The mystery that covers the organization WICKED makes it seem even more formidable than it already is. The book The Death Cure by James Dashner takes place in an apocalyptic world where a disease called the Flare is infecting millions of people. WICKED is an organization that claims to be working for the greater good of the people by attempting to find the cure for the Flare, often taking extreme measures. While Thomas, the protagonist, may doubt their true intentions, there is no doubt that WICKED is a formidable figure because of their advanced technology, their methods of manipulating the public and the mystery that surrounds them.
WICKED has a way of getting what they want from the people. They know exactly what each person would want and use that to their advantage to get what they want. For example, Thomas’ mother wishes for her son’s safety, not from the Flare but from the rest of the people. This is because he is one of the few who are immune to the disease and are hated for that. “[Immunes are] hated for their immunity to the terrible virus…People do terrible things to them” (Dashner 44). For this reason, WICKED knows that Thomas’ mother would want her son to be safe from the anger of the rest of the people.
“WICKED says they can protect Thomas, and Thomas can help them
work to find a cure. They say he’s smart—one of the smartest who have
been tested” (Dashner 44).
WICKED wants Thomas because he is immune and he can help them find the cure to the Flare. In order to get Thomas from his mother, they offer her exactly what she wants: Thomas’ safety. They also seem as if they are providing hope for Thomas’ mother, who is not immune to the Flare, by saying that Thomas can help them find a cure, as if implying that if she gives up Thomas to WICKED, his mother ensures that at least some people are saved from death by the Flare. WICKED also seems to try and flatter Thomas’ mother by saying that he is one of the smartest they have tested, and at the same time is providing additional hope that Thomas can help them find a cure. It is unknown if his mother is really fooled by this, but it is clear that WICKED has used all of the possible tactics in order to convince his mother.
WICKED also uses advanced technology as well as manipulation in order to help achieve what they want. A main piece of technology that WICKED uses is a piece of technology inserted into the brain of all of their test subjects, including Thomas’. The piece of technology not only lets them track their brain activity to find out about their cure, it also allows them to erase memories(the Swipe), track the test subjects and even control them if necessary. For example, Thomas is controlled by WICKED in attempt to stop Thomas and his friends form getting help from a man who ran away from WICKED who can potentially disable the piece of technology in their brains:
“Thomas fought desperately against it…But something foreign had
taken over his body. ‘Thomas, they’ve got you!’ Brenda yelled.
‘Fight it!’…Again the words were forced from Thomas’s mouth.
‘I can’t…let you…do this!’…It was like his brain had been programmed
with that one sentence and he couldn’t say anything else” (Dashner 129).
The amount of control WICKED has over Thomas’ body even when WICKED is nowhere near Thomas shows just how powerful they can be as well as how advanced their technology is.
Throughout the story, WICKED is surrounded by mysteries and it is never quite clear what their true motive actually is. Although their motive seems to be finding the cure to the Flare, each member of WICKED has very different opinions on how they should do things. For example, Janson, or the Rat Man as Thomas calls him, believes that they should sacrifice people in order to find the cure and even tried to “donate” Thomas’ brain to science because he believed if they did, they would find the cure. He was even willing to repeat the whole trials again with new test subjects to find it. However, Chancellor Paige, the leader of WICKED, had already predicted that the trials would fail. She came up with an alternate solution if the plan was to fail, and in the end was required to put that plan into action. Her plan was to take all the Immunes far away from civilization and have the Immunes start anew. In this way, she made a way for at least a portion of the human race to survive, instead of killing them all in what seemed like a hopeless experiment. However, we only learn about Chancellor Paige’s plan until the epilogue at the end of the book, and we know little about Chancellor Paige throughout the whole story until the end. These mixed signals and confusion create an element of mystery to WICKED, which makes it seem formidable both to the reader and to Thomas.
Power is not a matter of just physical strength but of how you choose to use that strength. Even if you have the most powerful weapon in the world, you cannot hope to win a battle without knowing how to use it as well as the best way to use it to benefit you the most. Although WICKED has mixed opinions on how they should carry out their cause, each group utilizes the tools they have to best benefit them. They use the public to get the test subjects they need and create advanced technology to help them. However, maybe it is not their brutal power over the public and their weaponry that makes them formidable but the fact that you know very little about WICKED. The next worst thing to being overpowered by your enemy is to not know a thing about your enemy.
