The 5th Wave

“Aliens are stupid.

I’m not talking about real aliens. The Others aren’t stupid. The Others are so far ahead of us, it’s like comparing the dumbest human to the smartest dog. No contest.

No, I’m talking about the aliens inside our heads.”

Cassie begins her story by comparing the Others, aliens that have invaded Earth, to the aliens that Hollywood and other creators have made up as a form of entertainment. This comparison explains what people expected to happen when an alien spacecraft suddenly appeared over the Earth without explanation. Even Cassie’s father had reason to believe the aliens would be friendly and not want to harm humans. This belief continues even when the first and second waves arrive because humans naturally want to cling to hope, a fact that is explored in the theme Hope and Manipulation.

“The first rule of surviving the 4th Wave is don’t trust anyone. It doesn’t matter what they look like. The Others are very smart about that—okay, they’re smart about everything. It doesn’t matter if they look the right way and say the right things and act exactly like you expect them to act. Didn’t my father’s death prove that? Even if the stranger is a little old lady sweeter than your great-aunt Tilly, hugging a helpless kitten, you can’t know for certain—you can never know—that she isn’t one of them, and that there isn’t a loaded .45 behind that kitten.”

There have been three waves of attacks since the Arrival of the Others. Cassie recognizes the fourth wave as an inability to trust the human survivors of the previous waves. She knows that some humans are either infected by Others or have become loyal to them, therefore she cannot trust a human on sight. This distrust makes it impossible for her to seek companionship or feel comfortable going to one of the many survivors’ camps that have cropped up near her. It also foreshadows Evan saving Cassie’s life and her questioning his true identity.

“We thought they had thrown everything at us—or at least the worst, because it was hard to imagine anything worse than the Red Death. Those of us who survived the 3rd Wave—the ones with a natural immunity to the disease—hunkered down and stocked up and waited for the People in Charge to tell us what to do. We knew somebody had to be in charge, because occasionally a fighter jet would scream across the sky and we heard what sounded like gun battles in the distance and the rumble of troop carriers over the horizon.”

The theme of manipulation of hope continues here. Cassie talks about the first three waves of attacks perpetrated by the Others on humankind. First, humans lost all power and electronics, then natural disasters forced survivors into a smaller area inland, and finally, disease killed millions of people. However, the people continue to trust the government and hope that the military will come to their rescue. They also hope that the worst is behind them, unaware that the worst is still coming.

“All except two, I thought. I looked at Dad. He didn’t move a muscle, except the ones around his eyes. Flick to the right, flick to the left. No.

There was only one reason I could think of that he’d do that. And when I think about it, if I think too much about it, I start to hate my father. Hate him for distrusting his own instincts. Hate him for ignoring the little voice that must have been whispering, This is wrong. Something about this is wrong.

I hate him right now. If he were here right now, I’d punch him in the face for being such an ignorant dweeb.”

Cassie writes in her diary about the day she saw her father murdered by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vosch. In hindsight, she realizes her father knew something was wrong—but he didn’t do anything to stop it other than ensure she was armed, almost as if he were resigned to his fate (which explores the theme of the Futility of Action). Cassie’s father found himself in a position of danger, but knew no matter what he did, it would likely put Cassie in even more danger. He does all he can to protect her while giving up on himself, leading to Cassie’s feelings of hatred toward him. It is her grief that causes her to hate (which explores the theme of Loss is Universal).

“First kiss. Her name is Lacey. My ninth-grade algebra teacher and her horrible handwriting. Getting my driver’s license. Everything there, no blank spaces, all of it pouring out of me while I’m pouring it into Wonderland.

All of it.”

Ben Parish is hooked up to the Wonderland program within hours of recovering from the plague that has killed millions (the third wave). He is told the program is something the aliens left behind (when the human soldiers were forced off the Wright-Patterson Airforce base after a brief battle) and sees no reason to doubt it at the moment. He later learns that it is used to help those in charge see a person’s strengths and weaknesses. The Others manipulate the human desire to hope to control their captives’ beliefs and actions. Ben has no reason to doubt the use of the program until he has definitive proof that those in charge are actually Others.

“He had been finishing humans since the advent of the plague. For four years now, since he was fourteen, when he awakened inside the human body chosen for him, he had known what he was. Finisher. Hunter. Assassin. The name didn’t matter. Cassie’s name for him, Silencer, was as good as any. It described his purpose: to snuff out the human noise.

