[[DragonTails http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/020323_vertical.jpg]]
[[caption-width:175: How to weaponize confusing endings.]]


StudioGainax has become famous for, [[{{Gainaxing}} among other things]], deliberate subversion of the subjects its shows tackle. True to its company's roots, most of its best subtle satire is of its own fans and their expectations.

Many of its endings are not light-hearted, though calling them strict {{Downer Ending}}s is a misnomer here. The more common themes associated are lots of dialogue with obscure metaphor and conversation and a serious treatment. The philosophy of the series is most openly seen here. Indirect or {{Distant Finale}}s pop up too. Basically a GenreShift in the last episodes, usually aiming to dark. Expect a DramaBombFinale.

Even if another production company has done a story, saying a show has a GainaxEnding is usually a spoiler-free but well understood "warning" to the watcher for a [[MindScrew strange ending]]. While certainly not the first or the only company to do so, this exaggerated stereotype has pretty much been stuck on them since ''NeonGenesisEvangelion''.

A more cynical use of the term GainaxEnding can also refer to [[CosmicDeadline running out of budget before the end of a series]] leading the last episodes to contain lots of StockFootage, voice overs, unresolved plots, and other tricks -- Gainax once prominently had a GrandFinale done in black and white. How well this works artistically is debatable. However, this is less common nowadays, as shows concentrate their budgets [[OffModel for the first and last sets of episodes]] most of the time, and the inevitable tidying up for the DVD releases.

Related to the above, but more applicable to solo creations, there are cases where an author runs out of time/brainpower/creativity/[[CreatorBreakdown sanity]], and cannot come up with an ending to a story. In which case, the options are "shelve it until such time as it can be resolved" or "write something, anything, the first thing that comes into your head". The first isn't always an option, especially if they're being paid by the word.

A potentially even more cynical use of this trope is as a disguised SequelHook or ambiguous CliffHanger. Although such uses aren't always cynical. Sometimes the writers just don't want to [[DeadHorseTrope flog that particular dead horse]] so hard. Sometimes they just don't know that the studio isn't going to spring for their intended sequel/season/spinoff. But sometimes they're just hedging their bets with an ending that will lead on to the sequel (if they get to make it), or just confuse the hell out of people (if they don't).

Compare OuterLimitsTwist, DadaAd.

Not to be confused with {{Gainaxing}}, which is [[{{Fanservice}} not a downer so much as an]] [[IncrediblyLamePun UP and downer]].
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!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* As mentioned above, ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' for both interpretations of the GainaxEnding. This, however, only applies to the original ending (episodes 25 and 26 of the TV series), as ''End of Evangelion'' is a [[KillEmAll much less sophisticated]] DownerEnding.
** They're now remaking the series in the form of four movies, which will apparently have ''yet another'' alternate ending.
** And we can assume that there will be ''yet more'' alternate ending action [[ScheduleSlip if the manga is ever finished.]]
** Even the movie ending is pretty bizarre by ''normal'' standards, and would probably be considered an example by the standards of most of the other things on this page if the TV ending hadn't out-Gainaxed Gainax.
* ''{{Mahoromatic}}'' (''and yes, it's another Gainax production!'') seems to end every episode in this manner. In fact, the entire premise of the show is that as a non-rechargeable [[RobotGirl combat android]], Mahoro can literally number the days till she deactivates, and the viewers are [[{{Anvilicious}} constantly reminded of this fact]].
** The original manga follows the same format in this regard.
*** It should be noted as well that that [[spoiler: The countdown is never finished, as Mahoro's ultimate attack drains the same energy that keeps her alive; she is forced to use it in the second season, leading to the Time Shift Enigmatic Ending]]
* The anime adaptation of ''YamiToBoushiToHonNoTabibito'' had a rather disappointing ending to what some would consider a classic [[GirlsLove yuri]] series.
* The anime of ''ExcelSaga'' actually ''subverts'' this trope; in the last few aired episodes [[CerebusSyndrome it suddenly gets a real plot going and is much more serious]]. Then in the final (albeit unaired) episode, it becomes even ''more'' weird, as if to make up for the serious finale.
** Well really, the broadcast finale was a rather lighthearted mix of humor and light drama, while the ''second to last'' broadcast episode was the (almost) completely serious one.
*** Episode 26 was never broadcast as the finale as it was intentionally too offensive. It ends with [[spoiler:Hyatt drowning the ''entire Earth'' in blood]] for crying out loud.
**** This didn't stop it getting a pre-{{watershed}} broadcasting in the UK.
* ''{{Chobits}}'' starts out as a typical MagicalGirlfriend-cum-{{Moe}} show, then, about halfway through, gets... er, [[ContemplateOurNavels weird]]. And to top it off, after spending half the series contemplating the sentience of persocoms, [[spoiler:the single most advanced persocom in existence states that she isn't really sentient, and neither are any of the other Chobits - they're highly advanced, naturally, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, they're only following their programming]]. Most of the fans interpreted this turn of events as a gigantic middle finger from {{CLAMP}}.
** To be honest, this Troper found the ending to be rather deep - a man-made machine [[spoiler:can never be truly sentinent - even if it is made to be so, it is indeed, simply following its programming.]]
* ''PetitePrincessYucie'' is a light-hearted MagicalGirl anime that just happens to be made by Gainax. Naturally, they run headlong into this trope with [[spoiler: Arc's poisoning, Yucie's decision to use her wish to save him rather than break her own curse, and the revelation that not only does the wish made by the Platinum Princess require the sacrifice of the other contestants, but if the wish isn't made, the world of the Platinum Princess will be destroyed. All of this appears to culminate with the decision by the other four candidates to wipe Yucie's memories of them so she can make the wish without guilt. The very last episode then inverts the whole trope by taking a sharp whipswing back around as Yucie recovers her memories and, through ThePowerOfFriendship, restores the lives of all of her friends.]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena''. Of course, compared to the ''[[{{MindScrew}} rest]]'' of the series...
* The makers of the ''{{Air}}'' anime were likely shooting for a BittersweetEnding, but the ambiguity of what happens [[spoiler:after Misuzu's death]] leaves many viewers in the dark.
** Same for ''{{Clannad}}'': To understand the GainaxEnding requires a lot of analysis of the dialogue between [[spoiler:Ushio and the Garbage Doll before the Illusionary World collapses]]. Also, one has to wonder why [[spoiler:Nagisa has knowledge of Tomoya wishing that he'd never met her, as well as if the reality where Nagisa, Tomoya, and Ushio died really happened]]. It really did.
* ''Divergence Eve: Misaki Chronicles'' does this. It breaks the original theme of the series by [[spoiler: showing everyone dead is alive again]], and also is totally confusing.
* ''TheBigO'', partly because of the head writer's love of MindScrew and partly because it was only intended to be a season finale. To summarize: [[spoiler:The former [[LaResistance Union]] agent Angel discovers that her memories of her childhood are [[FakeMemories false]], and the enigmatic Gordon tells her that she's [[TomatoInTheMirror not a human being]]. He then leads her to an elevator going deep underground. She reappears either turned into or controlling a negative-colored mecha that erases everything it touches, finally leaving behind only a StarTrek-style holodeck grid, until [[TheHero Roger]] calls out to her to stop, giving an impassioned speech ending with "You must stop denying your own existence as a human being!". She seems to ignore him, but after both her mecha and Roger's erase each other, there's a flash of light, and the entire world reappears as it was [[strike:before [[TheTokyoFireball episode 25]] ]] [[ResetButtonEnding at the very beginning of the first episode]].]] Full synopsis [[http://www.paradigm-city.com/scripts/article.php?a=ep26 here]]. Message boards were flooded with "they pulled an Evangelion on us!".
