What is the best "bad" ending you've seen/read? [Spoilers abound]

[Starman]

I don't know why I started thinking about it, but I was thinking about endings tonight, specifically "bad" endings. You know, the ones where the main hero dies or victory is pyrric or for all their hard work, the heroes just plain lose. I couldn't think of any of the top of my head, but I was wondering what you guys thought were some of the best "bad" endings in books or movies?

Starman

 

[WayneLigon]

You might as well label this thread 'All Spoilers All The Time', so I'm not going to put in the tag.

The Dark Glory War by Mike Stackpole was like that. The heroes are the Heroes of their time; they're the PC's, the main adventuring party by way of comparison. It looks like they are going to triumph right up until the end, but they fail. The evil queen takes most of them and turns them into monsterous undead creatures, leaving only the viewpoint character to live and report what has happened so the human lands will despair at their massive, massive failure. Dark, upsetting, but still good.

Now, the sequel, the DragonCrown War series... good, up until near the end of the second book, where the main hero sacrifices himself to stop something bad from happening. I was... pretty shocked, but it was in character for him, and I could even see a way he could be brought back. So I eagerly start the third book... and it looks like that ain't happening. Not good, since I don't really like any of the other characters, period. I even did something I never do, and skimmed ahead at some points to see mention of his name. Nope, nothing. The book languishs on my shelf until I can get up the floon to start in on it again, and the series so far goes unrecommended to friends because of that. So, there are bad-bad parts to this idea as well.

 

[Starman]

Good idea on the spoilers, WL. I'll throw that in the title.

Starman

 

[Frostmarrow]

Night of the Living Dead: As dawn breaks the sole survivor of the zombie-attack climbs out of his hiding place. He can hear voices. It's a posse of humans who are shooting off zombies left and right. The hero tries to make contact with the posse.

A policeman sees a zombie in a building and orders one of his men to shoot it. Which he promptly does.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I couldn't think of any of the top of my head, but I was wondering what you guys thought were some of the best "bad" endings in books or movies?

All-time, hands down favorite? The ending to Night of the Living Dead. Classic. What I love most about Romero's work, is that there is a social message there. Plus it's just plain evil.

(Edit: D'OH! Frostmarrow beat me to it!!)

Another one, off the top of my head- the ending to To Live and Die in L.A. Not the entire ending, per se, just what happens to the main character. Really out of left field.

 

[dagger]

Fallen with Denzel Washington, John Goodman, and Donald Sutherland had a really good bad ending.

 

[Starman]

Fallen with Denzel Washington, John Goodman, and Donald Sutherland had a really good bad ending.

Good call. I, too, thought it was well done.

Starman

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I'll put in a third vote for the classic Night of the Living Dead. Even after seeing it once, its still great every time.

 

[RichCsigs]

Fail-Safe. I don't know about anybody else, but I didn't see it coming.

Also, The Usual Suspects.

 

[Berandor]

The ending for "Don't Look Now".

So the hero has been chasing what seems to be the ghost of his dead daughter throughout Venice, folowing the small red-hooded figure up to a deserted hideout. He approaches the little girl, who turns around and is a homocidal disfigured woman. She draws a knife and stabs the hero to death. I had nightmares after that like you wouldn't believe.

And there are a lot of endings that profess to be good or happy but I consider bad because I actually believe the protagonists are worse off. Many romantic comedies, for example.