She Kills Monsters

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 2011

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Scene 3

Scenes 4-6

Scenes 7-10

Scenes 11-13

Scenes 14-16

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Scenes 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Scene 14 Summary

As Agnes and Chuck continue to play the module, Miles enters the room and admits that he misinterpreted her relationship with Chuck. Concerned that Agnes is angry with him, Miles invites her back to their apartment so they can make up, but she has no interest in leaving the game. Chuck, who makes fun of Miles for his assumptions and competitiveness, nevertheless steps in and invites him to join their game. Agnes assumes that Miles won’t play, but to her surprise, he eagerly joins because he understands that the game is important to her. Miles comments that she never speaks about the tragic loss of her family members and expresses a desire to get to know Agnes better through the game. When he joins the party, Agnes introduces him as her boyfriend, the “real Miles,” and defends his participation by stating that she trusts him to support her.

The party sets off to find the third guardian, The Beholder, but they are waylaid by the return of Evil Gabbi and Evil Tina. Miles mistakenly thinks he can fend them off alone and is the first one to die. The Succubi corner Tilly, and when Lilith jumps in to protect her, they stab and kill Lilith. Tilly screams Lilith’s name as the Succubi continue to laugh. Infuriated, Agnes throws down her weapons and challenges the cheerleaders to a dance battle. Tillius’s party performs admirably, but the cheerleaders’ routine clearly surpasses their skills. As Evil Gabbi and Evil Tina raise their arms in victory, Agnes and her companions pick up their weapons and kill them.

Tilly weeps over Lilith’s dead body, and Agnes becomes distraught at seeing her sister in pain. The other players have no skills to revive her, and when Agnes demands that Chuck bring Lilith back to life, he tells her that doing so would be against the rules of the game. Agnes becomes more agitated, and Miles, speaking through his dead character, tries to comfort Agnes by telling her that his death was not that bad and that it’s not her real sister crying in the game. This only makes Agnes more upset, and she throws the game pieces off the table.

Tilly appears and tells Agnes, who is the only one who can hear her, that Miles is right and that they’re just playing a game. She tells Agnes that her character Tillius hasn’t died, which prompts Agnes to retort that the real Tilly is dead. Overwhelmed by the admission and feeling defeated, Agnes thanks Chuck for indulging her and quits the game.

Scene 15 Summary

At Vera’s office, Agnes confesses that she failed to be a good sister to Tilly and was trying to create a connection with her sister by playing the D&D module. When Vera tells her that she still has her memories, Agnes admits that she only remembers ignoring Tilly and wishing that her sister would outgrow her interests in games and fantasy. Agnes recalls lovingly holding Tilly when she was an infant and toddler and dismissing her during her teenage years. She laments never having a chance to know her as an adult and rejects the D&D module as a useless replacement for her.

Chuck enters the office to return Tilly’s module to Agnes and invites her to meet the adventurers in real life. She meets Ronnie, who plays Orcus, and his sister, Kelly, who plays Kaliope. Agnes recognizes Ronnie’s resemblance to Orcus in his obsession with television and awkwardly notices that Kelly has cerebral palsy and uses crutches. Tilly’s friends tell her how much they loved and miss her sister, and Agnes tells them she feels the same.

On stage, the set recedes to a dark, empty backdrop, and Agnes stands with Tilly alone, each under a small spotlight. Tilly asks if Agnes thinks her friends are “geeks,” and Agnes assures her she’s not judging them. Tilly explains that they were unpopular at school, and everyone else seemed to have an opinion about them. When Agnes asks if that was why they played Dungeons and Dragons, Tilly clarifies that they played the game because it was imaginative, fun, and perhaps offered them a measure of wish fulfillment. For Tilly, the game was a space where Lilith was her girlfriend.

The lights come up on the stage and Lilly, the student whom Lilith is based on, appears. Agnes apologizes to her for her previous outburst and gives her Tilly’s letter. Lilly tearfully reads the message and confides in Agnes that she and Tilly were each other’s first kiss. Lilly admits that although she doesn’t know how she feels about her own sexuality, she did love Tilly but didn’t get a chance to tell her. At the end of the scene, Agnes stands alone and says aloud to Chuck that she understands his intention and is ready to play again.

Scene 16 Summary

Agnes is immediately back in New Landia with Tilly, Orcus, and Kaliope at her side. They encounter the third boss: the Beholder, a giant fanged eyeball played by Vera. Agnes stabs the eye and swiftly eliminates the foe. Ready to face Tiamat, Agnes learns that the final opponent is a shape-shifter and mistakenly kills Steve who steps on stage for yet another swift death.

