The Maze Runner Is "WCKD" Good

Confessions of a Hopeless Reader

 by Eric Power

I'm a big reader. Okay okay, I'll confess; I'm a pitiful nerd-level reader. I'm the guy who laughs at all the book memes on the internet, fanatically follows pages like Grammarly on Facebook, and has the Goodreads app on my phone, looking for the next good book to bury myself into. I'm also just a tad wee bit of a spelling Nazi, but hey, we all have our quirks, right?

Early Beginnings

I started early, cutting my teeth on Dr. Seuss and Sesame Street books with Grover (the monster at the end of his book "scared" me every time) , then working my way up through classics like Peter Pan and Robinson Crusoe. I spent my 2nd-grade reading challenge plowing my way through 100 biographies written especially for children about the iconic giants in American history, such as Ben Franklin, Davy Crockett, and George Washington. Sure, it wouldn't be a big stretch to imagine that my social life was...lacking, even at the tender age of 7.

Of course, merely reading classics and biographies do not a well rounded person make!  I entered my teen years with a raging fascination for the dark side of humanity, which was satisfied with a fairly one-sided diet of young adult murder mysteries and horror novels from

Christopher Pike, Lois Duncan, and Jay Bennett. Eventually, I graduated to more adult fare from Stephen King and Dean Koontz, along with a grand obsession for the Mack Bolan/Executioner men's adventure series, but I always kept a lingering interest in the teen novels from my adolescence. I'd pick up the new ones from time to time, and marvel at how they still managed to capture my attention. The latest trend of dystopian/apocalyptic teen thrillers has really piqued my interest. A fair number of them, such as the Hunger Games and the Divergent Series, are extremely well-crafted, and the ideas that they've imagined are far beyond the sophistication of the novels that I'd read in my teen days. 

Yeah yeah, I know...I'm long-winded. "What's the point, Eric?? Something in the title about The Maze Runner...?!?"  Well I'm getting there, I'm getting there! It's the journey, not necessarily the destination that's enjoyable right?  Alrighty then. 

On With The Program...

My stepson Markis celebrated his 24th birthday recently (along with his twin brother Josh who lives semi-independently with his grandparents at this time and was not with us for his birthday). Mark and I went to see The Maze Runner, based on the young adult novel by James Dashner.  This is the first of four books in the Maze Runner series;  ironically, for all my blathering ad nauseum about reading, I've yet to read this one. :)  I've heard such fantastic reviews of it, however, that I wanted to see this movie before reading the book. 

So...the story in a nutshell. Boy wakes up on an elevator, heading upward; no memory of anything before that moment, save for (eventually) his name: Thomas.  He reaches the elevator's destination -- "the Glade", a wooded field that is surrounded by The Maze. For three years, the Glade has been inhabited by a growing number of teenage boys who receive supplies with each new arrival once a month. Beyond that, their survival is up to them. They farm, hunt, and explore the Maze with "runners", specially selected members who memorize the maze in an effort to find an exit. Thomas comes in and quickly changes the status quo, to some boys' excitement; to others, he's a danger to the establishment. 

In a word, this film was thrilling. From beginning to end, the tension was palpable and raw. The scenes in the Maze were gripping and visceral. It, on the surface, was a pulse-pounding adventure through and through. But there was a deeper, more profound layer to the story as well.  

Deeper Meaning

When you peel back the layers of this allegory, you can see a multitude of parallels to our present day America. The amnesia they suffer is similar to the dumbing down of Americans that's been happening for the last 40 years or longer. You can find plenty of "on-the-street" interviews on YouTube which chillingly demonstrate how we don't even know where we came from 100 years ago, let alone 238 years ago. When you separate a people from the memory of their past, especially a past marked by rugged individualism and independence, it becomes much easier to control them. 

There's the grudging acceptance of their situation from their captors; much like our acceptance of the government leaders in Congress and the White House that we've inexplicably tolerated for the last 100 or so years. Even though Congress has an absolutely abysmal satisfaction ratings these days, (plummeting through the teens into the single digits, just slightly above Ebola), we generally keep voting these repeat offenders in time and time again. 

There are those within the captives who seem to help maintain the status quo, content in their prison. Al Sharpton, anyone?? Without spoiling the movie, I really can't say much more. Suffice to say, there are more than a few surprises. 

As I said, Thomas  is a challenger to the established rules of the Glade.  Generally, people don't like challengers to their routine. Even when the routine may be killing them. The normalcy bias, which keeps people from accepting that a situation has changed for the worse and may require a Plan B, is seductively powerful. Many on the Titanic held on to their normalcy bias

What's the problem here?  Everything is fine!

until it was too late. Some who perished in the WTC collapse were reported by co-workers as having gone back to their cubicles to shut down their computer, save a file, or grab their personal belongings. Since their brain could not switch from normal to crisis mode enough to say, "hey maaaaybe I should forget about this meaningless crap and just get the freak outta here!", they were unwilling or unable to comprehend the dire circumstances that lay ahead.  Those vital few minutes lost might have been enough to save their lives.

Some of the long-term residents would rather die in captivity than attempt to escape. In life, there's usually only about 10% of a population who will buck the trend, shake things up, or learn the truth and spread the message, even at risk to their lives. The majority tend to, if not outright support the status quo, just go with the flow of society. Many of the Germans in Nazi Germany just didn't want to rock the boat; they just rolled with it. But there were a brave few who went against the grain, usually at a cost of their own lives. Sophie Scholl,  a college student who, with her brother Hans, co-founded the White Rose, a non-violent resistance group that distributed anti-Nazi literature; she was executed by guillotine at the age of 21. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who spoke

out against Hitler in vehement opposition to his extermination of the Jews; he was arrested and spent two years in a prison and a concentration camp before being executed by hanging, a mere two weeks before the camp was liberated by Allied forces. These two heroes knew what they believed because while questioning the powers-that-be, they studied and researched, challenging their own beliefs and making sure that they knew what they believed to be true. And they spoke out, the hardest step for many of us.  Question with boldness, hold to the truth, and speak without fear. It's the method I follow in my own life.   

To Be Continued!

The movie ended with a cliffhanger (of course), bringing to mind many more new questions than ones that were answered. I look forward to the next installment, The Scorch Trials, when it comes out. In the meantime, that should give me just enough time to read the book series. ;) Thanks for reading, and God Bless.