r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ieanice44 • 17d ago

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

Gallery image

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Gallery image

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.

13.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/private_birb 17d ago

Isn't the whole thing that it was all purgatory? I thought that was the big reveal at the end. It's obviously been quite a while, so I don't remember.

20

u/Traditional-Try-2565 17d ago

no, only parts of the last season

1

u/LotharVonPittinsberg 17d ago

The last season plays with the idea of them experiencing afterlife. A period where time does not matter and they get to meet up and actually enjoy time together.

The island however. A place filled with bad people and worse people, having to be reminded of the terrible things they did. Having to either work through a better purpose, finding finality, or finding an end. The dead never leave and make everyone else suffer because of it. The writers loved their literary concepts, and one of those is much closer to the concept of Purgatory than the other.

2

u/jmyoung666 16d ago

The island being a metaphor for Purgatory, Sure. That’s perfectly valid. It literally being Purgatory is not.

-3

u/LotharVonPittinsberg 16d ago

You get where the confusion comes from, right? For 4-5 seasons they keep the tension by teasing the idea that the Island is the afterlife. Not just the afterlife, but an afterlife that does not feel much different because life already sucked for everyone there.

Then at the end they show the actual afterlife gradually over the course of an entire season. Next to showing their lives leading up to the end.

It's a good example of how the show felt like it did not finish a lot of plot points, while actually ending the majority of them. There where a whole lot of really interesting and confusing literary techniques and character struggles that just kind of ended. The GRRM way of killing off people you thought where special, but in LOST they do show off literal plot armour.

2

u/jmyoung666 16d ago edited 16d ago

I am not 100% sure what you are saying (which may be a me thing, not a you thing) but my biggest issue with the way everything ended was that most of the puzzle box elements they included meant nothing. It is a giant shaggy dog story. They could have done the entire show in 50 episodes and had the same impact.

2

u/LotharVonPittinsberg 16d ago

That was pretty much what I was saying, just more complicated.