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  • Oh my God, pink dogs in Louis the fifteenth jackets are so out!

  • This season in Panem is all about archery, white roses and child slaughter.

  • Oh and blue hair oh, it's so cute.

  • Hello internet, welcome to film theory.

  • Where we salute the capital for enacting the law that frankly all of us want to see past,

  • Halloween every day. Unfortunately, today we're not talking about the Capitol's choice in coiffury.

  • Or even any of their super high-tech equipment, battle tactics, political strategy.

  • (Geesh) There's a lot of topics that we could take on here.

  • No today we're talking about their most memorable catchphrase.

  • May the odds be ever in your favor.

  • May the odds be ever in your favor.

  • It's a throwaway line that every on-screen character from the capitol tosses out before the tributes are chosen.

  • During their press tour, even as they're walking into the games.

  • Hunger Games fans use it at the movies, while reading the books, in line for the iPhone 6.

  • It's everywhere. The characters in the capital use it like a way of saying good luck to the tributes.

  • But in reality, odds have nothing to do with luck, they have to do with math

  • and it turns out the biggest secret of the Hunger Games is that

  • this phrase isn't telling you to break a leg, it's telling you how to survive the games.

  • Believe it or not you can control whether the odds are ever in your favor.

  • You can turn the games into anything but a matter of luck.

  • Whether you're the sole survivor or dead on the first day

  • depends precisely on whether you've made those odds in your favor.

  • And after today's episode you'll know how to win the Hunger Games, not by skill, or strength, or...

  • extremely, advanced finger painting skills,

  • but through the power of probability.

  • Choose wisely and you have the best possible chances of surviving,

  • it's like moneyball except instead of money you're betting your life.

  • And the lives of 23 other innocent children. As you can tell this is gonna be a really feel good episode.

  • Okay. So say you want to survive the Hunger Games,

  • step one that ensures that you live one hundred percent of the time.

  • Katniss: "I volunteer as tribute."

  • [Angry Buzz sound]

  • Don't volunteer when your name isn't drawn. Odds are you survive every time.

  • But, okay, say you want to be a hero, and you've just volunteered as tribute.

  • Stupid decision, but since you're here you need to move quickly.

  • When you start the games there are 24 total tributes,

  • two from each district. As such you're starting odds for winning the hunger games are one in 24.

  • Which aren't gonna get you very far.

  • And I can already see you going into the comments and protest because it's definitely arguable

  • that even from the very beginning not all tributes are created equally.

  • Rue doesn't have the same probability of winning as say Katniss, or a career, or Foxface.

  • To that I say... wrong.

  • In articles already published about the Hunger Games

  • it's been shown statistically that your odds of winning

  • are actually equal no matter what your race, age, gender, or district.

  • Based on the information available on past winners

  • it turns out that those factors actually don't impact your likelihood of survival.

  • Winners come from both genders, race and color certainly don't seem to be a big factor in Panem,

  • and the age ranges of the winning tributes are definitely variable.

  • Making your starting characteristics in the Hunger Games a statistical wash.

  • Say what you will about the fascism and game-ified child slaughter. The hunger games aren't prejudice.

  • Even the careers, those kids train from an early age to be sociopathic killers

  • with the express purpose of surviving the games,

  • who you would think have a higher probability of winning...

  • ...actually don't.

  • The math doesn't lie.

  • So hey, that's great news for you if you're coming from under the poorer districts,

  • and if you're a career, well, sorry you just wasted your life.

  • Alright, so knowing that, you've arrived in the capital fresh off the train as a new tribute.

  • What are you gonna do?

  • Cry and contemplate the sweet release of death?

  • Ha, heck no! Mistake number one that tributes make is wasting this precious time.

  • If you want to stack the odds ever in your favor

  • you do it before you're locked in the tube and the game's countdown begins.

  • This isn't make out with Peeta hour or write sappy letter home time.

  • You have one week, seven days in the capital to pregame and pregame hard.

