Crappy Endings

[chronodekar]

Are there any people here who LIKED the 5th Harry Potter book onwards?

Say what you want of the series in general, but in my mind the FIRST 3 books are solid gold. Then, we got the 4th book. To use a computer term - "bloatware". Seriously, it was nothing BUT bloat. The 5th seemed to get things back on track, but ... never rose to the standards of the first three.

As for the 6th and 7th? Well, I consider them forgettable.

Though, on a related note, regarding the whole "epilogue" business, Rowling is known to be a fanfic-reader. In fact, she ENCOURAGES fans to write HP fanfics. Coming from an author, I consider that really cool. It's just ... the epilogue seems more to "direct" the fanfic community on "who's paired with whom" and "whose kids are named what", than a real epilogue.

I'm torn on the issue. An author decides to .. crap her own fic, to encourage the fanfic community? I'm not overly happy with what Rumino Takahashi did with Ranma 1/2, but as a result, it's one of the BEST sources of anime fanfiction out there. Compare that to say ... Love Hina. Oh sure, you can criticize Ken all you want, but at it's heart, the story tied things up. I'm glad for it, but sometimes, I just wish it wasn't like that. So, we'd have a LOT more fanfiction from it!

-chronodekar

 

[bissek]

The problem is that starting with the 5th book JKR started maturing the world without upgrading the intelligence of the cast to match. The plotholes of the early books are something I would be willing to accept in children's books but not adult fare, and by trying to transition the books age level upwards, she subjected the early books to adult-grade criticism. The fifth book also made it very clear that Voldemort was hardly the only problem that society had, but it was the only one the heroes made any attempt to address.

Not to mention the fact that the first of the mature novels, OotP, centers around an obvious plot hole: That a person who had been known for years to be little more than a figurehead would be able to politically emasculate the most powerful figure in the country in barely a month. That would only be plausible if Dumbledore had been discredited by a major public scandal.

 

[Cynical Kyle]

Black Cat: relatively cool manga of former Illuminati assasin fighting against machinations of his old psycho of a partner and culminating to a epic duel. Sounds awesome and impossible to ruin, right?

Sadly wrong. The whole latter third of the manga felt rushed, had contrived powerups and asspulls with the worst of them being the preachy EVULZ IS WRONG-speech to the big bad after beating him and letting the guy live. Despite the protag flying off into a berserk rage earlier whenever encountering the baddie. :headbanger:

 

[bissek]

Claymore (The anime): Claire has finally cornered the monster who killed her sister. And then she lets Priscilla go because the whiny kid who hadn't done anything useful since episode 4 asked her to. And there is no resolution in regards to the army of Awakened Ones, or the fact that the Organization was willing to send half of their fighters on a suicide mission.

The manga had a much more intelligent ending to that arc. Since it hasn't ended yet, I can't judge an overall ending at this time.

 

[Python453]

Has anyone mentioned the Berserk anime ending? Because that was pretty bad.

 

[Megaolix]

Surprised no one mentionned Umineko yet... Or maybe it's because the translation still isn't out?

 

[Cornuthaum]

Crappy Endings, by category:

Anime
Code Geass R2 is not on the list here, since the ending is the only good thing about the second season. It's everything but the ending that is shite.

Vidyagames
Baldur's Gate I. Yes, I. II was great.
Diablo I and II:LoD - I hate bad ends like that. in D1, our character rams the shard of pure evil into their forehead (wth.) In LoD, the mystic world-protecting shiny stone gets destroyed and everything goes down the crapper.

Books
Yea verily, from the heavens of fail came forth Crossroads of Twilight of the wheel of time. A bad book with a terrible finale. Blehhh. So much fail and stupid there.

 

[knight_of_ni]

Surprised no one mentionned Umineko yet... Or maybe it's because the translation still isn't out?

Translation still isn't out, and it was going downhill for a long time.

Didn't the Berserk anime leave off on the point where Griffith becomes Femto (fitting name, ha)? I seem to recall the anime focused almost entirely on the flashback portion of the manga, so I guess that is the logical place to end it. Sadly, that is also a horrible place to end it given the way the flashbacks end.

 

[Archanon]

Books
Yea verily, from the heavens of fail Crossroads of Twilight of the wheel of time. A bad book with a terrible finale. Blehhh. So much fail and stupid there.

Wasn't that the one that was basically "Let's spend an entire book detailing the reactions to the finale of the previous book of everyone ever who wasn't directly involved"?

 

[chronodekar]

Books
Yea verily, from the heavens of fail Crossroads of Twilight of the wheel of time. A bad book with a terrible finale. Blehhh. So much fail and stupid there.

