Amy, having just finished Mockingjay, I have to agree with your take. I thought that a more traditionally upbeat ending would not have fit as well as the one we got.
I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones.
Buffy ,'Chosen'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Anne W. - Jan 02, 2011 11:31:23 am PST #13412 of 28282
The lost sheep grow teeth, forsake their lambs, and lie with the lions.
Amy - Jan 02, 2011 11:43:46 am PST #13413 of 28282
Because books.
Exactly, Anne. And by the time Prim died, so many others had, I think I was a little numb. Collins also sold it, in terms of Prim's desire to help, and her skill as a medic/future doctor, so it didn't seem unbelievable to me.
I thought it was almost sadder that you knew Katniss was only going to see her mother again outside of 12, and probably not very often. She lived, but she was so damaged to start with, it was sort of amazing that she managed to pull herself together with such purpose as a healer .
beth b - Jan 02, 2011 11:48:43 am PST #13414 of 28282
oh joy! Oh Rapture ! I have a brain!
without reading the whitefont I am happy to see you all talking a bit more positively about the ending. I brought the book home and couldn't read it do to all the response I read -- now I feel like i can read it
Anne W. - Jan 02, 2011 12:24:59 pm PST #13415 of 28282
The lost sheep grow teeth, forsake their lambs, and lie with the lions.
Beth, I had similar reservations after seeing the reactions, and I was surprised at how satisfying I found the ending. In a way, I thought the blatant unfairness of some things--Finnick dying but Enobaria surviving--worked very well from a narrative perspective. I also loved how quickly friendships could form under wartime conditions while other relationships, e.g. Katniss's friendship with Gale, were permanantly damaged by that same war. No, it wasn't a happy ending in the most traditional sense of the word, but it wasn't nihilistic, either.
It was real-life messy without being narratively messy, if that makes sense.
Jesse - Jan 02, 2011 2:18:56 pm PST #13416 of 28282
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Yeah, it was awful, but appropriately awful. I just finished.
megan walker - Jan 02, 2011 2:20:19 pm PST #13417 of 28282
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
The ending was one of the few things I liked about Mockingjay.
Amy - Jan 02, 2011 2:24:15 pm PST #13418 of 28282
Because books.
Overall, it was the weakest of the three books for me, because the clear focus of the first book especially was missing. But the ending wrapped things up in a way that felt right to me.
Strega - Jan 02, 2011 2:37:01 pm PST #13419 of 28282
Connie -- Oh, all of that is fine, it's just where it suddenly becomes a thriller, and after he saves the day he licks a puppy, and the end. It's a little too "And they all lived happily ever after, I swear."
Maysa - Jan 02, 2011 9:14:44 pm PST #13420 of 28282
I loved the ending of Kavalier and Clay. I thought it was perfect.
Me, too.
One of my favorite endings is in Maurice. The scene where Maurice goes to see Alec off at the ship and he's waiting with Alec's family and that horrible minister and everything goes wrong, wrong, wrong until he realizes that everything is going to be okay and there's that perfect sunset and the world is suddenly on his side - I could read that chapter 1001 times.
Dana - Jan 03, 2011 6:53:23 am PST #13421 of 28282
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.
"Now we shan't never be parted."