Problems with the ending

[thymeoperator]

i just wondered...what exactly happened? i want to make sure i didn't miss something. i read it some months back and i've read so many other books after that, i'm forgetting the names, but so the 2 'goodies' are about to be drawn and quartered. (that was terrifying, btw, i was expecting a graphic description of them being pulled apart, i was relieved it didn't come!) trashcan man appears creepily falling to bits from radiation sickness. flagg is shouting at him no what are you doing, get rid of it you fool, etc.

then flag just disappears? the bomb goes off, they all explode - and stan is left saying for the sake of good prevailing, you always need a sacrifice? i was confused. is this all that happened? it's just that...well i'm really sorry because i know it's near-blasphemy to say this! :) but i was so deeply disappointed with the ending. i LOVED the book up to that point. but then it felt like it was 2 mammoth stories shoved into one and how do you conclude them both satisfactorily? because then it's just stan and the other guy wandering across the deserts for something like 100 pages, which felt like a huge detour from the dramatic events that just occurred. i don't know...i just felt like there was no real conclusion to the story, and i'd invested so many pages of reading into it for no valid ending.

am i misreading this? please do correct me if i am because i'd love to see it differently. everyone said they loved this book so much, i was expecting it to be the best thing i'd ever read, and then it wasn't.

[adrianmarley]

I've always had a problem with the ending of The Stand. The whole hand of God thing bothered me. It just seemed like SK had written himself into a corner and didn't know how to get out of it. Having said that, I've only read the "cut" version of The Stand so I don't know if the ending in the uncut version is any different. I do love this book, but the ending always made it a 4-star book for me as opposed to a 5-star book.

Adrian.

[sam peebles]

I loved the ending. I didn't feel the hand of God was a cop out, due to the fact that a lot of the story was God oriented. I think it takes some guts, and skill, to write a scene like that, and Trashcan Man fit perfectly into the downfall of Flagg.

No, they didn't hablo espanol.

[sknut70]

I loved the ending.... all the bad folks went up in flames due to trashy. and The world can move on


but of course flag cant die

[Cynkris]

I never read the cut version, only the restored so I don't know the ending differences BUT if you have never read the restored book I urge you with my whole heart to do so! I felt the ending was perfect! The Stand is my favorite book of all time. My heart broke for The Trashcan Man and I felt that in his own way he was redeemed. I agree with an above post...the entire book was God centered...the ultimate Good VS. Evil. I loved Stu and Toms journey home.

[thymeoperator]

i guess i didn't miss anything and it's just a matter of you like it or you don't, then. that's a shame - i was really hoping i'd just overlooked some vital feature. i know the story was god-oriented, but i still felt it was a cop-out. i think it's probably also because it was barely reflected on, and then it was 100-150 pages of stuff that was totally unrelated, as if what just happened never happened at all. probably if it had been structured differently it wouldn't have bothered me so much i guess. i don't know.

[michal]

I believe you mean <b>Stu</b> Redman, he's the one who travels back through the desert with Tom Cullen, not Stan (I don't think there is a Stan in the story...) and I liked that traveling, the uncertainty regarding Fran's well being. Although, I admit, that bomb seemed a bit like: I've grown tired of this tale, how can I wrap it up real quickly. I also didn't see much point to keeling the important characters with the bomb. I mean -what was the point of them going to Vegas anyway? Just to laugh at Flag? Wouldn't they be laughing harder if they would have survived?

But hey, it's still an epic tale and one of my favorites.

[sknut70]

I believe you mean <b>Stu</b> Redman, he's the one who travels back through the desert with Tom Cullen, not Stan (I don't think there is a Stan in the story...) and I liked that traveling, the uncertainty regarding Fran's well being. Although, I admit, that bomb seemed a bit like: I've grown tired of this tale, how can I wrap it up real quickly. I also didn't see much point to keeling the important characters with the bomb. I mean -what was the point of them going to Vegas anyway? Just to laugh at Flag? Wouldn't they be laughing harder if they would have survived?

But hey, it's still an epic tale and one of my favorites.

