Linked

Korman’s exploration of the complexity of motives is perhaps best exemplified through the contrasts between his foil characters: Pamela and Link as well as Caroline and Adam. Link and his father also provide opportunities to explore the interconnection between productive and destructive intentions and outcomes.

When Michael considers who the culprit might be in Chapter 12, he cycles through a range of possibilities from vandalism to revenge. Dana, in Chapter 8, suspects that the vandal is “a juvenile delinquent trying to freak everybody out” (50). This turns out to be true in Link’s case: He explains that he did the first swastika effectively for that reason, to do something serious that would freak everyone out, as his past pranks were meant to make people laugh. Pamela, on the other hand, was motivated by bigotry. Like Pamela, Pouncey has family members who were at the Night of a Thousand Flames, but whereas Pouncey repeatedly distances himself from his family, Pamela embraces the hateful ideology she grew up with. When she contacts Link after they are both outed, Link quickly realizes the huge difference in their motives and does not hesitate to address it: “I did something stupid […] You did something hateful” (173). Korman’s message here is that, while education cannot defeat every hateful person in the world, it is a powerful tool for preventing ignorant, harmful actions.

The results of their actions further the complexity of the situation. Link was thoughtlessly lashing out, but by doing so, he is the catalyst for change in Chokecherry. When he realizes this, he embraces it, pushing for positive action that eventually benefits the whole town. Pamela’s actions are intended to spread hate, but instead, she inspires Chokecherry to stand firmly against bigotry. By the time she is caught, the Chokecherry community has grown to fully recognize the Holocaust and its impact on their town, and they are able to treat Pamela’s behavior with appropriate severity.

Caroline and Adam can both be understood as selfish, though to very different effects and degrees. Caroline repeatedly draws on the swastikas to provoke students to get involved in student government, which benefits her as seventh-grade class president and primes her to run again in eighth grade. Michael believes that she asked him to be her running mate for the eighth-grade presidency to capitalize on his popularity in the wake of the paper chain project’s success. However, though Caroline acts in self-interest, her overall motivation is to do good for Chokecherry and the students. Her commitment to student government flows from a genuine desire to see students tackle problems together to create positive action. Adam also uses the swastikas in Chokecherry to fuel his own success, but there is an important difference between the two: Caroline is attempting to improve her community, and Adam is not.

Adam manipulates children and events in order to create a narrative that will raise his own profile, with no benefit to the community. He criticizes Chokecherry’s sheriff for not doing enough to catch the culprit when he could have turned over the evidence he had that would have enabled the culprit to be caught. Adam allows the swastikas to continue, exploiting the community to create more content for his YouTube channel. At the same time, the popularity of Adam’s channel contributes to the success of the project, which it otherwise may not have been able to do.

Link’s father has hopes that the discoveries of the paleontologists will raise Chokecherry’s profile on the national stage. Wanting to see his community become successful is a good intention, but his anxiety to make it happen provokes him to want to downplay the past. This worsens once the first swastika appears; in an attempt to protect his wife and son, Link’s father brushes aside Chokecherry’s history with the KKK. A consequence of this is that it downplays how harmful past events were, which emboldens bigoted people like Pamela and her father. In a similar vein, Link hides that he did the first swastika because he fears that revealing himself will tarnish the positive projects he is involved in, but not acknowledging his own actions creates fear, tension, and uncertainty in his community.

Through these characters, Korman shows that just as good intentions can have unintended negative consequences, bad motives can have unintended positive consequences. Motive is essential when considering someone’s actions, but the consequences, good or bad, should also be considered; bad motives do not undo good results, and vice versa.