  • No! Not that kind of pregaming!

  • The pre- Hunger Games pregaming involves two things;

  • training and eating.

  • To give yourself the best statistical advantage going into the arena you start by carbo loading.

  • No, really it sounds stupid, but this isn't the time to work on your thigh gap for your capital approved yoga tights.

  • This is the time to put on the old Lbs.

  • Just think of it like Thanksgiving

  • except it's: I'll be thanking myself next week, when all my friends are dead.

  • But seriously think about it.

  • You don't know what type of arena you're entering

  • but one thing you do know from past games is there might not be any food for weeks.

  • And you as an active adolescent fighting for your life

  • are gonna be burning 2000 to 2400 calories a day depending on your gender.

  • Under the stress of fighting off Jabber-Jays and bad CGI dogs

  • we can assume that you're gonna be burning far more than that.

  • Meaning that you want to have some body mass to spare,

  • as such you significantly increase your odds of survival by putting on five pounds of fat leading up to the games.

  • This gives you an extra 17,500 extra calories to survive on

  • or eight and a half days before your body starts shutting down from starvation.

  • Which honestly may be enough to get you most of the way there.

  • The Hunger Games isn't always the same length

  • but we know the 74th game in movie one was 18 days long.

  • Meaning that technically you could survive almost half that time on practically nothing.

  • In that same Hunger Games 11 out of the 24 tributes died while trying to grab supplies and food.

  • So from a probability standpoint being able to survive independently

  • significantly ups your chances in the long run.

  • So great your feasting up a storm, our next step is to make sure that you're using your training time well.

  • You've got three days here in the gym and let's face it,

  • you're not gonna be building any new weapons skills from scratch,

  • so don't bother trying to become a master nunchucker in under a week.

  • Instead, build the skills that result in the highest survival rates.

  • Based on the 27 known winners from the movies and books

  • 11 of them won primarily because of their passive survival skills.

  • Most of them, again, by not starving to death.

  • This makes your first stop on the circuit edible plants and insects as well as fire starting.

  • Really sexy skills I know.

  • Well, we'll see who has the last laugh when you're not dying on poison berries.

  • Also among the 11 survivalist victors several won by hiding for most or all of their game.

  • So camouflage, ropes courses, and tree climbing are also top priorities.

  • Giving you both offensive and defensive tactical advantages,

  • and speaking of offense, let's talk weaponry.

  • Let's assume you're a quick study

  • and you got all those other skills under your belt.

  • The other major statistical advantage comes from studying blades.

  • Of the 27 known victors an astounding eight of them won thanks to their use of blades.

  • That's almost thirty percent of the total.

  • Whether it was knives or even swords.

  • Realistically, you're not going to become a swordsman in a week

  • so learning to use a regular knife is going to be your best bet.

  • On top of being the victors' choice of weapon

  • it also statistically is the most likely weapon to appear in the game.

  • There are 25 known weapons that have appeared in the Cornucopia across the two Hunger Games we see on screen.

  • If you specialize in any other weapon like come on,

  • slingshot, scythe, you have a 1 in 25 chance of running across that weapon.

  • But the Cornucopia has housed three different types of knife blades.

  • Single sided knives, daggers, and throwing knives.

  • Choose to specialize in knives and you've just tripled your chances

  • that any weapon you come across will be a weapon that you can use.

  • Sure, you may find a dagger instead of a throwing knife,

  • but any blade that you have will serve roughly the same purpose.

  • Namely killing other children.

  • Uh...yay?

  • but since they're also so versatile other tributes will be carrying knives as tools.

  • Meaning, that if you come across a dead body the odds are much higher that they're gonna be carrying a knife

  • than any other sort of weapon.

  • I mean honestly. What are you gonna do with a trident?

  • Roast three marshmallows at the same time?

  • Knives are also one of the best offensive weapons to use to avoid getting killed by someone else.

  • Five of the 27 winners are known as brutality based victors.

