(no subject)
We've probably all come across at least one show where we didn't like the ending, and also at least one where the ending was controversial in some way/disliked by a lot of people. In a similar vein, we've also all most likely come across a character who got a shit ending. An obvious one that comes to mind for me is Michael from Lost (Harold Perrineau has said that he wasn't happy with his ending) and never get me started on Jin and Sun; Lost as a whole (I never want to hear “so were they dead the whole time?” again, even had to grit my teeth in the From episode where the Matthews family raise that same question), or the Game of Thrones petition. And don’t even get me started on How I Met Your Aunt Robin, which it might as well have been called after that ending!
For the purpose of this Fannish 50 ramble post, I'm not referring to those where they got cancelled too soon and finished on an unresolved cliffhanger because I think that's one for another post. Here I'm sticking to those with a planned ending.
In that situation, would you try and rewrite a better ending? Has a bad ending ever soured you on a fandom or character forever?
I still stand by what I said about the Game of Thrones petition when discussing it with a family friend at my uncle and aunt’s ruby wedding (when it had only just happened); yes, I could see where people were coming from, and yes, there were things I would have done differently myself had I been writing the scripts (I’m referring specifically to Jaime Lannister’s ending here as the first thing I’d change, but there would have been more). However, I didn’t sign the petition, and wouldn’t have done even if I’d thought for one minute it would have resulted in a change of ending. The reason is, and I’m speaking generally here rather than Game of Thrones specific, there was never going to be a way of pleasing everyone. One person’s crap ending is another person’s fitting end for the show/character, and even if hypothetically that petition had resulted in a rewrite of season 8, there were always going to be people who wouldn’t like that either.
As fans, we do have the means to rewrite our own endings. If we want to have Jaime Lannister tell Cersei where to go and live out his days with Brienne, we can do that ourselves. Personally I like the author Olivia Dade’s response which was to write the Spoiler Alert trilogy - anyone with any familiarity with Game of Thrones will recognise quite a few references. In the second book in the trilogy, the actor Alex is very unhappy with a storyline where his character Cupid returns to the family he’d been trying to escape, and as an actor, he felt that the story undermined Cupid’s character development over the last few seasons of Gods of the Gates, and I thought “That’s Jaime”. (While his best friend Marcus responds to it by writing fix it fic, Alex writes pegging themed fic and declares at the final con that it’s an improvement on the scripts for the upcoming final season. I love these characters).
What if it’s difficult to know how else to end it? Dark is the one I’m thinking of here - I feel that a lot of the characters didn’t deserve…the fate they got, and even with the continuation of what I’m working on now where Ulrich misses out 1953 and instead makes it to 1986 to retrieve Mikkel, I’m not sure how easily I can actually save the characters.
Lost, I’ve done it lots of times. Jin becoming a member of the Oceanic Seven and he and Sun escape her father, Michael gets an afterlife in the sideways verse where he gets to save Ana Lucia, and lots of variations on the happy ending for Sayid and Desmond theme!
For the purpose of this Fannish 50 ramble post, I'm not referring to those where they got cancelled too soon and finished on an unresolved cliffhanger because I think that's one for another post. Here I'm sticking to those with a planned ending.
In that situation, would you try and rewrite a better ending? Has a bad ending ever soured you on a fandom or character forever?
I still stand by what I said about the Game of Thrones petition when discussing it with a family friend at my uncle and aunt’s ruby wedding (when it had only just happened); yes, I could see where people were coming from, and yes, there were things I would have done differently myself had I been writing the scripts (I’m referring specifically to Jaime Lannister’s ending here as the first thing I’d change, but there would have been more). However, I didn’t sign the petition, and wouldn’t have done even if I’d thought for one minute it would have resulted in a change of ending. The reason is, and I’m speaking generally here rather than Game of Thrones specific, there was never going to be a way of pleasing everyone. One person’s crap ending is another person’s fitting end for the show/character, and even if hypothetically that petition had resulted in a rewrite of season 8, there were always going to be people who wouldn’t like that either.
As fans, we do have the means to rewrite our own endings. If we want to have Jaime Lannister tell Cersei where to go and live out his days with Brienne, we can do that ourselves. Personally I like the author Olivia Dade’s response which was to write the Spoiler Alert trilogy - anyone with any familiarity with Game of Thrones will recognise quite a few references. In the second book in the trilogy, the actor Alex is very unhappy with a storyline where his character Cupid returns to the family he’d been trying to escape, and as an actor, he felt that the story undermined Cupid’s character development over the last few seasons of Gods of the Gates, and I thought “That’s Jaime”. (While his best friend Marcus responds to it by writing fix it fic, Alex writes pegging themed fic and declares at the final con that it’s an improvement on the scripts for the upcoming final season. I love these characters).
What if it’s difficult to know how else to end it? Dark is the one I’m thinking of here - I feel that a lot of the characters didn’t deserve…the fate they got, and even with the continuation of what I’m working on now where Ulrich misses out 1953 and instead makes it to 1986 to retrieve Mikkel, I’m not sure how easily I can actually save the characters.
Lost, I’ve done it lots of times. Jin becoming a member of the Oceanic Seven and he and Sun escape her father, Michael gets an afterlife in the sideways verse where he gets to save Ana Lucia, and lots of variations on the happy ending for Sayid and Desmond theme!