56 pages • 1 hour read
Maggie StiefvaterThe Raven Boys
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 41-49Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 41 Summary
After Neeve met up with Whelk, she tasered him and tied him up in the back seat of his car. The rubber gloves Neeve wears and the knives she brought make it clear she intends to use him for the ritual to wake the ley line, but Whelk is sure he won’t die because “Neeve hadn’t tied him tightly enough” (371).
Chapter 42 Summary
Adam visits Blue at her house, telling her he’d like to kiss her. Changing the subject and still not revealing the prophecy, Blue tells Adam he’s very brave, to which Adam shrugs. That night, Adam wakes, feeling homesick. He wants his own life and a true home, things he knows he can get if he wakes Glendower. As he sneaks out of the apartment, he sees Gansey curled up on his bed in the main room, and Adam tells himself he isn’t betraying Gansey because “we’re still doing this together. Only, when I come back, we’ll be equals” (378).
Chapter 43 Summary
Gansey wakes to the sound of his car starting. He finds Adam’s room empty and wakes Ronan, feeling betrayed that “Adam’s gone to wake the ley line” (380).
Chapter 44 Summary
Blue’s mom tells Blue about Blue’s father. Blue’s mom thinks she unintentionally freed him from the ley line and that he somehow got trapped there again when Blue was born. Neeve should have been back by now, and she did something to the family car so it won’t start. The boys arrive, and Blue goes with them while her mother, Calla, and Persephone will try to stop Neeve. Blue’s mother hopes Blue knows how big all this is, to which Blue says, “I have an inkling” (386).
Chapter 45 Summary
Adam arrives at the ley line, wishing it was day instead of night, and as he steps into the trees, it becomes afternoon. Shortly before he arrives, Neeve sets up her pentagram and prepares to sacrifice Whelk, who slips free of his bindings and knocks Neeve unconscious. He drags Neeve into the pentagram, “then […] look[s] up and [sees] Adam Parrish” (392).
Chapter 46 Summary
Adam faces down Whelk and Neeve with a gun he took from his father that Whelk makes him toss away. Gansey and the others arrive, and Neeve disappears. As Gansey, Ronan, and Whelk fight to get to the gun, Adam jumps into the pentagram and sacrifices himself, sure it will work because he knows true sacrifice means to do something “on his terms, or not at all” (401).
Chapter 47 Summary
Whelk recovers the gun and fires at Adam, who remains unwounded. The earth rumbles with the approach of white, wild beasts, and Blue pulls Gansey and Ronan into the rotted tree just in time to avoid being trampled. The tree pulls Blue into a vision where she and Gansey are close, and he wants to kiss her, reasoning, “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I kiss [her]” (406).
Chapter 48 Summary
After the beasts pass, Gansey finds Whelk dead and Adam unharmed in the pentagram. Gansey asks if Adam let Whelk die. Adam replies that Whelk deserved to die for killing Noah. Horrified, Gansey thinks that “they didn’t even have the authority to choose an alcoholic beverage. They couldn’t be deciding who deserved to live or die” (408). The woods know Gansey is looking for Glendower, and they believe the long-lost king belongs to him.
Chapter 49 Summary
Neeve disappeared in the pentagram when Blue’s mother, Calla, and Persephone moved mirrors in Neeve’s room, and it’s possible she’ll just reappear at some point. Noah’s bones are buried at the cemetery, but Blue and the boys dig them up and bury them at the church on the ley line, which makes his spirit return to how it originally was. As they leave, Ronan tells the group he pulled his baby raven out of his dreams, and Blue moves forward with the certainty that “magic was real, Glendower was real, and something was starting” (410).
Chapters 41-49 Analysis
These chapters contain the rest of the rising action, the climax, and the falling action. Adam’s decision to wake Glendower in Chapter 42 leads directly to the confrontation between the group, Whelk, and Neeve. The power dynamics shift many times during the climax as different people gain the upper hand at different points, but the death of Whelk and the disappearance of Neeve mean the danger has passed for now. The uncertainty of Neeve’s disappearance may cause problems later, but the group will deal with that if and when it becomes necessary. The fight over who is sacrificed and who wakes the ley line supports The Delicate Balance of Power. Whoever wakes the ley line will gain untold strength and, given how the ley line magic has functioned in the past, the potential to rewrite events and rearrange time. This type of power is dangerous for almost anyone, and while Adam sacrifices himself, he doesn’t appear to gain great power, suggesting either that sacrificing himself didn’t satisfy the ritual or that Adam has gained inner strength that is not shown before the end of the book.
The dynamic between Adam and Gansey also supports The Delicate Balance of Power. For the entire book, Adam worries about what will happen if he gives up the meager strength he’s been holding on to. In Chapter 42, Adam realizes he misses his home, which seems outrageous at first, but as Adam thinks it through, he realizes that he misses the idea of building toward something on his own, not the abuse he put up with to achieve that goal. Adam wants his own space and not to feel like he’s being supported by Gansey, which drives him to go off on his own to wake the ley line. The implication that he and Gansey will be equals when Adam returns suggests that Adam has a problem specifically with being supported by Gansey, not with seeking help in general. Adam has no problem asking Glendower for status and wealth, meaning that Adam simply wants to feel like he belongs to himself, not like he is beneath Gansey. His decisions in this section foreground the theme of Finding Where We Belong.
Adam’s sacrifice in Chapter 46 suggests there are different kinds of sacrifices. While there is nothing to show that Adam has lost something, he gives up a part of himself, as evidenced by the conversation between Adam and Gansey in Chapter 48. After the stampede, Whelk is dead, and Adam is untouched by Whelk’s death, believing it is justified. This attitude concerns Gansey because he doesn’t feel they have the authority to choose who dies or whether that death is deserved. The comparison Gansey makes to the group being under the legal drinking age is another reminder that they are still kids despite everything that’s gone on. This reminder is called into question at the end of Chapter 48 when the trees say Glendower belongs to Gansey. There should be no way a long-dead king could belong to a teenage boy, but the ley line has not lied before, suggesting that this statement will get more attention in the rest of the series.
Elements of Blue’s life are unresolved at the end of the book. Her conversation with her mother about her father in Chapter 44 suggests Blue is linked to the ley line and that the line is not done with her. Blue has not kissed anyone, meaning the prophecy about her true love has not been triggered, and this will extend into the next book. Blue’s vision in Chapter 47 suggests Gansey is her true love, and his words offer a potential loophole to the prophecy. As Blue’s family has advised from the beginning, visions and prophecies are complex. They have all seen that Blue will kiss her true love, who will then die, but none have said anything about what will happen if Blue’s true love kisses her. This is a subtle distinction, but in the world of visions and prophesies where words matter, it is important because it potentially changes the truth Blue has believed her entire life.
Chapter 49 ties up the remaining loose ends and hints at things that will become important in the next book. Neeve disappeared due to actions taken by Blue’s mother, Persephone, and Calla, and it’s unclear what her disappearance means or how it will affect the ley line. The group buries Noah on the ley line, which allows him to return to the spiritual existence he had at the beginning of the book. Unlike earlier, when he changed as a result of his bones being found, Noah is at rest now, and his killer has been brought to justice of a sort, meaning that Noah can exist as a spirit despite those around him knowing what he is because he is no longer seeking retribution for his murder. Ronan’s pulling the baby raven from his dreams suggests Ronan has a connection to the supernatural and to the ley line that will be explored in the rest of the series. The secret that caused his father’s death is also not revealed, nor does Ronan reconcile with his brother, meaning Ronan has much growth left to do.
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