** They weren't sure if they'd be able to have a third series, but only the epilogue would have changed - Chiaki J. Konaka originally had a different epilogue which went into more detail than the one we got and literally ended with [[spoiler:a curtain falling]], but was asked by the U.S. network to write a less conclusive ending in case they picked it up for a third season. They didn't.
* Creative differences caused a GainaxEnding in ''KareKano'', causing the popularity of the series to shoot up considerably.
* ''{{Blame}}''! has an [[MindScrew incredibly confusing ending]] that had many readers scratching their heads, but the truth is that [[spoiler: it was a good ending. Killy found (by pure chance, [[HardHead and after losing half his head]]) an uncontaminated place in which Cibo's "egg" could "hatch" and give birth to a [[TheMessiah child with Net Terminal Genes]]. So, Mission - [[SequelHook more or less]] - Accomplished.]]
* ''HeIsMyMaster'', another show animated by Gainax, is a light, funny, gag series about a guy with a maid fetish. How else to end the series than with a sudden MoodWhiplash into angst and philosophizing?
* ''MagicalShoppingArcadeAbenobashi'', made by Gainax, has an ending that may make no sense whatsoever to you if you didn't follow the shows' philosophy and possibly SeeTheSailboat.
* ''XamdLostMemories''. [[spoiler:An AncientConspiracy of soul-eating albino children. A stillborn DeathSeeker {{kaiju}}. Only a mass-sacrifice SpiritBomb can stop the BigBad, except not. The main character goes to a JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind and defeats the BigBad by giving him his name... Or was it the laser? {{Instrumentality}}! The main character dies, and gets better nine years later for no reason! ...Oh, and he has inexplicably aged in the meantime.]]
* ''Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature'' does this. At the end, Bagi is [[spoiler: left prowling the jungle with her human intelligence destroyed]], and Ryo just decides it would be better to stop trying to catch her.
* The manga version of SoundHorizon's ''Ark'' starts out straightforward enough, but a few pages into the second and final chapter, it takes a sudden detour through [=WTFville=] into Gainax Ending Land. This troper, who translated said manga and is quite familiar with the overall story line of the [[RockOpera album]] it's based on, ''still'' doesn't get it.
* While the ending of the manga version of ''ChronoCrusade'' is better explained than some of the other examples here, due in part to some poor planning from Daisuke Moriyama and a rush to get everything explained in the end, the last volume or two of the manga feels like there's a sudden GenreShift mixed with several open-ended questions, unless you were clever enough to pick up on subtle foreshadowing throughout the series. Some of the weirder points of the ending include [[spoiler:the revelation that [[OurDemonsAreDifferent the demons]] are really SufficientlyAdvancedAliens]], [[spoiler:Rosette's soul leaving her body, causing her "death" and a trippy afterlife scene that ends with her and Mary Magdalene entering her body together to revive her]], [[spoiler:Chrono finding out that the demon HiveQueen was a human woman that was kidnapped by the demons and transformed into Pandaemonium--who was pregnant with human twins that would grow up to be Chrono and Aion]], [[spoiler:Chrono and Aion charging at each other for their final battle, only for the manga to cut away and change focus, deliberately hiding the outcome of the battle]] and [[spoiler:Satella freezing herself and Florette/Fiore into crystal, and the two of them found and revived in the year 1999 and forced to start over their lives after (almost) all of their old friends have passed on]]. While the GeckoEnding of the anime is [[DownerEnding depressing enough]] that many fans prefer the manga ending, it's still known for being quite weird.
* Following the pattern of its own insanity, ''TsubasaReservoirChronicle'' has one of these, in which [[spoiler: Fei Wong has somehow been defeated (or has he?), Watanuki and Syaoran did... something... which somehow resulted in bringing Syaoran back to Sakura from weird black void-thingy, the clones went *poof*, and Syaoran and Sakura appear to have gotten their memories back.]] I think. At this point, all anyone can hope for is that xxxHoLiC explains ''what the hell just happened.''
*Twin Spica, I am still trying to understand the ending!
*{{Bobobobo Bobobo}} ends with the entire cast saying "This is how our show ends?!" although it was really more a subversion of the [[CutShort unresolved cliffhanger]] imposed by the show's cancellation.
* The ending of the first season of ''DarkerThanBlack'' has a segment that bears a [[ShoutOut great deal of similarity]] to the end of ''{{Evangelion}}''. However, it doesn't even take up a whole episode before getting back to the show's specialty (Hei kicking ass), so it's a ''lot'' more bearable.
** Just as an interesting note, the director of DarkerThanBlack also worked on {{Evangelion}}.
[[/folder]]


[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The ending to DC's ''Final Crisis'' is really beyond explanation or understanding, as if GrantMorrison had all these epic ideas but never figured out how to stick them together coherently.
** [[spoiler: Superman used a machine that granted wishes to destroy the physical incarnation (A super-vampire) of all the DEEP and GrimDark that came out of TheEighties, everything that spewed from the popularity of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. Nothing more, nothing less.]]
** It's very simple, really: Darkseid had become a black hole that was sucking the Multiverse down. Superman and the rest of the surviving superheroes shrunk and froze the remaining population to save them in the JLA Satellite while they constructed the Miracle Machine from Superman's memories in the 30th century. Once the Miracle Machine was constructed, Superman killed Darkseid's soul with a note of music vibrating at the exact opposite frequency. Then Mandrakk the Dark Monitor appeared and Superman powered the Miracle Machine with the solar energy in his cells and Nix Uoton, who had become the Judge of All Evil when a Rubik's cube transformed into a Motherbox, brought forth CaptainCarrotAndHisAmazingZooCrew, the Angels of the Pax Dei, the Forever People of Earth-51, and the entire friggin' GreenLanternCorps who stake Mandrakk and then help pull Earth out of the black hole, while the Miracle Machine restores the rest of the Multiverse (since Superman had asked for a "happy ending"). Then Nix Uuton declares that the Monitors should interfere no more and the Overvoid swallows them all up (they presumably turn into normal humans like Nix did). And Batman is stuck in the Stone Age due to Darkseid's Omega Sanction, where he carefully lays to rest Anthro. See? Simple.
** Now try explaining ''{{Batman}}: RIP''.
** Or, indeed, {{The Invisibles}}
*** The Invisibles is a magic spell in the form of a work of fiction.
* The ending to ''[[{{Batman}} Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader]].'' Granted, the series was intended to close the character of Batman with a metaphysical look at the character, but the ending grabs metaphysics and goes straight into the surreal, passing by Elseworlds, multiple universes, and the Golden, Silver, and Dark Ages of comics along the way.
* The last chapter of ''{{Watchmen}}'' is intended to [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic come across as]] a Gainax Ending, until you [[AllThereInTheManual re-read the comic and associated documents]] to pick up all the foreshadowing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* On the subject of the MindScrew subtype of Gainax Ending, ''[=~2001: A Space Odyssey~=]''. Essays have been written. [[EpilepticTrees Many,]] [[EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory many,]] [[WildMassGuessing essays.]] (The book was slightly better explained.)
