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{{trope}}
{{quote|'
''And I hate when things are over
''When so much is left undone"''
|'''Deep Blue Something''', "[[Breakfast at Tiffany's]]" (song)}}
{{quote|''"Get used to disappointment."''
|'''The Man in Black''', ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''}}
The special feeling that you get when you've watched a show and realized that an unusually large number of loose ends have been left dangling.
This special feeling is usually preceded by a glance at the clock, [[Spoiled
Some shows, such as ''[[The X
Occasionally the loose ends that are
See also [[No Ending]] and [[What Happened to
It should be noted that a few of these examples are merely early plot lines that are abandoned once the main plot is kicked off. Why bother tying up loose ends on one matter when they have [[The End of the World
Sometimes the result of being [[Screwed
{{examples}}
* ''[[Baccano
▲== Anime & Manga ==
** The loose ends are lampshaded in the OVAs, where [[Leaning
▲* ''[[Baccano (Light Novel)|Baccano]]!'' wraps up everything which concerns episodes 2 to 16, but the very first episode is a mash up of future events in the show, where there's a particular short scene where a blond girl slices Issac's ear off with a spear. The girl's name, Adele, is not even mentioned through the show as she would later appear in a future arc from the source material right after where the anime ends.
* ''[[
▲** The loose ends are lampshaded in the OVAs, where [[Leaning On the Fourth Wall|Carol asks Gustav why the story doesn't have a proper ending]]. Gustav's answer [[Soap Wheel|is that life always throws in another plot thread for everyone it ties up, meaning that there's going to be loose threads no matter where you stop, and now's just a good place as any to end things]]. Carol, on the other hand, thinks it's just a [[Sequel Hook]].
* ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]!'' resolves its main plot, but leaves hanging a number of plot threads, most importantly the precise origin of The Whispered and the Black Technology that seems to be encoded in their genetic structure. One might presume the new season of ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]'', "The Second Raid", would answer some of the unresolved issues. Nope.▼
▲* ''[[The Big O (Anime)|The Big O]]''. Everything is left hanging. Everything. Maybe it's the [[Serial Experiments Lain|author's love of]] [[Mind Screw]], maybe it's the lack of a followup season. No matter what, a lot is left hanging.
▲* ''[[Full Metal Panic]]!'' resolves its main plot, but leaves hanging a number of plot threads, most importantly the precise origin of The Whispered and the Black Technology that seems to be encoded in their genetic structure. One might presume the new season of ''[[Full Metal Panic]]'', "The Second Raid", would answer some of the unresolved issues. Nope.
** That said, the source material is still going; while there's no absolute guarantee it'll be dealt with, resolving these issues would require [[Gecko Ending|making something up just to end the anime]].
** The origin of The Whispered has been answered in the novels, and [[Word of God]] stated there's more of the anime coming after their conclusion.
* Also see ''[[Variable Geo]]'', and how it ''doesn't'' resolve the whole deal with the tournament it's centered upon.
* The ''[[
** Possibly, they just couldn't stomach [[It Got Worse|what was coming afterwards]].
* ''[[Genshiken]]'' - both the anime and the manga, but for different reasons. In the anime, material was added for the second series to ensure enough was left for a third series, but there's no guarantee there ever will be one to finish the job. The manga has the "life goes on"-[[No Ending]] that is so typical for [[Slice of Life]] series, so it was almost inevitable that not everything got wrapped up.
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* Mari's fate in the ''[[Blue Drop]]'' anime after {{spoiler|her loved one Hagino dies}} is never addressed, not even in the [[Distant Finale|huge time skip]] at the end of the series. This is especially egregious, since {{spoiler|Hagino}} sacrificed herself to save Mari's life, so it would at least have been nice to know how Mari dealt with it.
** [[You Do NOT Want to Know|YDNWTK.]] Mari's outlook is bleak. The Arume will be unpleasantly interested in her {{spoiler|telepathic abilities,}} and the humans will take a dim view of her {{spoiler|cohabiting with an alien spy while not blowing the whistle on the Arume's presence.}}
* A variety occurs in ''[[Koi Koi 7]]'', where everything is set up for the final battle with the [[Big Bad]]
* ''[[Spiral]]'' is a mystery series, and its main mysteries are "What are the Blade Children?" and "What happened to Kiyotaka, Ayumu's older brother?" The anime never answers either of these questions, as the manga hadn't yet by the time it finished production. An offhand comment by Kanone might or might not imply that Kiyotaka is dead in the anime continuity, and another compares the Blade Children to cuckoos, but that's it.
