Am I To Believe This Is Homie Behavior?

Am I to believe this is homie behavior?

Bro was on board like a page later, I bet you man didn't fight him once

(Context for those who need it: They're planning on going into the Maze to the Griever hole to try and escape. Alby, traumatized and kinda insane from his experience with the Changing, is pretty heavily against this. Newt says not to worry, that he'll get him to join the escaping group; The Maze Runner, Page 321)

MAZE RUNNER HEADCANON #8

Death Cure Spoilers!

The only time Alby broke the rules was when Newt didn’t come back from the maze. He ran straight in and was searching frantically for him, and when he saw Newt laying half-dead and bleeding on the floor, he hugged him so close and so tight, crying his eyes out. In happiness or in sadness

Good Night or something

I've recently gotten back into the TMR fandom, and let me just say I have MISSED this place. Been a few years, but we're back baby.

But I have already given away my books (though I am planning to buy another set), so I decided to find and re-watch the movies. So far, I've only watched the first one.

Let me preface this with the fact that I have been all for Nalby since like. Half way through the first book. Maybe not even. I clocked those two so early on that I literally accidentally shielded myself from anything that would introduce Newtmas (not to hate on it, I see the appeal).

((Spoilers below for those who don't want to read them))

But the part at the end of the first book that really solidified my opinion on Nalby was Newt literally trying to follow Alby after the man went crazy and ran into a whole pack of Grievers. We won and we lost that day.

Unfortunately in the movies, they change Alby's death, which did make me sad. But in my first watch of the Maze Runner, I didn't really have any specific mindset while watching it. This time, however, I was looking for Nalby crumbs, because I am anxiously awaiting my books. And in that search I found something.

When the Griever snatches Alby from the Homestead (I think it was the Homestead? Not sure) after he saved Chuck from a Griever, he has that little moment with Thomas before his character is no longer with us. Right after that, you can hear someone scream his name.

...

It was Newt.

You can't tell me it wasn't. It was his voice. I listened to it like seventeen times.

We may have lost out on a lot of our Nalby, but Nalby fans still suffering with this one 🎊🎉😭

Certain Actor as a Protagonist <<< Certain Actor as an Antagonist

(Thomas from: The Maze Runner ((top)) & Stiles Stilinski from: Teen Wolf ((bottom)) played by Dylan O'Brien)

(Aris Jones from: The Maze Runner ((above)) & Isaac from: A House on the Bayou ((bottom)) played by Jacob Lofland)

I feel like we don't talk enough about the actual depth of the changes that happened to Alby when passing from the book to the movie. Like sure, he was mean in the books and nice in the movies, but it goes much deeper than that. In the book he represented the universal issue of trying to measure up to someone's standards and inevitably failing, and then in the movie he was just... there.

Because in the book we have that first scene the "if you ain't scared you ain't human" scene, where Alby progressively makes everything worse and worse and worse with every word that come out of his mouth. But the thing is, he's trying to fulfil the expectations that everyone places on him the moment he becomes a leader. He's genuinely trying and I'm too lazy to get the book and quote actual fragments that you can analyse (I might do it later if anyone wants me to), but he tries a bunch of stuff to put Thomas at ease, only he has a short temper and doesn't think before he speaks and it's been under a month since one of the people closest to him died (because Alby had to have been the second in command before and there's no way he wasn't close to Nick).

But in the movie, he has no reason to not be an exemplary leader and role model, so all the complexity and representation of a constant part of being human is erased and we're just left with a cookie-cutter archetype of the leader who's little more than a plot device and I find that sad.

"Great. We're all bloody inspired" -Newt