The resolution of the Coldfire trilogy--spoilers

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

So, a good place to start is at the end.

The way I read, I'm constantly trying to figure out where the plot is going, and how it might resolve. One of the things I so liked about the Coldfire trilogy was that it was very hard for me to figure out how she could bring it to a satisfying conclusion. I like it when someone is able to really surprise me. So when I first read Crown of Shadows, I looked forward to seeing how it would end.

Well, most of us know how it ends, and my first response was to nearly throw the book across the room. It felt so...unfitting. I had the impression that Friedman had written herself into a corner, and that she had left plots dangling. I mean...Damien, just standing there? Surely he would've done something. Everything in my reading experience said that you don't simply leave a character standing there at the end, with nothing left to do and nowhere to go. Isn't that a story in itself? And Tarrant...egad, what happened with Tarrant? It was weird, and jarring for me. I felt terribly let down that this was how it would all end after everything that had happened.

In subsequent reads, it came together for me a bit. Or maybe I just learned to live with my disappointment. I can get behind Damien's mixture of joy and despair now. I can snicker at Tarrant's parting one-up on the ex-priest. I can look forward and wonder what Tarrant, in his new body, might be going off to do; what Damien might find to do with the rest of his broken life. Wondering what could possibly come after for them both has become part of the story for me.

But I still wonder...is that what she was trying to do? I mean really. What was the point of that ending?

Comments

[ariss-tenoh.livejournal.com]

As someone else has said, the real ending to the plot was when the Patriarch changed the nature of the Fae. Thereby insuring that mankind wouldn't be plagued by nightmares and demons given flesh. The main opposition in the form of Calesta was gone and so were the other bad guys. Andrys gets sorted out and gets his own happy ending. Even the Iezu begin to think about breeding naturally, or what passes for natural to them, and expanding their race.

The ending scene with Damien and the not-so-mysterious young man was more for the fans, that's what I think. Damien might be cast out of the Church but he's grown mentally and emotionally and no longer sees the world in black&white. As for Gerald, he too had grown beyong his myopic view of himself and his world which consisted of the Forest and its surroundings. I'm certain it pleased Damien to no end and set his mind at ease that Gerald managed to survive no matter what, and Gerald probably knows that or wouldn't have risked meeting the ex-priest in such a public place.

The ending was that of a beginning, a rebirth for Erna and the novels's characters. And where Gerald and Damien's relationship is concerned, I think it was necessary for them to start over again. If they are to be friends or lovers, it should be a mutually consented matter. Not the whole forced way it's been for the past 3 books as somehow necessary for each other's survival. Friendships don't stay alive when they're more like alliances.

So yep, I think the ending of the series was fitting. Anything more and that's where we fanfiction writers step in^_~

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

The final scene as fan service... it does make sense.

I'm certain it pleased Damien to no end and set his mind at ease that Gerald managed to survive no matter what, and Gerald probably knows that or wouldn't have risked meeting the ex-priest in such a public place.

Oh, definitely. He must have known how much it would mean to Damien to know that he was still alive. And it does give them a fresh start, in a way, because there is so much about their mutual past that has to be forgotten now, or which at least cannot be talked about anymore.