Wasn't that the one that was basically "Let's spend an entire book detailing the reactions to the finale of the previous book of everyone ever who wasn't directly involved"?

Oh Good. It's been on my shelf for months now and I haven't really got time to read it. If it's just a summary of reactions to the 9th book, then I'll just skip it.

Speaking of which, how are the 11th and possibly 12th Wheel of Time books? I mean, does it seem like the story is FINALLY coming to a conclusion, or will be be left wondering, as usual. <_<

-chronodekar

 

[grant]

While Bleach itself hasn't ended yet, the ending to the Zanpakuto Rebellion/Sword Fiend filler. Obviously filler is going to be lesser quality. That's been established for a long time. Usually however it ends on some kind of climax. This was less than climactic. It felt more like they had gotten to the climax many episodes earlier and were just trying to stall for time now that the good idea had been used up.

The last episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Considering that I had stopped watching it well before time-traveling alien Nazis I'm not even sure when I saw it, but it was less than impressive. Dragging Riker in to wonder how a captain I despise would have handled matters doesn't save a poor series.

Ranma. An ending that doesn't really settle anything. One serious problem Takahashi had was that she was good at setting up ships but not settling them.

 

[PCHeintz72]

Love Hina... Can't see that marriage lasting considering the final scenes... The fact they needed to time skip to get to the point that they married did not really do it for me, as it left in the dark everything that truly occured to get to that point.

Crest/Banner of the Stars... I actually liked this ending mostly.... On the other hand, the fact they made him sign paperwork to the effect he can never set foot on his homeworld again was heart wrenching.

Mahoromatic... grrr... what the hell was with that ending...

Fate/stay night... She chose duty over being with Shiro... and died upon her return to the past...

Tsukihime... After everything... they ended it with him not being with her...

 

[Cornuthaum]

Books
Yea verily, from the heavens of fail Crossroads of Twilight of the wheel of time. A bad book with a terrible finale. Blehhh. So much fail and stupid there.

Wasn't that the one that was basically "Let's spend an entire book detailing the reactions to the finale of the previous book of everyone ever who wasn't directly involved"?

Oh Good. It's been on my shelf for months now and I haven't really got time to read it. If it's just a summary of reactions to the 9th book, then I'll just skip it.

Speaking of which, how are the 11th and possibly 12th Wheel of Time books? I mean, does it seem like the story is FINALLY coming to a conclusion, or will be be left wondering, as usual. <_<

-chronodekar

Let me put it like this.
Crossroads of Twilight put me off the series for seven years. It was the absolute nadir of pointless politicking, fail and stupid in the series.

Then I picked up Knife of Dreams, The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight, and...

Mind = Blown.

KoD, TGS and ToM are epic, and a return to the roots that reminded me of why I fell in love with the series in the first place.

You should still read CoT, if only to have a point of comparison for the wonderfloniousness of the books that come after.

 

[Tsuki_CB]

Fate/stay night... She chose duty over being with Shiro... and died upon her return to the past...

Actually...didn't Saber get sent back because she had to use all of her remaining power to destroy the big glowing ball of evil in the sky before it killed everything? Or did they end it differently in the anime?

 

[bissek]

Books
Yea verily, from the heavens of fail Crossroads of Twilight of the wheel of time. A bad book with a terrible finale. Blehhh. So much fail and stupid there.

Wasn't that the one that was basically "Let's spend an entire book detailing the reactions to the finale of the previous book of everyone ever who wasn't directly involved"?

Oh Good. It's been on my shelf for months now and I haven't really got time to read it. If it's just a summary of reactions to the 9th book, then I'll just skip it.

Speaking of which, how are the 11th and possibly 12th Wheel of Time books? I mean, does it seem like the story is FINALLY coming to a conclusion, or will be be left wondering, as usual. <_<

-chronodekar

Sanderson decreed that he would have to split Jordan's outline for the final book into three parts, I believe he has only published two so far.

 

[grant]

Love Hina... Can't see that marriage lasting considering the final scenes... The fact they needed to time skip to get to the point that they married did not really do it for me, as it left in the dark everything that truly occured to get to that point.

Crest/Banner of the Stars... I actually liked this ending mostly.... On the other hand, the fact they made him sign paperwork to the effect he can never set foot on his homeworld again was heart wrenching.

Mahoromatic... grrr... what the hell was with that ending...

Fate/stay night... She chose duty over being with Shiro... and died upon her return to the past...

Tsukihime... After everything... they ended it with him not being with her...

