Friendship is a vital theme in the novel. For Thomas and the other characters, their friendships take the place of the strong bonds often evidenced in family relationships. In the absence of parents and family, these friendships are what many of the teenagers must turn to for support and sanity. Members of both the Gladers and Group B developed friendships with different people while in the Maze. Now that they are all faced with a new Trial, the Scorch, these alliances and friendships will be tested in various ways as a part of WICKED’s Variables. In this sense, the hope and willpower that each of the teenagers is being tested in relation to the friendships.

The most dramatic test of friendship in the novel is between Thomas and Teresa. Thomas views Teresa as his best friend, and perhaps as more than a friend. They not only share a telepathic link, they both have had a hand in WICKED’s plan and the creation of the Mazes. Thomas, however, soon finds that, as the Rat Man warned him, not everything he sees and hears can be believed. When Teresa is revealed to be The Betrayer, and when she “kills” Thomas on WICKED’s orders, Thomas must come to terms with what friendship truly means.