But he didn’t that night. Or the nights that followed. And each night, creeping a little closer to the tent, inching his way over the woodland blanket of decaying leaves and moist loamy soil until his shadow rose in the narrow opening of the tent and fell over her, and the tent was filled with her smell, and there would be the sleeping girl clutching the teddy bear and the hunter holding his gun, one dreaming of the life that was taken from her, the other thinking of the life he’d take. The girl sleeping and the finisher, willing himself to finish her.

Why didn’t he finish her?

Why couldn’t he finish her?”

The Silencer (the Other in Evan’s body) watches Cassie hide under a car after he shoots her in the leg. He has been watching her for weeks, sneaking into her tent and reading her diary. It seems as though the Silencer understands what he is supposed to be and do in the Others’ war, but he has also become impressed by Cassie. The Silencer deviates from his duty when it comes to her but does not understand why. He is not human, but parts of his humanity remain because of the body he occupies. This doubt foreshadows the burgeoning relationship between him and Cassie—a connection with the potential to change the tide of war.

“That’s my big problem. That’s it! Before the Arrival, guys like Evan Walker never looked twice at me, much less shot wild game for me and washed my hair. They never grabbed me by the back of the neck like the airbrushed model on his mother’s paperback, abs a-clenching, pecs a-popping. My eyes have never been looked deeply into, or my chin raised to bring my lips within an inch of theirs. I was the girl in the background, the just-friend, or—worse—the friend of a just-friend, the you-sit-next-to-her-in-geometry-but-can’t-remember-her-name girl. It would have been better if some middle-aged collector of Star Wars action figures had found me in that snowbank.”

Cassie finds her rescuer Evan Walker odd but can’t place why he is so odd. He changes the subject whenever she tries to talk about his family or past. He had a girlfriend before the third wave but doesn’t talk about her either. Though grateful, Cassie begins to distrust Evan, leading to a moment later in the story when she learns something about him that changes everything. This quote is one way she attempts to explain away her distrust.

“‘I’m very sorry to say you have seen one,’ Dr. Pam says in a soft, sad voice. ‘We all have. We’ve been waiting for them to come since the Arrival, but the truth is they’ve been here, right under our noses, for a very long time.’

He is shaking his head over and over. Dr. Pam is wrong. He’s never seen one. For hours he listened to Daddy speculating about what they might look like. Heard his father say they might never know what they look like. There had been no messages from them, no landers, no signs of their existence except the grayish-green mothership in high orbit and the unmanned drones. How could Dr. Pam be saying he had seen one?”

When Sammy arrives at Wright-Patterson, he goes through the same process as Ben. He is given an implant and hooked to the Wonderland program. To manipulate him, Dr. Pam tells him that the Others are inside other humans. She takes Sammy to see an Other, the same way she took Ben to his “infected” tent mate Chris. Dr. Pam manipulates Sammy with a partial truth to convince him that the enemy can be identified despite appearing human, foreshadowing the training of child soldiers as the fifth wave.

“The only one unaffected by Tank’s meltdown is Teacup, the seven-year-old. She’s sitting on her bunk staring stoically at him, like every night Tank falls onto the floor and screams as if he’s being murdered.

And it hits me: This is murder, what they’re doing to us. A very slow, very cruel murder, killing us from our souls outward, and I remember the commander’s words: It isn’t about destroying our capability to fight so much as crushing our will to fight.”

Ben witnesses teammate Tank have a mental breakdown and sees it as the Others manipulating the human survivors to lose themselves. Seven-year-old Teacup is training to kill, and it is causing her to shut down. Ben himself is so overwhelmed with guilt that he puts his own future at risk in order to protect a child the same age as the sister he lost. He recognizes that the Others are using psychological warfare as well as traditional warfare, even though he is not yet aware of who the Others truly are at this point.

“I was wrong about Ben Parish dying on the day he left the convalescent ward. I’ve been carrying his stinking corpse inside me all through basic. Now the last of him is burned away as I stare up at the solitary figure who lit that fire. The man who showed me the true battlefield. Who emptied me so I might be filled. Who killed me so I might live. And I swear I can see him staring back at me with those icy blue eyes that see down to the bottom of my soul, and I know—I know—what he's thinking.

We are one, you and I. Brothers in hate, brothers in cunning, brothers in the spirit of vengeance.”

Ben Parish, or Zombie, is graduating from basic training as a 17-year-old boy. He recognizes that he is no longer the person he was when he first arrived at Wright-Patterson, and that boot camp instructor Reznik is the biggest reason for this. This moment shows Ben’s growth, but it also shows his blind trust in leadership at Wright-Patterson—including Reznik, who made his life difficult for the past few weeks and later proves untrustworthy.