* Most of ''[[Piano]]'' is about Miu composing a piece for her piano recital. At the big moment, the story simply cuts off when Miu starts playing, without stating how the recital went or what happens between Miu and her love interest afterward. Sure, the main point is [[Coming of Age Story|Miu's decision about her music and her life]], but it would have been nice to get some more closure.
* A particularly infamous example of this is ''[[Ranma
** To be fair, the manga had also transmuted into a mostly episodic comedy around the same point and had just as much of a [[Non Ending]] as the anime did- in fact, the anime's ending might actually be considered better, seeing as how it ends on a fairly high note (Ranma and Akane getting along, Ranma swearing to find a cure so he can prove himself to his mother), whereas the manga ends with Ranma and Akane's wedding being an [[Blast Out|utter disaster]] and the two [[Belligerent Sexual Tension|sniping at each other]] in the same way they had been doing through the entire series.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' actually resolved its main premise, but several subplot threads were apparently lost in the rush or deemed less important somewhere between seasons as the staff had to alter their original plans due to an [[Executive Meddling|unexpected time slot change]]. They include the true nature of Suzaku's superhuman abilities, C.C.'s real name and, perhaps most frustratingly for several viewers, any sort of official explanation for the Geass.
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* ''[[Next Men]]'' ended with a cliffhanger in #30. Byrne had intended to conclude the story in a second series, but the collapse of the American comic book industry in the mid-1990s made it financially unfeasible for him to do so.
* Everybody remember Crossgen Comics? When the company folded, they promptly ended ''every single comic'' mid-story, right when the overall plot was reaching its apex. There is hope, however... Marvel Comics recently announced that they plan on publishing Crossgen titles, although whether this means backlog or new content is up for grabs.
* [[DC Comics]]' ''[[Star Raiders (
== Fan Works ==
* In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfic ''[[White Knight, Grey Queen]]'', many plans that Harry has set in motion are abandoned due to the acceleration of events after Nott's capture and interrogation: training the D.A. up to a proper force, the use of thestrals as war horses and other ideas are left half- or even un-implemented, with Hermione even commenting on this. At the end of the story, when Voldemort is defeated and the Death Eaters are wiped out, Harry has essentially become the new Leader of the Light... but every other plan and plot thread set in motion during the course of events -- the Harry/Pansy/Ginny triad, Remus' campaign for Minister, the secession of the House Elves, basically all of the revolution that Harry and the Parkinsons have been planning for most of the story -- are all left unaddressed.
==
* In-universe example: In ''[[Toy Story
* ''[[Gamera
*
* ''[[The Lion King]]'': Although an interlude in ''Hakuna Matata'' explains why Pumbaa became an outcast, nothing is said about Timon's past even though you'd expect there to be a pretty good reason for a meerkat to live outside a colony.
** In a [[Deleted Scene|deleted (and
* Another in-universe example: In ''[[
== Literature ==
* Serial mystery novel ''The Mystery of Edwin Drood'' was Left Hanging by [[Author Existence Failure]] when [[
* The Charles Sheffield sci-fi novel ''Cold as Ice'' follows this trope to ridiculous extremes as the writer tells the story of several, unconnected main characters. One of these, a standard [[Person of Mass Destruction|End of the World]] plot, is resolved in the main story. The others are swiftly, and without explanation, dealt with in the Epilogue.
** The epilogue is more of a [[Sequel Hook
* ''[[Harry Potter and
* Raymond E. Feist's ''[[The Riftwar Cycle|Riftwar Legacy]]'' series, which was left unfinished due to copyright issues, since two of the three books were novelisations on Riftwar-based video games. The events that presumably happen during the finale of that series have been referenced in later books, but it is uncertain whether the books will actually ever be written.
* ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]'', on any number of plot points. {{spoiler|Dmitri is still wrongfully in jail, convicted of a crime he didn't commit. Ivan is still suffering from insanity. The fate of Ilyusha's family is uncertain. Alyosha's fate is uncertain.}} We've all [[An Aesop|learned a lesson,]] though, so they don't need to be cleared up for us.
* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' never officially explains what the Sugar Bowl secret is, they never explain who actually burned down the Baudelaire mansion... In fact, the series ends with a note that basically says, [[Real Life]] is full of mysteries. Get over it.
