# best/worst endings



## Princess Ivy (Oct 27, 2005)

how do you like a novel to end? as part of a series? All loose ends tied up? questions left unanswered? some ambiguity, like blade runner, of what actually happened. Or a classic summing up of basic plot elements ala agatha christie? Or maybe, a it was all a dream, maybe? i must say, i like to know what happened, especially in my fantasy. i love to know that the good guys won. but by the same token, i also sometimes like a little mistique, to have to work things out for myself, and even to know that sometimes the badguys do get away with somethings. as in pitchblack.


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## FelineEyes (Oct 27, 2005)

Generally, I'm a sucker for happy endings, but I don't mind the occasional tragic end or the bittersweet one.  I liked the way Pitch Black ended and the way V for Vendetta ended.  I didn't really like the of The Godfather ending, but I sort of saw it coming, so it wasn't so bad.  And I really liked the endings of The Brother's Grimm, Hamlet, Richard III, Medea, and Friday.  
The only endings that really hated are The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and Butterfly and Hellflower.
So I guess it depend on the story.


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## Leto (Oct 27, 2005)

FelineEyes said:
			
		

> The only endings that really hated are The Cat Who Walks Through Walls


Why ?


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## kyektulu (Oct 27, 2005)

*I really dont like a novel to end where it was all a dream or the evil person didnt really die (expesh after an entire saga being centered around destroying him) and he/she will live to reign terror another day, that is a bit lame.
 It is hard to explain what I like as an ending, the happy ever after are ok but a bit cliche. 
 I do like as a rule for all the threads to be wrapped up or I will spend months dwelling on what could of happened. 
*


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## nixie (Oct 27, 2005)

I agree with Princess it's great to see the good guys win, but a little bit of mystery goes down well.A lot people complain about the ending of Kings Dark Tower but I thought was great.


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## Eradius Lore (Oct 27, 2005)

i like a novel where the vilan wins or at the least the anti-hero i hate in novels when its a happy ending all the time, although i dont mind it if theres a big twist in the plot where the villans not as dead as they might think and stuff like that.

this might not be from a book but a good anti-hero is Ash williams from Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Evil Dead: Army of Darkness


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## lazygun (Oct 27, 2005)

Like my stories to come to an end in general.Don't like buying/reading series if the next one has not been written.

....lack of patience on my part.


Shop smart,shop S-MART!......


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## Rane Longfox (Oct 27, 2005)

A lot of books' endings I find unsatisfactory. It takes a very good ending to really finish off a book properly, especially if its the last in a series. Most of them just don't work for me. Some do, but most don't. The ending I dislike the most is China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Still love the rest of the book, but the ending I thought was terrible


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## Princess Ivy (Oct 28, 2005)

lazygun said:
			
		

> Like my stories to come to an end in general.Don't like buying/reading series if the next one has not been written.
> 
> ....lack of patience on my part.
> 
> ...


oh, you just wanna get me started here! i keep getting recomended books that are part of series that haven't been finished. which is so hugely annoying. because even if i don't like one, i feel obligated to know how it ends! and so i'm stuck with several series that i know i won't read properly (i skim things like that) but i have to find out how they end. arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!


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## Taltos (Oct 28, 2005)

For me there are 2 main things that ruin the book ending:
1) deus-ex-machina - when the author has to resort to some "divine" intervention to fix the mess he/she has written. 
2) too predictable ending - if it can be clearly seen where given story is going half way to the end. This is just sooooo boring.


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## Culhwch (Oct 28, 2005)

I like threads to be tied up to some extent, but I also don't mind a bit of ambiguity, where _you_ more or less picture what comes next. I like, well, not a surprise, but not a cliche, either. It doesn't have to be a twist, but it has to be fresh, I feel. I found a lot of people disliked the end of Neil Gaiman's _Stardust_, where it sort of ends happily ever after, and then keeps going to a bittersweet finish, but it's one of my faves. Really don't like the 'bad guy's dead, everyone gathers to pat each other on the back and explain how it all came together, sidekick makes a quip, the curtain comes down' kind of endings. The Feist kind of ending....


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## LadyFel (Oct 29, 2005)

Depends...sometimes I like all loose ends tied up nicely, sometimes I like to have some aspect left up to the imagination...


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## Treikayan (Oct 30, 2005)

I was angry about the way "Dune: Messiah" was unfolding, especially for Paul.  And I ended up crying my eyes out at the end.  It was the only book I cried to.