* {{Videodrome}} Long live the new flesh indeed!
* ''{{Monty Python and the Holy Grail}}''. However, this might have too simple an ending for this to count. [[spoiler:Everyone gets arrested.]] Interesting note: The original scripted ending was to have a large battle that the English begin to lose, but they are saved by swallows dropping coconuts. This editor thinks that would have been far better, but considering how much of a horrible time everyone had working on the movie, it's not surprising they wanted to finish it quickly.
** This troper's brother has a book written by the Pythons that explains the reason for the changed ending--all the actors were being used as the English side of the fight, so there was no budget and no cast to be the French. One of the Pythons suggested, "Oh, let's just [[spoiler:have everybody get arrested]]."
*** From what I heard, they also just ran out of money. Their budget was famously small (That's why they had coconuts instead of horses), and they spent most of it on "locations and drink."
*** The Pythons where fond of this kind of endings anyway. See below under LiveActionTV
*** The ending works well or poorly depending on your reactions to [[spoiler:puns. Because it is, of course, a "cop out."]]
** This Troper read that the original ending involved them finding the Holy Grail at Harod's, a famous London Department Store.
* The Wachowski Brothers refuse to explain exactly what's going on with Neo and Smith, the Source, flaming truth vision, etc. etc. in the sequels to ''TheMatrix''. The fan theories [[EpilepticTrees are a bit odd]], but that's unescapable given what they've got to work with.
**Of course, they may not *know* themselves. After all, if the urban legend is to be believed, they stole the whole thing anyway.
* ''LawnDogs'' is a fairly realistic and depressing movie about the friendship between a 10 year old girl, Devon, and a 21 year old lower-class outsider, Trent. You know it's going to end bad, when [[spoiler:after Devon shoots the man who is beating up Trent and helps him to his car, she gives Trent a comb and a mirror and asks him to throw them out the window as he drives away, to cover his tracks. When he later does so, a river rises up underneath him, and a forest sprouts up behind him.]] This actually makes some sense metaphorically and was slightly set up, but still seems to come completely out of nowhere.
**It probably makes more sense if you read [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Nixie a lot of fairy tales]] as a kid. That sort of thing comes up [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_Nought_Nothing over and over again]].
* The ending of the [[TheMovie movie adaptation]] of ''SilentHill'' was quite opaque.
** It seemed to me at least to be quite a clear statement, that statement [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption you don't escape from Silent Hill]]
** A believable [[EpilepticTrees Epileptic Tree]] has it that [[spoiler:since they didn't save Sybil, they got a bad ending]].
* The film of ''BeingThere'' ends when the [[Main/ChanceTheGardener main character]] [[spoiler: is taking a stroll by himself after losing interest in Ben's funeral, and winds up [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic walking out into the middle of a lake]], actually [[Main/WalkOnWater walking on water]]. And, just so there's no confusion, when he realizes where he is, he fully submerges his umbrella before accepting the situation and continuing his stroll]]. This ending was not the scripted one, but one the director conceived because he figured the movie was so believably acted - given its plot - that audiences would not find it unbelievable that the protagonist could do this.
** There is a phrase uttered right before the credits, and if you listen to it and compare it with the final shot, you will see it is a clear statement on the film's {{Aesop}}. [[spoiler:"Life is a state of mind."]]
** This isn't a Gainax Ending. It's pretty clear the director intended to imply Chauncey was a modern day Jesus. Not that Chauncey was the son of God, but rather that Jesus wasn't.
* The ending of the first ''{{Dungeons and Dragons}}'' movie has the remaining main characters standing over the grave of the comic relief. They hold a stone over the grave and ''turn into little balls of floaty light'' and float away.
* ''VanillaSky'', based on the Spanish ''Abre Los Ojos'' (Open Your Eyes), has a pretty strange ending. [[spoiler: It appears to be something along the lines of a sci-fi All a Dream ending, except that, when he wakes up, just before cutting to credits, we clearly hear the voice of someone who shouldn't exist outside the dream. Or maybe that wasn't it, but there was some sort of contradiction in that final line that couldn't be explained.]]
** On the original Spanish film [[spoiler:they make it clear it was all a simulation, he was connected to a machine dreaming until his body could be repaired, and the film ends when he accepts this as a reality. The last thing heard after he decides to go back to the (now future) world, on the black screen before the credits, is "open your eyes"]].
* The ending of ''TheBlackHole''. The crew go into the black hole and then... they're in Hell? And then they're in space? Wha?
** This troper swears in some child book adaption he read that they ended up in another galaxy or an alternate universe with all the planets the black hole has consumed/that were on the other side were there to explore. And perhaps...the act of such defiance of physics made them cross hell and heaven? Or they thought they did? This is what happens when directors are inspired by 2001...
** This troper has a graphic novel version of The Black Hole that has the above ending. I've actually only seen the movie once, and was sorely disappointed. The graphic novel is far more entertaining.
** One novelisation has the crew passing into the black hole, and somehow being ''spread across the Universe'' while still being aware. Some kind of trippy/pseudo-cosmic AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence kind of thing, presumably. The final line says that they then "...contemplate the universe they had become". [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs Duuuuuude]].
* The ending to the remake of ''PlanetOfTheApes''. Marky Mark hops in his spacepod, [[NowDoItAgainBackwards flies back through the timewarp]], and... suddenly he's on Earth (or what we assume is Earth), and apes have replaced humans. Did he just bump his head getting into the pod, and is [[AllJustADream hallucinating]]? Yeah, that's gotta be it.
** According to TimBurton that was supposed to be a cliffhanger if a sequel was made. It wasn't, now it's just weird.
** Also, the book had [[AdaptationDisplacement pretty much the same ending]] (although since it was originally in French, they used the Eiffel Tower instead of the Lincoln Memorial).
* ''Local Hero'', for the most part a charming, low key dramedy about a Texas oil man being sent to buy up a small Scottish village, gets a little weird in its last half hour. It's hinted but never confirmed that the old man who's blocking the purchase is descended from the oil company's original owners, and that a major character's love interest is a mermaid. Then the oil man is sent back home, where he piles some shells he collected from the village beach on his counter, tacks up some pictures he took, and goes onto his balcony to watch the sunrise. Cut back to the village, and its one phone ringing with no one answering. It's also left a little vague who the title refers to, though most agree that it's Ben, the old man mentioned above.
** It's possible the female love interest was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie selkie]], a sort of were-seal from CelticMythology.
*** The 'phone not being answered is hardly surprising if you've ever actually ''been'' to Pennan; there's almost nobody there.
* ''The Day the Earth Caught Fire'' (1961) ends on a deliberately ambiguous note. The Earth is hurtling towards the Sun, but a series of massive nuclear detonations in Siberia may avert the catastrophe. The last scene shows the journalists waiting in the print room with two editions ready for printing, one saying WORLD SAVED and the other WORLD DOOMED. (The American distribution however [[ExecutiveMeddling included the sound of church bells ringing]], implying that the world had been saved).
* ''{{Friday the 13th}} Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan'' ends with Jason being caught in a flood of toxic waste in the New York sewers ([[WallBanger happens every night apparently]]) causing him to, for some reason, become a completely normal looking little boy in swimming trunks. The sequels [[CanonDisContinuity never address this]].
