No spoilers beyond the first few pages of the first book, but here’s the setup: you and 23 other people ranging from age 12-18 are selected by lottery to fight to the death. Notice of your participation is only given about a week before the game begins, and most of that week is spent undergoing very basic training in self-defense, outdoor survival skills, and the like.
Once the game begins you all start in a clearing, with weapons and equipment scattered around the immediate environs. Some of the bags contain food and provisions, but the game tends to last for weeks, so you’ll likely have to hunt, fish, or trap your food.
Once the starting signal goes up, absolutely anything goes (except for cannibalism, due to an unfortunate PR disaster several years ago). The game continues 24/7 until only one of the original 24 competitors is left standing.
So what would everyone’s strategy be, given this scenario?
You should also mention that “hide in a tree and wait everyone out” isn’t an option, since they’ll intervene and find some possibly fatal way to send you towards everyone out.
That said, I have to give my strategy more thought. The gist of it is probably “stay elevated and try being a sniper.”
[spoiler]Just like a reality show, the Hunger Games aren’t “real”. Yes, 24 kids brutally murder each other, but the real winner is selected based on crowd reaction, and assisted through sponsors or the murder of his enemies with environmental factors. So the trick isn’t just to win; it’s to put on a good show while doing it. I think the best way to do that would be to talk directly to the crowd. Explain to them (with humor) what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, but don’t give away your real plan, in case another sponsor decides to warn his tribute through clever hints. Get on the crowd’s good side by making wise cracks while beating up the people whose support you are unlikely to get anyways (IE, Districts 1 and 2) while appearing sympathetic to the poor districts. Try not too piss off the capitol too much, or you’ll get swallowed by an avalanche or some bullshit like that.
As for the actual strategy, I’d hope to get an axe. Axes are very reliable weapons and tools; you can chop things down with them, you can fight off an attacker in melee, and you can even throw them. My second choice would be a sword. Slightly better for combat than an axe, but less useful as a tool. But I’ve actually trained with swords; if I got my hands on one, it would be very hard for the other tributes to beat me in melee. The third choice is a staff or stick. Unconventional, but if you know what you’re doing, you can keep people a few feet away from you, striking at them before they can strike back. The only reason a staff isn’t higher on the list is that it’s more likely to knock someone out than to kill them, and while killing an attacking opponent is one thing, I don’t know if I could slit a helpless man’s throat afterwards. A bow would be nice as well, but it would take a bit more than a week before I could learn to use one effectively.
Finally, I’d try to establish my own territory somewhere with water. I’d mark it, so that enemies who enter will be psyched out by the threat of someone who knows the area better than them coming out of nowhere. But in fact, I’d move my actual kill zone around from day to day. One day, it will be a little North of my marked territory; the next, a little East. If possible, I would drag the bodies into the marked kill zone, so that the hovercrafts make it seem like I actually was in that area.[/spoiler]
First, bail on the cornucopia. Bee-line for cover. By the time the mad scramble is over, about half of the competitors will be killed. By not being there, you are assured survivial on day 1.
Then, I think (as horrible as it sounds) I’d take the ally-and-betray approach. The only trick there is to play the game of who-stabs-the-other-in-the-back-first.
The gamemasters definitely won’t let things get boring, but they don’t always force action. The female tribute to the third quarter quell is mentioned to have won her first hunger games by avoiding conflict and out-starving the other competitors.
Run away from the opening fight for loot. It’s a scam designed to have an engagingly high opening body count.
Move at night as much as possible. Darkness is your friend.
Set simple traps for the other players. These need not be lethal to be effective. Hindering injuries and a reluctance to move are damage enough to one’s opponents. Avoid direct combat as much as possible for as long as possible. Wear the opposition down. Don’t be afraid to contaminate foodstuffs and leave them where hungry opponents can find them. A kill by dysentery is still one less opponent.
Ally and betray are a must. No other way to be the final winner.
Heads left on stakes should score some points with the crowd.
