How Did The Shining End In The Book?

To me, the two biggest differences between Kubrick and King’s endings are their tone and purpose. Kubrick’s is elegant and eternal, cold to the point of making the viewer shiver. King’s is messy and somehow cathartic, giving the reader closure on his beloved characters. Not to say one is better than the other, but they’re two very different movies trying to accomplish two very different goals. The book’s goal, after all, is to make you care deeply about a set of characters and then bring them to some kind of resolution that speaks to their journeys. So Jack dies a hero, not a monster. Wendy survives in some measure of dignity, not as some helpless victim. And Danny is left with some kind of burden to carry into the future, to be sure, but it’s a burden he can, in time, learn to carry. And, overall, it’s a ‘warmer’ ending to a far more horror-richt movie than Kubrick’s version. You feel you’ve gone on a long and grueling journey with people you came to care about deeply, and in the end, they found some peace.

The ending of 'Wicked' by Gregory Maguire is a beautifully tragic twist on the classic 'Wizard of Oz' tale. After Elphaba's relentless fight against the Wizard's oppressive regime, she seemingly meets her demise when Dorothy melts her with water. But here's the kicker—Maguire leaves it ambiguous whether she actually dies. The novel hints that Elphaba might have staged her death to escape persecution, with subtle clues like her green-skinned 'corpse' being unrecognizable. Meanwhile, Glinda ascends to power in Oz, burdened by guilt and the weight of her choices. It's a bittersweet ending that makes you question who the real 'wicked' one is—the system or the rebel. What sticks with me is how the book reframes villainy. Elphaba’s activism is painted as radical, yet her motives are deeply humane. The ending doesn’t tie things up neatly; instead, it lingers in moral gray areas. Even Glinda’s triumph feels hollow, underscoring the cost of complicity. Maguire’s finale isn’t just about a witch’s death—it’s a commentary on how history vilifies the marginalized. I still get chills thinking about that last scene where the Witch’s hat is recovered, leaving you wondering if she’s still out there somewhere, watching.

The resolution of the mystery of the ten deaths provides all the answers that a practical reader would want to have. The letter of confession is not an information dump because it is portrayed as a document meant for publication round the world, full of the killer’s pride and cold intellect. So we have all our questions answered: why those ten people, why the island, why the nursery rhyme, how did he manage the fake death of Number Eleven, what happened to the diorama figures of the others? But the moral questions of Wargrave’s actions are not answered for us. Were he justified? Was his a legitimate form of justice? The book does not tell us what to think, it presents the facts of the case and the reasoning of the killer and then we are left to ponder the implications of what he did. That is powerful storytelling.

Man, remembering the ending of this book is like trying to remember a particularly disturbing and disgusting nightmare. I never read such a book by King before, and it’s typically NOT his style to leave readers bereft of closure and extremely, excessively unsettled. So after all that drama traversing across the entire country or whatever King came up with for that bit, the last few chapters take place in Kashwak, some tiny desolate town in the heart of nowhere, that’s supposed to be the refuge for ‘phoners’– the insidious Phone People organization responsible for the horror he experienced. And here’s the twist for you– a big one– Kashwak isn’t a refuge. In fact, it’s a very large, pulsating cell phone tower. The signal is reprogramming all the phoners. They all become one big, mindless, docile monad, completely bent to do whatever their new "primary controlling unit"– i.e., “The Tower”– wants them to. Jordan, the little son of the main character– it’s Clayton– was one of them already. But then, very nobly for King, for what he manages to accomplish in the end– very guardedly, ambivalently, and vaguely, though still effectively– the devastated and heart-broken father manages to prepare a makeshift detonator, runs to the heart of the monstrous structure, and– an act of superhuman, relieved mercy– blows up the core of the phone-tower monstrosity. The book ends with that explosive event and then– extremely hauntingly– continues months after the event. In that setting, a completely, devastatingly broken man– the odious, greatly bitter main character– is left all by his lonesome walking South. And he can hear something in the distance– extremely, unthinkingly, constantly and eerily and vocally and annoyingly ringing, jangling– a phone. And that was apparently the whole, ultimate "point" of this heartbreakingly dark, second-rate horror novel by the perhaps declining author Stephen King. Yeah– until the signal is stopped, the infamy will continue forever.