They had to be sacrifices. that is what Mother Abigal was trying to tell them on her death bed. They must head into the dessert with nothing. it went on the whole faith based thing. walk hundreds of miles with nothing, show up in the pit of danger, and have faith that it is the right thing to do. If they never went west, when Trashy showed up with the nuke, there wouldnt have been the big crowd.

I did not think it a cop out all. I liked it! Trashy getting the nuke was a result of Flaggs ultimate screw up. He liked Trashy, thought he was going to be good for his possy and it turns out that Maybe trashy was a tool of god instead.

[thymeoperator]

yes sorry, i meant stu! as i said, i've read so many all in a row, i'm mixing up all the names now. i must have had 'it' in my head when i wrote 'stan'.

yeah you just reminded me of the other reason why it bugged me - because i didn't see the point to them traveling so far just to be killed almost on arrival. it just seemed so sudden and out of nowhere. i reckon, again, i'd have even liked them going back across the desert more if it hadn't followed the bomb thing. i just didn't like that way of wrapping things up.

[thymeoperator]

ahhh...okay i like the idea that they had to be out there in order to gather the crowd together so they could all be destroyed, yes that makes sense.

[ShootDaSquirrells]

If they never went, not only would there never have been that crowd assembled but Flagg never would have made that ball of fire thing which never would have become the hand of God which never would have hit the nuke at all.

[thymeoperator]

oh yes, i have to admit i didn't understand what that was meant to be. was he intending to kill them all with the hand of god thing and it backfired? sorry, might sound dopey, it just happened so quickly in the space of one page and threw me.

[M-O-O-N SPELLS MY NAME]

I too found myself a trifle disappointed in the ending....i watched the miniseries as an adolescent when it originally aired and was dissapointed, so i had hoped that the book would give a more fulfilling conclusion. The "hand of god" did seem to be not a cop out, but definetly not the ending that this epic seemed to be headed for. 1000 pages or so, just to rap it up w/ a few paragraphs. Tom and stu's return home seemed to take me as long to read as the rest of the book, due to my dissapointment. Still an incredible book!

[doowopgirl]

i just wondered...what exactly happened? i want to make sure i didn't miss something. i read it some months back and i've read so many other books after that, i'm forgetting the names, but so the 2 'goodies' are about to be drawn and quartered. (that was terrifying, btw, i was expecting a graphic description of them being pulled apart, i was relieved it didn't come!) trashcan man appears creepily falling to bits from radiation sickness. flagg is shouting at him no what are you doing, get rid of it you fool, etc.

then flag just disappears? the bomb goes off, they all explode - and stan is left saying for the sake of good prevailing, you always need a sacrifice? i was confused. is this all that happened? it's just that...well i'm really sorry because i know it's near-blasphemy to say this! :) but i was so deeply disappointed with the ending. i LOVED the book up to that point. but then it felt like it was 2 mammoth stories shoved into one and how do you conclude them both satisfactorily? because then it's just stan and the other guy wandering across the deserts for something like 100 pages, which felt like a huge detour from the dramatic events that just occurred. i don't know...i just felt like there was no real conclusion to the story, and i'd invested so many pages of reading into it for no valid ending.

am i misreading this? please do correct me if i am because i'd love to see it differently. everyone said they loved this book so much, i was expecting it to be the best thing i'd ever read, and then it wasn't.

Did you read the uncut version? At the end Randall Flagg is surrounded by an unnamed group of people and he is trying to figure out what language they speak. I loved the desert scenes. So creepy. Especially when we meet Trashy and the Kid. Hope that helps, doowopgirl

[LauraJo]

I too was not too keen on the ending...after spending so long enthralled with the charactars, I felt a little..well, cheated. I understand the hand of god and the idea of the sacrifice, and I like the idea of Trashy, with his own befuddled ideas of redemption and atonement, causing the downfall, I just felt that for all the buildup it was somewhat lacking.
Saying that, I also didnt like the explosion that killed Nick Andros et al, but I can understand why it had to happen. I think I just get too attached to the charactars, lol, I think I could read about the Free State's struggles and the threat of the Walkin' Dude for as long as SK cared to write it!!

