Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow

“‘That’s what my mother used to say,’ he said. ‘Light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder.’ It’s always fire with Baz. I can’t believe he hasn’t incinerated me yet. Or burned me at the stake.”

Simon’s rival and nemesis, Baz, uses fire as a metaphor for magic. Later, it’s revealed that it’s “always fire with Baz” because he’s a vampire and thus especially vulnerable to burning. Fire is a motif for power throughout the book. Additionally, this passage contains the first mention of Baz’s late mother, Natasha Pitch. Her ghostly appearance marks a turning point in the boys’ relationship and sets much of the novel’s plot into motion.

“Footballer mansion…Magickal boarding school…They both seem like crap in the light of day. (Especially when you wake up in a room with seven other discards.)”

Simon used to imagine that his father was a professional athlete and that his parents would take him to live in their mansion. The summer after his first year at Watford, Simon fears that the school is just another daydream he concocted to console himself. Simon makes his loneliness, hopelessness, and abandonment clear by disparagingly referring to himself and the others at the children’s home as “discards.” His pain and emptiness make the Humdrum—an aching void.

“That’s how he talks to me. ‘It’s not your path, Simon. Your destiny lies elsewhere.’ He wants me to stand apart from everyone else. Separate training. Special lessons. I don’t think he’d even let me go to school at Watford if he weren’t the headmaster there—and if he didn’t think it was the safest place for me.”

The Mage’s plans for Simon connect to the theme of Fate Versus Free Will. Throughout the novel, characters often use the image of a path or road as a metaphor for fate. The Mage, who is secretly Simon’s father, believes that he knows Simon’s destiny better than Simon himself and tries to set Simon above and apart from others. The Mage is protective of Simon but objectifies him as a decades-long project, not because he cares for Simon as a parent should.

“The incantation is the only spell I always get right, perhaps because it’s not like other spells. It’s more of a pledge: ‘In justice. In courage. In defence of the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good.’ It doesn’t have to appear. The Sword of Mages is mine, but it belongs to no one. It doesn’t come unless it trusts you.”

The Sword of Mages is a fitting tool for the Chosen One of a fantasy world and a testament to Simon’s purehearted motivations. It is also a direct reference to the Sword of Gryffindor, a magical item from the Harry Potter universe that similarly only comes when summoned by a deserving person. He sincerely wants to act in “defence of the weak” and to advance “justice” and the greater “good.” Indeed, he remains courageous and altruistic to a fault even when he believes that he is a villain rather than a hero. Once Simon realizes that he’s a threat to the magical world, he turns himself over to the Mage even though he expects to be killed as a result.

“And one will come to end us. And one will bring his fall. Let the greatest power of powers reign, May it save us all.”

This prophecy is one of many about the Chosen One and develops the theme of fate versus free will. The Mage interprets this prophecy to mean that Simon is the “greatest power of powers” and that he will stop the Humdrum that threatens the magical world. However, the Mage doesn’t realize that his obsession with bringing the prophecy to fulfillment created not only Simon but also the Humdrum, the one who “will come to end us.”

“None of it comes naturally to me. Words. Language. Speaking. I don’t remember when I learned to talk, but I know they tried to send me to specialists. Apparently, that can happen to kids in care, or kids with parents who never talk to them—they just don’t learn how.”

Because Simon lives in a world where magic comes from the spoken word, his struggle with language makes it difficult for him to control his power. This struggle stems from his time in children’s homes and the lack of close, caring connections he had there. In a bitter twist of irony, the Mage considers Simon broken because he can’t control his power, but it was the Mage who chose to hide Simon in a children’s home instead of raising him and showing him love.

“She can’t leave me like this. She can’t leave me. We were settled. We were sorted. We were endgame. (If I get an endgame.) (You have to pretend that you get an endgame. You have to carry on like you will; otherwise, you can’t carry on at all.)”

Simon’s thoughts after Agatha breaks up with him develop the themes of romance and destiny. Simon sees her as his future, his “endgame.” But this term, which implies that she is a prize at the end of a game, is exactly what Agatha rebels against when she ends the relationships. In Simon’s mind, however, their relationship is tied to his survival. He has to find a way to “carry on” when the narrative shifts in ways he didn’t expect.

“My son, my son. My rosebud boy. I never would have left you.”

Lucy calls to her son, Simon, but he thinks the disembodied voice belongs to Natasha Pitch, Baz’s mother. Lucy’s words connect to the theme of love and identity because Simon aches to know who his parents are and whether he was wanted. Lucy’s desire to assure her son that he is loved is so strong that she is able to cross the Veil between the living and the dead.

