Ending Fatigue: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

When a viewer, reader, or player finds the fiction they are perusing to be otherwise fine, but can't... quite... finish...

 

[[Arc Fatigue]] is a small-scale version, where a single story-arc goes on longer than it should. Compare [[Epic Instrumental Opener]], where the intro of a song seems neverending, and [[Leave the Camera Running]].

{{examples}}

* After the death of Cherubimon in ''[[Digimon Frontier]]'', the anime's pacing falls apart and the second half is just the main characters losing to the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]]. [[Curb Stomp Battle|Again and again and again]]. For nearly 20 episodes straight.

* ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'' either needed two fewer episodes or [[Cosmic Deadline|two more episodes]], depending on how you look at it.

* Most of the longer works of [[Rumiko Takahashi]] face this problem. The longest one that didn't was probably ''[[Maison Ikkoku]]''.

* There have been many discussion about this concerning the manga for ''[[Hellsing]].'' Some of the most disillusioned have professed the opinion that they don't even care ''how'' it ends, so long as it involves someone shutting the Major up.

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' was intended to end with the blatantly climactic Chapter Black arc, but [[Executive Meddling|editorial management]] forced Yoshihiro Togashi to extend the series to one more story arc, which starts out about an approaching war, [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot|suddenly turns into]] a short and rather uninteresting [[Tournament Arc]], and then ends with several random stories that indicate that Togashi had practically stopped caring at this point. The anime [[Adaptation Distillation|somewhat fixes things]] by cutting the random stories at the end out and making a better, more emotional series ending overall.

* The final arc of ''[[Eyeshield 21]]'' (the {{spoiler|World Youth Cup}}) was just one too many for a lot of the fans because the Devil Bats had already ''won'' the big game they'd be working towards from the start of the series and this just felt like a needless [[Post Script Season]]. It was also comparatively poorly written. The creators seemed to agree, as they wrapped the arc very hastily. It segued surprisingly well into the series finale, though.

* At the beginning of ''[[Bakugan]]'' '': New Vestroia'', the brawlers joined a resistance group that's trying to free the Bakugan enslaved by the Vestals. Then they had to stop the Vexos from destroying all the Bakugan on New Vestroia. ''Then'' they had to {{spoiler|stop the Vexos from ''[[Omnicidal Maniac|destroying the whole universe]]''}}. By the time the brawlers are {{spoiler|stopping Zenoheld's plan to end the whole universe}}, it feels like the climax had past a long time ago. This was so bad that ''New Vestroia'' doesn't really seem to end as much as transition into ''Gundalian Invaders'' by the way it was ended.

* The TV anime adaptation of ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' ended the story with the final battle between Kenshiro and Kaioh precisely to avoid this problem, as the manga had a [[Post Script Season]] set after the Kingdom of Shura arc that never truly went anywhere.

* The climax of ''[[Steamboy]]'' definitely gives the impression that the director was having too much fun piling one piece of epicness after another onto the battle and didn't want to stop. The worst bit is when the Steam Castle is brought down and we get the [[Patrick Stewart Speech]] decrying its hubris (which is even delivered by Stewart himself if you're watching the dub), and then it's revealed that the Castle will destroy London and they have to travel deep into its engine room to stop it.

 

* ''Trinity'', DC Comics' paean to how special and awesome its three flagship characters are, was stretched out over an ''entire year'' because that seems to be how long they think Epic Series should last these days.

** "The Trial of the Flash" lasted as long as it did, due to the fact that DC was modernizing itself creatively and that Cary Bates and Carmin Infantino were basically given Flash to write/draw because none of the editors wanted to give them any big time assignments due to the fact that they represented the old "50s/60s era DC Comics" style that they were trying to run away from. The whole trial storyline was designed to get the editors to see that they could be hip and relevant as far as capable of producing the long-form storylines that DC editorial wanted at the time; and DC editorial, partly because they didn't want to seem like heartless bastards, let the story run and run and run and run as long as it did mainly because no one wanted to be the one who would have to fire the two from the book. "Crisis" solved this problem, but at the same time made it worse: it was decided to keep Flash being published until Crisis On Infinite Earths #8 was published to hide the big reveal that Barry was going to die. This meant that the storyline had to be dragged out even longer so as to do so.

 

* Tarkovsky's ''The Sacrifice'' features some interesting ideas and good acting, but is so very, very drawn-out.

* Several of [[Robert Zemeckis]]'s films:

** ''[[Cast Away]]'' first climaxes when Tom Hanks' character is rescued by an oil tanker after losing Wilson. We then follow him as he returns home, reunites with his now remarried wife, sees how people take simple tools for granted, and then goes on to show the audience that ''[[Product Placement|FedEX]] [[Unstoppable Mailman|will deliver your package anywhere in the world. No matter how long it takes]]''.

** ''[[Forrest Gump]]'' just never seems to end, as you'd expect everything to wrap up once Forrest's life story caught up to the present and he reunited with Jenny, but it keeps going past that to cover {{spoiler|their wedding and her eventual death via AIDS}}. It's kind of a surprise when the credits finally do roll.

