The protagonist, Tally Youngblood, inhabits a world wherein cosmetic surgery dictates one’s place in the social order and brain modifications inhibit independent thinking. Tally herself has been altered more than once during the series: She has been turned from an Ugly into a “bubbleheaded” Pretty, then into a Special controlled by government scientist Dr. Cable’s programming. Tally exerts unique abilities in that she is able to rewire her brain to begin thinking for herself—a metaphor for the experience of coming of age, transitioning from a child into an adult. Indeed, her very name is emblematic: Youngblood gestures both to youth and to inheritance. Tally represents the hope for the future.

She is explicitly told that “she had been made to save the world” with her superhuman characteristics and atavistic qualities (45). Her role, as Dr. Cable’s Special, is to save the world of the doctor’s making, the world wherein the vast majority of the populace is kept under control via surgical intervention. However, as Tally’s journey takes her away from the city of her youth into the wild and beyond, she begins to reconceive her destiny. It is not to save Dr. Cable’s world of Uglies and Pretties and authoritarian control; rather, it is to save the world from the potential ravages of free-thinking humans.