How Does Empire Of Wild End?

Question

Just finished Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline and wow, my head is spinning. Could someone spoil the final confrontation and epilogue for me? The shape-shifter mythology left me with so many questions.

Reyna Flores · Answer

I haven’t read any stories by this author, but from what I gather from your prompt for wild twists on the typical story of a person amassing an empire only to have it all taken away in the end, The Rise Of The Last White Wolf by Alex Chu would be a good read. The story follows the lycanthrope ruler of a particular territory and how he must secure his hold on the land not through mindless violence but by unmasking an ancient political conspiracy which could topple his empire at any moment. The twist at the end of the book is clever and very satisfying in that it brings resolution to the central conflict of the book.

Grace · Answer

The final pages of Empire of Wild are somehow both a really satisfying conclusion and a deeply unsettling one. The confrontation between Joan and the Rogarou (a creature of Métis oral legend) is wild and intense and awful, and then after that there’s Victor, finally free from his spectral state, and their reunion is completely understated and fragile. It leaves so many questions about whether or not Joan has been permanently changed by her experiences, and whether or not love can ever fully recover someone from what she experienced. But more importantly, it leaves those questions with Joan, and lets us experience her confusion and pain and uncertainty alongside her. Some changes can’t be undone, and that’s what Empire of Wild ends with: the image of Joan sitting in the trees listening for the Rogarou’s voice. Not a happy ending, but a hopeful one.

Dana · Answer

I finished reading Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline last night. It was a really emotional read, a perfect mix of myth and human emotion. The ending of the book follows Joan on her journey to rescue her husband Victor from the Rogarou, a monstrous creature from Métis folklore that Joan thought only existed in stories. Along the way, Joan also has to come to terms with the deterioration of their marriage before he left and the secrets that he kept from her. The Rogarou is more than just a monster though – it’s a symbol for the ways in which secrets and transformations can erode love. The ending was really ambiguous and didn’t provide a neat and tidy tie up of all the loose ends for the reader. Although Victor’s humanity had been returned to him, there was still a sense of loss at the ending, as if some wounds would never fully heal. That was really impressive of Dimaline, to write such a realistic portrayal of human relationships and their messiness. The ending wasn’t about defeating the monster, but about how to deal with the scars left by it.

It was also really cool how the Métis cultural history of Joan’s family was woven into the ending. The Rogarou is a part of a lot of Métis folklore that usually teaches a lesson about greed and betrayal, and in this book, the creature becomes more than an antagonist to Joan. In their fight for his freedom and their reconciliation, Victor and Joan are also fighting for her history, for her culture and her identity. The ending was really moving and the last scenes with Joan standing in her yard surrounded by her family and her community whispering of the Rogarou was very powerful and gave me chills.

Vanessa · Answer

The end of Empire of Wild is so hauntingly and beautifully done. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now. I said earlier that Joan’s fight against the Rogarou was emotional in addition to physical and that was really true for me in the climax of the book where Joan is forced to make a choice between holding on to the past with Victor, or letting him go in order to save himself from the Rogarou. The way that Dimaline wrote this scene and all of the scenes leading up to it, really conveyed the depth of Joan’s love for Victor as well as her fear for him. And in the end, it is not violence that saves the day but rather something far more intimate: a song, a memory, a tie to another person that cannot be broken even by the Rogarou. It is so beautifully and realistically done. The end is so very bittersweet for the characters and for the reader, and it is a wonderful ending to a great book.

The novel skillfully interweaves a lot of historical mythology with a lot of modern struggle to really explore colonialism and the way that it has allowed the disintegration of many different cultures. So the novel doesn’t necessarily end on a lot of answers for a lot of questions, and I think that in and of itself is kind of really powerful, in that Joan’s struggle to save her husband from the Rogarou is also a struggle to find her own voice. It’s a really powerful and moving exploration of identity and history and culture and all of that, and the ending is kind of amazing. The wind carries the sound of the Rogarou’s howl in the last pages of the novel. It gives me chills every time I think about it. It’s the kind of ending that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading the book.

