Pain, savagery and war. These terms amply portray the tone of Lies; the third book in Michael Grant’s Gone series. The overall dominating theme of this book is that humans will do anything to survive when faced with a desperate situation. Grant clearly states this theme through characters, Zil Sperry, Caine Soren and Drake Merwin.
A chief example through which Grant communicates his theme that people will do anything to survive is Zil Sperry. In Lies, Zil recognizes that the mutants have a distinct advantage over the regular kids if food were to strain further than it already is, so he starts an anti-freak hate group named The Human Crew. Zil’s motto that he repeats incessantly is that “The freaks are taking all the food for themselves, they don’t care about us”. This proves that people will do anything to live by Zil’s willingness to kill any kids with powers.
Another profound illustration of Grant’s theme is main antagonist Caine Soren. Caine isn’t inherently evil, but he will do what needs to be done. In Lies, Caine takes control of the power plant, shutting off power to the entire FAYZ, saying that his reason for doing so was “To put us back on par with the town, they have more kids and weapons, this way, we’ll all be in the dark”. This proves the theme because Caine will plunge everyone into darkness just to be on equal footing with Perdido Beach.
Caine also proves the theme when he commits cannibalism. “They brought him a calf. A sign of respect he supposed. Caine didn’t want to, but he knew he had to”. This proves that humans will do anything to live because Caine literally eats another
