Fates of some characters? (Spoilers)

[Michael]

This book makes no bones about a lot of the characters dying. Many of them do so explicitly, on page. (Hector is eaten by a frog, Timothy is buried alive by Zelie and her crew, the 3 Tiny Ballerinas are gouged in the throat by a bird/dragged into an anthill/blown away on a kite, respectively.) Other deaths happen more implicitly. Several characters are mentioned to have eaten mushrooms and died. The mother of the baby seen in the beginning is presumably killed during the animal raid on the first night, and the baby presumably also dies after Timothy, whom had been caring for it, is dispatched and it is forgotten by Timothy's murderers. One of the main themes of this book is how commonplace death is in the natural world, and how unremarked upon it is.
However, two characters deaths are unmentioned at all; Jane, the capable warrior, who is last seen riding her tamed robin out to meet Zelie's group, who are singing and might be caught by the 'giant'. Next we see Zelie riding the robin, and her group claim not to know Jane. Jane had shown herself to be a capable survivor, so it really troubles me what must have happened when she met up with Zelie and her acolytes. Secondly, the character (unnamed, I think?) who is a kind friend to Aurora, who develops a bad reaction to a plant. First her hand looks painful and swollen, then her arm, then the side of her face as well. She is last seen, fully swollen and blotchy, at Zelie and Hector's wedding, and her fate thereafter is not mentioned, referenced or glimpsed. Any readers more creative-minded than myself care to speculate?

[Annie]

I thought something similar- death is so common and unremarked upon in the natural world. It just sort of happened and really, none of the characters, even Aurora, seemed to dwell on it too much.

[Katie]

Call me an optimist, but I don't think Jane died at the hands of Zelie and co. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that she may not have even been real (to anyone but Aurora)....

[Karl Marx]

I just thought something must have happened to Jane. For after Aurora saw Zelie’s crew, the last panel shows that she’s crying. Maybe she saw a tortured Jane or something. And that fired her to burn them all in the end?

[Ettore]

I’m a SUPER late to this lol, but I think, Like Kate Moon said a long time ago that Jane was probably just a hallucination made up by Aurora.

I’d like to believe that early in the comic, Jane was in fact real. Aurora did see her eat the cookies which Jane later said “Go ahead, help yourself”

However, the moment she possibly could have died was right after the bird encounter where she was wrestling with the bird and Aurora helps her snips its wings etc.

After that whole ordeal, maybe Jane might’ve gotten killed by an animal trying to find the bird or tame the bird.

And MAYBE, Aurora could have also hallucinated the bird as well because the last time she encountered Jane was when she was trying to tame the bird, so that could be the reason why she also hallucinated the bird being there? I don’t know.

Another thing I’d like to believe is that Jane might be Aurora’s inner thoughts as well. When they are both eating the food Aurora made, Jane says and I quote “and he stinks worse than anything” (obviously referring to the man) but then later Aurora sneaks out, cuts a piece of the man’s hair, runs to her hideout (the clock) and combs the hair while saying that she likes the smell because it smells sweet like honey.

Which already contradicts what Jane said earlier about the man. So Jane could be that piece of her inner thought that is trying to make her come back to her senses or to reality

Another thing as well is that right after Jane is supposedly “killed” and Zelie and co go inside the hole of the shack (where Jane and Aurora were hiding in) Aurora doesn’t refer to it as her and Jane’s home or hideout. She simply refers to it as ‘her’ home. Maybe because she found out that Jane was never real.

However there are a few holes to my theory for example, after Jane is supposedly killed off panel, Aurora cries because she see’s something in the distance which is probably Jane dead.

However I’d like to believe that it’s because Aurora now knows that Jane was never real. She might’ve also realized that she was never really talking to anyone but herself. Because at the end of day, Jane was one of the few characters who did at least show some simple kindness towards her like in the bird encounter, right as Jane is about to leave, she tells Aurora that “the others are lucky” to have her.


Now about the bird, it could be possible that the others found the bird and tamed it and maybe that’s why Zelie appears to be riding the bird.

This is just my theory though and Jane might’ve just been killed off panel which, I kinda find hard to believe because like you said, she was a capable survivor.