History SoYouWantTo / WriteAnEnding

!! Your ending should be predictable.

But let's say -- for the sake of politeness -- that the "CTRL-ALT-DEL" ending (FanNickname, after the fact that you either [[YouAreInCommandNow control]], [[TheSingularity alter]] or delete the Reapers) was intentional from the start. How do we salvage ''that''? Well, we work its Central Theme into the story more thoroughly. From a programming standpoint, ''[=ME3=]'' an unenviable job: the franchise uses OldSaveBonus to import ''over 1000 player-chosen variables'' from game to game. The third game has to pay off all these variables in some way. The writers wanted to slim all of that down as much as possible, because writing one thousand different branches... Well, that's a recipe for disaster. So the writers trimmed some of the branches. But we can safely say that they went too far. There are literally no situations in which you, the player, must consciously choose who will live and who will die, because writing them would have been too complicated. Even though the conscious choice to let people die was the thematic heart of the game, it was not included ''in'' the game. Obviously, one should not hit people over the head with one's Aesop, but failing to include it at all is a problem too.

So, instead, we need to include it. Remember that SadisticChoice from the first game? We need ''more'' of them. Apparently, one such choice ''was'' originally in the game -- if DummiedOut for some reason ([[spoiler:It was to be on Thessia. Your mandatory squadmates were to be Liara and the Virmire Survivor, and you'd only have time to save one before the floor collapsed]]) -- suggesting that the writers had ''some'' clue what they were doing; but if anything, they should have doubled down. How about Thessia? It's the end of the second act and the story's DarkestHour: Shepard is sent to the asari homeworld to retrieve critical intelligence for stopping the Reapers. The way the game plays out, you automatically lose the intel, but rescue your squadmates from a LiteralCliffhanger. What if, instead, the game ''made you choose''? "On the one hand, I have my friends -- including RequiredPartyMember Liara T'soni, the {{deuteragonist}} of the franchise, a possible LoveInterest to Shepard, and the ''only'' party member in the franchise who is guaranteed to still be alive right now." (Well, and Shepard. ...But then, Shepard came BackFromTheDead at the beginning of the second game, so maybe they ''don't'' qualify.) "On the other hand, I have... ''Every living being in the galaxy.''" WhatYouAreInTheDark is another big theme of the story -- whether you want to play Shepard as TheCape or TheCowl -- and both philosophies could make arguments for both choices. But either way... What if you had to choose? What if "You can't save everybody" was not something the writers forced on you, but rather something you were ''actively required to participate in''? What if this happened repeatedly? If you shoot the Virmire Survivor, {{turncoat}} Councilor Udina will surrender and you can learn important things about the Bad Guy's plan; or you can save your friend but sacrifice the war effort. On Utukku, where you encounter the Rachni Queen and have to choose between her and Grunt, you ''actually have to choose'', and Grunt doesn't miraculously survive because you jumped through enough gameplay hoops in the second game.

This is perhaps best exemplified by the fate of Lord Eddard Stark (Creator/SeanBean), a DecoyProtagonist who dies during the first season. Such an event is not that unusual -- he's not even the first character from the ''opening credits'' to die; and the fact that he's played by ''the'' ChronicallyKilledActor should have given the game away. But the truth is that the story goes out of its way to position Ned Stark as TheProtagonist: he's at the center of events, he is doing his best to be TheGoodChancellor, and he's played by (at the time) the biggest-name actor in the cast. The story disguises his fate by not including any other character who might possibly qualify ''as'' The Protagonist; some of them are virtuous, and some of them have agency over other characters, but nobody has both, and you gotta have both if you're going to be ''The'' Protagonist.[[note]]Daenerys will get there, but she has six seasons of CharacterArc to get through first.[[/note]] Even the credits got in on it: Peter Dinklage gets "AndStarring" because the opening name is Bean's! Consequently, the moment when Ned is killed is a WhamEpisode for the show -- not just because of its impeccable acting, cinematography and production, but because it represented a huge plot twist (to any viewer who hadn't already read ''Literature/AGameOfThrones'' when it came out 19 years ago). '''TheHeroDies.''' ''At the beginning of the first season''. "AnyoneCanDie" has ''never'' had so much meaning.

First off: we know that people in positions of power can die. Ned's already seen that happen firsthand: he's in the dungeon because he refused to swear allegiance to RoyalBrat Joffrey Baratheon (Creator/JackGleeson) after his father, King Robert Baratheon (Creator/MarkAddy), was killed in a HuntingAccident. Beyond that, viewers (but not Ned) have also seen Daenerys' brother Viserys (Creator/HarryLloyd) meet a CruelAndUnusualDeath after he broke some taboos over on the eastern continent. Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen are the LastOfTheirKind, the only descendents of King Aerys II Targaryen whom Robert overthrew, and therefore style themselves the GovernmentInExile of the Seven Kingdoms... a fact that didn't stop Viserys from getting offed when he overstepped his bounds. Ned has already had a TurnInYourBadge moment because he refused to sanction King Robert's desire to have ''Daenerys'' assassinated. Med knows, for a fact, that being king does ''not'' give you PlotArmor; and if a king isn't safe, then Ned, a king's NumberTwo, certainly isn't either.

