Chap­ter 36 of The Choco­late War cen­ters on Archie Costel­lo’s thrill as he orches­trates a con­tro­ver­sial and sin­is­ter event—a fight between Renault and Jan­za, fueled by a raf­fle. The idea behind the raf­fle, with its bru­tal con­cept, taps into the dark­er emo­tions of greed and cru­el­ty, ele­ments that Archie believes are preva­lent in his peers. As he looks over the raf­fle tick­ets, filled out by eager stu­dents bet­ting on their cho­sen fight­er, Archie is filled with a sense of pow­er. The grow­ing excite­ment around the fight, with tick­ets quick­ly sell­ing out, con­firms the con­trol he holds over the sit­u­a­tion. This moment under­scores his manip­u­la­tion of the stu­dents, as they eager­ly com­ply with his orches­trat­ed chaos, cre­at­ing a spec­ta­cle dri­ven by their desires for vic­ar­i­ous excite­ment and vio­lence. The thrill of the event feeds into Archie’s sense of dom­i­nance, as he rec­og­nizes the ease with which he can stir the crowd’s emo­tions.

Mean­while, Carter, anoth­er stu­dent caught up in the event, grap­ples with con­flict­ing feel­ings about par­tic­i­pat­ing in the raf­fle. While the excite­ment of the fight draws him in, he begins to feel uncom­fort­able with Archie’s world­view that peo­ple are inher­ent­ly greedy and cru­el. Carter’s inner con­flict deep­ens as he ques­tions whether he has also been manip­u­lat­ed, reflect­ing on his own moti­va­tions for being a part of the crowd. The thrill of the spec­ta­cle, how­ev­er, clouds his judg­ment, and he finds him­self torn between his eth­i­cal dis­com­fort and the allure of the event. The strug­gle with­in Carter reveals a key theme in the chap­ter: the cor­rupt­ing pow­er of peer pres­sure and the ease with which peo­ple can be drawn into moral­ly ques­tion­able actions. As the ten­sion builds and Carter’s self-doubt inten­si­fies, he becomes fur­ther entan­gled in Archie’s web of con­trol.

As the much-antic­i­pat­ed fight draws near, the dra­ma height­ens when Obie intro­duces the black box, a sig­nif­i­cant device that could decide the out­come of the event. This black box, filled with mar­bles, rep­re­sents the uncer­tain fate of the two con­tes­tants, and Archie approach­es it with the con­fi­dence of some­one who believes he con­trols the out­come. Unbe­knownst to him, how­ev­er, Obie and Carter have secret­ly con­spired to under­mine his cer­tain­ty, plan­ning to inject sus­pense and ten­sion into the process. Archie, ful­ly immersed in his sense of con­trol, dis­miss­es any notion of los­ing, obliv­i­ous to the fact that oth­ers are work­ing behind the scenes to chal­lenge his dom­i­nance. This plot twist adds a lay­er of unpre­dictabil­i­ty to the sit­u­a­tion, as it plays into the larg­er theme of manip­u­la­tion and pow­er that runs through­out the sto­ry. The black box becomes a sym­bol not only of fate but also of the uncer­tain nature of the pow­er Archie holds over oth­ers, sug­gest­ing that even those in con­trol can be tak­en by sur­prise.

The cli­max of the chap­ter occurs when Archie swift­ly draws the mar­bles, a move that shocks both the audi­ence and Obie. He suc­cess­ful­ly draws white mar­bles, secur­ing his vic­to­ry and bol­ster­ing his con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ty to manip­u­late sit­u­a­tions to his advan­tage. His tri­umphant moment in front of the crowd serves to rein­force his image as the mas­ter­mind behind the event, feed­ing into his self-assured per­sona. The crowd’s reac­tion to Archie’s manip­u­la­tion under­scores the dark­er side of human nature, where peo­ple are will­ing to be com­plic­it in vio­lence and cru­el­ty for enter­tain­ment. The chapter’s con­clu­sion high­lights the themes of pow­er and con­trol, as Archie stands vic­to­ri­ous, fur­ther cement­ing his posi­tion as the pup­peteer who remains in con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion. His unwa­ver­ing self-con­fi­dence, even in the face of poten­tial rebel­lion, illus­trates the dan­ger­ous allure of unchecked pow­er and the moral decay that comes with it. Through Archie’s actions and the tense atmos­phere of the event, the chap­ter explores the com­plex­i­ties of manip­u­la­tion, peer pres­sure, and the inher­ent dark­ness with­in human nature.