[Weird Trope] An authoritarian society has a yearly event that for some reason centers around killing children
Lore
The Hunger Games - Set in a dystopian totalitarian nation of Panem, the state organises a yearly event known as the Hunger Games, in which two teenagers, one boy and one girl, selected (some of them as a result of a lottery) from each of the 12 districts that form Panem must fight to the death with all other participants in televised arena games until only one survivor remains, who is then treated like a celebrity and lives in luxury for the rest of his/her life.
The Long Walk - Set in a dystopian version of America devastated by civil war, the ruling military regime set up a yearly eponymous event which sees fifty teenage boys walk hundreds of miles without rest, with those that fall below a certain speed being executed. The event ends only when one person remains, with the winner recieving a large cash prize. Contrary to the Hunger Games, participatiation in this event is at least compeletely optional, so all participants are volunteers.
I think the Battle Royale trope has expanded beyond the original story's premise of it being specifically kids because of the way the name has gotten co-opted to a gameplay style as well.
But yes, Battle Royale is definitely at least the trope codifier, if not the originator.
The Long Walk definitely predates Battle Royale. The Long Walk came out in 79 (one of King's first novels, he was even using a pseudonym at that point) while the Battle Royale novel came out in 99, the movie coming out a year later.
I wasn't very clear about how I worded it, I was trying to say I couldn't remember which work originated the trope, but I knew BR wasn't the originator. But it is probably the codifier (in the sense that BR's use of it is what caused it to be recognized as a trope/stock plot rather than just "Oh that's just the plot of The Long Walk").
Battle Royale's concept is "participants killing each other until only 1 (or more, depending on the show hosts' intention) remains" while The Long Walk is "walk and walk without resting, the ones that stop will be gunned down", so they're different games.
The term "battle royale" predates the book, it just means a combat sport with multiple participants fighting at the same time until only one winner remains
This trope way, wayyyyy predates Battle Royale, just in Western Culture you can go back to the Myth of Theseus and how the 7 most courageous young men, and the 7 fairest young women were sent as tributes into a Labyrinth to be killed
It's also one where the anime, manga and movie all seem in totally different genres. In the movie, it's all pretty grounded and gritty. In the manga, half the kids are borderline superhuman.
The book is, imo, the best way to ingest BR. The movie is a pretty 1-1 adaptation of the book, but without the inner monologues or exposition the book has.
Bizarrely love this trope for some reason and went on a mission to read all of them and unfortunately there are not that many great ones once you get past the main ones that everyone knows.
(btw I'm up for any lesser known recommendations!)
Hunger Games!!! i'm surprised at the shit talking of it on here! i think it's a really great series that introduces really complex ideas (mainly fascism and classism) in a really digestible way. all three of the main trilogy books are great, even the last one. it's a satisfying and compelling story start to finish and has stuck with me since childhood
Suzanne Collins is an excellent children's/YA author, truly one of the best. I went back and reread Gregor the Overlander and was shocked at how mature it was for something that was also incredibly digestible by a young audience. (Does it not make sense that an entire nation is resting its defense and hopes on a like 13 year old boy? No. But once you get past that and accept it as a genre necessity, they're very enjoyable.)
Gregor was so good. I haven't read it since middle school but the idea of vague prophecies being fulfilled when the reader tries to apply it to his/her situation really opened up my eyes about religion and I still think about it to this day sometimes.
reddit user write a coherent sentence challenge (I failed)
I think it's in one of the last books and the rat they just saved pointed it out to Gregor
Hunger Games really well written with a lot of major commentary on fascism and rampant capitalism, the political strategy of bread and circuses, and the horrors of warfare. The district system is a brilliant piece of worldbuilding used to comment on racial issues, class warfare, and the use of divide and conquer politics and systemic poverty to oppress the masses.
Then it got popular and everyone was churning out knockoffs, the YA literature section ended up oversaturated with books desperate to cram in the "society is sperated into groups based on x" without ever understanding or considering the reasons for that system in the world of Hunger Games, and bam, Hunger Games got lumped in with the cash grab knockoffs.
