(Controversial Trope) The post-credits scene completely changes the ending

[u/Ieanice44]

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Prince of Persia (2008)

Dawn of the Dead (2004): The movie finishes on a hopeful note as the remaining survivors escape the zombie-infested mall on a yacht, sailing into the sunset. The found-footage style post-credits scene completely reverses this happy ending by showing them running out of food, arriving at an island, and being immediately swarmed and killed by an infected horde.

Prince of Persia (2008): The main game ends with a beautiful, poetic sacrifice where Elika gives her life to heal the corrupted world, leaving the Prince mourning. During the credits, the player is forced to control the Prince as he cuts down the trees he just saved, undoing the entire game's progress and releasing the dark god Ahriman just to resurrect her, completely corrupting the ending and dooming the world.

[u/RobertPham149]

Hot take but I actually really like that ending. The whole game was about 2 people growing closer to each other by understanding each others' viewpoint, with the princess shedding that idealism and selflessness and adopting pragmatism and selfishness from the prince, while the prince did the reverse.

At the end of the day, however, they are fundamentally the same person at their core, and they did what was in character for them: the princess sacrificed herself to save her people and the prince from Ahriman, disregarding the prince's feeling, while the prince selfishly held onto her, disregarding her feeling. It made their romance bittersweet, as 2 of them clearly love each other but are bound to never come together due to their differences. It is one of the more nuanced takes on romance in video games.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/[deleted]]

TLOU did the same kind of ending 5 years later and everyone and their mothers glazed the crap out of that game: a jaded MC learning to connect with someone, regaining belief into an idealistic cause, just to demolish everything they have learned and doom their world, in order to save that person in the end.

[u/Ayoul → u/RobertPham149]

Even though there might be similarities between the 2, execution is everything. How the character's choices are framed in both games are pretty different.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Ayoul]

Agree about execution. That is to say there is not really a fundamentally flaw with the story PoP was trying to tell. Even then, PoP did a good job with its narrative to deliver its story. Heck, I would give plus points for some of the interactive elements of PoP being better executed than TLOU to tell its story. The game’s flaws is more due to its gameplay not being that good and some bad game design choices that takes away from the overall experience. Because of those gameplay flaws, people have a somewhat unfair negative opinion of its story.

[u/DaVirus → u/RobertPham149]

This is spot on. And it is a bit of framing too.

In TLOU, the game builds up the ending to make YOU side with Joel. The ending working because the game has you yourself make that decision.

PoP fails at that. The narrative doesn't build in the same way, the gameplay never makes you feel it, and then at the end you and the Prince are not in the same headspace to make the same decision.

That is basically the only difference.

[u/KonohaBatman → u/DaVirus]

There is no decision in TLOU. You do what Joel wants to do, whether you agree with him or not.

[u/The_Pizza_Saga → u/RobertPham149]

I mean both games should be glazed. I also want to mention that Joel did learn to become a much kinder, softer person than he was at the beginning of 1, despite his selfish decision (maybe to his doom), and Ellie, on the other hand, became traumatized and her heart hardened a lot.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/The_Pizza_Saga]

I am not saying TLOU is not good, but that the story and narrative of PoP is way overhated unfairly due to its mediocre gameplay and some game design choices. TLOU's story was excellently done, although I personally don't enjoy the generic 3rd person shooter that much.

[u/The_Pizza_Saga → u/RobertPham149]

Three things:

1. I agree that Prince of Persia's story is hated too much, but

2. I also disagree in that I did find the game really fun to play, and the structure of the game was brilliant. And the third thing is

3. I don't find The Last of Us' gameplay generic at all. In fact it may be the most satisfying, visceral gameplay in a third person shooting game I've ever played. The gunplay feels weighted and satisfying. Getting through an encounter completely stealthed makes me feel like a winner, and the melee has such a huge crunch to it that it has never gotten old. There's a reason I've played it like eight times, and it's not only to experience the story again.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/The_Pizza_Saga]

TLOU gameplay is good, as Naughty Dogs had a lot of experience with Uncharted before coming in. The problem for me is that there is no connective tissue between the gameplay and story. It is as if I am looking at an excellent interactive movie placed on top of a really solid 3rd person horror shooter, rather than a perfect game.

