Can a fantasy series ending possibly satisfy?

I've learned not to get too wrapped up in how a fantasy series is going to end. Of course I do want an ending, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turns out, but over the years it's become less important to me. This isn't a jaded, cynical point of view based on previous disappointments; it's a realization that the journey is where the entertainment lies, not the ending. I want to know how A Memory of Light ends, and Martin's Ice and Fire series, but at the same time I can't imagine how any ending would leave me disgusted. I'm ready for anything.

Once, I would have staked my recommendation on whether I liked how a series ended. Now I can no longer imagine enjoying a series all the way through, then reversing my opinion because I didn't like the ending (except for "and then he woke up and discovered it was all a dream"). I do enjoy some last minute surprises, maybe something unique - basically, exactly the same qualities I want to experience for the entire reading journey that gets me there.

If I kept all my eggs in the "good ending!" basket, could any series ever truly satisfy me? Only the ones with the totally cliche ending can accomplish this, and only until you've read that ending two or three times; then I think you start to feel the artificiality of that ending and you need something different. But every other ending will be lacking perfect satisfaction in some way.

Do you feel cheated if the "big bad" doesn't go down in a raging fireball? If the central hero dies? If the romance doesn't work out? Is there a set list in your head of how a series must end, else you'll feel that you wasted months/years of your life to get there and "that's it???"

I really loved the ending to the Bartimeaus trilogy, and it doesn't have a totally happy ending. However, I do sometimes feel cheated by the things you mentioned. I think part of it's the surprise - if I knew in advance that something like the romance not working out would happen, I wouldn't be as disappointed. For example, I don't think any ending to The Name of the Wind trilogy could disappointing because it is very obvious that it will all end badly.

I can also see what you mean about "artificial" endings. Many of Diana Wynne Jones' books strike me that way - The Dark Lord of Derkholm for example. Everything just feels too wrapped up. Not that I want loose threads hanging around, but every character getting what they want is a bit much.

I think I most enjoy endings that wrap all the loose strands up. The plot has been explained, motivations concluded and characters arrived at an end. LoTR did this wonderfully, there were no loose ends left. Most of the characters had happy endings, but not all, however they all had endings.

Those series that just stop do put a damper on my enjoyment. Just having the hero defeat the badie and marry the princess isn't enough if it's never explained why the dragon attacked there, and who the masked men were. This requires an author to have a cohesive overview of the story, from the start, and to keep details uptodate as the story progresses. It is on eof the hallmarks of a someone who is serious about their characters and writing.

The Prydain Chronicles had an appropriate ending. I agree that series should HAVE an ending; otherwise, we the readers are left to invent how everything all turned out, which is never as satisfying.

Endings don't have to be 'closed-loop', all strings neatly knotted, though. The Moon of Gomrath ends the two book series, and although we the readers aren't told exactly what happens to the protagonists, enough information has been presented that we know generally what might be in store for them.

Theoretically, yes, but there seem to be a lot of misses. I sure disliked the ending of His Dark Materials. That one had me exclaiming "Bah!" and "Phooey" right out loud.

As long as the ending is both a just and a logical resolution to what has gone before, with major questions answered, it's all right if it points the way forward without telling us everything. But a book that leaves as many unanswered questions as, say, 1Q84 really ought to earn the author a trip to detention.

That's the difference between good writing and okay writing. If you finish a series feeling that it has ended, and you know everything that you need to know, then it ended correctly, even if there are unanswered questions. If you are left with ' but wait; what about...?' issues, then it's bad.

^5 I was fine with the endings of both His Dark Materials and 1Q84. All a matter of taste, I guess!

Generally, I do want there to be an ending -- preferably within 3-5 books -- but it does not have to wrap up absolutely everything.

It seems to me that, in general, the satisfaction of the ending is inversely proportional to the length of the series. Longer series, especially ones with years between books, create more opportunities for authors to lose track of things or just plain change their mind about where they want the story to go (and they also leave time for readers to come up with and get attached to their own ideas of how things should work out).

I agree too that the ending can suit the story, but not the reader's taste, and can lack satisfaction for that reason. The ending of Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun duology (omnibus in this volume), a favorite which I am currently rereading, suits the story and is in-character for the protagonist, for example, but I dislike the moral at the end of it.

Great questions. I would say that pleasing ending are very hard to create. I admire the maturity of your viewpoint, that : "the journey is where the entertainment lies". I think the best ending are usually bittersweet ones, but I will agree with reading_fox that ending that answer major questions/ mysteries are helpful.