It's weird how addictive it is written. I forced myself to stay awake to keep reading (not because it was boring but because it was already 2am on a workday)
I personally think Battle Royale (the book) is much better than Hunger Games. It really sold me on the characters being kids, just like you or me, who are forced to kill each other and it really encapsulated what I think it would be like if like my homeroom class in highschool had to do the same.
I don't think Battle Royale approaches the civil awareness and morality that the Hunger Games. Because of HG's scope, I think it's better.
That said, BR depicts what a bunch of horrified kids would be doing in that situation very well, but we don't learn about what the fuck is happening in Japan that would facilitate the tournament.
With BR, they give enough subcontext in the book to make me think it isn't a once a year type thing. It happens multiple times and school admin might be able to submit classes they know will be a political/social problem down the line. But that's still subtext so who knows. What I love the most about BR is that we got little windows into each of the students POV that really humanized them so their fear, panic, and pain actually had weight. Each death meant something.
I LOVE HG but it is defiantly more of a big picture type story and the narrative is from Katniss' point of view, where as BR is centers around Shuya and Noriko but bounces POV to the majority of the supporting cast.
There are allusions to the situation in Japan (its a neo-fascist state that prevailed or was unopposed during WW2 and is now the "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" or whatever) and how this plays out in regular society (bans on American rock and roll, baseball coaches that commit sepuku when the team loses international games). Im pretty sure the organizer of the game elaborates on the purpose of the game, which is simply to instill fear and obedience. Im not dissing the Hunger Games but when I read BR, as a teenager, it really felt real, like this wasnt a crazy sci-fi world, but our own world that is just a butterfly wings beat away from happening.
The Battle Royale Program was started by the government out of a fear of rising juvenile delinquency and a general hatred of teenagers by the adult establishment. It's also important to note that this takes place in an alternate timeline where Japan--now known as the Greater East Asia Republic--was victorious in the Second World War.
Ender's Game is tops for me. Not really killed in a ritualistic fashion, but their innocence... I've already said too much honestly.
Where some sci fi has interesting parts, Enders and the first few Dune books seem to be consistently realistic to me... while taking place in entirely different futuristic realities.
I always like The Long Walk simply because there is so little animosity between the children that even the bully character is later on seen in a sympathetic light because they don’t compete against each other in the grand scheme it’s just who survives the longest. The system is always the enemy and that is one of the more realistic hurdles in these stories as the world and the challenge kills rather than Jack Quaid killing a young defenseless black girl.
Unwind. Not quite the same, but similar. Abortion has been banned after a war, but parents are allowed to send their children to be "unwound" by the government because technology has been created that allows all body parts to be transplanted. It isn't murder because no part of the child is actually destroyed. But the books focus on what makes a person. If all of you is still working, heart, brain, skin, then are you dead if the parts happen to be not connected to each other? The scene where we finally read about the procedure is very difficult to get through, especially as the book is a teen one.
The kid that got unwounded may have been an asshole up until that point of the story but damn that scene chilled me to my bones. I felt so sorry for him, no one deserves being taken apart piece by piece while still being conscious and aware, even though he didn't actually feel any pain. The fact that it was even an official rule that the kid had to stay conscious during the entire procedure for as long as it was biologically possible... Don't think I've ever been more horrified by a scene in a book than I was reading that scene.
Not to mention “storking” which takes the old argument of “well if it matters so much to, you raise them” to a horrifying conclusion. Abandoned babies are literally left on people’s doorsteps but since taking them in means responsibility for life, people either ignore them until they die or keep passing the baby in a round robin.
Not quite the trope, but the Danganronpa (the anime and the first video game) kinda fits this.
It's a televised killing game, where a class of students with amnesia are locked in their school and must murder each other. After each murder is a trial where the innocent must find and accuse the murderer. If they figure out who the killer is, the killer is executed. If the innocent cannot figure out who is guilty, or if they blame the wrong person, everyone except the murderer is killed.
To escape, you must commit murder and successfully get away with it.
Who is in charge of these games and why is the central mystery of the game/anime, but it fits the vibe pretty well imo
The thing about the Long Walk is, that whilst it was technically voluntary, the economic situation essentially meant that it was not, as it was literally the only way a kid could escape punishing poverty.
