Who would be better at Dance Dance Revolution? Harry or Tom?
oh, harry by a mile. with all the athleticism in the world, his questionable rhythm would maybe lead him to be late on a few notes.
meanwhile beloved tom marvolo riddle is a man wouldn't lift a hand, let alone a weight, if magic could do it for him? he'd see harry performing jumps and full combo seemingly effortless and then decide to secretly sabotage the machine rather than appear any less talented by comparison (or have anyone see him actually sweat haha)
also, i do think tom plays at being cultured as much as he's actually cultured. being good at musical things is not a given! violin virtuoso tom seems just as probable to me as a tom that's completely tone deaf, horrifically upset that no amount of practice would rectify it, and couldn't be gangpressed into karaoke on the pain of anything besides literal death.
Homoerotic Zombie Death Montage and the Failure of TDC's Moral Thematic Framework
It's no question that Newt/Thomas is the most popular ship to emerge from the Maze Runner movies. With nearly 5000 fics on AO3, beating out the next most popular (Minho/Thomas) by nearly 4000 fics, the difference is an order of magnitude. There are a number of moments in canon that reinforce their close relationship, notably including the series of scenes that lead up to Newt's death in The Death Cure ("Homoerotic Zombie Death Montage"), but this is not the sole contributor to their popularity. Instead, the most significant contributor to their popularity as a ship is how The Death Cure (fails to) set up its moral themes.
The Thematic Love Triangle
The Death Cure, along with the other Maze Runner movies, often represents moral positions or themes with characters. This is most obvious in the character Chuck, who represents the theme of innocence in the first Maze Runner movie, and whose death upon the gladers learning of the reality of their situation reinforces the death of the gladers' innocence.
The Death Cure continues this trend by using Teresa to represent the moral ideal of WCKD: all it strives for, all its idealism and dogmatic thinking. In her refusal to accept anything less than a true cure, in her acceptance of the torture of Minho for the "greater good", in her constant thought for the good of the wider world, she is used to represent this ideal. Her relationship with Thomas, and its pull on him, is representative of the pull that the "greater good" she strives for has on Thomas. Newt, in contrast, shows the pull on Thomas in the other direction: the gladers.
Thomas is shown, time after time, to prioritise his friends, the gladers, over the "greater good". He brings Brenda with them to the Right Arm even though he knows she's infected. He is willing to sacrifice the full train car of children they have rescued in favour of rescuing just Minho. Newt is not only the leader of the remaining gladers ("He's in charge when I'm not around,"; placing himself as the 'man to convince' during both the trial scene and the key scene in The Maze Runner; being the one to hand Winston the gun) but also symbolic of those gladers (his suffering, including his suicide attempt, is almost always directly caused by WCKD, placing him as a symbol of all the bad things WCKD has done to the immunes even though he is not immune himself). His death during the Homoerotic Zombie Death Montage therefore brings the realities of the Flare to Thomas', and by extent the audience's, minds. (shoutout to @cherlockgomes for the excellent analysis!!)
Newt and Teresa are set up with a dual influence on Thomas' potential future: Teresa, representing the ideals of WCKD and wanting to save the world, and Newt, representing the gladers and the hope for their future free of WCKD.
The Failure of this Model
This leads to a minor issue: Teresa is intended to be a love interest. She is given moments with Thomas that lead the audience to believe that they are uniquely close, that they want to be together, that despite their differences they want to believe in a future where they could be together. And if you set up a different character to have an equal and opposite thematic pull to a love interest, you end up with a character who reads, at least a little, as a love interest. So, when Newt dies, his pull on Thomas snaps, and Thomas goes directly to Teresa, and thus chooses WCKD's "greater good" over the gladers. Or, at least, that's how it's intended to read, thematically.
However, there's a problem with this setup: Thomas has already chosen.
