.46% - blue, light blue, gray eyes 50.17% - green, gray-green, brown-green, blue-green 6.37% - brown, yellow-brown, black-brown The Royal Scyths, established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean territories. It is there that the richest, oldest, and most-numerous relics of Scythian civilization have been found. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, battle strategy, crafts, and weaving, is often referred to as "grey-eyed" or "glaukopis."
such relevant commentary cause i see many writers use tools of death, murder, sa and various crimes within their universe/ by characters and don't write on the impact of it all. readers can feel it when authors are just tossing around traumatic 'incidents' and bloody 'plot devices' just for the sake of their story and doesn't empathise their characters or even let us have time to process the emotional journey with the characters/ community in their literary universe
Collins does this better than most. Her earlier series, the Underland Chronicles, lean into this as well. You can feel the protagonist getting more and more troubled and cynical as he sees (and causes) more death and chaos, and is a complete wreck by the end.
One difference between The Hunger Games and gladiatorial games is that the Battle Royale genre is all about killing each other off, while gladiators were too expensive to kill casually. Gladiator matches were to submission. If the host of the match demands battle to the death he'll have to pay for the gladiator, including the cost of training and feeding him. While accidental deaths weren't uncommon, deliberate fights to the death were very rare.
Katniss isn't the only person who volunteers for the Hunger Games. It's mentioned that certain districts (the more well-off districts) hold their Hunger Games champions in very high esteem, they're like heroes, and they also have a culture around the Hunger Games, where children will be trained in combat from an early age specifically for the Hunger Games (therefore these districts will usually win the Hunger Games each year too, because they have this huge advantage). So people from those districts will volunteer for the honour and glory (I'm not sure if anyone else volunteers for it in Katniss' year though).
I think it was mention in the books that training for hunger games is banned in the districts but District 1,2, and 4 was able to find loophole to this rule, while the other districts didn’t. Also when someone win the the hunger games, it also benefits the winning district too. They get year worth of parcels of food from the Capitol, so district 1,2, and 4 receive more food for their citizens because their victors.
@@meadowmia Yeah that's right, it's common knowledge that certain districts do train for it, but the Capitol doesn't stop them. I can't remember the loophole to it, I thought the Capitol just looked the other way for some reason. Oh yeah that's true. So then they'd be hailed as a hero in their district for winning food for everyone. Good point.
I appreciated the Battle Royale book because we had all these perspectives of the kids that gave them humanizing qualities. (Spoilers)There were some solo boys at first who attacked others out of desperation, the pacifist girls who wanted to protect each other but were sabotaged by one girl's paranoia, the naive bestfriends who thought they could call their class together, the boys who wanted to fight the authority but was also sabotaged by their infighting, the lovers that tried to protect each other, the delinquents who thought they would band together and pick off their classmates, and the main characters who were just lucky enough to meet someone knowledgeable of the game. It wasn't about the world per se, but how these kids approached the games and how children suffered under fascism. The games were an inhumane punishment/warning to society in both the book and manga, and the delinquency issue was the movie-only rationale btw. Hunger Games only focused on Katniss, but we see how she "played the game" in and out of the Hunger Games, from playing to the camera and crowds and appealing via imagery and fashion. She was also a pawn piece to the rebellion, someone to use as a figurehead and "flagbearer", someone they didn't need as a soldier but only gave the impression of one to inspire the masses. The games never really ended for her when she left the arena. She needed to keep playing or was played. I also enjoy battle royale-inspired anime, if only for the action and gore (I enjoyed the Zodiac Wars but it wasn't groundbreaking or anything). I feel like they can also be fun vibes, no thought, head empty, in battle royale books if they were specifically made to be campy. But I haven't seen that yet, and I wish a book like that was real.
@@SOME_GUY_ i consumed the movie, book, and manga, but it's been a while, so this is just off the top of my head. I even forgot to mention the delinquent girl that was picking off her classmates, and she was cool as heck. Though the manga version gave her a lame fanservicey death. The manga annoyed me in many more ways, but that's another story.
@pauieeepau Nah, I totally feel that last point. The manga is what originally introduced me to the story, but I'm glad I later read the book. The manga made a bunch of unsavory changes, honestly.
I read battle royale two months ago and I was WOWED by the similarities to the hunger games, just with amped up gore and more internal character struggles. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the genre. The intro to the story is the excerpt about the boxing battle royale, and it really sets the stage for the rest of the story as a spectacle for those running it. It’s a genius work, the only downside is the 700 page length… but it’s so worth it!
