Why ‘The Hunger Games’ Is More Horrifying Than ‘Squid Game’

It’s been an exciting time for fans of the death game genre, with Squid Game Season 2 releasing last December and a new Hunger Games book slated for March. On the surface, it’s easy to think that Squid Game is the more dystopian universe of the two, as it reflects many real-life issues and has a higher death count. However, a closer look reveals that The Hunger Games might be an even worse game to play.

To determine which death game universe is more horrifying, we made these two franchises battle head-to-head. Based on the results, we wouldn’t be volunteering for either of them, but we’ve come to conclude that playing children’s games—no matter how difficult—is less dystopian than children playing death games.

7

The Tributes in ‘The Hunger Games’ Are Children

The age of each games’ participants is perhaps the most obvious reason why The Hunger Games is more horrifying than Squid Game. The former consists solely of children aged 12-18, while the latter only involves adults. It’s hard enough watching adults battle to the death, but when young kids are involved, it’s extra brutal.

Death of Innocence

In Hunger Games, the death of innocence is an especially apparent theme, as it directly relates to the children being killed. These children spend their whole childhoods knowing that they might be in the games with little chance of winning—and that they have zero choice in the matter.

6

The Players in ‘The Hunger Games’ Are Forced to Play

Unlike the participants in Squid Gamethe tributes in Hunger Games didn’t have a choice about whether they participated. Unless they were lucky enough to have someone volunteer for them, the minute their name was called, that was it. Additionally, unlike in Squid Gamethey didn’t have the chance to vote to end the game. Granted, that chance wasn’t taken by many in Squid Gamebut in the Hunger Gameswe think a good deal more would have chosen to leave.

Bread and Lottery

To be fair, it could be argued that the players in Squid Game didn’t have a choice about playing because they needed the money. However, we’re approaching this idea literally in the sense that, if they voted to stop, they could.

It also must be pointed out that some starving Hunger Games’ participants increased their odds of being chosen by exchanging more slips with their name for tesserae. Uncomfortably, someone could argue that this gamble makes them somewhat “responsible” for being chosen, just like the gamblers and crypto investors of Squid Game. However, this is an apples and oranges comparison, or better yet, bread and lottery.

As implied in the episode of the same name in Squid Game, the severity of the contestants’ circumstances was largely due to their own actions (lottery), while in Hunger Games, most of the characters were born into bad situations and only acted out of a need to survive (bread).

5

Issues in the Greater World

Squid Game is highly relatable for its real-world themes of poverty, capitalism, and corruption. Already disturbing, Hunger Games ups everything to the next level by introducing characters who aren’t just poor but also starving, oppressed, and later, at war. Additionally, they live in a world of horrifying technology and bizarre, mutated animals. Even outside the arena, they’re constantly playing a death game.

Both Bad Situations

Admittedly, both the characters of Squid Game and The Hunger Games led difficult lives, with some variation present between the different characters. For example, due to his debts, Seong Gi-hun was at risk of being killed by gangsters. However, it was implied that, had he not started gambling, he at least would have managed to make ends meet (even if it meant relying on his ex-wife’s family or his mom).

On the other hand, Kang Sae-byeok escaped persecution in North Korea and needed money to help find and free her mother. Her situation is perhaps the most similar to that of the characters in The Hunger Games, where even the most well-off were still victims of a sadistic regime.

4

More Gruesome Deaths

In Squid Game, most of the deaths involved being shot or falling from a high ledge. While neither of these deaths are pleasant, they’re fairly quick (except when the shot missed). However, in the Hunger Games, brutal deaths were part of the show.

At one point, Cato was eaten alive before Katniss put him out of his misery, and before that, Glimmer was stung hundreds of times and forced to endure horrific hallucinations before dying. In the prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Marcus was essentially crucified, and in Catching Fire, Mags was burned to death by acid rain while a horrific creature mauled another tribute. There was even a year when a player committed cannibalism. This is all without even mentioning the cornucopia itself, where frantic tributes would use whatever they could get their hands on to end one another.

Punishment Is the Point

Perhaps the closest comparison to The Hunger Games’ cornucopia scene would be Squid Game’s nighttime brawl in which the contestants turned on each other in the middle of the night. However, it’s hard to find anything that compares to the brutality of what Cato, Glimmer, and the others endured. This is likely because Squid Game was largely about entertaining an audience, whereas The Hunger Games (while also concerned with entertainment) was meant to prevent rebellion.

Sure, the treacherous Oh Il-nam saw his games as a commentary on life, but that’s nothing compared to how The Hunger Games began, and ultimately continued on as, a form of punishment, first and foremost.

3

Huge Spectacle

One big difference between The Hunger Games and Squid Game is that the entire country of Panem watches the former while only a handful of V.I.P.s watch the latter. Thus, while more people die in Squid Game each year, fewer are directly supporting it—or rooting for it to continue. As opposed to just a few twisted rich people, thousands of Hunger Games viewers are literally cheering on the tributes’ deaths. This is something the country looks forward to as opposed to something obviously illegal that, if more people knew about it, would be quickly shut down.

Panem and Circenses

The name Panem refers to bread while the full phrase, Panem et Circenses, means bread and circuses. Similar to bread and lottery, bread and circuses refers to a strategy in which a government controls and appeases its people through food and entertainment. However, as stated previously, the “bread and lottery” system offers more choice to those about to be sacrificed for entertainment. When it comes to the bread and circuses of Panem, the country is actually depriving the districts of bread while simultaneously subjecting them to the horrifying circuses.

2

Mutilated Bodies

Toward the end of the first Hunger Games movie, Peeta and Katniss are attacked by “muttations,” or genetically modified, wolf-like monsters. In the book, to Katniss’s horror, they’re each wearing a collar that aligns with a district number, and their eyes and general body proportions align with the tributes from said districts.

While this comparison is less apparent in the movie, the implication is that the Capitol took the tributes’ eyes and placed them in the muttations’ bodies. Even if these eyes were simply engineered to look like the tributes’, as opposed to made from parts of them, it’s still a desecration of their image, and a means of haunting the remaining players.

Not Just in Death

Of course, Squid Game also mutilated its players’ dead (and sometimes, still-living) bodies, as it took them away to have their organs harvested. If we were just comparing the stolen eyes vs. harvested organs, Squid Game would win in terms of brutality. However, The Hunger Games comes out ahead (or behind?) as it subjected its winners to a form of mutilation by forcing them to have body modification surgeries they didn’t want nor consent to. This is because, even after emerging as Victors, the games were far from over.

1

The Winners Never Win

At the end of Squid Game Season 1, Gi-hun was outright encouraged to go on a plane and live his life with his family. Ultimately, he chose not to go and wound up back in the games. While he likely would have been haunted by them for the rest of his life, he could have, in every other way, escaped them. This simply wasn’t true for the Victors of the Hunger Games, who later were forced to serve as mentors or even be prostituted, lest their families and loved ones pay the price.

Back in the Games

While Gi-hun returned to the games of his own volition, the winners of The Hunger Games were later forced to compete in the Quarter Quell. This mandate went against the “spirit” of the games, which said that winners were safe from then on. However, it fully made sense based on Haymitch’s assertion that “Nobody ever wins the games. Period. There are survivors. There’s no winners.” He meant this in a more figurative manner, but in this case, it was also literal.

In short, both of these dystopian franchises are thought-provoking, captivating, and well worth the watch. But in terms of which we’d prefer to play? We’d take our chances with Squid Game, where the odds might be slightly more in our favor.