So when, even after he has the mother of all {{Out Of Character Moment}}s and swears fealty to his new king in the name of peace and prosperity, but King Joffrey has him executed ''anyway'', we are not surprised.

Well, we ''are'' surprised. Ned has just done everything in his power to save himself, up to and including perjury... and typically, when The Protagonist tries to save themselves, it works. But it's not like the story magically transformed itself from TV show to video game. Ned getting killed off is a MetaTwist, in that it reveals he's a DecoyProtagonist, but it's not a ''Plot'' Twist, because the possibility of him dying was always on the table. We didn't think it ''would'' happen, but we always knew it ''could''.

* '''The song''' is the "[[SuccessionCrisis War of Five Kings]]," as it's called: Joffrey claims his father's throne, Robert's brothers claim it as well on account of Joffrey not actually being a Baratheon, and two other lords seize the opportunity to (attempt to) return their own principalities to self-rule. It's a bloodbath; only one king survives the war, only one king wins the war, and ''they are not the same king''. (Oh, and then the survivor gets killed off too.) Cersei ends up as ''de facto'' ruler of the Seven Kingdoms by virtue of being the only person still alive enough to plop her [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman shapely]] derriere on the Iron Throne.
* '''The ice''': There's a guy named Jon Snow (Creator/KitHarington), the HeroicBastard of the late Ned Stark, who lives in a BleakBorderBase at TheGreatWall in the far north. Jon is a member of the "Night's Watch," an AncientOrderOfProtectors formed to man the Wall and defend the Seven Kingdoms from the aforementioned GreaterScopeVillain, "the White Walkers" (as the show calls them, because the books call them "the Others" but ''Series/{{LOST}}'' already took that name), an army of "AnIcePerson EnemyToAllLivingThings" types. Only, the White Walkers haven't been seen in eight ''thousand'' years[[note]]For context: the oldest piece of RealLife writing we have is only five thousand years old[[/note]], and the Night's Watch, once a calling of great honor, has become a place of disgrace, with criminals who [[TradingBarsForStripes Traded Bars For Stripes]] rubbing elbows with political dissidents who were KickedUpstairs or ReassignedToAntarctica. Too bad the White Walkers are actually back, right? If Jon wants to survive being a member of an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores as they attempt to stop a supernatural threat no one believes in, he's got a lot of work to do.

When Dany finally gets to Westeros -- which doesn't happen until Episode 61 -- she's got a lot of opportunities to exploit. First off, Cersei is a person of great ambition but few qualifications; she starts off by surrounding herself with [[YesMan Yes Men]] and giving free rein to her paranoia, and eventually is forced to consolidate her hold on power by getting all her enemies to the Great Sept and then ''blowing it up'' -- decapitating her opposition, yes, but also showing her utter disdain for the country's most powerful organized religion. She serves as the BigBad of the show. Even worse, it's GrimUpNorth: Jon Snow has hit the YouAreInCommandNow trope and is leading the Night's Watch, but it turns out those White Walkers are ''{{necromancer}}s'' and can summon hordes of dead with a gesture, [[HeadsIWinTailsYouLose including the people they just killed]]. Good thing both zombies and ice demons tend to be WeakToFire. It is, in short, the ''perfect'' place for a princess with a pedigree, practical leadership experience, ChronicHeroSyndrome, and three flying flamethrowers to make her mark on history by writing the final verse of the song of ice and fire.

Of course, there's a flipside for Daenerys Targaryen. She is, as her last name would indicate, a Targaryen... and that comes with its own BackStory. Targaryens are descended from an old superpower called Valyria: they have the silver-gold hair and purple eyes of that ethnic group, and can tame dragons. (The DragonRider bit is why Valyria was a superpower, before it... [[NoodleIncident exploded. ...Somehow]].) About 300 years ago, Daenerys' ancestor, Aegon, took his two sisters and three dragons and conquered the entire Seven Kingdoms of Westeros -- a feat never before accomplished, cementing his place as one of the greatest {{Four Star Badass}}es in history. He became King Aegon I Targaryen, called "TheConqueror," and he founded the Targaryen dynasty... by ''marrying his sisters''. BrotherSisterIncest has been a tradition in House Targaryen ever since, and Daenerys is the product of a RoyallyScrewedUp TangledFamilyTree rife with RoyalInbreeding. The whole point is this: "Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin," to quote Ser Barristan Selmy (Creator/IanMcElhinney), himself quoting Daenerys' grandfather, King Jaehaerys II. "Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss that coin into the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land." And Daenerys is a Targaryen. So how did the coin land? Is she CrazyIsCool? Or only AxCrazy?