* ''[[The Strangers]]'' reaches the perfect ending ([[Nightmare Fuel|It will be easier next time.]]) and [[Get On With It Already|adds a boring and unnecessary sequence just to show us that]], [[Ass Pull|despite the impossibility of it]], {{spoiler|Kristen}} is [[Not Quite Dead]].

* ''[[The Departed]]''. Even after {{spoiler|Frank Costello dies}}, the viewer has to sit through a good half hour of tying up loose ends.

** Also, a scene of Bail Organa gathering several anti-Empire senators to create what would become the Rebel Alliance.

* The one complaint about ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' seems to be that it goes on for too long and seems to be about to end three or four times before it finally actually does. Part of the problem might be that viewers became more emotionally attached to the Joker than Two-Face. {{spoiler|The corruption of Harvey Dent is the masterstroke of Joker's plan, so the resolution with Two-Face is thematically the climax, but once the Joker himself has left the film, audiences started to lose interest.}}

* The hospital dream sequence in ''[[All That Jazz]]'' stretches on for about five separate songs and more than 20 minutes, just repeating the same message over and over again. No wonder the last song is the main character {{spoiler|choosing to die}}.

* Other film musicals that suffered this:

** The Floor Show in ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'' has good songs but doesn't do anything to advance the story, largely because there's so little left to tell by that point. The traditional [[Audience Participation]] exchange references this fact:

'''Audience:''' To the ''plot?'' }}

** In ''The Wiz'', after Evillene's defeat and the heroes discovering the Wiz's true identity, it takes three songs and a good deal of talk to get Dorothy home. Plus, they're relatively subdued compared to many of the songs that preceded them, which feels anti-climactic.

** ''[[The Sound of Music]]'' ends three times: once [[Downer Ending|when Maria leaves the Von Trapp house]], the second at the wedding, complete with soaring, triumphant choral music (even for ''SoM''), and the actual ending of the film. The first would probably not be an ending in itself (due to its downer nature in a mostly uplifting musical) if the first disc/tape didn't end there. For a while, the German release of the film ''did'' have the wedding scene as the ending. Originally the entire third act was cut because of its focus on post-Anschluss Austria.

* The ending of ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' upsets some audiences for [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|completely dropping the western facade]] in the middle of the climactic rumble. The film feels a little adrift as the characters begin running around Hollywood backlots and Los Angeles streets, though highlighting the artificiality of the genre is a running theme throughout the film.

* The biofilm ''W.'' had an seemingly fitting ending where all the actors morph into their Real Life counterparts and it ends with news footage... then the movie continues for another 30 minutes.

* By [[Steven Spielberg]]:

** ''[[Jurassic Park|The Lost World]]'' has its peculiar San Diego rampage epilogue, which seems more fit for a full-fledged sequel than the last half-hour of its predecessor.

** Munich: After Avner returns to his family there are at least two to three scenes that feeling like the film is building up to its end, only to have it keep going.

* The last third of ''[[Casino]]'' seemed to involve a lot of padding.

* Plenty of slasher movies do this by having the second half of the movie consist almost entirely of the killer chasing the [[Final Girl]] around, with no plot twists or anything to shake things up.

* [[Marx Brothers|Chico Marx's]] piano performance in ''Animal Crackers'' was an in-film example.

'''Groucho:''' I can't think of anything else! }}

* ''[[Chocolat]]'' has the climax about 30 minutes before the film ends. There are about a dozen false endings after this point, but the movie isn't actually over[[It Makes Sense in Context|until the kangaroo disappears.]]

* Japanese Film ''[[The Great Yokai War]]'' had a lengthy, exciting, and rather satisfying climax followed by an uncomfortable scene where all the colorfully-costumed youkai have left, without closure, leaving a young boy and a grown man alone in the ruins of Tokyo for several minutes in which they have an awkward conversation and the man begins to drink. With so little happening in what had been a pretty spontaneous movie up until then, all the audience has to think about are the resulting [[Unfortunate Implications]].

* ''[[Battle Royale]] 2'' does this at least three or four times.

* For being an 87 minute film, ''[[Freddy Got Fingered]]'' at least flirts with this, but also puts a fourth-wall-breaking lampshade on it: After the movie threatens to end about three times, Gord and his father [[It Makes Sense in Context|return home from Pakistan]], and they're greeted by a crowd holding up signs, one of which reads "Is this fucking movie over yet?".

"Argh! This movie has more fakeouts than ''Return of the King!''" }}

* The ''Thumbelina'' section of the film ''[[Santa and The Ice Cream Bunny]]''. It was a standalone film originally, and was repackaged for this as a story that Santa Claus is telling some children after his sleigh gets stuck in the Florida sand. It starts with a girl who enters a theme park and visits the Thumbelina section of the park where she's told the story of Thumbelina, making it a story within a story within a story within a story. The actual film is absolutely awful, and when the story ends you're really glad. We then have footage of the girl leaving the park, and we're then treated to five minutes of clips of people enjoying the park until it finally finishes. Then you have to sit through the rest of the Santa Claus plotline! Just end already!

* There are at least three points in ''[[The Box]]'' that would have been satisfactory endings to the film before the actual ending. One of these even follows the standard ending formula, with a huge climax and an obvious downward slope in the intensity afterwards, as if the film is winding down, only for it to pick up again. As a result the actual ending, which normally could have been a pretty powerful scene, ends up as kind of weak since at that point the viewer is just waiting for it to be over.

