Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See is full of gorgeously rich, heartbreaking prose that tells the story of a young blind girl trying to survive Nazi-occupied France, an 18-year-old German soldier with an affinity for science and a pesky moral compass, a cursed jewel called the Sea of Flames, and how they all intersect one night in 1944. It’s also over 500 pages, ping-pongs through time, and features several characters trapped in various locations with nothing much to do except think. Adapting it for the screen, as Steven Knight and director Shawn Levy did for Netflix, always necessitates changes, but here, there are a lot of changes. Some start out small — a supporting character cut here, a backstory simplified there — but with a story that is all about connection, those small changes snowball.
The four-episode miniseries ends with Marie-Laure LeBlanc (Aria Mia Loberti) and Werner Pfennig (Louis Hofmann) fighting off the villainous Von Rumpel (Lars Eidinger), a German sergeant in search of the precious jewel unknowingly in Marie’s possession, with the town of Saint-Malo liberated. Yes, this hits some of the major beats of the novel’s conclusion, but there are major changes any fan of Doerr’s book would notice. Let’s talk about the most significant ones.
Etienne’s fate
What happens in the novel: Marie’s great-uncle Etienne watched his beloved brother Henri die while serving alongside him in World War I. Etienne’s remained locked up in his family’s house in Saint-Malo ever since with his only real connections to the outside world his housekeeper, Madame Manec, and the radios he uses to rebroadcast educational lessons that he wrote and Henri recorded as “the Professor†when they were younger. Marie is the push he needs to start living again: He makes his first journey out of the house during a particularly tense moment when he believes Marie to be in danger. Days ahead of the bombing to liberate Saint-Malo, Etienne is arrested and put in a prison miles offshore. This man not only survives World War II but he and Marie move to Paris and travel the world before he dies “gently in the bathtub at the age of 82.â€
How it goes down in the show: Here, Marie’s great-uncle (Hugh Laurie) has no brother to speak of; instead, he’s locked himself in his sister Madame Manec’s (Marion Bailey) house for 20 years owing to his debilitating PTSD after serving in World War I. Etienne is a haunted war hero who spends his time up in the attic broadcasting educational lessons for kids on an illegal radio (yep, here Etienne is the Professor — gasp!). When Marie and her father, Daniel (Mark Ruffalo), arrive in Saint-Malo, it turns his life upside down in the best way and he finds the courage to step out of the house with his great-niece at his side. He continues the underground resistance movement his sister had run until she got sick and died, transforming into a gun-toting spy wheeling and dealing on his motorcycle, feeding info to the Allies, and keeping his great-niece safe. When the bombing in Saint-Malo begins, Etienne encounters Werner, interrogates him, and deems him someone deserving of a second chance. When bombs hit their safe house, Etienne tells Werner to protect Marie and to pass along a final message of thanks for saving his life (metaphorically speaking). And then that man dies. He dies!!
Daniel’s end
What happens in the novel: As World War II spreads to France, Daniel, the locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, is one of several people tasked with protecting a rare diamond, the Sea of Flames. He receives either the real one or a decoy — though he is sure he has the genuine article — and flees with his daughter, Marie-Laure, to his uncle’s house in the port of Saint-Malo. Eventually, his boss summons him back from Saint-Malo, but unfortunately a neighbor had noticed Daniel’s strange counting and mapping of the city (which he was doing in order to build a model of Saint-Malo for Marie-Laure) and he is arrested during his return to Paris. He winds up in a camp in Germany and writes a few letters to Marie until they eventually stop. After the war, Marie and Etienne search for information about what happened to Daniel, but the most they learn is that he had influenza in 1943 while in a concentration camp. They never learn how he died.
How it goes down on the show: Daniel, the locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, takes it upon himself to protect the Sea of Flames once the Nazis take the city, eventually placing it in the model of Saint-Malo he builds for his daughter, Marie-Laure, when they settle in the city. Unfortunately, this man counting steps and mapping out locations draws the attention of the Germans. During a tense inspection, Daniel hands them false papers he had forged, knowing the Nazis might be looking for the Sea of Flames and anyone connected to it. Realizing it’s only a matter of time before he’s linked to the jewel, Daniel, Madame Manec, and Etienne hatch a plan to send Daniel to Paris for a few days to stop the Germans from looking for him in Saint-Malo. After he sufficiently creates a misleading trail, he can return to his daughter safe and sound. However, as soon as he arrives in Paris, Von Rumpel finds him and arrests him. He tortures him for hours trying to get him to give up the location of the jewel, but Daniel refuses in order to keep his daughter safe. Von Rumpel shoots him in the head, then taunts Marie-Laure with this information the night he tracks her down in Saint-Malo.
Marie-Laure and Werner’s final interaction
What happens in the novel: During several days of bombing in Saint-Malo, Werner is trapped under the Hotel of Bees with his onetime classmate turned commanding officer Volkheimer. He stays alive by drinking some questionable sludge and listening to Marie-Laure broadcast from the Professor’s channel — one Werner and his sister listened to as orphans in Germany — while she is trapped in her attic. She plays “Clair de Lune†and reads from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, eventually letting anyone who might be listening know that there is a man in her house who wants to kill her. Werner feels connected to her, and when Volkheimer ultimately blasts them out of the rubble, the CO tells Werner he needs to go to her. Marie-Laure listens from the attic as Werner comes into the house and shoots Von Rumpel.