  • Meaning that they fought using brute strength and their raw athleticism.

  • These are usually your careers or just your standard issue psychopaths.

  • Statistically you want to do everything possible to avoid getting in close to these tributes

  • because they do all they're killing melee style.

  • On the other hand you still need a method for taking them down if you need to.

  • Because the odds are not in your favor for killing them up close, remember me mentioning throwing knives?

  • You can double your knife use to train for throwing knives.

  • Giving you a weapon that can be used at any distance.

  • Whether you're throwing from 20 feet away, or just you know...

  • [Psycho Music] generally stabbing!

  • The last word of warning here is that you need to make sure that you're not reducing your odds.

  • Avoid wrestling, weight lifting, and heavy weapon training like axes.

  • These are gonna build your bulky muscles which won't give you a statistical advantage,

  • but will increase your metabolism.

  • So you end up burning more calories when you reach the arena, reducing your time to starvation.

  • And that's it. Your time has arrived. You're well trained, ready to get into the Arena, right?

  • You are gonna grab the last of those Capitol cream puffs,

  • run into the arena, grab your knives, stab everyone, and then spend your days on Victor's Row

  • in abject guilt and isolation.

  • Truly a winner is you!

  • Well if you're gonna live to see that day happen you'll need to survive the first 10 minutes of the games,

  • which we all know are the deadliest.

  • So you've just come up the pipe, the clock is ticking down,

  • and you're faced with one of the game's most important decisions.

  • Do you run into the cornucopia or not?

  • If you're unprepared you have 10 seconds to make that decision,

  • but lucky for you, you've watched this video and know the right answer.

  • Heck no!

  • Statistically it makes zero sense.

  • In the 74th Games 11 out of the 24 tributes died at the Cornucopia.

  • In the next year's Quarter Quell 8 out of 24 died.

  • That's an average forty percent death rate!

  • Which immediately says that if you don't get involved in the Cornucopia

  • your probability of winning instantly doubles,

  • going from 1 in 24 odds to almost 1 in 10.

  • That's huge. Sure there may be a major weapon stash there

  • but the hand hand athletes and the careers have a huge statistical margin here.

  • Of the Cornucopia deaths across two movies

  • almost eighty five percent of the kills were committed in close quarters by careers.

  • They're not starved.

  • They're working at close range, and they're hyped on adrenaline.

  • So it's literally the worst time to engage those guys.

  • Yes, this significantly decreases your likelihood of picking up a weapon right off the bat,

  • but for the first several days of the arena lack of weapons doesn't matter.

  • Your priorities in the game are the same as your training priorities.

  • Survival first. In an ideal scenario you want to pick off a supply bag, box, satchel,

  • whatever, from a totally unoccupied corner of the cornucopia.

  • It's definitely possible because we've seen it done twice in the first movie.

  • You're not going to interact with another tribute while doing this and seriously if it looks like it's a contest

  • it's statistically better to abort than fight it out. So play it safe, stay alive, and run away.

  • And with that, congratulations!

  • You've successfully lived past the deadliest 10 minutes of the games.

  • You're now a well-nourished survivalist ready to outlast the other frightened children,

  • but seriously what do you do now? Where do you go?

  • Do you stalk other tributes?

  • Or do you run for cover? Should you build an alliance or go it solo?

  • Are Tracker-Jackers edible?

  • And most importantly of all, what is the one almost foolproof strategy

  • that will guarantee you survive far longer than anything else you could possibly do in the games?

  • Longer than anything we've discussed today.

  • Well Katniss put an arrow through that subscribe button

  • to make sure that you're notified next week when that video gets published.

  • And in the meantime climb a tree and hang tight with this theory

  • all about how the Beast gets royally screwed over in "Beauty and the Beast."

  • And hey, remember, that's just a theory, a film theory.

  • Aaaaaaaaaaaand cut!

  • [Click]

Oh my God, pink dogs in Louis the fifteenth jackets are so out!

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