I think an interesting trope to explore would be “being transported to another world”, specifically how the protagonists handle this. I feel like a lot of authors don’t realize the weight of the situation of not knowing where you are or how to get home after being isekai’d. I usually see examples of this in visual media, so I wonder how it differentiates with written media.
About that, give Leon Ceur Senki a go. It veers away from the cliche and takes a rather unforgivingly direct reality check about a medieval world (around 8-9th century). Meanwhile 99% of isekais while saying it is a "middleage european setting" describe a happy go lucky rennaisance setting (15th century+).
it's less about authors not realizing the weight of being in that situation and them deliberately writing a story without that weight. most authors making isekais are not trying to make a serious story, they're just making a power fantasy for teenagers. a completely average dude gets every OP power they could ever want and then gets to go around a cool new world doing whatever happens to interest them at the time.
Nothing does tournaments like shounen mangas/animes. Obviously they're not 'death' tournaments but almost every shounen has a "Tournament Arc" and it became a classic trope in the medium and they're always SO MUCH FUN.
Naruto chuunin exam in the Forest of Death and Hunter X Hunter exams substituted death with scrolls or badge numbers, but they didn't exactly prevent/disallow killing. So they kind of still are death games lol. I love these arcs.
a HUGE thing you sadly missed about the hunger games and volunteering is that katniss is NOT the only volunteer. the careers from district 1 and 2 have trained their whole lives to participate and volunteer to bring honor to their district and family.
There is a Wattpad book I can't remember the title of, that I wanted to finish reading where everyone is already dead and they compete in a battle royal to return back to earth alive.
Not really a trope but I would really like a deep dive into the obsession books (and society) have with romance. Not in a romance books are bad way, but on how books always focus on romantic relationships, place them above platonic relationships and it’s kinda impossible to find a fantasy or YA book without a romance (sub) plot.
Good point! I feel like when I was YA age, there were more books about social situations but not necessarily romance. Now as an occasional YA-reading adult, the teenage romances are not interesting but there are few books without them as the main point of the book.
If Suzanne Collins tells the truth we will most likely never know, but the 90:s and early 00:s was a high point for more or less deranged game shows/realities, often with an elimination structure, the idea wasn't that far-fetched. The "Deadly game shows" trope was used already in the early 80:s by Stephen King/Richard Bachman with The Long March and The Running Man, quite prophetic at that time, though they were not Battle Royales.
The book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison begins with the main character being conned into a battle royale for a scholarship. Highly highly recommend this book though. Its really thought provoking and I think is the best book I had to read for high school English.
This was what I thought about first when she mentioned battle royals in the US! I haven’t read the full book, but had to read an excerpt for my English class at uni and I should get to reading it in full!
I love listening to people who go on detailed and passionate rants about subjects that they love. I'm not a reader or into books but I love stories and this channel has me in a choke hold 😅❤
Okay, but not nearly enough people in the comments have mentioned Red Rising - that series is a masterpiece! Only the first book is of the battle royale variety, and as the story progresses, it moves in a completely different direction, but I've read very few series that have just become so much better with each next book. Cannot recommend it enough - easily the best series I've read this year, and I'm not even into scifi ❤
Yes, it’s so good!! Also, the later books still kinda have that Battle Royale feeling, just on a larger scale especially the further into to the series you get. Pierce Brown is an absolute genius
22:26 Besides Katniss there's the Career Tributes from districts 1 and 2 (I guess, not sure about the numbers), but your point stands since there's 12 districts on the competition
In Harvard Lampoon parody, the Hunger Pains, it was stated that the Games originally started as a pie eating contest but was later changed to a fight to the death since the competition got so heated that they started killing each other
I would love to see a deep dive on the secret identities/alter egos trope. I fall into it every. single. time. (Bonus points if the MC and love interest are enemies and/or lovers with the opposite alter ego.)