In the "Return of the King" I was "poed" how the Mouth of Sauron taunted Aragorn and Gandalf with the mithril shirt.  I didn't know if Frodo was dead or alive.  I threw the book!


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## Thunderchild (Oct 30, 2005)

I like any ending as long as it isn't a cliche.OMG the tall Blonde guy with a tan is living hapily ever after with a woman he just met 400 pages ago (it was so woth the read   )

I prefer something origonal or at least unexpected.


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## Rosemary (Oct 30, 2005)

A poorly written ending is bad enough...

It's the ones I grab off the library shelf, read hundreds of pages then find the last few pages are not there    

I only did that once, certainly learnt  my lesson there!


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## kyektulu (Oct 30, 2005)

lazygun said:
			
		

> Like my stories to come to an end in general.Don't like buying/reading series if the next one has not been written


* I have to agree with that, I have just finished the second book in a saga and am waiting for the final installment, I am quite impatient in general so this wait is killing me!*


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## lazygun (Oct 30, 2005)

Presently waiting for Eric Flint and David Drake to release _The Dance of Time. _

A recent series I've learnt to wait for,if reluctantly.


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## asdar (Nov 17, 2005)

I liked The Hobbit ending a lot. It was a good young adult, or children's story with a good ending, and I thought all tied up.

I disliked the Lord of the rings ending. It seemed to me to drag and drag anti-climatically. I felt the same watching the movie.

The best, or at least most shocking ending ever had to be the Grapes of Wrath. If you've never read the end to that you're missing an ending, but I won't spoil it. 

I know a close friend that broke his window throwing the book away from him. He thought it was the worst and most disgusting ending ever. I kind of liked it.


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## dwndrgn (Nov 17, 2005)

I get very frustrated when at least a few threads aren't tied up and the story just plain ends right in the middle as if the book was chopped in half and then published as two books.  I had one like that recently and I threw it down on the table with a disgusted "hmph!"  Startled the rest of the people in the room too!


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## asdar (Nov 17, 2005)

I don't mind a little ambiguity, I don't need to hear the "...and they lived happily ever after," but I like to see the resolution, and at least have some information on whether the main characters will be alright or not.

As I get older I'm starting to hate the neat and tidy endings more than the loose thread ones. I hate when overwhelming magic comes in and saves the day.


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## littlemissattitude (Nov 19, 2005)

As others have said, I do appreciate a book with an ending.  I don't necessarily need to have all the little threads tied up in a neat little bow, but even in a series I know is continuing, I like a sense of completion at the end of a volume.  The volumes of Kage Baker's "Company" series are good at this; they are all self contained, even though they _are_ a series.  What I don't like, to use an example from film, are endings like that of _The Empire Strikes Back_, which is so obviously a tease for the next film rather than a real ending.

Also, I don't necessarily need for the ending to be "happy".  Although if I can sense an unhappy ending coming up, I'll sometimes avoid getting there for as long as I can.  I did that with the end of the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.  I knew what was going to happen, and I did not want it to.  On the other hand, I sometimes subscribe to a friend of mine's description of a play he wrote: "It's a happy ending.  Everyone dies in the end."  I guess what it comes down to is that I don't appreciate a writer juggling what is obviously an unhappy ending coming up, just to make sure all the good guys live "happily ever after".


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## stirdgit (Nov 19, 2005)

For me it varies greatly.  There are some happy endings that are really well written that I love, sad endings that are written well that I love also.  It depends.  After going through a book or movie, you tend to pick up on those true and honest moments that somehow just seem to fit.  As long as the ending works - for whatever reason, whatever the outcome - I'm happy with it.
2001 is one of my favorite movies of all time... but I think anyone who has ever seen it can agree it is very ambiguous, but I absolutely love it.  Star Wars Ep. IV, another favorite, has a clear cut ending where the good guy blows up the big, bad guy hang out and everyone gets a medal.  Neat, tidy... just a touch of ambiguity (Vader Lives) but a definite ending.  I love it as well.  
As for 'sad' endings, or 'bad guy winning' endings; it seems to me these days, these endings are becoming commonplace.  I am starting to miss the edgy, bold, 'good guy winning', happy endings.  They seem to be on the down swing these days.     
If I had to pick a favorite... I'd go with ambiguous.  I like to fill in the blanks and spend months wondering about what happened and what could have happened.  I feel more like a participant in the story that way.


