Depends on what you’re looking for in an ending. It’s not a cliffhanger or anything that makes a sequel necessary. Your mileage may vary on how satisfying you find the ending, but a lack of traditional narrative satisfaction is for sure an intentional artistic choice. It’s thematically appropriate to leave you feeling a bit shitty at the end.
Hallmark of good fiction is that it leaves you feeling something really strongly. If one wants a tidy “satisfying” ending any random genre fiction will generally suffice, but to expect it as something necessary is silly. Not to say that untidy endings are always good, you’ll find a million art house films that overreach and end in the middle of nowhere, but if it’s done right it’s usually very poignant. After all, if fiction is imitating life why should there be a nice wrap up? That’s definitely not how life is
It’s a satisfying piece of art, and that’s what matters. I totally agree. Disco Elysium should be held on the levels of Moby Dick artistically. By all rights it should be in contention as a literary classic, it’s just not a book
Depends on what you’re looking for in an ending. It’s not a cliffhanger or anything that makes a sequel necessary. Your mileage may vary on how satisfying you find the ending, but a lack of traditional narrative satisfaction is for sure an intentional artistic choice. It’s thematically appropriate to leave you feeling a bit shitty at the end.
Hallmark of good fiction is that it leaves you feeling something really strongly. If one wants a tidy “satisfying” ending any random genre fiction will generally suffice, but to expect it as something necessary is silly. Not to say that untidy endings are always good, you’ll find a million art house films that overreach and end in the middle of nowhere, but if it’s done right it’s usually very poignant. After all, if fiction is imitating life why should there be a nice wrap up? That’s definitely not how life is
It’s a satisfying piece of art, and that’s what matters. I totally agree. Disco Elysium should be held on the levels of Moby Dick artistically. By all rights it should be in contention as a literary classic, it’s just not a book