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Rufus, 2:21 a.m.
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in They Both Die at the End, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mortality, Life, and Meaning
Human Connection and Social Media
Choices and Consequences
Friendship and Chosen Family
Business, Ethics, and Dehumanization
Summary
Analysis
Mateo feels vindicated for living his life alone; everyone on the Last Friend app is horrible. He ignores the Last Friend notifications and immerses himself in his Xbox game. His hero, a sorcerer, accidentally steps on a landmine and gets blown to pieces. Mateo’s heart pounds as he watches his character come to life again. Mateo won’t be able to do that. He walks to his bookcases: one that contains his favorite books and one holds books he hasn’t read. Mateo pulls out an armful of books he wants to read and hurls them across the room. He stops himself from throwing his speakers—they might light a fire—and tears down his world map. Mateo looks at the mess, knowing he can’t try to clean up. He’d be here all day. He knows he has to try, so he opens the Last Friend app again.
Allowing people like Philly and Wendy Mae to use Last Friend means that users like Mateo, who desperately want to connect with someone in a meaningful way, don’t get the meaningful experience they want. Social media companies can only do so much, though—and a situation like calls into question why developers haven’t done more to vet users like Wendy Mae, who isn’t dying and just hangs out on the app trying to solicit sex. These kinds of failures have emotional consequences for others, like Mateo’s outburst in this passage, as such interactions make it seem like there aren’t genuine people in the world to connect with.
Themes