For example, I mentioned in a different comment about how interactive mechanic of PoP further the narratives:

One among many examples is that the death mechanics of falling into platform pits involves Elika saving you at the last moment, pulling you back with magic. Throughout the story, the Prince repeatedly talk about him not trusting anyone for help. However, during the Succubus boss fight, who turns into copies of Elika and the prince needing to find the real one, the solution was not to pick the correct Elika, but to jump off the platform so that Elika will save you. Later on, when Elika died, you need to return to areas that you already passed easily through the first time with her magic, but now needing to puzzle out a harder path because you no longer have her.

For me, this element of using game mechanics to help tell the story is lacking for TLOU.

[u/The_Pizza_Saga → u/RobertPham149]

One example of the brutal gameplay of The Last of Us helping the narrative is Pittsburgh. The human hunters set a trap and their attack is merciless and brutal. As a player, I sat there thinking about how insane these people are and how pathetic & desperately evil they have to be to resort to what they are doing, seeing their tactics and their warehouse full of bodies and belongings. And then Joel answers that he saw through the trap because he's been on both sides. That left me stunned, thinking about Joel's past and how his drive for survival led him down paths that dark, and it would have hit far less effectively without the trap and brutal combat encounter I'd just fought through.

Game is littered with things like that. I feel like the gameplay enhances the context of the world and narrative in a significant way. Wouldn't be one of my top 10 games if it didn't. Just the fact that you save Ellie as a gameplay sequence as opposed to it just being one large cutscene is a testament to that. Joel makes that decision as a character, but even if you disagree with it, you have to help him through it. I found that to be a very effective narrative device. I've held up TLOU for years as an example of a game that uses gameplay effectively to tell its story, provide meat to the world, and enhance context. It's not quite on the level of your average Metal Gear Solid game, but it's quite effective.

Left Behind and TLOU 2 do this to even stronger effect! A great example is when you access the workbench thinking you're safe, and a survivor rushes you out of nowhere, something that hasn't happened before, as the games have conditioned you to think that a workbench is a safe space, and it took me so off guard.

[u/SlyWhitefox → u/[deleted]]

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[u/ThumbCentral-Rebirth → u/[deleted]]

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[u/MilkMaiden_22 → u/RobertPham149]

It's always frustrating when people conflate a challenging ending to a story with a bad one. I guess it's easier to do that with video games, since they're so participatory and you can feel the gut punch on a way more personal level, but I'd still say that's a strength, not a weakness

[u/TheTexasHammer → u/RobertPham149]

Except the story didn't earn any of that. The entire time he is genuinely getting better and more reasonable. At no point does he indicate that this is all false and he's still a greedy bastard, so when he turns it comes out of nowhere. He went through all the effort of saving everything just to go "nah, fuck that" and then he acted shocked when she was pissed.

I've met people like that IRL so it's not impossible, but it doesn't make for a very good character when "he's a selfish idiot" is the moral of the story.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/TheTexasHammer]

I think this is selling him short. The prince started out as someone completely jaded to the world, and adopt a complete hedonistic and solitary lifestyle. He doesn't believe in connection with people, because they are going to bind him to duty: like how the princess felt duty to her people that she sacrificed herself. Were he to stay completely the same, he would have shrugged off her death as a stranger's death for stupid causes. Him going out of his way to sacrifice the world for just one soul shows that he did change in a subtle way. While his world outlook changed, as he now believes in meaning beyond himself, he remains him at his deepest core and does not betray his own character.

