What Happens In The Ending Of 'That'S Not How You Do It'?

Question

Just finished reading that light novel and the conclusion has me so confused! Were the friends' misunderstandings ever fully resolved in the final chapter?

Rivera Iian Jhon · Answer

I have not yet had a chance to read This is Not How You Do It! I do, however, want to ensure that the ending is sufficiently wrapped up for my reader. Recently, I finished reading No Way to Win Me Back. This was a cold marriage story where the female lead character finally, after years of suffering through it, decided to walk away and start her life over – on her own terms. It was a very cathartic read and perhaps will satisfy your need for a story where a main character makes the right decision in the end of the story and that decision has real weight to it.

Elijah · Answer

This was such a great ending to a story. For chapters our lovable hero is a disaster of an epic proportion. But he’s also lovable. So we root for him. And finally the story wraps up with the protagonist silently handing over his spoon of a nutshell with the words ‘Fine, show me.’ And the way the story’s love interest approaches teaching our hero to do even the simplest of tasks is just so great. It really highlights the central theme of the story which is pride and how our hero’s struggle with accepting help is really what the whole story is about.

And the rest of the characters get their due as well. The gruff but lovable neighbor from down the street who used to throw so much mocks our hero in the past now brings over ‘how-to’ books of all sorts as if they’re novelty items of some sort. The epilogue jumps forward a year and we get to see our lovable hero is still hilariously bad at lots of things, but he’s not alone. All the time he spent struggling to be independent and complete tasks on his own has been worthwhile.

I love how this managed to be both so gentle and heavy at the same time. The change in the protagonist isn’t signposted by some massive monologue, instead we get to see him slowly change, like keeping the instruction manual at his side instead of throwing it away. The last panel is just incredible. A half-built, wonky bookshelf with two mugs on it. Simple and not at all what I expected, but so satisfying. Makes me want to go back to chapter 1 and read the whole thing again.

Wyatt · Answer

"That’s Not How You Do It" is such a wonderful read of this potentially chaotic and heartwarming journey of the characters. The protagonist learns to accept that their way of doing things is actually pushing the people around them away, possibly even the one person they care about most. This becomes most clear in the climax of the book, where the protagonist’s unwillingness to let others assist with a minor problem creates a rather large one. In order to fix it, however, they must accept help, and in doing so, they are able to realize just how much better life can be by allowing others to be a part of it. The scenes with the protagonist trying to do things differently (albeit poorly at first) are wonderful, and the rest of the cast receives nice little tie-ups as well (most notably the wonderful best friend of the protagonist, who has been patiently waiting for the protagonist to figure themselves out and to acknowledge their presence). A truly wonderful read that leaves you smiling, often because it’s not perfect but the protagonist is trying their best to grow.

One of the things that I find most impressive is the way that the author can keep the protagonist from being a complete and utter mess in the final scenes. They still make mistakes and have to learn from them, and it’s not a sappy “and they lived happily ever after” kind of scenario. The scenes are more realistic than that, even when they are happy. What sticks with me is the scene where the protagonist finally breaks down and laughs at themselves instead of becoming defensive. It’s a powerful moment. And the way that the art style changes to softer lines and warmer colors in the final panels mirrors the emotional thawing of the protagonist. It’s really a great ending to a great story, and I feel like it’s especially relatable to anyone who has ever had to be the singleton who does everything by themselves (I can relate). The story reminds us that even when we think we’re doing it wrong, we can still be getting it right.

Quinn · Answer

The story "That’s Not How You Do It" ends well. The ending of this story is a masterful piece of understated storytelling. After all of the zany things that the hero tried to get things just right (like painting a wall with a toothbrush), the end of the story is a simple conversation. The hero confesses that he was afraid to look weak, and his partner replies, "Yeah, I know." There are no dramatic fireworks or huge changes as a result of this conversation. Instead, the two people are sitting in a messy room laughing and talking. A simple image of their hands together in the room are locked side by side. One hand is smeared with paint and the other is holding a brush "correctly". Sometimes growth looks like just letting someone see your flaws.

Molay · Answer

What’s wild about the ending to this potential story is that it treats failure with extreme respect. After the main story of the book, where the protagonist goes down to the drowned city to retrieve the Heart of the World for their own nation, fails, and loses the artifact in the process, they return to their home in defeat. Expecting their fellow countrymen to turn on them in disgust at their failure, instead they find a crowd of people cheering their return. The connections the protagonist made on their journey, the allies they gathered along the way, the stories they told to gain support for their quest, had, in the time it took for them to return home, sprouted into a decentralized, grassroots resistance movement that was already toppling the villainous regime from the inside out. The artifact, the crutch of the story, had been unnecessary. The real power all along was hope, and connection. The ending is a powerful treatise on the limits of objects to effect change in the world, and the seemingly boundless potential of individuals.

