What do you get when you combine an angry sixteen-year-old, a hatchet, and his self-centered parents? Not something pretty, that's for sure. In Surrender, Gabriel kills his parents, wills himself to die, faces-off with Finnigan, and then meets up with Vernon on the other side, where everything is perfect. Check out his description of it:
There are no bones in a hole inside that world, no monsters roaming the hills. The dogs doze on mats in front of the hearth; the girls are just children, harmless as butterflies. (21.124)
Sounds great, right? The only problem is that Gabriel never has to face the music about what he's done. He might like to think he can gain sympathy by pretending to be ill, but in the end, he doesn't have to pay for killing his family; he simply floats away to a world better than the one he's been in before. We're glad to see Vernon there, smiling and happy to see him, and we're also glad that Finnigan can't set any more fires or hurt any more people.
But we do feel a little at odds with the character himself. Once we learn that Finnigan and Gabriel are the same person, we want to go back and rethink the entire novel and see how this plays out once we know the truth. We find ourselves brimming with questions. One question burns particularly bright, though, for us: Does Gabriel's ascension to this heaven-like place mean that all of the violence and destruction he participated in during his life isn't his fault? Is Gabriel a victim of himself as much as anyone else is? We'll let you mull that one over, Shmoopers.