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it's so funny that they put them in a calm place surrounded by an evil death maze puzzle hoping they'd solve it and then the boys got comfy and made a society instead. because their memories were taken away.

“How much can the movies deviate” you have no idea the can of worms you’ve opened.

Dude she's pre reading the books by just the title 😭

The Maze Runner is kinda like if Snow thought the 74th hunger games was going on too long and people werent dying, so he gave katniss a gun

The effort Dashner went to to get the acronym W.I.C.K.E.D. just so he could have the phrase "Wicked is good" in the book as this cryptic message.

Maze Runner was the last dying breath of that overwhelming YA book to movie pipeline that was just churning out whatever license they could acquire from 2008 until 2014.

the fact that accurately predicted some of the things about the franchise before actually reading it first excited the hell out of me LOL

Honestly, if the maze was made a larger concept/theme in the book, James Dashner could’ve gone down the horror route of megastructures and existential horror along with the Biopunk/Tech-noir. The concept is quite interesting!

This series lost me when Thomas the supposed genius couldn't figure out to stack the maps on top of each other for like 100 pages when that was literally my first idea at age 15 lmao

Maze runner but it's about a guy smuggling illegal corn

Honestly, this is a pattern with Dashner, where he has really cool concepts that he wants to play with, but then he ends up borking the execution. It happens with his 13th Reality series as well.

Damn, the concept of a maze that changes on a monthly cycle is sick as hell, ngl some of these concepts were cooking

There is an explanation for why it's teenagers in the second book, but I 100% agree that it was put in as a justification rather than it being an explanation he had come up with from the beginning. I'm really glad you had fun with it. I haven't read it since I was 12, so I was worried that it wouldn't hold up. I think the changes made for the movie will make more sense once you've read the rest of the books

What's hilarious about you conceptualizing how Dasher thought through (or didn't lol) the story is that you're low-key actually like 100% correct. At least, the very first part for sure. I met the author and he said he first imagined a boy in the Glade and wanted to know why this boy was in this maze 😂

I think what makes Newt such a beloved character to the readers AND the characters in universe is the pseudo-parental role he takes on (more obvious in the movies) combined with the fact that, while he is mean, he’s somewhat less mean than the other boys

I really found the pushing by the neck thing to be super scary when I read the bnook, because it makes it so 1) there's more than one person responsible to give this death sentence, 2) you're obligated to LOOK at this guy as he's pleading for his life and 3) the drama of when the doors finally close and you can't hear the dude anymore. Idk I found it to be super eerie when I read it at the time (I was 15)

Newt, my beloved

The stick method is very distracting, but when you think it's a bunch of boys it's an idea that fits the group of people who would think of it. Fits context over atmosphere

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