The two share a can of peaches and talk as they wait out the rest of the bombing. Before he helps get her out of the city, Marie takes Werner to the grotto. Marie had been introduced to the grotto under the city wall by Hubert Bazin, a World War I vet Madame Manec helps out, who knows all the ins and outs of Saint-Malo. Full of snails and mollusks, it becomes a sort of refuge for Marie until it becomes the first place she interacts with Von Rumpel. Once she is in the grotto, she places the model of Etienne’s house that safely hides the Sea of Flames into the water, attempting to rid herself of its curse and the burden of carrying it. She slips Werner the key to grotto gate, which Bazin had entrusted to her, before they say good-bye and wonder if they’ll ever meet again. Once the Americans secure Saint-Malo, Marie is safely reunited with Etienne while Werner is captured and put in a prisoner-of-war camp.
How it goes down on the show: Werner survives the first night of the Saint-Malo bombing (although Volkheimer does not, and he dies within the first ten minutes). After repairing his radio, Werner spends days listening to Marie-Laure’s illegal broadcasts and lying about it to (and killing!) his superiors in order to protect her. During the final night of the bombing, Etienne, who has spared Werner’s life, asks him to continue protecting his great-niece. Werner doesn’t hesitate. He runs into the house and finds Von Rumpel pretty much holding Marie hostage in the attic. He chokes Von Rumpel with a radio wire (because of course), but it’s Marie who shoots him, just as the man lays eyes on the jewel he’s been searching for. Werner explains that he discovered her because he used to listen to the Professor’s broadcasts — they saved him as an orphan in Germany — and she tells him that Etienne was the Professor and shows him the radio. Werner is able to send a message to his sister, Jutta, and Marie and Werner dance to “Clair de Lune†and share a kiss (and a can of peaches). Marie helps Werner surrender to the Americans as they promise to find one another again, even if it’s only through the radio — Werner will always be listening for her.
Werner Pfennig’s fate
What happens in the novel: After being captured, Werner is transferred to several different prisons and becomes gravely ill. He spends his time thinking about his sister, remembering what it felt like to hold Marie-Laure’s hand, and attempting to reckon with some of the things he did during the war and while in school. One night, in a haze of fever, Werner walks out of the medical tent he’s been staying in, steps on a land mine, “and disappears in a fountain of earth.â€
How it goes down on the show: Even though we see Werner surrender to the Americans, his story is left fairly open-ended. There is hope that he might hear Marie on the radio again, that they might stay connected, that Werner might find a way to make amends for what he’s done in the war.
Jutta’s role
What happens in the novel: After Werner and his sister, Jutta, are separated, the two write letters to one another throughout the war. When she and several other teens from the orphanage move to Berlin with Frau Elena toward the end of the war, they are raped by Russian soldiers. We meet Jutta again in 1974, where she is clearly haunted by everything she endured, but is now a teacher in Germany, married, and has a young son. One day, Volkheimer knocks on her door with some recently found items that belonged to Werner — including a duffel bag that contains a strange model of a home she doesn’t recognize. Volkheimer tells her about the last time he saw her brother — that maybe he was in love — and although she knows there’s nothing she can really learn that will ease the grief of losing Werner, she travels first to the Saint-Malo area and then to Paris in search of answers. It’s there that she meets a scientist at the Museum of Natural History named Marie-Laure LeBlanc.
How it goes down on the show: At the orphanage, Werner and Jutta share one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the series when Werner is forced to go to the National Institute. She tells her brother not to let them change who he is. In the end, we watch as she gets the message Werner broadcasts while he’s with Marie, telling her he’s alive and that he met the Professor and a beautiful girl. Jutta can’t hug her beloved brother, but she does hug that radio!
Marie-Laure’s future
What happens in the novel: Marie never returns to Saint-Malo. She and Etienne live in Paris when they aren’t traveling, and she spends her life studying mollusks — Dr. LeBlanc eventually begins working at the same museum where her father did — and she gives birth to a daughter. Jutta arrives in 1974 with the model house Marie hasn’t thought about for years, and it unmoors her. She tells Jutta about her grandfather Henri being the Professor, and what she can remember from the few hours spent with Werner. Marie can’t believe Werner went back to the grotto for the house. Was it because he wanted a memento of his short time with her? When Marie pops open the secret compartment her father made, wondering if Werner took the Sea of Flames, she finds the key to the grotto gate she gave him back in 1944. She wants to believe that he, too, left the cursed jewel behind. In the end, the Sea of Flames is back in the ocean, so it’s implied that Marie’s hope for Werner is more than just a wish.
We meet Marie-Laure one last time, in 2014. Here, she walks the streets of Paris with her young grandson. The world has moved on from the horrors of what happened, and Marie has tried to as well. But still, even after all these years, she feels the people she lost, the people that kept her alive, all around her.
How it goes down on the show: After Marie says good-bye to Werner, she walks through the streets of a now liberated Saint-Malo with tears in her eyes, listening to people celebrate around her. She heads to the beach, where she spent so many afternoons with her father and, eventually, Etienne, now both gone. She pulls the Sea of Flames out of her pocket — careful not to touch the maybe-cursed stone with her hands — and tosses it into the ocean. Good riddance! She has lost so much, but she looks hopeful and resilient as she takes in the deep breath of the ocean.