MovieChat Forums > The Giver (2014) Discussion > So about that ending (rather large spoil...

So about that ending (rather large spoilers):

posted 10 years ago by mikeperri
12 replies | jump to latest

I always assumed Jonas died in the end and he was living out his first and maybe most favourite memory. Why would there be a sled in the middle of nowhere? How could a house look, and sound, exactly the same from a memory? An ending with Jonas living just, for lack of a better word, cheapens the entire novel. But I do admit I may be missing something because I haven't read The Giver in over 10yrs.

I did like the ending of the movie, kind of. I interpret the ending as Jonas losing consciousness and sliding past the barrier (which releases all the memories to the community) and as he is dying he thinks of and relives his favourite memory before he dies.

So that is my interpretation of how The Giver ends. But I just learner that there is a sequel to The Giver and I am very nervous to read it. Should I?

[–] benman46 10 years ago

Both Jonas and Gabriel survived. Read Messenger it will tell you all.

[–] HeathJMac 10 years ago

There are three other books. I would recommend reading all of them. I know what you mean, when you read the first book it clearly feels like he has died,. I was devastated! Then discovered the other books.

I think some of the key to it is in magic realism, which is more evident in the other books.

[–] A_Bob 10 years ago

The book was intended to have an ambiguous ending. It wasn't until she wrote the third book that it was confirmed what happened.

I recommend reading the books in this series. The sequel to The Giver is called Messenger and is the third book. You would need to read the second book Gathering Blue in order to understand who the main characters are.

Bob

[–] zapacoman 10 years ago

Can someone actually EXPLAIN the cottage instead of repetitively saying "read the other books"?! The title of this post indicates that there are huge spoilers so I don't get the aversion to just explaining it.

[–] A_Bob 10 years ago

The cottage shown in the final scene is never specifically shown again. The next time we see that community is about seven years later and Jonas is about 19 or 20 years old and living on his own.

The community is only shown to be welcoming, although that changes throughout the book. Nothing is shown to be religious, particularly any kind of Christian celebrations. In fact, the second book shows that the society they live in has undergone multiple rises and ruins. They are using a former church or at least a church based residential hall (rooms are large enough for bedrooms and each has a private bathroom) but they don't recognize the cross as anything but an ancient worship object, its meaning completely gone.

Who the occupants of the cottage were and what they were celebrating is never stated. It isn't even known if they were the people who saved Jonas or even if he lived with them. From what I remember or at least pictured in the third book, the description of the community was that it was surrounded by a wall and at least on one side, a forest or rather Forest, a forest with some kind of sentience and a bit of malevolence.

Bob

[–] ThatDoesntMatter 10 years ago

Doesn't Jonas have the gift of 'future-sight'? I thought that was why he saw and got to the house...and I hated the Christmas theme, and just goes to show how random it was when it never got explained!

Unsatisfying ending, was that supposed to be a Brazil kind of thing?

But then the whole film was about not really caring, so I did just that...haha

(I just hated the equation of no memories, no emotion = no war or violence...wtf? That is just stupid. Wouldn't smart people have found a way to enhance the positive feelings? That would be interesting because that is a journey we all actually could relate to...if that could work, what that would look like - like Pleasantville or The Village, or even to a degree Logan's Run, or Equilibrium. Yes yes it's YA but that should not stop it from being a bit more complicated and demanding. Divergent is equally as silly in its concept - though I liked that film much more than The Giver - and I SO wanted to like The Giver, but I didn't....so there...^^)

[–] A_Bob 10 years ago

Jonas had the gift of seeing beyond. Originally, it was just able to see colors. Later, he was shown to be able to see things far in the distance, not the future.

"I just hated the equation of no memories, no emotion = no war or violence"

One interesting thing is that in the beginning of the book, Jonas was remembering a pilot who flew too low and over the main part of the village. This may have translated in the movie as the pilots that Asher becomes. It seems in both as if defensive jets were operated in the Community. How this translates to no violence I am not sure.

Bob

[–] browntable759 10 years ago

Well, I haven't read the sequels, but I didn't get the impression from the book or the movie that Jonas died. Maybe it looked the same because the memory was of that house, or one designed the same way. Maybe it only seemed the same because Jonas was half out of his mind. In the movie, it strongly implies that Jonas wanted to come back to "the Community" some day, so it would be rather tragic for him to die. And in the book--well, he was only twelve. People talk about it now like it was written for young adults, and I'd say that who the movie is aimed at, but the book is a kid's book. I read it when I was around thirteen or younger. Jonas dying would be an awfully heavy ending for a kid.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

It was indeed a heavy ending. And I don't really buy whatever retcon the author came up with years later for those sequels. Most likely there were a lot of people who complained that it was too sad and she felt guilty or something.

--------
My top 250: http://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?user=SlackerInc&perpage=250

[–] spoofrice11 9 years ago

Hmm, I never thought that he died in the book. I always thought that he made it out and someone was there to take care of him and Gabe.
Plus they are mentioned in later books being alive.

[–] tryingcake 9 years ago

He was only 12 in the book? He was much older in the movie. I imagined him t be 16-17. Or at least appeared to be. That answers why there was no romance between he and Fiona in the book, so I've read on these boards. 12 is a bit young for that. The movie may have been better with a younger hero. Or maybe not.

How can you expect your life to change if you don't change?

[–] A_Bob 9 years ago

Jeff Bridges, who at one time had the rights to the movie, wanted Jonas to be 12-years-old as he was in the book.

In the book, Jonas and Fiona were friends. At one point, he has a dream where he is with Fiona in the bathing area for the elderly (where both had volunteered the previous day). In the dream, Jonas suggests that Fiona step into the tub so that he could wash her, which she laughs off innocently. That was stated to be start of the Stirrings (basically puberty and feelings of romantic love) for which he had to take a pill to prevent.

The filmmakers took that dream ,combined it with the fact that Fiona was the only girl around, to turn it into a romance story.

Bob