on endings
Nov. 6th, 2003 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotThere's been some discussion of late about the possible ending of the GetBackers manga, which may or may not be approaching, and I was thinking about what I wanted to see myself...
There are 3 basic types of endings to a TV series or manga (or any story told over time). First - depressing. You know how everything turns out, because everyone ends up DEAD. Western TV shows sometimes end like this, either because they're out of ideas, or the creators don't want any chance of the show coming back. Or else one really wants to make a point. This is Eva and Forever Knight, also the sitcom Dinosaurs.
Second - epic. The arc is resolved, villain is defeated, chars celebrate, get married and sometimes you get a flashforward to see their kids or whatever...and you always are left wondering, what does really happen in the end? Can those heroes ever have a normal life, after what they've been through? Epic endings are often bittersweet. Everyone who went through the story is changed, the world itself often is irrevocably altered, and while overall it may be better, the fact that not much you knew from the story exists in that form anymore makes the farewell a little painful.
Lord of the Rings is the classic example; Escaflowne, Babylon 5, The Sandman. There can be super-happy epic endings - Fushigi Yuugi comes to mind.
Third - status quo. This is the ending that's not so much possible in a limited format like a book or a single movie. The heroes continue on just as they have been through the course of the series, and maybe if you look closely, you'll see the faintest outlines of their adventures beyond the final page or last credit screen.
Examples include Star Trek: TNG, and the GetBackers anime.
A lot of finales have a mix of these. X-files *a moment of silence for the downfall and death of a once-great show* tried to change some things in an epic manner, but in the end mostly kept the status quo; Mulder & Scully are always gonna be after that dang conspiracy, or it's gonna be after them, or whatever. Generally shows that hope for a movie series to follow will maintain much of the status quo.
In some ways, epic endings can be the most satisfying - because something happens, there is change, the story has consequences. But especially for fans, status quo endings can often be the best. Because we've fallen in love with the chars - we want to see them happy, but we also want them still to be the people we love, with the relationships we love.
However your life is now, whatever you feel now, it won't be the same in a week, or a month, or a year, or a decade; for good or bad, it will never be quite that way again. You drift apart from people, you make new relationships. There's something comforting in fiction's permanence, in knowing characters still are as you've always known them to be - even if your own feelings for them change. Maybe we'll make up stories about how everyone turns out, much later...but no matter what we imagine, the 'real chars' will always be there, comforting in their consistency.
If Saiyuki has an epic ending, even a happy one, with the Sanzo-ikkou defeating Gyuumao and returning home as heroes to live out their days rich and satisfied - it will still be somewhat sad, to know they're not traveling together anymore, crammed in that little jeep together. (...not to mention, unless all four of those boys join hands in a polygamous wedding, not everyone's favorite pairings will be fulfilled...) On the one hand, that in 50 eps of the first TV series they didn't get to their goal is terribly frustrating to consider - and yet on the other, there's something reassuring in that they're still jouncing along in that jeep, eternally westward ho.
The GetBackers TV show had a classic status quo ending - Ban & Ginji are still broke, off on yet another mission with all their friends and rivals and the rest. And that's how I'd like to see the manga end as well. There's a lot of epic story to be resolved, a lot of questions which haven't been answered. But when that's all done, at the end of the day - more than I want answers, I want Ban & Ginji to still be partners, best friends and more, still a couple of crazily-powered, happy idiots helping people. Forever, in my imagination.
Enough procrastination...the NaNo awaits!
There are 3 basic types of endings to a TV series or manga (or any story told over time). First - depressing. You know how everything turns out, because everyone ends up DEAD. Western TV shows sometimes end like this, either because they're out of ideas, or the creators don't want any chance of the show coming back. Or else one really wants to make a point. This is Eva and Forever Knight, also the sitcom Dinosaurs.
Second - epic. The arc is resolved, villain is defeated, chars celebrate, get married and sometimes you get a flashforward to see their kids or whatever...and you always are left wondering, what does really happen in the end? Can those heroes ever have a normal life, after what they've been through? Epic endings are often bittersweet. Everyone who went through the story is changed, the world itself often is irrevocably altered, and while overall it may be better, the fact that not much you knew from the story exists in that form anymore makes the farewell a little painful.