Teresa Pettifer · Answer

I had initially assumed this would be a happy ending kind of book. And the main character, Mara, does ultimately defeat the Dark Lord and achieve her goal. But what you soon realize is that the only way to seal the Dark Lord away is for one person to serve as a permanent guardian. Her love interest, Sir Alistair the knight, chooses to fulfill this duty. Mara subsequently achieves her goal and becomes queen, ruling her kingdom justly for the rest of her life. The final chapters of the book are set decades after the events of the main story and are told in brief vignettes. We see Mara visiting the silent statue of Alistair every year, talking to it, growing old while it remains the same. The very last line of the book is an old woman whispering "I'm coming to relieve your watch" on Mara's deathbed. It is a deeply moving and elegiac ending, a tragedy disguised as a happy ending, because even though Alistair is released from his eternal duty, it will have to be taken up by Mara's spirit. In other words, she can devote her entire lifetime to him and it will not be enough. It's a wonderful and soulful read but not exactly what you'd call a "feel good" novel.

Amanda Hogan · Answer

This is a brutal and fair deconstruction of the hero. Yes, he saved the kingdom. But at tremendous physical and emotional cost. The last chapters of the book get into all of this in detail: the chronic pain, the PTSD flashbacks, the inability to transition to peaceful life. The world now loves him, but he cannot abide crowds. In the end, he walks away from it all — from title, from wealth — and goes to live as a hermit in the woods. He is left with nothing but a stray dog he had rescued in an early part of the book. A very, very unsentimental and honest anti-glory to the hero ending. Not satisfying in the least, but very real.

EviE · Answer

My favorite part of this book is the bureaucratic twist. Instead of fighting a dark lord, the ultimate enemy is an immortal, all powerful, soul crushing civil service that stops all magical progress. The heroes can’t fight it with swords and broomsticks. Instead, they spend the final act of the book out-paperworking the enemy. They fill out a million forms, look up obscure bylaws, and in the end, manage to call a vote of no-confidence in the villain’s scheduled administrative meeting. The final battle is a session of parliamentary procedure. The villain isn’t killed in the end, he’s dissolved as a corporate entity. The heroes then spend the rest of the book trying to reform the immortal civil service from within, but end up getting bogged down in endless amounts of paperwork. It’s a hilarious and very relatable ending to the book for anyone who has ever tried to fight a faceless institution.

Kathy Masoner Altstatt · Answer

I loved the ending. It was such a good “callback” to the title. The gruff mentor character tells the young protagonist in the first chapter of the book that “That’s not how you do it” when the young spell-caster attempts to cast a simple spell. The young protagonist takes that to mean that he is doing everything wrong. In the climax of the story the young protagonist is fighting an unbeatable foe using conventional magic. Just when all hope seems lost the young protagonist remembers those words. Instead of trying to do the spell “right” the young protagonist does it “wrong”. He casts it backwards and with inverted components instead of the normal forward flowing components. Instead of killing the creature it is transformed into a harmless and confused creature. The gruff mentor is left speechless by the young protagonist’s actions. The young protagonist smiles and says “I guess that’s exactly how you do it.” The story was a great arc from the insecure young protagonist at the beginning to a confident and innovative young protagonist at the end of the book.

Leiya Gonzales · Answer

The ending of The Last Exile was very Kael. His main arc was overcoming his guilt of failing in the past when his team was killed. Throughout the story he struggled with this shame. In the ending when the story reaches its climax Kael is again put into a situation where he has to make a near identical choice to one he made in the past (fail and 30 million die or risk his new team to achieve the objective). This time however he chooses the opposite option. The long and arduous journey to save the population instead of rushing off to save 30 million ends up being saved not in spite of his decision but because of it. The story jumps forward in time and a handful of characters are disappointed with his decision (thinking they could have made it in time). But the final scene with Kael’s old commander shows that he has finally come to terms with his past and the old man even states that Kael “learned” in this final test of character. We never get a huge parade for Kael or anything. He is just sitting there, all alone if you don’t count his recuse, looking out at the sunset over the newly rebuilt city. The book says that sometimes the greatest act of heroism is to withdraw strategicly instead of charging off heroically.

Regie B. Alovera · Answer

I was SOOOO disappointed at the end of this book. The big question of the story was "Who is the Serpent's Shadow?" and there were many suspects. But in the end, after lots of red herrings and lots of intrigue and politics, it was simply a big, bad, sentient shadow. This shadow had no previous personality, no previous motivation. It was simply created by the main character’s magic and then destroyed by a combined light spell by the heroes of the story. And that was it. The end of the story. The kingdom was saved. And that was it. It was technically an ending to the story but it had no depth. No meaning. No surprises. Very disappointing for such a clever book.

What Happens In The Ending Of 'That'S Not How You Do It'?

11 Answers

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