“‘I had it all wrong,’ he says. ‘Before I found you, I thought the only way to hold on was to find something to live for. It isn’t. To hold on, you have to find something you’re willing to die for.’”

As Cassie once again begins to doubt Evan, he comes to her with a charming explanation of why he does not want her to go after her brother. It seems Evan always has a good reason why she shouldn’t go to Wright-Patterson, almost like he knows something she doesn’t. Cassie often allows him to talk her out of doubting him, as she still feels somewhat inferior to him in terms of looks and compatibility. This moment of doubt is one of many and will continue to grow.

“WE ARE HUMANITY.

It’s a lie. Wonderland. Camp Haven. The war itself.

How easy it was. How incredibly easy, even after all that we’d been through. Or maybe it was easy because of all we’d been through.

They gathered us in. They emptied us out. They filled us up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance.

So they could send us out again.

And kill what’s left of the rest of us.

Check and mate.”

After arguing with Ringer and trying to avoid the reality of what is beginning to become obvious, Ben finally sees through the Others’ manipulation. He had some idea of this when he saw how the war was killing survivors from their souls out—but he did not know the depth of manipulation until he removes Ringer’s implant. He finally sees the truth and must figure out what to do to keep him and his squad safe.

“Flintstone jumps forward and snatches the device from my hand. I might have gotten to him in time, but Teacup’s in my lap and it slows me down. All that happens before he hits the button is my shout of ‘No!’

Flintstone’s head snaps back violently as if someone has smacked him hard in the forehead. His mouth flies open, his eyes roll toward the ceiling.

Then he drops, straight down and loose-limbed, like a puppet whose strings have lost their tension.”

Flintstone has not been happy with Zombie’s (Ben’s) leadership since he was made squad leader, always questioning his orders and actions. When Zombie returns to tell the squad that Reznik was the sniper, Flintstone refuses to accept what this implies. He takes the device that was in Reznik’s possession and presses his own kill switch, despite Zombie’s warning. Flintstone’s death is brought on by his own arrogance and ignorance; this moment confirms that using a kill switch corresponding to a person’s implant can instantly kill them, something that will happen again later.

“I don’t know what he is. He says he’s human, and he looks like a human, talks like a human, bleeds like a human and, okay, kisses like a human. And a rose by any other name, blah, blah, blah. He says the right things, too, like the reason he was sniping people is the same reason I shot the Crucifix Soldier.

The problem is, I don’t buy it. And now I can’t decide which is better, a dead Evan or a live Evan. Dead Evan can’t help me keep my promise. Live Evan can.”

Cassie has suspected for a long time that something is wrong with Evan and finally figures out that he’s the Silencer who shot her, something he himself has admitted to. Now, Cassie must decide what to do. She has been taught not to trust the Others in her experience at Camp Ashpit. However, she also knows that walking into Wright-Patterson by herself to save Sammy will likely go badly. This moment has long been foreshadowed, but Cassie has changed since the death of her father. Before this moment, she likely would have killed Evan without thinking about it, but they have since developed a relationship. At the same time, she has a promise to keep and Evan is her best chance of doing so.

“‘It’s hopeless. And it’s stupid. It’s suicidal. But love is a weapon they have no answer for. They know how you think, but they can’t know how you feel.’

Not we. They.

A threshold has been crossed, and he isn’t stupid. He knows it’s the kind you can’t cross back over.”

Evan tells Cassie that the Others cannot possibly understand the emotions that dictate human actions, something he himself has discovered by allowing more of his human side to remain intact. This statement not only shows that he has chosen sides, but that the Others have a weakness that can be exploited as the trilogy continues. This also opens up the possibility that Evan might not be the only Other to change sides as the story continues in the next two books.

“A point will come when the cover isn’t sustainable. When that happens, they’ll shut down the base—or the part of the base that’s expendable.

Oh boy. Vosch is going all Ashpit on Camp Haven.

And the minute that realization hits me, the siren goes off.”

Evan has warned Cassie that Vosch will likely destroy Wright-Patterson should he feel it has been compromised. The time has come, and Cassie witnesses Vosch’s soldiers preparing the bombs that will destroy the surface building of the base. This moment increases the tension of her situation and makes her escape from the base even more perilous.

“So when the elevator doors slide open to the main lobby, I make a silent promise to Nugget, the promise I didn’t make to my sister, whose locket he wears around his neck.

If anyone comes between you and me, they’re dead.”