* ''Knowing.'' The world will end in a super flare from our sun unless something is done at the location of the very first CreepyChild's new home. What happens there? Some alien/angel/demon/somethings that have been following the main kids around for the whole movie take said kids into some spaceship. The main protagonist goes back to be with his family. The sun asplodes. Cut to a shot of the two main kids being dropped off in [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic some sort of meadow centered around the tree, presumably the kids are to Adam/Eve the human race]] again on some other planet, maybe its earth after destruction, and why are there other similar spacehip things in the background? After an entire movie trying to stay somewhat scientific and avoiding the mystical, they end it like this? Most people in [[{{alfinchkid}} this troper's]] theater never saw when the credits started, as they had already walked out.
* ''[[{{Film/Nine}} 9]]'' has quite the ambiguous ending; by the film's close, [[spoiler:over half of the stitchpunks are dead, with only 9, 3, 4, and 7 left. The Fabrication Machine and the monsters it created are gone for good, and the spirits of 9's fallen friends are finally able to [[DiedHappilyEverAfter rest in peace]], but...what's next? They live in an empty world, seemingly devoid of life, they don't seem to have anywhere left to go, and 9 gives no indication as to what he and his friends intend to do from that point on]].
** [[spoiler:The souls of the dead stitchpunks were used to bring life back to the planet. When the camera pulls back and refocuses on the drops of water, you see little moving organisms in the droplets. Although it leaves one to wonder how the stitchpunks were to bring life back to the planet if they all survived.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Nuklear Age'' by Brian Clevinger (who makes ''EightBitTheater''), most of the book is a comedic parody of the superhero genre, somewhat akin to TheTick. The last section of the book, however, [[spoiler: turns quite rapidly to dark, with a villain killing off main characters, extremely large segments of the world's population, and injecting a bunch of philosophy based somewhat off of NorseMythology into the mix.]] It was an elaborate joke played on the readers.
* After a series of voyages to societies with satirical iniquities, the fourth book of ''GulliversTravels'' features a trip to a MarySuetopia of sapient horses who define all evil through a race of bestial humanoids. It ends with the heretofore inquisitive and tranquil Gulliver falling into despair upon realizing that the English are more like these beasts than the horses. [[HumansAreBastards Boo-friggin'-hoo]].
*''{{A Series of Unfortunate Events}}''. Basically every single plot point in the series was left unresolved at the end. The last book can best be summarized as "Ha, ha! In life, there are lots of mysteries you'll never know the answer to. So long and [[MoneyDearBoy thanks for all the book sales]]."
**This Troper thinks the ending was left open for interpretation. The readers themselves could decide what happened. Whether everyone died at sea or lived happily ever after or somewhere in the middle is entirely up to you.
***In the Beatrice Letters, it explains very briefly what was happened to the Baulaires after the 13th book. Not a whole lot, just enough to keep the mystery alive.
**Moreover, the reader not only finds out the fate of almost all the major characters (even if that fate is occasionally metaphorical), enough information is given for the readers to make a good guess about the immediate Lemony/Beatrice backstory, even if the characters can't. The author doesn't give explicit answers, but a lot is done by implication.
**ThisTroper thinks that if they gave a true explaination to the ending of the series, it would be completely missing the point.
* ''TheBible''. Revelation is a bizarre and trippy (if evocative) MindScrew set in the far future, or quite possibly TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture from its writing (1500 or so years ago), it isn't exactly clear. Just deciphering its meaning has led to quite a bit of WildMassGuessing and not a little FanDumb.
** The most common interpretation amongst academics (which has been adopted by some branches of Christianity as well, most notably Roman Catholicism) is that Revelation/Apocalypse is written in the tradition of prophetic allegory, in which then-current political viewpoints were discussed under the guise of a prophecy of the future. Part of the confusion resulting from said book in the modern day is that the imagery would have been easily understood back when it was written, it's rather obtuse today even if you agree with the theory that it is prophetic allegory. The closest anyone comes to agreement is that the Beast is the Roman Empire, and the NumberOfTheBeast is meant to represent the emperor (whether said emperor was specifically Nero, Caligula, or one of those two were used as a generic code name for Christian-hating emperors isn't agreed upon, either).
* Science-fiction author [=~Philip K. Dick~=] pretty much made a career out of this and MindScrew. ''Ubik'' is the mother of all Gainax Endings.
** However, if you count the many short stories and ''The Man in the High Castle'', he's not as screwy as compared to RayBradbury. Hell, a LOT of the stories make a lot of sense, especially the collection ''The Golden Man''.
*** This is arguably true of his early and mid-period work but I defy you to make that statement having read his output post the 2-3-74 event. Especially ''VALIS'', ''The Transmigration of Timothy Archer'', ''The Divine Invasion'' and ''Radio Free Albemuth'' which form a loosley connected quadrilogy (really trilogy in four parts, since Dick never intended ''Radio Free Albemuth'' to be published) examining the revelation that Dick did (or did not) receive on that date from a variety of different angles.
*** Three words, Faith Of Our Fathers. Philip K. Dick's most confounding story. Is it a satire of Communist soceity? An exploration of the true meaning of religon? Or a role reversal on LSD culture? Who can tell! I'll let you decide: [[spoiler: The great communist leader is actually god in human form, and you can only see his true form(s) (a series of [[CosmicHorror grotesque monstorsities]] ) when you take thorizen, the "antidote" to LSD. ]]
* Pretty much everything NealStephenson ever wrote. Take for example, ''{{Cryptonomicon}}'': although the novel's ending is implied to be suitably epic, by that point in the story, the POV character has lost interest, so all we get is a bare-bones version of events, with a month's worth of events crammed into just under six pages.
* Robert Sheckley's ''Mindswap'' has this. The hero ends up trapped in the "Twisted World" but believes himself to have regained his own body and returned home successfully.
* The ''HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' books all seem to end up here, apart from the eponymous first book which ended on an intentional SequelHook.
** Not exactly intentional. [[WordOfGod Douglas Adams said]] that (as usual) he was late in finishing the novelization and eventually the exasperated publisher rang up and said, "For God's sake, just finish the page you're on and let's have it."
** Only ''Mostly Harmless'' really fits this; the others all have very comprehensible, if not substantial endings. [[spoiler: ''Mostly Harmless'' sees, as far as I understand it, every possible version of Earth and therefore every version of Arthur and Trillian destroyed forever by the Vogons, concluding their plot arc nicely. However, it completely fails to tie up any number of outstanding plotlines but does give us a possible Ultimate Question in "Where does it all end?"]]
* WilliamGibson is fond of Gainax endings, particularly in ''{{Neuromancer}}''. It was all of a piece with the general MindScrew of his work.
* The ending of the Dungeon fantasy series, which was written by multiple authors, leaves much unexplained and even makes the main character into some kind of god without explanation.
* British childrens'/teens' author AlanGarner has an affinity for the GainaxEnding unusual in non-adult fiction. Two of his books are particularly fine examples of this:
** ''{{Elidor}}'' in which four children from our world (circa 1950, if memory serves) are tasked with collecting four magical artefacts to save the magical world of Elidor from creeping evil. [[spoiler: They gather together the artefacts (which look like rubbish in our world) in the appointed place, having been told that time is of the essence as Eldior is dying fast. The book ends with them holding their "treasures" in a dingy Manchester alley, and gives no indication at all that they succeeded in their quest.]]