As illustrated earlier, Thomas repeatedly chooses his friends over any concept of the "greater good". And while Thomas "choosing WCKD" would work if Newt was still alive when Thomas went to WCKD to give himself over for a cure, Newt wasn't still alive. Thomas doesn't go because Newt's death showed him he was wrong, that the "greater good" Teresa cared about was important and people needed to be saved. It's not even because he "could not leave his soul in the hands of" WCKD. He explicitly places his fate in the hands of WCKD, who he thinks will harm him or even kill him in service of retrieving the cure. He goes because he "could… have saved [Newt]", essentially choosing to kill himself rather than live in a world without him. Once it becomes clear Teresa is not going to kill him, he's all for escaping again to go back to choosing the gladers and the Safe Haven, symbolically choosing Newt once more.
Thomas, on a thematic level, chooses Newt. Newt's pull on Thomas is shown to be stronger than Teresa's, the love interest. In a society where we place romantic love over all other motivations, this reads as Thomas choosing Newt romantically.
So, because of Thomas' unquestioning devotion to the Gladers, represented by Newt, Newt is in a way set up as the thematic love interest of The Death Cure. Wes Ball talks in this interview about how the ending of The Death Cure is meant to leave the audience with the question of what Thomas will do next — he has the cure, but will he use it? I think it's made clear throughout the trilogy that unless any of his friends are infected, he's going to throw that thing into the ocean, where, in his opinion, it belongs.
*vibrating in place* OH OKAY SO WE HAVE THE SAME THOUGHTS ABOUT TERESA
COOL COOL COOLCOOLCOOL
Man I thought I was the only one seeing that shit because DASHNER WHY?!?!?!
Teresa is so sure, so certain that she is right about this, that WCKD is good, that she is good, and she has to be because if she's not...
If she's not......
And this comes right back to my other thoughts about Thomas belonging to her. She wants to keep him, but she can't have her cake and eat it too, it's impossible. Thomas is always going to fight. Even when he was working for WCKD with her, when he was almost entirely hers, he didn't believe in it. He even described himself (in a memory-dream) as being hollow, dead inside. And this is after years of conditioning, of pain and torture, of having his conscience smothered and his soul chipped away at. After all that, he still planted his feet and said no. And now that he's been on the other side of what WCKD has done, seen without the blinders on, now that he has friends he cares about, people he's fought and bled and survived with, he is never going to go back.
And she cannot understand why.
Janson described her as having an "evolved view of the greater good," which is such an ironic line considering, and in some part, that is true. She thinks that Thomas can't see the forest for the trees, but she can't see the flowers for the forest. She's backed out so far to see the big picture, she no longer acknowledges or cares about the small things, the soft, animal things that make a life good, the little, inconsequential joys.
Like in the ruined city, there was a marketplace. Built in the rubble and destruction of the old world, people still gathered and set up bright little tents to trade and deal and interact with each other. Jorge found and kept an old record player and a vinyl. Chuck taught himself to carve and made a figure for a mother he didn't remember.
Thomas sees these things as proof there's still hope, still good, something worth protecting.
Teresa looks at them but doesn't see them. All she can see is WCKD and their mission because that is what's good.
If a few die for the masses, then that's fine. It has to be.
If a few trees have to be cut down to build something new, it's fine. There's a whole forest after all, and neither Teresa nor WCKD ever considers that nothing worthwhile can grow back through all the blood.
CHEWING THIS ANALYSIS BECAUSE YESSSSSS!!!!
especially,
She thinks that Thomas can't see the forest for the trees, but she can't see the flowers for the forest.
BECAUSE EXACTLYYYYYYYYY
love this metaphor
the mini ecosystems and wildlife in a forest can seem like little specks when you zoom out to examine the whole region. even Great Plains with its sea of tall grass and wild fauna, you can forget about what creatures lie at the roots and inside the grass
and yes wildfires do scorch and burn away a valuable ecosystem for a time, but just because it’s regrowth is slow does not mean the loss of that piece is gone. it will not be the same and the ecosystem will change, but to force it and cut down its trees or uproot the grass for an environment more fitting and efficient in your eyes is also not the solution
It’s no secret that Minho is my favorite character, so yeah I'm probably a little biased. but like, consider, he (book version).
