why simply copying the hunger games doesn't work

If you really stretch, Charlie and the Chocolate factory is a death tournament

I was disappointed you didn't say, "If you hear screaming in the background, that's the death tournament I'm running this weekend".

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.

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

I will literally never let The Hunger Games books OR movies die. The series itself is so brilliantly, beautifully crafted. Catching Fire will never be topped.

You should definitely do one on Villain Redemption Arc and Hero Corruption Arc. Its amazing and there is so much to explore

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.

Actually both Cato and Clove (Tributes from District 2) volunteer in Hunger Games for fame and honor.

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

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.

I’m sorry I shouldn’t laugh because I’m Dutch too, but when you said Danganronpa with that flat Dutch accent I nearly spit out my water

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 remember realising that the greek myth of the minotaur was sort of a battle royale and then assuming that the hunger games was based on that... i actually don't think anyone survived those until Theseus had Ariadne's string but basically a bunch of teens (seven youths and seven maidens) were sent into the labyrinth to appease the appetite of the minotaur once every nine years. i only have a rough idea of the myth lol but i just thought it was a similar sort of story. King Minos's son was killed by Athenians so 'to avenge his death' he commanded that they give 14 of their youths as sacrifices to the minotaur.

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 made this entire video just as an excuse to rant about this book." Relatable.

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.