In 'Specials', Tally has been transformed from her New Pretty self into a Cutter, part of an elite group of Specials who are seen as 'icier', more cognisant, than all of the other characters in the series. Transformation is the key part of this novel, Tally having transformed from an Ugly to a Pretty to a Special over the course of the trilogy.
To Tally, each evolution is an improvement. She is now part of the intellectual elite, Cutters are people who could remove the brain lesions on their own and thus see themselves as better than all of the other pretties. However, when she meets Zane again, she must confront whether or not this is the truth. Did the operation to make her Special remove the lesions in her brain or create new ones? Is her 'iciness' a sign of a greater intellect or another genetic enhancement? Tally herself is unsure, stating that 'sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me―a big collection of brainwashing, surgeries, and cures', which shows that, though her outside has changed to fit the Special specifications, she is still, at heart, a sixteen-year-old girl.
Symptomatic of her idealistic youth, Tally's love for Zane is at the heart of the novel. When she sees him for the first time in New Pretty Town, she is initially repulsed by his tremors. This is her first clue that something is wrong with the way she is thinking; Tally knows that she would never rationally be repulsed by Zane. Her love for him is impulsive and destructive and goes against all of her training. The most notable example of this is when her determination to make Dr. Cable turn Zane into a Special prompts Tally and Shay to break into the city armory, an innocuous trick that sets off the war between Tally's city and Diego, their neighbor. This is a sign that the peace created with the advent of the pretty surgery is easily shattered when people start to think, or, as Westerfeld puts it, 'without lesions making everyone agreeable, society was left roiling in a constant battle of words, images, and ideas. All around her Tally felt the city seething, all those unfettered minds bouncing their opinions off each other, like something ready to explode'.
So, is love and freedom of thought presented as a bad thing in 'Specials'? The answer is complicated. Tally struggles with it herself, and it is stated that 'having a brain hurt so much sometimes'. Many terrible events in the 'Uglies' series would never have happened without humans regaining their free will: The Smoke would not have been destroyed, Diego and Tally's city would never have been at odds, and Zane would not have died. However, Westerfeld also finds a beauty in the destruction that occurs in the novel. People in Diego are free to experiment with their personal style, aesthetics are not held as arbitrators of morality, and a peace is settled between the cities that would never have occurred without people's abilities to think for themselves.
The main message of 'Specials' seems to lie somewhere between the two extremes. When Diego begins to expand into nature, clear-cutting forest like the Rusties before them, it seems that the events of history are doomed to repeat themselves: with freedom comes destruction. However, Tally and David break that cycle when they become 'the New Special Circumstances', dedicating themselves to holding humans accountable and protecting nature. This, as the closing remark of the final book in the original 'Uglies' trilogy, is hopeful. People are granted their freedom, but not at the expense of the world they live in, promoting the idea that humanity will do better the second time around.