* [[The Film of the Book]] ''[[Doctor Zhivago]]''.

* ''[[Happy Feet]]'' had multiple false endings, including a deliciously [[Anvilicious]] [[An Aesop|Aesop]] about the importance of environmental conservation. Wait, I thought this was a movie about cute little penguins?

* ''[[Gangs of New York]]''.

* ''[[The Guardian]]'' goes through about three perfectly acceptable endings after the final action scene.

* ''[[Psycho]]''. Modern audiences are often frustrated that the chilling finale in the cellar is followed by several minutes of exposition by the psychiatrist, who explains everything that happened in the film. Audiences at the time did not appreciate [[Left Hanging]] endings.

* ''[[The Ring]]'' ''appears'' to suffer from this. The whole curse thing is resolved and we get a few scenes of the characters returning to their... [[Oh Crap|hey, what's with Noah's TV?]] Ultimately subverted in that this fake-out ending is probably the best-remembered thing about the film.

* ''[[Braveheart]]''. Several points where one might reasonably expect to see credits roll and be able to get on with something else.

* ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' takes this trope as far as it can be taken. (after {{spoiler|[[The Cavalry]] [[Gunship Rescue|arrives]]}}, it tries to wrap everything as quick as possible)

* ''[[Limitless]]'' has a more mild example of this trope as only about 15 minutes remain in the film after the climax. However quite a bit is crammed into that 15 minutes, giving the impression that it might've been rushed to avoid this trope.

* [[Nollywood]] movies often have this, because they are usually very long (so long that they are on two DVD's).

** In the short "A Case of Spring Fever" the main character wishes that there was no such thing as springs (long story). Coily the Spring Sprite appears and grants his wish. Turns out life sucks without springs and the man soon relents. Lesson learned, right? Nope, turns out there's an entire third act to the short with the man explaining the wonder that is Springs to his increasingly annoyed buddies.

* In ''[[The Great Escape]]'', after much build-up and planning, the actual escape starts an hour and forty-five minutes into the movie and is over fifteen minutes later. Then theres ''another'' forty-five minutes left in the movie.

* ''[[The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo]]''. Like the book, Blomkvist's legal troubles bookend the central mystery plot. After the mystery is resolved, we still spend some time resolving how Blomkvist and Lisbeth get back at Blomkvist's nemesis.

 

* [[Stephen King]] is prone to this trope. ''[[The Shining]]'', for instance, could have ended at the {{spoiler|destruction of}} the Overlook Hotel. But instead, we get another chapter set the following summer, for no particularly good reason.

* Also by King, ''[[The Stand]]'', featuring an endless epilogue about how someone gets back home after the climax.

* Salman Rushdie's ''The Satanic Verses''.

* Dean Koontz's ''[[Phantoms]]''. While a very good book overall, the battle against the Ancient Enemy is clearly the climax. Following that, the fight at the hospital feels completely tacked on. It is only tangentially related the main plot and doesn't count as a [[Twist Ending]] or [[Shocking Swerve]] because it doesn't actually change anything. It just feels like an attempt to cram one last dramatic moment into the final chapter, and it falls flat because the main plot of the story has already been soundly resolved.

* Neal Stephenson inverts this trope in his usual meta-fashion in ''[[Cryptonomicon]]''. Rather than the reader losing interest in the plot, the POV character does. The result is several months' worth of action crammed into eight pages.

** As well as being a lampshading of this trope, this is a reference to the famous commentary of England's victory over Germany in the World Cup of 1966, which went into extra time after finishing level after 90 minutes, but which eventually led to England's victory. Which possibly makes the game itself an example of this trope.

** Just about all of [[P Terry]]'s books have this, though he writes it well enough and the books are short enough that the extended endings are not unpleasant to read.

* ''[[Battlefield Earth]]''. The climactic battle against the aliens actually occurs at about 300 pages into the [[Doorstopper|1,050 page paperweight]] of a book. Once the humans have kicked the evil aliens off Earth, the rest of the book deals with the surviving villians fighting over the scraps of their empire, and some kind of legal battle over the real estate ownership status of the planet.

* In ''[[The Poisonwood Bible]]'', the epilogue is actually a sizable portion of the book. It details the lives of all of the main characters over the next thirty years. The book really ends almost 37 years later.

* ''[[Anna Karenina]]'': The eponymous character {{spoiler|commits suicide}} and the plot essentially ends at the end of book seven. There's a ''whole other hundred page book'' dealing with the spiritual awakening of secondary character Levin. It's referred to even in academic circles as somewhat masturbatory; Tolstoy had recently gone through a similar spiritual experience and wanted to spread the word.

