I meant BEFORE he handed you the fake ID. I’d certainly not trust a forger that could whip up a “reasonable” fake ID in under 5 minutes while I was watching.
A fake ID and a fake passport are two different things. Passports are typically more complicated, and I’d be surprised if you could find someone to fake one in 24 hours.
Besides, you are being tracked based on your packages. Once that first one comes in, then what? You’re the gringo in a sea of natives. Not hard to find you.
The camera and tapes were some kinds of futuristicky deal (the story isn’t actually set in the 1980s, but in 2025) the whole thing fitting into a pocket. The individual tape cassettes were barely more than the size of postage stamps.
I don’t think it was ever absolutely established that the tapes were being used to track him, though it’s fairly obvious. What gives him away, ultimately, is that the crazy mom of a sympathizer (who had the means and willingness to conceal Richards, at least in the short term) called the cops.
Could you, in 24 hours, get the bona fide ID and passport already owned by a guy who looks kinda like you?
Why would you need to do that? You could just say you flew across the country because you thought the hunters were closing in on your current location and wanted to get as far away as possible.
Getting a legit ID of someone else has to be task one, but not that many people have passports. I just don’t see leaving the country as a viable option. You still have to mail tapes, and you are going to be tracked based on that. So say you get to Thailand, then what? The hunters know you are in Thailand, and it’s not like there are that many gringos there. You stick out from 95%+ of the population.
Au contraire. Thailand is chockful of “gringos,” especially Bangkok and British- and Russian-mafia havens like Pattaya, and many international criminals come here to disappear in the crowd. Some are caught, many aren’t. Fake passport rings do get broken up from time to time, we’re sort of a center for them, and even I think know where to go to get one if I really had a mind to.
It isn’t chockful of gringos like NYC or Chicago is. People hide out in places like Thailand because it is more difficult for the Feds to pursue them there. That’s not the same situation as the OP. In the OP everyone is looking for you, and they can bring resources to bear anywhere.
I’ve never actually read the story. Can someone, in a spoiler, tell me if anyone ever, for real, won the game?
In the movie three guys supposedly had won, but it was a lie. And one thing I do know about the story, heard from my sister, is that
Richards flew a plane into a building
It’s been a while since I’ve read it. But in the book, nobody has ever won the game, and I believe the record is eight days, which Richards ends up breaking. At the end, IIRC, he takes a civilian hostage and claims to have a bomb hidden underneath his coat. The powers that be try to cut a deal with him, whereby they’ll pretend to execute him in exchange for him becoming a hunter. But at some point, after he gets on a plane, it’s revealed that his wife and daughter had been killed. It’s then that he takes control of the plane and flies it into the network headquarters.
I would disguise myself as a rich Saudi Arabian oil executive, complete with a turban, mustache, whisker stubble and bottle-bronzed skin, and then make my way to McCarran Airport, Las Vegas. I’d call for a limousine to take me and my luggage to the Bellagio Hotel. My bags and paperwork would be peppered with, *“Saudi Arabian Oil Company” *and “Dhahran, Saudi Arabia”. At check-in, I’d speak with a very fractured Arabian accent, “Need big room…pay cash…big wife, Fatimah join me later”, while flashing a large wad of bills.
In the room, I’d pack my turban in a suitcase and take out an extra-large size burqa. This will be my drag apparel for the week. I’d spend most of my time in the room, but not exclusively. I’d certainly be able to go downstairs for a bite to eat and mail my video tape twice a day. If anyone approached me in or out of the room, I’d just say, in a high-pitched, fractured Arabian accent, “husband at casino, I must go”, and scurry off. At the end of the week, I’d pack the burqa, don my turban and call for another limousine to take me to Casino Royale for a week, then, Circus Circus, then Bally’s.
Even if someone did suspect something odd about a large-built, 6’3” Muslim lady with a peculiar voice, who’s going to look under my burqa to find out?** :eek:
**
Most anyone, given the context in the OP.
I thought about how everybody will be looking for a person travelling alone, so I would put on a disguise, go to the next lower middle-class neighborhood, knock on the door and say “Congrats, I’m from radio GWIN*, if you pack your bags in one hour, you win a 7 day trip to 7 major cities” and accompany them in your disguise. After the first week, put on different disguise and look for new family.