But we don't get that footage. The show ''doesn't care'' whether she's BeyondRedemption; the writers have decreed she must die, and so she does. She is a victim not of injustice or genetics but bad writing, losing all characterization to instead become some sort of object lesson about... [[ShrugOfGod something the show is unclear about]]. Tyrion levels what is meant to be the main criticism of her character by proclaiming, "Everywhere she goes, [[PayEvilUntoEvil evil men die]], and we cheer her for it," and he's not wrong... But his assumption -- that he, and by the extension the audience, were wrong to cheer for someone who kills evil men -- is not supported by the text (not to mention being a BrokenAesop). Are we instead meant to believe that WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity? Are we meant to believe that she was merely DrunkWithPower? Are we meant to believe that ''there can be no heroes'', that anyone who does good things will inevitably be revealed to be a bad person? ''There is no textual support for any of these interpretations''. There is a {{Watsonian}} explanation for why Daenerys ''might'' decide to commit war crimes, but none as to why she ''did'' -- much less as to why she did it so quickly. There is no explanation; there is only {{Railroading}}.

End ''your'' story. Not the story you thought you were writing; not the story you meant to write. End the story you ''wrote''. You may piss people off. But at least you won't get sued.

----

And so here we have this problem. "We filmed an ending, but it's the wrong one, and we can't go back and add more." What do you do? The answer is, ''you take out the stuff that doesn't work''. Sure enough, when the ''[=HIMYM=]'' finale came out on DVD, it included an alternate ending which simply abandoned their original plans: it's just Ted {{recap}}ping the previous nine seasons and explaining his Character Arc, with no footage of the kids whatsoever. This had the side effect of turning certain lines in previous episodes, the ones concerning Tracy's demise, into {{Red Herring}}s... but this could also have been addressed by adding new content: since it's been foreshadowed that Tracy will not live to see Penny's wedding, have the show end with Ted saying, "I wanted to tell you all this because your mom's chemo isn't working as well as it used to. She wanted me to tell you the whole story of our lives, since she may not have a chance to do it herself." And then have Tracy come in -- looking ill, but still smiling. "Still, we'll get through this. We're a family. Right, honey?" AndTheAdventureContinues. And, lastly, you could just hedge your bets, as SpinOff series ''Series/HowIMetYourFather'' did, and have the narrator (Creator/KimKattrall) tell the story to her kids ''after'' they have reached puberty. (It's clear someone behind the scenes learned their lesson.)

I mean, we ''are'' surprised. Ned has just done everything in his power to save himself, up to and including perjury... and typically, when The Protagonist tries to save themselves, it works. But it's not like the story magically transformed itself from TV show to video game. Ned getting killed off is a MetaTwist, in that it reveals he's a DecoyProtagonist, but it's not a ''Plot'' Twist, because the possibility of him dying was always on the table. We didn't think it ''would'' happen, but we always knew it ''could''.

The BittersweetEnding, capping off a series renowned for its GrayAndGreyMorality, was a decent wrap-up of everything that had happened... But a lot of viewers had trouble reconciling what had happened in the penultimate episode. Simply put, they felt that Daenerys being AxCrazy was CharacterDerailment. While very few people can disagree that there was accurate foreshadowing -- that whole "madness and greatness" thing is quoted ''in that very episode'' -- what was missed was the escalation. There's no SlowlySlippingIntoEvil, there's just a FaceHeelTurn with almost no set-up. Indeed, the "PreviouslyOn" segment to the episode does ''a better job'' of foreshadowing Dany's Turn than the actual show does... because it gets to engage in a biased recap of the text. Daenerys has has spent 70 episodes consistently having ChronicHeroSyndrome, doing things that a wiser (if colder) ruler would turn away; the only way the show is able to make her seem evil is by ignoring all those things and focusing on the moments when she gave in to wrath or impatience. In order to set up its (sarcasm quotes) "PlotTwist," ''Game of Thrones'' has to "RonTheDeathEater" its own protagonist.

Now, the {{Doylist}} explanation for ''this'' part is simple: Per WordOfGod, the CentralTheme of the game ''is not about stopping the Reapers.'' It's, "[[TheChainsOfCommanding You can't save everybody]]." And, in a (pseudo) RobotWar where all life hangs in the balance, that's a really great theme to have! The problem is that, once again, it's not in the text. You ''can'' save everybody -- for instance, you can settle the aforementioned RobotWar -- except for in certain cases where characters have very clear {{Plotline Death}}s that cannot be avoided[[note]]Thane, Legion and Mordin are not going to be a part of the FinalBattle no matter what you do[[/note]]. While these moments do have an emotional impact, they are somewhat defanged by a SadisticChoice in the first game: While Shepard and team are attacking the planet Virmire, two of your squadmates get pinned down on opposite sides of the enemy base and Shepard can only rescue one of them. The game is very explicit about this fact: you ''must'' commit a FailureToSaveMurder. And the game does in fact make you choose; you have to select the name you want to save and click a button and make a conscious decision to condemn the other to death. When compared to moments like that, characters who suffer ''mandatory'', non-optional deaths -- who only avoid dying in the third game by dying ''before'' the third game, who do not survive the trilogy under any circumstances -- simply cannot achieve the same impact.