[hesterloli]

I first read The Stand in 1980 and found myself hooked like no other book. I was enthralled by it. Books have to end and so this one did too. I was not at all happy with the way it ended.
OK so Trashcan winds up toting a Nuclear bomb around the Southwest which, folks, doesn't really scare me all that much, but I knew scared King. Unfortunately as I was reading, I didn't put two and two together and see the ending coming before I got there. Maybe if I had the ending would have at least tickled my funny bone, but I didn't. As it was all the ending did was make me ill. The big bad bomb blew up killed everyone end of story. Whoopie! Sorry, after over 800 pp. of very enjoyable prose is it any wonder I was feeling a little ripped off?
All that said it was an ending. Now 10 years later King has decided it wasn't the end. Flagg has to live because of reasons best known by the author. I really do not think Flagg lived in his original version. I am sure that is a 1990 construct. To my understanding that just makes a bad ending worse. I have yet to finish this new ending and I may be wrong. But how King is going to reasonably convince me that Flagg escapes the Big Bad Bomb is going to be a feat of gargantuan proportion. Unless of course he does with a Deus ex machina which Annie complains about in Misery.

[thymeoperator]

well i don't personally take issue with flagg living - because he was supernatural to begin with and it's kinda like on 'buffy' when they talk about 'the first evil' and say it IS evil, you can overcome it but it will always rear its head again sooner or later, that is half the battle of life.

[costanza]

There are other worlds than these.

[caracalla]

Thanks Hesterloli, I always thought that the "Hand of God" episode was a slightly tounge in cheek Deus ex Machina to those who had dismissed Kings earlier novels as pulp.

[LunaDementia]

Thanks Hesterloli, I always thought that the "Hand of God" episode was a slightly tounge in cheek Deus ex Machina to those who had dismissed Kings earlier novels as pulp.

Ditto....I loved that he did that. It felt like "there ya go.....they keep talking about Deus ex Machina now they've GOT Deus ex Machina"...and he made it an integral part of the plot.:cool2:

[Rozza_17]

What did you think of the bit at the end when R.F wakes up again and the whole cycle starts again . . . I thought it was a god touch.

[Midten]

I liked to ending. It was very climatic and the hand of God was an epic way to destroy Las Vegas. I'm curious what would happen if Flagg returned to America (assuming he was no longer in America when he woke up) with his new followers.

[themadone06]

Well the one thing I have always wondered with the rebirth of Flagg at the end is when and where is it? Was his rebirth instantaneous or years, decades, or centuries in the future? There is nothing saying he came back directly after his "death" in the same time or even space of the stand. For all we know he was just reborn in Roland's world ;)

[BlaineThePain]

I really don't like any of Mr. King's endings, only because they are endings. Kinda wish he's books never ended. The thing with The Stand is, as Mr. King has said about many of his works, it's not about how it all turns out, it's about how you get there. The bomb going off wasn't really any major point in the book. The whole 'stand' of The Stand was the group of them going to Vegas based on the faith that some good would come of it. And also, ending the book with man made mass destruction device kinda fits, since the book began with the release of a man made mass destruction device. So Captain Tripps and the bomb were basically bookends for the great story in between. And Trashcan Man both got his revenge on the types of people who ridiculed him all his life, and he was witness to, and cause of, the biggest fire ever seen in the world. I kinda got a soft spot for Trashie.

[Teddy Duchamp]

Interesting point. But wasnt the whole centre of the reason why the whole Vegas community was in one place was because Flagg had decided to publicly pull Larry etc to pieces? If Larry and the rest hadnt gone to Vegas then that situation wouldnt have arisen? Okay Trashy would still maybe have got the bomb and it still might have went off but it was the kharma - and for me it was in some way comparing their sacrifice with the bible - a price was paid if you like.

Good stood against evil and good won (even though the heroes died they are now supposedly in a better place).

I thought the ending was very relevant to the rest of the story.

