The Last Graduate

“You don’t do anything for anyone without some kind of return, and the return’s always got to be something solid, unless there’s some more substantial connection in place: an alliance, dating, something. But that’s why I knew the spell would work if everyone did agree. It means a lot more in here than outside to do something for nothing.”

El articulates one of the foundational principles of survival in the ruthless world of the Scholomance: that of self-interest. However, her musing comes in the midst of leading a spell that requires everyone to act altruistically. When the spell proves to be both potent and effective, El and the others learn the benefits of taking collective action.

“I’m not some sort of pallid romantic who insists on being loved for my shining inner being. My inner being is exceptionally cranky and I often don’t want her company myself.”

This quote captures El’s wry embrace of her misanthropic tendencies, and she also defies traditional literary stereotypes by refusing to be ruled by romance. El’s identity is shaped both by the Scholomance and by the ominous prophecy of her maternal grandmother. Her personality therefore has dark contours, and she is self-aware enough to recognize the impact that these factors have on her social identity and internal traits. Yet despite her cynical self-awareness, El does have an idealistic side, as she later proves when she acts upon her romantic interest in Orion.

“‘You can’t take me,’ I spat at him, and I heaved myself up onto my feet and stormed out on the energy of pure fury, which at least carried me out the doors and away from the grotesque lie of the grove.”

This quote comes during an intense conversation between El and Orion, after El transforms the gym and Orion chides her for pulling him away from mal hunting. El is implicitly comparing herself to one of the mals that Orion hunts, indicating that she sees herself as innately monstrous. Her brusque response to Orion also reflects her fears that engaging in a romance with him is impossible because of her rigorous self-sufficiency.

“We all agreed that Jowani would be helpful and a good strategic addition to round out our team. But we didn’t talk about why. We didn’t say that we didn’t want him to get left behind.”

Most alliances in the Scholomance are governed by the desire to survive at any cost. However, the members of El’s group choose to recruit Jowani because they are moved by altruism, even though they refuse to admit it. These lingering strains of empathy show that the students are not indifferent to the plight of those who are less capable of surviving the harsh environment of the Scholomance, and this early example of altruism foreshadows the group’s later move toward collective action to save everyone.

“‘Let’s get going before the next teams show up,’ I said. Then I realized that everyone else was waiting for me, which was both obvious and terrifying.”

In this scene, El’s characterization of the others’ regard as both “obvious and terrifying” indicates the lag in her thoughts between her former, isolated approach and her current status as a leader. Her inner turmoil therefore reflects The Tension Between Individualism and Collectivism, for she has yet to fully adjust her worldview. This quote shows her growing awareness of her leadership role as she struggles to live up to the new expectations of her peers.

“Enclavers didn’t get hit, not like the rest of us, not day to day. Once a month maybe they’d see a mal, with mana at their fingertips and lots of help and easier targets both close to hand. Enough for practice. Not enough to get hurt.”

This quote reflects the reality of the unequal power dynamics that dominate life both within and beyond the Scholomance. Those with privilege in the outside world also have privilege when they enter the school, and the majority of the power resides with those who belong to the most powerful enclaves. Thus, El’s rejection of enclaves as a survival tactic makes her more sympathetic to the plight of indie wizards and loners.

“I hadn’t any better plan to offer, in fact, than ‘run in and start killing mals until one of them gets you.’ I didn’t know what I was going to do. I only knew what I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going through. I wasn’t going through until everyone was out.”

This scene marks another important epiphany for El. After a tense confrontation with Orion, she realizes that she wants to save everyone, and her determination to achieve this goal establishes her status as a foil to Orion, who acts solely upon his desire to kill mals for the purposes of collecting mana. Although both characters act on instinct at times, El alone recognizes that she must be more intentional in her use of power.

“It was just rubbing your own face in it, and the only reason he didn’t already know that was he’d never been a loser before, lucky enclave boy. But he was now. He was a loser, and so was Magnus, so was Chloe, so was every last enclaver in the place, because they weren’t getting through the obstacle course without me.”

El’s decision to form the mega-team upends the existing power dynamics in the Scholomance by transforming enclavers into dependents who must rely on El in order to survive the all-important graduation day. Her immense power creates a situation in which the selfish collective action of the enclavers is no longer the best survival strategy in the Scholomance. Khamis’s indignation over this state of affairs demonstrates enclavers’ reluctance to relinquish their privilege in order to survive.

