Mary’s answer to “**HUGE SPOILER ALERT** Was anyone else as disappointed as I was with Werner's death? I was so mad…” > Likes and Comments

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message 1: by Sarah (new)

Sarah Ozcandarli I think Werner redeemed himself by saving Marie Laure, escorting her from Saint Malo during the cease fire.His final acts also ensured that eventually she was able to know that the diamond was returned to the sea.

I think the miracle meeting did happen, when they realized they had been connected all their lives by radio: Werner listened to Etienne's broadcasting his brother's records about science on a radio receiver Werner built as a child, and he listened to Marie Laure reading '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,' while trapped in the Hotel of Bees at the end of the war broadcast from the same radio he heard 10 years before. What are the odds?


message 2: by [deleted user] (new)

I agree with you, Sarah. Werner got the redemption he deserved. No more, no less. At the end of the day, Werner was a Nazi. Doerr did a very good job making him seem as sympathetic a character as possible.

If Werner got the happy, Disneyland ending - why shouldn't Volkheimer or von Rumpel.


message 3: by Crystal (new)

Crystal Velasquez I don't think Werner would have ever been the same again anyway if he had lived. He was already haunted by the little girl who died because he led the other Nazis to her house. And while he was able to distance himself from his part in the war by focusing on the exciting aspect of finding the radio signals and figuring out where they were coming from, he had to face the fact that if not for him and his talent with radios, those people would not have died. In that way, one could almost view his walking out into that field as a suicide. It's so complicated and interesting.


message 4: by Trisha (new)

Trisha What Sarah said, sometimes redemption is not in surviving , but in the selfless act of saving someone who was better. Werner died at peace with saving Marie Laure and meeting the link to the source of his inspiration.


message 5: by Sim (new)

Sim Never thought of it that way Crystal! Good ideas.


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