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Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Is Where It Ends, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gun Violence
Community and Tragedy
Family and Sibling Relationships
Change, Uncertainty, and Growing Up
Abuse
Summary
Analysis
All the parents start running towards the emerging students, but the police make them stay away from the school. The students look confused and terrified, and some are covered in blood. Claire recognizes football players and a group of girls from Matt’s class, one of whom she suspects of having a crush on him. She wishes she could run inside the school and drag her brother out. The police quickly usher the students into medical tents. From that point on, dazed students exit the school every few minutes.
The everyday drama of high school crushes contrasts starkly with the images of bloody and dazed students. These seemingly banal moments do even more to point out the pointlessness of gun violence and the horror of shortened lives than the novel’s more dramatic action sequences.
Themes
Claire looks over at the crowd of parents and sees Mr. Browne standing alone, shunned by all the others. She almost goes over to confront him, but police officers reach him first and quietly escort him away. Instead, Claire buries her face in Chris’s chest and quietly cries that Tyler’s father “ruined” him. Quietly, Chris says that even though Tyler’s father abused him and Claire failed to report it, it’s not their fault. Most abuse survivors don’t kill other people. She couldn’t have done anything about it even if she’d stayed with Tyler.
Claire’s outburst shows that she recognizes that Tyler’s evil actions spring from the abuse he endured at his father’s hands and the values he learned from him. However, Chris argues that individual behavior can’t be attributed solely to environmental circumstances. The horrific example of Tyler violence illuminates the larger struggle that all the narrators face in figuring out who they are and what they value.
Themes
Sylvia, Tomás, and Fareed are out of Tyler’s sight but still worried, as Tyler has left the auditorium to pursue fleeing students. Fareed suggests they hide upstairs, even though Sylvia is worried about getting trapped there. She worries that Tyler won’t leave the building as long as he believes she’s inside, since he blames her for taking Autumn away from him.
Sylvia understands that Tyler’s actions spring from his rage at “losing” Autumn; her thoughts frame the entire crisis as the consequence of failing to address anxieties about evolving relationships and growing up.
Themes
Fareed and Tomás come up with an idea to get onto the roof from one of the second-floor classrooms. The police will see them and help, and Tyler won’t know where they are. Sylvia looks at a boy who is dying of gunshot wounds in front of the auditorium, and absentmindedly clutches the Brown acceptance letter still hidden in her pocket.
Even before the shooting started, Sylvia’s acceptance letter represented both the potential of the future and the difficulty of leaving home. Its reappearance now emphasizes the choices and possibilities that Tyler has robbed from so many students.
Themes
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Pulling Sylvia along, Tomás sneaks up the stairs. He knows that Fareed is right and there’s nowhere to hide on the first floor. Sylvia thanks Tomás for coming back for her, saying that he should’ve just run away. Tomás feels a little stung, but he realizes that he and his sister have gotten so used to pushing each other away that they can’t even drop the habit now.
Even though Sylvia and Tomás have just stated their love and good intentions, they still have trouble being open with each other. As twins, their relationship is central to both their lives, but it’s also the most difficult to navigate.
Themes
Tomás reassures Sylvia that the shooting has nothing to do with her, even though he doesn’t really think this is true. He knows that Tyler cornered her at junior prom last year and hurt her somehow, even if the details are murky. That’s the reason why he first picked a fight with Tyler, starting the series of pranks that ended with Tyler dropping out of school. Tomás thought that he’d seen the end of Tyler, and he didn’t realize that his sister was still scared of him until today.
Tomás’s behavior towards Tyler springs from a good intention: to protect his sister. Yet it’s notable that, perceiving Sylvia has been traumatized, he doesn’t try to talk to her but takes the more straightforward course of fighting her abuser. In these displays of aggression, Tomás too succumbs to harmful modes of conventionally masculine behavior.
Themes
Tomás asks if Sylvia ever saw Tyler after junior prom, but Sylvia just looks away and doesn’t answer. Suddenly, Tomás remembers a night last summer when Sylvia came home late and immediately went to bed sick. Even after she got well three days later she wouldn’t “face” Tomás or talk to him; even though he could guess what had happened, he didn’t really want to know.
Tomás’s admission that he always “knew” what happened to Sylvia suggests his fear of the emotional maturity and intimacy that talking to her about her rape would entail. It’s easier for him to treat his sister as an object in need of protection than to interact directly with her suffering.
Themes
As soon as Tyler leaves the auditorium, the remaining students debate closing the doors; they don’t know if it’s better to risk escaping or barricade themselves in the building. Autumn stands up to survey the dead bodies all over the floor and the teachers tending to the wounded. Every face that looks back at her seems to be filled with “anger, loathing, and fear.” She knows that she needs to find Sylvia and protect her from Tyler, but Matt is counting on her for comfort and protection as well. She helps him crawl out from under the seat, disturbed by the blood spreading across his shirt, and retrieves a first aid kit from the wall, hoping something useful is inside.
Autumn’s sense of being an outsider reflects not only her classmates’ suspicion but her sense of being intrinsically tied to Tyler, even after she’s seen his true character. However, the evident willingness of people to turn on her simply because of her relatives shows how a crisis like this can cause innocent and like-minded community members to turn on each other needlessly.
Themes
Other students report that the police have arrived and secured the outside of the school. Speaking loudly, Autumn suggests that anyone who can run should get out of the school, while those who want to stay should treat the most severely wounded first. Bitterly, CJ says that no one should trust Autumn, because the shooter was her brother, but another student sticks up for Autumn, pointing out that she tried to stop him. Autumn asks the people who are communicating with the police to request EMTs and stretchers.
By taking charge here, Autumn distinguishes herself from her brother and his crimes. Drawing on their positive childhood memories, her previous confrontation with Tyler emphasized her love for him and her desire for his redemption; now, she’s given up all faith in his character or their relationship, and wants instead to align herself firmly with the community that he’s harmed.
Themes