Like most of the gladers, Minho is a kid who was forced to grow up too fast. However, with him, Alby, Newt, and most likely the other Keepers, he quickly had to adapt to also be the leader of boys practically his same age. The way I put it together, the Glade hierarchy goes: Alby → Newt → Minho → other Keepers → other Gladers → Greenie. Alby and Newt’s positions are canonically stated, and I might be wrong on Minho but I think he’s third because of his tattoo (A-7, the Leader). Thomas later comes to shake this up, but that’s how it begins.
The average age of the gladers is around 13-18, with the leaders being some of the oldest. So, let’s place Minho around 17-18, 14-15 when he first entered the Glade. Let’s also say that it took a year to stabilize the situation and form the hierarchy, so I’m going to say Minho became a leader around age 15-16.
Do you guys know what 16 year old boys are like? My best friend is one. They’re not meant for leadership, not in a bad way, but because they’re still kids. Teenage boys deserve to mess around, laugh and joke, not have adult responsibilities. Minho, however, is partially in charge of keeping 50-60 (according to Thomas) teen boys alive, and a smaller group he’s totally in charge of in the Maze.
The conditions in the Maze were terrible for keeping teenagers alive. You have to run in the sun, be careful to avoid death traps, and come back exactly on time every day or face a death sentence. This is where Minho is in charge, and he does his job well.
Think about the effect on him, though. If he messes up and someone dies, Minho’s gonna blame that on himself, because he leads the boys.
From the books, though, we get a good view of Minho’s personality. He’s playful and sarcastic, so much that Thomas can’t discern his teasing voice from his normal one. He’s silly, making jokes like “kicking Thomas’ pony-loving butt,” but he is mature, which we can see not only in his leadership position but also in other times. For example, when Thomas cries in the maze, Minho (a teenage boy) doesn’t make fun of him, doesn’t even mention it. He knows what Thomas’ been through, and instead of laughing it off as a joke to lighten the mood, he lets Thomas cry.
He’s not a perfect leader, though. Minho is impulsive and quick to anger, leading to situations where Thomas and Newt have to cool off the situation (like the whole Jorge situation where Minho throws punches and asks later and almost gets killed.)
Because of the perspective (Thomas’) we don’t really see Minho’s internal emotional reactions to anything. Because of his responsibilities versus personality, though, I think he probably compartmentalizes things severely, perhaps doesn’t even relate “Leader Minho” to “Glader Minho,” which we see a bit in TST when Minho shrugs off the “leader” tattoo, insisting that Newt is the obvious leader of the Gladers. He knows that’s his identity, but doesn’t really think about it as himself.
In instances when he’s really in that leader personality, though, he loses the playful aspect. For example, in TDC, when he goes into a “stupor” before snapping out of it, and changes his usual sniping-all-the-time personality for a serious tone, where he’s ready to do whatever it takes to get WICKED out of Thomas’ head.
With all of this in mind, I think Minho could possibly have C-PTSD. I’m not a professional, so I don’t say anything with confidence, but considering what all of the Gladers have gone through, I don’t think it’s unrealistic that most of them have trauma and mental issues because of it, especially those assigned as leaders. This sets up an interesting premise for (what could’ve happened >:|) in the Safe Haven. They all decide to live in a forest, and as Thomas says, Minho takes charge while Thomas watches, not wanting responsibility. Out of all of the adults, Minho is the one to buckle down and get shit done (I’m absolutely being snippy, Dashner, what the hell), “his trademark smirk missing”. For now, that personality is needed, as they organize and form a life. How will that fare once they are settled? None of the Gladers are shown to talk about feelings or a lot of their inner thoughts, especially not Minho, so you know he’d try to bottle it all up and go through it alone.
But in peaceful times, the constant watchfulness and anxiety of his protective personality would build up, likely leading to outbursts over the smallest thing needed to tip him over the edge. Hopefully, then someone would realize that all of the survivors are struggling, and get them the help they need, and they could actually talk about their trauma instead of just kissing girls and moving on.