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## Teir (Nov 20, 2005)

kyektulu said:
			
		

> * I have to agree with that, I have just finished the second book in a saga and am waiting for the final installment, I am quite impatient in general so this wait is killing me!*



it becomes pathetic when the gap between installments is several years 


For some reason i hated the ending to Feist's Shards of a Broken Crown. The whole saga was emotionally exhausting, what with some of the books being separated with gap of decades- Characters seemed to live and die with such little consequence. For me, it was a showcase of time passing and mortality. i needed something at the ended that....i don't know.........it just seemed more like the beginning of new saga rather then the end of the tremendous events which had preceded it. It just wasnt what i needed it to be


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## nixie (Nov 20, 2005)

Reading through this thread, made me realise just how many incomplete series I'm reading.How do we manage to keep up with it all,specially when there's large gaps between insallments...Do you reread the others or just start  reading the latest installment hoping you've remembered enough of the previous books to pick up the threads.I used to always re-read but now find my self doing this less and less.It's surprising how easy it is to pick up the series from where you left off.There will always be books I re-read but it won't be to refresh my memory..It will be for the pleasure of re-visiting old friends


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## dragula_66 (Jun 21, 2006)

Culhwch said:
			
		

> Really don't like the 'bad guy's dead, everyone gathers to pat each other on the back and explain how it all came together, sidekick makes a quip, the curtain comes down' kind of endings. The Feist kind of ending....



Umm... from my memory, not very many of feist's bad guys die at the end of a book, well at least not untill an entire saga is done, and after something like that why should they not die.  Although right now im thinkin of people like Sidi, servant of the nameless one (who i know very little of at this point, to my great agitation), and kasper of oslako suddenly became a good guy, dunno bout the rest of you but i never saw that coming.  

And what about Leso Varen? he didnt die, he created a means of escape in case his physical body was destroyed (i know his soul bottle thingie was found by (um.. it was caleb wasnt it?) but i am pretty sure i remember that he wasnt destroyed permenantly.

anyway, my point is, R.E. Feist's baddies dont simply die when beaten.  They seem to come back now and then.  and there is usually more mourning for fallen comrades, aquantences, or loved ones than there is back patting, or sidekick quip making from what i can remember.

Please, ppl, dispute my points.  I havnt had a decent debate in ages...


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## Cobolt (Jun 21, 2006)

I like unusual endings, ones where there is a thread of hope or despair, where the unobvious happens.

Dont care if its a series or not, but if I am reading a series then I prefer some threads tied up and completed but the overall story arc to remain open until the very end.

The Bladerunner series of books are a fine example.

Tad Williams is another whose books leave the reader satisfied enough to wait for the next book. (Otherland series).

My own book I am writing (Fantasy/Horror) is a planned series and that has an overall story arc that will not complete until the end but has threads that are started and completed by the end of each book.


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## Alurny (Jun 21, 2006)

I like ending's that leave things for the reader to perceive. Like *Holes* by *Louis Sachar* if anyone has read it? The end to that is fantastic.


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## SteveR (Jun 21, 2006)

I love endings that tie up the main characters stories but leaves bigger, much more mysterious events unexplained. The sort of ending that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Finishes the story but leaves something ominous hanging.

I think this is what you just said Alurny!


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## Alurny (Jun 21, 2006)

SteveR said:
			
		

> I love endings that tie up the main characters stories but leaves bigger, much more mysterious events unexplained. The sort of ending that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
> 
> Finishes the story but leaves something ominous hanging.
> 
> I think this is what you just said Alurny!



yeah so the charcter's future is in the reader's interpretation of the events? If you get me! lol..


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## Tau Zero (Jun 22, 2006)

I like a resolution and an explanation.  I don't mind if it is open ended, as long as there is enough information make up your own ending.  For example, the ending of Blade Runner is open, but (IMHO) i think they got away and lived hapily ever after.  It's definitely arguable, but there are clues either way.  That's OK.  

What i don't like is a lot of Arthur C. Clark's books because of the "Clark mysticism."  Rendevous With Rama ended with no idea where the ship was going and where it came from.  While this may be a realistic scenario, i found it extremely annoying.


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## Nesacat (Jun 22, 2006)

I like some measure of resolution. Not everything has to be explained and tucked away neatly but there has to be enough of a sense of completion, that you feel that you have read a whole story and not feel this sense of missing very important bits. It's good though to have some mystery and possibilities to wonder about and to be able to come up with your own conclusion. For instance in Neil Gaiman's Dreamhunter I believe the monk and the fox fairy were together in the end.