But this is to risky, because obviously a state that allows this, and a company that plays this, wouldn’t bother with finding out if the family helped me under duress or false pretenses.
Another possibility that hasn’t been addressed: look-alikes. I would go to a professional barber shop and then a professional photo studio with a dozen different backgrounds to shoot all my videos. In the barber shop, I would buy a blond wig and get myself made up to look as ordinary as possible, so when my face from the video is on the TV screen all the time, people will be reporting in dozens of sightings everywhere of people looking similar.
But again, in a dystopian society, that could put people at risk of lynch mobs for the reward money, or the hunters killing some bloke to win the game.
Did King adress the possibility of look-alikes being arrested and how identity would be established?
The only way to play is not win, but to survive: skip the video mails and just hole up somewhere. The company will cheat anyway*, so you don’t need to endanger yourself following the rules. Sadly, that still leaves other people at risk, because this company obviously won’t admit defeat publically, they will just kill somebody else and declare a winner.
- That the company is immoral and not to be trusted can be derived from the following known facts:
The public is told that the players are criminals - so it’s not survivor or Who wants to be a millionaire, where both contestants and the public know it’s a game for money. Instead, the reputation of an involuntary contestant is destroyed in order to make the game rigged. And no amount of money or media can restore your reputation once your face is shown as criminal.
And that the contestant can leave once he starts the application is obviously a lie. If word got out that the players aren’t criminals, people might start helping them, which obviously can’t be allowed.
Likewise, why should the company ever pay the billion dollars? The public won’t know or care in a controlled state and monopolic media whether the winner is on the Bahamas or rotting in a watery grave. So it’s much cheaper and easier for the company to rig the game and kill the prey when it’s most opportune for the ratings.
Another point is that the contestants can’t prepare, because they don’t know that Hunted are chosen from normal people - they believe they are entering for other shows.
And if people knew what was going on - would anybody smart and capable enough to survive 30 days be willing to risk their lives for money against such odds? Not if the rules were known before. Even if the society is dystopian, you’d need a damn good reason for a white-collar worker to knowingly apply for this - say, a sick child that needs an expensive treatment. Because with the intelligence and determination necessary to prepare for this, you could make a more secure living.
And as I said already, the selection itself is skewed - if a smart, capable but desperate man instead of simple blue-collar worker comes along, you put him in another game with even less chances.
And in dystopian/ totalitarian state, I bet that IDs would be very hard to fake, not for teens wanting to get drunk (the first thing a repressive state would do were to lower the drinking age and access to alcohol. A drunk population will rebel less, and if trouble breaks out, they will kill each other, but not the elite. See the LA riots). So just going to your neighborhood faker wouldn’t work, I think.
Another question is: did the protagonist grow up under the old or the new regime, and how did this affect his schooling? We have access to a lot of information not only because we’re educated, but also because internet and libraries are free. This would be different in a dictatorship, and further lessen the protagonists chances.
I wonder what the tech level was that King envisioned - a very small video camera is logical, but reality are phones with video capability, which were not foreseeable in the 60s/70s. Neither were security cameras everywhere coupled with face-recognition software, which would make staying in a big city incredibly risky for arrest by police. Neither were small trackers for GPS system that could be hidden everywhere.
“So the only way to win the game is not to play. How about a nice game of chess instead?”
You’re thinking like somebody living today. But in a dystopian future, why would rich Arabs want to visit New York? Or why would anybody accomodate them?
How well armed are these Hunters? I’m thinking I’ll just buy a fortress, stock it with weapons, don’t even try to hide and just fight them off for 30 days
You forgot that the cops help them, so think SWAT and maybe the Army being called in.
Also, the expense budget is limited, and buying arms and ammo will be expensive. You’ll probably run out way before 30 days - ammo, food, water.
A fortress with a post office, of course. 
An unfortunate foreshadowing of real events, considering the book was published nearly ten years earlier.
An alternate cutthroat strategy:
-Find 30 more-or-less-normal looking families, complete with address and pictures.
-Send them each a photograph of their loved ones with a note attached: “I know where you live. I know who you love. Drop the attached package in the mail on xxx date, or I will murder your loved ones. I will be watching!”
You might want to do more than 30, for redundancy sake.
How would you send them the photograph and the attached package in the first place?