I’m not saying Minho has split personalities, because obviously people’s personalities shift with different situations, and yeah you could say I’m overanalyzing. What I’m saying is Dashner set up all of these complicated strings about the mental health of the Gladers and the implications of all they’ve gone through and then just. Didn’t deliver. Sent them all to paradise. Fast-forwarded 73 years. Gave them descendants. Killed them off-page. Festive times.
Anyway yeah TMR is filled with opportunities to explore mental health and its effects so I’m picking up the pen (keyboard?) where Dashner left it. Look forward to movie!Minho in the future.
i’ve taken a lot of things away from the maze runner books, as have most people. and most people take away that minho is a hot-headed sass machine (which he is), but the one thing about minho that’s really stuck in my head is that he’s insecure. at first it doesn’t doesn’t seem like it, he’s this tough guy who is the strongest and fastest of the gladers, keeper of the runners, like, that’s a big deal. but the moment he sees that thomas did better than him, didn’t run off and leave alby behind, faced a griever, all during his first time ever being in the maze, minho doubted himself. it wasn’t like in the movies where they worked together and minho just said thomas should be a runner. no, he legitimately no longer believed he was the best fit for keeper of the runners and told the others that thomas should be the new keeper. he saw that someone did better than him one (1) time and he immediately doubts himself and thinks that maybe he’s not as good as he and the others thought.
in the scorch trials, when they find their tattoos, minho’s says that he’s the leader. throughout the book he’s so fixated on being the leader. he’s the leader. no one else is the leader, it’s him, because it was meant to be. it’s tattooed on him for heavens sake. he has this feeling of purpose again and whenever someone questions that or tries to step up, he gets angry. minho lashes out and yells and fights because he doesn’t know how else to express how he’s feeling. he’s trying his hardest to believe in himself that when someone else doesn’t and starts questioning his direction of leadership, he starts feeling insecure again and covers it up with his sarcasm and hotheaded nature. then all of this happens just to find out that thomas was the real leader, since it was plastered all over the town, and i think seeing that really didn’t help minho believe in himself because, again, he thought he had a purpose and then got knocked down a peg by thomas.
HOWEVER: it’s really important for me to note that minho didn’t hate thomas for this. in the first book he saw the potential thomas had and stuck up for him. he wanted thomas to be the keeper, it was his idea. the other keepers were the ones who shut that down. and after finding out that thomas was the real leader, they didn’t have much time with him after that, thomas getting taken by wicked and then group b, and we don’t know what the other boys did but it’s safe to assume that minho was in charge when thomas wasn’t around. minho may have kept getting beaten out by thomas, but he still considered thomas a friend and would do anything to help him. he didn’t find thomas to be a threat. he didn’t have that typical ego check a lot of guys have in books/movies/whatever when another guy does better than them.
because of all of this, i think it’s really nice that when they make it to the safe haven/paradise in the very end, minho just,,, naturally takes over as the leader. these people trust him to lead and they’re in a position where leading isn’t going to be as stressful and painful as leading his friends through the scorch or running through the maze everyday. it’s a fresh start for everyone, but it’s definitely a fresh start for minho. for him to build on the self confidence he’s gained during the trilogy and flourish as a person. to get a handle on his temper. and i’m so proud of him for pushing through and continuing to do his best and help people despite the insecurities he might be facing on the inside.
okay so the supermarket at the last city advertises with 'Fresh Food'. How? Do they actually have fresh food? If most of the outside world is destroyed where are they growing food? Do they have chickens and cows, sheep etc for eggs, meat and dairy? Where would they live and feed?
Let's say it's outside of the Last City? How does WICKED prevent cranks from stealing/destroying farmland and farm animals?
How do they import those products? I can totally see the angry mob outside the city walls attacking any type of truck transporting food.
Is everything flown in by Bergs? How can they feed an entire city like that?