There is, in short, a GoldenPath -- a set of choices you can make, spread out across all nine acts of the trilogy, that lead to an optimal ending with every (non-doomed) character present. You can in fact save everybody... At least until that ending, which was clearly written for a different game. There is a GoldenPath but no GoldenEnding.

* '''The ice''': There's a guy named Jon Snow (Creator/KitHarington), the HeroicBastard of the late Ned Stark, who lives in a BleakBorderBase at TheGreatWall in the far north. Jon is a member of the "Night's Watch," a group formed to man the Wall and protect the Seven Kingdoms from the aforementioned GreaterScopeVillain, "the White Walkers" (as the show calls them, because the books call them "the Others" but ''Series/{{LOST}}'' already took that name), an army of "AnIcePerson EnemyToAllLivingThings" types. Only, the White Walkers haven't been seen in eight ''thousand'' years[[note]]For context: the oldest piece of RealLife writing we have is only five thousand years old[[/note]], and the Night's Watch, once a calling of great honor, has become a place of disgrace, with criminals who [[TradingBarsForStripes Traded Bars For Stripes]] rubbing elbows with political dissidents who were KickedUpstairs or ReassignedToAntarctica. Too bad the White Walkers are actually back, right? If Jon wants to survive being a member of an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores as they attempt to stop a supernatural threat no one believes in, he's got a lot of work to do.

''Game of Thrones'' is a fantasy epic that aired on HBO from 2011 to 2019. They are based on Creator/GeorgeRRMartin's as-yet-unfinished novel series, ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', which he wrote as a deliberate reaction to his years as a television screenwriter, in which his imagination was constantly hamstrung by the realities (and budgets) of working on a TV show. Consequently, ''[=aSoIaF=]'' has a large cast, spans two continents, includes a number of fantastical / non-human beings, and involves a massive SuccessionCrisis on the continent of Westeros, at the exact wrong time: a GreaterScopeVillain is rising in the Lands of Always-Winter to the north, and the Seven Kingdoms must band together to meet this icy threat. Fortunately, they may have help: far to the east, on that other continent, a PrincessInRags, last scion of the family that used to rule the Seven Kingdoms, has performed the impossible by reviving the extinct race of dragons. Her name is Daenerys Targaryen (Creator/EmiliaClarke). If this show has a single {{protagonist}}, it is her.

''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' is a sitcom that aired from 2005 to 2014. Its FramingDevice is of a man named Ted, sitting down to tell his teenage kids the story of how he met their mother. Ted, TheGhost, narrates each episode of the show (voice of Creator/BobSaget, uncredited), which depicts his younger self (Creator/JoshRadnor) consistently dating the wrong women, particularly a WillTheyOrWontThey with fellow main character Robin Scherbatsky (Creator/CobieSmulders). The show uses its narration scheme to excellent advantage: the narrator segues into {{flashback}}s, helps set up jokes, is explicitly used as a SceneryCensor who provides {{Unusual Euphemism}}s for things Ted doesn't want to tell his kids about (sexual activities, illicit substances, etc), and generally holds the show together; the only other TV show, thus far, to follow the TropeCodifier of "Narrator As Glue" is ''Series/JaneTheVirgin'', but we should probably expect others to follow in its footsteps (particularly because ''[=JtV=]'' shows just how versatile the trope is, being not a sitcom but rather a romantic dramedy and DeconReconSwitch of the ''{{telenovela}}''). The last episode -- in fact, the entire last season -- takes place when Robin finally marries someone else; as he heads home from the wedding, now the only character of the FiveManBand who is still single, Ted runs into a woman named Tracy (Creator/CristinMilioti) -- the woman who will become his wife. The 90-second-long conversation involves {{callback}}s to elements from all nine seasons (not to mention the ''immense'' chemistry between Radnor and Milioti) and instantly sells the idea that Ted has met his OneTrueLove.

First off: despite being essentially a romance, the show does not begin where most romances do -- with the BoyMeetsGirl. As a matter of fact, it ''ends'' with that trope, giving the impression that it has told the story backwards. "Why would you do this?" audiences might ask. "What's so interesting about Ted's love life prior to his meeting The Mother?" The answer is, Nothing, but the answer is also, Everything. Instead of showing Ted and Tracy falling in love, the show spends nine years setting up its ChekhovsArmory as concerns Ted's love life: this is what he wants, this is what he could live with if he had to, here are his absolute deal-breakers. The show is not about how Ted fell in love with Tracy, but rather ''why''. As such, when they finally meet in the last episode, we don't need to see them fall in love: we've spent so much time studying his personality that it's a ForegoneConclusion -- even if there weren't flash-forwards to their successful marriage, even if it wasn't the show's title. The Central Theme of the show, in other words, is not BoyMeetsGirl -- it's ''CharacterDevelopment''. The Aesop of the show is spelled out in the third season: "Kids, there's more than one story of how I met your mother. You know the short version, the thing with your mom's yellow umbrella. But there's a bigger story, the story of how I became who I had to become before I could meet her." And, for Ted, one of the most important steps in that bigger story is giving up his hopeless infatuation with Robin, whom he said "I love you" to during the pilot episode, ''on the very first date''.

