The Long Defeat

"'Well, the group of us here doesn't have to sink any lower,' I said... 'I wish I believed that,' he said. Perhaps it was his grief talking. 'I don't think we have a hope in hell of succeeding here.'" (328)

I feel like this final interaction in the story is expressed perfectly by Thrice's song, "The Long Defeat." The title of the song comes from a Tolkien novel and  is "essentially about believing that there’s meaning to the good that you try to do and that you see in the world even when a lot of things would conspire to make you not believe that" (Dustin Kensrue). The whole song is basically about that belief. In the passage above it is clear that Lauren believes in fighting and surviving against the long defeat but Bankole doesn't.