The specter of death hangs over the characters in The Raven Boys from the first chapter, when we hear that Blue's true love is destined to die. And the whole death angle just gets increasingly prominent. The raven boys and Blue run afoul of Barrington Whelk, a murderous Latin teacher, and they even discover that their good friend Noah Czerny has been dead for seven years. He may have been hanging out with them (and even rooming with Gansey and Ronan), but he is most certainly a ghost. Every friend group has a weirdo in it, though.
Questions About Mortality
- Why does Whelk kill Czerny? Why not someone else?
- Do you think that Gansey is really the person that Blue is fated to kill?
- How does Noah's status as a ghost affect his friendships? How does it not?
Chew on This
Adam doesn't die after he sacrifices himself because the ritual sacrifice isn't about death—it's about giving up something important.
Whelk may not be the character who is living with Noah's ghost, but that doesn't mean that he hasn't been haunted by his friend's death for all these years.