Lord of the Flies ending explained: Everyone who dies and how the BBC series changes the book
Do they escape the island? And what happens to Piggy?
Lord of the Flies, the BBC’s adaptation of the classic novel, ends on a brutal, disquieting note – and this is a full breakdown of the ending, from all of its deaths to the (small) changes to the book.
It’s a classic story: over 30 British boys emerge from a deadly plane crash and find themselves stranded on a tropical island. No adults, no rules, and no help in sight.
The new series, developed by Adolescence writer Jack Thorne, is a faithful retelling of William Golding’s book (with the support of the late author’s family).
By the end of Lord of the Flies, order gives way to mischief, mischief breeds anarchy, and anarchy leads to tragedy.
***Warning: spoilers for Lord of the Flies ahead***
How does Lord of the Flies end?
Lord of the Flies ends with the boys being rescued. Two Navy officers investigate the island after seeing smoke from their warship, and they find Ralph and the remaining children on the beach.
A lot happens before we get there, though. In the wake of Simon’s death, Jack and his tribe lead a raid on Ralph and Piggy’s beach camp, and they flee with Piggy’s glasses.
The next day, Piggy decides to journey to Jack’s camp to ask for his glasses back, “because right’s right” and it’s what he should do.
Things don’t go to plan. When Ralph accuses Jack of being a “dirty thief” and “savage”, a fight breaks out. Piggy grabs the conch and pleads with everyone to stop, but Jack doesn’t want to hear it. He orders Roger to shut him up, so Roger throws a boulder onto Piggy’s head.
Sam and Eric, the twins who stayed with Piggy and Ralph, are tied up and held at the camp. Meanwhile, Ralph helps Piggy escape.
As the pair hide in the bushes, Piggy starts vomiting. Blood keeps pouring from the back of his head, and despite Ralph’s best efforts to help him walk and keep him alive, Piggy dies in his sleep.
The next day, Ralph buries Piggy and appeals to Sam and Eric at Jack’s camp. Roger catches them talking, and the boys carry out a vicious manhunt. They even try to smoke him out, and in a final confrontation, Jack blames Ralph for “ruining everything”.
How do the boys escape the island?
In the closing scene of Lord of the Flies, Ralph sees two Navy officers standing on the beach.
“We saw smoke, a terrific lot of it. How the hell did you get here? Are there any adults, any grown-ups with you?” the officer asks.
At this point, the rest of the boys emerge from the trees, holding spears and screaming, “Kill him!” However, they’re quickly silenced by the shock of seeing an adult.
“Fun and games? What have you boys been doing, having a war or something?” the officer asks, before jokingly enquiring if there are any dead bodies. “Two… but their bodies are gone,” Ralph says, tearfully, also admitting others likely died.
The officer, clearly realising something has gone horrifically wrong, asks who’s the leader. Ralph turns to Jack, who meekly casts his eyes to the ground. When Ralph says he’s in charge, the officer asks how many of them there are – but Ralph doesn’t know.
“Poor show,” he says. “I should have thought a pack of British boys… would put on a better show than that.”
Ralph tries to explain that it was easier when they were “together”.
The officer offers to take them off the island. The boys drop their spears and weapons and run to the boat – apart from Jack, who stands in the stillness of his adventure (and the horrors) coming to an end.
Who dies in the BBC’s Lord of the Flies?
There are eight deaths in the BBC’s version of Lord of the Flies. To make it easier, you can find details of them all below.
The pilot
In episode 1, titled ‘Piggy, Ralph and Piggy climb to the top of the island. They find the plane’s pilot dead, but still strapped to his chair.
“We’ll find them all over the mountain. They weren’t in the passenger tube like we were,” Jack says.
Ralph wants to bury him, but Jack says a Christian burial would be the “wrong thing”, considering he could be to blame for the crash. So, instead, they dispose of his body by pushing it off the side of a nearby cliff.
Three members of the aircraft crew
In episode 2, titled ‘Jack’, we see a flashback of the boys in the minutes before the plane crash.
It’s a quick shot, but we can see the cabin crew standing around the boys. There are three of them, and given they’re never seen again, they presumably died on impact, and their bodies were lost in the wreckage (or perhaps even in the ocean).
Fighter pilot
Earlier in the series, we see a dead fighter pilot drift down to the water in a parachute. We don’t know exactly when Lord of the Flies takes place (it’s believed to be the early ‘1950s), but presumably, he lost his life in a dogfight with an enemy plane.
In episode 3, the boys find his corpse hidden under his ragged, wind-ripped parachute. This is an important scene, but we’ll come back to that.
Boy with birthmark
Excluding anyone who died in the crash, the young boy with the birthmark is Lord of the Flies’ first casualty.
At the end of episode 1, the boys’ efforts to light a signal fire go catastrophically wrong. By igniting too much wood (not to mention rotten bark), a wildfire spreads across half the island.
A mad dash back to the safety of the beach ensues, but the boy with the birthmark doesn’t make it out alive.
Simon
Simon is brutally killed by Jack and the rest of his rabid tribe at the end of episode 3.
It’s a tense episode for Simon, especially after Jack (with whom he has a complicated, resentful relationship) finds his diary. He appears to strike up a bond with Ralph, but when Ralph brands him “batty”, he leaves and wanders into the woods on his own.
He later has a hallucinatory conversation with a pig’s head. It taunts him and tells him to run home.
As he wades through the bushes, Roger and the others mistake him for the beast – so they stab him to death and leave his body on the beach.
Piggy
Piggy is killed in episode 4 after Roger throws a boulder on his head.
Ralph accompanies Piggy to Jack’s camp to help him get his glasses back. When Piggy tries to get everyone’s attention with the conch, Jack tells Roger to stop Piggy from being “boring”, so he slams his head with a rock.
However, Piggy doesn’t die immediately. He bleeds out for the rest of the day, vomiting and growing increasingly pale and delirious, until he slips away in his sleep.
Was ‘the beast’ real?
No, ‘the beast’ wasn’t real in Lord of the Flies.
The ‘littleuns’ are the first to report a ‘beast’ lurking on the island. Seemingly, it’s a creature that came from the sea, and the boys (even the older ones who may pretend otherwise) fear it could be hunting them.
However, an expedition reveals that it isn’t an animal: it’s the corpse of the fighter pilot enveloped in his parachute.
Lord of the Flies ending explained: Does the series change the book?
The BBC’s Lord of the Flies is incredibly faithful to the book, and its changes (of which there aren’t many) only enrich the source material.
For example, Simon’s past with Jack (their fleeting friendship, and any feelings he may – or may not! – have for him) is new.
Also, the series reveals Piggy’s real name for the first time: Nicholas, or “Nicky” as he likes to go by.
The ending mostly unfolds in the same way, except Piggy dies almost immediately in the book, whereas it’s drawn out in the series finale.
The final scene is almost word-for-word with the book’s last chapter, right down to the naval officer’s dialogue.
There is a key difference, though: in the book, all of the boys sob as they stand on the beach, and the officer appears “moved and a little embarrassed”.
In the show, it’s only Ralph who’s teary-eyed – and, if anything, the officer looks more troubled than “moved”. The rest of them look a little shocked, but that’s about it.
Read more: Lord of the Flies BBC cast includes Harry Potter’s new Draco Malfoy
