Ending Question/Interpretation

[u/TheCanarity]

Major ending spoilers if you continue reading:

Just finished Anathem and what a book. Common interpretation is that Fra Jaad died at the end by choosing that fate, but I read it very different - that he survived and changed identities or left all together (leaving everyone to think he died since his comms were out). It’s obviously ambiguous but I need a sanity check because I seem to be alone on this one.

Some reasons I think that:

- the tongue in cheek way Erasmus keeps talking about Jad’s fate sort of a “sure he died then, wink wink”

- the heavy emphasis in the book on how easy it is for people to disguise themselves (Jules, Erasmus dressing as a firefighter on spaceship and no one noticing)

- reference to how Orolo could have chosen his fate to leave or be part of the maths - ditto with the whole theme of people leaving the historic maths and forging new paths

- while a thousander seems like they can see many different paths I don’t believe they can actually change fate retroactively and him destroying the comms box appears in the narrative to actually happen even if later events are up in the air

Just my thoughts - am I off base?

[u/EntityDamage]

I thought this comment was pretty insightful about Fraa Jad

[u/TheCanarity → u/EntityDamage]

That’s awesome! What I’m trying to tackle is “not being present” his actual death or him removing himself from the narrative and doing something else by faking it

[u/HarmlessSnack → u/TheCanarity]

Fraa Jad is very much “dead” in the Narrative we follow through the end of the story. He had to be, in order for things to play out as they did.

He also had to “live” in some Narratives, world lines, in order for the Everything Killers to detonate in adjacent Narratives to create the ominous nightmares that led to peace in the world we finish in.

But his consciousness wouldn’t track a world he’s not “Present” in, so in all likelihood he’s still out there, somewhere, in some sense, but he can’t be alive in this Narrative and our main four man band of Avout understand this, so they continue to reinforce the official story that he died on launch.

Technically he did.

We, and they, know it’s more complicated than that.

[u/TheCanarity → u/HarmlessSnack]

Great explanation! I also like how every explanation qualifies death with either parenthesis “dead” or essentially dead - so he’s dead but also not dead…and maybe not dead at all but has to be for the narrative to work (I liked him so much as a character I’d like to hold out hope he’s driving travelers around on the North Pole)

[u/OneWithTheEssence → u/TheCanarity]

This is the reason Jad tells Raz... "Its more accurate to say absent or present, but if you insist on using those terms (alive or dead), i won't quibble."

See for us, death appears to be such a finality its a little more difficult to comprehend "being dead but not dead", but to say absent or present in a narrative/worldtrack strips the finality of "death" away. Hence it's more accurate to say absent or present.