The Nurturer
is a fanfiction of The Giver written by finch, fully published on Archive Of Our Own on December 24th, 2014 for Yuletide 2014. The story follows the story of Jonas's father (known as Ellis in this fic), starting as a young Nurturing Attendant and following his life past the end of the original book.
While the story is from the perspective of Jonas's father, it also focuses on expanding the world of The Giver.
Examples of tropes in this work are:
- Adaptation Expansion: The fic shows more of the the community than the original novel.
- After the End: The final chapter primarily takes place after Jonas leaves the community.
- Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage: Between Ellis and Maire.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: The very beginning of the fic shows that Ellis is not only aware that release is death, but believes much better for the community than sending a failed citizen to Elsewhere.
- Disproportionate Retribution: A woman is released during the Ceremony of Tweleve for objecting to her daughter's assignment as Birthmother.
- Downer Ending: The fic ends with the Elders taking Ellis away to be released for Jonas, Gabriel, and Claire's disappearances.
- Dystopia
- False Utopia
- Foreshadowing : One of Ellis's coworkers asks the committee if they can hold back an inadequate newchild a year and allow her to take the newchild home at night. Years later, Ellis asks the committee the same thing for Gabriel.
- Meaningful Name: Ellis has two meanings: it is either derived from Elijah, a prophet from the Old Testament, or a form of the Celtic name Elisedd, meaning kind.
- Nice Guy: Ellis, being a Nurturer, is very caring and kind.
- Released to Elsewhere
- Retcon: Early on, Ellis mentions that his comfort object was a frog, but in later chapters, he claims it was a duck.
- Sexless Marriage: Between Ellis and Maire
