This story begins in a world seemingly perfect. There is no famine, no war, no death, no misery. The Elders saw to that after the chaos and destruction of the world before. All memories of the past were erased. All differences were removed. The world became one race, one color, one culture. Equality reigned supreme.

The communities were built around a central point, a focal point, an eye, where all things are seen and justice is administered.

Rules were implemented to maintain the sameness. They were: 1) Use precise language. 2) Wear your assigned clothing.3) Take your morning medication. 4) Obey the curfew. 5) Never lie.

On the surface this seems like the perfect utopian community but we will soon seen the price paid for this society which is extracted from within.

We are introduced to Jonas, a boy coming of age. Who always felt different from the others but kept his uniqueness hidden.

We get a little foreshadowing by the name given to this boy.

Jonas is the Greek version of Jonah (Hebrew), which means “son of truth”. His father was named Amitai “truth”. He “seeks the truth only, and not forgiveness.”

In Luke 11: 29 – 30, we read, “And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of JONAS the prophet. For as JONAS was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.”

Jonas has two best friends, Asher and Fiona.

Asher is also a biblical name which means happy and good fortune. Fiona is a Latinised form of the Gaelic word fionn, meaning “white”, “fair”.

To maintain their utopian system Big Brother is always watching. Notice the drone that flies past Jonas before he enters the Nurturing Center. It has the number 22 on it. This ties Jonas to The Giver. Notice the V is prominent when writing the word. V is the 22nd letter in the alphabet. Twenty-two is the number associated with The Creator.

Now Jonas and his two best buddies make a trio. Three plays prominently in this movie. They meet up in their favorite place, the TRIangle, with a waterfall for a door. (Notice how it is a “capped” V.) And the triangle to the left is another camera, monitoring the inside of the hangout.

The next day will be their “Annual Ceremony of Advancement” where they learn their purpose and officially end their childhood. In the book this ceremony takes place at age 12 but in the movie they have changed the age to 18. Notice the similarity to the coming of age ceremony in the film Divergent; where there too they learn what group they will work for.

Here is The Giver.

and here is Divergent.

At the ceremony we meet the Chief Elder, played by Meryl Streep. In Divergent a similar character is portrayed by Kate Winslet. You can see her in the blue above looking out on the crowd. Blue is the color of the left. Both women represent the Negative Feminine.

In The Giver, several ceremonies take place at the same function. First is the Ceremony of Release to Elsewhere. This to me is reminiscent of Logan’s Run. Logan’s Run was another enclosed society that when the occupants reached a certain age (in Logan’s Run it is the ripe old age of 30) were released to the unknown.

Here is the ceremony in Logan’s Run.

We are then given our first glimpse of The Giver. He is the Keeper of Memory. He is the only one who has retained the memory of the world as it once was. The remaining elders has their memories wiped clean. A voluntary state of amnesia was placed upon them. The Chief Elder explains, “From great suffering, great pain, from confusion, envy and hatred, came a solution…serene communities where disorder became harmony.”

So rigid order took it’s place.

Next we have the Ceremony of the Nine’s. Says the Chief Elder, “Celebrating our new children proudly created by our esteemed geneticists and produced by our honored birth mothers.” Notice how similar this is to A Brave New World (BNW). Where the miracle of life has been hijacked into a made to order product. In BNW, babies are genetically altered to produce alphas, betas, gammas and epsilons, each with their proper function. In this version the same thing happens its just not determined until the next ceremony.

The Ceremony of Advancement puts each person in their proper job, giving them their purpose. Jonas’s friend Asher finds out he will be a drone pilot and Fiona will become a nurturer. With each “determination” the Chief Elder thanks them for their childhood.

Jonas however is skipped over. Not until all the other participants have their assigned purposes does Jonas get addressed. He is number 52. In numerology we add 5 + 2 = 7. It is the number for God. (3 + 4 = 7, Heaven-Earth connection) Jonas finds out he has been selected. He has a special role. He possesses all four attributes needed for the role. 1) Intelligence 2) Integrity 3) Courage 4) and the Capacity to See Beyond.

His training begins at the Giver’s home located on the edge of the community.

It appears that they live in a world above the clouds. But we will see this is not the case shortly.

He enters the Giver’s dwelling where the walls are lines with books from the ceiling to the floor. Jonas descends the spiral staircase to begin his journey.

Before leaving the ceremony the Chief Elder warned Jonas, “Your training involves pain. Pain far beyond anything we know. Are you STRONG enough?”  This reminds me of the Tarot strength card. Forte- La Force. (Represented by 11 and then switched with Justice which originally was 8.) Active male energy coming into play.

 

She asks, “are you BRAVE enough? Jonas, you are the new Receiver of Memory.”

The first thing we notice in The Giver’s world is subtle traces of color coming back.

The Giver sits Jonas down and takes his hands into his own. We notice a special mark on both of their wrists, a triangle birthmark. From this Jonas realizes that he was not “picked” for the role but was actually BORN INTO IT.

