Ohmygodwhatthefuck

How did I not know about this? Who didn't tell me?

There's going to be a movie based on The Giver. Oh yeah, and by the way, in 2004 Lois Lowry wrote a sequel to The Giver. I had no idea this happened either.

Jonas didn't die. Want to know what happened at the end of the novel? I'll explain it to you.

The house that Jonas sees, that's immaterial. What's important is that he hears music. The music isn't coming from the house. The music is "hearing beyond." Early in the book Jonas begins to see color, what the Giver describes as "seeing beyond." He sees the red in Fiona's hair, the color of an apple, so on and so forth. The Giver has "hearing beyond." He hears music.

Now if you remember, the first Receiver, the Giver's daughter, chose to be released after absorbing an unpleasant memory. When she died the memories she had absorbed went out into the community, and the Giver had to take them all back. These powers, hearing and seeing beyond, were based on the memories that the two had absorbed. They were remembering things normal people had long forgotten. If one of them died while still retaining the memories that give them hearing or seeing beyond, it only stands to reason that the power would flow into the community as well.

At the end of the novel, Jonas hears music. Jonas didn't die. The Giver died. All his memories flowed into the community, and now there is no one to take them back as the Giver once did. Now the people of the community must remember.