Oh, my goodness.
I finished the series the day before yesterday, at 3:00am.
I sort of sat there in bed for about five minutes, staring at the page.
And then I started to cry. I tell you, I've cried a bit in books, but nothing, NOTHING, has ever made me cry as hard as that. EVER.
I wonder how many people understand how I felt, or how I'm still feeling. Like I lost a brother. No book has ever affected me like that.
I wanted Nathaniel to live SO badly. I wanted him and Bartimaeus to grow to love each other. Nathaniel redeemed himself in the best possible way in the last few pages. For all his talk of Bartimaeus mucking everything up, he really wanted to save him.
And Bartimaeus ... I think he wanted to save Nathaniel as well.
And that made me cry SO HARD I couldn't breathe. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I got so attached to Nat and Bartimaeus that when Nat died, and dismissed Bartimaeus to save his life, just as Ptolemy did, I lost it.
I am still depressed. I have a mountain of homework to do, and a life to be getting on with, but all I can think of is Ptolemy's Gate and that - I can't think of a word to describe it - last page. I've been crying on and off for two whole days and I don't know if I want to stop, because it seems disrespectful to Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, Nat's death and their bond, somehow.
They were heroes, both of them, despite Bartimaeus' cynicism. To the very end.
And - oh, here we go - I'm crying again.

, PLG!
I know exactly how you feel. As a kid, I would feel as if I had lost somehting important. Part of my innocence, perhaps? Maybe because I was too used to the good guys winning all the time, and Bart and Nat had really grown on me. Now I still cry when I read the the last page. *emo*.
I wanted them to end up happily together as friends -or equals- as well. But, hey, it didn't happen. Doesn't that have a lesson to teach us?
I also remember hating the last sentence, because I couldn't understand Bartimaeus' cynism. Now I think there could be no better fitting sentence than that one. One thing I absolutely love about the trilogy is that you see it in different ways as time passes by.
Also, despite of your love for them, you have to remember they are fictional, after all. So, cheer up! Life goes on!
Epic avie, btw.

awwww i just finished the book....that was devastating!! i can't believe he died!! arrrrrghhhh ....in spite of his rather cold tendencies i always kinda knew nathaniel would come around but to actually SACRIFICE his LIFE !!!! AND thank god save bartimaeus's!!! (THANK GOD!!!!!) Kitty's gonna travel?? Hmmm uhmm ok. HE DIDN'T DESERVE TO DIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh nathaniel!!!!

PLG and unfairending!

Yeah, the ending is very sad but we are humans and we will soon move on. =D

See my take on it was quite different. I thought that the very last paragraph was said in a negative light. The first two books had happy endings so by habit i suppose I felt the third one would be too. After Nathaniel's final chapter I already knew what was going to happen. I read the final 20 pages or so really slowly, hoping that maybe there was a way out and Nathaniel wasn't going to die. First, if he had just taken the amulet to begin with this wouldn't have ever happened, no wound to the side... and HAD he even taken it AFTER his wound when kitty proposed, there might still have been a slight chance of survival. EVEN then if he allowed Bartimaeus to take him away after his first wound to the side, this could have all been prevented as well, corner bad guy another time. I feel the ending was so rushed. There was absolutely no closure in the death either. It could have ended in such a better light. I hated how he basically had Nate go ahead and say "hey, dismissing you cuz you might mess this all up..not cuz i actually care" and the ending it with Bartimaeus's paragraph saying he would have loved to give Nathaniel a piece of his mind... HOW on earth could whatever Bartimaeus be thinking have to be positive after Nathaniel telling him he's dismissing him due to fear of failure on his djinnis part? I could understand it if there was a hint of mutual understanding between the two that this was an act of affection/compassion really, even would have been nice if Bartimaeus tied in Ptolemy in that concluding paragraph, comparing the two's great similarities...hinting that Nathaniel did indeed do what he did out of affection and Bartimaeus understood it. But NOPE none of that, leaving us here not really knowing if Nate really did do it out of love, and if Barti took it as such.

There was just no closure. It was so rushed. Just another paragraph, or a few sentences here and there insisting that Nates fear of Barti's failure wasn't the sole reason of dismissal would have allowed me to accept the death so much better.

Asides that, I really wish the council or somewhere towards the end had given recognition for what he had done. Some vastly gesture, I don't know...just SOMETHING. What a waste too, I know he's a fictional character...but, although, his actions distorted at times..his morals were always there just hidden, he was very intellectual, bright, determined, ambition, and with that he was an amazing person.



and I've read some books with sad endings and I have accepted it as beautiful, this to me is more "could have been beautiful." I rather have seen Kitty die in some vain effort to save him or something, and it's also poor on Mr. Stroud's part that Nate never mentions oh I don't know....MRS. UNDERWOOD again after the first book. (aside's from Bartimaeus bringing it up once in book 2)


Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the third book too during the ride, just the ending..why oh why...

Well, that's an interpretation I don't think I've seen before. I read it as pretty clear that Nathaniel is lying through his teeth rather than admit he actually cares, and Bartimaeus is well aware of it. Barti clearly isn't going to screw up something that simple, and he's talking about the enormous effort of will Nat needs to get through the dismissal while dying of his wounds and facing Nouda in a very complimentary light.

Sentynel wrote:Well, that's an interpretation I don't think I've seen before. I read it as pretty clear that Nathaniel is lying through his teeth rather than admit he actually cares, and Bartimaeus is well aware of it. Barti clearly isn't going to screw up something that simple, and he's talking about the enormous effort of will Nat needs to get through the dismissal while dying of his wounds and facing Nouda in a very complimentary light.

Yeah, I thought just like how Sentynel mentioned it.

The ending's really sad, but i think it's not rushed, but is necessary. They only have seconds left, and still, they haven't showed how they really valued each other, and how they would do anything to save each other's lives. In the earlier parts of PG, Nathaniel mentioned Bartimaeus as his "best djinni" but Barty never knew about this opinion of his. Also, Nathaniel saved Barty's life by dismissing him in the earlier part rather than rack his essence for information, which made us realize how Nathaniel values his djinn's life, and the fact that Barty doesn't realize this and instead assumed that Nat only dismissed him because he's making a mess makes us all cry with frustration. Why can't they just tell each other face to face? Even in the end they still managed to bicker than to tell the truth. It's really heartbreaking.

I agree with the others that Nathaniel was lying and that he really cared for Bartimaeus. I think it's something that boys do, that stuff where they can't tell how they are really feeling to other boys (assuming we consider Barti a boy, since society has convinced everybody that this was a gay thing to do), or that it was just out of the character of their relationship that Nathaniel spoke that way. Either way, I think Bartimaeus fully understood what he was trying to say.