Lord of the Rings is the classic example; Escaflowne, Babylon 5, The Sandman. There can be super-happy epic endings - Fushigi Yuugi comes to mind.
Third - status quo. This is the ending that's not so much possible in a limited format like a book or a single movie. The heroes continue on just as they have been through the course of the series, and maybe if you look closely, you'll see the faintest outlines of their adventures beyond the final page or last credit screen.
Examples include Star Trek: TNG, and the GetBackers anime.
A lot of finales have a mix of these. X-files *a moment of silence for the downfall and death of a once-great show* tried to change some things in an epic manner, but in the end mostly kept the status quo; Mulder & Scully are always gonna be after that dang conspiracy, or it's gonna be after them, or whatever. Generally shows that hope for a movie series to follow will maintain much of the status quo.
In some ways, epic endings can be the most satisfying - because something happens, there is change, the story has consequences. But especially for fans, status quo endings can often be the best. Because we've fallen in love with the chars - we want to see them happy, but we also want them still to be the people we love, with the relationships we love.
However your life is now, whatever you feel now, it won't be the same in a week, or a month, or a year, or a decade; for good or bad, it will never be quite that way again. You drift apart from people, you make new relationships. There's something comforting in fiction's permanence, in knowing characters still are as you've always known them to be - even if your own feelings for them change. Maybe we'll make up stories about how everyone turns out, much later...but no matter what we imagine, the 'real chars' will always be there, comforting in their consistency.
If Saiyuki has an epic ending, even a happy one, with the Sanzo-ikkou defeating Gyuumao and returning home as heroes to live out their days rich and satisfied - it will still be somewhat sad, to know they're not traveling together anymore, crammed in that little jeep together. (...not to mention, unless all four of those boys join hands in a polygamous wedding, not everyone's favorite pairings will be fulfilled...) On the one hand, that in 50 eps of the first TV series they didn't get to their goal is terribly frustrating to consider - and yet on the other, there's something reassuring in that they're still jouncing along in that jeep, eternally westward ho.
The GetBackers TV show had a classic status quo ending - Ban & Ginji are still broke, off on yet another mission with all their friends and rivals and the rest. And that's how I'd like to see the manga end as well. There's a lot of epic story to be resolved, a lot of questions which haven't been answered. But when that's all done, at the end of the day - more than I want answers, I want Ban & Ginji to still be partners, best friends and more, still a couple of crazily-powered, happy idiots helping people. Forever, in my imagination.
Enough procrastination...the NaNo awaits!
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Random thoughts
Date: 2003-11-06 10:56 am (UTC)I haven't been enough into anything anime/manga to comment on those multi-arc ending scenarios, but I can tell you that when one of my all-time fave TV shows ended, I was RELIEVED that it ended status-quo. This was a show, after all, that had killed off two previous female leads with utter impunity (they just weren't "working out", so there they went) and I truly feared the kind of cataclysmic ending TPTB could come up with if they wanted to go out with a (probably literal) bang. Instead, the ending we fans did get could not have been more low-key and, even more beautifully, OPEN. (TPTB were expecting renewal, but they didn't get it.) No one died. Life - as messed up as it was - went on. And there was something truly mythic in its own way, almost Zen-like, in the hero riding off into the twilight on his motorcycle, his stalwart friends watching him depart. We - or, hell, at least *I* - can imagine him to this day, still riding, still banding together with his loyal team of "Night Watchmen" who step in to fix the system when it doesn't work....
And yeah, the fanfic. :) No nasty little impediments like character death to have to work around (unless of course you were a fan of either of the two women who were killed off in the first season, which I wasn't since I didn't watch the show then anyway). The neutral ending allowed us to go ANYWHERE we wanted to. For all I know, some of the fans might have written their own cataclysmic endings - but hey, if it's not canon, I don't have to listen!
(FWIW, the show was one in the CBS Crimetime After Primetime late-night block - "Dark Justice", about a judge-by-day, vigilante-by-night. Cool bikes! Cooler leather jackets! Coolest hair!)