In the book The Boy Who Couldn’t Die by William Sleator, Ken’s fear of death clouds his better judgment and leads him to danger. He was afraid of anything to do with death or pain after his best friend Roger died. He was so terrified that he decided he wanted to become invulnerable. Without much thought, he pushed himself to an adventure of mental strength and self-character. Even though he was protected physically, mentally he was still in danger.
Ken does not think of the consequences before making choices. “Would I go to all the trouble to get here if I wasn’t sure? I asked her”(1) This was at the very beginning of the book. Everything seemed suspicious but for some reason he was very sure of his decision. He was so sure being invulnerable was so excellent that he didn’t even want to listen to other people’s warnings or consequences. “It was a modern high rise, and the room was full of puffy leather furniture”(4) this was some of the descriptions Ken described when he first came in Cherri Buttercup’s house. Ken also said that a person who only makes 50 dollars per customer should not be able to afford all of these things. Ken obviously was not thinking before acting because, the book showed evidence of suspiciousness…show more content… “Whoever has your soul has power over you” (58) Sabina told him in St. Calao. When Cherri Buttercup offered Ken to be invincible at the start of the book, she also said “its not like you’re selling your soul to the devil or anything like that”(5). This was ironic to me because as the first quote shows, he is indeed selling his soul to the devil. Cherri Buttercup also made Ken thinks of her as a good person by saying “I’m a practitioner of a rare art, which gives me pleasure and I’m doing a good-deed protecting you forever”(6). And despite how suspicious all of these things were, Ken did not do any further research and fell right into Cherri Buttercup’s