The Characters of the Scorch Trials

Anyone who's read the Maze Runner knows plot is one of James Dashner's strong points. There are so many twists, turns, and complications that what you think you know one moment could be turned completely upside down the next. But with all of this story line planning it seems that some of the characters may have been forgotten behind. Indeed, many of the characters in the Scorch Trials lack the kind of depth experienced readers may expect, but they do each have distinct personalities. Rather than simply live, the function of each of the characters is to propel the story forward, and to do so the cast of characters one encounters while reading the Maze Runner series tends to be pretty large.

All together, a reader encounters the existence of more than 200 characters, but how many do we really get to know? Somewhere around 5 or 10. It becomes clear pretty quickly that each of these main characters are built around a specific idea, and they tend to stick to it. Only the main character, Thomas, is the lucky individual who is allowed to go through serious change.

Picking up right after the end of the Maze Runner (here is the Wikipedia version in case you've never read the book), we find ourselves among the few boys who survived the ordeals of the Maze. James Dashner quite literally stamps a description on each of their backs so that new readers won't be completely lost- each of the boys finds an identification number and descriptor that explains their role in WICKED's great experiment. That doesn't mean these descriptions are completely accurate though; they are just what the government members believed they saw in each one of the boys.

Immediately, things clear up when it comes to decide what to do. The survivors from the Maze find themselves starving in a room with people on the other side who have contracted a dangerous disease that virtually turns them into monsters. Each of the three main characters who are still alive, Thomas, Minho, and Newt, each want to turn to a very different course of action. The book explains that Thomas thought, "Maybe that door was locked for a reason... something felt wrong with this," (Dashner, 30) Thomas is the voice of reason in difficult times and wants to calmly think of the proper course of action. Minho on the other hand likes to act first and think later. As stated in Chapter 3, Minho wants to quickly find out what lies behind the room: "...they had to go out there and find some answers... 'I'll go first Minho said', and without waiting for a response he walked through the open door, his body vanishing in the gloom almost instantly," (Dashner, 31). Finally, Newt is a natural leader and takes command when encountering difficult situations. When the group finds that a new boy has mysteriously replaced a fellow Glader named Teresa, he is the first one to investigate what happened. Over all, the majority of the characters so far are round but fairly static.

As a final (off topic) note, this is the first time I am reading an e-book, which feels very different than having a physical copy in your hands. What do you prefer to read?