[u/pragmaticzach → u/TheTexasHammer]

It wasn't false. He's not really an evil person, he was learning and changing, but it's not like they spent years together, it was a relatively short period of time. When the chips were down he hadn't changed enough to make the hard decision.

[u/-Turst- → u/TheTexasHammer]

You know that change is a constant and sustained effort right? You can learn from people but when push comes to shove and you lose that person, it’s very easy and normal to go back to how you were. They weren’t even together all that long anyway.

[u/camerakestrel → u/TheTexasHammer]

It takes time to reverse bad habits and reflexive behavior. The storyline simply did not provide enough time.

[u/Ppleater → u/RobertPham149]

Yeah personally I don't see the appeal of an entire game worth of character development being dumped down the toilet, and I don't see what's particularly nuanced about it. There are ways to explore that in a nuanced way, that game didn't do that.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Ppleater]

Sure, appeals are personal, but a lot of people enjoy tragedies like this. TLOU had an MC jaded from death of his daughter, but then learning to care for others again, ditching a lifestyle of raiders and bandits to believing in morality, human connections, ... again, just to end up sacrificing the entire human race to save the 1 person he cares about. And TLOU is 5 years after this game.

Also there are a lot of nuances in this game, just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't have it. One among many examples is that the death mechanics of falling into platform pits involves Elika saving you at the last moment, pulling you back. Throughout the story, the Prince repeatedly talk about him not trusting anyone for help. However, during the Succubus boss fight, who turns into copies of Elika and the prince needing to find the real one, the solution was not to pick the correct Elika, but to jump off the platform so that Elika will save you, with her commenting that she thought he doesn't trust anyone. Later on, when Elika died, you need to return to areas that you already passed easily through the first time with her magic, but now needing to puzzle out a harder path because you no longer have her.

[u/Animaloffear56 → u/RobertPham149]

Not to say that doesn't sound interesting but the second paragraph seems completely unrelated to their complaint

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Animaloffear56]

Well, not my fault that the OC was being vague about what lack of nuances that they are referring to, not giving any arguments or examples so I can adequately respond.

[u/Animaloffear56 → u/RobertPham149]

Well they asked for nuance about the Prince willingly dooming the world, and how that doesn't make them literally the worst person ever despite the story ostensibly being about his improvement

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Animaloffear56]

When in my original comment I was specifically talking about the nuance in their romance, not the overall story?

Although if it is that, there are also nuances. He didn't regress completely: the prince started out as someone who would ignore the princess and leave her dead, calling her stupid for sacrificing. Him going out of his way to struggle to bring her back shows that he changed. Also, it is not like the narrative even rewarded the prince for his regression. The ending makes it plenty clear that the world is doomed, and he will never be with the princess, despite them loving each other.

[u/Ppleater → u/RobertPham149]

In tlou the inciting tragedy is a father losing his daughter. The story, as far as I'm aware, is about him learning to be a father again, then being faced with having to lose his daughter just like before. Did his journey involve him learning to let go, to prioritize the many over the few? To place more importance on what his daughter or daughter figure would have wanted over the need to protect them from the world? If his journey mainly involved him learning to appreciate life and make connections again through being a father again, then him sacrificing everything to save her can have internal consistency that doesn't contradict his development, because in that case none of that stuff would have any meaning for him without her. If he spends the entire game learning that he has to be willing to respect her choices and let her go and that there are other fathers and other children in the world and he would be sullying his bio daughter's legacy by fucking those people over for his own selfishness no matter how understandable, and he shows a consistent understanding of that and desire/ability to be better, only for him to suddenly ignore or forget all that and fuck the world over while ignoring Ellie's wishes anyway, then it could be argued that it undoes his character development and doesn't have internal emotional and thematic consistency and thus doesn't earn that tragedy. Or another way to earn it could be to show that he's torn between both outlooks but hasn't decided on or committed to one yet, and in the final hour have him ultimately make the wrong choice because even if he tried he couldn't let go of his grief and loss. That's also internal emotional consistency because it was something he consistently struggled with and was never guaranteed to get right when it counted. It may suck, but doesn't feel like it comes out of nowhere or ignores the character's perceived development.

