Plotting the ending

[kalypso_v]

I've been been mulling for a while something about endings, and I'm not sure that it's really reached a coherent form yet, but I'd like to get it out of the way. As most of you know, I like tragic endings, with bodies all over the stage. And I also like happy endings that take me by surprise, where disaster seems certain until a happy catastrophe

Comments

[hafren]

I think I find it quite hard to like completely happy endings, because they feel so damn unlikely... interesting topic; I must think more about it and produce something more coherent.

[kalypso_v]

Oh, please do! I'd enjoy reading something more coherent.

[hafren]

I meant, of course, more coherent than my comment, not than your post!

[pinkdormouse]

You're making me think about the difficulties of subverting the adventure genre now. Which in turn reminded me about the one thing I really should have mentioned in the epilogue. What happens when the good guys (mostly) survive, but they're still around the next day to deal with the clean-up of all the damage caused by saving the world? It's something that tends to get skipped a lot of the time, but my characters tend to have steady jobs with employers that might object to the way fighting evil leads to big insurance claims.

And does having a scarred or otherwise physically damaged protagonist increase the sense that the heroes might not always survive, even in a genre where it's generally accepted that they do?

[kalypso_v]

What happens when the good guys (mostly) survive, but they're still around the next day to deal with the clean-up of all the damage caused by saving the world?

Well, Tolkien tried that, and Peter Jackson cut it.

Not sure about the damaged protagonist. It might signal that he survives scathed.

[communicator]

I think it's the 'everything clicking into place' that I like best. An example that's totally un-tragic is that lovely scene in Galaxy Quest when he realises he's on a real space ship.

[kalypso_v]

Yes, but I think I like the extra element of "Gotcha!"

[gauroth]

One of the many reasons 'Much Ado About Nothing' is my favourite play is the scene when Beatrice and Benedick are alone after Hero's been accused and she tells him 'Kill Claudio!' Suddenly the comedy veers towards - not just tragedy but revenge tragedy. Sends shivers down my spine.

[kalypso_v]

It's wonderful, and the reason why he becomes worthy of her is that he does take the situation completely seriously when Claudio and the prince are trying to make light of it.

[hafren]

Talking of unhappy endings, I don't give much for Hero's chance of happiness with Claudio. Helena and Bertram in All's Well that Ends Well (ha!) is another match made in hell, though at least Lysander/Hermia/Helena/Demetrius in the Dream should have fun doing swapsies!

[kalypso_v]

Ha, now, I have a theory about Helena and Bertram, but I've never quite worked out the medium in which to write it - don't think I'm up to blank verse.

[hafren]

What this puts me in mind of most is my reactions to the ending of His Dark Materials. At the first reading, I just abandoned myself happily to the angstfest, which was wonderful. But.. I did, even then, have an uneasy feeling that the ending didn't really grow from the story; I think it was conceived quite a long time before we got there and it doesn't really feel as inevitable as I'd like it to. One has this uneasy feeling they could find another wormhole between universes somehow. And I think this is why, though I've re-read that ending, I don't feel I need to re-read the whole book to get the impact from it. I can get the angst-rush just from the ending, and ideally that shouldn't be so, because the mood in which you read the end should be created by all that's gone before.

An ending that really doesn't work for me is the happyish one that Dickens unwillingly grafted on to Great Expectations because his publisher found the first one too downbeat (it is, and it's also perfect for the book). The "new" one invites you to suppose

[sallymn]

Absolutely agree about Great Expectations. Also the film The Third Man, where at the end Anna walks from the cemetery, straight past the waiting Holly Johnson (the hero/protagonist). Apparently David Selznick and the American production company - and even writer Graham Greene - wanted a happy 'conventional' ending where they'd be reconciled and go off together, but Carol Reed, the director, insisted on the bleakness of our knowing they would never meet again.