Completely aside from the show having the wrong name, its finale gave the impression that, in the course of those 150 seconds, Ted has undone nine years of Character Development, reverting to that hopeless infatuation from the pilot episode. StatusQuoIsGod, to its most obvious conclusion: the entire series, literally from start to finish, was a ShaggyDogStory. While this development is arguably consonant with the theme of Character Development -- just as Robin was the person who prepared Ted to find a SecondLove with Tracy, so does Tracy prepare him for his Third Love with Robin -- the simple fact is that the first journey is dramatized over the course of nine years, while the second, well, doesn't actually occur onscreen. Also, the show has systematically ''refuted'' the idea of OneTrueLove -- Tracy is definitely Ted's SecondLove, and additional episodes have established that Tracy lives in the specter of TheLostLenore -- so a LastMinuteHookup is a good way to underline ''that'' Aesop... but the show doesn't actually spell it out that way. Both interpretations hinge on FridgeLogic, which is ''not'' a good thing to pin your finale on. At best, the ending feels like a WriterCopOut, a lazy way for the show to have its cake and eat it too. At worst, it feels like RunningTheAsylum, the writers proving that they had no clue what story they were even ''telling''.

How could this ending have been salvaged? With just one more set of flashbacks. After saying, "We approve of you dating Aunt Robin," Penny should have said, "And we think it'll work this time. You told us the story of how you did things wrong with Robin, like that one time you--" Some sort of flashback here, using stock footage of an older episode. "Well, when the same thing happened with Mom..." A second flashback, a scene filmed specifically for this episode, of Ted and Tracy being in the same situation and Ted acting differently. "Yeah," Luke chimes in, "and then you also talked about..." More paired flashbacks, contrasting the before-and-after. Do this a few times and you at least touch upon the idea that Ted has continued to have Character Development, even after meeting The Mother. There's still no way that 30 seconds of flashbacks can equal the weight of a 9-year long character arc, but at least those 30 seconds ''exist'' -- and the show has been so flashback-centric that viewers would be willing to give this brief montage a lot more weight than it might carry in other shows. We're also more prepared to believe the "AndTheAdventureContinues" trope about Ted and Robin, because we've already seen it happen to Ted and Tracy. But again, this only works if you understand that the show is about Character Development, Ted's character development specifically, and bother to underline that theme.

Now, here we need to address something that doesn't always happen to novels, but will definitely happen anywhere else: Logistics. The show's Framing Device involves shots of two kids sitting on a couch. Consequently, their lines at the end -- "Go date Aunt Robin" -- were filmed in ''Season 2'' and just kept in a box somewhere, because waiting any longer to film them would have resulted in the child actors (David Henrie and Lyndsy Fonseca) aging out of the roles. If you wanted to add to the scene, you'd ''immediately'' have to [[TheOtherDarrin recast]] the roles, or do some ''really'' tricky CGI de-aging that your budget might not accommodate. (And how much had David Henrie's voice changed in the interim? CGI couldn't fix that at the time.) The point is, the creators of the show were locked into their ending as of Season 2; they ''could not'' change it, at least not very easily. You tend to have this problem more with episodic media... but the simple fact is, ''everything'' is episodic these days, because 1) it's easier to write in smaller pieces, 2) it's easier to ''consume'' in smaller pieces, 3) you can make ''[[MoneyDearBoy way more money]]'' from smaller pieces. So you should assume you'll have this problem.

And so here we have this problem. "We filmed an ending, but it's the wrong one, and we can't go back and add more." What do you do? The answer is, ''you take out the stuff that doesn't work''. Sure enough, when the ''[=HIMYM=]'' finale came out on DVD, it included an alternate ending which simply abandoned their original plans: it's just Ted {{recap}}ping the previous nine seasons and explaining his Character Arc, with no footage of the kids whatsoever. This had the side effect of turning certain lines in previous episodes, the ones concerning Tracy's demise, into {{Red Herring}}s... but this could also have been addressed by adding new content: since it's been foreshadowed that Tracy will not live to see Penny's wedding, have the show end with Ted saying, "I wanted to tell you all this because your mom's chemo isn't working as well as it used to. She wanted me to tell you the whole story of our lives, since she may not have a chance to do it herself." And then have Tracy come in -- looking ill, but still smiling. "Still, we'll get through this. We're a family. Right, honey?" AndTheAdventureContinues.

-->"This ''is'' a story of BoyMeetsGirl, but you should know up front: this is ''not'' a love story."