“And I don’t want to die, I want to get out of here, but I’m not going to put off being a person until I make it. So I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t know. I knew when I asked you to team up, I knew that I’d just gotten lucky. It wasn’t anything I did. I was just a loser girl like you and a desi girl like you, and I wasn’t a complete jerk to you, so you let me get close enough to figure out that you were a rocket and I could grab on.”

Aadhya’s approach to surviving the Scholomance prioritizes forging relationships and finding joy wherever she can, despite her poor odds of surviving the Scholomance. Her words in this scene also indicate that her loyalty to El is a combination of friendship and self-interest, thereby illustrating her pragmatic streak.

“But that didn’t give her or me the right to volunteer them to save everyone. I didn’t have the right, but I had the power, because their only alternative was to quit our alliance, or maybe open up one of the floor drains and jump in, which looked roughly as good a survival plan. And they all knew it, and I knew it, and that meant I was making them do it, just as much as Khamis taking the nice safe center position in his team.”

El recognizes that wielding her power has ethical repercussions, and her diatribe demonstrates her awareness of the privilege inherent in having such power. In this passage, she considers the true moral cost of wielding power over others. Her reflections also illustrate her discomfort in assuming a leadership role.

“We’re all going to be allies, because it’s worth it to help some rando kid if that means five minutes later, El’s going to be able to stop the volcano from falling on your head.”

In this scene, El and Aadhya are in a debate with Khamis about the necessity of shifting survival tactics to one that prioritizes collective action. Aadhya is attempting to appeal to Khamis’s self-interest by portraying collective action as a solid, logical survival strategy. Her forceful tone and casual phrasing also combine to create a persuasive approach that will sway Khamis, who is currently motivated by selfish interests alone.

“It is not a complex problem to appear nice to people! You identify the most popular targets in each of your classes, learn what they value about themselves, and give them a minimum of three relevant compliments each week. So long as they think you are agreeable, others will follow their lead.”

Liesel’s quantitative, matter-of-fact approach to forming relationships with others show her keen awareness of power dynamics in the Scholomance, especially when seeking strategic friendships with enclavers. As an awkward person whose blind spot is her inability to navigate social norms, El sees Liesel as someone who is only interested in power. However, El’s own inability to strategize ways of forming relationships with others impedes her attempts to become a leader who inspires confidence.

“It would be at least as effective at killing wizards off as a horde of maleficaria, especially once any survivors went home and told their parents that the war everyone was half expecting had started here on the inside.”

El is finally recognizing the relationship between life inside the Scholomance and life outside the Scholomance. Her ability to make this calculation under pressure shows that her leadership ability is expanding, and she now has the wherewithal to think ahead and discern the consequences of potential actions.

“What I want is to get you out. To get all of us out. Do you think you could pull your heads out of your collective arses and help?”

El’s blunt, abrasive call for help reveals her intentions to implement a daring new strategy for survival—collective action. At this point in the narrative, El has considered The Moral Implications of Survival Tactics and has decided that the only ethical approach to her own survival is to attempt to save everyone else as well. This decision reflects her dedication to collective action and illustrates her growth as a leader.

“She sat there eating them and reading a book, making a picture straight out of the first-year orientation handbook, with tiny petals drifting across the scene like pink snow. Living as much as she could, because she wasn’t going to get much more of a chance.”

When El encounters a younger student who decides to live for the small pleasures of the moment and ignore the reality of her imminent death, this scene becomes an emotional moment for El: one that forces her to rediscover the cruelty and cost of life in the Scholomance. Her desire to make life in the Scholomance just a little bit safer primes her for the school’s subsequent request that she create a true haven for young magicians. El’s desire to save the girl marks a crucial moment of progress in her coming-of-age journey.

“I said, just a girl talking to myself in the hallway, a stupid girl pretending she was a hero because she was going to save a thousand kids before she then went skipping merrily through the gates, leaving behind—what were the numbers? Twelve hundred kids dead out of every year, and it’s been 140 years, which worked out to a number I couldn’t fix even if I stayed behind.”

This is a moment of crisis for El because she feels a sense of futility when struggling to calculate the number of students who have died over the years in the Scholomance. Faced with the enormity of the forces ranged against her, she wonders if her plan to save everyone is merely a form of hubris. This moment of indecision comes after the Scholomance sends her an article about the school’s founding. The school’s sentience is now on full display, and in this pivotal moment, it makes its desire to save everyone apparent to El. This desire becomes one of El’s major motivations as a character.

