I want to examine the question of whether a satisfactory ending is an absolute requirement for a good work across various forms of media, including film, television, video games, and literature. To do so, I plan to explore different perspectives, including artistic merit, commercial value, narrative necessity, and the extent to which a satisfying ending can elevate the underlying themes of the work.
- Key words:
- Satisfactory Ending- Artistic Value- Commercial Value-Necessity- Sublimation.
Before starting to explore this topic, I had a question in mind: Is a satisfactory ending a necessary condition for a good work? However, after researching and thinking for a period of time, I began to overturn my initial idea.
First of all, people’s perception of a good work is often subjective, as it may conform to the mainstream aesthetics, the comments of a niche expert, or the author’s original intention. Take the popular anime/manga “Attack on Titan” a year ago as an example. Many people thought it was a work worth being recorded in history before it ended. But when the manga version came to an end, the comments changed dramatically. Many negative reviews conveyed the idea that the author only needed to draw a happy ending, and this work would become a great one. However, the author chose an ending that nobody could accept. Despite this, many people still believe that it is a good work. This event made me think about whether a happy ending is what the audience expects and whether evaluating a work’s ending should be discussed from multiple angles.
Therefore, we need to recognize that evaluating whether an ending is appropriate for a work requires discussion and analysis from multiple perspectives, rather than simply measuring it by a happy ending.