Endings

I have a really big soft spot for finales.  Whether it's the final episodes of a TV show, the last movie in a series, or the final book in a series, it'll probably be my favorite.  I don't know why exactly.  I think it has something to do with the sense of resolution.  I like seeing things tied up.  I like seeing how the writers resolve everything.  And (hopefully) I like seeing the characters get a happy ending.  In fact, the happy ending is probably one of the biggest reasons.  I love seeing the characters that I've grown close to overcome whatever it is that they've been struggling with and finally get a happy ending.

However, I also think finales get the most criticism.  It's easy to see why that is.  Not everyone is always going to agree with how something ends, and that leads to a lot of people being upset with some aspect of the ending.  Whether it was a character ending up with a different character than someone thought they should be with or whether you're given too much or too little information about the characters' futures.  Someone is always disappointed.

The Harry Potter epilogue is a really great example of this.  It gets so much criticism because a lot of people don't like how much information was given on the characters' future families, and other people felt it was cheesy and too sentimental.  (Sure Albus Severus isn't exactly a normal name, but since when have names in Harry Potter been normal?)

I love the epilogue though, and I think it's because I look at it differently than other people.  I read and write fanfiction.  Now, I think most fanfiction writers didn't like the fact that we were given children in the epilogue because they thought it limited their ability to write.  However, I think it just gave us new awesome characters to work with.  Also, it's perfectly fine to disregard the epilogue if you want and create your own version, so I never saw the big deal about that.

As for the cheesiness, I like it.  I'm an extremely sentimental person, and I just love seeing characters be happy.  Plus, I think I'm hopelessly optimistic when it comes to fictional stories.  Other people have very clear ideas of what they want to happen.  I like to think about what could happen, but I don't settle on just one idea.  That way I end up being happy with whatever the writer(s) chooses no matter what (at least in most circumstances).  I've never really felt let down by an ending like I've seen so many other people be.

I just love endings.  Actually, I don't know if I should say that because I hate seeing things come to an end.  I'm not the fondest of change, and I don't like the idea of something I love being over.  At the same time though, I always end up loving the ending of the story.  Very few times have I not loved an ending.  I don't know what it is, but it just almost always ends up being my favorite part of the story.  After all, it is what we were waiting for the entire time.