Just the implications of it all how even the “boring stories” of kids who stayed in camps the whole time the trauma of being treated less than human and losing a childhood and it’s not better out of camps, constant running and fearing for your safety just ugghhg the aftermath of how there’s always the stigma and the inability to be “normal”
hey wait a minute you're so right. I remember when I first read the books and they mentioned remaining camps like "there's still camps at [place]" I'd always go oh cool, moving on. because it wasn't what the characters were focusing on (iirc)
but like?? hello? the camps were fucking awful. even the dismissable parts of that world were still absolutely horrible and traumatizing. given clothes, forced to work, the wardens (if that was their name?) and how much fear was used as a method of control. the white noise?? the fact that orange was shot upon arrival when he resisted right in front of everyone and that made Ruby, 10, so terrified she started living a lie for the next like six years
ruby was ten when she was taken away. The sickness or whatever they called it affected children! This whole thing was happening to kids!
The kids who weren't fighting against the government and living secretly on the streets trying to get sent back to camp were either 1. in a camp or 2. being sequestered away by the powerful people to keep them from getting sick. And then all the kids who straight up died?? that's a whole generation of fucked up right there.
this all happens in just a manner of years, that's not long enough for everyone to cope and get over their fear of these kids!! parents are loosing their kids left and right and kids are being abused by the system it's just all so infinitely fucked up in so many ways--which like is the point but knowing it's intentional doesn't make it less horrifying
because I don't have enough memory of the books I don't know if it actually happened, but I remember in the movie a scene where Ruby's in a dress as Liam's working on Black Betty and they're kinda teasing/flirting with each other and it's just so so innocent which really punches you in the gut. like they are just teenagers trying not to die and to keep these other kids alive in this hellscape that's become their lives. they're just trying to live and everyone is terrified of them
there is no winning in that world