*** When this troper first read ''{{Elidor}}'', I was convinced there were actually pages missing from my copy of the book. A trip to the library proved this to be untrue.
** ''TheOwlService'' [[spoiler: ends with a young girl who had been possessed by an incredible supernatural force converting that force from anger - "owls" to peace - "flowers". However, everything else about the characters' relationships (which have been totally wrecked) is left unresolved.]]
*Frank Stocktons "classic" 1882 short story [[http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml The Lady or the Tiger]]. FeudalOverlord finds his daughter is in love with a commoner. So he sets up a punishment where the lover [[UnWinnable has to pick between two doors]], [[spoiler:one hiding [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy a beautiful lady who is the princess' hated romantic rival]] , the other hiding [[IfICantHaveYou a man-eating tiger]]. The princess knows which door contains which. And her lover turns to her during the execution for a hint, she nods to the right, and the lover opens the door on the right. And after a page of AuthorFilibuster on human nature, he ends the story hanging in mid-air, and [[NoEnding leaves the question to the reader]].]] Which makes this trope OlderThanRadio.
** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint And led this troper to call the ending a "ridiculous cop-out" in front of his high school English class.]]
** There is an official extension to it, ''The Discourager of Hesitancy''. [[http://www.imaginaryplanet.net/weblogs/idiotprogrammer/?p=83398933 Found here]] at the moment.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]
* ''ThePrisoner'' is one of the earliest examples. A synopsis exists at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_Out_%28The_Prisoner%29 Wikipedia]].
* ''[[KamenRider Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'' managed to pull off an EverybodyLives ending without ruining its ThereCanBeOnlyOne premise, ''and'' while justifying the alternative continuities of the movie ("Episode Final") and the TV special ("13 Riders"). It's just damn confusing the first time you watch it, mainly because it's something of a JigsawPuzzlePlot.
* Most films by DavidLynch, including ''TwinPeaks'' but excluding the aptly-named ''The Straight Story''.
* Most ''MontyPython'' sketches, episodes, and films end in bizarre fashion. When the troupe felt that a sketch had run its course, they'd drop a 16-ton weight; have the "Stop, this is silly!" officer enter; or segue into an animated sequence, news broadcast or documentary. This was a reaction against conventional sketch comedy where every sketch had to have a {{punchline}}. The Pythons thought it would be funnier to deliberately subvert convention, and were dismayed to find that their comic mentor SpikeMilligan had done it first with his show ''Q5''.
** ''{{Monty Python and the Holy Grail}}'' was supposed to end with a giant battle sequence featuring swallows and coconuts, but they ran out of money, so they invented the abrupt "everyone gets arrested" ending at the last minute.
** The episode that ended with The Argument Sketch turned the Gainax Ending almost into an art form. All episode long, sketches had been ending with the police entering and making arrests, and the Argument Sketch was going to be no different. Then another police officer comes in to arrest the whole show for Gainax Ending abuse, only to suddenly realize that his doing so made him guilty of the same thing. As was true for the next cop who entered to arrest ''him'', etcetera ad inifinitum.
** In the episode ''Michael Ellis'', the main character is offered several different endings (such as a chase, a slow fade or a happy ending) by an assistant of the "End of Show Department". Eventually, the assistant asks: "How about a sudden ending?" Cut to the black screen.
**"And now for something, completely different."
** And of course, the one time they actually have a punchline, they inform the viewer that the punchline will follow. It's actually a very nice one, though the on-sreen audience boos it. For the few who have no idea what sketch I'm referring to, it's TheOneWith [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdzqTGmEcZE the dirty fork]].
* In the BBC's 2008 remake of ''Survivors'', there's six weeks of build up and setting up of plot threads, of which not one is resolved after the ending of the series. This troper for one had to double check that it was in fact the final episode, as it is entirely a cliffhanger for at least SIX reasons. One can only hope the second season gets commissioned.
** It did. It's coming to BBC next winter.
*In the American remake of ''Series/LifeOnMars'', Sam Tyler is a New York detective from 2008 who somehow found himself in 1973. Was he mad? Lying in a coma in a 2006 hospital bed, dreaming of 1973? Back in time? [[spoiler: None of the above. Sam and his fellow officers from 1973 were really all from 2035. They were astronauts on the first manned Mars mission, and were kept sedated, with artificially-induced dreams, for the voyage.]]
** To be fair, the show was cancelled it's first season so this ending was placed in. Had they had a season or two more they could have foreshadowed it more and not made it such a Gainax (there ''had'' been some hints about it, but they only made sense in retrospect). The final shot of the episode, [[spoiler: Somebody in 1970s shoes stepping onto the Martian Surface]] also left enough ambiguity that had there been a super-last-second renewal they could have been able to explain it away.
* ''TheSopranos''? Black screen?
**"...it's always out there. You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?"
*** In other words, someone might have assassinated Tony and that's all we see of it, from his viewpoint. Or maybe it was a 'we dropped into the life of this man abruptly, and we leave just as abruptly.' Or maybe the camera ran out of film at a crucial time and the director thought the accident looked deep. Who knows?
* The series finale of ''{{Farscape}}'' ends with [[spoiler: John and Aeryn getting engaged on a boat in some random body of water somewhere, having tied up virtually all the major loose ends, and providing a fairly solid conclusion to the show with just the right balance of closure, and riding into the sunset style implications of continuing adventures. Then a freaky looking alien whose species we have never seen before, flying a ship we've never seen before, talks to someone over his radio, zooms in, and blasts them with a beam that causes John and Aeryn to shatter into a million little pebbles. [[CliffHanger To be continued]]... They knew this was going to be the series finale, and not only do they end it with that random [[MindScrew Mind Frell]], but they have the balls to top it off with a [[SequelHook to be continued]].]] The mini-series actually fixes this, and manages to make this relevant and even answer significant questions the show never dealt with. But before that, seriously, what the hell?
** They were under the believe that they were renewed and were suddenly cancelled right around the filming of the final ep. They debated options but in the end didn't have the time or money to change it so they relunctantly filmed it as it was and hope it would somehow work out. The cast and crew were notably upset about it though when informing the fans of cancellation.
** According to the makers of {{Stargate SG-1}}, the SciFi Channel never lets them know if they're renewed or canceled until it's too late to base the final episode around it. That's the reason every season finale of SG-1 blows the remaining special effects budget and generally wraps up the current plot - they don't know if it's the series finale or not.
* The end of ''BattlestarGalactica''... [[spoiler:The angels seen by Baltar and Six reveal that human/Cylon hybrid child Hera is Mitochondrial Eve and speculate on whether it's all going to happen again. After Head Baltar reminds Head Six that God doesn't like the name "God", she looks at him sternly and he cryptically says, "Silly me". They walk away unseen through the streets of modern New York while All Along the Watchtower plays over a montage of robot advances on television]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Musical]]
* ''Our House'' the ''Madness'' musical: was always going to have two endings due to the parallel universes plot. However, even after these are resolved via [[spoiler: dual {{Twilight Zone Twist}}s]] there's still time for a third 'ending' to turn it all into a ShaggyDogStory (done by introducing a ''third'' option in the life-changing event at the beginning of the play which would mean none of the things we've just been watching happened at all.) Oh well. Song and dance number!
