was reading an article about video games on Slate, and they were talking about cutscenes being annoying and if they want a plot they'll read a book (though no one said "never interrupt me when I'm reading a book"). Someone mentioned Tolkien. A commenter said, "As a woman, I dislike Tolkien . . . He didn't write many female characters. We call them tokens."

I nearly created a Slate account just so I could reply to her and call her out, if for nothing more than her making assumptions for the gender.

Anyone here closely familiar with Battle Royale? Can you say why THG isn't actually a ripoff?

I have read The Hunger Games and seen Battle Royale, and they are very different, apart from the superficial similarities. They are both about kids who are forced to kill each other while being monitored in an area where the Bigwigs can influence events, but...basically everything else is different. Battle Royale is specifically about ninth graders being used as an example to discourage teenage rebellion, and it's full of flashbacks of high school angst. It's more about brutality than survivalism. The slaughter is not televised. There are no mutant creatures. As far as I recall, there isn't even a reward besides being alive.

I will not deny that it's hard not to think of one in relation to the other because of the general plot similarity, but I just finished reading the Percy Jackson series, and I initially interpreted "kid discovers he's special and goes to a place with special kids and hears a prophecy that he has to defeat the dark whatever" as Harry Potter ripoff when, in fact, it was not at all, of course.

I don't have usually have a problem with a story that is all male, if it would be untrue to the period or written in an era when it wouldn't occur to the writer to include a woman in, for example, a combat scene. What I dislike is women whose only roles are screaming, fainting, helplessness and being rescued.

Yeah, I agree. Despite what they do on most TV nowadays, I don't think you need to, like, split the cast down the middle or anything...like on Numbers, I'd trade some of those supposedly "badass" female FBI agents (Not Diane Farr, though. I like her.)for more scenes with Amita, who at least comes off as a full character. (And she has saved the day with her technical skills a few times

Battle Royale did not exactly start the Deadly Game trope. (Apologies for linking to TV Tropes, but that's what it's useful for.)

It's not just Deadly Game, it's Teen Deadly Game which is the accusation. Is Battle Royale also dystopic?

It's not just Deadly Game, it's Teen Deadly Game which is the accusation.

Oy. In this YA heavy market there's no trope which hasn't been rebranded by adding teen protagonists. It is not a great leap of originality. Anyway, the originality of the premise isn't why the books were a success. Collins practically had a cliffhanger in every chapter. And she made you care about the characters.

There were plenty of teenaged girls in Japanese anime and live action who fought demons in high school. None of them were as well written or executed as Buffy.

Like I said, the Battle Royale is to discourage teenage rebellion:

At the dawn of the millennium, the nation collapsed. At fifteen percent unemployment, ten million were out of work. 800,000 students boycotted school. The adults lost confidence and, fearing the youth, eventually passed the Millennium Educational Reform Act, AKA the BR Act....

So it's mildly dystopic, but not to the extent of the Capitol. The sequel (the book has no sequel, but the movie and manga do) does seem to have a bit of "teens rebel against the government."

As far as Teen Deadly Game goes, the Hunger Games takes twelve-year-olds.

Battle Royale sounds like Running Man, to a degree.

Was there a movie about an everyone-for-themselves fight set in a prison, also called Battle Royale?

Was there a movie about an everyone-for-themselves fight set in a prison, also called Battle Royale?

Andersonville! (/joke for Civil War historians)