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And Philip Pullman just won this year's Worst Story Ending Ever award.
Seriously, how can you end an epic trilogy like that? He even toyed with the sadness of the ending, by giving the reader hope when the angel told that one window was allowed open. Oh, but that window was reserved to the dead, sorry. So, you have to leave each other now, just as you've revealed your love for each other and then you have to go to each your own world and live a life of misery because you can never be with your one true love.
That sucks. That's kinda like killing off Aragorn or Arwen in the final chapter of The Lord of the Rings. You can't do that. It was so obvious throughout the entire story that Lyra and Will were to end up together. Hell, that was the climax of the entire story. They had to fall in love to save the worlds. And then they decide to stay apart for a lifetime rather than be together for ten-some years. What?! Wouldn't you rather live ten years with your true love than a lifetime without? And what happened after the story ended? There are so many lose ends. What happened to Iorek? What happened to Will and Lyra? And what happened to the witch Serafina (Seraphina?) after the story ended.
Most importantly, why didn't they just close the hole to the world of the dead for the duration of their life? I'm sure the world of the dead can wait another 60-70 years before they're released into nothingness. And apparently Will's only reason for not wanting to do the whole "cut a hole, jump through and close the hole again" strategy was because each cut caused a Ghost or whatever they're called in the English version of the book. So what? The lady angel already said that they would handle the remaining Ghosts. Why couldn't they handle another one every ten years when Will and Lyra were to jump worlds to avoid the sickness?
It felt like the author had to suddenly finish off the story, which was rich on details all the way through to the endinng, and did it by simply cutting all threads and using a "shocker" ending for emotional effect.
Great trilogy, but the ending seriously sucks.
Edited, Feb 16th 2008 12:41pm by Mazra