50 Fun Facts About The Darkest Minds

In The Darkest Minds, Ruby Daly passes as a harmless Green for six years to hide which true color?

Orange is the label Ruby dodges, since the camps treat mind-readers like her as the most dangerous kids of all. At ten she pushed the doctor testing her into recording her as a Green.

What nickname do Liam, Chubs and Zu give the stolen minivan they live in during The Darkest Minds?

Black Betty is a twenty-year-old van with a cleaning service's name painted on its side. The four abandon it after a bounty hunter's ambush makes it too easy to trace.

Which author of Lore and Silver in the Bone also wrote the dystopian novel The Darkest Minds?

Alexandra Bracken wrote the series on weekends and vacations, too drained by her day job in children's publishing to write in the evenings.

Which star of The Hate U Give plays Ruby Daly in the 2018 film of The Darkest Minds?

Amandla Stenberg was cast in September 2016, the first of the young leads to sign on. A younger performer, Lidya Jewett, plays Ruby at ten in the opening scenes.

Which brutal rehabilitation camp holds Ruby Daly for six years at the start of The Darkest Minds?

Thurmond is the first camp the government opened. Ruby arrives there on a bus at ten and does not get out until she is sixteen.

Clancy Gray, who runs the East River haven in The Darkest Minds, is the son of which figure?

The US president is Clancy's father, who had his own son released from a camp and shown off as proof that rehabilitation worked.

At the end of The Darkest Minds, what does Ruby do to make Liam leave the League?

Ruby erases his memories of her after trading her own freedom for his, promising to work for the League if Liam is let go.

Before The Darkest Minds, Jennifer Yuh Nelson directed two sequels in which animated film series?

Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3 were both directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, and the first of them earned an Oscar nomination. The Darkest Minds was her first live-action feature.

In The Darkest Minds, which ability marks Liam Stewart and the other children classified as Blue?

Telekinesis lets Liam fling a tree across the road to stop the League agents chasing the van. In the novel Chubs is a Blue as well, though the film recasts him as a Green.

Which This Is Us star plays the doctor who smuggles Ruby out of camp in the film The Darkest Minds?

Mandy Moore plays a resistance agent working undercover as a camp doctor. Younger viewers may know her voice better as Rapunzel in the animated film Tangled.

In The Darkest Minds, Clancy Gray leads the East River haven under which near-mythical nickname?

The Slip Kid is rumored to shelter any child on the run. At his haven he has everyone dress in a single shade, to show they no longer sort themselves by color.

Which Game of Thrones actor plays the bounty hunter Lady Jane in the 2018 film The Darkest Minds?

Gwendoline Christie is best known as Brienne of Tarth and as Captain Phasma in Star Wars. Here she turns villain, tracking escaped children for the reward.

In The Darkest Minds, what name is given to bounty hunters who turn in runaway Psi kids for cash?

Skip tracers must hand over at least one Psi child to earn a license. Many adults take up the work just to get by after the economy collapses.

Which weapon do the guards at Ruby's camp in The Darkest Minds use to drop Psi kids to the ground?

White noise is a piercing blast of sound that only Psi ears pick up. Adults standing in the middle of it hear nothing, while the children collapse in pain.

In The Darkest Minds, the cryptic clue 'EDO' that points the way to East River turns out to be what?

A radio frequency hides in the clue, which stands for the digits 5-4-0. Tuning to that AM channel plays a looping message telling Psi kids where the haven is.

In the novel The Darkest Minds, where do Ruby and Liam stumble on a tribe of kids hiding out?

A deserted Walmart shelters a tribe who once lived at East River, and they give up the hint that leads the group there. The film moves the scene to an abandoned mall.

Which sequel to The Darkest Minds sends Ruby, now a League operative, cross-country to find Liam?

Never Fade picks up with Ruby running missions for the Children's League, where the other kids simply call her Leader.

Which English star of Babygirl and The Iron Claw plays Liam in the 2018 film The Darkest Minds?

Harris Dickinson was a newcomer when he signed on, fresh from his first starring role in the indie drama Beach Rats.

In The Darkest Minds, the child-killing disease IAAN is Idiopathic Adolescent Acute what?

Neurodegeneration rounds off the name of an illness that, in the novel, kills an estimated 98 percent of the country's children. Those who survive it wake up with powers.

The 2018 film The Darkest Minds, set largely in Virginia, was shot in and around which US city?

Atlanta is where filming began in April 2017, with casting calls going out locally for both kids and adults.

Which League agent, posing as a camp doctor, smuggles Ruby to freedom in The Darkest Minds?

Cate Connor passes Ruby pills that bring on a seizure, then gets her out through the gates. A second teenager leaves hidden in a medical waste container.

In The Darkest Minds, what does the League agent who frees Ruby give her for calling help?

A panic button is the gift, though the agent keeps quiet about the trackers sewn into Ruby's new clothes. Ruby finally presses it to save a badly wounded Chubs.

Ruby Daly's family home in The Darkest Minds is in which Virginia town, revisited in the 2018 film?

Salem is where Ruby grew up, and in the film her friends take her back there hoping she can make peace with her parents. She gets no further than the glass door.

Zu, the silent Yellow in Liam's group in The Darkest Minds, is short for which full first name?

Suzume Kimura does not say a word in the first novel. By the fourth book she is seventeen and a public spokesperson for Psi kids, relying on the voice she once kept to herself.

In The Darkest Minds, what is Chubs trying to deliver to Jack Fields's father when he is shot?