Jonas receives five new rules from The Giver as well. They are: 1) Report directly to the Receiver of Memory for your training. 2) You are exempt from all rules governing rudeness 3) Besides daily medication you are not to receive any other medicine, especially for pain 4) You may not discuss training with anyone 5) You may LIE.

He tells him how he will learn the SECRET history of the world.

He grasps Jonas’ hands and in doing so downloads memories into Jonas’ mind. The first images, shown in real time, are of snow and a sled. Jonas gets to experience the joy of sledding. He gets to experience the beauty and coldness of snowflakes. But he doesn’t understand why these images should be banned. The Giver explains, “Simply stated, there is no snow because of climate control. Snow reminds people of frost and frost killed crops which lead to famine. Everything is connected. Everything is a balance; with good there is always bad.”

Before he is done he let’s Jonas experience being on the water in a boat and viewing a spectacular sunset, in all it’s vivid colors and beauty.

Jonas returns home where his father (who works at the Nurturing Center) is taking care of a baby that needs a little extra attention. He tells Jonas his name is Gabriel. Jonas notices that Gabriel has the same triangle birthmark on his arm, but he thought, he almost didn’t need to see it because he already FELT it. That Gabriel was just like him. (Intuition)

The next day Jonas meets with his friends before commencing his training. Notice how he sees subtle shades of RED on their clothing.(Red is the color of the right.) His friend Asher is explaining how he flies over the edge of the community and noticed a triangle of stones leaning on each other. He says, “kind of like our triangle.” Meaning the three of them.

When Jonas returns to The Giver, he notices that Jonas seems to be more animated. He asks Jonas if he was still taking his daily injections. Jonas shakes his head no and The Giver replies, “the injections are to remove something. To keep the memories away.” These daily injections remind me of SOMA from A Brave New World. A drug administered to keep the people docile, like sheep.

The Giver shows Jonas a map of their planned community. He explains how there is a Boundary of Memory that encircles it.

Jonas notices the triangular pillars that Asher told him about. He also notices Black Monoliths at the edge where the Boundary of Memory is.

The Black Monoliths remind me of the ones seen in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Which in turn reminds me of the Black Kaaba stone worshipped by the Muslims.

Are these all symbols of mind control? The planet Saturn represents the mind and is traditionally colored black. Are WE a community of people with amnesia to our true history? Controlled by a ring of black pillars? Are we brainwashed to feed this control system our energy?

Notice that the United Nations building is also a Black Monolith.

Now I can’t leave this map without contemplating a few things. If you notice it is flat. The layout of the communities is on a flat grid. We can see the grid lines on the outer edges. There are three communities depicted. Each isolate from the others. If we look at Norse mythology we have Mid-Gard (middle garden) sharing a plane with Jotunheim (land of the giants) and Svartalfheim (land of the dwarves). *Note- there have been giant sized skeletons found all over the world, from North America all the way to China. In the Bible we have the Nephilim and the story of David and Goliath, and in Greek mythology the story of Hercules. Can their be truth hidden regarding giants? Regarding our Earth? (Notice Yggdrasil- Tree of Life below.)

Notice too that the outer edge where Jonas is pointing has snow covered mountains. This reminds me of Antarctica and the possibility that we are on a flat plane under a dome, ringed by a wall of ice.

Also depicted in Game of Thrones.

 

Is this picture suggestive of a Flat Earth underneath a dome?

Is it being suggested here as well? With the arch going up and over the center?

Now Jonas doesn’t contemplate all of these things when looking at the map but the symbolism is intriguing to say the least.

In the next lesson The Giver wants Jonas to understand what true emotions really are. He explains, “Feelings are just on the surface. Emotions are very deep. Listen to it calling from inside! Knowing how something IS, is not the same as knowing how something FEELS.”

“Having FAITH, ” he continued, ” was seeing beyond. It is like the wind, something FELT but not seen.”

“Memories are not just about the past. They determine the future. They change things. You can make things better.”

“Unlike us, they knew who their mothers and fathers were. They had joy. They had pain.”

Jonas goes to his dwelling and checks in on Gabriel. Notice the Tree of Life symbol on the wall (Yggdrasil). Gabriel means “God is my strength” in Hebrew. He is known as the “revealer”. Will Jonas get his “strength” from Gabriel?

In his next lesson The Giver is reluctant to share certain memories with Jonas, but Jonas insists… and so The Giver shows him death. Jonas watches as one of the babies from the Nuturing Center who is underweight is marked for “passage to Elsewhere”. Jonas’ “father” injects a lethal amount of poison into the babies brain. He then puts him in a box and sends him down a shute (similar to a garbage shute.) The Giver explains that the “father” does not know the meaning of death and therefore does not know what he is actually doing. Jonas yells, “there has to be a way to give them their memories back! If you can’t FEEL what’s the point!!!”

My thought here is, if the birth’s are genetically controlled, artificially inseminated into birthing mothers, then how can there be an issue with population control in their enclosed environment? Couldn’t they calculate the exact number that is sustainable? To me this is showing that even in this “utopia” ritual sacrifice still occurs. The question is WHY?

