Endings that Have Let You Down

[Nathander]

The endings to any form of medium, such as books, comics, movies, or games, that have ultimately been let downs. A list of the few of mine:

Hellsing (Manga Version) -
Spoiler Below

Beginning around the time Anderson uses the Nail of Helena. Alucard and Anderson are about to have their last fight, with Alucard fully expecting (and anticipating) dying, seeing as how he's finally found a human as worthy as Abraham van Hellsing (in this case, Anderson) to finally kill him. Thing is, Anderson thinks he needs to be stronger than he is to kill Alucard, so he uses an item known as the Nail of Helena to turn himself into a "Monster of God". Since he's now a monster and not a human, he's incapable of killing Alucard, depressing Alucard and forcing him to kill him. Then Walter shows up as a new version of false vampire, having turned out to be a traitor. Alucard dominates most of the fight, but is killed when sucking in the blood around the city into himself, as Schrodinger, a catboy Nazi who is more or less omnipresent, kills himself and allows his blood to flow into Alucard. This causes a paradox, as Schrodinger doesn't recognize himself when assumed into Alucard, and this causes Alucard to be erased from existance.

The story then moves on to two duels, one between Seras and the Captain, the other between Integra and the Major, and honestly, this was one of the better parts of the series. I didn't start to get truly upset again until the lackluster final chapter, which takes place about 30 years later, though it didn't irk me as much as the "Anderson vs. Alucard" final battle and the "Walter is a traitor" twist.

Oddly, that's all I can remember for now, though I'm sure I'll think of more later.

[Lynnie]

I'll probably remember more later myself, but there's one I can think of right now. I'm a diehard fan of the '90s sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Loved it before Foster's came along. Now days I think they tie. But I wasn't too happy with how the show ended after ten years. The crew was trying waayy too hard to be unpredictable, and what they went with just didn't flow with the personality of the show at all. They kept playing with our emotions, making us think one thing, making us think another, and turning to something completely off the wall. The last few episodes were just tiring to watch, and weren't even all that funny. I could think of a number of better endings they could have gone with, and none of them were really all that predictable, either. I don't think unpredictability should be a big issue. Go ahead and let the fans guess what might happen next, it's how it happens that keeps them watching.

[taranchula]

Metal Gear Solid 2: In fact the whole last hour and a half of the game, while granted did have some worthwhile moments. (The Last boss and Metal Gear(s) Battle for example.) but on the whole it was just a bunch of confusing psycho babble that left the player with more questions then answers.

Yes, I know that was pretty much cleared up the following two games. But still at the time it was pretty disappointing to have all of the game build to up something and just go off on some weird tangent that makes little sense and gives the player no real sense of accomplishment for what he has done within the game.

[jekylljuice]

The ending to Digimon Adventure 02 springs to mind – overall, a decent series which at points took us to even darker and more interesting territory than the original, but the final moments were horribly rushed and ill-thought out. Clearly, they were in an awful hurry to get the present characters and scenarios wrapped up as quickly as possible so that they could move on and start anew with the upcoming Tamers series, but that’s really no excuse for tossing any old crap together at the end, with little to no regard for how it actually meshes with everything that’s come before. Yes, that much-debated epilogue is the prime offender here, but I do have a handful of nitpicks with the concluding episodes in general. Among them:

Spoiler Below

*) The notion of MaloMyotismon attempting to disable the Digi-Destined by trapping them within fantasies which enable them to indulge in their greatest desires and become oblivious to the reality of their situation is an interesting one for sure, but the reason given for the ultimate failure of this plan – that Davis has no greater dreams or desires beyond what he already has, and thus is immune – is pure unadulterated cop-out, and kind of difficult to swallow. I mean, given that so much had previously been made of Davis’s crush on Kari and his ambition to be a great footballer...granted, it was no doubt intended to send out a heart-warming message to kids about the importance of being thankful for what they have, but even kids deserve more credit than that.

*) Arukenimon and Mummymon were both killed off very cruelly and pointlessly.

*)....In fact, the only thing which I did really like about the final episode was Oikawa’s final character arc. I gotta admit, that was a pretty nice touch.

