Character Analysis
The Face Of WICKED
In every good-guy-versus-bad-guy novel, there has to be a chief bad guy. In The Death Cure, that person is Janson—or as the Gladers like to call him, Rat Man.
Janson is the guy who appears in the dormitories back in Book Two to tell everyone about the Scorch Trials. Though we don't get to see much of him back in Book Two (or any of him back in Book One), "to Thomas, Janson had come to represent WICKED from top to bottom" (58.26). He's conniving and mysterious, spewing condescending phrases like, "I haven't lied about a thing" (7.55) on a constant basis.
For the most part, Janson's characterization is defined by his robotic way of stating WICKED's mission. Almost every time he sees Thomas, he tries to remind him of the mission that the kids are all striving to complete for WICKED. You know, it's about how WICKED is out to save mankind: "We are extremely close to completing our blueprint of the killzone. The things we need—to further refine what we have—will be better served by your full cooperation and unaltered minds. So congratulations" (5.3).
Pshh, yeah.
See, Janson's been giving the We're so close spiel ever since the Scorch Trials. You know the drill:
Oh, we're so close, we just need you to endure two weeks of hell. Oh, we're so close, we just need you to be locked inside a room for 26 days and not go crazy. Oh, we're so close, we just need you to sit down and put this odd looking contraption over your face. Oh, we're so close, we just need to cut your brain out. It won't hurt.
Ugh. As you can see, Janson really gets on the nerves of the Gladers.
At the end of the novel, Janson goes a bit berserk. Sure, the Gladers have made his job almost impossible, but then again, what did he expect? WICKED's crimes against them don't fly well with the kids, but Janson for some reason expects everything to go just swimmingly. When Thomas pushes him to the brink by refusing to give up his brain for "science," Janson says:
"I've never thought of myself as a violent man, but you and your friends sure have driven me to the brink. My patience is stretched to a minimum, but I'm going to show restraint. Unlike you, I think about more than myself. I'm working to save people, and I will finish this project." (65.1)
Right, the horribly violent man has never thought of himself as violent. Right. It's better to just think of Janson as the face of WICKED; he's pretty much straight-up evil.