spoilers for books Legend and Prodigy by Marie Lu
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Sarah Bolton
(image from Amazon.com)
https://www.amazon.com/Prodigy-Marie-Lu/dp/0142427551
"'You'll do just fin on your Trials,' he says when I finish. 'You and Eden both. If I squeaked by, I know you'll pass with flying colors'" (prodigy page 53).
The above quote is said by John, the brother of Day, one of the two main PoVs of Legend and Prodigy. He is saying that Day is smart, much smarter than himself, and that he will pass the trials. The trials are a test that will determine the rest of your life. The higher scores give you a much richer life, and send you to high school, maybe even college. Lower scores will put you in the slums, a place where poor people are fighting everyday to survive, especially with the plague. Poor people don't get to go to high school. However, if you don't pass the trials, you die. Day's family is a poorer family. Also going on during this time is the war against the Colonies, who are trying to take over the Republic, and vice versa.
When Day took the trials, however, he didn't pass them at all, and was taken to the labor camps. However, by some miracle, they didn’t finish the job, and he escaped, with a ripple in his eye and a scar on his knee. He went on to become the country’s most notorious criminal, helping the poor and punishing the rich, though never through killing. June, the other main PoV of Legend and Prodigy, the only person to get 1500/1500 on their score, was sent to find Day after the death of her brother was blamed on him. She ended up capturing him, and he was sentenced to death.
When doing research on him, June looked at his trial. His score is marked down as 674/1500, but in reality, it’s 1500/1500. He, like June, had gotten his trial perfect. The Republic didn’t send him to die. They sent him to the lab, to try and take his genes to make super-soldiers. The Republic is also behind the plague, and the murder of June’s brother, to stop him from telling the world about the plague.
The irony behind this is that he certainly did pass, but he wasn’t treated like it. He was basically treated like all the people who failed. The Republic was too absorbed by its class system, and didn’t want the people who were worse off to realize that they could be successful, and that it wasn’t reserved for people born of high status. This, combined with the plague, shows that the Republic is a dystopian government far too devoted to war and their image of a perfect society.
You described the characters really well! I like how you portrayed Day before and after you tell us what his test scores actually were. Does June continue to try and catch Day, or does she break the rules?
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