The Inevitability of Death in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom Series

I was a teenager when I first read the Old Kingdom trilogy as it was then. I don’t remember quite how old I was, probably around 14 or so. I was lonely and awkward as many young people are, and books were the one constant I had; books were an escape from the uncertainty I felt about my own future.

Garth Nix had created characters that I’d never found before. Young women who weren’t perfect or limitless in their power, but who were thoughtful and determined and ultimately successful. He created a world that was glorious and terrifying, a world of magic bells and talking cats and a faithful dog. I wanted to be part of that world.

I connected in particular with the character of Lirael. Lirael, the titular character of the second book in the series feels out of place in her family. She is a member of the Clayr, a magical family who all have the gift of sight. They are able to see glimpses of the future and they take this for granted as a birth right. Lirael however does not have that gift. At the start of the book she contemplates suicide, one final escape from a terrible life of not belonging. I had been there. I was blind, I did not have ‘the sight’ though not in the way Nix imagined. I felt lost and out of place. And I too had wondered whether things might be better if I simply didn’t exist.

By the end of the series Lirael has found her place in the world. She is not the same girl we find at the start of the book, transformed not into someone else, but by the discovery that she does have a path after all. The same is true for Sabriel. Her story, the one that begins the series is quite different. Sabriel knows at least in part who she is as the daughter of Abhorsen, a great charter mage and a necromancer who instead of raising the dead lays them to rest. But when her father disappears she chooses to leave her boarding school in non-magical Ancielstierre to try and find him. Her story is one of growth. The kind of growth we all must go through, of leaving behind our childhood and stepping into adulthood and the responsibility of taking care of ourselves.

One of the most prominent aspects of the series is the view it presents of death. Often in fantasy novels death is something to be feared or even cheated. This is a reflection of how we view death in our society. We do all we can to avoid it, though we do not have magic to help us with this task. And when not avoiding it, we avoid talking about it. Death makes us uncomfortable or even scared, and so we do not prepare ourselves, either to cope when someone we love dies, or to face our own death. Nix handles the subject of death in both a sensitive and matter-of-fact way. Death and dying isn’t inherently bad, it is inevitable and it is ok for us to die. We should not have our lives taken from us before it is our time, but neither should we try and avoid death, when it becomes clear that it has come calling. I was more fascinated by the characters of Lirael and Sabriel when reading the books as a child, but now I find myself drawn to death and the way Nix has written about it.

Since publishing the original series Garth Nix has written a prequel and a sequel, which I eagerly picked up on publication. Prompted by the release of Terciel and Elinor, a further prequel and the story of Sabriel’s parents, I decided to read the entire series again. And yet I read the books through a different perspective. I began to read Sabriel only weeks after my mother died, and today, the day I started to read Lirael I unexpectedly had to say a final goodbye to my loyal, much loved guide dog. I am fractured and shaken by my grief, and in the pages of the books I have once again found my own story reflected back at me.

I do not read them as an unsure teenager, but as an adult who has found who I am supposed to be. Perhaps that is too generous. I have at least begun to uncover the person I might become. I recently came out as transgender and have been discovering that there is a path I am to walk. I am secure in my identity as a blind person. I suppose you could say I have reached the final pages of the story. And yet I am still learning how to grieve after the loss of my mother. I am trying to hold myself together, even as there is a vacant place within me where my dog should be. These were aspects of the story I did not feel so keenly the first time. But I feel them now.

Sabriel’s father leaves his daughter with words that stick with me. “Let this be my final lesson. Everyone and everything has a time to die.” I have found this to be true. We do not want our parents to die. We do not want our beloved pets to die. We do not want to lose friends. It feels unfair that they should not have had more time. And it also feels scary to be the one left behind, the person expected to carry on alone. Perhaps it is the loneliness that we all fear. Whether that be dying and the uncertainty of what lies beyond or the fear that we will be left to wander this world without those we love beside us. But face death we must. If we do not view it as a terrible consequence of living, but as another journey which we must take at the right time, perhaps it is not so scary and awful.

There are few books read in childhood that stand the test of time. Yet these books are that rare kind that do. They do not tell us that all will end as we wish. They do not promise that everyone will live, that all good people will get the years they deserve, that our heroes will never know pain. But they do tell us that the pain can be survived. They reassure us that we are not lost forever. And it is that honest, enduring humanity that draws me in once again.