Now standing on the outside and looking in on this fervour sent a thought spinning round my head. Endings, either in book or on screen. What makes a great ending? In a traditional sense I could argue that the feeling of catharsis, the cleansing of our emotions through what we see and read, is the epitome of a great ending. However to me, this seems to simplistic. I mean we don't always come away from a story feeling happy and relieved over the ending do we? Sure Harry beats Voldermort, and sure the One ring is destroyed and Sauron is defeated. Then we turn around and see the trail of devastation that these victories have cost. All the heartache, the death and the destruction. Well it doesn't seem quite so happy now. "Oh but all that is justified by the final victory", well maybe, but for me, a truly great piece of work doesn't forget all the hardships, and it certainly doesn't let you forget either.
I was only a child when I read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, yet after all these years the thought of how that story ended still stabs at me, in a way that Harry Potter never did. By all accounts it is a happy ending. The hero and heroine prevail, and fall in love. Only to be told that they can no longer be together. After all the hardship and heartache of their journey, they don't even get to keep hold of the one positive outcome. Now that's sad. Now I'll admit that what I have said does in no way do it justice, and to those of you may not have read Pullman's trilogy, my advice is simply do. You will not regret it.
Apologies, I digress. My point is that in some ways a happy ending shouldn't be all that happy. A story that seemingly gets to the end and then forgets the rest of the story just seems rushed and untidy. Case and point, Lost. Ah Lost, the Haley's Comet of TV shows. A show of such caliber that it only appears once in a lifetime. I mean it really was fantastic, even to those who couldn't suspend their disbelief in face of them more mysterious and/or scientific elements of the show, couldn't possibly turn their noses' up at the beauty and master craft displayed in the characters on the show. Okay we may have not liked them all, but the ones we did like, we loved. When they were taken away from us over the course of the show it hurt. The show was truly a thunderstorm of feeling. Then we reached the end, and what an end is was. After all the struggle and turmoil that the characters endured, the struggle and turmoil we endured alongside them, we were finally given a satisfying conclusion where it all was worth it. Right? Well, no. It turned out they all died, met back up in limbo and moved on happily ever, together. Really? After all that, after watching Charlie die, and watch Locke rise and fall from grace to be eventually murdered and Sawyer finally come to terms with himself only to lose his love, it didn't even matter? Because they all "lived" happily ever after in death? I can't even do my own disappointment justice.
I hope you can see where I'm going with this. A happy ending is not always a good one. A good ended is tinged with remorse. Yes, it looks to a brighter future but it takes remembrance of the darkness of its past.
I would be very interested to read about any stories, book, film etc, that have had an impact on you, or that you thought had a a particularly good or bad ending, so get in touch.
...and then I stopped writing. And I lived happily ever after.