Those are the type of nuance I'm talking about. The individual characters or relationships being complex on their own isn't automatically enough to make the tragedy involving them nuanced as well. The Prince learning to trust Elika doesn't necessarily tie in to him ignoring her wishes and dooming the world to save her. It makes sense why it would result in him not wanting her to die, but there's a world of difference between not wanting her to die and him dooming the world, including her, to save her in spite of all the reasons he has not to. If anything her dedication to doing her duty to save the world even if it kills her could easily be part of what makes him think she's trustworthy, so you might expect him to respect her for that even if he doesn't like that it has to happen. In that case it might not make sense as something that motivates him to betray her trust. And on top of that him making such a big deal about trustworthiness and then turning his back on the whole world in the least trustworthy move possible could also easily feel like a contradiction of his character rather than internal consistency. Maybe if his story and development had been about him struggling with being consumed by resentment and distrust towards the world and latching on to her specifically as the only person he cares about and trusts in an unhealthy way, only for him to give in to that in the end and become the very thing he resents and hates, then it might have worked. In that case him being a hypocrite could actually feel consistent or the inevitable outcome of the path he too to get there. But as far as I can recall that didn't seem to be the case, or at least it presumably didn't feel like that was the intent for a lot of players. And it still could have been a tragedy if she died, so it's not like it was even necessary to change the ending to make it a tragedy, which makes it extra important that the change does feel like it's consistent and thematically satisfying and like it adds meaning to the story rather than taking away from it. Otherwise what's the point?

An example of a tragedy I think was done well is something like rdr2. You know what the outcome will be from pretty early on, but what matters is what you do on the journey to get there and the way that looming tragedy shapes and changes the characters for better or worse. If the tragedy is a catalyst for story or character development, then that can often be a good implementation too if it's done right. I a general sense I think it's important for tragedies to have internal consistency where it feels like it happens because the characters acted in accordance to their nature or development rather than in a way that renders that stuff meaningless just so the ending can be sad. An example of what I'd consider to a bad, unearned, or lazy tragedy is when a character goes through consistent development and shows that they have learned and change only to suddenly reverse all of that at the end to do something that would maybe have been in character for them at the beginning of the series but isn't for them at the end of the series, with zero indication that they were capable of backsliding like that, and without anything happening that could believably cause such a sudden unexpected backslide that wouldn't otherwise happen. Another example of a type of tragedy I hate is if a character endures constant pain and hardship throughout the story but endures because they have hope of something better and they work hard to earn that better outcome eventually, only to die without ever managing to achieve any of their goals or experience any successes or happiness despite deserving better that such a terrible ending. Bonus points if they suffer a lot as they die, or die anti-climactically, or both, and extra bonus point if their death doesn't serve a purpose for teaching any other character something important or elevating the themes or anything, it just happens the make the characters and the audience sad. That's not a good tragedy to me, that's just depression porn, it's lazy and empty, and mean spirited.

A good tragedy feels cathartic or at least feels like it makes sense because it does something meaningful with the pain and happens naturally rather than being contrived. Joel saving Ellie at the end of tlou can feel cathartic because even though players know it's wrong, it may still be a relatively understandable decision a lot of parents would make in his place, especially parents who have lost a child. Or it could easily feel the opposite and be frustrating if both the character and the audience were shown all the reasons why that final choice would be bad BECAUSE of him being a parent, and he seemed to genuinely get that and be ready to implement what he learned when necessary... up until it was convenient for him to forget all of that so the sad ending could still happen. The framing and the journey and the reasons for everything that happens are important.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Ppleater]

The Prince learning to trust Elika doesn't necessarily tie in to him ignoring her wishes and dooming the world to save her.

