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Stupid or Unhappy Endings that P'd You Off - Spoil Away, guys


Fragile Bird

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Has the ending of a book or a tv program or a movie ever royally cheesed you off?  Have you ever said to yourself WTF?  WHY WHY WHY?

Have you ever wished you could run into an author and punch them in the nose?

This thread is going to be full of spoiled endings, so don't read it if you hate being spoiled.

What movie, book, television show, comic, hell, I don't know, poem, had an ending that really annoyed you.  Because the author killed someone off.  Because the author didn't kill someone off.  Because the guy didn't get the girl.  Because the girl married the psycho to support her family.  Because the ending was too real, and you said to yourself, look you jerk, I know the character belongs to you, but did you really have to pull that shit on them?

Because the dog died.  Why did they have to kill the dog?  Hey, maybe some childhood book ruined you forever?

We already know about ASOIAF.  How about some other examples?  I have an example, but I'll put it in the next post so that people who don't want to be spoiled don't read it.  :)

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I started this thread because I just saw Season 3, Episode 1 of Wallander.  Wallander has spells where he seems to black out.  Finally in this episode Wallander runs around a field throwing his clothes off.  His daughter runs up to him an he doesn't recognize her at first.  It turns out that he is developing Alzheimer's, just like his father did.

Wallander, a dedicated cop, has had a pretty intense, shitty life.  He's divorced.  He probably suffers from PTSD.  He does not find love again (in the books).  Then his daughter gets pregnant and has a baby girl, and he feels like his whole life has changed for the better.  Wallander is 60 years old.  Do you think Henning Mankell, the author, could have given him a happy retirement to spend some time with his grandaughter?  Nope.  Wallander is going to slowly sink into nothingness until he's lost in a black hole.

I can't even bitch to Mankell, he died last year.  Life is bleak enough, guys.  Why do this to the character that made you famous, that made you rich, that let you be the generous donator to charity that you were?

I know this isn't an original topic, this discussion comes up regularly.  :P 

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Maybe this thread should be renamed to something like Stupid Endings or Endings That Pissed You Off. Unhappy Endings makes me think of books like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Idiot or Anna Karenina; books where the ending is decidedly unhappy, yet beautifully handled and perfectly in keeping with the tone.

 

As for an ending that really pissed me off I nominate King's The Dark Tower, for a multitude of reasons. Here begins the SPOILERS. First there's King writing himself into the series as basically God; then there's Susannah finding an alternate reality in which Eddie and Jake are still alive, thereby robbing their respective death scenes of all power; then the biggest one for me is the stupid death of Flagg, the entire series' main bad guy, and his replacement with the emo useless Mordred and the ridiculous Crimson King; which leads to the final indignity of the Crimson King being the lamest bad guy of all time, and the final battle for the fate of all worlds just being a scene in which the Crimson King lobs hand grenades from a balcony while Roland hides behind a rock.

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1 hour ago, Myshkin said:

Maybe this thread should be renamed to something like Stupid Endings or Endings That Pissed You Off. Unhappy Endings makes me think of books like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Idiot or Anna Karenina; books where the ending is decidedly unhappy, yet beautifully handled and perfectly in keeping with the tone.

 

As for an ending that really pissed me off I nominate King's The Dark Tower, for a multitude of reasons. Here begins the SPOILERS. First there's King writing himself into the series as basically God; then there's Susannah finding an alternate reality in which Eddie and Jake are still alive, thereby robbing their respective death scenes of all power; then the biggest one for me is the stupid death of Flagg, the entire series' main bad guy, and his replacement with the emo useless Mordred and the ridiculous Crimson King; which leads to the final indignity of the Crimson King being the lamest bad guy of all time, and the final battle for the fate of all worlds just being a scene in which the Crimson King lobs hand grenades from a balcony while Roland hides behind a rock.

Ok, I'll change the title.  :)

Listen guys, you don't seem to understand, don't just give us the name of the book or the film, tell us why you find it annoying.  :lol: 

 

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11 hours ago, Myshkin said:

Maybe this thread should be renamed to something like Stupid Endings or Endings That Pissed You Off. Unhappy Endings makes me think of books like The Hunchback of Notre Dame or The Idiot or Anna Karenina; books where the ending is decidedly unhappy, yet beautifully handled and perfectly in keeping with the tone.

 

As for an ending that really pissed me off I nominate King's The Dark Tower, for a multitude of reasons. Here begins the SPOILERS. First there's King writing himself into the series as basically God; then there's Susannah finding an alternate reality in which Eddie and Jake are still alive, thereby robbing their respective death scenes of all power; then the biggest one for me is the stupid death of Flagg, the entire series' main bad guy, and his replacement with the emo useless Mordred and the ridiculous Crimson King; which leads to the final indignity of the Crimson King being the lamest bad guy of all time, and the final battle for the fate of all worlds just being a scene in which the Crimson King lobs hand grenades from a balcony while Roland hides behind a rock.

I'm not familiar with the Dark Tower series, but it seems to break one of the important rules of literature, that you must never waste a good villain.

I fully agree that there's a world of difference between an unhappy ending that works excellently, and an ending that just pisses you off.

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1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

As far as stupid endings go, I nominate The Stand, by Stephen King (and isn't he appearing a lot in this thread....).

I assume it's the Deus Ex Machina (literally) that you dislike.

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2 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I assume it's the Deus Ex Machina (literally) that you dislike.

Yep.

Combined with God's determination to kill everyone in the vicinity, even if their only crime is being rational/scientific (eeeevil in this particular setting). Or for just being there at all.

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30 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Wow, thats not racist at all.

Who is Shamalamadingdong?

ETA: M. Night Shyamalan?

Racism aside, I think he's unfairly treated. I loved The Village, and Sixth Sense. Didn't see the endings coming at all. But then again, the ending of Signs was utterly ridiculous.

 

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23 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Listen guys, you don't seem to understand, don't just give us the name of the book or the film, tell us why you find it annoying.  :lol: 

Okay then. But you asked for it...

The Abominable by Dan Simmons: 736 pages of incredibly detailed mountaineering guff, followed by the revelation that the Abominable is not, in fact, anything to do with Yetis, but a selection of photographs showing Hitler buggering some pre-pubescent Jewish boys.

Oh yeah. :ack:

 

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Interstellar I hate because it gives waaay too much unnecessary closure. Ok he goes bakc in time and he's the ghost and he gives his daughter the secret to...space gravity stuff...ok. But then it goes on for another 20 mins so he can go to ringworld and reunite with his robot anf his daughter and then he goes to bang catwoman on some planet. The fuck.

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