The Forty Third Hunger Games, or #43rdHG, is a fan-created video project released on social media as a series of clips and videos, chronicling the fictional 43rd annual Hunger Games. It follows a range of tributes from across Panem as they compete in a televised Deadly Game, with the promise of a sole survivor. Currently, the project is still ongoing.
Note: The title event of this project is a fight to the death. As such, Death Tropes and death-related spoilers may be plentiful. Proceed with caution.
43rdHG provides examples of:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: The Hunger Games, by definition.
- Action Girl: most of the female tributes, and Star Slate, the mentor for District 2.
- After the End: set in the same dystopian future as the original Hunger Games novels.
- Age-Appropriate Angst: Most of the characters are teenagers, and suffer from significant trauma.
- Anyone Can Die: There’s no real main character, and most of the cast is guaranteed to die.
- Ax-Crazy: Some of the Careers, and eventually Sage too.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted with Star, Orion, and Callix, who both bear noticeable facial scars as a result of their time in the arena, and President Kincardine, who bears a similar scar due to a failed assassination attempt.
- Big Brother Instinct: Star is hell-bent on keeping Trajan (her younger brother) alive, by any means necessary. Sage to his younger brothers.
- Blood Knight: The Careers.
- Braids of Action: Multiple female tributes wear braids, notably Ambrosia, Polaris, and Holland.
- Broken Bird: Star.
- Children Forced to Kill: The tributes.
- Crapsack World: Panem and the world of the Hunger Games in general.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: It's implied that most of the tributes will suffer one of these.
- Dark Action Girl: Most of the female tributes, as well as Star.
- The Determinator: Trajan.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Several of the tributes bear similarities to or invoke similar tropes to characters from the original Hunger Games novels and movies.
- Holland's arena strategy is very similar to Foxface's.
- Cascadia has a fair number of tropes in common with Annie Cresta (such as her swimming and with Glimmer.
- Everett bears a number of similarities to both Seneca Crane and Cinna.
- Trajan is probably the most blatant example of this: the male tribute from 2 who acts as a minor antagonist and uses brute force to get him through the Games. He even wears rust red in the Arena.
- Eye Scream: During the 41st Games, Orion's left eye was damaged. Although the Capitol's medics repaired it to an extent, it's still completely white.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Played straight with Sage and Trajan, who choose to fight with a barbed-wire wrapped bat and a two-by-four/axe respectively. Averted with Birk and Topaz, who both use a bow and arrow, and Polaris, who uses a metal pipe as a weapon.
- Improvised Weapon: The arena contains few real weapons, leaving the tributes to improvise.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Polaris.
- The Medic: One of Atlas's greatest skills going into the arena.
- Past Experience Nightmare: Star suffers severe trauma after winning her Games.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Star’s victory in the 36th Games. She made it out of the arena alive, but deeply traumatised.
- Scars Are Forever: Star’s face is heavily scarred, and she’s emotionally scarred as well. Callix's Games similarly leave her with noticeable burn scars.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Star and Orion.
- Sky Face: The faces of dead tributes are projected into the sky, as in the original books. Possibly invoked intentionally in universe by the Capitol.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Cascadia and Everett; Polaris and Birk. Everyn and Trent, before his death.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Invoked by various tributes, mainly the Careers.
- Trauma Conga Line: All of the characters. Star especially: her Games take place before the events of the project, but it's established that her Games took place in a labyrinth filled with Capitol mutts. In following years, she's forced to relive her trauma and mentor subsequent tributes, most of whom don't make it out alive. The icing on the cake: despite her warnings, her younger brother, Trajan, volunteers as tribute and it falls to her to mentor him through his Games, knowing there's a chance she may see him die on live TV.
