"does it reaffirm the themes of the story instead of undermining it?" <<

preaching to the choir a bit here since i know my mutuals are equipped with a sexy level of media literacy but i think so many of us who are nervous about the tma ending are mostly concerned with which themes are going to be reinforced by the end

tma has been a mixed bag of tones, which has been only even more starkly obvious in this final season (the world is a literal hellscape, but jon and martin bravely press on), and it's a tough task they have ahead of them to strike the balance with their ending

all of us approach the main text with different views: some of us are concerned with how the cosmic horror will shake out, others (like me) also see the message of human resilience in the face of it. a strict happy/sad ending dichotomy for it is largely meaningless