One of the main themes of Crossed is rejecting the values of the dominant power structure. For Cassia and Ky, this fight begins when they are still within the Society. The Officials think of the decoys as disposable, interchangeable bodies. On the airship in Chapter 6, Cassia makes one too many passengers. An Officer points this out, and her colleague scoffs, “They’re Aberrations. Does it matter?” (61). In other villages, dead decoys are left “for the Society or the Enemy or any animals who might want them”—but Ky and Vick go out of their way to bury their dead (19). Cassia fights in more subtle ways. Looking at the Thomas Moran painting in her bunk with the other girls provides relief from the hardships of their daily lives. When Cassia first encountered Chasm of the Colorado, it “frightened and thrilled” her (10). Such feelings prove the characters’ humanity and reminds them of how wrong it is for the Society to treat them as lesser.

In the Carving, Cassia learns that rejecting the Society’s values is sometimes difficult. In choosing personal freedom over total control, she opens herself up to a new set of dangers: illness, hunger, thirst, starvation, and death. The Society’s warm coats come with the cost of being tracked and data mined by the Society against one’s will.