Running from Death: FINAL DESTINATION and Mortality
By Sydney Bollinger
We are fated to die. We cannot escape our mortality; eventually death will come for us and put us in his endless slumber. This is what it means to be human.
In the Final Destination franchise, we see people who escape death. Granted a vision of impending disaster, they are able to save themselves and others from dying. What follows in these films is a classic slasher format. Survivors are picked off one by one in bizarre, Rube Goldberg-like sequences, because Death requires his souls and will stop at nothing to get them.
But, cheating what the characters refer to as “Death’s Design,” is not easy work: the task is all-consuming and requires constant vigilance.
In the first film, we are alongside the survivors of Flight 180 as they learn what it means to live in a universe where having the ability to see the future still means a certain death. When watching the first film, I didn’t think much of the paradox of life and death, but as I continued with my binge-watch of the franchise, I often paused and took note of these premonitory moments. After seeing the future, these characters must still find a way to escape death “meant” for them. Death must have a force in opposition to him, a force that wants to see these characters live beyond their fated years.
The human understanding of fate is complicated by the existence of free will. If Death is a god, intent on restoring order to the universe, he must also have a concept of all lives passed, those current, and those to come, a conceit that sees Death — as a character in the franchise — all-knowing and all-powerful.
In the myths and literature of Ancient Greece, the Moiroi, commonly known as the Fates, personified fate and destiny. Each person, mortal and divine, had a destiny that had to be fulfilled in their lifetime. The three sisters guided living beings, ensuring they stayed the course to maintain the natural order and balance of things.
Similarly, some Christians believe in the concept of predestination which states that all events that have happened and will happen are part of God’s divine plan. In short, this means that God knows everything, including the status of souls saved and destined for heaven and those who reject God’s gift of Jesus and will be damned to hell. Detractors of Christianity and, specifically, the concept of predestination says it creates a paradox of free will. If God knows all and has planned all, humans do not then get to choose their path in life. It has been chosen for them.
The Final Destination franchise asks its characters to contend with forces outside human control and, in doing so, creates an alternative mythos and conceptualization of human free will. Instead of a god, though, we have Death, a force that exists even if all other divine figures do not. The existence of some metaphysical being intent on keeping the natural order of the world, however, does prompt questions about what it really means to be human.
The most recent film in the franchise, Final Destination: Bloodlines, attempts to explain the franchise with character Iris Campbell’s (Gabrielle Rose) premonition. In 1969, Iris had a vision of the collapse of the Sky View, an architectural marvel similar in style to the Seattle Space Needle. Her premonition saved hundreds of people from death. Death, with his plan disrupted, sought out the survivors — and their descendants — to correct the disruption of reality caused be these people who were meant to die and never procreate. Each of the previous Final Destination films, then, tells the story of survivors’ descendants facing their demise for the simple fact that they should not exist.
Death — both the event and the entity — is inescapable. We cannot stop our slow descent to decay at the hands of mortal bodies that break down and die over minutes or years. And yet, we continue to live, marching toward the end.
The characters in the franchise do this, too, continually looking for new ways to evade death and make meaning out of the events in their lives. Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) survived the events of the first film, only to maintain her life by checking herself into a psychiatric hospital away from Death’s grasp. She lives a life of solitude in a padded room, only for Kimberly Corman (AJ Cook) to seek out her expertise in Final Destination 2. At first, Clear advises Kimberly to pay attention to the signs. She then tells Kimberly to isolate herself and preserve her own life while the other survivors die one-by-one.
Clear Rivers has free will. She chose to live in the psychiatric hospital’s padded room, but she also didn’t choose this. Her response is born of fear. She faces her demise and looks to avoid it, living a life of paranoia. When Kimberly finally convinces Clear to help, Clear remains vigilant. Still, choosing to step outside her literal padded room makes it more likely for her to die. As the film progresses, Clear finds purpose in life again.
Because running from death is not purpose. It’s fear. It’s paranoia. It’s a rejection of what it means to be human. Looking at the franchise this way, we see how Iris Campbell also chose death after years of hiding. She maintained her life, but like Clear, lived without meaning or purpose other than escaping death.
The desperation to stay alive is part of human nature. We do not walk gently into death, but if death is chasing us, perhaps we need to. 🩸
About
Sydney Bollinger (she/her) is a queer writer based in Charleston, SC. She regularly writes for Charleston City Paper’s arts & entertainment section, covering local artists and events that transgress boundaries of creativity. Her creative work has been published in Northwest Review, GARLAND (Fifth Wheel Press), and Dunes Review. Follow her @sydboll and find her work at sydneybollinger.com.
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