“Because of course I wouldn’t be able to do a thing if everyone took back their mana. But if I took their mana with a lie—it wouldn’t be freely given, after all […]. But when you got someone to hand you their mana—it didn’t hurt. You could trick someone, pressure them, lie to them, all you wanted. It wasn’t going to damage you in any way that anyone else would ever see. Which is why that’s what enclavers did. And then they pretended it wasn’t malia, but it was.”

El now knows that the graduation hall is empty, and she faces a moral dilemma as a result. Novik also uses this scene for the pragmatic purpose of delivering additional world-building around the rules that govern the collection of mana versus malia. El’s private dilemma therefore demonstrates the moral ambiguity of the interactions between enclavers and indie wizards. El rejects this unjust system when she chooses to tell everyone the truth about the hall, and her decision proves that she will not embrace unethical means of survival.

“We’ve all spent the best part of four years training as hard as we could to be inhumanly selfish in a way we could only possibly live with because all of us were going round in fear for our lives—if not in the next five minutes then on graduation day at the latest—and you could tell yourself everyone else was doing the same and there wasn’t any other choice. The Scholomance had encouraged it if anything. Everyone for themselves worked well enough to get 25 percent of the students out through the unending horde: I suppose up until now that had been the school’s best option. And yes, it now very clearly meant for us to start collaborating instead, but a large building might not understand that human beings have a bit more difficulty shifting their mindset.”

In this moment, El reflects on the difficulties involved in dramatically altering a status quo that has lasted for over 100 years. Notably, she is most concerned about the human element of resistance in this paradigm shift, and the passage suggests that most people adhere to an individualistic mindset rather than a collectivist approach. While the sentient school has no conception of the challenge that El faces, El’s new leadership skills make her appreciate the issues involved in convincing the entire student body to change their way of thinking. The nuances of her contemplations also reflect her growing maturity.

“And then instead of just us trying to come up with something, we could have every wizard in the world thinking about a better solution.”

In this moment, Chloe encourages the students to think beyond their current circumstances and consider how their actions might benefit the world at large. Up until this point, most characters have been solely concerned with their own survival and political prospects, but Chloe makes a new suggestion that injects a note of hope into the narrative, showing a desire to influence the world’s magical population to improve the Scholomance’s educational system.

“The Scholomance wasn’t built out of some kind of passionate dedication to the concept of boarding school education. It’s just a casino, meant to tilt the odds in our favor, because surviving puberty is a numbers game.”

The cynical tone of this quote positions the Scholomance as a symbol for the arbitrariness of life even as it delivers a wry commentary upon the chaos of adolescence. In this way, Novik simultaneously reinforces the rules of her world-building even as she situates The Last Graduate as a dark, ominous version of a bildungsroman. The quote also highlights the fact that El’s effort to save everyone is fueled by her desire to “tilt the odds” and create a system that is fairer than a random game.

“The Scholomance—the Scholomance is the best place I’ve ever been.”

Orion’s halting yet emphatic utterance exhibits his unique attitude toward the Scholomance, proving unequivocally that his own philosophical stance runs counter to the beliefs of his peers. Thus, his stuttering statement  offers considerable insight into who he is, and it is clear that he believes that he has no value beyond his extensive skill at killing mals. This belief also shows the warping influence of his parents and his enclave on his self-worth and identity.

“‘There’s no such thing as normal people,’ I said, a desperate flailing. ‘There’s just people, and some of them are miserable, and some of them are happy, and you’ve the same right to be happy as any of them—no more and no less.’”

El gives Orion a piece of hard-earned wisdom, illustrating her recognition that the very concept of normalcy is an illusion, and her sentiments reflect the full extent of her progress in her coming-of-age journey. However, her reference to “desperate flailing” indicates the struggles involved in Coming of Age Without Adults to mitigate her mistakes and false starts. In this challenging moment, she doesn’t have the reassurance of adult mentors to guide her in how best to reassure Orion. Instead, she must rely solely upon her own experiences in the Scholomance.

“‘The things that the family think are the right things.’ She stopped, and took a deep breath and let it out. ‘But I’m not going to. I’m going to want the things I want, and help them the way I can help them. And those are going to be the right things, too.’”

Liu also embraces her own coming-of-age journey by using the lessons that she has learned in the Scholomance. In this moment, she recognizes that she cannot allow her own individual needs to be subsumed by the needs of her collective—her family, in this case. Her choice shows the importance of achieving balance between the individual needs and the goals of the collective.