Omi no Kami, it’s stated outright that the particular game you mention is precisely the reason why that strategy won’t fly anymore - it was the most boring game on record, and viewers hated it. Never again.
(And it can’t have been the third quarter quell, as that has not yet occurred as of the first book, and the second quarter quell had a male victor. It may have been the first, I can’t recall).
As for my strategy, I’m pretty much dead, but I think I could survive till about day 3, by laying low, and taking obvious kills (sorry, 12-year-olds, if I see you, I’ll kill you). This is assuming those first days are exciting enough in other parts of the arena, so the game makers won’t bother flushing me out. Then it’s just a matter of time until I encounter a pack, and bye-bye me.
Now, if I was a career (and why are people assuming they won’t be? It’s as 1 in 4 chance)
there really is only one strategy - be the one who chooses the right time to betray the others. Poison would be good here, actually.
As for the Cornucopia, I’ll hang back enough for the wildest to be fighting for the good stuff at the center, and the smart ones to scram, then pick something laying in mid-range, and get as far away as I can. Then I’d try to get people watching at home to like me. Somehow gulp.
Engage immediately. My strategy would be to either win or lose in the first 15 minutes. If I don’t die, it’s because I’ve murdered everyone else who attempted to go for the obvious supplies.
After that, give the spectators a good show by being as ruthless as possible at every turn. There’s a reason districts 1 and 2 usually win, and that’s because they’re the ones who don’t hold back. It’s the same reason Mike Tyson was so popular. In physical struggles, people want to see the animal come out. They want to see aggressive immoral beasts, not funny likable compassionate people.
I’ve actually thought of what my strategy would be.
If I were picked I’d get rip-roaring drunk every day and night, eat as much food as I could, and try to screw any female who’d let me. Then, right before the countdown to start is finished, I’d turn to the camera, wave “goodbye” then fall backwards on the mines. The odds are ever NOT in my favor, so I may as well get blown up into little pieces, as opposed to dying of exposure, set on fire, stabbed, etc.
I thought it was because they were wealthy enough to train “careers” as soon as they are old enough to kick ass. And then they have them volunteer at age 18 so they are maximim possible size and strength.
My “plan” would be to straight up murder everyone’s ass.
The problem with your plan is, if you pulled a stunt like that, they’d punish your family. Same if you win, just to keep you in check. About the only thing to do ïs die in an average way.
I would play like a serial killer. I am VERY good at hiding in the woods and being very still. I would kill those that were easy. By easy I mean, you don’t see me but I see you and will track you until I can kill you quickly and hopefully quietly. Avoid all out fights if at all possible, lay low, be quiet but kill quickly, then bug out to hide some more. I can also last for weeks on only a couple of hours sleep every 8-10 hours. Trust no one.
Which, to clarify, was a normal game, and not a quell. Katniss’s mentor Haymich was the winner of the 2nd Quell (Double the people), and the winner of the 1st Quell was dead by this point.
Yup- her first was around the 15th-25th hunger games, which she won, and which Septima’s reminded me was extremely boring. Then when they got around to the third quarter quell, which was an All-Star game only involving past winners, for which she was the tribute.
As for my own strategy I like the idea of relying on a distance weapon, since accidents and crazy random happenstance can quickly ruin a close-in fight for even a seasoned, highly proficient fighter.
I really like the idea of simple traps (pungi sticks, deadfalls, snares). Once I identified where the major water sources were, I might also try to set the forest on fire- if I set an ambush by any one of the major waterways, at least some of the tributes will probably run past me trying to escape.
And if I can’t get the drop on someone, I run- I have absolutely no reason to ever fight anyone on equal terms.
I think that Foxface really had the right idea- she was attractive, mysterious, and daring, so her strategy played well for TV, but she took her time scoping out the other players and never committed to something she couldn’t back out of. If she had come into the game with the ability to feed herself through hunting or fishing, and hadn’t been starving, I think she would’ve had an extremely good chance of getting the drop on Katniss, Peeta and the district 2-ers in the end.
