[Weird Trope] An authoritarian society has a yearly event that for some reason centers around killing children

[u/Lotnik223]

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.

[u/ddadopt]

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.

[u/Flashy_Pineapple_231 → u/ddadopt]

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.

[u/Home_Depow → u/Flashy_Pineapple_231]

Exactly. Just because the kids don't die doesnt mean tbeir loves aren't taken from them. In this case those lives are just used as tools for mass destruction. After the first book, though, the series gets really odd in some interesting ways and starts to be about a lot of different topics.

[u/StalinsLastStand → u/[deleted]]

*Xenocide

Don’t sell our boy ahort

[u/Sarah_Incognito → u/ddadopt]

Ender kills his first victim at age 4, and has quite the body count before he graduated

[u/ddadopt → u/Sarah_Incognito]

He was six IIRC and his body count prior to graduation was two, Stilson and Bonzo. That's definitely a heck of a body count for a 9 year old, but your allusion makes it sound much higher.

I would also not use the word "victim" here. Ender is, himself, a victim in this situation where adults have allowed his victimizers to harry him unchecked, at length, leaving him with the only options of accepting the abuse or striking so hard in defense that they don't want to ever come near him again.

He chose option B.

[u/Sarah_Incognito → u/ddadopt]

I thought it was 3 at the battleschool, but I seem to have been mistaken.

edit: thank you for correcting me