A Rambling Analysis of The Last Sun

(This will mainly just be me rambling for a bit. Also, this post will contain major spoilers for The Last Sun by KD Edwards. Additionally, all quotes are taken from the Kindle edition of the book.)

Groundwork

In KD Edward’s The Last Sun, the characters are increasingly attacked by a slew of monsters. Additionally, there seems to be an underlying theme of man vs nature present throughout the book. The main protagonist, Rune, is witness to most of these attacks. One of his biggest adversaries is a lich who calls itself (himself?) Rurik. This creature stalks Rune throughout the book. Add the recarnates; draugs; and golems, and you’ve got yourself a disaster. However, something more seems to be going on. Why is Rune taking the brunt of the impact from Rurik and the rest? I would like to offer an analysis. That being Rurik is a physical manifestation of Rune’s past trauma. Because the creature is strongest in nature, that is where Rune feels weakest.

While, yes, there does exist an explanation of Rurik in the book, there’s no reason he can’t also represent something else. When Rune was young, another person sexually assaulted him. It happened near the time of the Sun court’s downfall. With so much pain and trauma, this does not simply vanish. Most likely, Rune has been holding onto these events for many years—decades even. By the time we the readers meet him, he has all but managed to lie to himself that he is no longer affected. He is the hero after all and can defeat any monster as long as he knows everyone is safe inside.

Rune lives in the center of the man-made. He values his sigils—man-made (Atlantean-made, technically) objects that scions can imbue with magic. For example, Rune has sigils filled with fire, healing, shields, and the like. He lives in New Atlantis, in a place teeming with buildings and bustle. Based on descriptions from the book, he appears to live on the east side of the city. Is it a coincidence that the heir to the Sun throne resides where the sun itself rises and that his most challenging moment occurs where the sun sets? He refers to magic outside the control of people as “wild magic […], a primal, planetary force—nearly sentient, composed of millions of independent parts” (p. 217). What is the difference between man-made and nature-made? Control.

Monsters & Nature

The first real monster Rune fights is a golem, a creature composed of anything. He is able to take it down with relative ease. He is inside a building, and the golem is a mural with “fresh oil [dripping] from its fangs like saliva” (p. 66). Because Rune is in his element, he is in control. Sigils are a technology of magic and object that the users themselves control. Rune can even manipulate his Companion bond with Brand through a clever way of lying. Buildings themselves represent another form of control over objects—i.e., taking them and forming something out of them, namely a place of safety. There exists a dichotomy between the inside and outside. Buildings make that even more of a reality, whose “[outer walls] separate the primal concepts of Inside and Outside,” of Safe and Unsafe (p. 291). Rurik is a perversion of this concept.

Rurik himself is essentially man-made, yet he (or it?) was once a man. He is most powerful in Nature. Whenever nature itself is mentioned in the book, it usually is in a negative connotation. As Rune floats over the grounds of Farstryke Castle, he is attacked by recarnates in the aviary. In the hidden, underground tunnels, he learns Rurik’s name for the first time. What’s strange, though, is that after explaining a summoning spell, he claims, “‘It does not mean they will hold me,'” (p. 137, emphasis his). Rune thinks that Rurik is a recarnate, a dead body—essentially an object—used for evil. They have no will. Rurik, however, is a lich—something of myth. He is a physical memory. He is an out-of-body experience and the antithesis of everything Rune holds dear.

In the Westlands

As mentioned earlier, Rune suffered incredibly awful events in his past. Could this be why he prefers the inside as opposed the outside? In the Westlands, the only true place of safety for him and Addam is inside a manor and later on in a building inside a compound. The Westlands are filled with trees, which are the perfect representation of nature. It’s interesting to see that Rune usually describes trees with negative words or as weapons:
sickly, massive, scrubby, cut through a ruined garden, spotted in fungal matter, long-dead, dead, etc. (160, 170, 35, 132, 141, 208). Where Rune finds danger, Rurik and other creatures find comfort. They “prowl through the trees,” whose “[t]hin, wiry branches” attack Rune (p. 225). They are weapons.

In the climax, trees are one of the weapons used by the opposing force. “A tree limb the size of a Volvo sailed by outside”; “[A] full-sized tree shot through the dome,” (p. 298, 311). Trees fill the Westlands as aforementioned. As a result, the forest is unsafe. Because of this, Rune is at his most vulnerable in the forest, especially once he is off the man-made path. But what does this have to do with Rune’s past?

When Rurik teleports Rune and Addam off the Westlands path and into the heart of the woods, he separates the pair. Rune is alone for the first time in a while. He must confront his own shadows that have been haunting him for years.

And then the underwear was torn off my body. […] No. I would not be sucked into those memories. […] Memories fell on me like broken glass. I remembered how the blood would drip down my leg, how they would use it as lubricant, how they’d use knives on me, how they wouldn’t stop–they didn’t stop for hour and hours.

p. 227-228 (italics his)

Memories

Rurik is not the one who did these things to Rune. However, he is the one forcing Rune to relive this horrendous experience. Rurik is everything Rune despises about himself. He finds comfort with others, which the creature takes away. He calls the creature a he, perhaps because he subconsciously views it as the “he” who assaulted him. The Tower declares that “[t]he creature is not a he” and stands by that statement (p. 195). Rurik is a memory, perverted into life by another. Its master admits to Rune that he “was the one who dipped the broom handle in a barrel of road salt, and then fucked [him] with it until [he] screamed [himself] unconscious” (p. 342). While Rune is able to defeat Ashton, he cannot do it while Rurik is still in existence.

Because Rune is alone when Rurik traps him in his own head, he is weak. It is not until Addam shows up that he gains the strength to finally fight off the creature. Later, he is able to “push the branches to the side and hold them” as he and Addam walk through the forest together (p. 258). They are still dangerous, but they are no longer impenetrable. Rurik, though, is still a formidable adversary. While Rune and Addam use sigils, the creature uses “the environment for…ammunition” (p. 261). Nature is still wild, still something to be avoided. Rune attacks with fire. Addam turns Rurik’s own weapon against him, stabbing it through the chest with a stalagmite pulled from the earth itself. But ultimately, it is Brand who delivers the final blow, not with nature but with a gun (p. 263-264).

Aftermath

Rune is able to free himself of his torturous memories with the help of others. He is surrounded by people who care for him. Because he was able to defeat Rurik (arguably one of Ashton’s strongest weapons), he is able to defeat Ashton. Although he had help with Rurik, this is a fight that he faces alone. When Ashton attempts to release Rune’s painful memories onto the world, Rune obliterates him before he gets the chance (p. 343). Rune still holds onto the memories, to the pain. They are still a burden, but like the trees they are no longer impassible. It was not Ashton’s right to expose Rune’s shadows.

In the epilogue, we get another instance of nature. “I looked down and saw that branches were growing out of the wood. One of them was studded with buds, and the buds bloomed into powder-blue flowers,” (p. 364). Now, trees aren’t weapons; they produce things of beauty. Rurik and the Westlands perverted nature into something evil. Once Rune defeated the creature and its master, he could finally appreciate the good side of nature.

Rune fights a physical manifestation of probably the most painful, humiliating time in his life. Rurik haunts him, taking him outside, into the open world where he is no longer surrounded by buildings and walls. It surrounds him with nothing but cruel nature and his memories. But he gains power through others. Together, they defeat Rurik. As a result of that battle, Ashton cannot trap Rune in his memories like the creature did before, and Rune defeats him. Perhaps he has not completely conquered his deepest memories, but he is on the road to doing so.