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Radio]]
* Most ''TheGoonShow'' episodes have no clear ending, unless [[KillEmAll everyone dies]]. The grand finale actually ''dissolves into random gibberish as the entire show comes to a crashing halt'', and it doesn't seem atypical.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]
* {{Treasure}} games are probably the most notorius of this trope, with their [[MoodWhiplash unexpected mood swing]], [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic symbolic references]] and/or {{Downer Ending}}s (''{{Gunstar Heroes}}'', ''{{Silhouette Mirage}}'', ''{{Radiant Silvergun}}'' to name a few) to complement their {{Unexpected Genre Change}} leave many to think that they are the {{Gainax}} equivallent to videogames.
* Probably the most famous example in gaming culture is ''MetalGearSolid 2''. It owes a great deal to ''The New York Trilogy'', Paul Auster's mindscrew on the distinctions between author, character, reality, and fiction. Much it takes place in cheap talking heads CODEC sequences to boot, although it's not clear whether the game's production had any budgetary problems (it was certainly pressed for time and had the backlash of 9/11 to deal with). There is no way to summarise the key events in a reasonable amount of space, so you can [[MGS2Ending look here]] if you want to know what happens. There was a point to all the meandering, but the end result was ''not'' popular.
** Depends on who you asked, and it's [[ReVision very much explained in Metal Gear Solid 4.]] And originally, it was supposed to be a simple story of Snake taking on another set of terrorists (basically the Tanker chapter stretched to the full length of the game). And, yes, the ending was supposed to be a lot more explained, but Kojima cut it out after 9/11.
* ''{{Xenogears}}'', starting somewhere along the second disk, replaced virtually all overland map movement and scenes with the characters sitting in chairs narrating everything that happened. This actually is an openly admitted case of a low budget and forced rush to market causing a Gainax Ending.
** Monetary constraints aside, the ending was pretty straightforward: [[spoiler: the party fights Deus in its sanctuary, Elly takes Deus away before it self-destructs on the planet, Fei enters Deus and he and Elly have a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind with it, chat with Krelian, and leave before Deus explodes. Then they come back home to a very unambiguous, triumphant welcome from the rest of the heroes]]. It got metaphysical once or twice, but everything else was spelled out crystal-clear, leaving virtually no room for alternate interpretations.
* The ending of ''MonkeyIsland 2: [=LeChuck=]'s Revenge'': [[spoiler:[=LeChuck=] is actually Chuckie, Guybrush's creepy brother, haunting him through the game for breaking one of his toys. [[AllJustADream The whole thing was essentially an amusement park fantasy played out in the minds of two bored kids]]. [[OrWasItADream Or [=LeChuck=] just put a spell on Guybrush to make him think so]].]] Even for a game series that thrived on absurdist humour and ''StarWars'' references, the mixing of the two with presumed LotusEaterMachine involvement created a true masterpiece in confusing endings which was only explained by the next game that was released six years later.
** Well, more "retconned" than "explained." Series creator Ron Gilbert insists that he has his own idea of what [=MI2=]'s ending means, and he's not telling.
*** Since he's no longer involved with the series, maybe he should...
**** Ron Gilbert is at least nominally involved in the current Monkey Island episodes as a "Monkeyologist"
* ''[[SuperMarioBros Super Mario Galaxy]]'', surprising for a series that's usually known for shallow plots. It usually takes at least two viewings of the ending for players to figure out just what happened, which is convenient because [[spoiler:you need to see the ending four times for HundredPercentCompletion]]. Apparently, it somehow involves [[spoiler:the universe being [[SpaceRunawayIdeon destroyed and reborn]]. And Rosalina is... some kind of goddess maybe?]]
* ''ChronoCross'': [[spoiler: The main character is supposed to be dead. A computer that controls destiny. The computer kept humanity safe from a race of dragon people, NiceJobBreakingItHero. Everybody from the last game is inexplicably dead and your actions may or may not have actually done anything about it. Schala Lives! Then finally, a credits sequence of a girl running around in Tokyo with a necklace that has nothing to do with anything.]] And good luck figuring out if you actually accomplished anything from playing the game.
** This is actually a case of all there in the manual. There's a lot of supplementary material, including Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers, that you need to understand to put it together. [[spoiler: The main character erased his own time line from existence. There's a... lot of reasons he did it, but that's he chose to do. The time line that happened instead is (Similar to) our time line. And that necklace that 'has nothing to do with anything' is actually referenced repeatedly thoughout the game, especialy on the key item list. I think it was called the 'astral amulet' but it's also the Schala's amulet from Chrono-trigger. Trust me, it looks nearly identical, though with far better bitage, than the chrono-trigger one]]
* Any video game ending with a strange glitch can be perceived as one of these in the right light. For example, this is the way you knew you'd beaten the original arcade version of ''DonkeyKong''. [[http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get.htm By the 22nd level, the time limit wraps around to become physically impossible for Jumpman/Mario to complete the first stage in time]]. This has become known as the Kill Screen.
** Most famous for this is ''Pac-Man''. Level 256 is a [[http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm warped morass caused by the game trying to draw 256 pieces of nonexistent fruit]]. There are no confirmed cases of the level being beaten.
* The first two ''EarthwormJim'' games were near-legendary for their bizarre endings: In the first one, [[spoiler:the DamselInDistressed, a mere five feet away from the protagonist's rescue, is crushed by [[DropTheCow a falling cow]] [[BrickJoke launched by the player way back in the very first level]].]] The second game's ending is even more insane: [[spoiler:Turns out the DamselInDistress was a cow in disguise. As was the BigBad. And the player. Wait, WHAT?!]]
* ''KingdomHearts'': Imagine: You're a kid or teen or young adult, who bought the game, just because he/she likes Disney. I mean, it got Disney on the box after all, doesn't it? So, what are you expecting? A nice, happy, "everything's perfect" ending. But you didn't count on one thing: The Final Fantasy elements of the game! [[spoiler: Suddenly, you find yourself in an ending where your best friend is trapped in some scary place, along with Mickey Mouse, for some reason you can't comprehend (after all, he could have just gone over to Sora, to the other side of the door, couldn't he?). Your girlfriend is suddenly appearing out of nowhere (wasn't she in Traverese town when we last saw her?) just to disappear again after two sentences (one of which consists of a single word: [[SayMyName Sora!]]). And then, finally, your party is chasing a dog with a piece of paper in a place you've never seen ANYWHERE in the game, and there's absolutely no explanation of how they even got there!]]
* ''BeyondGoodAndEvil'' springs a last-minute surprise on the player that's set up in such a way that it's incredibly easy to miss - [[spoiler:the DomZ are feeding on the citizens of Hillys because their own weird alien lifeforce, which they call "shauni", was stolen from them -- by Jade's parents. Jade's somehow the DomZ's shauni, and they would very much like her back.]] In hindsight, it's a decent explanation for a lot of odd behaviour that the player's already put down to "it's a game". It's not terribly well set up even if you notice the extremely incidental evidence the game presents in the final level, specifically [[spoiler:a conversation the player overhears that's optional, and how the sacred chant the DomZ keep repeating has the same lyrics as the battle music -- including the word "shauni"]].