* The ''[[Deltora Quest]]'' series has this problem. First, Lief has to find the [[Gotta Catch Em All|seven gems]] for the [[MacGuffin|Belt of Deltora]], the only tool capable of defeating the [[Big Bad|Shadow Lord]]. {{spoiler|Then collect and assemble the three pieces of the [[MacGuffin|Pirran Pipe]], the only tool capable of rescuing the people captured by the Shadow Lord. Then wake up the last seven dragons in Deltora, the only creatures capable of destroying the Four Sisters, evil objects slowly killing Deltora and created by [[Overly Long Gag|the Shadow Lord]]. Lastly, said dragons must destroy an explosion of grey poison capable of destroying Deltora, and by doing so, defeating the Shadow Lord.}}

 

* Subverted by ''[[Six Feet Under]]'', which has a satisfying (if cliched) conclusion 10 minutes before the end, but then goes on to have one of the most amazing, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]], endings ever.

** The episode "The Family of Blood" certainly has a drawn-out ending. First the Doctor dealing with the Family, then saying goodbye to Nurse Redfern, then saying goodbye to Latimer, then attending a memorial. Whether this fatigues you is personal variation.

** ''The End of Time''. {{spoiler|After absorbing a fatal dose of radiation, the tenth Doctor takes his time paying his respects to every single one of his companions apart from the ones in the Christmas and Autumn specials, (and a few people who weren't, such as the great-granddaughter of the aforementioned Nurse Redfern), then he staggers around in the snow while the Ood sing him off, then he staggers around some more in the TARDIS, and then finally -- ''finally!'' -- he regenerates.}}

*** Ten was the incarnation that was obsessed with clinging on to life at almost any cost. Of ''course'' his sendoff was going to be long.

*** [[DVD Commentary|"It does have more endings than Lord of the Rings, this, doesn't it?"]]

** {{spoiler|And even that, having what could be considered a poignant ending during said stretch (Adama sitting on the patch of land he plans to build he and Roslin's cabin on), it continues to keep going.}}

** Also the end of Season 2, when they colonize New Caprica. Especially fatiguing is the fact that the episode is actually 90 minutes long, rather than the normal hour. If you don't know this going in, you may start to wonder just when the episode ''is'' going to end.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Kabuto]]'' had it set in about episode 30. After that, expect to be facepalming as they try and fail to tie up all the loose ends.

* Even the most ardent fans of the Cook/Effy/Freddie [[Love Triangle]] in Series 3 of ''[[Skins]]'' admit that Katie and Emily's episode (which ends with Naomily's [[Relationship Upgrade]]) is a better ending than the actual finale (which ends with [[So What Do We Do Now?]]).

** The series finale is also a case of this, as the writers wanted to have an ending for as many characters as possible.

 

Sometimes, not only is a song [[Epic Rocking|unusually long]], but it will reach a point that ''seems'' like it's supposed to be the end but then keeps going. Sometimes a song will even have a fake-out ending ''intentionally''. In one of his humorous music-snarkery books, Tom Reynolds referred to this phenomenon as "Rasputin Syndrome" (after the Russian monk who famously survived [[Rasputinian Death|numerous attempts at assassination]]).

* CDs vs. LPs. They both have their advantages and disadvantages as far as sound quality goes, but CDs can hold 80 minutes of music, while it's difficult to find an LP that can hold more than 50. Musicians feel compelled to fill up the entire CD so the listener can get their money's worth, which leads to lots and lots of [[Album Filler|filler]].

* Unearth's "Grave of Opportunity" ends with a very long guitar note. The guitarist then plays a quick riff and abruptly stops. What's worse is that this song is featured as a bonus song in ''[[Guitar Hero]] World Tour''. It's a very fun song to play, but that last note is always annoying.

* [[Manowar]]'s "Blood of the Kings" has no less than ''three'' almost-endings, and still ends up fading out.

** Their 28-minute epic "Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts" ends with the same riff on repeat for several minutes while slowly fading out.

** 10 minutes? Hell, the recording of it on the companion album for ''The Song Remains the Same'' is just under '''[[Beyond the Impossible|half an hour long.]]'''

** Or the live version of "Stairway to Heaven" from "The Song Remains the Same:" the instrumental goes on and on... going right through the credits and even into several minutes of blank screen afterward. Led Zep are multiple offenders here.

** Including the live version of "Whipping Post", which goes into jam after jam for 20 minutes... and never once does he sing the one line (that's the climax of the song) properly.

*** "Mountain Jam" is '' over thirty minutes long.'' Did we really need solos from every single one of the band members?

** "I'd Do Anything for Love" is a particularly outstanding case , especially because it's twelve minutes long. To the point at which there are no less than ''three'' versions of ''I'd Do Anything for Love'', pared down to various lengths (the radio version, the music video version, and the aforementioned full-length version). Hilariously, he apparently pitched a fit because the radio wouldn't play the original version. You know, all twelve minutes of it.

** The best example is "Bat out of Hell": It's supposed to be "the greatest car crash song ever". So, Steinman has reached the seven minute mark, everyone's asking him to finish the song already and the answer is: "the crash hasn't happened yet." Cue the final three minutes.

* Later [[Jethro Tull]] songs seemed to go on forever, especially the second half of the Roots to Branches album.

** The studio version of "No Lullaby", from ''Heavy Horses''. The song could have easily faded out around the five minute mark, but the band decides to repeat the song.

** "Piborch (Cap In Hand)", from ''Songs From The Wood'', mostly due to the repetition of the opening riff throughout the piece.

** Also by the Beatles, "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." Four minute of nothing but a repeating guitar riff. Ironically [[Last-Note Nightmare|ends abruptly]], as if even the Beatles themselves were getting tired of it.