“Replay” by SHINee is one of those songs that is really different when you actually read the lyrics. At first I thought this was just another upbeat song by one of my favorite groups, but when you really get into the song and start reading the lyrics, it’s actually a really sad song about a guy who can’t get over his first love. He keeps reliving the memories of her in his head over and over again, like a record that’s stuck. The song captures really well the feeling of wanting to hold on to something. It’s not just a romantic relationship that you want to go back to. There are plenty of moments from your past that you wish you could go back to. The way the song repetitive goes ‘Replay’ really brings out the way our brains are always able to recall the best moments from our past. It’s a really bittersweet thing and growing up is having to realize that some things you want to go back to can’t be relived. The song being really upbeat and also having a really sad heart is kind of ironic. I really love how SHINee can be so playful and so serious at the same time and ‘Replay’ is a great example of that. It’s a really fun song to listen to but at the same time it makes you think about your own ‘replays’ and how you would give anything to experience those again.

It’s a terrible, hollow, bitter kind of ending. And David has survived. But the cost of that survival is the worst kind of curse. The ending really drives home the point that the human capacity for hope is our greatest asset, but also our greatest tragedy. David hoped to spare the people he loves from suffering, but that hope was a hope based on giving up all hope of rescue. The irony is so thick you could cut it. King isn’t willing to let anyone off the hook, including the reader. We’re left to sit with the full weight of the terrible choice that David made, wondering if we would have done the same thing in the same circumstances. And the terrible answer is that there are no good choices here, just different terrible ones.

Oh man! What a long and haunting end to this 'novel'. Instead of some intense fight between good and evil it is all about assimilation. Crozier, who saw and survived the worst man can imagine, has finally found a home with the Netsilik, the people he was so curious to study as an English Captain only a few years ago. And 'the Terror' gets its come-upping when Goodsir’s body is thrown overboard with the deadly poisen he had secreted away, slowly killing the monster. But the real monster is still out there…щего Arctic. The last shot of the film is of Captain Crozier, now referred to by a new name, watching as the HMS Terror, the symbol of his lost life and command, sinks into the ice. All uniform, language and civilization have been shed by the Captain in his attempt to survive against the inhospitable conditions of the Arctic. It is a bleak and desolate ending that powers home the futility of the British to conquer nature and the terrible cost of their success. Simmons conveys the pain of every loss to the audience.

Reading it as an extreme case of dissociation, Bateman is not connected to his actions. Instead he treats them to her as he would review a product. In the end the author is showing that this is not a personal matter of Bateman’s but rather a cultural one. Thus his lawyer’s dissociation from his confession is representative of everyone’s dissociation from the extreme evil that they facilitate in order to earn a living. The final tone is devoid of emotion and thus there is no need for explanation as there would be if there were a shared reality. Instead there are only competing simulations. And of course, in this simulation, there is plenty of ultra-violence.

I read this book in high school a long time ago. I remember it having a really strange vibe to it, but the details of the ending are kind of fuzzy to me. I think it took place at a supermarket or something. I should re-read it.

Leo’s transformation as a character is at the end of the book. You don’t know when Stargirl is leaving but Leo grows so much throughout the book. When he finally does see her leave he is forever changed by her. His life for the next 50 years will be influenced by her. His porcupine tie sits on a shelf and every now and then he is reminded of his life with Stargirl. He even sometimes still listens for her ukulele and sometimes he even hopes to see her purple bicycle riding down the street. But most of the time he is left to wonder what life would have been like had he joined her in being different instead of trying to get her to be normal. His regret is the true ending of the book.