54 pages • 1 hour read
James DashnerThe Kill Order
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Greater Good and the Value of Human Life
The novel’s fundamental ethical problem is that the PFC takes it upon itself to decide how to reduce the population in order to allow humanity to endure in a time of great crisis, and in doing so, places an unequal value on human life. In this, the PFC follows Utilitarianism’s greater good theory, proposed by 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill. The basis of the greater good theory is that an action’s benefit to society is weighed by whether it can provide the greatest positive outcome to the greatest number of people, i.e., whether it increases or decreases a society’s net happiness. This theory leads to ethically ambiguous scenarios, such as the famous theoretical example of a physician killing one healthy person to save the lives of five people who need organ donations. In that case, five is greater than one, so killing one healthy individual to save five sick ones benefits the greater good.
The PFC decides that the only way society as a whole can survive is be to remove certain communities of people to lessen the overall burden on the food supplies; the solar flares have left the earth scorched and unable to produce large quantities of food. Even though many people died as a result of the solar flares, a year after the incident, the PFC worries that there are still too many people and too little food. No industries exist to manufacture canned goods or other preserved foods; therefore survivors must live on what food sources already exists until the earth recovers.
The decision to participate in a controlled killing of part of society is complicated. It is clear that those in charge of the PFC thought that by removing part of the population in a controlled manner, they would be saving the majority of humanity. Their concern is that the human race will die out if the food resources are exhausted. They chose the Flare virus believing it would kill humanely and its spread would be limited.
The PFC decided that certain humans had to die in order to protect those who were more important to society. In this case, the concern is to protect those who are experienced in and capable of rebuilding society, including the members of the PFC. This kind of decision is common in capitalist societies where those on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrums are considered expendable. Using this logic, the PFC chose to exterminate small villages and settlements that were still struggling to become self-sufficient in the aftermath of the solar flares. Since they have few resources to begin with, the PFC reasons their absence will not negatively impact humanity’s efforts to rebuild and will benefit the rest of society by freeing up food for those who can help move society forward. Meanwhile, Mark and his group are peaceful, resourceful, and already looking for their own ways to ease the local population growth by breaking into smaller groups and consolidating their resources.
As the virus is released and begins to spread in unexpected ways, it impacts the infected in such a way that they begin acting out with violence and heightened emotion, making them appear to have lost their connection with reality. The PFC ignores these warning signs, and this leads to the continual spread of the virus. The PFC never considered the need for a cure because they did not expect the virus to infect those who were not part of the target population. When their experiment grows out of control, the PFC can no longer claim to be acting in the interest of the greater good. Now, the only action that remains for the greater good is finding a cure for the Flare. It is this situation that leads to the use of the Glade and the experiments that form the plots of the first three Maze Runner novels.
Dystopian Society in the Aftermath of a Natural Disaster
A dystopia is an imagined world characterized by suffering, injustice, and the rule of evil. Dystopias are a popular subject of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres, as they often stem from “what if” questions about our present society. Dystopian worlds in fiction often occur after a large-scale disaster that destroys an individual society or human society as a whole. In this novel, the large-scale disaster is the occurrence of solar flares that destroy substantial portions of Earth’s population and the natural disasters that follow. After the events, there is no government or other authority to protect citizens from lawlessness and need. As time goes on, a new government begins to form in Canada (the PFC), but most of the survivors in the Appalachian Mountains, where The Kill Order takes place, are left to their own devices. For the main characters of this novel, this means living in small communities with minimal resources.
Mark describes moments in the aftermath of the solar flares when he and his group run into people who use violence and weapons to take what they want rather than attempt to join the group and work for what they get. This behavior seems to have stopped by the time Mark and his friends find their settlement in North Carolina. The people work together to survive, living a mostly self-sustained life, with occasional supply deliveries from the PFC. Mark’s group is somewhat separate from the rest of the groups who live there, seeking out their own space, their own work, and a new place to begin an annexation of the settlement to ease the population growth.
The settlers in Mark’s area are living quietly and happily until the PFC arrives and decides they need to die to serve the greater good. Although the PFC’s intention is to reduce the strain on resources in a humane and controlled way, their methodology is flawed. The virus breaks down society once more, raining chaos on the population and sending the PFC scrambling to find a cure for a virus they released. Although the solar flares created the natural disaster that led to society’s destruction, the PFC’s unilateral decision changes the post-flare society into a full-blown dystopia, in which a powerful government dehumanizes its subjects into monsters of its own making. The fact that nearly all the protagonists of the novel die at the end shows the unsustainability of a society based on biomedical warfare. Deedee’s escape signifies hope for the future, but the dystopian world that reigns in the Maze Runner novels that are set 13 years later shows that the PFC’s actions have negative implications that may never be undone.
Survival and Found Kinship
Mark and Trina are average teenagers when the solar flares hit. Mark has a crush on Trina, and his biggest concern in life is figuring out how to tell her. When the solar flares hit, their world is completely destroyed, taking away the law and order that comes with living in a society and reducing them to survivors running from people who choose violence as a way to survive. As time passes, Mark and Trina join a group that has grown up around two US Army veterans, Alec and Lana. This group becomes as close as a family, and Alec and Lana serve as father and mother figures, respectively.
Surviving violence and trauma together strengthens the group’s bonds with one another even though they are only together for a short time. Mark and Trina survive many encounters of violence together, including on the very first day of the flares, when they meet a group of homeless men who threaten Trina. This pattern of violence continues when they meet a couple who uses guns to take supplies from Mark and Trina’s group. One of the members of the group dies in this attack, adding grief on top of fear. Yet, the group survives because they stick together, and they work well as a team. This theme continues through the novel as Mark and Alec work together to solve the mystery of the Berg attack and the virus.
The relationships that develop between Mark and the other members of his group are close enough that Mark is able to move past the grief of losing his biological family in the solar flare attack and focus on protecting himself and his newfound family. But the group suffers some losses when the Berg attack takes place, leading to more grief for people who are already grieving. However, the attack strengthens the relationships of those who remain because they understand what it means to survive. Mark’s motivation becomes focused both on making Alec proud and on saving Trina. Without these relationships, Mark might not have survived the ordeal of living through the total destruction of society. Not only that, but Mark plays an important role in the future of the PFC and the search for a cure by demonstrating an understanding of the importance of someone with an immunity and making sure Deedee arrives at PFC headquarters safely.
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