And now for that epilogue. Epilogues which take us twenty-odd years into the future and update us on what the characters are doing and introduce us to their children generally tend to be big enough cliché-magnets as it is, but the least that you should be able to expect is a bit of character consistency. Clearly that wasn't a top priority here:

Spoiler Below

I know that a lot of people despise the epilogue for the pairings it suddenly lumps us with at end – Matt/Sora and Ken/Yolei – but to be honest it’s not so much the pairings which bother me as it is the freaking professions. With few exceptions, they were lame, trite and painfully inconsistent with the characterisations which had preceded them. Matt the musician becomes an astronaut (ugh), Sora the sports lover a fashion designer, and Yolei the ambitious, computer-savvy lady isn’t even given a profession at all, which is kind of a downer.

[some guy you dont know]

Originally Posted by jekylljuice

The ending to Digimon Adventure 02

I had completely forgotten about that. Seriously, was there anyone who actually liked that ending?


I know that I've seen some pretty bad endings, but none of them come to mind right now.

[taranchula]

Still on the subject of video games.

I would have to say some of the Old School Nintendo games were very guilty of having very disappointing endings. And by disappointing I mean barely an ending at all. (Some Examples of this are: Karnov, Wizards and Warriors, Ghostbusters, Friday the 13'th, Shinobi)

I mean sure it was the eight bit era and games weren't the technological marvels they are now. But come on, you busted your butt to get to an end of a game (And I mean really busted you buns because some of those games were hard.) and your reward for all that time and effort was a simple congratulations, you win, the end or game over.

It doesn't chafe me now, but when you're a kid that kind of thing really grinds your gears.

[Dmitri Karamazov]

The ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'd spent about seven years reading them and waiting for the next books to be written. It was all building up to Harry's last battle with Voldemort. And at first, book seven was delivering. Action, key plots points revealed, drama....
It began going downhill after Spoiler Below

Harry died. Or rather, when he came back to life AFTER dying.Who would believe that Voldy was stupid enough not to check Harry's body himself?

I would have forgiven that if we'd at least Spoiler Below

gotten a decent duel between them, rather than the few pages of lame dialouge. Harry didn't even have to cast the killing curse.

Then, the epilouge. Ugh. Spoiler Below

Everything was too perfect. Harry didn't really have to sacrifice anything. He kept all his best friends AND got the girl.

Gag me with a spoon.
Plus, it sucked because Spoiler Below

Fred died.

Another, more obscure ending I hated was "The Man Who Laughs", a little known book by Victor Hugo. The book is about a deformed man named Gwynplaine, who's face is mutilated to make it look like he's always smiling. He is abandoned as a child and wanders through the woods until he finds a baby and her dead mother. So he takes the baby, and they are both taken in by a gypsy man named Ursus who has a pet wolf named Homo.

Gwynplaine and the baby (who is named Dea) grow up together and fall in love. Which works perfectly because Dea is blind, and she thinks he's the most handsome man in the world.
But the happy little family is disturbed when Gwynplaine is seperated from the rest. He, apparently, is Spoiler Below

nobility. But nobody takes him seriously because he looks as if he's always laughing.

Ursus and Dea think he's dead, and are going to sail away over the sea with the wolf. Dea is dying of sorrow...and just as she's about to die, Gwynplaine Spoiler Below

(who has escaped) comes back! There is a very happy reunion, and I was smiling and nearly crying at the same time, because it was so damn happy. And there was only one chapter left! I was so excited for a happy ending. But then..

Dea dies at the shock of seeing Gywnplaine so suddenly, and Ursus faints from the stress. Gwynplaine throws himself into the see so he can die and be with Dea. And the wolf howls mournfully. The end!

I was mad at Victor Hugo for that.

[jekylljuice]

Erm, I think you still wound up giving a way a huge wad of untagged spoilers there, Dmitri (for Deathly Hallows, I mean). Anyway, the ending of DH was fine by me. Though I do agree that the epilogue should have been dropped.

[Fomalhaut]

(I'm alive - and found this topic while searching for another old one!)

So... now I can only think of The regent's daughter by Alexandre Dumas. The entire book is very exciting:
Spoiler Below

We have four people conspiring to kill the regent, while one of them, Gaston, is in love with Cecile, who is - unbeknownst to all - said regent's daughter. The regent discovers everything and comes to like Gaston, and in the end forgives him and wants to let him marry his daughter. Happy ending, you'd think. Well, nope. The other three conspirators have been caught and ready to be executed, and what does Gaston do? A sane person would marry Cecile. But no, he gives himself up and gets executed too, then Cecile dies of sadness and the regent too.

It sucked so badly, I didn't read more Dumas after it.