Station Eleven: Chapter 50 Summary & Analysis

We learn that the first knife tattoo on Kirsten’s wrist marks a man who came at her in her first year with the Symphony, when she was fifteen. He didn’t say anything, but she understood what he was trying to do. As he approached, time slowed, and she had plenty of time to pull a knife from her belt and send it spinning into the man’s throat.

The second knife tattoo was for a man who Kirsten killed two years later. The Symphony encountered four men, two with guns and two with machetes, trying to rob them, but the sixth guitar whispered “guns first,” and he and Kirsten each killed a gunman while the conductor took out the two with machetes.

Kirsten had hoped before killing the archer in Year Twenty that she wouldn’t have to kill a third person. She realizes based on the look of August’s face that the gunman was his first. She is too tired to tell August what she knows: that he will survive this, but that he will carry the man with him through the rest of his life.

Kirsten, August, and Sayid continue to walk in silence, wondering where the prophet is. As they walk down the highway, Kirsten reflects on the man she has just killed, and on Dieter’s death. As they get closer to the airport, they hear the distant bark of the dog and realize that the prophet is approaching.

They hide in the woods, as the prophet, a man with a crossbow, a man with a shotgun, and the boy with a machete, now wielding a handgun, all approach with the dog, Luli. Luli smells Kirsten, August, and Sayid, and soon the man with the crossbow sees them. Kirsten doesn’t know what to do, as she thinks she will get shot if she tries to attack with her knives. An arrow lands next to her, and the man with the crossbow instructs her to get up and drop the knife.

Kirsten stands and drops the knife, knowing it’s unlikely she would be able to reach a second one before being felled by one of the four attackers. She hopes that they don’t find Sayid and August, as the prophet approaches her. He calls her “Titania,” recognizing her from the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream back in St. Deborah by the Water, and has her drop to her knees. When asked, she tells the prophet that August and Sayid are dead, pretending the archer that August killed has killed them.

While the prophet’s rifle is an inch from her forehead, Kirsten knows what August must be thinking. If he reveals himself to fire arrows, the three of them would likely die, rather than just her. She comes to peace with the fact that she will die for her friends. While the prophet preaches, Kirsten notices the boy with the handgun is crying. As he prepares to kill her, the prophet says, “We are the light moving over the surface of the waters, over the darkness of the undersea.” Kirsten recognizes the Undersea as from the “Station Eleven” comic books, but the prophet is no longer listening to her. She responds to him with lines from the first issue: “We long only to go home,” taken from a faceoff between Dr. Eleven and an adversary from the Undersea. “We dream of sunlight, we dream of walking on earth.” The prophet’s reaction is unreadable, and Kirsten cannot tell if he has recognized the text. She continues quoting the scene, but the prophet merely says it’s too late. He adjusts his grip and a shot is fired.

The shot comes from not the prophet’s rifle, but from the boy’s handgun. The boy has shot the prophet in the head. In the instant after, August kills the other two men, while Kirsten and the boy stare at the prophet. Though she tries to stop him, the boy then shoots himself. As she kneels by the dead bodies, Viola and Jackson, the Symphony’s forward scouts, approach.

Later, August discovers a page from “Station Eleven” in the copy of the prophet’s New Testament. Kirsten wonders who he was and how he came to be the prophet, wondering if maybe he had the misfortune of remembering everything. She, August, and Sayid continue on to the airport while Viola and Jackson head back to tell the Symphony they have reunited.