54 pages • 1 hour read
Spy Camp
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Themes
Courage Despite Fear
Spy Camp develops the idea of courage as taking action despite fear, not as the absence of fear. While many may consider a brave person to be someone who is not afraid, this book shows that brave people do scary things even when they are afraid. Courage is a significant character trait of Ben’s; despite his insecurities about his spy skills, he has the remarkable courage and strength to walk into a dangerous situation even when he is very afraid.
In Spy Camp, as in the previous novel, Ben is forced to walk alone into a life-threatening situation. His courage despite self-doubt links two themes in the novel while foregrounding the motif of valuing individual strengths, as Ben’s recognition of his value helps him stop the missile launch. Before he walks alone into that situation, he takes a moment to gather his courage:
I had to lean against the wall for a moment to catch my breath. My hands were trembling. I wanted nothing more than to run away. But I couldn’t. SPYDER was about to launch a missile, and there was no one to stop it but me (298).
Despite his fear, Ben knows he must feign confidence to survive the situation. He reflects on Erica’s advice about the bears and how she’d said it overlapped with humans: “If you show fear, they get confidence. But if you act confident, they get scared” (303). Soon after this, Ben will discover that SPYDER actually does consider him worthy of recruitment. This revelation will bolster his belief in himself and help him to stop the missile launch, but Ben’s decision to step into the dangerous situation occurs when he is at the lowest point of his confidence. It is this ability that makes Ben such a courageous character.
Other spies or students may be able to stride into a similar situation feeling good about their chances, but Ben goes into it feeling inadequate and likely to fail. Because he is so afraid but still goes through with the plan, the book shows that being courageous doesn’t mean not being afraid—it means being afraid but still doing the right thing. This theme is paralleled in Alexander’s actions during the rescue mission; he is afraid to put himself in the middle of the mission, but he goes to rescue his father and daughter anyway. He even takes the lead as the group enters the mine, even though Ben knows Alexander would typically “have positioned himself towards the back of the pack, where it was safer” (293), but he still bows to the students’ faith in him and takes the point position. The entire group exemplifies this theme, as they walk into an enemy lair underequipped and without CIA support, doing it not because they know they’ll succeed, but because trying is the right thing to do. This teaches the lesson that people can be brave even when they’re afraid.
The Importance of Teamwork
The benefits of working with a team are expressed through multiple scenarios in the novel. The students are told to work in a team by a respected spy, then they discover the importance of teamwork through the events of the novel. Through both instruction and experience, the book conveys the idea that a team is stronger than any one individual and encourages the reader to see teamwork as a valuable problem-solving tool.
The teamwork lesson is delivered explicitly by Woodchuck, who lectures the students on the bus before SPYDER attacks. He says: “The first key to survival is teamwork,” and “The first thing you do in a life-or-death situation is figure out how to work together” (110-11). Throughout the rest of the novel, Ben works on various teams to rescue two sets of hostages and stop the launch of a missile that would assassinate the President of the United States and several European leaders.
Ben’s first team consists of Erica and Alexander Hale, with whom he escapes the initial SPYDER attack on the bus. Interestingly, Erica is not very good at teamwork. She tends to take charge and wants to work independently. She is dismissive of what Ben has to offer and is outright demeaning in the way she speaks of her father’s (Alexander) ability to be of any value. Erica provides little opportunity for Alexander and Ben to contribute to the mission and repeatedly asserts herself as in charge of the mission. Ultimately, both she and Cyrus insist on working alone and are captured for their arrogance. Though the book promotes embracing one’s individual skills, it cautions against thinking one can do everything on one’s own.
After the visit to Apple Valley—and the second SPYDER attack—the team grows to include Cyrus Hale. Erica respects Cyrus and is far more willing to follow his lead and allow him to contribute to the plan. At first, Cyrus and Erica seem to work well as a team, but once he’s reached the farmhouse Cyrus ignores Erica’s warning not to go inside. The decision not to listen to his team leads to Cyrus’s capture by SPYDER.
