The Last Graduate

This section of the novel illustrates the culmination of the students’ collective path toward Coming of Age Without Adults, for the seniors and El in particular take responsibility for themselves, their former alliances, and the younger classes as well, actively protecting others rather than prioritizing their own safety at the expense of fellow students’ lives, as in the past. El’s maturation goes even further, for she definitively shifts her stance from one of stubborn self-reliance to a new willingness to depend on others. As she and everyone else rely on Liesel’s organization of the queue to leave the hall in the most effective manner, it is clear that El now depends upon the support of her friends and allies to survive: a form of trust that she was incapable of extending at the beginning of the novel.

El isn’t the only one who comes of age in these chapters, for Orion suddenly realizes that his life can focus on more than merely killing mals and building mana. Through his romance with El, he discovers a deeper need for a life of purpose and connection with others. Likewise, Liu chooses to assert her own agency when she embraces a relationship with another young woman rather than agreeing a more politically advantageous match with Zixuan. With this bold decision, Liu shifts dramatically from her earlier stance, when she practiced malia and acted in ways that benefited her family, often at the cost of her own well-being. Ultimately, Novik uses these individual examples to suggest that all of the students weigh the moral and practical consequences of their actions without any access to adult mentorship.

In a similar vein, the battle over The Moral Implications of Survival Tactics dominates the novel’s climactic scenes, especially when Myrthe attempts to undermine the plan by encouraging the seniors to save themselves rather than trying to help others to escape as well. Her argument represents a dramatic example of The Tension Between Individualism and Collectivism, and her words are so persuasive that none of the architects of the plan have the wherewithal to respond. However, Cora cites her gratitude for her classmates’ willingness to use the collective healing spell to save her life, and her argument counters Myrthe’s proposal. In this way, Cora’s actions suggest the ethical superiority of a collective approach to this particular situation. Because she has been the beneficiary of altruism, she now manages to sway the wavering seniors, who prove that they, too, value collective well-being over individual survival.

El also has to face the complications of her decision to ensure everyone’s survival. The plan places her in a precarious position, as she will be one of the last people in the hall. Despite this risk, she chooses to go through with the plan because she values the needs of the many over her own. Her decision is based upon her new ethical premise of working toward the collective good. However, although the Scholomance takes independent actions that align with El’s moral goals, its methods are ironically far from ethical. For example, it coerces students into following El’s plan by cutting off the food supply to those who refuse to participate. It also pushes everyone into the hall on graduation day by changing its architecture, thereby leaving every student with no choice but to join in with the plan to ensure that everyone survives. In this way, the novel as a whole suggests that coercion is sometimes justified if it is intended to save lives.

The end of El’s character arc in this installment also illustrates the personal impact of her new embrace of collectivism. Throughout most of the novel, El remains determined to act alone, but by the climax of the story, she accepts the necessity of depending on others. However, she also acknowledges that too much dependence can be dangerous, as when she feels alarmed by Orion’s potential over-reliance on their relationship in order to ensure his own happiness. When she warily reflects on the risks of serving as another person’s only form of support, she comes to understand the nature of the danger that her mother warned her about. These dynamics indicate Novik’s broader philosophy of advocating for a healthy balance between individualism and collectivism.

Notably, El is not the only student who must contend with The Tension Between Individualism and Collectivism on a personal level, for Liu must also make difficult choices in this arena when she confronts the dissonance between her individual preferences and her sense of familial loyalty. Her decision to reject an arranged marriage with Zixuan reflects her decision to emphasize her own agency; however, her choice to help others in the graduation hall shows that she, too, is seeking an ideal balance between individual and collective needs.

Ultimately, the novel’s abrupt end shows the difficulties of balancing the needs of the individual with those of the collective. Although Orion is a gifted fighter whose skills are crucial to the escape plan, his final act is an individualistic one because he chooses to pursue his love of fighting mals rather than seeing to the needs of El and his family. Novik’s choice to end the novel with a cliffhanger is designed to increase interest in the final volume of the trilogy, and she also declines to provide definitive answers about whether the students apply their recent life lessons in the world beyond the Scholomance.