Hmm, it’s been a while, but Renegades by Marissa Meyer is the first one that comes to mind, and there’s a popular 3D animated show/movie called Miraculous Ladybug which has its whole plot based off of the trope (if you know, you know lol)
The first ever story (not counting short stories) I ever finished writing was a Death Tournament. Part of the reason I finished it was because it being a Death Tournament gave it a clear plot structure and end goal, along with of course enough tension. Unlike most Death Tournaments though, the participants were mainly rich and popular. There was a way to get disqualified from the tournament without dying by losing all your reputation and influence, but most just settled for killing since it was quicker and simpler
Steven King (as Richard Bachman) wrote The Long Walk. It was a spectator sport where teenagers entered a contest for ridiculous money. You walked and if you stopped or slowed too much you were shot. Technically same genre, and although I read it as a teen I don’t think it is a young adult book. It was pretty darn good. It’s more of a novelette (like half length standard novel), and it ended before it got boring.
The career districts 1, 2, and 4 have a whole system for people to volunteer and it’s super common in those districts. It’s rare in district twelve though
Panem et Circenses- bread and circuses- goes back to Roman Empire and gladiators, and probably before then. We still do it, every weekend with football, wrestling, boxing, any organized sports are some form of gladiator-style sport for entertainment to keep masses from rising up against injustice.
I'd want a deep dive in the trope of amnesia/memory loss. Its the one that give me the irks and I cant seem to enjoy, but in the only few examples where I thought it was well done, the manga became my favorite (tokyo ghoul and tokyo ghoul:re)
The people in authority know that if the workers banded together against them that they would strip them of said authority, so it behoove them to put workers against each other, unfortunately for the workers, even though they are the foundation on which authority stands, which is the way in real life as well
The Hungar Games actually always has volunteers- The Careers. So I think a prestige/wealth motivation (in other words... culture) could be a valid reason but I would feel this has to be still in some sort of opressive society- obviously there are some horrific cultural customs (in the past and currently) so I suppose it's possible this could be something 'normal' like a sacrifice for a god or a performance for gods (like the death god example- even with humans this might work) but I dunno... I think a fight to the death needs really strong justification. A battle royal with serious injuries but without the goal to kill everyone and that everyone but 1 person has to die is extreme and needs an extreme reason.
Excellent video - I especially appreciated your deep dive into hidden racist history of the Battle Royale trope. It's for that reason that I can't recommend Chain Gang All-Stars enough. It tackles current issues in America's carceral system using a death tournament as the backdrop - a great novel and highly effective
I just read this series! it's so much fun! I will say for anyone interested in reading it, the plot is less about the death tournament and more about the characters' relationships to each other and their town, so I don't know if I'd actually call it a battle royal trope. I highly recommend it though!
As a person living in literal dictatorship and a colony the hunger games is relatable. I still don't whether I support Gale who believes all Capitolians (children included) deserve to die or Peeta who believes in innocent until proven otherwise. Add to that President Snow and Katniss being enemies. I still don't know why did he ask her to stop the rebellion knowing she won't be able to do it... And a guy who was Gamemaker became new president so no surprise there.
Plutarch didn’t become president, it was Commander Paylor, one of rebel leader (she’s from district 8, the one that President Snow bombed the hospital)
Very nuanced and respectful take on the origins of battle royales, thank you so much for that! I'm a big fan of morbid stories that tend towards bad or bittersweet endings, like death tournaments, so hearing more on where the whole concept could come from and more of it history-wide is very intriguing :) Your video delivery and fun humor is really great and engaging, and your knowledge on these different literary tropes is very insightful! I look forward to more cool stuff from you, and I hope you have a great day :D
So what you touched on about Suzanne Collins copying the Battle Royale. Besides the fact that the plots are similar and it wnds with 2 "winners" the part that stood out to me when i read both back to back, was the 2 fires and a bird call. In Battle Royale the have 2 fires set up that they then had a bird whistle they would blow to lead the guy who was saving his girlfriend back to them. Spoilers, he gets killed by his girlfriend explains the plan to her, but she is then killed by the final villian. In Hunger Games its used by Rue and Katniss to steal the food, they use the fires to distract from the stealing and meet up using the bird call. Then Rue dies. That is the most similar between both books
Honestly if you had a podcast I would listen to it all the time. I already watch your videos multiple times just to hear you talk in the background while I'm studying
thank you for going over the history of the battle royal. i had no idea about its origins in the uk or the us, so it was very insightful to learn more about it
I was literally reading the ballad of songbirds and snakes when this video popped up 😳 I wonder if you can do deep dive on the re-incarnation trope! I see it a lot in East Asian media (books and tv) but you'd be hard pressed to find it in the west
Somehow I got this video recommended and decided to watch it. To be honest, I got hung up on the very beginning where you talk about Battle Royale. I'm very protective of that book, and it's clear that you only saw the movie at most, which is a subpar and honestly, a god awfuo butchering of the original work and its messages. The book isn't about a society with rowdy teenagers that can only be culled with violence, it is such a misrepresentation on your part. The book is about a fasist Japan on a grand scale, where every now and then teenagers are sent to an island to kill each other, to show the country in a subtle way that you can't even trust your childhood friends, so don't even bother to stand up against the regime. On a smaller case it's about 42 teenagers in an impossibly hellish situation, which they are seriously not equiped to deal with. There's romance, hate, friendship and apathy. Loyalty, jealousy and childish grievencies. The book is absoluetly great.