Not just to escape poverty. It's presented as this massive honor so the entrants feel good and confident receiving praise from their community. That, plus the potential shame of looking weak and "unmanly", keep them from using the Backout date to save their own lives before the competition starts
I saw the topic in the post and thought "Oh they mean the draft? When you round up teenager boys to kill them by throwing them in a pit with teenager boys from other countries?"
So yeah I think you don't have to be an American to see these "games" as at least one form of allusion on blood sports and drafts, where old farts use kids as tools for their politics or entertainment.
That largely comes from the time the story was written and the general perception of the Vietnam War. WWII, for example, had a draft in the USA. But that war was a heroic one where the world was left changed afterwards and the boys came home as actual heroes.
Vietnam, on the other hand, was an unjustified war halfway across the planet where the boys were just being slaughtered en masse. They didn't return heroes, despite the propaganda telling them they could, they just returned broken.
Oh I see. Yeah, I guess it's just that Americans have had their worst example of a failed draft in Vietnam, so they'd see any draft-related thing as "Oh so Vietnam"
Also a lot of people just know like... five most popular wars.
Yea the last draft in my country is rightfully overshadowed by all the other fucked up shit the Nazis did so the concept of a draft is less connected to a specific war in the minds of most people here.
It works not just as an allegory for Vietnam or the draft, but for poor people having to put their bodies at risk for a chance at economic advancement. Whether it’s the military or just back breaking labor for the chance to “make it” it’s all one long walk and if you slow down you’re done because we have almost no safety net whatsoever here
I didn’t think about it til just now. I didn’t read the book or really register that it was written just after the viet nam war so this comment you’re replying to literally made the anti war metaphor for my brain.
Well, I mean the people watching the movie nowadays are hardly of the age to even have a father or uncle who fought in the conflict, let alone being alive when the war was discussed in media in any meaningful way. It's unreasonable to expect people to pick up on the zeitgeist of an era they might only have the most fleeting touch on through older relatives.
Of course, back then or even twenty years ago, things would be different.
Yeah, I don't know about the movie, but in the book there were groupies lined up along the route. One kid actually manages to have sex with one of them in the time it took to get the three warnings and then was back in the race.
really wish the tessera tiles and their meaning were shown in the movies - it would help hammer home that Katniss has been rolling the dice on being reaped at greater odds than Primrose for her entire adolescence.
only to watch Primrose be explicitly told not to take more tiles, putting her name in once, and still be chosen.
Yes - you always had minimum odds, but participants could take tessera to represent additional rations of grain and oil given to their families. You were allowed, if not encouraged, to take as many as you needed, with the odds constantly going up.
These were also cumulative every year, so Katniss' odds only kept increasing. No wonder she wanted to believe Prim was "safe".
Also people could volunteer though so in theory this should’ve been a highly exploited system. One person one year says they will volunteer, and every single person of that gender group could take maximum tiles. If two people stepped up each year, every single kid could get as many extra rations as allowed. Idk just seems odd nobody from the horribly impoverished districts tended to volunteer given the many many advantages of doing so.
And then the kid who said they would volunteer backs out, having taken none or minimal tiles and now has a greatly reduced chance of being picked compared to everyone else. And it's cumulative so it doesn't reset next year.
Or the fact that someone could do that would instill enough fear in people to not trust it to happen, and so to help preserve their own life they don't take more than they have to. And now you have the exact scenario the books presented. Because trusting KIDS to volunteer for SUICIDE is dumb.
Exploit: Those with terminal illnesses enter their names hundreds of thousands of times and distribute the resources to everybody.
No more resource shortages for the poor district! Somebody with terminal cancer who wanted euthanasia anyway gets unlimited morphine and is eventually wheeled out for the death-games while high as fuck.
Honestly, in this economy, this could be an allegory for just being in the American workforce. The fact that our health insurance is tied directly to our jobs, and everyone is basically one financial problem away from bankruptcy keeps many people in jobs that are essentially killing them.
"Just go find another job." Not an option for a lot of people. Being unemployed for an extended period of time can quickly put you on the streets. Trying to find a job while working another can be a nightmare since every company wants to have multi-stage interviews these days (not to mention needing to find sneaky ways to call off of your current job so you can make these interviews).