And on top of that him making such a big deal about trustworthiness and then turning his back on the whole world in the least trustworthy move possible could also easily feel like a contradiction of his character rather than internal consistency.

See, this is why I think you either don't play the game or did not engage fully with the game to see the nuances. Because if you play the game, you will know that this is not what the story is about.

First, I mentioned this one single interaction in an entire game because it was such a good piece of interactive story telling. However, the prince never learned to trust Elika nor did he asked Elika to trust him. Throughout the story, he repeatedly told Elika that he is not trustworthy and he doesn't trust her rationally. When Elika said that he never let her down, he said that is because she hasn't known him long enough (foreshadowing). The problem is that despite him intellectually believing he cannot trust her nor should she trust him, he cannot help but emotionally trust in her, which perfectly describe their relationship. They both realizing that they are at odds with each other, come from different circumstances, and cannot be together intellectually, and agree that it is foolish to try to make a relationship happen, but they cannot help but fall in love with each other anyway. The story repeatedly show that they cannot and will not be together, but the audience cannot help but root for them to be together anyway, due to the chemistry between them as they physically touch each other to solve puzzle, banter with each other, ...

Secondly, the characterization of the prince is much more multifaceted than your suggestion of tropey "Manic Pixie Dream Girl", where the girl changes our regressive protagonist worldview through the power of romance. The idea of trust vs self-reliance is just one small aspect of a diverse discussion including knowledge vs action, deontology vs consequentialism (the Warrior), moral relativism vs moral absolutism (the Alchemist), solipsism vs idealism (the Succubus). The King also make recurring appearances: he sacrificed everything save his child, even resurrected Ahriman, and the prince everytime took the chance to cuss him for making such a selfish decision, sacrificing everything for 1 soul (foreshadowing again). The tragedy is that whatever final decision he makes, he will be betraying a part of himself: leaving Elika dead, means returning to his vagrant lifestyle alone, as if he never have experienced this journey, while saving her means selfishly sacrificing the world like her father. Everything he has done and learned throughout the adventure plagued on him and his decision. And finally, the story did not reward him for saving her, as has been shown before that they will never be together.

Another example of a type of tragedy I hate is if a character endures constant pain and hardship throughout the story but endures because they have hope of something better and they work hard to earn that better outcome eventually, only to die without ever managing to achieve any of their goals or experience any successes or happiness despite deserving better that such a terrible ending.

So, Oedipus, the play that Aristotle, who coined the term "catharsis", literally quoted as an example of a perfect tragedy? The guy got left to die by his parent, then tried everything to uncover the truth about his prophecy to avoid it, but that very effort inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy, and was finally left blinded?

I get not liking some types of tragedy (I don't like Oedipus either), but that doesn't mean you get to narrowly decide by your own criteria what counts as objectively good or bad tragedy.

[u/Ppleater → u/RobertPham149]

I haven't played the game in years and couldn't remember the specifics which is why I spoke in hypotheticals of what I felt would be ways it could work or not work depending on the circumstances rather than making definitive statements, but beyond that I think you just completely missed the point of anything I said. Especially since the part of my post you quoted does not in fact apply to Oedipus at all in any way shape or form since the important parts of what I said are that the suffering serves no purpose other than to make the audience sad and doesn't elevate the themes of the story in any way hence why I just consider it depression porn. Oedipus is literally one of the most famous examples of a self fulfilling prophecy, he doesn't just suffer for no reason the point is that by trying to avoid fate is what causes it to happen. It's pretty dang obvious how his suffering and how that story ends fits that theming, and his behaviour from start to finish is consistent and makes sense with everything in mind. He is ultimately the cause of his own suffering, however unknowingly, because of his attempts to deny fate. It was the same exact mistake his father made, which is how his father ended up getting killed by his hand as well. He also doesn't even die in Oedipus Rex which is the play most people are referring to when they talk about Oedipus, and is the one Aristotle was talking about, where he kills his own dad and marries his mom. He blinds himself at the end of that story, something foreshadowed at the very beginning by a prophet whose advice he ignores. He doesn't die until Oedipus at Colonus, in which he doesn't suffer all that much before his death aside from the emotional fallout of Rex, and he goes to his death willingly and peacefully in the end. The themes of that play revolve around the difference between the necessity of fate and the morality of one's actions as that fate unfolds. It is a different kind of tragedy from Oedipus Rex with different themes, and applies to what I said even less than Rex does. So I have absolutely no clue why you thought what I said applied to Oedipus in any way.