I absolutely love the bittersweet ending of His Dark Materials (which happens to be my favorite work of fantasy).

I thought Lemony Snicket (which I didn't at all care for until the ending) would have been an absolute disaster if it hadn't been for the ending, which in fact didn't tie things up at all but left them in question. Actually, the questionable-ness of the ending was the whole point of the series!

For me the most important thing is that the ending fits with what has gone before. If the series has been very dark and something of a "downer", then to have an ending that is all sweetness and light is quite jarring. Many people complain about the depressing end to Robin Hobb's Assassin trilogy, but it was appropriate in the context of what had gone before, and a happy ending wouldn't have fit. (The two trilogies that followed it brightened things up in the end in a way that did work.) Likewise, Joe Abercrombie's The first law trilogy was blackly humourous and cynical all through, and the ending reflected this. Either a happy or tragic end would have been totally out of keeping with the rest of the work.

I too was not a fan of the third book of His dark materials.

I think Glenda Larke does an amazing job with the ending of her trilogy "Isles of Glory" (first book is The Aware -- and don't be put off by the lurid cover!). She doesn't do too badly with her trilogy that starts with The Last Stormlord (I've heard that called both the Stormlords trilogy and the Watergivers trilogy).

Yes, it's most important that the ending fits the series. Since His Dark Materials is already out there, I felt cheated at the ending. To me if felt like Pullman had decided at the beginning how it was going to end, what point he wanted to make. Then as he was getting to the last few chapters he noticed that the story was leading to an ending other than the one he wanted and jerked it's head around and forced his ending on it.

While Lemony Snicket wasn't the ending I was hoping for, it did at least fit the series very well.

The spectacular endings of Carol Berg's Lighthouse Duology had everything I look for as a benchmark: all the characters had very rich backgrounds that were not a bit apparent at the opening - who they were, and what they were doing deepened and expanded throughout the course of the story. Nor was the world itself straight forward - she unwound the mystery at hand and brought it all to a lovely, UNPREDICTABLE conclusion.

I don't like books that, when I start on page 1, I can 'project the likely ending' - if I can see it from the start, I am not satisfied as there is no mystery in the denouement.

Whether the characters survive, or not, makes less difference than was I astounded, did I marvel, was I moved by the beauty and the anguish, and, above all, did the story journey MEAN SOMETHING.

Popshot futile endings feel like cheats, IMO.

^14 - It's not clear from Carol Berg's author page which two books comprise the Lighthouse Duology.... can you please post?

Happliy - Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone

>16 JannyWurts:: I loved those books, they were so rich. And yes, while the ending was unpredictable, it still made sense given the events and characters that had been established. (I must track down more of Berg's novels . . .)

And endings which seem a complete 'cheat' are worse than no ending at all. I still have very bitter memories of The Dark is Rising series, because the ending negates everything that the characters have gone through. They've learned nothing, and get to keep nothing, making the whole series an exercise in futility for the protagonists.

I normally dread ending a series as I always think that there cannot be another series I'll be able to sink my teeth into! I get a bit sad too having to leave really great loveable characters.
I've yet to be disappointed by an ending though.

Along with CurrerBell I'd like to defend the ending of His Dark Materials, as I thought it was entirely appropriate. Lyra and Will are a kind of redemptive counterbalance to the actions of Adam and Eve in Genesis, which Pullman was deliberately referencing (along with Milton and all those other sources helpfully catalogued in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials: The Definitive Guide).

As readafew suggests, he seems to get a little distracted by Mary Malone's experiences, but I would argue that this is essential in Pullman's recreation of a kind of Earthly Paradise, which Will and Lyra also enter for their redemptive relationship. It's a shame that US editions of The Amber Spyglass are prurient where Lyra's awakening sexuality is concerned (detailed in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amber_Spyglass) because this would help make it clearer, though heaven knows that Pullman is never explicit about what exactly Lyra and Will actually do!

While Pullman's trilogy is not perfect (what series is?), its richness of invention and its profound resonances more than make up for it, and it's a world that hopefully he will keep on exploring. Though perhaps with something a little more satisfying than the potboilers of Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North.

