45 pages • 1 hour read
Scott ReintgenNyxia
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 34-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Black Holes”
Part 2, Chapter 34 Summary: “Day 10, 8:03 a.m.: Aboard the Tower Space Station”
There are no more Sabbath days in the final 30 days of the competition. Genesis 11 votes Katsu in as captain, but the team loses again. So far, Genesis 11 has only won on the days that Morning has had to sit out the race. In the afternoon, Emmett beats Loche in a fight and resists going in for the kill, thinking, “I won’t become what Babel’s trying to make me” (321). That evening, Bilal and Emmett come to terms with the fact that for Emmett to make it to Eden, Bilal will have to lose.
Part 2, Chapter 35 Summary: “Day 20, 5:23 p.m.: Aboard the Tower Space Station”
When Emmett arrives at the Contact Room for his phone call, he sees Morning crying, and he holds her and comforts her. During Emmett’s call, his mother and father encourage him to succeed. Emmett asks his father what he should do with the key, and his father tells him to bury it on Eden to signify a new start to their lives. After the call, Emmett heads to the Rabbit Room for a workout. There, he’s cornered by Roathy and Isadora, who plan to kill him. Suddenly, the nyxia takes over Emmett’s mind, fighting off Roathy and Isadora on his behalf and outside of his control.
Part 2, Chapter 36 Summary: “Day 20, 7:21 p.m.: Aboard the Tower Space Station”
Emmett waits in his room for news about Roathy and Isadora. Vandemeer and Marcus arrive and tell him that both Roathy and Isadora have survived and will finish the competition unless Emmett decides to kill them as punishment. Emmett says he will not do this. After Vandemeer and Marcus leave, Emmett goes to Morning’s room, and the two of them spend the night together.
Part 2, Chapter 37 Summary: “Day 27, 7:33 a.m.: Aboard the Tower Space Station”
Emmett and Morning continue spending their nights together, but she still fights for all of Genesis 12 to claim Eden spots. Genesis 11 has only won six Waterway competitions, and five of their victories were on days that Morning had to sit out. Vandemeer has determined that four things must happen for Emmett to secure his spot to Eden: Emmett must beat Anton in a pit fight, Longwei must beat Loche in a pit fight, Bilal must lose his pit fight, and Genesis 11 must win one more Waterway competition. The first three things happen, so all that’s left is to win against Morning as a team.
Part 2, Chapter 38 Summary: “Day 29, 8:44 a.m.: Aboard the Tower Space Station”
Emmett believes that Genesis 11 can only win if Morning isn’t piloting her team’s vessel. As soon as the last race starts, he jumps to the Genesis 12 ship and pulls Morning overboard with him, trusting that Genesis 11 will be able to win on his behalf. They do, and Emmett officially earns his spot to Eden.
Part 2, Chapter 39 Summary: “Day 30, 12:37 p.m.: Aboard the Tower Space Station”
Emmett goes looking for Bilal to say goodbye before he leaves for Eden, but he can’t find him. He instead finds a note from Bilal that mentions that Babel has given him a second chance to earn a spot. Then Vandemeer walks Emmett to his space pod, and Morning tells Emmett she’ll see him on the planet. Before Emmett can get into his pod, Roathy’s technician, the one who sabotaged the nyxian blade that stabbed Emmett back on Genesis 11, runs into the room and tries to tell Emmett that “there’s one more chance, in the room” (363). When Emmett enters the airlock to his pod, Roathy is there. Babel has given each of the competitors one last chance to earn a spot: They could kill a competitor and take their place. Emmett tries to reason with Roathy, but Babel has convinced Roathy that if he doesn’t take Emmett’s place on the pod, Babel will shoot Roathy into space. Emmett and Roathy fight, but instead of killing Roathy, Emmett leaves him in the airlock. As Emmett’s pod falls to Eden’s surface, he wonders if Morning has survived her fight and if Babel truly plans to kill Roathy and Bilal and the remaining competitors who have lost.
Part 2, Chapters 34-39 Analysis
In the final chapters of Nyxia, Emmett shows that he has grown as a character. He shuns selfishness and ambition, which were making him unrecognizable and despicable in his own eyes, and instead embraces cooperation and connection. In doing so, he finds freedom outside of the rules and restrictions that Babel and, by extension, society has placed around him.
When Emmett is paired with Loche for an individual fight, he feels the pull to knock Loche out, just like he did with Longwei in Part 1, but instead, “[he] lets [his] hands drop and [he] walks away” (321). Emmett tells himself, “I’m not a monster. I won’t become what Babel’s trying to make me” (321). He recognizes that Babel encourages people to treat each other with violence and suspicion, and Emmett has decided to resist this. At the beginning of the novel, his desire to win threatened to obliterate his morality and compassion, but by the end, Emmett chooses the path of human connection, like Kaya and Morning.
Emmett also comes to accept that winning is about cooperation rather than individual glory. He gives Longwei advice on how to beat Loche, and he tackles Morning off the Waterway barge so that his team has a chance to win the final competition on his behalf. Ultimately, Emmett trusts that his team will work together on his behalf. He doesn’t rely on his own power but on his relationships with his teammates on Genesis 11 to help him earn a spot to Eden.
In the final chapter, Emmett demonstrates his character growth through his decision to spare Roathy’s life. In his final dialogue with Roathy, Emmett tells him, “Don’t forget who put you in this room and why they put you here” (370). He reminds Roathy that Babel thinks they are broken and expendable and that Babel created a game where both boys felt like they had to become monsters in order to survive. Emmett has come to recognize that corporations like Babel are manipulative, greedy, and cruel and that if he plays by their rules, they will have power over him. He realizes that they only way to break free from them is to follow his own ethical code, which is why he doesn’t kill Roathy.
This chapter also sets up the larger conflict of the series, as Babel reveals its true nature by forcing the competitors to fight to the death. The author suggests that Morning and the others who were supposed to join Emmett on Eden may not have survived their fights and that Bilal and the other characters who lost may be dead, which creates tension in the plot going forward into the next book in the series.