“And when I felt myself slipping too far, I held on to the one thing I’m always sure of—Blue eyes. Bronze curls. The fact that Simon Snow is the most powerful magician alive. That nothing can hurt him, not even me. That Simon Snow is alive. And I’m hopelessly in love with him.”

When Baz is kidnapped, thoughts of Simon keep him from succumbing to death. Simon spends much of Book 1 describing Baz as a supervillain bent on destroying him, so the revelation of Baz’s love for Simon casts his characterization and motivation in an entirely new light and opens the possibility for the boys’ romance.

“‘I’ll help you find whatever killed your mother.’ ‘Why?’ He rolls over to face my bed. I can just see him in the dark. He can’t see me. He shrugs. ‘Because they attacked Watford.’ I roll away. ‘Because she was your mother,’ he says. ‘And they killed her in front of you. And that’s—that’s wrong.’”

Simon’s decision to help Baz find his mother’s killer marks a turning point in the novel’s plot and the boys’ relationship. Initially, Simon wants to help because of his heroic desire to do good. Their time together gradually brings them closer. Eventually, Simon and Baz free each other from the roles they think they’re destined to play, that of a hero and a villain, respectively, and of the enmity those roles demand.

“Snow would probably find a whole new way to hate me if he knew I thought this coldly about love and sex and marriage. About his perfect Agatha. But what does it even matter if my intentions are never good? My road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions—or bad—it’s just my road.”

Baz sees love “coldly” because of the tension he feels between fate and free will. His father knows that Baz is gay, but he still expects him to pass on the Pitch name, which he could do by marrying Agatha. Likewise, the Old Families expect Baz to strike against the Chosen One even though he secretly loves Simon. Baz feels like his intentions and desires don’t matter because his “road to hell,” his destiny, seems immutable at this point of the novel.

“‘It’s death,’ I say, looking back down at my book, ‘because you look at other people, living people, and they seem really far away. They seem like something else. The way that birds seem like something else. And they’re full of something you don’t have. You could take it from them, but it still won’t be yours. They’re full, and…you’re hungry. You’re not alive. You’re just hungry.’”

Baz’s words to Simon in the Pitch family library are the closest he has yet come to admitting aloud that he’s a vampire. Even this tacit confession is a show of trust because many mages would seek to kill Baz if they knew the truth. Simon voices his belief that vampires are alive and still have souls, but Baz’s melancholy reply argues that they’re “not alive […] just hungry.” As the novel continues, Simon’s power is also linked to monstrous, devouring hunger. The similarities between the erstwhile rivals help them understand and support one another through the challenges they face.

“‘This is what I deserve,’ he says. I shake my head. ‘Well, it isn’t what I deserve.’ ‘Then go.’ I see the fire flickering in his eyes, which means it must be all around us. ‘I won’t,’ I say. ‘I’ve never turned my back on you. And I’m not starting now.’”

Fire plays a prominent role in one of the novel’s most important scenes. Baz believes he deserves to die because he’s a vampire and he failed to find his mother’s killer, but Simon prevents him from setting himself ablaze. Simon spent years trying to prove that Baz was a villain, but now he displays that same single-minded stubbornness when he defiantly refuses to leave Baz. Simon saves Baz’s life by kissing him and realizes his own feelings in the process. This moment changes the course of their relationship and the novel’s plot.

“You’re not even gay, and he’s not even alive, and that isn’t even the worst part of this idea—what will the Mage say?”

Simon wonders what Agatha would say if she knew he kissed Baz, and her imagined response interweaves the themes of romance and fate versus free will. In Simon’s mind, his former girlfriend condemns his budding relationship with Baz because it defies the dichotomous labels of living and dead, straight and gay, and good and evil. Simon also feels that his newfound romance goes against his obligation to the Mage, but he still chooses to leave his heroic allies, Penny and Agatha, in order to run back to Baz, the supposed villain of his story.

“I want to be your boyfriend. Your terrible boyfriend.”

Simon tells Baz that he wants to be his boyfriend, his “terrible boyfriend” specifically. His choice of adjective shows self-awareness gained from his failed relationship with Agatha and also foreshadows that his and Baz’s relationship will be anything but smooth. Later in the novel, Simon abandons the search for Natasha Pitch’s killer and lets Baz return to the place where he was held captive by himself. Despite this, Baz and Simon still choose one another and carve out a happy ending.

“‘I give them some of my nothing,’ the Humdrum says again, ‘and then they’re drawn to the biggest of all somethings—you. And then you give me more nothing. It’s a great game.’”

The Humdrum explains how it uses creatures to make Simon expend more magic. This means that, all along, Simon’s efforts to stop the Humdrum only made it more powerful. In this scene, the Humdrum makes Baz ravenous for blood and magic by giving him “some of [its] nothing.” The Humdrum looks like an 11-year-old Simon, and its nothingness is the hopelessness and emptiness that Simon felt before he went to Watford. The Humdrum’s ability to talk in this scene adds to the suspense because this development shows that it’s rapidly growing stronger.

