Gainax Ending: The Thread

I'm fond on Gainax Ending, which is usually discourages to writers because it alienate the readers who find your novel is unsatisfying and a waste of time.

But I'm working on a story whose ending is in the lines of "We couldn't Close this, because of things, shit happens. But here's the clues of what the Fuck just happened, in the case you feel lucky"

What do you think?

I'm not a fan of Gainax Endings at all, as I only find them annoying. But it doesn't mean that you can't do one, if that is what you wanna do. There probably are a lot of people, who find Gainax Endings to be the coolest thing ever.

Depends on what you mean. The trope is really two different but related things, and each manifests in a broad variety of ways. Seeing as you seem to be talking more specifically about the "left field" variety, whether extremely open, highly symbolic or simply tonally strange and off-putting, I'll address that.

If your story is that kind of story, and its flying off into such realms seems inevitable, then forcing a more conventional ending just doesn't make much sense. You don't end Finnegans Wake or The Third Policeman with "...and then they lived happily ever after!" It just wouldn't make contextual sense given how you have written or progressed the story up to that point. In fact, the story needn't even be that strange at all, just the kind of story where a curveball ending makes sense, even if it's not totally expected.

Now, some stories go in this direction when they need not do so. Maybe they want to continue the story, but realise that this might not be an option and want a potential sense of finality. If this choice is executed in a way consistent with the tone and arc of the narrative, or arrives from a turn that is thematically foreshadowed—if it is justified—then it can be gotten away with, I think. The problem is when the ending simply doesn't work, or overreaches in a problematic way.

I know that most of the arcs within my greater story will likely have to end in an emotionally mixed, ambiguous or circular fashion, assuming that a clean break can be made at all. But my story is not typical. Nor is every story within it demanding of such a resolution or non-resolution; some will simply end well or end very badly. So it goes.

Well, book II's ending might count, depending on your definition of confusing. I really like these kinds of endings, so please, tell me how I did.

It is Lord Eclipse reflecting on the events of the book, set to Aaron Shayde returning from the dead, whereupon one of them starts hallucinating. We are treated to Aracade Judas monologuing despite the fact he doesn't exist yet. Then Aaron's wife and child start to talk to him, despite the fact they're both dead. Then both of them turn into Uncanny Valley caricatures of themselves. The wife starts to try to seduce Aaron while the son's eyes roll around in his head, the right one clockwise, the left counter-clockwise. Eclipse ruminates that the worst has yet to come to Matthew, that "the song that the Daille girl sings has yet to be finished. The cursed girl remains cursed yet longer." Then we get a random flashback to Aaron and Gavin accepting a mission from Sharon Tate Roman to assassinate a clown who had been spreading a magical Hate Plague, an otherwise insignificant mission. Except Sharon is dressed like Lord Eclipse, and half of Gavin is Aracade Judas, then they become Matthew and Liam, respectively, and then Aaron wakes up in a hospital bed, wherein he apparently has amnesia, only remembering the fact he was told to kill a clown. He then relates this to the nurse, who covertly takes off her face to reveal she's actually Amanda Wallace. The End(?).