I really do dislike abrubt endings though. Had that happen recently with Elizabeth Kostova's Historian. It was a wonderful book with several threads all running through a rich, complex plot and it kept me turning the pages, wanting to know what would happen next and where it was all going. And then it suddenly ended. I actually read the last couple of pages several times to make sure I'd not missed anything. It was like a damp squib going off instead of a firecracker and the ending was such a let down given the strength and tenacity of her characters. It made me angry that it ended that way.


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## SteveR (Jun 22, 2006)

Tau, yes I recall being somewhat miffed about the lack of closure with RwR. Then again I didn't know that Gentry Lee existed and was going to write a load of sequels.

Not sure the whole RAMA thing ever really got fully explained - but that could just be my memory going!

Steve


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## Lirineth (Jun 22, 2006)

For starters let me admit that I am a super sucker for happy endings. The happier the better. Yes, I know, it’s quite pathetic, but that’s the way it is. 

But on a more realistic note, I like endings to have sense and rationality. It really makes me angry when after reading 400 pages all of a sudden its ‘the end’, kind of ‘I’m boring with writing this book, so let finish it once and for all’

Another thing that I really hate is when after reading a trilogy in which the author takes all the time in the world to tell us about anything and everything, suddenly in the last quarter of the last book, not only he/she wraps it up, in some kind of happy ending, but also leaves half of the problems unresolved and/or unexplained, in the conviction that the happy ending will do away with them.

And finally, what is the point of having 20 very important characters, if when the time comes to solve the problem, those same heroes that during 400 pages could barely blow their noses without the aid of the other 20, miraculously and out of the blue ‘discover’ all these magnificent powers and … yes, you go it: ‘they they ride into the sunset’


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## jackokent (Jun 22, 2006)

Sad endings, for some reason, seem more memorable (I think I was irretrivably scarred by Tarka the Otter). I also sometimes think it must take a lot of guts to kill off a character you love (and to kill off the possibility of a sequal presumably).

Agree with others that there is nothing worse than a pat implausable ending. I'm really looking foward to the end of Janny Wurts Light and Shadows series and am terrified that it's going to be a disapointment as I have no idea if it would be humanly possible to tie it all up and allow it to end happily.


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## Nesacat (Jun 23, 2006)

lazygun said:
			
		

> Like my stories to come to an end in general.Don't like buying/reading series if the next one has not been written.



Absolutely agree with this, especially with this extremely aggravating tendency that book stores in Malaysia have of often not completing a series. It's slowly getting better and there's an increasing respect for SFF as a genre but it's got a long way to go. I still find book 3 with no sign of book 1 or 2 and no one in the store has a clue either. Or Book 1 will appear and 2 and 3 won't and suddenly there will be 4 on the shelf. 

It's got to be the most aggravating thing.


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## Tau Zero (Jun 23, 2006)

SteveR said:
			
		

> Tau, yes I recall being somewhat miffed about the lack of closure with RwR. Then again I didn't know that Gentry Lee existed and was going to write a load of sequels.
> 
> Not sure the whole RAMA thing ever really got fully explained - but that could just be my memory going!Steve


 
No it was never explained.  As i understand it, Clark was trying to write a realistic sci-fi.  In real life, our First Contact may involve us not knowing who they are, where they came from, and where they're going.  

It's nothing new for Clark.  2001 was also unexplained- the origins and reasons for the monolith, the nature of the Star Child, and other ideas in the book.  His other books have similar features.  In a college class on sci-fi they called it "The Clark Mysticism."


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## Tau Zero (Jun 23, 2006)

Of course, the solution to explained or unexplained endings is to not end at all.  Robert Jordan is the reigning master of never ending.  The series should have ended 5 books back!


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## BAYLOR (Aug 17, 2020)

I absolutely hated  the ending in book 3 of Phillip Pullman  fist trilogy  *The Amber Spyglass  .*


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## BAYLOR (Aug 30, 2020)

Tau Zero said:


> Of course, the solution to explained or unexplained endings is to not end at all.  Robert Jordan is the reigning master of never ending.  The series should have ended 5 books back!



Agreed.


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## Stephen Palmer (Sep 5, 2020)

BAYLOR said:


> I absolutely hated  the ending in book 3 of Phillip Pullman  fist trilogy  *The Amber Spyglass  .*


I loved it.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 7, 2020)

Stephen Palmer said:


> I loved it.



I found it very unsatisfying, to say the least . Unfortunately ,The way Pullman set  things up in the trilogy  that kind of ending was pretty much in the cards. I would have preferred a far happier ending and  not the bittersweet one we got. For me , it just didn't work .   But that said  I might still  pick up the first book of his new trilogy,  at some point.


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