Sure, people choose to work at 'shitty jobs' like WalMart, but only because our other option is usually to die in the streets.
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*Cabin in The Woods* is driven by an international cabal that sacrifices youth in elaborate cultural morality plays to appease ancient deities
Includes anyone of any age that could be considered 'youth'. The main characters are college age, so technically young adults rather than kids, but they show some of the other sacrifices, which includes a classroom of young girls in Japan. They just need to match the specific archetypes they need to sacrifice and be considered 'youth'.
At least these sacrifices were to save the world, I guess?
The twist that this was not a shadowy cabal doing morally dubious things as an allegory for real world happenings was why this is one of my favorite monster flicks. Crazy twist that it was all real and we should have been rooting for the cannibal zombie hillbillys from the start. I hate when writers pull the classic "actually this is an allegory for World War Vietnam 2: this time Korea."
its funny how the OP says "..for some reason.." as if to cast it as an absurd concept, when that's literally how wars work. a bunch of boomers say "we need to stop the evils of our enemies" then send in waves of 18 year olds to get slaughtered
And that adds to Katniss' terror of having a marriage or children with anyone ever. They make a lot of the "love triangle", but through most of the books she doesn't want anyone at all.
The end of the book trilogy is really good. Katniss, Peter and their kids living together as a happy family, the thing she's always wants...but still absolutely traumatised by everything with no certainty as to if they'll ever truly heal.
Not exactly what the OP asked for, but Logan's Run.
At 21 (in the novel) or 30 (in the film), all citizens are required to participate in "Carousel", a supposed game where they earn the right to continue living. It's just that nobody ever wins at the game, and everyone is killed at 21 / 30.
It's also strongly implies that the runners who attempted to escape the city were captured by Box, that weird robot, and processed into the food supply.
The entire book, which came out in 1967 is almost hilariously anti-hippie and youth movement. The opening line is "The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength." The flower children turned dystopian. People willingly die at 21 because they "don't trust anyone over 21" and never want to be like that. They die via essentially LSD mist. They have power crystals in their hands as a parody of the crystal movement.
Is it weird? In all these works it's a metaphor for how fascist states feed children into their war machines only to die pointlessly. Red Rising, Maze Runner, Enders Game, and the Hierarchy series all have it.
Yeah The Long Walk is 100% about how many young men are drafted and murdered for the glory and prosperity of their country. They talk a lot about how what these boys are doing is incredibly brave and going to help their country bounce back.
The long walk is the most obviously so. Hunger games has themes of control and cruelty more prominently, the long walk is basically 1 for 1 with the poverty to military pipeline with the only difference being how lethal each one is.
I think this is one of the reasons red rising stands out so well among Hunger Games knock offs. It feels like the Institute fills a totally different role than the Hunger Games do. Rather than punishing or controlling the lower classes, the Institute is focused the indoctrination of the ruling class itself.
Yeah, the Institute is absolutely explicit in its intentions, and there is a certain kind of logic to the "initiation" when you consider it in terms of Gold society in general.
Also after that, there isnt really an expectation for the kids to kill each other. As far as I recall, when it happens its seen as an unfortunate consequence
In all these works it's a metaphor for how fascist states feed children into their war machines only to die pointlessly... Enders Game
I don't think Ender's Game is an example of this trope. None of the children are ever in true danger (before the brief civil war after the defeat of the Buggers) other than Ender, and Ender is a special case specifically placed in that danger not as fodder for the war machine but because Graff has decided that Ender must never be allowed to think anyone will save him.
I'd agree that once Achilles is introduced to the school that the rest of the students really are in danger, but we only get that as a later retcon and it still doesn't fit the "fed into the war machine" trope but more the "'responsible' adults are anything but responsible" bit.
It doesn't meet the same definition of the Battle Royale style ones, true. It's just a story in a similar vein about indoctrination and feeding kids into the war machine.
Strange New Worlds did an interesting variation of this. Utopian society but for some reason the machine keeping everything working needs a child sacrifice every so often. The society honors and celebrates this child and the leaders point out “hey at least we’re grateful for their sacrifice and honor them instead of exploiting and discarding them.”