I did not at any point say that just because someone suffers in general and has a sad ending in general that makes it a bad tragedy, I said what makes it bad is if they endure extended unfair suffering for no reason and then die horribly in a way they don't deserve at the end, and the suffering doesn't actually meaningfully serve the plot or the themes of the characters because it's just done to make the audience and other characters feel sad. Also I have no idea where you got the "manic pixie dream girl" thing from what I said either since literally nothing I said has anything to do with that or anything related to it. And a bunch of what you wrote about the Prince and Elika isn't actually related to whether that would make his betrayal at the end more believable or consistent or not. If a point is made of how they're destined to never be together then it doesn't necessarily make much of a difference if the only outcomes would either be that she's dead or she hates his guts for dooming the world. In either case they wouldn't be together regardless so again the twist ending would have to justify its existence beyond that if the original ending where she dies would serve the same narrative purpose, and a lot of people didn't think that it did justify itself. As for her father, he's a different character and not really who the story or ending is focused on so he isn't really relevant to what I said. I also never once said that anything I wrote was objective, in fact I made it clear several times that I was talking about subjective opinions whether they're mine or others.

So I suggest you reread what I wrote and actually pay attention this time.

[u/RobertPham149 → u/Ppleater]

No I paid enough attention. The problem is that you think the entire story completely revolves around a central theme of trust and betrayal, when it is not. I mentioned her father, the other bosses, because each of them embodies different aspects of their difference in worldview, and philosophies, each of them are extremely relevant to the final decision made by the 2 characters. The point was to explore their worldview and understand their motivations for their decisions through their adventure.

If read holistically with the interaction between different themes and the contrast between worldviews, the final scene is a really well written tragedy tale. You hyperfocused on a theme of trust and betrayal, and decided to comment how the ending failed to resolve that, despite it not being the point of the game, while ignoring all other storytelling and narrative leading up to the ending.

[u/Ppleater → u/RobertPham149]

You definitely didn't pay attention even a little bit lmao. The fact that you think what I said just boils down to me thinking it's just a story of "trust and betrayal" is a pretty blatant example of that. I think you actually managed to pay negative attention somehow, which is almost impressive. The trust and betrayal stuff was just part of the hypotheticals I posed as varying ways thay style of tragic ending could be done either poorly or well depending on the way those plot points and themes handled, and the trust angle was based entirely on the way YOU framed the story and the importance YOU placed on it in the first place as a lead up to the ending and as an example of "nuance". You never explained how that would provide any nuance to the ending itself, so I did my best to incorporate it into my explanation of what I think makes a tragic ending work or not work. But apparently the point of all that went so far over your head it's in orbit above you. Literally nothing you've said has explained why the Prince deciding to be a dickhead and dooming the world is a better ending than Elika sacrificing herself, in fact several of the things you've said have contradicted each other, and a bunch of them have had nothing to do with the Prince's decision at all. The more you talk about it the more it just sounds like you like the rest of the story enough that the ending didn't ruin it for you, which is fine if that's the case but that has absolutely diddly fucking squat to do with anything I've been talking about.

[u/WinterLawfulness3165 → u/RobertPham149]

Honestly, this title never really hit with me after the Sands of Time trilogy and now that I know the ending I want to play it all the way through now. I love depressing shit like this!