There's also that WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: 19 years later, Harry has grown up and married and is seeing two of his three kids off to Hogwarts. Is it mawkish and sentimental? Arguably. Is it mundane that a man who saved the world places so much emphasis on sending his kids to school? Unarguably. Is it ''in character?''--for Harry "I Just Want To Have A Family" Potter, a man whose orphanhood is his FreudianExcuse? ''Absolutely.'' It might not be the fate that fans would have chosen for Harry, but it is unquestionably the fate he would have chosen for ''himself''. And while it erodes his credibility as an EscapistCharacter, Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad... and you could make the argument that, ''because'' it steps away from escapism and into character development, it's a superior storytelling choice.

End ''your'' story. Not the story you thought you were writing; not the story you meant to write. End the story you ''wrote''. You may piss people off. But at least you won't get sued.

First, consider your tone. Are you writing a WorldHalfFull where a HappilyEverAfter is appropriate? Is it a CrapsackWorld where a DownerEnding would make more sense? Or are you somewhere in between, allowing you to employ the BittersweetEnding? All of them are viable, but only some of them will feel appropriate to the story you have written up until now.

As we began, so shall we end: the themes and Aesops you employed at the end of your story should be the same ones you have been using through the beginning and middle of your story. If you arrive at the ending, and you still do not know what these things are, then your story is not done. Do not publish it, do not submit it to Website/FanFictionDotNet, do not [[TabletopGame/{{Monopoly pass Go and collect $200]]: instead, step back and look at the things you have been subconsciously weaving into the story. Creator/StephenKing gives a good example. When writing ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'', he tells us in his memoir ''On Writing'', he had no conscious intent of using blood to link the story together. But when he stepped back and read the first draft, he discovered that it was showing up three important moments: when Carrie has her first menstruation and awakens her PsychicPowers; during the prom prank; and during the final confrontation with her abusive mother. So, on the second draft, he consciously looked for places he could sneak the symbol of blood into the story. King did not set out to write a theme; he did it nonconsciously, without intent. You, dear author reading this article, have done the same. The theme is there, and the Aesop is there too; you just have to find it in all the stuff you wrote.

As we began, so shall we end: the themes and Aesops you employed at the end of your story should be the same ones you have been using through the beginning and middle of your story. If you arrive at the ending, and you still do not know what these things are, then your story is not done. Do not publish it, do not submit it to fanfiction.net, do not pass Go: instead, step back and look at the things you have been subconsciously weaving into the story. Creator/StephenKing gives a good example. When writing ''Literature/{{Carrie}}'', he tells us in his memoir ''On Writing'', he had no conscious intent of using blood to link the story together. But when he stepped back and read the first draft, he discovered that it was showing up three important moments: when Carrie has her first menstruation and awakens her PsychicPowers; during the prom prank; and during the final confrontation with her abusive mother. So, on the second draft, he consciously looked for places he could sneak the symbol of blood into the story. King did not set out to write a theme; he did it nonconsciously, without intent. You, dear author reading this article, have done the same. The theme is there, and the Aesop is there too; you just have to find it in all the stuff you wrote.

Another example is ''Film/{{Inception}}'', which has one of the most famous No Endings in history. The movie is about a group of cons who are hired to perform a heist in someone's dreams (using AppliedPhlebotinum). One of the themes constantly underlined in the film is the difficulty between telling dream from reality, and main character Dom Cobb (Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio) has a top that he spins to figure out whether he's awake or not: if he's asleep, it will defy physics and never stop spinning. Another is the question of whether IgnoranceIsBliss; Dom knows he can just LotusEaterMachine himself to a happy ending, but he also knows it will be a dream. This question is underlined by the heist itself, which involves invading someone's dream and planting an idea in his head in such a way that he believes the idea was his own -- the [[TitleDrop eponymous]] inception -- because if he realizes it was planted, he won't believe it. At the end of the film, Dom finally gets his heart's desire. He starts spinning the top, but looks away before he can see the results; likewise, the film cuts to credits before the audience can get results. Filmmaker Creator/ChristopherNolan had to explain that the reason Dom looks away from the top is that he doesn't care anymore; he has decided that ignorance ''is'' bliss. The story ends, correctly, when Dom accepts the film's {{Aesop}}. The fact that WordOfGod had to explain what the Aesop ''was'' is, undeniably, a flaw of the film itself; but that's a matter of execution, not intent. "Telling your story poorly" is a very different flaw than "Not actually knowing what story you are telling".

