In the little town of Horseshoe Bay, there is a young woman who never met a mystery she can ignore. unlike the books that inspire it, interact with the world of the supernatural. They've all got to be smart and tough in their particular fictional world.
Being smart and tough, however, might not be enough to survive in a very different fictional world: The Hunger Games. In the arena of the games, tributes might have to figure out puzzles and patterns, but it's more likely that they need to be willing to do bad things to survive. Some would not make it very far in the arena, while others would pay any price to survive.
Carson
Carson Drew might be the biggest lawyer in Horseshoe Bay, and arguably one of the most intelligent people in the show, but a survivor in the arena he is not. The audience would have to consider that Carson would have been in the Hunger Games as a teenager, long before he started his career understanding law and order - and long before he became the person the wealthy trusted with their secrets.
Like his daughter, Carson was likely a very bright teenager, but Carson's focus is always on helping others. He tries his best to keep Nancy safe, he honors the wishes of Lucy Sable when she dies, and he takes money from shady clients to provide for his family. Carson isn't a fighter, and he's not someone who would suddenly change his ways in the arena.
Owen
As a member of the prestigious Marvin family, Owen would be the Nancy Drew equivalent of a "career tribute" in the games. With all that wealth and privilege behind him, he would have had trainers from a young age to allow him to find his specialty.
The trouble is, Owen isn't the kind of career who would be bloodthirsty or focused on charming the viewers of the Capitol for sponsors. Owen, after all, is quick to side with Nancy and Bess any time something shady about his family's past comes up. He's the kind of career who would see the games as the bloodbath they are and only defend himself when necessary, which would ultimately get him killed.
Ryan
Like Owen, Ryan is from an elite family in Horseshoe Bay. The Hudsons are one of the founding families, which would put Ryan in the career camp as well. The difference is that Ryan is a bit of a hot head and would absolutely believe himself to be more capable in the arena than he really is.
Ryan would likely fall prey to the bloodbath at the cornucopia that Katniss witnesses in the first of her Hunger Games. It's there that tributes fight over supplies and weapons, leading to some immediate casualties. Ryan would be one as he tried to get himself a weapon and prove himself to his fellow careers.
Bess
Bess Marvin is certainly a fan favorite in Nancy Drew. With her love for shiny things and horror novels, she's quite the character - but she's no Katniss Everdeen.
Bess is someone who is afraid to rock the boat. She spends months in Horseshoe Bay before getting the courage up to approach the Marvin family. Instead of preparing for a fight against the Aglaeca, she writes her obituary and avoids talking to Lisbeth about the supernatural creature. Bess is someone who wants to live, but doesn't expect that outcome. She'd be more like Rue, making friends amongst the tributes, but being targeted by a stronger competitor.
Nick
Nick has already been in a situation where someone died at his hand. A fight at a party escalating, however, is a little different from an arena where you're expected to eliminate everyone else. Nick would likely be able to get through a decent stretch of the games, but he would also have a target on his back.
Mechanically inclined and strong, Nick would have an edge over figuring out how to use different weapons even with no experience. Some of the Capitol might even send him gifts as sponsors just because they would find his story interesting. Nick's downfall, however, would probably be trying to bond with other tributes. He's the kind of guy who wants to take care of people, and the more cutthroat competitors would take advantage of that.
Lisbeth
The audience doesn't know a lot of details about Lisbeth's life just yet, but she does have a few things working in her favor. Not only is she a police officer, but she's also worked pretty extensively undercover. That means Lisbeth is already able to defend herself and ingratiate herself with someone who might be an enemy.
She might not be an action hero, but her skills would give her certain advantages in the arena. She would be able to hold her own in hand-to-hand combat, and she'd also be able to make alliances pretty easily. Just how far she makes it would depend on whether an enemy caught her unaware.
Karen
Like Lisbeth, Karen is also a police officer. She's one of the ranking detectives in the first season of the series, though she doesn't stay that way as a result of her corrupt activities on the force.
Karen, like Lisbeth, can hold her own in a fight and has training with a few weapons, though guns don't usually have a place in the arena. Karen is also incredibly sneaky. Not only does she swipe Nancy's journal to help her case, but she also spends years planning to kill the person she believed responsible for her best friend's death. Karen can be ruthless when she wants to be. There are, however, other characters whose survival instincts might rival hers.
Nancy
She might be the titular character, and she might be really great at unraveling mysteries, but Nancy is not the victor of the Hunger Games unless she comes up with a plan to fool the judges as Katniss did for herself and Peeta to make it out.
That's because Nancy, for all her intelligence, tends to place herself exactly in the worst situations and only survives with the help of her friends. Multiple times throughout the show it's her father, Nick, Ace, George, or Bess who come to her aid right when she starts to regret not asking for help. The Capitol would very much hate her critiques of their methods, but they'd keep her around just long enough to entertain the people before they pushed for another tribute to get the better of her.
Ace
Ace surviving longer than Nancy might be a surprise for some, but the truth is, he's the Beetee of this Hunger Games lineup. He's the one who learns the ends and outs of the Capitol's system thanks to his father being law enforcement and his mother being a librarian.
Ace is also the kind of person who would research every past victory before going into the games himself, looking for patterns in the arena set-up and seeing what he could use to his advantage. He'd likely be the person figuring out just where the cameras and the boundaries are, using them to lead his opponents into traps instead of having to fight at all.
George
If anyone in the cast of Nancy Drew characters is a survivor, it's George. She pulls no punches and she knows exactly what it means to make sacrifices to survive. George has been working to her family since she was 14 years old.
She would absolutely be someone in one of the outer districts putting her name into the drawing for the games in order to get more food for her family. George would also never allow any of her sisters to end up in the competition. She would do anything for them, including taking out every single member of the competition to make sure she could come back and help them survive.