History Fridge / TheRunningMan

** Killing a helpless person only would help perpetuate the evil blood sport he is forced to participate in. By taking the high road, he helps destroy any justification for the existence of ''The Running Man''.

* Richards' furious refusal to work for Killian isn't merely a matter of conscience: Killian broke a promise to Richards and sent his friends into the show. Killian could again be lying about offering Richards about offering a job. And even if Killian wasn't lying, he's proven to be far too untrustworthy to work under.

* The fact that ''a baby'' was in a criminal database that Killian was going through for contestants on The Running Man shows that not even those that are too young to be capable of even committing crime are safe from the totalitarian government that they live under.

* Sven walking away from a fight with Richards; it's probably not just Killian's verbal abuse. Sven's been watching Richards tear through top-notch Stalkers all night, and while he might match up well in size, he probably doesn't have the skill. [[CombatPragmatist Better to live to fight another day]].

* From the novel when Richards is going through the lengthy audition process, he finds the time to make a quick phone call to his wife; near the end of the call, she remarks that there's someone at the door. [[spoiler:She and their daughter are killed before Richards even gets on The Running Man show... could they have been her killers?]]

* When Killian shows the footage of last season's winners living it up in paradise, they're still wearing their game jumpsuits. This is a hint that they didn't really survive the game.

* It might initially seem ridiculous that Amber Mendez was able to smuggle the tape containing the EXTREMELY incriminating evidence on the government into the game show undetected. Sure, she tells Ben Richards it's "none of your business" where she hid the footage, but c'mon, she was caught red-handed rifling through the filing-cabinet. Then again, the "crimes" they make up against her (which include having sex with 2, and sometimes 3 different men a year) indicate that this dystopian future society is rather sexually repressive. Hence, its most loyal enforcers would be tend to be uncomfortable with searching through any woman's "special" hiding places.
** Alternately, while the enforcers ''could'' bring themselves to strip-search her, they didn't have the time. She wasn't discovered rooting through the records until the night the show was on, and they were pressed for time to get her into costume to bring her onto the show.
** Technically, the ReallyGetsAround smear wasn't indicated to be a crime, [[EvilIsPetty just a little extra dirt]] to go with her supposedly being the Butcher of Bakersfield's accomplice: "She's not only a criminal, but a slut too!" They were rather short of time to search Amber, and Killian was looking to drive his ratings even higher by any means he could, including bringing on a mystery contestant. There's also the possibility that they didn't realize she'd actually stolen anything; the edited video was still in the cabinet and the raw footage she took was located behind it. While they did obviously notice where she was looking, her arrest was specifically for being in an off-limits archive, not the theft of the video.
** Another possibility: they knew Amber Menendez had the recorded chip on her somewhere, but didn't care. As Richards' fellow contestants noted, their resistance movement actually had a base out in the game zone, but had never found the up-link satellite dish that was also out there because "No one ever comes out here." The people in the studio didn't know any of the contestants had friends out there, and probably just figured that the recording (which they no longer needed for anything) would be fried or mangled or just plain lost along with her corpse when she inevitably met some gruesome demise.

* Amber changes her mind about Richards when she sees two people on the news supposedly in the hospital in critical condition after being attacked by him. These are the same people who almost let him get away. Now, if a person portrayed as getting killed in fake footage after [[YouHaveFailedMe failing the state]] typically gets "[[{{Unperson}} removed]]" from reality as well, what are the odds that this totalitarian government allowed either of them to live?
* Along the same lines, while he didn't die in the digitally faked footage showing him killing Ben and Amber, the state would surely deem [[spoiler: Captain Freedom]] a failure and possibly a traitor too, and wouldn't want him around to testify to anyone that the whole game was rigged and his amazing "victory" was a total fraud...
* On that point, Killian has Richards' and Amber's faces digitally mapped onto a pair of stunt doubles (he explicitly says that they are stunt doubles), who are then killed in order to make the world think that Richards and Amber are dead.
* From the novel: when Richards is going through the lengthy audition process, he finds the time to make a quick phone call to his wife. Near the end of the call, she remarks that there's someone at the door. [[spoiler:She and their daughter are killed before Richards even gets on The Running Man show...could that have been her killers?]]

* Along the same lines, while he didn't die in the digitally faked footage showing him killing Ben and Amber, the state would surely deem [[spoiler: Captain Freedom]] a failure and possibly a traitor too, and wouldn't want him around to testify to anyone that the whole game was rigged and his amazing "victory" was a total fraud...

* One FunnyBackgroundEvent you can catch if you're paying attention is when the announcer is telling the people in the audience what kinds of prizes they can win. One of them is "Ortho-Pure Procreation Pills" which are also mentioned to be "available in adult's and child's sizes." ''Recreation'' pills might make sense if this society has legalized recreational drugs as part of its BreadAndCircuses, but ''Procreation''? Aside from the obvious potential {{Squick}}y implications if these are indeed some kind of fantastic Viagra or the like, this doesn't really square with the dystopian society's sexual mores.
** There is an element of FridgeBrilliance here; fascists as a whole tend to be both sexually repressive and prudish while simultaneously championing traditional gender roles, part of often includes large families. In Nazi Germany, for example, it was considered a woman's patriotic duty to have a large family and give birth to many children. It's notable that the pill emphasises 'procreation' (i.e. breeding) rather than sex by itself; it's presented as a pill that's going to enable you to have lots of children rather than a pill that's going to let you fuck whoever you want whenever you want, so presumably it enhances fertility rather than facilitates sex. As for why it comes in a 'child' size... yeah, this society's pretty fucked up.