And finally, let's take a look at ''Franchise/HarryPotter''. As a massive multimedia franchise with huge cultural impact -- it set the stage for an explosion of young adult literature, leading directly to things like ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'', ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' and ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey''; you could also argue that it opened the world's eyes to the power of fantasy, thus segueing directly into ''Game of Thrones'' -- it had a lot of people making guesses over what would happen in the seventh and final book. Some of them were obvious; author JK Rowling, when [[{{Jossed}} Jossing]] a FanPreferredCouple, [[http://www.mugglenet.com/2005/07/emerson-spartz-melissa-anelli-mugglenet-leaky-cauldron-interview-joanne-kathleen-rowling-part-two/ pointed out]] that she had seeded "[[{{Anvilicious}} anvil-sized]]" hints about whether that couple was going anywhere. Also, since Harry himself was TheChosenOne and Chosen Ones are always [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou The Only Ones Allowed To Defeat]] the BigBad, it was safe to assume that Harry would defeat the Big Bad. However, we knew almost nothing, going in, about ''how'' Harry would do it -- aside from the fact that Harry would employ ThePowerOfLove, because that's always been his greatest strength. And that was even before Rowling released the title of the final book, ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', revealing that a bunch of magical objects which had ''never been mentioned before'' over the course of the series would, nonetheless, play such a pivotal role in the victory that the book would be named after them. While critics derided the existence of the Hallows as an AssPull -- and [[JerkassHasAPoint they had a point]], particularly when Rowling straight-up forgot to {{foreshadow}} that one of them was HidingInPlainSight -- it also helped prove that ItsTheJourneyThatCounts. The ending of ''Harry Potter'' wasn't thrilling because we didn't know if Harry could handle You-Know-Who; it was thrilling because the Deathly Hallows and the [[SoulJar horcruxes]] -- not to mention the RuleMagic -- gave Rowling the tools she needed to turn a "CircleOfExtinction [[SingleStrokeBattle Single-Spell Battle]] WizardDuel" into something that was, well, actually interesting. Instead of a special-effects-laden FinalBattle which would have been rather boring on-page (and, frankly, ''was'' boring in the movie adaptation), we have Harry as a MartialPacifist who withholds the fight until the very end, and instead uses his BreakingSpeech to try and pull Voldemort back over the MoralEventHorizon... partially because, due to his mastery ''of'' Hallows / Horcruxes / Rule Magic, Harry knows his victory is a ForegoneConclusion. And, because he knows he will win, he tries to stop Voldemort from fighting ''at all''. Because that's ThePowerOfLove.

There's also that WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: 19 years later, Harry has grown up and married and is seeing two of his three kids off to Hogwarts. Does it taste like diabetes? Arguably. Is it mundane that a man who saved the world places so much emphasis on sending his kids to school? Unarguably. Is it ''in character?''--for Harry "I Just Want To Have A Family" Potter, a man whose orphanhood is his FreudianExcuse? ''Absolutely.'' It might not be the fate that fans would have chosen for Harry, but it is unquestionably the fate he would have chosen for ''himself''. And while it erodes his credibility as an EscapistCharacter, Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad... and you could make the argument that, ''because'' it steps away from escapism and into character development, it's a superior storytelling choice.

The brief outline of the final season is this: Daenerys arrives in the North with her army and her dragons, having allied with Jon Snow to [[SavingTheWorld Save the World]] from the White Walkers. Behind them are an unlikely MultinationalTeam cobbled together of Daenerys' (foreign) army, the Night's Watch, the northern armies, "wildling" humans who lived beyond the Wall because they dislike Westerosi feudalism, and whoever else showed up to fight[[note]]Some knights of the Vale, left over from Littlefinger's command, ought to be present; we see some of Theon's ironborn; Jaime's here to do what he can; and technically, there should be some folks from the Riverlands as well, since they've been part of the Northern bloc since Season 1[[/note]]. While Cersei promised to send Lannister troops, she doesn't, because she's evil; but that's okay, they succeed without her. The Night King, leader of the White Walkers, turns out to be an AnticlimaxBoss who is slain, along with his KeystoneArmy, in the third episode and without any characterization beyond "AlwaysChaoticEvil." (This in itself was a ''huge'' ShaggyDogStory, but we're going to gloss over that because it's not what we're here to discuss.[[labelnote:For the curious...]]The Others, per WordOfGod, are a ClimateChangeAllegory, a GreenAesop about DividedWeFall. In the books, it's made clear -- as early as the third book -- that political infighting is a distraction from TheEndOFTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. In the show, [[SkewedPriorities it's the other way around]]. Even worse, there's a BrokenAesop when Cersei's "SomeoneElsesProblem" attitude allows her to, for at least a couple more episodes, retain her first-place standing in the game of thrones.[[/labelnote]]) They then turn their attention to the capitol, King's Landing, where Cersei has entrenched ''her'' power -- the remaining might of House Lannister, augmented by a formidable group of {{Private Military Contractor}}s from Essos. The Targaryen force succeeds at TheSiege, and Cersei surrenders. However, Daenerys has suffered some personal setbacks of late: her devoted PraetorianGuard Ser Jorah Mormont (Creator/IainGlen) was killed in the battle with the White Walkers; Cersei had another of her advisors, Missandei (Creator/NathalieEmmanuel), executed as a show of power; and Daenerys is now a WomanScorned because her LoveInterest, Jon Snow, broke up with her, citing irreconcilable differences.[[note]]Such as the fact that, as it turns out, he is ''also'' a Targaryen -- her nephew, in fact -- and he's just not down for incest.[[/note]] So, on the back of her dragon, she TurnsRed and decides to ''burn King's Landing to the ground'', killing Cersei, Jaime, and a whole bunch of unnamed civilians, and putting much of her own army at risk.

