The End

I chose the first question: Write a prediction as to what will happen to the character(s) in the next book of the trilogy.

I think that Will, Henry and Beanpole will find people living at the mountains and live with them. Soon there will be a problem, having them go on another quest. I think the problem would be, Tripods finding the village/clan that Will, Henry, and Beanpole are living with (the title 'When The Tripods Came' made me think of that). They will fight against them with the peolple living at the White Mountains with new weapons, tunnels, etc. that the village made. Just as Will said at the last page, last paragraph, he wanted revenge on the Tripods. I wonder if the three boys are going to tell the other people that the capping is bad, start the war that the ancients had lost against, build secret tunnels with the 'subways'. But I am mostly curious, are they ever going to find the Tripods layer? Are they going to hunt them from there? What is the life like it there? What are the boys going to become?

Overall I thought the book was good, not excellent, not one of the worst books I read either. I thought it was a good book because the author described the things Will, Henry and Beanpole saw instead of just telling us what the object was. So I had to think about the object that the author described and guess what it was, kind of like a puzzle. Also I liked how the author created the character, the Tripods & the capping, city of the ancients, and most of all, how the author thought of to make the setting look like the past is happening again (instead of the future). But some scenes I didn't really enjoy because it had gotten boring or it confused me. How the author had hooked up the setting was really unique, but then it was confusing because the ancients were actually the modern time, while the present (in the book) was like in the past now.

Freedom

"The bitter thing was all the spirit, all the gallantry, was wasted. For even more than inferiors, they accepted and looked forward to being Capped. It was a part of becoming a knight, or of turning from a girl to lady. Thinking of this, I saw how good things could be meaningless in isolation. What value did courage have, without a free and challenging mind to direct it?" (p. 111)

This quote and the rest of the chapter (ch. 6: The Castle with the Red Tower) explains how freedom is important. The quote examples how courage is meaningless without a free and challenging mind. People there (in France) looked forward to being Capped, boy to knight, girl to lady. Will thought if you were Capped and possessed you can't think using your own strength which makes you more weak and timid. Further on in the book the Comtesse and Will have a chat about staying. Thinking about Eloise made Will want to stay forever. But soon he realizes what mistake he has done, giving up freedom for goods, feeling ashamed he ran away to join Henry and Beanpole.