At the end of The Dark Tower, with Roland Deschain on the threshold of the tower itself, Stephen King takes a moment to address the reader directly. He explains that this is the end of his seven-book epic, that he wishes to tell you no more of Mid-World and all that lies beyond. He calls out those readers who demand specifics of what happens after, “the grim, goal-oriented ones” who must know what Roland finds at the end of his journey. After all, the contents of the tower are rarely the point of dark tower stories; it’s the journey to arrive at that threshold which resonates so strongly with us all. He warns that should you read on, “you will surely be disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken”.
Yet - after complaining that some readers will feel cheated if he doesn’t give them a more fleshed-out ending - King then plunges into a final, divisive scene which tries (and arguably fails) to describe the interior of the Tower and what lies at its peak.
When I first read The Dark Tower, this apparent act of literary cowardice infuriated me. I agreed with King; I had enjoyed the journey, and I didn’t need to know what lay inside the Tower. But if there was more to be read, after seven indulgently-long books how could I simply stop, and assume that whatever came after brought no further context, no sense of completion or conclusion that I would otherwise have missed. While there’s a valid argument for me taking responsibility for my own enjoyment, that’s a temptation I - and many other readers - will never be able to resist.
As a storyteller, I’m more sympathetic. There may be a Right Ending to a story, one thematically consistent with all that went before; often there is an ending the reader wants to see, a True Ending where their favourite characters get what they deserve, and which ties up all their loose ends. Sometimes these two do not coincide.
This all came to mind recently while replaying the inconsistently-numbered Final Fantasy X & X-2. Despite water-breathing anime sportsboy Tidus being ostensibly the lead character of FFX, the plot revolves around the pilgrimage of the young summoner Yuna and her efforts to rid the world of Sin, an enormous prayer-powered space whale from a long-forgotten war. While travelling together Tidus and Yuna fall in love, yet even the revelation that Tidus is a dream of the ethereal Fayth - and that defeating Sin will cause him to cease to exist - does not deter Yuna from her path.
In a genre full of unsatisfying denouements, FFX’s ending is a shining light, perfectly balancing the salvation of the world with the emotional stakes for the main characters. Faced with a choice between the lives of all the inhabitant of Spira and the continuing existence of her lover, Yuna makes the Right choice, the heroic choice, the one which every element of the storyline prior to this point foreshadows. She banishes Sin, then in her rush to embrace Tidus passes straight through his now-ethereal form. It’s a singularly heartbreaking moment, and perfectly encapsulates the weight of her loss in her moment of greatest triumph.
The power and poignancy of the ending reverberated in the collective conversation of FFX’s fans. Considering how irritating a character Tidus is for most of the game - a spoiled, oblivious man-child obsessed with being the centre of narrative attention - he is clearly changed by the end of his journey, and the bittersweet end to his relationship with Yuna spawned reams of fanfiction. When the Japan-only Final Fantasy X International edition included a bonus cut-scene teasing Yuna’s discovery of a recording of an imprisoned man looking uncannily like Tidus, it seemed to point to an obvious conclusion: the first true Final Fantasy sequel had heard fandom’s outcry, and somehow Tidus’s continued unexistence would cease.
Of course, no JRPG plotline is ever that straightforward.
By comparison to FFX’s strictly linear pilgrimage, Final Fantasy X-2 hops back and forth between locations from the prior game as Yuna and her friends explore the colossal shifts in culture and the balance of power instigated by their overthrow of Spira’s theocracy. Similarly, the sequel’s tone is a more mercurial affair, its weighty sociopolitical plotline balanced with frequent deviations into joyous flights of fancy - from impromptu pop concerts to anime-inspired farce - and against the odds it works. The Tidus-a-like turns out not to be our aqueous attention-seeker after all, but rather a thousand-year old ghost - named Shuyin - genocidally obsessed with avenging his lover, a summoner bearing more than a passing resemblence to Yuna.
Faced with Spira’s destruction at Shuyin’s hands - ably assisted by yet another improbably-named ancient weapon of mass destruction - Yuna has no choice but to bring low this ghost who wears her lover’s face, and to banish him once more from the world. In a story preoccupied with themes of coming to terms with the consequences of your actions, of learning how to live again in a world set adrift from the status quo, Yuna’s victory is in making peace with her choices and finally letting Tidus go.
I would argue this is the Right Ending. It’s the ending the entire thematic thrust of FFX-2 builds towards, and also the ending Kazushige Nojima, the scenario writer for both games, had originally intended when he told Famitsu: “We had several ending patterns prepared, but when it came to ‘what about a happy ending?’ at the time, I thought ’no, there can’t be one’.”
And yet it’s not the True Ending, nor even the Good Ending. For those you must play this 80+ hour RPG again, in the exact order the developers intended the story to proceed, and meeting a number of very specific criteria along the way. Without adhering strictly to a guide, I would reckon the 100% completion True Ending to be nigh-on impossible.
For this display of dedication, an act of painstakingly stepping through FFX-2 again in almost ritualistic fashion, Tidus is mysteriously returned to life by the Fayth and tearfully reunites with Yuna. It’s ostensibly a happy ending - Yuna gets what her heart desires, an outcome only made possible by her determination and persistence - yet simultaneously it unpicks the thesis which the bulk of FFX-2 seems to support: Yuna will always love Tidus, but she doesn’t need him.
The True and Good Endings may well be true and good, but are they the Right Ending for this particular story?
Yoko Taro, when talking about the writing process for Nier: Automata’s euphoric Ending E, told Siliconera: “I started thinking about what would be the most fitting ending for all of those characters, and that resulted in the E ending. It’s not something that I desired, but I believe, in the world of writing, the characters move toward that ending themselves, and they directed me to write toward that end. In the end, it’s probably what the characters had hoped for – what they would have desired.”
Similarly, even though Nojima may not have intended FFX-2 to have a happy ending, he told Famitsu: “after the game was released and I was able to see the fan reaction to it, I changed my mind.”
I spent tens of hours reading Stephen King’s epic series. I spent hundreds of hours playing FFX and FFX-2. When readers and players live in someone else’s world for so long, growing to care deeply for their favourite characters, is it a bad thing to give them the ending they long for, even if the story seeks a more fitting conclusion?
Unlike books, games have the luxury of multiple endings, and I’ve always felt the urge to follow a story to its very limits. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to question whether the True Ending and the Right Ending are necessarily coexistent.
Then again, perhaps there’s an argument to be made for FFX-2’s approach, gently gating fan-favourite endings through effort. I couldn’t resist simply turning the page when the True Ending of The Dark Tower was offered to me, but when FFX-2 asked for another eighty hours to bring Tidus back from the watery depths, I hesitated. Did I care that much, or could I happily accept the ending I felt was Right, even if it wasn’t the True Ending I knew existed out there for those dedicated enough to reach it?
After all, if I couldn’t live without Tidus and Yuna’s happy reunion, another eighty hours immersed in the minutiae of Spira might not seem like such a trial, but more of a painstaking ritual, a summoning of a beloved spirit back from beyond the Farplane.
And who am I to deny the faithful their rituals?
Inspired by Critical Distance’s Blogs of the Round Table on the topic of Denouement.
Big thanks also to J. B. Rockwell for digging out the text of the Dark Tower Coda for me when I realised I no longer owned the book, and was increasingly concerned my annoyance from years prior had corrupted my memories.