** "Hey Jude" started a whole trend of songs with drawn-out, repetitive endings ("Suspicious Minds" by Elvis, "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Atlantis" by Donovan, "Hot Love" by T. Rex)

* [[Yes]] actually enjoys toying with this trope at times. ''Homeworld (The Ladder)'' runs just over nine-and-a-half minutes in length, and switches tempo at least four times, which are timed in such a way as to subvert this trope.

** Yes bassist Chris Squire reveled in this on his lone solo album. "Safe (Canon Song)" is fifteen minutes and the final word occurs right at the five-minute mark. After this point, the song has three separate points where the ending could have come, but another lengthy orchestral passage follows. After the final choral flourish, there's an epilogue.

** Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence ends with a single chord on the keyboard which slowly fades out for about 2 minutes. After 40 minutes of [[Epic Rocking]]. Thankfully, the live version on ''Score'' shortens it to no longer than 30 seconds.

** Their 24-minute epic "Octavarium" subverts this; The song almost sounds like it's about to end after "Intervals", but then the orchestra kicks in and the song goes into the final movement "Razor's Edge". This is a subversion because "Razor's Edge" is so ''epic'' that the listener definitely won't get ending fatigue.

** "Our Truths" by Lacuna Coil. Doubly annoying because it fades into radio static, then breaks back in for another ''four seconds'' of guitar and drums that aren't even necessary.

** Also "Suspicious Minds" of [[Elvis Presley]]. And in fades back in just to repeat, for one more minute and a half, what was already looping every twelve seconds before.

** The Eight Steps by [[Joe Satriani]], fading back in to continue the end solo that was going on before the fade out.

* Half of the premise of this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GazlqD4mLvw old Dudley Moore pastiche] of a Beethoven piano sonata. Even the pianist eventually can't hide his frustration.

* ''[[Futurama]]'' has a bit of a [[Take That Me]] in Beck's guest star episode. While singing a song, a standard time-cut is shown, and Beck ends the song, then says:

* Caïna's second album ''Mourner'' suffered from this a little bit.

** "To Live is to Die" is ''much'' worse in this regard. The song is 9 minutes 48 seconds long but has an almost ''perfect'' would-be fadeout ending at 7:31, and up until then the song had a clear beginning, middle, climax (ironically [[Subdued Section|the quietest part of the song]], but it was a hell of an [[Tear Jerker|emotional climax]]), and ending. But surprise, the song starts up again and just repeats the beginning of the song for over two minutes, completely ruining the ending. The song is greatly improved by simply cutting out everything after 7:31.

** A good chunk of ''...And Justice For All'' was like this, actually— lead guitarist Kirk Hammett even recalls some shows where the audience was getting bored three-quarters of the way into the title track, which is almost as long as "To Live Is To Die." ''Master Of Puppets'' also has "Disposable Heroes," which could have easily been chopped down from eight minutes and change to about six.

** "Stupid Boy" is possibly the worst offender, as it's one of the only ballads he's done that's gotten this treatment. The song is 6:12 on the album, but only 3:46 for the radio edit.

** "Everybody" also has a lot of vamping, but with an orchestra instead.

* "I Can't Love You Back" by Easton Corbin repeats the ending riff for a ''very'' long time. The song is 4:05, and Easton stops singing at 2:42.

* Elbow's epic "One Day Like This" has made its point by four minutes in. The song is six and a half minutes long, the final three of which consisting entirely of two lines repeated over and over and over and over and over and [[Overly Long Gag|over]] again ("Throw those curtains wide / One day like this a year would see me right").

* A really serious offender is (the original with Peter Green) [[Fleetwood Mac]]'s ''Oh Well'', which is a really cool blues-rock song and then goes into a slow, acoustic instrumental that has nothing to do with the rest of the song. There's a good reason this part is skipped live. They just put it in there as a favor to their other guitarist who did it.

* [[The Doors]]' "Light My Fire" is about 300% as long as it should be. The actual singing part would be a decent song, if it weren't for the interminable riffs and Morrison yelling [[Title Drop|"light my fire light my fire light my fire"]] for what feels like 15 minutes.

** "The End" and "When The Music's Over": both are over the eleven-minute mark and not very neatly divided into separate sub-songs like "Light My Fire." They're both misguided closers to their respective albums, aimlessly plugging along the entire time.

* [[Woven Hand]]'s "Animalitos (Ain't No Sunshine)" is 14 minutes long, with at least four fakeout endings.

** "My Wave" is arguably a worse offender.

* The full version of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiZ4Pr8DXX0 Tomare!], the ending of the second season of [[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]] has at least four points that make you think it's about to end. It isn't as long as the rest of the examples above but gets bonus points for being an obvious allusion to the much reviled [[Arc Fatigue|Endless Eight episodes]]. [[Kyo Ani]] you magnificent troll....

** Several songs on 1996's ''Factory Showroom'' went on about a minute longer than they really needed to.

* [[Oasis]] had a tendency to put out perfectly good three-minute pop songs with another two minutes of repeated chorus.