The final episode goes about as you'd expect: Daenerys makes a public speech that's in line with her BlackAndWhiteInsanity (including a lot of EvilIsCool visual imagery), and Jon is forced to conclude that she's BeyondRedemption and ShootTheDog (followed by CradlingTheirKill and ManlyTears). Those are both of Daenerys's scenes in that episode. Instead of being executed, Jon is ReassignedToAntarctica one last time, rejoining the Night's Watch. One of the other 43 names in the credits is chosen to be king, Peter Dinklage's character Tyrion gets a position in that king's cabinet, AndTheAdventureContinues.

The ending was a decent wrap-up of everything that had happened... But a lot of viewers had trouble reconciling what had happened in the penultimate episode. Simply put, they felt that Daenerys being AxCrazy was CharacterDerailment. While very few people can disagree that there was accurate foreshadowing -- that whole "madness and greatness" thing is quoted ''in that very episode'' -- what was missed was the escalation. There's no SlowlySlippingIntoEvil, there's just a FaceHeelTurn with almost no set-up. Indeed, the "PreviouslyOn" segment to the episode does ''a better job'' of foreshadowing Dany's Turn than the actual show does... because it gets to engage in a biased recap of the text. Daenerys has has spent 70 episodes consistently having ChronicHeroSyndrome, doing things that a wiser (if colder) ruler would turn away; the only way the show is able to make her seem evil is by ignoring all of those things and focusing the "PreviouslyOn" segment on the moments when she gave in to wrath or impatience. In order to set up its (sarcasm quotes) "PlotTwist," ''Game of Thrones'' has to "RonTheDeathEater" its own protagonist.

And the worst part is that her CharacterDerailment pulls ''almost everyone else'' OffTheRails as well. The show -- once renowned for GreyAndGrayMorality -- eventually committed itself to a portrayal of BlackAndWhiteMorality, and Jon -- who at this point has all but stolen the office of {{Protagonist}} from Daenerys -- needs to be put in a situation where he can kill Daenerys ethically. So Tyrion and Varys, two of the savviest political operators in Westeros, get hit with ThirdActStupidity to push her into an untenable situation. Cersei, who ''is also a mass murderer'', gets to KarmaHoudini her way out of the CycleOfRevenge -- which is a little goofy considering that there are only 10 episodes of the show that don't live in the shadow of the Cycle Of Revenge started by ''Ned Stark's'' death, and 9 of them occur before he dies. Not only that, Cersei is recast as ''the victim'' of Daenerys' rampage. Sansa has the MoralLuck to distrust her despite having no {{Watsonian}} reason to do so: Dany is here to put an end to Cersei, who is Sansa's [[ItsPersonal personal]] nemesis, and also to save Westeros from TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, but Sansa doesn't like her, because... well, she just knows somehow that Dany was EvilAllAlong, even though that is impossible for Sansa ''to'' know because Dany hasn't Jumped Off The Slippery Slope yet. And yes, Daenerys Pays Evil Unto Evil... making her ''merely identical'' to every other character in the show, all of whom have killed and murdered in the name of war or self-defense or justice, and all of whom are nonetheless framed framed, by the final two episodes, as ''sympathetic characters''. It cannot be denied that slaughtering civilians is a bad thing... But if our train of logic is, "Daenerys has power, therefore she must turn evil," then every "hero" in the show ''has already'' turned evil, with Daenerys being not the worst of the lot but rather the shining exemplar who resisted the longest. According to this interpretation, Daenerys was TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth!

* '''The ice''': There's a guy named Jon Snow (Creator/KitHarington), the LiteralBastard of the late Ned Stark, who lives in a BleakBorderBase at TheGreatWall in the far north. Jon is a member of the "Night's Watch," a group formed to man the Wall and protect the Seven Kingdoms from the aforementioned GreaterScopeVillain, "the White Walkers" (as the show calls them, because the books call them "the Others" but ''Series/{{LOST}}'' already took that name), an army of "AnIcePerson EnemyToAllLivingThings" types. Only, the White Walkers haven't been seen in eight ''thousand'' years[[note]]For context: the oldest piece of RealLife writing we have is only five thousand years old[[/note]], and the Night's Watch, once a calling of great honor, has become a place of disgrace, with criminals who [[TradingBarsForStripes Traded Bars For Stripes]] rubbing elbows with political dissidents who were KickedUpstairs or ReassignedToAntarctica. Too bad the White Walkers are actually back, right? If Jon wants to survive being a member of an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores as they attempt to stop a supernatural threat no one believes in, he's got a lot of work to do.