Lack of hope
Hopelessness can mean many different things for different people. For the movie Children of Men and the book The Giver hopelessness is being unable to completely protect the ones that Jonas and Theo care for. Since Jonas is unable to get Gabe to safety and Theo dies leaving Kee alone with no one to trust, both Children of Men and The Giver have a feeling of hopelessness at the end.
Knowledge or lack of was Jonas’s downfall. The community provided every little thing that a person could need (clothes, food, medicine etc.) Members of the community didn’t even have to know how to cook because meals were delivered daily to them. If Jonas had had memories of basic survival from The Giver before he took Gabe and left the community, maybe then he could have made it to safety and saved Gabe. Basic survival out in the elements requires mass amounts of skills and equipment. Facing the elements with the right equipment is hard enough but if there is a lack of any equipment the end results could be deadly. Since he lacked the knowledge of basic survival skills need for outside the community; like what to wear and how to pack; he caused the death of not only himself but of Gabe as well.
Unlike Jonas, Theo was able to get Kee to safety but was shoot in the process and dies right as The Human Projects ship The Tomorrow arrives to pick them up. Theo had the knowledge to help Kee get to safety; however, when there is not one, but two different groups of people; The Fishers and The Government; trying to kill them it’s inevitable