The memories are almost too much for Jonas to handle. He contemplates on going over the edge. Leaving the community behind. Upon meeting with Fiona, she convinces him to stay telling him she will forgo her morning injections so he can share what he has learned with her if he promises to go back to The Giver.

And so he does.

He shares the feeling of LOVE with her.

Jonas returns to The Giver as promised. He has an idea he wants to share with him.

He tells him how he will go over the edge and keep going until he gets to the Boundary of Memory. He figures that a Keeper of Memory can break the spell and release the memories for humanity. The Giver tells him that he was waiting for someone like him and that he is the reason that they have a chance. His role is to stay behind and help the community through the confusion and chaos with the returned memories. Before Jonas leaves, The Giver tells him that He loves him. He gives him memories of Strength since he already has shown his Courage.

Jonas’ journey has been expedited with the news that Gabriel was taken to the Nurturing Center for the release into Elsewhere. Jonas knowing what this means races to stop it. He finds Fiona who shows him where Gabriel is. She helps Jonas and Gabriel escape by pretending to have Gabriel’s carrier and running off with it in the other direction getting the guards to chase her instead.

Jonas’ journey is not an easy one. He rides a stolen motorcycle over the edge and keeps going across a desert.

He goes through a tropical “oasis” and drives by what appear to be pyramids.

In the mean time, Fiona and The Giver have been arrested and are put in cells.

The community is told that Jonas is no longer with them and a Ceremony of Loss is conducted.

The Chief Elder knows what is really going on and asks Asher to look for Jonas and Gabriel in the land past the edge. Asher asks what he should do if he finds them and the Elder replies, “drop them.”

You can see Asher is one of four drone operators looking for them. (Each operator handles a section or Four Corners possibly? Notice the four sections. Land is missing from the 4th section, only Hawaii remains. Could this be where ancient Lemuria was?)

Asher flies the drone past the three pillars that he noted represented him and his friends.

He finds Jonas and Gabriel close to the river. He talks to Jonas asking him what he is doing. Jonas replies, “Asher, if you are my friend, ever were my friend, can you please TRUST me! TRUST me now!” Asher replies, “I DO TRUST you Jonas!”

With that he chases Jonas, picks him up and then releases him and Gabriel over the river. He watches with nervous anticipation to see if Jonas is okay. He is relieved that he is. He goes back and lies to the Chief Elder that Jonas was “taken care of”.

Jonas’ struggles are not over though. He taps in to the little strength he has knowing that if he stops his friends will die. He gets to the frigid mountains and knows he has to cross them.

He feels what pain and suffering is. But at the same time he feels love and hope. Keeping them in mind and little Gabriel provides him with the strength to go on.

Back at the community the Ceremony to Release to Elsewhere is underway for Fiona. The Giver tries to make the Chief Elder understand what they have done. He explains that they did it for love. With love comes faith and hope. The Chief Elder replies, “love is just passion that can turn…. Can turn to contempt and murder. People are weak and selfish. When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong every time!” The Giver replies, “We are living a life of shadows! Of echoes of fate! This is just a whisper of what was once real!”

Jonas is beyond exhausted and passes out in the snow. He wakes up to Gabriel laughing.

Jonas sits up and then notices something in the snow. It is the sled from his first memory given to him by The Giver. He hops on and sleds down the hill. He sees the Black Monolith in front of him.

He sleds past it and notices a “shield” being lifted.

The force can be seen as it disappears.

Bringing color back to their world.

And with it the community wakes up. They stop their ceremony for Fiona. She is saved.  And so is their community.

You can see how vibrant their world is now.

Jonas ends his journey at a cabin in the woods. He understands this is home. A fire is burning and he can hear the people inside singing. They are singing a Christmas song. It’s called Silent Night.

Jonas, the Truth bearer, ends by saying, “the memories were the TRUTH. The Elders and their rules were the LIE. So I do NOT apologize.”

So we can see that this story shares important similarities with Snowpiercer, Mad Max, the Kingsman and Elysium. In all of these movies we have some sort of catastrophic event played out. The survivors struggle onwards with unfavorable systems. Ones in which humanity is controlled. A “savior” character comes along and frees humanity. In The Giver that character was Jonas. By removing the Boundary of Memory (put in place by the elite) he is freeing humanity. Giving humanity a chance to live on their own terms.

Notice the groups of three I mentioned earlier as well. We have the trio of Jonas (Truth), Asher (Happiness) and Fiona (Beauty).

We have another trio as well. We have The Giver (Wisdom), The Receiver-Jonas (Truth) and the future Receiver-Gabriel (Strength).

They make up the characteristics of humanity. The ones that let us know we are really human. Without these, we are nothing but a whisper of humanity.

I failed to mention the most important one of all…. LOVE. In the community Love became a repressed emotion. Love was shared between all the members of both trios. Love was then shared with all of humanity when Jonas broke the Boundary of Memory.

Fear- ultimate control. Love- ultimate free will. Always choose love.

P.S. YouTube Vid Attached Below.