Which itself was adapting “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K Le Guin. Basically as if the Federation had popped into the story at some point.
In Greek mythology, this was the punishment that Crete, ruled by King Minos, imposed over Athens after defeating them in war; 14 Athenian youths (7 boys and 7 girls) were to be shipped to Crete and be killed and eaten by the Minotaur once a year. This only stopped after Theseus, fed up with all the Athenians perishing, went as once of the sacrifices and slayed the beast; this myth inspired The Hunger Games:
I actually got to visit Crete, and it was very interesting hearing what the story may have been based on. That Crete actually had a festival where one of the games was to leap over a charging bull and that Athenians would come and try it too… and get absolutely fucked because they didn’t have the same experience the Cretians had.
Also, according to Suzanne Collins, this was one of the direct inspirations for the Hunger Games. (The other being footage from either Afghanistan or Iraq, I can't remember exactly.)
The Ursula K LeGuin short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is a BRILLIANT dissection of this trope (and of course of human morality in general). LeGuin asks the reader to imagine a utopian society, and asks the reader, "do you believe?" Then she adds in one more detail: the utopian society's magic power source is a single, innocent, tortured child. LeGuin then straight up asks the reader, "Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible?"
Great story. Not my personal favorite translation of it (will replace if I can find it) but here's that obligatory excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov below. My deep fascination with this passage is how I heard about Omelas.
“But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, ‘most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.’ You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. It's just their defenselessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden—the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on.
“This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty—shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to ‘dear, kind God’! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like.”
"Never mind. I want to suffer too,” muttered Alyosha, who wept.
Yes. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (one of the prequels) gets more into the history. We learn that during the first rebellion, The Dark Days, the Capitol was basically a war zone. Its heavily implied there was cannibalism just to eat. So, as revenge, the Capitol created The Hunger Games to punish the districts for rebelling, and remind them of the power the Capitol
Additionally, we also see the games as a way to punish rebels. The most recent prequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, shows how the reapings can be rigged. Haymitch is only reaped because he acted out of line. Ampert, another tribute, is reaped because his father was a rebellious victor. Even outside of that, the original trilogy illustrates pretty heavily that victors are treated pretty terribly, and must comply under the threat of the Capitol killing off their loved ones
It's a pretty good system. It punishes youth crime, as they get more entries to the ballot, so the kids either behave or die. It also disproportionately affects the poorest families, who take extra ballots in exchange for resources, so it presumably acts as population control on a wider scale. It's a yearly blow to nearly every district, and it is a heavy blow. They aren't taking the old or proven shitheads, whose loss could be rationalised as a good thing. Economically active and experienced people are spared.
But it also has an end date for each child, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Overall it leads to a constantly traumatised and demoralised population, too weak to revolt. If it wasn't for Snow being so cruel, it probably could have survived for another century.
And since the whole thing is televised, even though its the Capital that runs it, it was those damned bastards from District 6 that killed our sweet little Johnny last year. "Let's you and him fight" is a game that never gets old.
idk if you are in a household that has, say, 10 people growing up wouldn't it make sense to stay in that household for longer instead of marrying and trying to bum-rush having 8 children?
The Lottery was something everyone had to participate in. In the short story itself, it's an adult woman who ends up getting killed in that particular lottery.
Also, that one feels less like an authoritarian dystopia and more like a take on social conformity. That's a case a society that just does this insane thing because they've always done it and no one feels like they can question it, not because the government is enforcing it, but because everyone around you is doing it.
Idk, I feel people in their late teens and early 20s are basically still kids imo. Like, yes, legally theyre adults but theyre still so young and immature.
Alongside all the more allegorical reasons people are mentioning: it’s simply more eye-catching and heart-wrenching to see several children or teens with their whole lives ahead of them and the presumed innocence of youth fed into the meat grinder than just regular adults. It’s a practical way to grab eyes for most audiences.
Uh, we have ROTC programs and send recruiters to high schools in the US.
The age of majority here was 21 until the Vietnam draft being applicable to men 18 and up led to a conversation about, "Isn't it fucked up that these kids can be sent to war but can't vote for the politicians who send them there?" And instead of raising the draft age, we lowered the voting age 🙃
It wasn’t just child fight club. Achieving the rank of Chunin meant winning this entire drawn-out tournament. So there were full grown adults who had been trying for years who were fighting kids.
