Minho Maze Runner: Character Profile, Actor and Fate

Minho is a runner in the Glade, one of the boys who enter the maze each day to map its corridors and look for an exit, and he is played by Ki Hong Lee in all three films. He is credited simply as Minho, so the films give no surname, and the credits do not state an age either. Lee is billed fourth in The Maze Runner (2014), fifth in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and fourth in Maze Runner: The Death Cure, and Wes Ball directed all three.

The Glade is a grassy farm area ringed by huge stone walls, and its gates open by day into the maze and shut at night. The boys have lived there for three years, with no memories beyond their first names, and only runners are allowed past the gates. That rule matters because the walls shift each night and creatures called Grievers hunt in the corridors after dark.

If you are comparing him with the other main characters, the contrast with Thomas is one of position. Thomas is the newcomer who arrives in the lift and breaks the rules to follow Alby and Minho into the maze, while Minho is already one of the runners when Thomas arrives. You can see the rest of the ensemble on our Maze Runner characters page, and the full Maze Runner cast is listed separately.

Minho's key relationship is with Thomas, who follows him into the maze in the first film and later travels to the Last City to get him back. In the first film the two also find a way to kill a Griever and examine it together.

Newt makes the same trip to the Last City, alongside Thomas and their fellow Glader Frypan. Newt is infected with the Flare during the mission.

His relationship with Gally is the most violent. Gally is hostile to Thomas from the start, and when he shoots Chuck, Minho is the one who kills him. Gally then returns in the final film, believed dead, and helps get Thomas and the others into the city.

Minho also shares captivity with Aris and Sonya after the Right Arm raid in the second film. Teresa is tied to that capture, since she passed the camp's location to WCKD, and she later works with the organization in the third film. The central romantic pairing in the trilogy is Thomas and Teresa, and none of the three films gives Minho a romantic storyline.

In my opinion, the first film gives Minho his best material, because it lets him be competent before it lets him be heroic. The night when Thomas follows Alby and Minho into the maze is the clearest example: the rules say only runners go in, Alby is hurt, and Thomas has to protect him until morning.

The Griever examination is the second moment I would pick. Minho and Thomas do not simply survive the creature, they find a way to kill it and then look at it closely, and it is that curiosity that leads to the doorway in the wall. It could be argued that this is where Minho stops being the Glade's guide and becomes a partner in the escape.

The third is the moment he kills Gally after Chuck is shot. It ends a hostility that had been building since Thomas arrived. Perhaps the most telling detail is what happens afterward: Gally comes back in Maze Runner: The Death Cure and helps Thomas and the others get inside the Last City.

Finally, the Last City mission deserves a mention. Minho is a WCKD captive in that film, yet the whole plot orbits him, which says more about how the others value him than any speech could. For a wider comparison, see Maze Runner movies ranked and the full Maze Runner movies in order guide.