The Running Man

Bradley is a teenager from the inner city. He meets Ben when Bradley’s brother, Stacey, introduces them.

Bradley decides to help Ben with a gun, transportation, a new plan for mailing his recordings, and more. Bradley is a symbol of the revolution that is waiting to happen. Narratively, he serves as an expositional device that allows Ben to learn about the pollution conspiracy. He also represents the need for literacy in an informed, independent populace.

Bradley understands Ben’s plight because his 5-year-old sister is dying of lung cancer. He helps Ben for many reasons, but the main one is that “[t]his is a hurtin family” (165). The hurt that Bradley describes is the same hurt that the lower classes experience in Co-Op City. The major difference between Bradley and the masses is that he refuses to play along; he has always known that something is amiss in society. He knows that the lower classes are being conned, but only because he proactively reads and studies. Bradley represents the necessity for curiosity and knowledge. Revolutions can’t exist without dissent, and dissent cannot exist without people willing to ask uncomfortable, dangerous questions.

Bradley spends as much time as he can—at great risk—in the library, reading about pollution. He learns that it’s possible to make a cheap, effective nose filter, but the government doesn’t want the lower classes to know. He dreams of a revolution: “Sometimes I think that I could blow the whole thing outta the water with ten minutes talktime on the Free-Vee. Show em. Everybody could have a nose filter if the Network wanted em to have em” (171).

On a larger scale, Bradley represents the growing discontent of the masses. As he says, “People’s mad […] all they need is a reason. One reason” (172). He has never been in a position to become that reason, but he is insightful enough to recognize the potential that Ben has as a symbol for their cause.

Dan Killian is the executive producer of The Running Man. He is ostensibly the novel’s villain, although the system he represents is more ominous and menacing than one person could ever be. Killian is slightly more ambivalent than a traditional villain. He doesn’t always appear to believe exactly what he is saying ideologically. The entertainment of the Games often seems to matter more to him than the mission they supposedly accomplish. He is an amoral character, unconcerned with good or evil, who is willing to shift allegiances to anyone and anything that can increase the Network’s power and profitability. He is a symbol of pure self-interest. Killian is the ultimate company man, worshipping profit and ratings above all else. He is willing to embrace Ben as Killian’s replacement as easily as he vilifies him for the audience.

Despite being the face of the new order, Killian has an obvious fondness for relics, particularly when it comes to art. He collects, among other things, Egyptian urns and various types of cave paintings. Killian is not interested in forgetting the past. Rather, he wishes to preserve it. Unlike McCone, he doesn’t speak about the ideals of the Network or the government. He operates in a state of insulated bemusement, certain of his own safety. He expresses a desire to preserve Ben as a symbol of his times, as if he were an artifact for his collection.

Killian is delighted by Ben’s defiance and gushes about his audacity as a contestant. However, he must publicly condemn him and encourage greater measures and rewards to capture him. Killian is so impressed by Ben’s capabilities—both as a contestant and as a killer—that he offers to let him go if he will take McCone’s place as Chief Hunter. He changes loyalties with ease, which is characteristic of authoritarian figures who will do anything to retain power and further their agenda.

As the face of the Network, Killian functions as a government propagandist. His job is to make something that should be revolting into something that the audience can not only tolerate but also embrace and applaud. The Network’s popularity grows in spite of—or perhaps because of—its increasingly repulsive programs. With each Free-Vee episode, Killian helps spread the upper class’s message while keeping the lower class docile. Although he is not a political leader, Killian represents all slippery dictators. His word may not be law, but it is even more influential than the decrees of a politician.