Thomas

Thomas is the young man the rest of the trilogy depends on. When he arrives in the Glade he is about 16, knows nothing about himself and already seems different from the others: he asks questions, refuses ready-made answers and grows restless before a maze everyone treats as an enemy. Dylan O'Brien plays him as instinctive, acting before thinking and still usually getting it right. Stubbornness is his greatest strength and his biggest flaw. It gets him into trouble, but also leads him to discoveries nobody had made. The whole story turns on what Thomas forgets and on what he is still going to remember.

Thomas arrives in the Glade in a lift, memory wiped, and everything there bothers him: the rules, the maze, the doors that close at night. He asks too many questions and wants to be a Runner, which nobody manages without training. When a friend is trapped among the walls, Thomas enters the maze at night, breaking the Glade's oldest rule. Surviving the Grievers earns him Minho's respect and the group's. With Teresa's help he pieces together the maze's pattern and leads the escape. He gets out, but life outside is far from simple.

Outside the maze, Thomas and the Gladers reach a shelter that seems safe. Thomas distrusts Mr. Janson and, with Aris, investigates the place. He finds that WCKD still runs everything and that Ava Paige is alive. The group flees into the Scorch, a desert full of Cranks, and meets Brenda and Jorge on the way. Thomas learns that Teresa has switched to WCKD's side. Hurt by the betrayal, he decides he is done running: he wants to bring the organization down and rescue those taken.

At the trilogy's end, Thomas disobeys Vince and goes after Minho, held in the Last City. With Newt, Frypan, Brenda and Jorge, he crosses Crank-infested land to the wall. Inside the city he finds Teresa again and learns his blood may hold the key to the cure. Newt is sick, and Thomas fights to save him. The search for Minho becomes a showdown with Ava Paige and with everything WCKD did to him and his friends.

Thomas is the lead of all three James Dashner novels: The Maze Runner (2009), The Scorch Trials (2010) and The Death Cure (2011). In the books he communicates with Teresa by telepathy. That trait doesn't appear in the films. The prequel The Fever Code shows his arrival at WICKED.