Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jreengus]

So I just finished reading The Last Battle (Last of The Chronicles of Narnia) and I'm in the kind of drained state I always end up in after I finish a series that ends in a cop out.

Spoiler: I mean seriously (click to show/hide)

The Narnians lose one battle so Aslan decides to throw a fit and destroy the whole world? But it's ok because everyone goes to the land of gummy bear rivers, oh and btw you guys are actually dead, but your sister isn't because she doesn't believe any more. Are you actually shitting me???

Really reminded me of a David Eddings book, The Young Gods I believe it was where

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In the end they just go back in time and make it so that none of it ever happened, even though this really would have meant that a large part of their reason for going back would never of happened.

Anyhow this post had little point beyond allowing me to vent a little so I hearby open this thread up for discussion of books which people found the ending of really annoying.

[Fossaman]

You have to keep in mind that the Chronicles of Narnia are almost entirely a Christian allegory. The Narnian's loss is supposed to represent the final destruction of everything good in their world (whether C.S. Lewis manages to convey this or not) and thus, Aslan no longer has any reason to keep it around. (Kind of like a dwarf fortress where all your dwarves except the nobles have been killed by goblins. Would you keep playing? Yeah, didn't think so.)

I really disliked the book 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' when I read it. This was mostly because the main female character wore corsets, and so fainted every time she had to do something as simple as climbing a flight of stairs. And yet, the author had her try to rescue her husband. Were noble lost causes of laughable futility in vogue when it was written?

[Org]

Harry Potter Book 7.

Beginning and middle were meh, ending sucked
 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Come on. It was stupid. No big duel, just a spell, which then reflected Voldermort's spell, and killed him.

[Fossaman]

Org:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have to appreciate the symmetry with book 4 and what happened to him as a baby. Rowling gets points for that.

[woose1]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On of the crabby and goyle boys died?!!

[Strife26]

I don't even remember the end of the last HP book, but I still tell people that Harry dies. When they ask about the spoiler, I add more and more stuff on top of it.

Today, Harry was decapitated by that one sword from the second book after Voldemort cast a dimensional warpy thing which made a slew of public domain characters come into his world. Harry gets killed by Conan.


I think that it would have been better that way.


A lot of the books that are required English reading annoy me. If a book can be summed up as
"America in <time period> was not nice to <group>" then I probably won't like it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Crubicle: America in puritian times weren't nice to different people.
Scarlet Letter: America in puritian times weren't nice to audulterors.
Grapes of Wrath: America in the Depression wasn't good for Okies.
Great Gatsby: America in the 20's wasn't nice to new money.

Any book that depends on bad symbolgy annoys me too (Well then, the line 'we all live on a yellow submarine' apparently means that everyone is ignoring the threat that china poses to the world). As do books without major conflict. I call them Soap opera books. If you can't find any part of a hero's journey, then it probably isn't good.

[Org]

I also do not like the layout(and about everything else) in the CSM codex.

EDIT:Oh and has anyone else here read(and remember) the book the Separate Peace?

[Strife26]

That's what I forgot. I hate SP with a passion.
Life sucks for anti-war people or criples.
No real hero's journey.
Stupid symbology (the tree is really a phallic symbol!!).


Very close to the worst book I've ever read.

[Jackrabbit]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

On of the crabby and goyle boys died?!!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oh, almost everyone died. I like to think she lined up all the characters in her head and went you live! You die! You live! You die!

as for the Narnia books, everything past the first two I hated, partly because of the movie adaptations and the fact that characters are dumped after each book but I also got really put off by the underlying message because I hate those sorts of things. I don't usually notice them but in this book I did and it just made the book preachy

[Org]

@ Strife:Were they homosexual?

That is what my teacher said....and then she said that is what she thought everyone knew.....

And I got a few people to think that Leper had pushed Finny off the stairs, which led to his death.

[Strife26]

I don't think so, mind you your english teacher can claim whatever (s)he wants, if the book doesn't say it, it's speculation. Were all the chaps in all quiet on the western front gay too?

[Org]

What.

[Jackrabbit]

Statistically, no

[Strife26]

Feel free to look up the xkcd article on literary reviews. Basically, you can say whatever you want about the 'real meaning' of a book. It's a pet peeve of mine.

[Org]

What about best books?

My favorite is For the Emperor, part of the Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium Series.

I also liked The Last Olympian.