Hello again, all! We’re getting close to the end of The Maze Runner and we’re finally getting some answers. Thank God! If you haven’t read the book before, know that this will likely ruin it for you. Sorry.
Question from Barb: On page 200 the Gladers ponder that the sun has “disappeared”. Thomas understands that there never was a sun and “Everything about this place was fake.” All I could think of was the movie The Truman Show when Jim Carey sails to the edge of his world. The Truman Show was reality TV taken to extremes. Do you think this situation in the Glade is just for some demented group’s pleasure?
I sure hope not! I had flashbacks to The Truman Show as well when I read that part of the book. It doesn’t seem like a Hunger Games twister pleasure game to me, especially in light of the words Thomas found on the wall of the maze. It could still be the case, but I think we’re chasing a more Divergent-like plot than anything right now. We’ll see how this goes.
Also from Barb: The signs in the maze that declare it part of the Killzone Experiment Department seem so ominous yet Minho dismisses them. What obvious signs of disaster do we dismiss in our lives? Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” are some classic examples.
I think there are a lot of things we walk past and dismiss which should actually scare the pants off of us. The rising cost of gasoline; consistently bad weather patterns; rising water levels, high pollution levels; I could go on for a while. I wrote a post (which you will see tomorrow) about how we ignore a lot of little things in our lives like piles of laundry, loud neighbors, or a co-worker’s inappropriate clothes. It’s almost too easy to look past these things.
Question from Nicole: When they come to the writing in the maze that says, “World in Catastrophe,” I think of it as a message from the others to the boys about the previous world they lived in. What else could this mean? Why do you think it’s written on the walls in the maze? Do you think that it’s a message about the Maze rather than about their previous world?
Hm, I hadn’t considered that. Maybe ‘World in Catastrophe’ is the name of the Maze experiment (I still think it’s an experiment). I hope their future world isn’t falling apart!
Question from Sultana: How do you feel about the book overall so far? What do you enjoy, and what do you think could’ve been improved? Feel free to elaborate on anything, possibly including plot, character development, writing style, setting, etcetera.
I like how fast paced the book is. I’m never bored reading it because something is always happening. I think Dashner does that well. However, I’m not a huge fan of his writing in general. I think his sentences structure is repetitive and dry and the characters don’t have a lot of feeling to them. He makes up for that with a unique setting and story, but I think the books could have used a bit more umph
Question from Ashlee: It’s evident now that this is an experiment of some kind, so why do you think the Creators choose teenagers as their subjects instead of adults? Are there benefits to this?
Especially in male adolescence, their brain is still developing and will continue to into their twenties. If this is some sort of Divergent-esque experiment, this fact might be why young boys were chosen
Question from Katherine: Alby runs off in the middle of the night to look at the maps. When he was going through the Changing, he said “Protect the maps”… but he also tried to strangle himself. Clearly there were warring forces at work in his mind. I can’t help but think his weird dash into the night means that he’s going to destroy the maps, not study them…but would that be Alby-Alby at work? Or Creator-controlled/changed- Alby? In other words, whose agenda is whose?
If we’re going off the assumption that he’s going out to destroy them, I would think that’s Creator-Alby. I can’t see a reason Alby would think the Griever would want their map information. The Grievers don’t seem like intelligent beings who could steal information. I think at worse they would destroy the maps themselves. I guess Creator-Alby could destroy the maps and blame it on the Grievers, but I don’t think Alby-Alby would have a reason to do this.
Question from Lynn: Do you have any more insight into what role Thomas and Theresa have in this experiment?
I have a feeling they have some kind of decision making roll but I can’t put my finger on what I think it is. Maybe they chose the people to go into the maze or have some sort of say in what the Grievers do. Whatever it is, it seems that it’s something Gally’s not a fan of so I feel like they’ve contributed to something Gally considers to be suffering. Maybe the death of a friend or the pain of the Changing.
Until next time, write on.
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Taking On a World of Words 