[Teddy Duchamp]

I really don't like any of Mr. King's endings, only because they are endings. Kinda wish he's books never ended. The thing with The Stand is, as Mr. King has said about many of his works, it's not about how it all turns out, it's about how you get there. The bomb going off wasn't really any major point in the book. The whole 'stand' of The Stand was the group of them going to Vegas based on the faith that some good would come of it. And also, ending the book with man made mass destruction device kinda fits, since the book began with the release of a man made mass destruction device. So Captain Tripps and the bomb were basically bookends for the great story in between. And Trashcan Man both got his revenge on the types of people who ridiculed him all his life, and he was witness to, and cause of, the biggest fire ever seen in the world. I kinda got a soft spot for Trashie.

Excellent post well put. (and I apologise for my last post - I had only read half way through the thread before posting and the conversation has now moved waaaaay on!!! lol)

[TPG555]

They (Larry, Glen, Stu and Ralph) were chosen to head out to Vegas with nothing but faith to defeat Flagg. It was a fight that did not rely on the "old ways" (bombs, guns, etc.) to win. They had to be content to sacrifice themselves for the greater good and believe in themselves and have faith in God. They made their Stand against Flagg with faith alone and were rewarded with victory. Stu fell on the way so he could report back what he saw and instill a new faith when he returned to the Boulder Free Zone.

If you notice, Glen makes Flagg look like a fool and Flagg cannnot kill Glen. Also, Flagg starts to lose control over everything as their journey starts. He comes apart at the seams. It occurs to me that if the 4 good guys didn't make the trip and instead relied on man-made weapons, Flagg would have won.

[Pucker]

There's nothing terribly revealing here. God occasionally demands his pound of flesh, world without end, amen.

As for Flagg being allowed to escape and re-invent himself somewhere (when?) else, let us not forget that Evil is God's child, too . . . and will only be eradicated entirely when God himself is destroyed.

[Delbert_Grady]

The Stand is an excellent novel and I feel the ending is nearly perfect. I have only read the original version, not the newer "complete and uncut" (I was going to read that version but was discouraged after having read that King altered certain details of the story to set it in a more modern period. Had it simply been the complete and uncut version I would have gone for it, but the whole modernizing thing turned me off.). If I had to change one aspect of the end I would have removed the part when Flagg releases the ball of energy that later seems to become what Ralph refers to as the "hand of god". I still would have had Trashcan Man arrive with the bomb, still would have had it go off and destroy everyone...I just would have preferred that either Trashie detonated the bomb himself OR that Ralph and Larry somehow managed to do it, willingly sacrificing themselves. It just seems like a cheat to have "god" or whatever save the day. The story had theretofore been a human struggle, and I would have preferred it to remain that way.

Still one of the best books ever.

[mrchaos]

The ending wasn't bad, it just was over too quick after the build up and then theres a 100 pages left afterwards that doesn't seem like it concludes much of what happened in Vegas - It was a less heartpounding ending than most other books I've read when it hit the climax then just kept going on with a completely new feel to the story - it felt weird but I loved it nonetheless

I guess it's true what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

[Teddy Duchamp]

I suppose if I was REALLY nitpicking (and as this is my favourite book it would really BE nitpicking)...................I would say that it would have been nice to hear a bit more of life in Vegas - I loved the way that folk were deserting Flagg, for instance, and that it was only loyalty was keeping Lloyd there - and even he was wavering a bit.

I thought it so interesting that although people flocked to Vegas, and Flagg, it was obvious that they werent "all bad" - just human like all of us, as obviously they could see that the society he was building was evil, well a lot of them anyway.

But how long would the book have to have been to accommodate all of the things we would have liked to see (it was a bruiser anyway!!):smile2:

[Silhouette86]

This is kind of funny. It seems that everybody(nearly everybody) thought that the ending of "Under The Dome" was rushed, which it was, no problem in my books, and "The Stand" dragged on too long in the end. I think that "IT" was the inbetween, making it perfect really, and the best of the massive novels by Stephen King. "The Stand" truly was an epic, but the end, or to put it in four words, "The Hand Of God" was just Stephen King painting himself into a corner. Stephen King is a great storyteller, but his endings-most of the time- are something to be desired.
Anyway, pro "The Stand".:y: