"HOPE. IT IS THE ONLY THING STRONGER THAN FEAR!"

*President Snow (The Hunger Games).

Let's pretend.

You are the overlord of an evil empire, and (for whatever malicious justification you deem motivational) you hold a yearly tournament. The surrounding lands offer up teenagers to compete in a fight to the death, where by the winner earns much needed food for their starving homeland.

Very simple idea, all hinges on the fact that only one teenager can win. Right?

Firstly, you'd expect each of the areas to have some sort of training program to increase their chances of victory, but that's beside the point...

Here's the problem:

The public quite like two of the protagonists, who are coming to represent something of a rebellion amongst the lands you want to keep under the heel of your oppression. And wouldn't you just know it? despite your best efforts (including rule changes, stupid fireballs and ridicules mutant dogs) these two have managed to reach the final together...

Wait, there's no problem here! All can continue as normal. One winner, that's always been the rule (and why you'd ever need to change that is beyond me).

So what if they have a suicide pact? That's perfect- you turn them from being a symbol of freedom and righteousness  into selfish teenagers, who'd rather die than bring food home to their loved ones. Skewer their image. They're hardly going to be popular after that.

If you let these kids get away with this shit once, that's it- the floodgates are open. Next thing- you have a whole bunch of whiny kids sitting around in the arena refusing to fight. You need to come down HARD. Even if everybody takes a lethal dose of something (marmaite, raisinberries or whatever) all at once, technically one person will survive longer than the others. A winner doesn't necessarily have to remain alive.




On a final and unrelated note, I thought a nice (and very cynical touch) would have been if Peeta faked the whole love-story as a way of surviving the game, beating the system on its own terms and pulling the wool over the eyes of his teammate. Hell, even Haymitch might have been aware of his ploy. The talk-show, the missing lessons- all part of a desperate long-game to make it through to the final, whereby he would never have really killed himself when pressed. That would have been a kicker. In my head at least, that's what happened...