as the children gaze at the dark thing in the happy medium's crystal ball they watch it disappear how was the darkness overcome

L’Engle suggests that the love shared between family members can overcome the greatest of all challenges, including the Dark Thing which represents the apotheosis of evil. L’Engle’s characters do not simply act out of a desire to do the right thing, but are instead motivated and compelled by the love that bonds them all together. In this way, familial love is one antidote to the Dark Thing. Another antidote to the Dark Thing, L’Engle suggests, is sacrificial love. Modeled on the Christian framework of the novel, the reader learns that stars and their searing light can defeat the Dark Thing, but at the cost of their own lives.