93 pages • 3 hours read
Neal ShustermanFull Tilt
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Finding Balance
Blake’s thematic quest is to find balance in terms of his relationship with Quinn and his own fear of risk. The novel begins with an exploration of the differences between Blake and his younger brother. Quinn is rebellious and uninterested in others’ feelings; Blake, on the other hand, is studious and levelheaded. The first two chapters introduce this relationship, and the brothers continue to be at odds throughout the novel. When Blake first finds Quinn on the ship ride, Quinn is “scream[ing] in defiance of the crashing waves, daring them to shake him loose” (81). Blake rescues his brother, but Quinn is bitter because of it. Their priorities—and their survival instincts—sit in opposition.
Balance is what brings the brothers together and allows them to succeed in their respective quests. As they struggle to survive the final ride, Blake understands, “So much of my life had been under tight control. So much of Quinn’s life had been wild insanity. What we needed now was both: a directed burst of controlled insanity” (177). The brothers cannot survive the ride—or the park—without finding middle ground. Ultimately, what pulls them through is the realization that “Quinn and I were connected now, like we were when we were younger, when our differences didn’t pull us apart but made us complete” (175).
Likewise, Blake’s inner struggle between caution and action fuels the park’s rides. The trauma of the bus crash prevents Blake from taking risks nine years later. His driving is overly cautious, and he is averse to high-speed activities such as flying and riding roller coasters. This caution is a detriment to his growth as a character. On the rides, Blake must push himself toward action without becoming entirely reckless—he must find balance.
Cassandra represents the extremes of personality. When Blake kisses Cassandra after the ship ride, he “felt what she truly was. Intense heat encased in intense cold. Two opposing extremes” (90). This reflects the differences between Blake and Quinn. It also personifies the conflict within Blake. He begins as a prisoner of fear, frozen and unable to act; while he cannot grow in this state, he must also refrain from becoming too reckless. It is balance that ultimately defeats Cassandra: “I could feel the extremes of her […] passionate anger joined to a chilling and hopeless longing. But now both extremes were caught in a delicate balance, and she was unable to move” (194).
Balance is the weapon that Blake earns on his journey. With it, he defeats his literal antagonist and his own character weaknesses. After beating Cassandra, Blake “thought about tomorrow, and the next day […] and I felt those familiar butterflies fill my stomach. But they’re no longer a source of discomfort” (201). He accepts the role of risk in his growth—a balance that will free him from stagnation.
Overcoming Trauma
Blake’s trauma stems from two events: the bus crash that occurred when he was seven years old and the abandonment of his father. The former isolates Blake: He was the only survivor of the crash and must deal with the trauma on his own; he shares the latter with his brother, Quinn.
Blake’s trauma related to the bus crash dictates his character’s inability to grow. When confronted with the reality of moving to college, his trauma resurfaces: “My head was spinning, and whenever that happened, it always called back that memory of my first ride” (29). However, there are hidden depths to Blake’s trauma that make it more difficult to overcome. Blake doesn’t remember the entire bus incident: “so much is also gone. Not so much forgotten as exiled from my brain” (29).
Without remembering the details of the crash, Blake cannot resolve his trauma; his trauma, however, does not allow him to remember the details of the crash. This makes his journey to overcome trauma more difficult. His antagonist, Cassandra, creates the conditions that allow Blake to solve this conundrum. On the final ride, Blake must relive the bus crash repeatedly until he can remember its full details. Cassandra hopes this will paralyze Blake—a metaphor for how trauma has prevented him from acting.
By remembering the details of the incident, though, Blake learns to accept the event and its subsequent trauma. As in classic hero’s journey plotting, the only pathway for growth and healing is through the antagonist. When Cassandra remarks, “you’ll never change what happened,” Blake responds, “No. But I can get off this ride. Forever” (190). He accepts his trauma as part of himself but refuses to see it as his defining characteristic. By learning to live with his fear—and to push through it—he overcomes his trauma.
Blake’s father leaving in his childhood creates equally complex trauma because Blake and Quinn share the pain. It drives a wedge between them: “Maybe that explains why I could never reach out to Quinn […] When Dad left us all those years ago, it tore open a wound that led to a whole lot of unexpected dimensions” (32). In this case, Blake must overcome his own trauma and help his brother heal, as well.
Blake receives this opportunity on the Wheel of Ra ride. In the tomb with his father, Blake again accepts his inner pain as a part of himself. When Blake and his father flee the tomb, his father “left. Simple as that. Just like he did all those years ago […] Still, it didn’t change the choice I made to let him go” (149). Blake chooses to act, thus freeing himself from the tyranny of trauma without dissolving it entirely.
After allowing his father to leave, Blake frees Quinn from the mummification room and their journey toward balance reaches its final stages. Blake’s choice to free himself from the burden of his father’s abandonment also frees Quinn. Without that wedge between them, Blake and Quinn come together and survive the park’s final ride.
Fear of Change
Blake describes himself as “the constant” of his group of friends (3). Constance stands in opposition to change. When Blake opens the envelope from Carl early in the story, he is overcome with fear of change: “here, spread out before me, was solid reality on a collision course with me […] Sixteen years old and living at a college in New York City? What was I, crazy?” (29).
Quinn chastises Blake when Blake questions whether he will go to college. Quinn tells Blake, “when you actually get the chance to have a life, you’re too scared to take it” (33). This inextricably links with Blake’s aversion to risk. As Cassandra tells him, “You really don’t want to ride” (72). Throughout the novel, “riding” is synonymous with taking action. Choosing to ride—and choosing to survive the rides—is choosing to change.
Blake equates change with loneliness. When he remembers the details of the bus accident, he narrates, “That terrified little boy somehow found it in himself to leap from the back of the doomed bus […] Even though he knew he’d be the only one out” (189). Dying on the bus was, according to Cassandra, Blake’s destiny. He chose to change his destiny, which left him alone on the road after the bus’s plunge. Blake fears that any change, including leaving his friends and family for college, will leave him similarly isolated. Change entails the risk of isolation, and Blake is risk-averse. Therefore, he also avoids change.
Blake shares his fear of change with Quinn, although they express their fears in different ways. For example, Quinn is upset when he learns that Carl and his mother are engaged. His mother’s tumultuous relationship with men before this point is unnerving to Blake—it even manifests itself as one of the rides. However, Quinn thrives on unpredictability. While the coming and going of men in his life has created trauma for Quinn, that same inconsistency is his normal. If his mother and Carl get married, his life will change. He resists the change toward normalcy just as Blake rebels against risky change.
When Blake learns to accept risk, he inevitably accepts change, as well. He chooses to go to college and finds that he “kind of like[s] the feeling” of possibility—and risk—that the choice entails. Similarly, Quinn accepts the constancy of Carl in his life, a marked change from the normal state of his family, when he plays a game with Carl in the hospital after waking from his coma.
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