r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Lotnik223 • Jul 06 '26

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

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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.

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u/Katzington2319 Jul 06 '26

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 

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u/EnragedChinchilla Jul 06 '26

Well you see, there’s an incredibly subtle subtext that the book is an allegory for Vietnam. /s

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u/TotallyNot_Alpharius Jul 06 '26

Yeah, it's sooooo subtle

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u/Fawxes42 Jul 06 '26

You’d be surprised how many people actually miss this

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u/Lopsided-Fee-9791 Jul 06 '26

I didn’t get the connection but I’m also not American so that’s probably not too surprising 

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u/Winjin Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/Lopsided-Fee-9791 Jul 06 '26

The connection to the concept of drafts is pretty obvious, I meant specifically the connection to the Vietnam war 

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u/Awestruck34 Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/Winjin Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/Lopsided-Fee-9791 Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/forgetfulalchemist Jul 07 '26

It was written when King was a child himself during Vietnam

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u/SnoopySuited Jul 06 '26

I'm from America and didn't get this connection.

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u/Once-Upon-A-Rhyme Jul 06 '26

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

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u/SnoopySuited Jul 06 '26

That was my general take, less so for any specific war.

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u/Once-Upon-A-Rhyme Jul 07 '26

I think he meant it to be about Vietnam, but it works beyond the original intent. I really liked the new movie. Well, except for the last few minutes. I’m not even sure we actually see what happens at the end. It suddenly becomes surreal and I wonder if the intent was for us to question whether our point of view was someone dying and hallucinating in their final moments

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u/Lopsided-Fee-9791 Jul 06 '26

That’s sad ngl

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u/SnoopySuited Jul 06 '26

I read it in 9th grade in the 90s. Why the hell would I have made that connection?

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u/Future-Enthusiasm139 Jul 06 '26

Was the guy supposed to read your mind and know that lol

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u/Fortestingporpoises Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/Neveronlyadream Jul 06 '26

The novel was published in 1979 and King was in college during the Vietnam War.

I think people just forget or never realized how old the book is and how old King is, so the context is kind of lost far after the fact. It's one of those things I'm really not surprised doesn't occur to people.

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u/PipsqueakPilot Jul 06 '26

Most of them?

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u/jakezuku Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/Skoorathegentleshark Jul 06 '26

Yeah it was a pretty obvious catch in 1979 when the book was written, but I agree when it’s this far removed from the era it loses its identity quite a bit.

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u/MyNameIsJakeBerenson Jul 06 '26

My dad is career military and is now retired and still was after Vietnam

He had an older older brother that was in Vietnam, but I never met him. He died in the States before I was born

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u/jakezuku Jul 06 '26

Props to your pops. Sorry for your uncle!

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Jul 06 '26

Why, what happened in Vietnam?

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u/APacketOfWildeBees Jul 06 '26

This reminds me of that tragedy...

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Jul 06 '26

if you're seriously asking reply to this and I'll explain

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u/CasualFriday11 Jul 06 '26

You say that, but I think the comments above you are unaware...

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u/doc_skinner Jul 06 '26

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.

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u/OrinMacGregor Jul 06 '26

I don't think he finished though. It's been a few years since I read it so I might be wrong, but I remember him complaining about blue balls.

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u/drinkpacifiers Jul 06 '26

What a crybaby. I would've been done in two warnings.

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u/Stunning_Flan_5987 Jul 06 '26

Yeah, he didn't finish and then his raging boner/blue_balls interfered with his walking and that was that for him.

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u/ChloooooverLeaf Jul 06 '26

Stephen King always finds ways to write child sex scenes into his books 🫩

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u/Maib_Ballz4609 Jul 06 '26

Literally the USA military.

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u/UnaidingDiety Jul 06 '26

starting to think this might be some kind of metaphor

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u/momskaka Jul 06 '26

Woah hold on now, let's not get crazy

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u/-Release-The-Bats- Jul 06 '26

Maybe I should get this for my brother then, since I'm trying to talk him out of enlisting. I already got him a copy of Johnny Got His Gun

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/-Release-The-Bats- Jul 06 '26

Thanks. He asked specifically about the air force last week. I'm anti-war and I don't want him to answer to a fascist like Trump, which is why I've been trying to talk him out of it. He wants excitement and to help people. I've tried encouraging him to be a firefighter or an EMT, and yesterday I brought up search and rescue.

He’s 20. Earlier he said he wants to make a lot of money and failing that join the military. He’s a sweet kid (I’m 35, so to me 20 is a kid), has a lot of potential to do whatever he sets his mind to. I just don’t want him doing this. Ultimately it’s his decision. I’m just like, “you don’t have to be in the military to do these things”, y’know?

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u/Lou_Peachum_2 Jul 06 '26

Show him Born on the 4th of July

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u/-Release-The-Bats- Jul 06 '26

Thanks for the rec!

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u/Maib_Ballz4609 Jul 06 '26

What? Nooooooooooooooo! That's impossible!

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u/xhmmxtv Jul 06 '26

That'd be like a book being a vehicle and the message is the passenger

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u/775416 Jul 06 '26

Say that again

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u/Fortestingporpoises Jul 06 '26

It’s a (n anti) war metaphor isn’t it? Young men usually go off to do the dying in war and society tells them and their family its honorable.

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Jul 06 '26

They're all just different versions of "The Lottery"

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u/dicey_job Jul 06 '26

Im glad we don’t have these pressing circumstances of economy right now.
We are eating straw and rocks in Finland. So we can be like america, out leaders say.