The Other Valley

Edme is a secondary character and Odile’s love interest in the novel. A 16-year-old boy in Odile’s class, Edme is the first person to befriend Odile, defending her from bullies and walking her home from school. He reveals to her that he secretly wants to join the valley’s orchestra, pursuing a career as a violinist, while his parents want him to pursue a more practical career. He dies in an accident on the bluffs around the lake, falling to his death while practicing the violin.

Edme is defined primarily by his creativity and gentleness. His violin playing, especially the piece he composes for his audition, marks him as someone oriented toward beauty, expression, and emotional honesty. These qualities sharply contrast with the rigid, bureaucratic world governed by the Conseil. Music becomes Edme’s language of sincerity in a society that values restraint and obedience. This sincerity makes him vulnerable, both socially and structurally.

For Odile, Edme’s death becomes the defining trauma of her life, not because she loved him openly, but because she understood its inevitability and chose silence. In this way, Edme embodies the human cost of foreknowledge. Unlike the cases that Odile studies, which use only initials and require that the students in the vetting program approach them with emotional detachment, Edme’s death and his parents’ visit make the time travel situation in the valley concrete for both Odile and Alain. He is killed by the system, claiming his innocence and individuality and forcing Odile to truly grapple with the Conseil’s authoritarian control.

Odile’s mother’s primary role in the novel is to embody the emotional and moral distance that shapes Odile’s development. Although she is not cruel, her love is conditional and often expressed through expectation rather than understanding. She believes deeply in the authority of the Conseil and the prestige of advancement within its systems, and this belief governs how she views her daughter’s choices. As a result, her relationship with Odile is marked by disappointment, miscommunication, and long silences.

One of Odile’s mother’s most defining qualities is her emphasis on achievement. When Odile leaves the vetting program to become a gendarme, her mother responds with anger, interpreting the decision as a failure rather than an act of integrity. Her reaction reinforces in Odile the idea that worth is tied to institutional success, a belief that later contributes to Odile’s willingness to compromise herself for a promotion. Her mother’s emotional withdrawal, conveyed by the fact that she sees Odile only occasionally, is distracted during meals, and fails to notice her daughter’s internal distress, mirrors the broader societal tendency to overlook individual suffering in favor of order and status.

However, Odile’s mother is not static. In later chapters, she surprises Odile by expressing that she wants her daughter to be happy, suggesting an evolution in her perspective. Her gift of the chisel—a tool connected to Odile’s private artistic practice—is one of the most meaningful gestures of care in the novel. It represents a moment of recognition: Although she does not fully understand Odile, she acknowledges her inner life.

In the final chapters, the mother’s desperation to keep Odile in the vetting program reveals the depth of her concern, even if it arrives late. Ultimately, Odile’s mother is a figure of imperfect love. She is constrained by the same system that shapes Odile and struggles to bridge the emotional distance between them with small, significant acts of care.

Raimond is an officer within the gendarmerie that befriends Odile. Even though it is typically frowned upon, they eat together frequently in the mess hall and discuss their assignments. Socially awkward and isolated, Raimond occupies an uneasy position within the gendarmerie, as he holds authority as an officer yet lacks the respect or camaraderie that usually accompanies it. His marginalization shapes both his ambition and his attachment to Odile, whom he treats as his closest (and perhaps only) friend.

One of Raimond’s defining traits is his desire for validation. His story about seeing what he believed to be his future self demonstrates how deeply he longs for confirmation that his life has meaning and direction. Unlike Odile, who fears the future she sees, Raimond is energized by the possibility that his current obedience will lead to advancement. This difference highlights a key contrast between them: Odile views authority as something to endure, while Raimond sees it as something that can redeem him.

Raimond’s loyalty to Odile is genuine but ethically troubling. He protects her from Gagne’s harassment and treats her with kindness, yet he also manipulates events to secure her favor and his own success. His cold-blooded murder of Lucie just to advance Odile’s chances of promotion reveals a dangerous, amoral streak in his character. His romantic proposal to Odile further reveals this tendency: Raimond frames their potential relationship partly as a strategic advantage, suggesting that companionship, for him, is inseparable from social legitimacy. While he believes he cares for Odile, his actions show that he values the stability she represents more than her autonomy.

Raimond functions as a cautionary parallel to Odile. He is someone who survives by fully aligning himself with the system, developing the theme of Authoritarian Control Versus Individual Freedom. Raimond relinquishes his freedom in exchange for the authority and social status that being a commander gives him. Where Odile hesitates and questions, Raimond acts decisively in service of authority. Odile briefly attempts to follow this path, yet her grief over Edme and her personal connection to Alain prevent her from doing so, underscoring her contrast to Raimond’s ruthlessness.