What Happens At The End Of 'The Vanished Birds'?

The ending of ‘The Vanished Birds’ by Simon Jimenez is so beautifully and so melancholically hopeful. The story of Nia, a starship captain, and a mute boy that she picks up from a planet that is being destroyed, is so much more than that. In the end of the book, the mute boy that Nia picked up grows up to become a sort of mediator between humans and the mysterious ‘birds’ who are able to manipulate time. In the end, Kaeda (as the mute boy is called when he grows up) gives up his life in order to become one with the birds in order to guide humanity through their newfound understanding of time and connection. The ending is bittersweet, because although Nia has lost the physical form of Kaeda, the feeling is that he is still with her. It is also written in such a way that it is a quiet explosion, a beautiful event that is understated yet deeply moving.

What struck me most about the ending of The Vanished Birds was how it went back to several of the themes found in the book, most notably that of isolation and longing. For much of the book, Nia was running from her past. In rescuing the mute boy that she would later raise as her own, she found connection, and in that connection with Kaeda as an adult, she found something greater still, a connection that would transcend even time and space. I was sad to see Kaeda go, but I was also comforted by the fact that his journey was not one of negative loss, but of positive transformation, even if we are not entirely sure what exactly that means for him.
I also appreciated how the book ended in a sense of ambiguity, as to whether or not Kaeda’s consciousness is still present in the space of the birds. As I closed the book and sat there for a long while in silence, feeling moved and thinking about everything that had transpired, I realized that this was how every great book ends for me, with a story that lingers long after the final page has been turned.

This ending takes a nice turn in that instead of making Kaeda the Chosen One who saves the galaxy through more combat, the galaxy is saved by the special hero in a unique way through his vulnerability. Instead of fighting the bad guy to save the fragments of history, he nurtures them instead. That’s some very cool heroism, similar to that of Nia’s. Her heroism lies in her ability to love and accept Kaeda knowing full well he’ll be destroyed by time, and then to continue on long after that. The ending is really, really sweet and one of the few I’ve seen that trusts the reader enough to not resort to what amounts to a simplistic, “ застукали их спalimy” type of ending. Instead, it resorts to emotional and thematic closure, which is altogether more grown up and satisfying these days when every other ending is a typical blockbuster type of thing.

Much of the criticism of Nia’s role at the end of the book centers on her seeming to do nothing but observe. And I would disagree with that rather strongly. What Nia has done throughout the book is to respect Kaeda’s autonomy and not to attempt to control or to possess or to use him in any way. The vast majority of the characters in the book have attempted to do one or more of these things to Kaeda, and Nia’s journey from delivery runner to one who delivers the ultimate thing – freedom – is not passive in its final act. The hardest delivery that Nia ever made is the final one that she makes. And for it to be characterized as passive is to miss the point entirely.