* ''{{The Elder Scrolls}}: Oblivion''. [[spoiler:After finally getting back the {{Macguffin}}, Martin is about to be crowned as the Emperor...and then hordes of Daedra appear out of nowhere even though the {{Big Bad}} behind their summoning into the mortal realm is dead, and said Big Bad's god arrives, driving you and Martin into a temple. Then Martin ''breaks'' the Macguffin, which somehow ''makes him morph into a dragon'' and drive off the Daedra, then inexplicably turning to stone.]] After going through all your trials, it feels like a sick joke and unrewarding, and it practically runs on {{A Wizard Did It}}.
** But it was ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesomeVideoGames awesome]]''. It was like seeing [[spoiler: Charizard and Goro fight!]]
** To be fair, the whole [[spoiler:Martin-turns-into-a-giant-dragon]] thing sort of makes sense if you think about everything involved. [[spoiler:The Amulet of Kings contains the blood of the god Akatosh. Since Martin is the last descendant of the Imperial line, and thus Akatosh's appointed peacekeeper on Earth, breaking the amulet allows him to "meld" with Akatosh in his physical form as a giant dragon. He then turns to stone because there's no more need for an Emperor once the Amulet of Kings is broken.]]
*** On the topic of ''The Elder Scrolls'', ''Daggerfall'' has a few of its {{Multiple Endings}}, specifically using the Totem yourself ([[spoiler:and being destroyed by the Numindium]]), and giving the Mantella to Mannimarco ([[spoiler:where he transcends his earthly body, ''rockets into the sky'', and becomes a god]]. And note that [[spoiler:both of these were canon]].
*** The problem with that interpretation, however, is that [[spoiler:Martin is not actually descended from Tiber Septim, since Tiber had only one child (Pelagius I), who himself died childless. Every later "Septim" is descended from Tiber's ''brother'' Agnorith, and thus they're all pretenders to the Septim dynasty.]] Also, the Amulet predates the Septims by millennia, so it's unclear how or why it's tied to them in any way but accident. Also, it's unclear why the dormancy of the Amulet during the Akaviri Interregnum didn't have any apparent consequences, or how Empress Katariah (a Dunmer) and her son Emperor Uriel Lariat (son of Gallivere Lariat), reigned for a combined 89 years, despite definitively not having any Septim blood of any sort whatsoever. Also, ''etc, etc''. In short, Bethesda broke the canon with Oblivion's story.
*** According to 'ES Lore', the amulet was one of several 'towers' which stopped the Daedra making more than fleeting visits to the world, but these towers have been slowly removed by random events over the years. The Heart from TES3 served as one of these towers, and through the events of TES3 you effectively stopped it from acting as a tower. As a result, killing the emperor weakened the barriers enough to allow the Mehrunes Dagon to invade.
*** Also I interpreted it as the Dragon fires themselves being a barrier, so when the emporer dies the fires stop burning and until they are re-lit using the amulet, the towers is down. At the end, [[spoiler:the statue created by Martin's sacrifice is established as another tower.]]
* ''{{Fallout}} 3'' proudly follows the tradition of ''Oblivion.'' [[spoiler: After a CrowningMomentOfAwesome wherein you are accompanied by a giant robot with laser eyes who tosses mini-nukes like footballs, you are told that the water purifier is about to go nuclear and that SomeoneHasToDie, which flies right in the face of the survival theme that most of the rest of the game has. Even worse, a number of companions you can take with you that can survive (even thrive) in high-radiation environments refuse to do it for you for extremely contrived reasons. On top of that, there are none of the patented Fallout mini-endings that explain how your actions in certain sidequests affected the futures of those organizations or settlements. All in all, a WallBanger for most people.]]
**The ExpansionPack, Broken Steel fixes this... somewhat: [[spoiler: The game no longer ends if you choose to make the HeroicSacrifice yourself and your character winds up waking up a few weeks later after being rescued by the Brotherhood of Steel. In addition, you can now send one of your radiation-immune companions in to save the day in your place. You do however still get berated by the ending for refusing to do the job yourself, even though such a sacrifice is compltely wasteful and unnecessary when it can be done by another character that can easily save the day AND live.]]
***That's because they couldn't/wouldn't get the guy who does the voice-over back to do some more voice work =P
* ''StarWars: KnightsOfTheOldRepublic II'' had this for Light Side. [[spoiler: You beat Kreia, she talks to you for a bit, explaining why she liked you, and explaining the fates of some of your comrades. Then, she dies, your ship picks you up, falls into a chasm to its apparent destruction, then flies away from the exploding planet unscathed. AND NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS. No denouement, no "what's next?", just hop on the ship GOOD NIGHT, EVERYBODY, leaving everyone wondering "Okay, is there ANY backstory for Sion or Nihilus? How did the remote beat G0-T0? And why was HK apparently completely extraneous?"]]
** Dark side wasn't any better, in fact it was worse. [[spoiler:Your ship falls into a chasm before you even reach the academy for no apparent reason. Then, you beat Traya and become leader of the Sith Academy. That's it, no mention of what happened to the rest of your party, except for the remote, which G0-T0 presumably destroyed. Just you and the academy. AWinnerIsYou indeed.]]
*** You can thank LucasArts for the rushed ending. ExecutiveMeddling, indeed.
*** No kidding. [[spoiler:If I recall, the planned ending involved a variety of things, such as your friends actually trying to help (rather than mostly just disappearing once you hit Malachor), possible tragic deaths, and even maybe facing Atris instead of Kreia.]] Which would have been much better. But no. Thanks a lot, LucasArts.
* ''TheWorldEndsWithYou'' is almost a DoubleSubversion: the plot is a ThirtyXanatosPileup we don't get too many details about, and the ending is just utterly confusing. However, you're then given the ability to unlock reports explaining what happened. But ''then'' you eventually get all of them, and unlock a final scene that makes even less sense.
** When the events of the ending reduce the ''protagonist'' to screaming "WHAT THE HELL?!," it's a sure sign of this trope.
** It's even more confusing, since people are arguing about [[spoiler:whether Neku is alive or dead]] in his "WHAT THE HELL?!" scene, as well as things such as [[spoiler:'Is Hanekoma redeemd?', 'What was Neku's final entry fee?', 'Were Kariya and Uzuki erased?' and a wonderfully popular one '[[InferredSurvival Is Sho Minamimoto alive?]]']]. Let's face it {{Square Enix}} sure loves screwing around with it's fans.
*** This troper was under the impression that [[spoiler:Neku's final entry fee]] was all of the other players of the Reaper's Game and was part of Konishi's plan to screw Neku over.
*** That's all 100% true, however, that was only his [[spoiler:second-to-last entry fee. The Composer claimed another one near the end of the game]], but it's easy to miss because it's in the middle of the sequence that reduces the protagonist (and player) to screaming "WHAT THE HELL?!" in utter confusion.
** The unlocked bonus scene isn't 'that' confusing. It's more that, while they detail the setting, who the masterminds were, and a fair bit about there respective plots, the level of detail in the reports fades out late in the game, so that they shed almost no light on what exactally happened in the original end scene or who, if anyone, came out on top of the [[ThirtyXanatosPileup pileup]].
* ''Dragon Squadron Danzarb'' ends with the revelation that the soldiers in the squad are mind-wiped convicts who were sent to a remote island chain to fight staged battles (while being secretly filmed "reality TV" style). The money earned from their exploitation is being used to fund "real" military ventures in the rest of the world (which they've been sealed away from). After discovering the truth, the main character looks into a camera and chews out whoever is watching, scolding them for getting a kick out of watching other people die for the sake of their own amusement (implying that [[YouBastard the player, who has been watching the whole thing, is one of those sickos]]).