The most successful mission in the books—the rescue of Cyrus and Erica and stopping the missile launch—is a result of teamwork by Ben and his classmates. It is Ben who puts together this team, primarily by listening to their needs and encouraging Alexander to step into the role of leader. Ben knows that the other students will feel more confident if they are being led by a “real” spy, so he builds a depressed Alexander’s confidence to convince him to be a valuable contributor to the team. When the team starts to break down due to in-fighting, Hank reminds them of Woodchuck’s lesson from earlier:
Remember what Woodchuck told us on the bus? The first step in any emergency situation is to figure out how to work together. […] So we are going to work together. No more inter-agency rivalry garbage, no more arguing, no more petty disagreements, got it? (260).
Together, the students and Alexander manage to outfit themselves, locate SPYDER’s secret base, rescue Cyrus and Erica, and stop the missile launch. No one spy could have done this much, not even Erica. Working together as a team gives the students the ability to stop SPYDER’s mission and save many lives, but the book does not depict teamwork as always easy or natural. Like the Hales, the students have tension among themselves, but they choose to set that aside and work collaboratively.
The Damaging Effects of Self-Doubt and the Value of Confidence
This theme is developed through two parallel storylines—Alexander being confronted with his family’s disdain for him and Ben realizing that he is once again a patsy in a game between SPYDER and the CIA. In both cases, the characters’ confidence has been built up by attention, then shattered when their usefulness and value are questioned. The solution for both characters is similar, too—both Alexander and Ben are bolstered by the reminder that other people do believe in them.
Alexander’s crisis of confidence begins once he, Erica, and Ben are lost in the wilderness. Erica’s usual annoyance with her father has escalated into anger. She is brutally dismissive of him and takes every opportunity she sees to insult him and question his abilities. In one particularly cold exchange, she tells him, “your brain’s been dead for years” (142). In another, she asks, “Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?” (136). Ben’s evident agreement with Erica is “probably the most devastating blow to Alexander’s ego yet” (130), because he realizes that his carefully constructed super spy image does not work on the people close to him.
As the mission progresses and Alexander’s confidence takes more and more hits, both from his daughter and his father, he becomes less and less himself, until he is eventually rendered “catatonic” by the kidnapping of his family. Ben, knowing that the other students need Alexander to at least appear to be in charge, figures out that he needs to rebuild Alexander’s confidence. He gives the man a pep talk, arguing that Alexander’s reputation cannot entirely be built on lies and that he must have something of value to offer.
Ben undergoes a similar journey. His confidence is boosted by SPYDER’s offer of a job and apparent belief in his skills. He thinks:
I didn’t just want to figure out why SPYDER wanted me; I wanted to figure it out before Erica did. I wanted to impress her. For the past few hours, she’d been the hero, and I’d been the damsel in distress, constantly needing rescuing. It would be nice to remind her I wasn’t merely deadweight (175).
The later revelation that SPYDER actually wants Cyrus provides the same crushing blow to Ben’s confidence that Erica’s disgust had had on Alexander’s. He thinks, “I was also ashamed. There hadn’t been anything special about me. I had no incredible innate skill that made me invaluable to SPYDER’s plans. SPYDER had made it all up to mislead everyone involved. I was a patsy—and a fool” (239).
Because Ben is a courageous person, he does not let the crisis of confidence render him hopeless and immobile the way Alexander had. He still walks into a dangerous situation, feeling inadequate. Once there, though, he finds out that SPYDER really was interested in employing him. Like Ben’s pep talk to Alexander earlier in the novel, this provides the confidence the character needs to believe in themselves. Ben realizes that he does have value and overcomes his self-doubt: “SPYDER still saw potential in me. Which meant I wasn’t useless at all” (305). These dual storylines drive home the novel’s lesson about confidence and self-doubt: When a person believes they have no value, the world loses out on the benefits of their individual strengths.
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