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Author Topic: Comparing Battle Royale v. The Hunger Games  (Read 5274 times)

Theta9

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Comparing Battle Royale v. The Hunger Games
« on: 27 May 2020, 14:50 »

Okay, not so much an essay as a list of comparisons and contrasts. Anyway, this is how I support my statement that "The Hunger Games and Battle Royale are exactly the same, except that they're completely different." Posted to Facebook on 30 March 2016.

* * *

I’ve told people "The Hunger Games is exactly like Battle Royale, except that it's  completely different".
To elaborate, here are my observations based on reading all four books (and to a lesser extent, seeing all the films except for  Mockingjay Part 2):

HUNGER GAMES vs BATTLE ROYALE

BOTH: Dystopian future. Children are sent to an isolated area to fight to the death until only one is still alive. An equal number of boys and girls fight.

BR: 42 combatants are all taken from a single high school class; all are the same age and all know each other.
HG: 24 combatants are drawn from twelve districts, one boy and girl from each. Ages vary and combatants may or may not know the other from their own district; they almost certainly do not know the combatants from other districts.

BR: The battle is a not-well-kept secret, something of an urban legend to those who have heard of it. Apart from the combatants themselves, the only observers are the people running it.
HG: The battle is an official state event happening annually with maximum media saturation. Multiple cameras capture the action and broadcast it live nationwide to home audiences.

BR: The combatants are abducted and transported to the battle area without warning; they have about an hour to come to terms with what is about to happen.
HG: The combatants are drawn in a highly publicized lottery, taken to the Capitol, and spend weeks training for the battle.

BR: The combatants enter the field one-by-one, minutes apart.
HG: The combatants enter the field all at once.

BR: Each combatant is issued a pack with rations and a randomly-chosen weapon.
HG: The combatants enter the field with the clothes on their backs. A "cornucopia" cache of weapons and supplies sits in the center of where they all enter, and they can take their chances trying to take something from it, or run away and hide empty-handed.

BR: Each combatant wears an explosive collar to compel their participation. As the event proceeds, certain zones of the field are designated "off-limits" and anybody who enters those zones faces immediate termination.
HG: No worn devices compel the combatants to participate. Combatants have free run of the field, but face dangers from engineered traps and other environmental hazards.

BR: Combatants have only what they were issued in the pack, plus whatever they can find in the field or take from other combatants that they defeat.
HG: Combatants can have "sponsors" who can gift them extra supplies dropped into the field as the fight goes on.

BR: The narrative focuses only on the combatants in the field and shortly before entering it, and the POV shifts from character to character as the action requires.
HG: The battle is only about half of the story's narrative, and the POV remains with one character (Katniss Everdeen).
« Last Edit: 27 May 2020, 14:56 by Theta9 »
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