8:18 - Actually, there were many kinds of gladiator fights, not all of them one on one (and not all of them to the death)! For example, staged naval battles were infamous for being a rare and exceptionally deadly spectacle. Also, fights between trained gladiators were superficially similar to, but not the same as glorified executions, where you basically did the same things you would to trainer, armed fighter to an unfortunate who cannot defend themselves, because, well, they were sentenced to death already. Might as well provide people with some entertainment on your way out, aye?
This was a fascinating video! I had added Battle Royale to my TBR after watching your video on the timeline of YA dystopian novels (I'm currently in the middle of City of Ember and really enjoying it) and I'm glad I've learned about the original Battle Royale references before diving into it. I agree with everything you said, that trope shouldn't be incorporated lightly into stories. I'm often disappointed in authors when I notice missed opportunities to discuss some important topics that we can all benefit from thinking deeper about.
Another example maybe The Long Walk by Stephen King. I know is not a juvenile genre and also not a lot of kids trying to kill each other but it is on its own way a death tournament where even the one that wins faces permanent trauma and psychological damage and the other people participating die from exhaustion or lots of problems on that thing. So, I though it was another example
Immortal Longings makes no sense, why isn't the battle royale in a specialized arena? The way the tournament works you can get more deaths than the number of tributes that go into the tournament!
25:45 The Nevernight had literally the same trope in the second book. The main character wanted to take revenge on the ruler because he killed her parents, and it was like a motivation of her whole life, so it made sense. And she also was kind of self-confident because she was a literal assassin and had superpowers no one else even knew about. I'm not sure if a death tournament in that world brings any deep meanings, but it is devoted to their religion (and also based on the whole roman gladiators story). Not a perfect example of a trope and neither my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the whole trilogy so it also worked out for me
I remember playing a nes wrestlemania game as a kid and they had the "royal rumble" if i remember right, a game mode where like everyone got in the ring at once anf you just had to toss everyone out and keep from getting tossed. Everyone fought too but really that just was people trying not to get picked up and tossed. XD
Just found your channel and I've been obsessed by your vibe. Definitely here for the way you dissect your thoughts and word them. I could listen to you talk about random things for hours. Also your accent is so interesting to me, I figured that you weren't natively english, but would never have guessed Dutch, rather something Scandinavian. It's very nice and pretty.
I read an account that was attributed to the Roman historian Pliny. I don’t know if it was a real historical event or a mythical story, but back in ancient Italy, before the city of Rome existed, the people who lived in that region worshipped some kind of spirits. At one point there was a very bad famine referred to as “the hunger”. The elders thought it was because the spirits were angry with them. They asked the spirits what they needed to do to appease them. The answer was to randomly select a group of children and banish them from the community. When there was only one left, that child would be allowed to return. Some of them died due to accidents, and the rest killed each other until one remained. I don’t know if this was where Suzanne Collins got the idea, but it seems to fit. Especially since the famine that caused it was known as “the hunger”.
0:00 yeah, in Poland, it was translated to "Igrzyska Śmierci", Death Games, Śmierci means death. And Igrzyska is the exactly same and only word used for sports olympics, or the ancient greece thing.
Found your channel today via the video about The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes. And your videos are so interesting! Also got me thinking/dreaming about starting my own bookish yt channel, but I am probably too old 😂
During the Great Depression the USA had its dance marathons, dancing until you collapse until only one couple remained. The elements are there, for the competitors, financial despair, for the public, sadistic pleasure. No deaths for the losers, but still....
I really really want to watch this video but I'm saving it for a rainy day. Adore you and your content Leonie, you always manage to make me feel giddy and relaxed at the same time with all of your videos 💙
The Hunger Games are only very vaguely similar to Battle Royale. The idea that Suzanne Collins is a plagiarist because of that is stupid, and I feel a little more stupid just for thinking about it.
