93 pages • 3 hours read
Neal ShustermanFull Tilt
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
Blake chooses to ride the Wheel of Ra next. His body resists entering the ride, which is a spinning ride that holds its riders against its walls with gravity. When the ride spins so fast that Blake can’t pull himself from the wall, the scene changes: He finds himself standing against a pillar in a large Egyptian temple. Guards chase and shackle the other riders as Blake escapes.
Blake stops running when he sees another boy caught by a guard’s whip. He frees the boy and manages to wrap the whip around the guard’s neck. Other riders call for him to kill the guard, but Blake allows him to live. He flees the temple to find himself in an ornate, mythological Ancient Egypt.
Blake tries to sneak through the city, but he’s stopped by a man selling idols. At first, he dismisses the seller; a glimpse at an idol of King Tut causes him to take a second look. The pharaoh’s face is Quinn’s. His brother’s face is also on statues all around the city.
A guard takes Blake to Quinn’s palace. Quinn is thrilled with his position as king. Blake reminds Quinn that one of King Tut’s own advisers murdered him. Quinn’s adviser, Cassandra, steps forward and announces that Quinn will go to the Valley of the Kings—meaning his death. Quinn doubles over in pain. His food has been poisoned. Blake offers to abstain from the final rides if Cassandra will let Quinn live. After Cassandra accuses him of being responsible for the bus crash, palace guards take Blake to a dungeon.
Blake is not alone in the dungeon: He finds his father there shackled to the wall. Knowing his father isn’t really there, Blake looks for a way out. He’s unable to move the tomb’s sealing stone, but the guard whose life he spared arrives. Rumors of Blake’s strength are spreading throughout the park. Blake demands his father tell him about Cassandra. His father explains that she is always present at tragedies in which there are no survivors. Blake was the lone survivor of his bus crash, and Cassandra is determined to finish the job. Blake remembers some of the crash, but not its final moments. The guard offers to help Blake escape the tomb. Before he goes, Blake frees his father, who leaves without a word.
Chapter 11 Analysis
After learning that surviving the bus crash undermined his destiny, Blake continues to defy Cassandra’s wishes. He uses balance to choose a ride that doesn’t compel or reject him: “The ones that seemed to lure me were the ones more likely to trap me […] the rides that gave me the worst feeling must have made me feel that way for a reason. I finally settled on the Wheel of Ra […] because I had no feeling about it either way” (130).
The ride tries to push Blake away, but he persists. Blake is now choosing his path forward rather than allowing trauma to dictate it to him. He continues to make choices that bring balance to the park. As he flees the Egyptian guards, Blake saves a boy with a whip around his neck. This inspires the other riders to turn on the guards, but Blake stops himself from killing one of the guards in turn. Blake chooses balance.
Blake enters the Egyptian town and finds that Quinn is its new pharaoh, which undermines his quest for balance. This is the extreme of Quinn’s self-centered attitude. There are idols and statues depicting him, and beautiful women feed him from platters. Quinn’s unwillingness to put others before himself threatens to end his life. Blake’s inability to take risks threatened to end his life on previous rides; Quinn has not yet learned to curb his hubris. He is still at risk of succumbing to the rides.
Blake’s trauma stems from two incidents. While the bus crash is the more visceral, Blake also feels abandoned by his father. This informs his mistrust of his mother’s various boyfriends, for example. Blake does not reconcile with his father in the dungeon, choosing instead to remain confident and independent. Blake is not looking for closure on his trauma; instead, he’s learning to live with it.
Blake’s choice to save the guard from the other riders frees him from the tomb. He acted not out of caution or fear but was guided by his morality. His father, a character defined by the selfish choice to abandon his sons, escapes only because of Blake’s growing willpower. Blake does not fully forgive him, but he allows his father to walk away from the tomb. He is not reconciling with his father but with the trauma that his father caused; this is evidence that his quest for balance is key.
Readers learn that a concussion prevented Blake from remembering the entirety of the bus crash. Now that he has a renewed sense of inner strength, Blake must confront the tragedy. The guard makes this clear when he tells Blake, “If you’re going to be the one to make it out […] you’re going to have to remember what you did” (148). Blake is a more active protagonist than at the beginning of the novel, but he must use his newfound strength to defeat Cassandra and the trauma she represents; otherwise, Blake is still doomed to an unfulfilled life.
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