Joyce Anderson · Answer

It made me cry at the end. Not because it was sad, but it was so hopeful in a really broken world. So, she doesn’t get her husband back. Instead she gets to care for this wounded man for the rest of his life. And she chooses that. She chooses to love him with what is left of him. She chooses to build a life out of the rubble of their destroyed one. That kind of hope in the face of such heartache is just really beautifully done. And it’s not one of those stories where everyone gets to escape their difficulties. No. This is a story of how you turn to face your difficulties instead. You live a damaged life, and it’s worth living. I just loved this. The image of her, down in the dirt, her hands planting in the dark earth for a future that may never arrive, is just one of the most hopeful things I’ve ever read. It’s earned hope. Hope that has stared into the abyss of her destroyed world and chosen to plant a garden instead.

Belle Hoehn · Answer

One of the subtle things that I enjoyed so much about this book was that the ending of the book mirrored the beginning of the book. At the beginning of the book, Joan is searching for something in the wilderness. At the end of the book, she has finally found what she was looking for and is rooted in the earth, tending to a garden. The beginning of the book feels like a loss of something, and the end of the book feels like mindful and difficult care of something. The beginning of the book feels like Joan is removed from her culture and her people, and the end of the book feels like she has returned to her culture and is passing it on to the next generation, her niece. The journey that Joan took was a circle, but she arrived at a different place on the circle. The mirrored structure of the ending of the book to the beginning of the book gives the ending a sense of cohesion and completion. The plot of the book comes to an end, but the thematic and emotional arcs of the book are also bookended by the ending in beautiful symmetry. The experience of reading the book feels complete and full and round.

San_2045 · Answer

I love that the ending of the play subverts the typical ‘hero returns home triumphant’ plot structure and instead shows Joan returning home, weighted down by her new knowledge and loss of loved ones. Yes, the Rogarou is defeated in the play, but the deeper wounds to the community of poverty, addiction and despair are still there. Slaying one metaphorical dragon does not fix the rest of the community’s problems and that is Joan’s role now: to heal this wounded community. This ending is profoundly anti-capitalist and pro-community. The horror that was presented in the play as a symptom of the community’s ills is cured by collective care and the continued culture of the community. This is a powerful and thoughtful ending that has stuck with me for years.

Jena Jena · Answer

It ties together the two larger arcs of the personal and the mythological very satisfactorily. It takes place at a revival tent where the preacher, the human disguise of the Rogarou, is exposed by Joan using all of her best tools: cleverness, stolen evidence, courage. The creature gets defeated in a very symbolic manner: in order to break the hold that the Rogarou had on Joan, she just had to refuse to be a victim and to claim her identity and her history. And the rest of the cast follows suit in a fairly satisfying way: Victor is rescued from the creature's clutches, but is in a very bad way, and we are left to wonder what will happen next for him and Joan. The real monster is the erosion of culture and human connection, and Joan fights it and wins by re-creating both for herself and her people. It was a very satisfying ending to her story.

Rianti · Answer

This was a surprise for me, as I was kind of hoping for a more literal fight in the woods between Joan and the Rogarou. Instead Dimaline provides a grotesque church camp scene where the monster poses as a faith-healing preacher and preys on his followers. The only “weapon” that Joan brings to this fight are a handful of old photos and her story. The fight is quiet and devastating to our protagonist. The Rogarou doesn’t roar as I had imagined; instead it whimpers and remembers. What I found most compelling was the transition from external horror to internal tragedy. And Victor. Calling Joan by a name that isn’t hers and the vacant expression on his face is more painful to me than any of the Rogarou’s description. The ending doesn’t provide any comfort, but it is true. And sometimes in stories that explore similar ideas, that has to be enough. It was a bold choice and one that solidifies Thomas King’s The Back of the McGill as one of my favorite novels.

How Does Empire Of Wild End?

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