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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
Rufus is ready for anything as he follows Mateo; he got a power nap on the train. They decide that if they’re still alive in a little while, they’ll visit the Travel Arena to take advantage of shorter lines. Rufus suspects that they’re going to do charity work or that Mateo arranged a meeting with Aimee, but Mateo leads Rufus to the pier in Chelsea. Mateo explains that they’re here so Rufus can get some closure, like Mateo did at his mom’s grave. They walk to the end of the pier. Rufus says this feels like a joke—like his family and the Plutos are going to rush out at him. He’d be mad, but happy. He admits, for the first time, that he left his parents and Olivia. He doesn’t know if it was a reflex, but it would’ve been easy to sink with them. Maybe, if they’d tried, they would’ve lived.
The very fact that Mateo is leading Rufus now indicates how far Mateo has already come in his quest. Having already done the things that are most important to him, he can now turn his attention to helping others. When Rufus admits that he left his parents in the river, it forces Rufus to admit that on some level, he did want to live—he didn’t want to drown with his family because his life, at that point, meant more to him than staying with his family. The consequence of this choice is mostly guilt and shame—feelings the novel implies are understandable but not entirely healthy. Wanting to live isn’t a shameful thing—it’s a normal human instinct.
Themes
Mateo reminds Rufus that Death-Cast is never wrong, but Rufus continues to list what he could’ve done. He says that his parents made sure he got out of the car, but then they just sat there. Mateo tells Rufus that this wasn’t his fault, takes Rufus’s bike, and walks away. Rufus gives in and sobs for his family, his friends, and Aimee—and because he’s met a great friend and with whom he doesn’t even have a day to spend. He turns around to find Mateo walking the bike in circles. Mateo says that Rufus needed to snap and that if he needs to snap again, Mateo will support that—they’re Last Friends for life.
Though Rufus’s parents accepted their fate, their final choice was to make sure that Rufus got to go on and live. The novel suggests that this was admirable of them, even if Rufus resents them for it on some level. In a sense, Rufus is focusing more on the fact that his parents seemingly chose to abandon him than he is on the truth: that they knew it wasn’t Rufus’s time and did everything in their power to help Rufus understand that.
Themes
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