** The finale of the Ninth Symphony builds toward a fast, loud climax, but gets interrupted several times by abrupt slowdowns. By this point the lyrics of the "Ode to Joy" have been exhausted, so the words from previous sections are reused.

* The Jesus Lizard's "Panic in Cicero". The song stops. The drums don't. For, like, two minutes. The majority of the song is the never-ending ending.

* Adiemus' "Cu Challain" from their fourth album, ''The Eternal Knot''. The song pauses ''twice'' where it could and should end. As such, it feels like three songs Frankensteined together.

* Handel's ''Messiah''. After two hours, the final chorus has three distinct sections to it. The third of these sections consists of ten pages of 'Amen' sung fugal style, which was written as an afterthought.

** And the iconic "Hallelujah!" segment that everyone remembers ''isn't even the end of the piece''. It's just the end of the second part of three.

* The lyrics of Milliontown by Frost* end around 17 minutes into the song. The song continues with an instrumental section, which itself has a bit of a false outro, until around 25 minutes, where it apparently ends. After about 30 seconds of silence, a short piano section is played and the song ends at about 26 and a half minutes.

* "A Pleasant Shade of Gray" by Fates Warning has a bit of this. At the very end of the song, there is a short pause followed by the sound of an alarm clock ringing for about 15 seconds.

* [[New Order]]'s "Blue Monday", especially the extended version, has both ending and starting fatigue. "Perfect Kiss" (12 inch mix) has [[Epic Instrumental Opener|an instrumental coda longer than the main song.]]

* "Even Rats" by The Slip has a rather long, repetitive wordless vocal coda.

* [[Relient K]]'s song, Deathbed suffers from this. Several times throughout the song it starts to wind down or appear to be ending, only to suddenly start into another verse. After several times of this, one starts wishing the guy on his deathbed wold just die already.

* Also, "I'm Your Captain" by Grand Funk Railroad. The song <s>isn't that bad</s> is pretty fantastic. Then you get to the halfway point and the singer keeps saying "I'm getting closer to my home." over and over again.

* The end of the song "Assassins" by Nachtmystium fits this trope. Who REALLY wants to hear an entire minute of the same synth buzzing noise over and over again?

* The song "...Before I Leave!" by Czech metal band Root. It clocks in at 19:36, but the last two-thirds of it consist of singing the final stanza repeatedly after the rest of the instruments have left.

* Done deliberately in the [[Monty Python]] song "I'm So Worried". Ending of third to last verse: "I'm so worried about whether I should go on, or whether I should just stop." Beginning of second to last verse: "I'm so worried about whether I ought to have stopped. And I'm so worried 'cause it's the sort of thing I ought to know." Beginning of final verse: "I'm so worried about whether I should have stopped then. I'm so worried that I'm driving everyone round the bend."

** Note that when the final verse starts, you hear the backing chorus ''come back into the room,'' as though even they thought it was over.

* "Pretend We're Dead" by L7. "We're deeeeaaaaaaaaaad" about 12 times, with the only variation being a very short, simple guitar solo towards the end.

* Malcolm Arnold's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5343nfOnkk "A Grand, Grand Overture"], for comic effect.

** "Like A Rolling Stone" started out as this. Dylan had about 10 to 20 pages worth of verses and considering the average length of a verse was about a minute and a half, that version probably would've taken up an entire LP. Fortunately, Dylan picked the best parts and put them together in the form we know today.

* Syd Barrett's "Gigolo Aunt" is this to some fans. While the main part of the song is considered good, the ending jam just meanders.

* [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] by [[Paul and Storm]] as an [[Overly Long Gag]] at the end of "Shake Machine" (as the separate track "Shake Machine, Part II"). The track consists of eighty-eight seconds worth of fake-out endings (and one final ending)...after Part I's already lengthy ending.

* The [[Barenaked Ladies]] song "Grade 9" has great fun with this trope, building up to two false endings before the real one.

* [[Joseph Haydn]]'s "String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 33, No. 2" aka "The Joke" sounds like a normal rondo until the end of the piece, when there's a grand pause. Then he starts the piece over, with one to three measures of silence between each phrase. This goes on for a while, and he finally ends it in the middle of a phrase. Audiences had no idea when to applaud, as the piece just kept going. Specifically, the main theme is eight measures, split into four two measure groups. The first part is played, followed by a two measure grand pause. The second and third parts are done the same way. After the fourth is played, however, there is a four measure grand pause. The first phrase is then replayed, and the song ends.

* [[Pulp]]'s "The Day After the Revolution", the final track from their album ''This is Hardcore'', comes to a natural halt at around the five-minute mark; but a held strings chord continues for the next ''nine minutes'', at which point lead singer Jarvis Cocker helpfully bids us goodbye.

** P.D.Q. Bach has ''so much'' of this. Notes held for incredibly long amounts of time, little things that are four or five times as long as they "should" be... it's one of his most common gags, behind blatantly ridiculous instruments.

** He would also end pieces on unresolved chords

** In the same vein, [[Allan Sherman]] has "The End of a Symphony," which directly addresses the tendency in classical music for long, drawn out endings. In the piece (which runs over eight minutes) he complains about this while offering multiple parodic examples.

