YMMV / The Chrysalids

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The Sealanders. It is possible to interpret their worldview as sinister, depending on the views of the reader. Their arrogance is noted even by David; they call David's people primitive, kill them easily, and overall seem quite sure that their own kind is inherently better than any other.
• Anvilicious: The book has some pretty non-subtle messages about religious intolerance communicated through the totally irredeemable fundamentalist Joseph Strorm.
• Complete Monster:
  • Joseph Strorm is protagonist David's father and the worst of Waknuk's intolerant society. Out of fanaticism and bigotry towards those deemed "mutants" for abnormalities, Joseph brutally whips David for so much as making a joke about a third hand being useful to compete a complicated task. When a young David's childhood friend Sophie Wender is exposed for having a sixth toe, Joseph whips David until he denounces Sophie before exiling her to the dangerous Fringes. With decades of purges behind him, when Joseph discovers both David and his younger sister Petra are telepaths, he rallies a posse to hunt down and kill them, even going to war with the mutants of the Fringes when his children are taken captive by the denizen—not because he cares about them, but because he feels they belong to him.
  • Gordon Strorm is Joseph's older brother, exiled to the Fringes for his long limbs making him deemed a mutant. Determined to feel powerful, Gordon attacks Waknuk with mutants to take it by force. In the Fringes themselves, Gordon regularly forces child-aged mutant girls to breed with him, and captures the heroes to provoke an all-out war with Waknuk.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Active, intelligent, cynical group leader Michael tends to stand out as one.
• Iron Woobie: David is the sensitive, gentle son of a horrible father and an overly stoic mother. He has a secret that would probably ensure instant death if he ever told it to his father, his mother thinks he is a nuisance, he gets savagely beaten up while trying to protect the very few people that he loves... and then he has to deal with the consequences of his secret actually being exposed later into the novel. He still keeps fighting.
• Moral Event Horizon: It's established early on that Joseph Strorm is a hard, unforgiving religious bigot, but he crosses this line when he brutally whips David to force him to betray Sophie's family. The inspector, arguably, crosses this with the implication that he takes part in the Cold-Blooded Torture of Sally and Katherine to get information on the other telepaths.
• The Woobie:
  • David's Aunt Harriet, who has already given birth to two deformed children and is in danger of being divorced by her husband, if she gives birth to a third.
  • Rachel, one of the telepaths, who during the climactic pursuit keeps the others in on what's happening back on the home front. Little innocent Petra gets exasperated as Rachel's 'behind-thinks' become increasingly stressed: "She does cry an awful lot, that girl, doesn't she?"
  • Katherine and Sally, who undergo torture to the point of death in order to keep the others safe. It makes it all the more heartbreaking that they eventually crack (although only David, Petra and Rosalind are outed so Mark, Michael and Rachel are still safe from detection.)

---