What's your favorite type of ending?

[ratscout]

This is true. My favorite type of ending is a complete one, LOL.

[ratscout]

You said it so well. Loss makes it so much more impactful for me, too.

[ratscout]

I'm all for killing off characters myself (LOL, I'm a sadistic mofo), but I agree that it has to be organic, has to be meaningful, and has to make the other characters change in some sort of way, Maybe the loss just becomes apart of the character of the living or something. <3

[OliviaMerteli]

I like "ending", ending. Sad/happy/bittersweet don't matter to me as long as (most of, as least) my questions are answered as the end.

[ratscout]

Those types of happy endings are. So. Unsatisfying to me. They oddly enough feel so insincere and fake, haha.

[TheFalseVyper]

I 100% agree lol. Way too cheesy

[soyasholm]

I like happy endings, it heals my heart. Bittersweet endings can be really good too, as can open endings be.
Though sad endings are a tough one for me... It's sometimes hard for me to fully enjoy the series if the ending is sad, but I have read comics with a sad ending that I liked, I think it depends on how it's written.

[Pablo.C.S]

I like any ending that solidly closes all the plot threads developed throughout the story, regardless of the tone of the actual ending itself.

That being said, my absolute favourite types of endings are those that captures an indescribable feeling, something that is beyond simply that of good, bad, bittersweet, etc.

An ending that forces you to think through a different perspective. Something that at first you simply hate, but the more thought you give the more it eventually grows on you.

Since this is entirely subjective, I cannot exactly quantify this feeling, only give some examples, in no particular order of pieces of media that I believe to have achieved this indescribable feeling:

1) The End of Evangellion
2) Homunculus (Manga)
3) pi (film by Darren Arenofsky)
4) Serial Experiments Lain
5) Hiabane Renmei
6) The Stars My Destination (Novel)
7) Metro 2033 (Novel)
8) Stalker (film by Andrei Tartakovsky)
9) Talos Principle (Video Game)
10) The Beach
11) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
12) 12 monkeys (film, not series)

[mrtoontastic]

My favorite is the one where everybody dies!

Nah, nah. I'm kidding. My favorites are the happy endings and the "the job is completed" endings. Happy endings are the obvious, but I give some double points if the happy endings also hit you with the feels from time to time. Other ones include ones where the character's spent a long journey, and the deed is finally done, and they get to live their lives properly. Samurai Jack is a good example of that. It might not have been the most amazing ending, but I feel it was a great ending for the length we've all waited, and Jack can finally live as he should.

[Eveeka]

I like bittersweet endings because real life isn't a fairy tale. And not every story should have one hundred percent happy ending, like in life. For this, for example, I like the ending in How to Train Your Dragon in the first and second movies. (Hiccup lose his leg, and in the second movie his father dies)

[JBrentonParker]

As a reader, I love happy endings! I want the good guys to win, the bad guys to be defeated, Main Character to end up with Love Interest, all the subplots to be wrapped up, the world to be saved, and for there to be happily ever afters all around! As a preteen, I had to give away every book I owned of the Series of Unfortunate Events, because after book 3, I finally caught on that each book was going to be more depressing and hopeless than that last. I probably should have figured that out from the series title, I know.
Over a decade later, I had to give up on Games of Thrones for the exact same reason.

That being said, as a writer, I'm a real asshole. I love to write me some depressing endings. Main characters die, quests are failed, and if the world is saved, it's only at a great a cost. I guess it's because I get so much more emotionally invested in the worlds, characters, and stories other people have created, while I am more aware of my own being just... the threads with which I am weaving a narrative. So I'm a big ol' hypocrite, haha.

One thing I've noticed in my recent forays into the world of short story publication: editors are sick and tired of depressing endings. Everyone thinks they are so cool and hard core and original with their grimdark stories and grimdark endings, but they don't realize that everyone else and their grandmother is writing the same thing. Many fantasy, scifi, and other literary speculative fiction magazines now seem to specify that they don't want to see any grimdark, or anything overly depressing just for the sake of being depressing.

[unknown_user]

I want the good guys to win, the bad guys to be defeated

Different people have different opinion on which guys are good and which are bad
Hm... by the way, if I wanted the so-called "villain" to win, but the main character and their friends defeated them, is this ending happy or not?!

[JBrentonParker]

Haha, good point!
I want the protagonist to win, and the antagonist to lose as long as the protagonist isn't intended to be an unsympathetic and irredeemably "evil" character, in the event that the antagonist can't be wooed over to the "good" side a la Piccolo and Vegeta.

I do get what you mean though, because one of my favorite characters of all time, Johannes Cabal, would certainly be the villain if the story was told from any other character's perspective. He is, of course, more of an anti-hero than, say, Dolores Umbridge, who I think fits the bill of a up-and-up, undeniable "bad guy" pretty well.

[ratscout]

The End of Evangelion really grew on me, as did the show in general. The attention to detail in that show and the whole way it was put together was kind of dazzling to me. It was just so darned interesting and unique.

[ben]

I truly deeply love abrupt endings where you can kind of infer what happens anyway. My two favorite examples of this in media are the shows The Sopranos and Sharp Objects.

They both cut off at guy-wrenching, show ending moments that feel so hard and fast but you still completely understand what just happened. God thinking about them still makes my heart beat real fast like I can remember the feeling of those endings SO CLEARLY and they still elicit the emotions I felt on their first view. I don’t even know how someone could pull that off in a comic honestly.

They also tend to be bittersweet endings at the same time.

[ar-ninetysix]

As a kid, I never really connected with happy endings. I still don't lol bittersweet or sad all the way!

[Shinchan]

I know a lot of people prefer happy ending but I would like keep my reader in a question mark in the end.
I haven't finish my novel yet so, it's still a wish.

[inkythoughts]

to me, it's really just the ending that makes more sense within the story (feeling realistic/natural instead of just checking a trope list) but sometimes writers (looking at you, rom com Hollywood) just ruin the ending by shitty dialogues. also sometimes it'd be a happier ending if the couple didn't come together.

I love tragic sad endings, I love happy endings, I love bittersweet endings, just really depends on the context of the story. (same goes with open endings, cliffhangers, and ambiguous endings)
I think execution is key.

[vfinnigan]

I like happy endings that have been earned or are maybe touched a bit by the trauma that led up to it.

[Pomms]

It really depends on the story, because there have been happy endings that have given me a sense of accomplishment or happiness, but if the ending doesn't fit, no matter how it is, it just won't do!