* "Child in Time" by Deep Purple has a guitar solo, ending with all the music stopping at the 6 minute mark, then the song restarts from the very beginning, but instead of the solo has Ian Gillan screaming for 2 minutes until the song ends at 10:20.

** Live versions of "The Mule", turning an excellent five or so minute guitar/organ instrumental into a tedious nine or ten minute drum solo showcase.

* There are 4 [[Kanye West]] songs that top 7 minutes. While one of them, ''Blame Game'', averts this by having an [[Crowning Moment of Funny|absolutely hilarious]] phone call included at the end ("Yeezy taught me."), the other three suffer from this:

** Last Call, the closer from The College Dropout, lasts 12 minutes, starting with an excellent 4 minute track and spending the last 8 minutes in a monologue of Kanye's career up to that point,

* [[Alan Jackson]]'s "Long Way to Go" is a reasonable four-minute song, but it seems to go on ''forever'' because he repeats the chorus again and again and again…

** "I Still Like Bologna" also has a third verse that basically spins its wheels and only drags the four-verse song down some.

* Art Blakey's legendary rendition of A Night in Tunisia last for about 11 minutes... of which, about 2 and half minutes consists of them winding down to ending. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHKyVJ5YfNU Just take a listen for yourself.]

* [[Arlo Guthrie]]'s hilarious song Alice's Restaurant clocks in at a little over 18 minutes. It could easily have ended with the resolution of the littering plot...but then he reveals he came to talk about the draft, which is only somewhat connected to the littering plot, then starts talking about walking into a therapist's office singing "Alice's Restaurant", then gets the audience to sing it with him twice, which have to wait for the right spot to come around in the melody...

* [[Catatonia]]'s "Karaoke Queen" proclaims in the chorus that "it's just a three minute song, it doesn't last very long". Uh-huh. It's a five minute song because the outro ("ooh sha la la, ooh sha la la" repeat) goes on forever.

* "Sylvie" by [[Saint Etienne]] ''has'' to be lampshading this, with "Over and over and over and over again" about eleven times in a row - each one carefully timed to overlap the previous on the -gain of "again", resulting in "over and over and over and over a/over and over and over and over a/over and over..." etc.

 

* [[Ross Noble]] is a huge fan of this and a good sign of [[Tropes Are Not Bad]]. He'll start one topic of discussion or at least mention a story but then never actually finish it or tell the story until the very end of his routine (roughly an hour or two after the first mention) because he'll get distracted by something completely off topic and then loads of other discussions will come up. Except they all get tidied up at the end. He lampshades this constantly:

 

 

* [[Older Than Steam]]: [[William Shakespeare]] in general. The fifth act of many of his plays is simply Shakespeare rushing to tie up all the loose ends and give a resolution to every character. There are several exceptions, of course, ranging from ''Macbeth'' to ''King Lear''. However, the worst offender has to be ''Antony and Cleopatra'', where there are at least half a dozen points where Shakespeare could have ended the story, if he wasn't so obsessed with [[Kill'Em All|killing every minor and major character]] save Octavian and his entourage. The ''final'' ending of the play, when Cleopatra commits suicide, is suitably awesome, however.

* [[Richard Wagner]] was very, ''very'' fond of this trope.

*** ''Die Walküre'' has Wotan's endless farewell and the Magic Fire Music.

*** ''Götterdämmerung''. Brünnhilde's Immolation is the basis of the "Fat Lady Sings" joke. 'Nuff said.

** And then, ''Meistersinger'''s third act seems like it never ends, and at the end, it has Sachs drooling over how great German art is. At this point, singers are usually NOT in the right condition for a 10-minute monologue, after having had the longest role in opera history...

* Puccini did pay mind to this problem with ''Madama Butterfly'' by shortening its final aria and postlude.

* ''Don Carlos'''s final act. Elisabeth sings a massive aria, then an endless duet with Carlos. All while the best characters are either dead, exiled, or not present. Then thank God King Philip and the Spanish Inquisition appear and it ends very, very quickly.

* ''Don Giovanni''. A great opera, truly, but the whole thing could really have been wrapped up after the title character is dragged to Hell, with the curtain falling on Leporello's terror-stricken form. Instead we get another three arias about just deserts, and how everyone intends to get on with their lives.

 

* A number of fans have expressed such complaints regarding ''[[Bionicle]]'', though in this case, the trope is largely justified, as the writer, Greg Farshtey did intend to continue telling the story. But thing is, the main story was pretty much wrapped up mid-2010, the [[Big Bad]] killed, the planet restored, a new civilization has been formed, [[The Hero]] delivered his final enlightening speech... as for the side stories, those hadn't been tied up yet back then. However since the new story serials tried to tell completely new stories instead of attempting to give closure to the ongoing plots, some would rather see the whole thing end, fearing all the story threads would just degrade into a similar [[Kudzu Plot|mess]] that some previous serials have become, especially since the writer is going through a horrendous [[Schedule Slip]]. The main story's famous closing lines ironically foretold the situation:

 

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'' could be one of the kings of this trope. From the final battle with Revolver Ocelot to the post-credits sequence, the ending runs for an hour... and it still keeps going in a conversation sequence played during the rest of the credits.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02SIUaFXqI0 This trailer for the game] demonstrates the trope nicely. It ends nicely around the 4:45 mark, with an action scene flashing to the title and a plot-teasing voiceover about Outer Haven. Then it continues for 90 more seconds with two more stinger-endings, a poop gag, and finally a monkey scene.

