Yes, yes yes. I know it's vaguely hypocritical for someone who has yet to release the epilogue for his current story to be talking about story endings but what can I say? Yahtzee wrote a nice article and I'd like to post it here.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/v...tion-On-EndingsEndings are, as Yahtzee's said, probably the most important part of the story. It's where everything comes together and you conclude everything. And Yahtzee's definitely right; a story's ending can redeem it even when parts of it are subpar.
I'd like to call attention to a certain show I'm going to be watching soon enough: Kamen Rider Blade. Blade starts very slowly, and nothing of real importance happens until at least episode 10 (for some people it's episode 20!). There's not many worse ways to begin a story; the beginning is where you hook the viewer's attention and you have to make it exciting or at least emotionally intriguing.
That said, once the show got over that hump its quality skyrocketed, leading to what is possibly the best ending a Kamen Rider show has ever had in its 40-year-history. Two friends, forced by things beyond their control, must fight for the future of the planet. Neither of them wants to do it but neither of them have any say in the matter. The textbook tragic ending is for the hero to eventually bring himself to kill his friend and they patch things up while the latter's on the deathbed. The melodramatic tragic ending is for the hero being unable to fight and getting killed, following with possibly the friend taking his own life instead. The excessively dark ending is for their friendship to be forever destroyed and killing each other in battle.
But Kamen Rider Blade didn't do any of those. It'd be too standard and ultimately mediocre.
Instead, the show and the hero take a third option, exploiting a rule about how and why the world has to end (it makes sense in context and was previously a plot-point as early as 15 episodes previously, if even earlier). The long and short of it is that nobody has to die and the world doesn't end. Both the hero and his friend are free to live their lives and be happy... except with the stipulation that they can never again meet because if they do then fate will intervene and they'll have to fight again.
To me, this stands out as an incredible ending. It was an unexpected solution to the classic "friends are forced to fight" scenario and still gives us a fulfilling if bittersweet ending. It's the kind of ending that, even if you've read about it, you still want to sit down and watch just to experience it for yourself.
Endings, It's what can ruin a good story or redeem a horrible one
Sep 21 2010, 4:30 PM
