So last week, I was on the "Secrets of Story" podcast to discuss endings to epic-multipart stories ... most of which are disappointing (to say the least). Thread incoming ... http://www.secretsofstory.com/2020/09/episode-21-franchise-finales-with.html

Given our cultural appetites for serialized tv and trilogies, this seems like a thing worth looking at. When I look at the last 50 years, GOOD endings to epics are *extremely* rare. RotJ and LotR are outliers. Maybe, 1 out of 10 epic endings succed. The rest fail horribly. ...

I've spent the better part of a year trying to figure out what makes these good endings work -- I want to find some tricks/tools that they share in common. We discuss a few in the podcast ...

A lot of our discussion was about what the audience wants vs what the audience needs. For simplicity, let's call this "dessert" vs "vegetables." Most epic endings that fail, do so because they give us one at the expense of the other. But a good story must provide both ...

That's incredibly hard to do, because generally (in plot terms), dessert and vegetables are mutually exclusive. This is why the cutaway in the finale of THE SOPRANOS works ... even if it is frustrating in the moment ...

But that's a trick that really only works once. I want to find a tool or principle that I can apply to any epic ending. And I think I've got something. Drum roll ...

Standalone stories are about a Hero crossing the gap between what she wants and what she needs. But in epic stories, audiences are the ones on a journey. WE are the "hero" who undergoes change. Epic endings are about crossing the gap between what WE want and what WE need.

When I think about the epic finales that really *work* ... they all have this in common. What Luke learns in the climax of RoTJ is secondary to what *we* learn. We wanted a cool lightsaber fight, but what we needed was to see Vader redeem himself by eshcewing violence.

It's worth saying that a good ending gives us plenty of "dessert" along the way. In RoTJ there *is* a climactic lightsaber fight, as well as a battle with Ewoks and Stormtroopers. But all of that falls away at the climax so that we can experience something more nourishing.

@threadreaderapp unroll