A letter is all that is left of Jack, who died in the camp breakout. He, Liam and Chubs each wrote one for the others to deliver if they did not make it out.

Before The Darkest Minds begins, Liam, Chubs and Zu break out of which camp in an old Ohio school?

Caledonia was the scene of a mass breakout that Liam helped plan. It went badly wrong when the electrified gate stayed live far longer than expected.

Which Night at the Museum director produced the film The Darkest Minds through his company 21 Laps?

Shawn Levy was attached from the first option deal in 2011, before the novel was even out. He is also an executive producer of the Netflix hit Stranger Things.

Which Hollywood studio bought the rights to The Darkest Minds in 2014 and released the film?

20th Century Fox first optioned the story in 2011, more than a year before the novel reached bookshops.

Which West Wing actor plays Clancy Gray's father in the 2018 film The Darkest Minds?

Bradley Whitford, The West Wing's Josh Lyman, plays the elder Gray. Horror fans know him better as the smiling father in Get Out.

In The Darkest Minds, where does Ruby first spot Zu, just before she flees the League agents?

A gas station on the edge of a small town is where Ruby sees Zu taking food from the shelves. She follows the girl out to a waiting van and begs to be let in.

The star who plays Ruby in the film The Darkest Minds first won notice as Rue in which franchise?

The Hunger Games gave her a breakout role as a child actor in 2012. Six years later she was leading a dystopian young adult adaptation of her own.

In The Darkest Minds, where do Ruby's parents lock her on the morning of her tenth birthday?

In the garage is where Ruby waits while her parents call the police. The government's Psi Special Forces reach the house first and take her away.

In The Darkest Minds, what does Ruby refuse to do to Liam as they grow close, fearing her powers?

Ruby will not touch him because her power works through contact. An accidental brush of the hand is how she learns what one League agent has really done.

Which Star Wars film did the author of The Darkest Minds retell as a novel for young readers?

A New Hope was a natural fit: she is the daughter of a Star Wars collector and grew up going to an endless string of conventions and toy fairs.

The author of The Darkest Minds was born in, and later moved back to, which southwestern US state?

Arizona is home: she was born in Phoenix, left for college and a publishing career in New York, then returned to write full time.

In The Darkest Minds, Chubs, who escaped camp with Liam and Zu, has which real first name?

Charles Carrington Meriwether IV is the grand name behind the nickname. In the sequel he turns up with a bounty hunter's license, a cover for tracking down his friends.

To design the camps in The Darkest Minds, the author researched which real chapter of US history?

Japanese American internment was her model: she studied the propaganda the government used and how it capitalized on people's fears.

In The Darkest Minds, which relative does Zu find at East River and later leave with for California?

Her cousin Hina had been held in the same Ohio camp and reached the haven first. The two girls set off west with three other kids to look for Hina's parents.

The Children's League base bombed by the government in the Darkest Minds sequels is in which city?

Los Angeles is where Ruby trains after joining the League. The kids who survive the attack head north to regroup at an older base known as the Ranch.

In the sequel to The Darkest Minds, what is Liam unknowingly carrying that explains IAAN's cause?

A flash drive tucked inside his brother's jacket holds research into what caused the disease. Liam walks off wearing the jacket with no idea what is in it.

Which League agent in the Darkest Minds sequels is Liam's older brother and secretly a Red?

Cole has kept his fire-starting power secret since it surfaced when he was twelve. Ruby later turns to him for the training she needs to take on the government.

In The Darkest Minds, the hidden haven of East River turns out to lie on which Virginia shoreline?

Lake Prince hides an abandoned campsite of log cabins around a small wooden dock, which grows into the largest Psi-only settlement anyone knows of.

The author of The Darkest Minds sold her first novel while a senior at which Virginia college?

William & Mary is where she double majored in English and history. She had caught the writing bug as a freshman, during National Novel Writing Month.

Which cabin mate of Ruby's in The Darkest Minds later takes the lead in the novella Sparks Rise?

Sam Dahl slept in the bunk above Ruby's. In her own story she is still locked up when brainwashed Reds arrive as guards, and she recognizes one of them.

Which young Yellow on Ruby's League team is killed in the bombing in the Darkest Minds sequel?

Jude carried the League codename Sunshine and was just fifteen. Grief over his death weighs on Ruby throughout the final book of the trilogy.

In the Darkest Minds series, which code name is finally revealed as the true cause of IAAN?

Agent Ambrosia was developed as a defense against foreign attack and released across the country. It changed only children exposed to it before they were born.

In the Darkest Minds trilogy, which relative of Clancy Gray invents the cure for Psi powers?

His mother, Lillian, is a scientist who spends years on the research in hiding. Clancy scrambles her mind to keep the implant from spreading, and Ruby has to undo the damage.

Which debut novel did the author of The Darkest Minds begin as a birthday present for a friend?

Brightly Woven was begun when she was a nineteen-year-old sophomore. One trade review called her a debut author to watch.

Which other hidden teenager is smuggled out of camp with Ruby at the start of The Darkest Minds?

Martin Dunn had avoided detection by persuading another boy from his bus to trade places with him. He turns out to enjoy using his power to hurt people.

Which actor from the Netflix series The OA plays Clancy Gray in the 2018 film The Darkest Minds?

Patrick Gibson left a philosophy degree in Dublin when he was cast in The OA. He later played a young Dexter Morgan in the prequel Dexter: Original Sin.