Contrary to the fatalistic nature of most of the characters in The Underdogs is the instinct of survival which the characters pursue first and foremost. Demetrio flees his home in order to survive; he fights in order to survive. If he and his men do not kill the enemy, the enemy will kill them. This “shoot or be shot” attitude persists until the increased acts of random violence suggest that maybe other factors are at play. But the men’s increased violence is simply an offshoot of the need to survive. When the stakes are life and death, nothing else really matters, and in this context the rapes, the torture, and the destruction of property can be easily understood. The men kill because it is better to be predator than prey. The only goal is to survive. There is no difference between accidentally shooting someone and intentionally pulling the trigger. Someone dies and someone lives. If the men can then sleep in better beds, eat better food, and drink more alcohol, why not?These comforts only insulate the instinct to survive. For Demetrio and his men there is no varied, complicated list of consequences and no real indication of what will happen if they win or lose. There is only one consequence: death. They view everything around them with animal eyes. For Luis Cervantes, survival means a bit more: wealth, recognition, and power. These goals are as important to Cervantes as staying alive is to the peasant revolutionaries.