The Death Cure

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011

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Character Analysis

Thomas

The novel’s main character demonstrates the most growth in the novel. In fact, few other characters are developed at all. Thomas’s growth includes the after effects of events in previous novels as well as the events occurring in this novel. At the start of the novel, Thomas is overwhelmed with rage. Not only is he mad at WICKED, but he is mad at Teresa. He views Teresa as someone negative who has perpetuated all the bad things that have happened over the past events. His bond with her is broken, he can no longer speak to her telepathically, and he appears to be unconcerned by this.

His apparent indifference is furthered not only when he pulls away from her when they are reunited, but also when he chooses not to get his memories back, which she wants him to do. Thomas deliberately separates himself from Teresa. His trust issues extend farther than WICKED and Teresa: he distrusts his entire situation as well as almost every individual around him. Thomas effectively becomes a solo player, although he is with people the entire novel. He is more interested in helping himself or doing what he wants to do (for example, watching the infected man get accosted by a guard in the café).

Janson calls Thomas out near the end of the novel as someone who thinks only of himself. It is true that throughout the novel, Thomas calls the shots. He also forgets to read the letter given to him by one of his best friends until it is almost too late. It is not until Thomas kills Newt that Thomas’s actions change and his focus shifts. He walks into WICKED and wonders whether he wants his friends to save him when he may be able to save so many more with a cure. After Newt dies, Thomas is able to think of others and successfully leads the immune out of the crumbling compound and into the lush forest.

Minho

As stated above, other characters do not develop as much as Thomas does, but Minho represents a kind of glue to the group dynamic. He is ruthless; he has a will to live that drives him to fight for his life. Minho is more quickly hurt by Newt’s illness than Thomas is. In the WICKED compound, they fight, and Minho appears to become angrier than he usually is. When the group goes in search of Newt, Minho begins to withdraw. He expresses to Thomas that he is worried about the state in which they will find their friend.

After they leave Newt behind, Minho regains his fire. It is Minho who drives the story forward by attacking the Right Arm guards and interrogating them with their own gun, shooting one man’s toe off. He is no longer fine with merely doing as he is told; he becomes a leader. As a leader, he falls perfectly into the role Chancellor Paige wanted for him, leading the immunes in building a new society.

Newt

Newt epitomizes the line between being considered human and being considered something less than human. The world views anyone with the Flare as not worthy of care or respect. The Flare places people within a category where they are considered wild or animalistic. Newt himself struggles with his identity as soon as he finds out that he is not immune and likely has the Flare. Readers first see Newt trying to come to terms with his reality in the WICKED compound. His fight with Minho sets off a chain of events that culminates in his letter to Thomas, a carefully considered decision that he trusts Thomas to accomplish. He does not want to descend into madness and therefore into an inhuman form; he would rather die.

Newt is an important character in the events of the novel. It is his refusal to return with his friends that shifts Minho’s attitude, and it is his insistence that Thomas kill him that shifts Thomas from having a self-centered outlook to taking wider view of others. Newt’s will to live, which in his eyes, and the eyes of others in the novel, includes feeling human, leads him to ask for his own death. He wishes to live in the memories of his friends as a positive, human influence on their lives, not as a crazed Crank.

Brenda

By the end of the novel, it is apparent that Brenda is as much a driver of the plot as WICKED was in each of the previous novels. Not only does she break through Thomas’s trust issues (he clearly trusts her by the end of the novel), but she still works for WICKED despite her insistence that she worked for the organization only because her survival depended on it. Chancellor Paige is another branch of WICKED, but it is WICKED nonetheless, and Brenda is part of that. She sets up and guides Thomas to agree with her at almost every step of the way through the novel. Both Brenda and Chancellor Paige are the architects of the climax (and may even have been involved in the Right Arm’s actions in some way). Without Brenda, the end of the novel may not have come to pass in the same way that it did.