Lilith, having been returned to life, comes onstage and tells Agnes that Tiamat could be hiding among any of them. As the party members point their fingers and accuse each other, their suspicion lands on Tilly, who turns out to be Tiamat in disguise. Steve rises from the dead and joins the other members of the party to form the five-headed dragon. Agnes uses Tilly’s sword to fend off the bites and slashes that Tiamat delivers from all directions. Agnes finally succeeds in killing the beast, and from the smoking remains, the real Tilly emerges dressed in her normal everyday clothes.

Tilly asks Agnes if she had fun and tells her that was the point of the game. Agnes tells her she’s not real and is gone, and Tilly confirms that she really is dead, but that she lives on in her stories. Orcus, Kaliope, and Lilith each take turns speaking as versions of Tilly and explain to Agnes that the module came from Tilly’s soul and by playing it, Agnes allowed her sister to live again for just a moment. Chuck reads aloud from the module, in which Tilly has written a speech addressing Agnes and telling her sister that she loves her and hopes that Agnes now recognizes the strength, power, and magic that Tilly saw in herself. Chuck concludes the Quest for the Lost Soul of Athens, and Tilly and Agnes finally hug each other.

The narrator concludes the play by summarizing some of Agnes’s subsequent adventures in real life. Agnes ends up marrying Miles and becomes a parent. She maintains her friendship with Chuck, Ronnie, Kelly, and Lilly and never forgets Tilly. Nerds become popular, and Agnes moves into a new house and brings her memories with her.

Scenes 14-16 Analysis

The play’s climax occurs in Scene 14 when Agnes conflates Lilith’s death in the fantasy world with Tilly’s death in the real world and realizes that she is powerless to bring either of them back to life. Haunted by the regret and guilt she feels about not being a more supportive sister, Agnes immerses herself in the game to make amends for her distance from Tilly as a teen. By playing the module, she participates in an alternate reality where she is the central figure to defend her sister’s life. When Evil Gabbi and Evil Tina reappear, Agnes leads the battle against the Succubi. She proclaims, “You really think you’re badasses? Then let’s finish this” (68), and the stage direction suddenly refers to the players as “AGNES’s crew” (69), recognizing her full immersion in Tilly’s fantasy world and her equally complete acceptance of who Tilly was as a person in real life. The bullying cheerleaders die by Agnes’s hand, and she fulfills her own wish to be Tilly’s protector and feels a sense of completion in successfully eliminating these representations of Tilly’s tormentors and “finishing” the job.

However, the satisfaction of defending Tilly in the fantasy world does not bring Agnes the closure she seeks as she struggles to accept her sister’s death. For Agnes, seeing Tilly cry over Lilith’s body is an unbearable mirror to her own anguish, and ironically, Chuck’s refusal to revive Lilith in-game—an imaginary decision in a fantasy world—ultimately forces Agnes to confront the immutable finality of Tilly’s death in the real world. The parallels between Tilly’s mourning and Agnes’s own suppressed feelings of grief become too much for Agnes to bear, and in a complete reversal, she shifts from fully immersing herself in the fantasy world to angrily rejecting the game and denying her painful memories of Tilly. She decides, “I’m done talking to ghosts” (70), and in a reference to Miles’s concern that she never talks about the tragedy, she reverts to shutting herself off from the past and occluding the possibility of healing. Only when Agnes meets Tilly’s friends and realizes that she is not alone in her grief does she finally find a path to closure. After meeting with Ronnie, Kelly, and Lilly in real life, Agnes comprehends that the others share her feelings of loss and regret. Through their collective mourning, Agnes gains the insight that their feelings of loss and pain stem from their deep love for Tilly.

In the final scene, Agnes returns to New Landia with a renewed perspective. Although the game cannot bring Tilly back, it offers a window into her soul, and thus Orcus, Kaliope, and Lilith speak as parts of Tilly’s spirit and remind Agnes that her sister lives on in the stories she created and in the memories of the people who loved her. Orcus imagines that by playing the module, “[m]aybe a bit of [Tilly’s] soul gets the chance to breathe for a moment once again” (82). The final hug between Tilly and Agnes, an embrace that Tilly forbade at the start of the game, represents both the loving bond between the two sisters and Agnes’s acceptance of her death.