It’s funny how the main page art from an old browser game “Gladiators online” has become an iconic representation of gladiators and can be seen everywhere including this video’s thimbnail
I love the ad placement 😂 at around 8:38, after „A character said“ came the ad with the slogan „I never had such a glow before“. I was just listening and then like whaaaaaat?😂
Neither of these are battle royale stories, but . . . The Running Man by Stephen King (originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) features a televised gameshow where the contestant tries to survive while being hunted by death squads. There's no arena. They are free to go anywhere they want in the whole country but the show vilifies them and incentivises citizens to report them. The longer the contestant survives, the more money they/their family wins. And if they last 30 days, then they win and the hunt stops. King has a bad reputation for writing weak endings, but this one is truly awesome. A lot of people claim that Collins stole parts of HG from King, particularly how the whole thing is televised to the masses for entertainment purposes Your discussion of body swapping remined me of the short story "Dreamer" by Brandon Sanderson. I think it's more of a 1 on 1 battle, but there's lots of body swapping and it has an unexpected ending
First of all, it was very interesting to learn more about where it came from, thanks. That being said, I personally don’t like it when this trope or any other with such violence and death is used just for the sake of violence, which seems to be the case in the book you criticizes. As you said, this has to serve a purpose, to tell you something about the world. So, yes, I think that when this much violence serves no purpose at all besides entertain (let’s remember we’re talking about unaliving other people), the audience is pretty much the Capitol
Something else a lot of authors tried to copy was the "post-post-apocalypse society where people exist is highly seperate and slightly unique micro-societies under an evil mega-government" which is a mouthful. The amount of books about socially distinct teenagers galavanting about the ruins of society so as to revolt against the evil government was a bit overwhelming.
body jumping sounds absolutely horrific. like can you not do anything to stop someone else jumping into your body??? like are you just stuck watching them control your own body without being able to do anything except to jump into someone else's body and commit the same horror to them and continuing this cycle??? or you just watch someone else control your body with no care for whether your body dies or not, oh my god this sounds so bad
One death(ish) tournament series that I love that I never hear anyone talk about (tbf i think it was self-published) is the Atlantis Grail series by Vera Nazarian. It centers on an Earth that is about to be decimated by an enormous meteor, and the people of Atlantis return to earth to save some people before theyre destroyed. People join the tournament because there are only so many spaces available on their ships and the alternative is being destroyed with the earth. Its not a true death tournament, as you dont HAVE to die or kill, but the games are deadly and the stakes are high. Is it objectively an amazing, perfectly well thought out series? Maybe not, but it is gripping and I always return to it every couple of years
Actually, some Circus games in ancient Rome and even fighting events in earlier civilizations often featured this type of “everybody against everybody” fight (mostly not to the death, though). In the Middle Ages, they were even part of tournaments for knights and they were called “melees”.
The Battle Royale book isn't about "unruly teens", the movie just doesn't care about the original messege and I'll never forgive the director and screenwriter for butchering it. (It's bad and Battle Royale 2 is complete trash.) The book is about how in a totalitarian country fear is used to control people and this fear makes them not question even absolutely insane things, because questioning gets you killed, so most would rather let children die if it's not theirs and sometimes even when it is. The game isn't even needed, maybe never was, the whole "weapon testing" excuse is complete BS, the brainchild of some high ranking lunatic and this becomes pretty clear when you realise they give the weapons out randomly and someone gets a fork(!). Still no one dares to even bring up stopping it. It's a story about how the only thing that could save these kids - as well as the people outside the game - is working together and why it isn't happening, how the system makes it almost impossible. The winner of the Battle Royale isn't really a winner, most are traumatised beyond repair, the winner is made an example "be happy this didn't happen to you, obey and don't cause any problems". I'm not saying the book isn't full of gore, it's a creative action packed blood fest and it's glorious but it's much more than just that and much more than some forced kitchen-philosophy about "kids being bad".
You mean fantasy books that don't have a tournament? Well, if you still want the life or death stakes and morally grey characters doing questionable things to survive, then Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom (the Dregs duology) is awesome. It's not exactly recent, but I would recommend those books for literally anything like enemies to lovers? Six of Crows. Pining and Will-They-Won't-They? Six of Crows. Grumpy Sunshine? Six of Crows...I could keep going on and on