I don't think sad ending should automatically equal crappy ending.

Actually...didn't Saber get sent back because she had to use all of her remaining power to destroy the big glowing ball of evil in the sky before it killed everything? Or did they end it differently in the anime?

That, and in the Fate route (which the show mostly follows) there wasn't a way to keep her there without the Grail. In one UBW route she can stay, but Rin needs a lot of 'help' from Shirou.

On another note PC, playing the game if you get every single ending (with the Realta Nua version I think) Merlin gives Saber some advice that gives a happier ending.

 

[chronodekar]

KoD, TGS and ToM are epic, and a return to the roots that reminded me of why I fell in love with the series in the first place.

You should still read CoT, if only to have a point of comparison for the wonderfloniousness of the books that come after.

You have just convinced me to purchase book-11 onwards and complete my collection. As for reading, I think I might need to restart from book-1 or 2 at some point. It's been too long since I touched the series. Or heck, I'll just jump back into book-11 and see what happens.

@bissek,

Yeah, I heard something like that too. Just one part left, right? though, I consider it idiotic that they don't want to label the latest books as 13 and 14. Even IF R.J. wanted the series to end with 12 books.

Oh well, it was a memorable series - the good parts, anyways.

-chronodekar

 

[PCHeintz72]

Love Hina...? Can't see that marriage lasting considering the final scenes...? The fact they needed to time skip to get to the point that they married did not really do it for me, as it left in the dark everything that truly occured to get to that point.

Crest/Banner of the Stars...? I actually liked this ending mostly....? On the other hand, the fact they made him sign paperwork to the effect he can never set foot on his homeworld again was heart wrenching.

Mahoromatic...? grrr...? what the hell was with that ending...

Fate/stay night...? She chose duty over being with Shiro...? and died upon her return to the past...

Tsukihime...? After everything...? they ended it with him not being with her...

I don't think sad ending should automatically equal crappy ending.

Wait... while I can see some not minding some of the endings I listed...

How the heck can you justify the ending to Mahoromatic?

It sucked, not just because he did not get the girl (she did from the start only have a limited life so was not unexpected), but the time skip, the way he lived, the so out of left field it was.

 

[grant]

I was referring to Tsukihime/Fate. I have a love/hate relationship with Mahoromatic. Some of it can be hilarious but other pieces I don't like. Regardless I still stand by my point that a sad ending is not necessarily a bad one. It's when an ending lacks a climax, solves things by unreasonable means, forgets its own themes or requires someone acting in a stupid manner that I think it's bad*.

I was unhappy with the Fate route (and TV ending) because of the bittersweet nature but I didn't feel that it was bad. Nor did I think that the TV (and normal ending) of Tsukihime Arcuied route was inherently bad, just that I disliked it because of the bittersweet feel.

In contrast a bad story does not necessarily have a bad ending. I have nothing but scorn for the Eragon series but the ending of the first novel itself wasn't bad.

For more on what I would consider to be a bad ending even if the series (or part of it) was good how about Death Note and xxxHolic. Death Note's ending required Light and allies to act in a stupid manner and would not have happened if there had not been a bout of improbable good luck for the 'good' guys. For a much better version look at the two Death Note movies, possibly the only case aside from James Bond where I've felt that the movies were better than the original stories.

In xxxHolic the idea of eternally waiting for a loved one isn't bad on its face, but the execution felt poor. The multiple time jumps and fact that they never bothered to show Watanuki reuniting with Yuuko (just telling us in a quick aside that they do) made it feel grating. I suspect I also dislike it because I'm annoyed that Tsubasa had so many more volumes and focus than xxxHolic did.

So if you really feel that the Fate and Tsukihime anime had bad endings I won't say that you're inherently wrong, but it just sounded like you disliked them because the endings were sad and not from flaws in execution.

Edit. And from months ago and people who felt that I was too harsh on Code Geass. It isn't that the precise execution was so bad as much as the fact that everything I have ever read, debated or studied in college or in private tells me that the 'unite the world against me' ideas will work for maybe a decade at the most. We live in a world of different opinions/social norms, scarce resources and the inability to absolutely trust each other. Regrettable as it sounds, in such a world we simply cannot be certain that other groups will not hurt us. Therefore the peaceful world Lelouch wanted just couldn't exist, especially not when the world order that had governed things suddenly fell to pieces. So thematically it's nice, but to someone who constantly thinks about politics it must be about as ridiculous as a geologist trying to endure a disaster movie.
Also I felt that there was nothing about some of the characters to really justify the great ending they got.

*List not necessarily all-inclusive of bad ending possibilities.