** ''Legendia'' in particular is rather bad about this. {{spoiler|You enter the Big Bad's fortress, defeat all of his major subordinates, defeat the [[Big Bad]] himself, and finally main character gets closure on his childhood love interest, complete with a nice cutscene.}} But then [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]] and the game goes on. Later, {{spoiler|you enter the [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]], fight the Very Definitely Final Boss, save the damsel in distress for the umpteenth time, the credits roll...}} and then the second half of the game starts. However, it does get better from there, at least.

* ''[[.hack|.hack//G.U. Vol. 3: Redemption]]''. After a battle with shiny lights, faux computer abilities and screams (lots of them), Ovan's Avatar finally finishes its mission to reset The World and save his little sister, by sacrificing his own life, and all people who went comatose do wake up, one by one. That should be the end of the game, huh? Well, not really. All of a sudden Yata reveals that Cubia, a [[Big Bad]] from the previous series of games, suddenly resurrected (under pretty vague circumstances) and now he is threatening to destroy The World. Now you have some more 6 hours of gameplay on doing almost nothing interesting to stop it.

* Similarly, in most RTS game levels with 'Destroy the enemy' victory conditions, you get your well-deserved victory only by sending your entire, world-crushing army scouting round the entire, huge map, trying to find the last enemy tank that wandered off on its own. It's called "The last enemy syndrome". More recent games tend to judge defeat by having no buildings left, which lowers this, unless they manage to smuggle a peasant out.

** This is especially bad in [[Achron]] since not only do you have to wipeout every unit from which it is possible to recover (which includes many common military units since there are no dedicated builder units), but you have to wait until said defeat reaches the immutable past, which usually takes several minutes of real time. (Until defeat reaches the immutable past, it is theoretically possible to paradox yourself back into existence thanks to [[Time Travel]]).

** And while you're at it, everything under the Music folder that has been on Guitar Hero or Rock Band also fits here. Which makes the Rock Band 2 edit version of Prequel to the Sequel the odd one out - the entire second half of the song is removed, [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|and the fans HATED Harmonix for that]].

* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'''s endgame devolves into this for some people, possibly because {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] gets killed [[What an Idiot!|in a very stupid way]] two dungeons before the end of the game, forcing the party to climb a ridiculously large tower and fight his right hand man instead. And then the game throws one last boss fight at you in the form of [[Main Character|Chopin himself]]}}. Add to that a lengthy ending cutscene, not to mention [[Character Filibuster|the entire cast lecturing you over the end credits]], and you've got a game that seems to go on forever.

* ''[[Persona 3]]'', which alternates between a [[Dating Sim]] and a [[Dungeon Crawl]], takes place over the course of one year ingame. It can really feel like this trope, depending on when the [[Nintendo Hard]] finally breaks you.

** The [[Playable Epilogue]] "The Answer" is pretty bad too. The end is five boss fights in a row (thankfully you can save in between them) and long cutscenes.

* Revealing the identity of the villain in the final episode of ''[[Ace Attorney]] Investigations'' is a relatively simple task. Actually getting said villain to fess up is a different story entirely. The fact that the dramatic tension of the [[Villainous Breakdown]] pales in comparison to both [[The Reveal]] and the accomplice's earlier breakdown really doesn't help matters.

* ''[[Okami]]'' can get quite tiring near the end, but it all depends on how many [[Collection Sidequest|stray beads]] you missed. If you forgot about half the stray beads but still want your {{spoiler|[[Infinity+1 Sword|Infinity Plus One Accessory]]}}, you're going to have [[Sarcasm Mode|fun]] looking for [[Last Lousy Point|those tiny, unimportant, final beads.]] There are also a multitude of other [[Sidequest|side quests]] in the game, some of which are unlocked quite late, which all add up to Ending Fatigue.

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' remains fine for the final chapter, the ''translation'' however, while fine outside of the tutorial, falls completely to little tiny pieces at this time.

* The sequel to the otherwise famously excellent [[Game Mod]] ''Brotherhood of Shadow'' for [[Knights of the Old Republic]], ''Solomon's Revenge'' has this. What appears to be a fairly straightforward final battle in a climactic location ends up in an extremely long scene littered with flashbacks, self-findings and whatnot and most importantly, neither the heroes nor the villains JUST.STAY.DEAD.EVER. Whenever it seems like one side has finally been dealt a lethal blow, they still somehow manage to get up again and everything begins once more. This actually culminates in a scene where the player character has to beat down the Shadow around a dozen consecutive times under exactly the same conditions in different environments until they ''finally'' give up.

 

* Late in ''[[Aoi House]]'', the story transforms into little more than disjointed scenes with minimal context. This manages to create the whole "Just end already!" feeling while simultaneously getting a kind of "What the hell is going on now?" It doesn't so much ''end'', it just ceases to produce any more scenes.

 

 

----

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Pacing Problems]]

[[Category:Audience Reactions]]

[[Category:Ending Tropes]]

[[Category:Unexpected Reactions to This Index]]