* The Good ending for ''StarSoldier: Vanishing Earth'' consist of a nonsensical poem that doesn't have anything to do with the plot. The Bad ending, while making more sense, is still very strange.
* The first ''SilentHill'' game invokes this trope no matter which of the MultipleEndings one achieves. Both Good endings have [[spoiler:Alessa and Cheryl merging and forming a giant glowing woman thingy. Kaufman splashes some red liquid on it, and it suddenly becomes a giant red demon thingy, which Harry then has to kill. After its death, the glowing woman returns and gives Harry a baby, who then runs off into the fog. The end.]] The Bad ending has [[spoiler:Harry kill the glowing woman thingy, which says "thank you" in Cheryl's voice before dying. Harry collapses in grief as the room crumbles, before Cybil snaps at him to leave.]] The Worst ending is also the worst Gainax Ending, as it only has [[spoiler:Harry still in the car from the accident at the beginning of the game, unconscious/dead and bleeding from the head.]]
** By those standards, the [[spoiler:alien ending, in which Harry is abducted by aliens after asking them if they've seen his daughter]], almost ''makes sense''.
** The following games mostly contain far less ambiguous endings (although they're still heavy on the MindScrew), but they aren't immune from them. Without contest the most bizarre is one of the endings of the second game, in which James discovers that the controlling force behind the town and the cause of all his torment is [[spoiler:a dog. No, not a talking dog, just an ordinary dog. A Welsh Corgie, to be specific. Her name is Mira.]]
* The "comedy ending" of ''TheWhiteChamber'' seems to be this intentionally. [[spoiler:The crew that Sarah had murdered turn up alive, and reveal that everything was just as planned for a ''surprise birthday party''. It's rather entertaining, as the other crew members in this ending are a rather odd lot... Oh, and the meteor coming out of nowhere along with the karaoke bunny-ears guy riding it.]] "You were confused by the 'comedy' ending" indeed.
* ''{{Braid}}'' has one. [[spoiler:We're not even sure how much of the entire game previous was metaphorical. Somewhere between 50 and a 100% probably.]]
** [[spoiler:The final level has the Princess running away from a knight, while you follow underneath her and help each other overcome obstacles. At the end, you find yourself outside the princess's bedroom, and are only able to rewind time. Rewinding shows that in fact it was you who was chasing the princess, while she tried to stop you with a variety of traps that you managed to overcome, with the knight rescuing her at the end.]]
** [[spoiler:Not considering the fact that if you get the seven secret stars some of the switches in that level become timeproof, so you can rewind and go fast enough to stand on the chandelier as it's going back up, catch the princess and BOOM! the princess was metaphorically an atomic bomb!]]
** "Now we are all sons of bitches".
* ''{{Drakengard}}''. Legions of creepy floating babies, a giant naked woman who uses sound as a weapon, a main character turning into a clone army of demonic angels that destroy the world, and that's just scratching the surface. It's like they were ''trying'' to out-Evangelion ''Evangelion''.
** Fortunately the first ending, which is apparently the canonical ending, is pretty straightforward.
* ''[[FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin]]'s'' final battle is a figurative MindScrew and a literal MindRape. [[spoiler: And [[RapeAsDrama physical rape]], too, while we're at it.]]
* ''EternalSonata.''
* [[FlowerSunAndRain Practically]] [[{{Contact}} anything]] [[{{Killer7}} and]] [[NoMoreHeroes everything]] created by {{Suda51}}.
* ''WorldOfGoo'' - Every ''chapter'' has it's own GainaxEnding. [[spoiler:The Ivy Goos float away with balloons! The world is powered by the beauty of a giant ugly woman! The World of Goo corporation's new product is the ''third dimension!'' MOM is a '''spam bot!''' The fish have wings and levitate the telescope! The title refers to ''the moon!'']] Made even better by the insanely epic ''music'' that plays during each scene, despite the game's premise being, essentially, poking goo until it goes somewhere.
* ''FinalFantasyTactics'' leaves us in the lurch about [[spoiler: whether the main characters are really alive or dead. Due to bad visuals, there's also some confusion about whether Delita and/or Ovelia live or die after Ovelia stabs him.]]
* ''BattleForWesnoth''. [[StartOfDarkness Descent Into Darkness]]. [[spoiler:"Forever and Ever, Amen."]]
* ''LeisureSuitLarry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals'' has an extremely bizarre ending: After the player spends the last third of the game scouring the jungles of Nontoonyt as Patti looking for Larry, both characters get captured by lesbian cannibals and bound in a cage. [[spoiler:Patti then uses a magic marker to draw a magical portal into the air, which transports them out of the game and into Sierra Studios, where they run around the ''PoliceQuest'', ''SpaceQuest'' and ''KingsQuest'' sets until Roberta Williams offers Larry a lucrative deal to design and write adventure games based on his own adventures.]] Al Lowe had to skip the fourth installment in the series altogether just to write himself out of that one.
* ''MondoAgency'' and ''Psychosomnium''. Cactus loves this kind of thing.
* Who would end their game ''[[spoiler:with a music video?!]]'' The same guys who brought us ''EarthwormJim'' have apparently did this with their ''MDK''.
* ''Michigan: Report from Hell'' ends with [[spoiler: the player character finally being revealed and being shot in the head before he can reveal who unleashed the monsters.]]
* A single playthrough of ''EternalDarkness'' leaves the plot unresolved and the player unfulfilled (not to mention confused). [[spoiler:This is remedied after playing through with all three Dark Gods to get the ''true'' ending.]]
* ''CryoStasis'' arguably has one of these. The Crew being Ice Monsters aside, most of the storyline was fairly realistic, until you reach the end where ''[[spoiler:Heat Cracks start appearing all over the ship and the Nuclear Reactor goes Chernobyl, whereupon Chronos, the God of Time, pops out and you have to defeat him using magical energy balls from your hands. Oh, and you go to some kind of ruins out in space where you get to go back in time to one of three different places and change history to prevent the tragedy from occurring in the first place.]]'' Presumably, it explains all the weird bits of the game, but I've yet to see how.
* ''NeverwinterNights2'' did this, by [[spoiler: simply making the temple in which your party defeated the Big Bad collapse on them, killing all your beloved characters in the most ridiculous and unnecessary way imaginable, [[ShootTheShaggyDog rendering the whole journey practically pointless]].]] In my opinion, one of the most infuriating endings in history.
* ''No More Heroes'' has one. Like the rest of the game, it get's played purely for laughs.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:WebAnimation]]
* An episode of SaladFingers ends with the title character having his head eaten by a clone. Or was that the clone?
[[/folder]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]
* The first season ending of ''SheepInTheBigCity'' shifts to the Narrator escaping after all the characters are trying to capture him, then the Sheep rescues hin, going down the drain, and ends up having Sheep being EvilOverlord who can talk. Private Public start to speak French, and so is everyone else. Then the Narrator got put in the Narrator-powered raygun, with him begging that the whole thing's a dream then a [[CueTheFlyingPigs flying pig]] appear and says ThisIsReality or else he won't have wings. ''What?''
* SuperJail has one once per episode.
[[/folder]]

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