“‘I thought I could salvage you,’ he whispers. He’s standing so close to me. Holding my face like a baby’s. Or a dog’s. ‘I thought I could keep my promise to take care of you. That I’d find the right text, the missing rhyme. I thought I could fix you…But you weren’t the right vessel.’ He nods to himself. It’s like he’s still looking past me. ‘I got this part wrong,’ he says. ‘I got you wrong.’”

During the novel’s climax, the Mage complicates the theme of fate by telling Simon that he isn’t the Chosen One after all. The Mage expresses a desire to “fix” Simon and holds his “face like a baby’s. Or a dog’s.” This shows that the Mage still doesn’t truly see Simon or think of him as a being with free will.

“‘Should I weep over her death?’ he asks, his voice too loud. ‘When it means a generation of magickal children have learned how to use their power? Am I supposed to be sorry? I’m not sorry! What is the greater good?’”

After it’s revealed that the Mage is the novel’s antagonist, he monologues like a proper supervillain. He confesses to Natasha Pitch’s murder, but he isn’t sorry. His rant about the greater good connects to the theme of The Purpose of Power. The Mage didn’t mean for Pitch to die, and his reforms allowed “a generation of magickal children [to learn] how to use their power.” This keeps him from being a two-dimensional villain even if he is an obsessive, militaristic megalomaniac. Still, this scene illustrates how the Mage betrayed his principles: Originally, he wanted power to be shared in a more egalitarian way, but now he’s trying to take Simon’s power all for himself.

“He’s a hole. He’s what’s left when I’m done. And sometimes holes want to get bigger, but Baz was wrong—sometimes they just want to be filled.”

Simon stops the Humdrum through love, understanding, and sacrifice rather than resorting to violence and letting the Mage use him as a weapon. This is Simon’s most important decision during the climax, and it develops the theme of fate versus free will. The protagonist chooses to give up his power instead of clinging to his status as the Chosen One or giving his magic to the Mage, the person who essentially created him and sought to control his whole life. By defying the Mage, Simon also defies destiny.

“Simon’s next words ring out, dense with magic—‘Stop it, stop hurting me!’ The Mage jerks away from him, then sags in Baz’s arms.”

Ironically, Simon and Penny are the ones who inadvertently kill the Mage, even though all along everyone thought Baz was plotting against the Mage. Even Baz suspected he’d have to kill the Mage to save Simon. Simon only asks the Mage to quit hurting him, so the Mage’s death implies that he was never going to stop as long as he was alive. The Chosen One was the Mage’s obsession for decades, and he couldn’t abandon his search for power no matter how it hurt his son.

“That’s what I came back to tell you. I loved you before I met you, and I loved you more the moment I held you. And I never meant to leave you so soon. I never would have left you. Simon, Simon. My rosebud boy.”

Lucy’s last words in the novel develop the theme of Discovering Love and Identity. By calling Simon her “rosebud boy,” she reveals that Simon heard her voice back in Chapter 27, bringing the novel full circle. However, the revelation is bittersweet because Simon still doesn’t know about his parentage or her love. In this way, the protagonist’s identity remains a mystery to him even at the novel’s conclusion.

“No matter how much I think about it, I don’t think there’s any scenario where you’d want me—where you’d allow me—to go on like this. But I think it’s what you would do in my circumstances. It seems like you never gave up. Ever. […] I know I usually come down here to tell you I’m sorry. But I think today I want to tell you that I’m going to be all right. Don’t let me be one of the things that keeps you from peace, Mother. I’m all right.”

Baz finds closure and self-acceptance when he visits his mother’s tomb after his graduation ceremony. He succeeded in finding his mother’s killer, and the Mage can never hurt anyone again. This should allow her to rest, and Baz doesn’t want to be “one of the things that [keep her] from peace.” He lets go of his guilt about surviving the attack and being a vampire. Finally, Baz finds a way to reconcile his love for his mother with his desire to carry on; he will honor and imitate her dauntless spirit by refusing to give up.

“‘I’m not the Chosen One,’ he says. I meet his gaze and sneer. My arm is a steel band around his waist. ‘I choose you,’ I say. ‘Simon Snow, I choose you.’”

As Simon and Baz dance at the leavers’ ball, their dialogue develops the themes of romance and fate versus free will. Baz’s sneering expression and his “steel” grip around Simon’s waist show that their relationship retains some of the friction they had as rivals even though they have completed their enemies-to-lovers arc. Although Baz’s body language may appear caustic, his message is touching: Baz argues that Simon is chosen, not because he was heralded by prophecies but because he is loved.