From the moment he arrives at Wright-Patterson, Zombie (Ben) has struggled with guilt over abandoning his family the night his father was killed. This guilt led to Zombie befriending Nugget (Sammy) and taking care of him—and has brought him back to the base to save Nugget after learning the truth about their leadership. Now, Zombie deepens his commitment to saving Nugget by promising to kill anyone who stops him, leading to him potentially killing Cassie when he finds her with the boy. This again shows growth in Zombie and mirrors Evan’s promise to die for Cassie.

“I pull out the battered teddy bear and hold it toward him. He frowns and shakes his head and doesn’t reach for it, and I feel like he’s punched me in the gut.

Then my baby brother slaps that damned bear out of my hand and crushes his face against my chest, and beneath the odors of sweat and strong soap I can smell it, his smell, Sammy’s, my brother’s.”

Throughout the novel, Cassie has stubbornly carried Sammy’s teddy bear with her, determined to return it to her brother as requested. The teddy bear has become a symbol of Cassie’s commitment to her brother, but also of loneliness and companionship alike. However, when she finally presents the bear to Sammy, he refuses it. It turns out, all he wanted was to see his sister again.

“Only he’s not alone. There’s someone with him, a recruit around Dumbo’s age in a baggy uniform and a cap pulled down low, the brim just above his eyes, carrying an M16 with some kind of metal pipe attached to its barrel.

No time to think it through. Because faking my way through this one will take too much time and rely too much on luck, and it isn’t about luck anymore. It’s about being hardcore.

Because this is the last war, and only the hardcore will survive it.”

Zombie (Ben) makes the quick decision to shoot whoever is walking with Nugget (Sammy) because he doesn’t have the time or wish to put his mission at risk. He believes he has made too many mistakes in the past and refuses to allow anything to happen to Nugget. He does not know the person with Nugget is Cassie, or that she is attempting the same rescue as him. This moment was foreshadowed in an earlier chapter, and it once again increases tension as Cassie faces a new danger—in her crush, no less.

“Ben is shuffling along the maze of corridors like an actual zombie. The face of the Ben I remember is still there, but it’s faded…or maybe not faded, but congealed into a leaner, sharper, harder version of his old face. Like someone cut away the parts that weren’t absolutely necessary for Ben to maintain his Ben essence.”

Cassie admitted to having a crush on Ben Parish at the beginning of the novel, even using her feelings for him to make her appear more “worldly” to Evan Walker. However, she can see that he has been changed by his experiences, something she has noticed in her own reflection as well. Not only have these two changed emotionally and mentally, but physically (in accordance with their trauma).

“‘He—or they—would be someone more like…well, me. Someone who would know how to defeat the Wonderland program by hiding your true memories, the same method we have used for centuries to hide ourselves from you.’

I’m shaking my head. I have no idea what he’s talking about. True memories?

‘Birds are the most common,’ Vosch says. He’s absently running his finger over the button marked EXECUTE. ‘Owls. During the initial phase, when we were inserting ourselves into you, we often used the screen memory of an owl to hide the fact from the expectant mother.”

Vosch not only admits that he is one of the Others but explains the use of the owl in the Prologue. The Others are able to mask their true memories, a fact that Cassie does not understand but will prove important in the next novel of the trilogy. At the same time, Vosch explains his people’s methods and offers another element that can be used against them.

“There’s a flaw in Vosch’s master plan: If you don’t kill all of us at once, those who remain will not be weak.

It’s the strong who remain, the bent but unbroken, like the iron rods that used to give this concrete its strength.

Floods, fires, earthquakes, disease, starvation, betrayal, isolation, murder.

What doesn’t kill us sharpens us. Hardens us. Schools us.

You’re beating plowshares into swords, Vosch. You are remaking us.

We are the clay, and you are Michelangelo.

And we will be your masterpiece.”

As Cassie prepares to get herself, Ben, and Sammy off the base, she comes to the conclusion that Vosch has made a mistake in underestimating humankind. Vosch once called Ben weak, and the latter has done nothing but attempt to prove the former wrong since. Cassie’s feelings of defeat have passed, and she has grown stronger in her desire to live. She is fighting because she is strong, and she only grows stronger with each human she finds alive and fighting too. This hopeful change in attitude may very well see to humankind’s survival against the Others.

“Before us the ground seems to stretch to infinity. Behind us, it’s being sucked into a black hole, and the hole chases us as it expands, devouring everything in its path. One slip and we’ll be sucked in, our bodies ground into microscopic pieces.”

Evan told Cassie to run as soon as the base plane takes off—and now, she knows why. He has blown up an important part of the underground bunker and the place is imploding, bringing the surface spaces down with it. Cassie, Ben, and Sammy are running, but it soon becomes obvious that without help, they might not survive—once again raising tension.