As some have already mentioned, I think the ending should fit the book. I had no problem whatsoever with the Assassin (Robin Hobb) ending. It fit. I don't mind some unknowns at the end of the book, as long as you can sort of guess what's going to happen, but I recently read a book where the author was intentionally keeping two explanations-of-events open, all the way until the end of the book, and that I hated. The book is Don't breathe a word by Jennifer McMahon, and she lets the characters go back an forth between two opinions: faeries exist and faeries don't exist. She seems to go for one of the options, but at the very last moment opens up the other one again. You can pretty much guess this is what she'll do from the start, but it's annoying nonetheless.

21>> she lets the characters go back an forth between two opinions ... But in The Snow Child (my rating 4½****), I think the deliberate ambiguity of the ending is what makes the story.

Interesting topic. I don't have a favorite kind of ending, it's just a matter of "did the author pull it off?" Some series end w/ major characters dropping off, and it didn't really have any effect on my emotions, it just annoyed me. Other times it is heartwrenching and I can't stop thinking about it. I wish I could go into specifics, but oh the spoilers. I have been just as emotionally affected by the surviving of main characters and a happy ending, just because the author did it beautifully. What I hate is when an author paints him or herself into a corner and figures out some non-brilliant way to wrap it up. (Dark Tower series, *cough cough*).

Certainly, an ending can satisfy.

One example that comes to mind is the ending of the original Earthsea trilogy. But of course most everything LeGuin does is right on target and powerful.

Although I dearly love LOTR and have reread it many times since 1960, I've always found "Well, I'm back" to be both anticlimactic (which I guess it's meant to be) but also very sad. I had trouble being satisfied with it.... as I've aged I've come to more peace with it.

And like others, I found the third book, and ending, of His Dark Materials to be not as good as the first two books. It was too ideological, and somehow too negative in an unproductive way (connected to the ideological striving).

I don't mind so much if it's a "happy" or "unhappy" ending. The only ones that really annoy me are where a hasty resolution is reached by some suddenly-introduced new element -- like they wrote themselves into a corner and just want to get the thing out of the way, without being concerned about the inner truth or plausibility of the ending. It happens in many genres.

Thanks for the topic, Cecrow! Good discussion.

22>> I haven't read that one, so I don't know if I would like it, but perhaps Don't breathe a word would be something for you if you enjoy ambiguous endings. For me, it felt too artificial, as if without the ambiguity the story had nothing to stand on.

25>> I've got that one wish-listed. I especially liked Promise Not to Tell, and I liked Island of Lost Girls too. I haven't read Dismantled, but I've got her YA My Tiki Girl in a TBR pile somewhere.

I can't get started on it until Labor Day since I'm participating in this month's ALL VIRAGO / ALL AUGUST.

26>> When you've read it, please post here how you liked it! I'm curious now...

>22 CurrerBell:: I totally agree about the ending of The snow child. To me, to have settled on one or the other interpretation as "correct" would have undermined the nature of the book. It felt natural, not contrived or artificial.

"Do you feel cheated if the "big bad" doesn't go down in a raging fireball? If the central hero dies? If the romance doesn't work out? Is there a set list in your head of how a series must end, else you'll feel that you wasted months/years of your life to get there and "that's it???"

In answer to your questions, no, no, no, and no. I want to see the "big bad" defeated, but it doesn't need to happen with a fireball, raging or otherwise. I would be disappointed if the central hero died, but I wouldn't feel cheated. And given that we're discussing fantasy, death doesn't necessarily mean we won't see that hero again. If the romance doesn't work out I will, more often then not, probably be happier. Romance isn't my thing. I don't read romance novels, and I tolerate romance in other genres. Sometimes I am rooting for the couple to get together, but it usually bugs me. I want to put the romance aside and get on with the plot. I have no list of how a series should end. There are often things I would LIKE to see, but nothing that HAS to happen. Maybe I won't like the ending or I'll be disappointed with it. However I never feel that reading a book was a waste of time. It ends how it ends, and I can't change that. The only endings that I really have problems with are ones with loose ends that haven't been tied up. Whether I like the book and/or the ending or not I want to see the loose ends taken care of.

I'm reading a lot of open-minded opinions here, which I think is fantastic; not only for yourselves, since you can more easily appreciate and enjoy your reading, but also for the genre which therefore doesn't need to be straight-jacketed with proscribed finales in order to satisfy its general audience. Publishers take note!

I was half-anticipating several responses along the lines of "If I don't get the ending I've been wanting, the author's cheated me and I wasted my money and years of my life wating for it," an opinion I've never understood but would like to.