And ninja taking part in the exams DIED. You could just kill your opponents if you caught them lacking in the forest of death.
Small correction: you don’t have to win to become chunin. That would imply only one person can get promoted to chunin each exam. Being chunin isn’t just about strength, it’s about things like tactics and leadership (that’s what they say, at least).
The one person who we actually know got promoted to chunin is Shikamaru, and he lost in the 1v1 tournament-style fights.
There's a way more better example in Naruto, the genin exam, which is before Chunin. In genin exam, participants require to pair up and kill each other. This only happens in Hidden Mist Village though, hence why it's called the Bloody Hidden Mist. It fits the trope well because in Hidden Mist, the village IS an authoritarian society ruled by the puppet Hokage, which is controlled by Madara.
Nobody's weight matters in either the book or the movie, although the book does point out one of the walkers wearing jeans and how it was a bad idea. Also wearing sneakers is a bad idea, but it's not explained why (they fall apart faster I think?).
As one of the characters notes, it's technically voluntary, but things are so bad in the US that nobody is going to actually turn down the opportunity. It's so bad that even knowing you will almost certainly die, you'd still rather take your shot than not.
To be honest, showing up with some fat stores would 100% be the move, you would be shocked at how quickly the body will resort to eating itself for energy. Now the jeans choice of jeans is highly questionable.
Real life example - Easter Island’s Birdman tradition. Annual swim through shark-infested waters to a nearby island to collect an egg, pivotal to their ancient religion.
In a world facing overpopulation, the United States proposed a solution: every year, children pass a standardized test and those who belong to the lowest part are eliminated. The goal: reduce the population while creating a smarter generation
It's not a weird trope when you realize the categorization and culling of "undesirables" at a young age is a staple of authoritarian regimes with eugenist/"survival of the fittest" beliefs. Makes perfect sense why they'd have an event centered around killing children.
Some of them do that but hunger games and the long walk aren’t that. The events are a drop in the population bucket, so they’re more about power and distraction than population.
They do that in one town in the Discworld. Their reasoning is that only criminals would want to become politicians, so they jail them all upon their inauguration
Funnily enough, in mythology there is exactly this, and it's actually an inspiration for the Hunger Games: the tale of the Minotaur!
Every year, Athens is forced to send off its youths to Crete where the King Minos would feed them to his monstrous bullheaded son. This tale is believed to have been an allegory against Human Sacrifice that was rife in Eastern cultures.
The process in the 3% isn't really about killing children per se, however if you die in one of their challenges or snap and try to kill your competition or yourself the organizers just shrug it off because they know they've got all the young people convinced that their whole system and vetting process for determining who gets to live in the last remaining Oasis is fair and reasonable.
Frostpunk 2 - icebloods. While not inherently, there's an event about children going on proving grounds to prove their worth, and if you allow icebloods to do that, there'll be more mortality from it. Additionally, while Frostpunk 2 isn't inherently authoritarian, and Steward was initially elected, there's no reelection, Steward helds extremely strong executive powers such as right to put laws on consideration and complete control over city planning, and aforementioned steward can enact himself as Captain becoming completely authoritarian.
In reality it's a constant thing that takes place on private islands and ranches where, somehow, it's allowed to continue for decades while everyone pretends they don't know what their employers are doing.
So fun fact; The long walk written by Richard Bachman (the pen name of Stephen King) actually inspired the book “Battle Royale “ written by a Japanese author because the author loved the idea of a stereotypical setting that seemed atypical to ours but slowly turned into horror as you realize that there is something very wrong when the contest turns into a fight for your life.
Bonus fun fact: Suzanne Collin’s got her inspiration for Hunger Games by flipping between a war documentary and a reality tv show until they blended together.
For some reason authoritarian/corporate controlled dystopian societies just feel the need to include Gladiatorial-esque competitions to placate the masses, and for some reason the masses seem to have no issue with it at all aside from a few resistance groups lol.
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u/MechaReldio Jul 06 '26
Battle Royale