The Inevitability of Misery

Where it surfaces

• XV: Bandages for the Victor

  Freydis knows that age, sorrow, and death will ambush her now that she is mortal, but she accepts this fate.

• Part III: The Book of Cast Accounts

  Manuel directly addresses Misery, acknowledging its presence and the futility of trying to escape it.

• XVIII: Manuel Chooses

  Freydis states that those who attempt to bring back the dead come to misery, and Manuel's journey northward foreshadows a turn toward sorrow.

• XIX: The Head of Misery

  Manuel deliberately seeks out and confronts the Misery of earth, personified as a clay head.

• XX: The Month of Years

  Manuel serves Misery directly, and the chapter explores how suffering is an inescapable part of human existence, with Misery personified as a being that feeds on mankind.

• XXI: Touching Repayment

  Misery asserts that he will eventually overcome Manuel's love, returning as a formless cloud to whisper common-sense and bring low the love that defied death.

• XXII: Return of Niafer

  Misery cannot be separated from Niafer and prophesies its inevitable return in human life.

• Manuel Gets His Desire

  Manuel's dealings with Misery cost him his youth, and Niafer's resurrection comes with flaws; the chapter underscores that even triumph over death carries a price.

• Deals with the Stork

  The stork's lament about time and life corrupting children's innocence underscores the theme of inevitable suffering.

• XXX: Farewell to Freydis

  Freydis notes that Melicent's life will contain 'far less of joy than of sorrow, for that is the way it is with the life of everybody.'

• XXXI: Statecraft

  The children placed in one cradle are fated to bring sorrow and death to each other.

• The Troubling Window

  Ruric's tale of the hidden children and his talk of 'all horror and all rebellion' suggest that misery and dark truths are inescapable, even in a settled life.

• XL: Colophon

  Manuel's journey with Grandfather Death and the washing away of his memories underscore the inescapable end of all human striving and the ultimate dissolution of identity.