56 pages • 1 hour read
Stuart TurtonThe Last Murder at the End of the World
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Nature of Sacrifice
The novel highlights this theme by exploring the difference between willing and unwilling sacrifices. Niema teaches the villagers that sacrifice is important, especially for the good of the community. However, Niema shows that she does not understand the true nature of sacrifice because she does not believe that those who are sacrificed, such as the participants in her experiments, must give their consent. In contrast, the villagers understand that sacrifice is both selfless and voluntary and must be made for the communal good.
When Emory challenges Niema’s lack of care for human life, Niema says that the sacrifice is necessary because she is “gambling a solitary life for the chance to make a better world in the long run” (36). Although Niema proves her point by eventually sacrificing herself for the benefit of the future, Emory sees Niema’s logic as flawed because she gambles a life that is not her own. While Niema believes that this is a sacrifice, Emory sees it as murder. Niema fails to understand that sacrifice is only meaningful if given willingly and without coercion. However, Niema finally makes this connection at the end of her life when she puts the memory extractor on herself to provide guidance for the simulacrums in the future.
In contrast to Niema’s misconception of sacrifice, the novel uses Seth as an example for taking self-sacrifice too far. Seth’s good nature causes him to trust the elders to a fault. He repeatedly offers to sacrifice himself for the island, even when he does not think that he killed Niema. Through Emory’s reconstruction of the village leadership from a rigid hierarchy to a democracy, Emory shows Seth and the rest of the village that no person in the community is more important than another. This takes time for the village to accept, but once they do, they begin to make decisions as a group. Thea is shocked when the villagers volunteer on their own to stay behind on the island so that others can survive, but the moment highlights that sacrifice is an act of love. If the community was not strong, then the villagers would not care whether their village survived or not. However, because of their communal love, they are willing to sacrifice themselves so that their loved ones may have a future without them.
The Ethics of Scientific Intervention
The Last Murder at the End of the World explores human arrogance and the imagined morality of artificial intelligence. The novel plays on the common science fiction trope that artificial intelligence will take over humanity and inverts it to focus on the benefits of scientific intervention. Rather than having an ulterior motive, Abi and the villagers work with compassion while the humans insist on their supposed superiority. The elders’ arrogance shows the dangers of humanity’s hubris: They do not realize that by experimenting on nonconsenting subjects and controlling the villagers without their knowledge, they are committing the kind of violence they hope to eradicate.
Although Niema’s experiments take human lives, her creation of Abi proves to be essential to ensuring that humanity and the simulacrums survive in the long run. Abi’s presence in the minds of the characters shows the extent to which Niema struggles between giving the simulacrums freedom and wanting to control the outcome of the future. Her wiping their memories, controlling them while they sleep, and keeping them in the dark about their true nature is paternalist: Although the elders consistently refer to the villagers as “tools,” the simulacrums’ evolved emotional intelligence proves that they are more than Niema’s creations. While Thea understands the benefit of Abi to some extent, she tells Niema that she would rather die than give Abi the ability to control her actions. Thea’s fear reveals the dangers of scientific intervention because it takes away consent. Since Niema uses Abi to manipulate events and reach a certain conclusion, she shows how easy it would be for malevolent artificial intelligence to control humanity in the future.
Abi’s ability to manipulate the villagers’ thoughts and emotions raises the question of whether her intervention allows the simulacrums to make their own decisions. On one hand, Abi does not tell the villagers how to behave, and they prove that they can choose kindness over violence, showing that Niema’s decision to let Abi guide them for a portion of their lives worked. On the other, Abi allows the apprentices to kill her because she understands that the simulacrums need to be able to discover their own morality separate from Abi. Abi knows that if the simulacrums can govern themselves without her, then they can teach humans in the future how to value morality and justice over self-destruction.
Individual Versus Collective Good
The novel focuses on the theme of Individual Versus Collective Good through the contrasting worldviews of the elders and the villagers. Thea and Hephaestus maintain their individualism by creating a dichotomy between themselves and the villagers. In contrast, the villagers do not operate hierarchically and make decisions based on how they affect their entire community. These differing viewpoints show the importance of collective thinking because it aids in survival, whereas individualism eventually leads to destruction.
Even though Thea and Hephaestus care for each other, their relationship is filled with suspicion. The elders’ inability to be honest with each other or think of the other person before themselves causes a rift between them. Both characters are quick to blame the other rather than take responsibility for their own actions. Thea and Hephaestus’s individualism stems from how they saw the world crumble around them. Since both characters have experienced violence at the hands of other humans, their survival depends on self-preservation above all else. The elders’ reliance on self-preservation when the situation no longer requires it hinders their ability to work in conjunction with the villagers. Abi ensures that they do not make it past the fog to the island because they will never be able to live in the world that the simulacrums want to build.
In contrast with the elders, the villagers show the benefit of collective good. The villagers live on the principle of “kindness first, always” (303), which is why they trust each other to make decisions that will help everyone. For example, the villagers’ refusal to execute Hephaestus shows the importance of free will and how they choose to live with kindness when given the choice, even if it means a future danger for them. This moment highlights how the villagers’ morality and commitment to making decisions together is far more important than individual desires. Although the village looks to Emory as a leader, she knows that she only guides them, and she allows them make decisions as a group. This leadership style contrasts sharply with Niema’s decision to lead the village on her own and require the villagers to take orders from her without question. Instead, the village’s new order shows the importance of prioritizing the collective good when a community’s goals rise above mere survival.
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By Stuart Turton