* Johnny Truant's narrative in ''[[House of Leaves]]'' ends with an anecdote he once heard about a mother who spent all of three days with a newborn child doomed to die. {{spoiler|The kid in the story could be him, meaning that he's been [[Dead All Along]]; Zampanò might have wrote it in as a [[Downer Ending]] (this is suggested by the one phrase in purple); none of this is explained}}. ''[[Fictional Document|The Navidson Record]]'' ends on a [[Bittersweet Ending|higher note]], but that's [[Unreliable Narrator|little consolation]].
* The fourth book in the ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' series ends with a quite literal
** Apparently, the author's reason for splitting book four in the ''first place'' came about as an attempt to ''avoid'' this - the books were meant to do a five-year [[Time Skip]] after Book Three, but due to the overabundance of storylines and characters he felt it would be better to continue in the present and avoid the difficulty of flashbacks. As it is, the fates of several notable characters - both major and supporting - have yet to be revealed or explained in detail.
* The final book of K.A. Applegate's ''[[
* Another series by Applegate that ended with the readers left hanging was ''[[Everworld]]'', which abruptly cuts off with numerous subplots, and even the main story itself, mostly unresolved. Plot threads left dangling include: {{spoiler|Brigid, the coming battles against Ka Anor, the fate of the Sennites, how the introduction of technology will affect Everworld, who will be the next mayor of Atlantis, the Great Scroll of the Gods, etc.}}
* In ''[[The Neverending Story (
* [[Piers Anthony]] had a book called ''Mute'' which created an entire well-defined and intriguing universe, with complex characters and hinted-at half-revealed [[
== Live
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Twenty Four|24]]'' has an unfortunate tendency to simply abandon important secondary characters and leave their fates hanging; examples include Rick from season 1; Miguel, and Lynne Kresge from season 2; Andrew Paige and (quite egregiously) Behrooz Araz in season 4; and former President(!) Charles Logan in season 6.
** Which was all the more annoying seeing as the Fox network advertised that episode as the "most shocking 24 yet" (or something similar). If you're gonna milk your end of episode twist how about rewarding the viewers with a plot resolution guys.
* ''[[Now and Again]]'' - final episode of the first (and only) season ends with most of the plot strands resolved and a brand new bunch just springing out in the last five minutes.
* ''[[Star Trek:
** Assuming that wasn't a later USS ''Bozeman'' as Starfleet tends to keep reusing ship names, assuming they didn't retire the name due to the missing nature of the earlier vessel.
*** Kelsey Grammar reprised his role to provide the single word spoken over the comm by the captain of the ''Bozeman'' in ''First Contact''.
** ''TNG'' also left the fate of ''Enterprise-C'' and the [[Back
* The 2000s ''[[Battlestar Galactica
*** Many fans thought that Shelly Godfrey was just Head Six who had materialized herself to help Baltar, but The Plan shows that she was a real Six trying to discredit him. Cavil and another, cooler Six intimate that she made it too easy to discover her fake evidence because of Baltar's "dreamy hair".
* Seems like we'll never find out now what was going on with that damn spy pen in ''[[Veronica Mars]]''...
* ''[[
** But are being concluded in the comics, Book in particular gets a trilogy devoted to his past.
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' ends with an episode that makes no attempt to resolve ''any'' of its plot lines. Of course, given the many times they were Absolutely Finally About To Be Canceled and got renewed again, it could be that [[The Powers That Be]] didn't know it was for real this time. At any rate, a [[Wrap It Up]] movie, ''Stargate: [[The Ark of Truth]],'' came out and resolved the Ori plotline, and was followed up by ''[[Stargate: Continuum]]''. A third movie was announced, but seems to be stuck in [[Development Hell]].
** And a canonical MMORPG, and concepts for another series... Interestingly however, ''Stargate: The Ark of Truth'' seemed to be quite deliberate in avoiding stating 'Yes, the {{spoiler|Asgard are dead and gone we're not going to retcon that}}.' Events from the final SG1 episode remain, for instance the presence of the {{spoiler|Asgard computer core}}, but there is no reference to the {{spoiler|fate of the Asgard}}. Oddly though, they are stated as an intended playable race in the MMORPG, which takes place some time after the upcoming movies - supposedly a significant amount of time, despite, again, being allegedly canonical.
*** Takes place at the end of season six, actually. And is now possibly canceled.
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*** In all fairness, that was [[Never Found the Body|probably]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|intentional.]]
* ''[[Sliders]]'' ends similarly, with a finale that ends on a cliffhanger, with a few but not all plot threads updated if not resolved. There was also talk of a [[Wrap It Up]] movie for ''that'' one, but it [[Development Hell|never got beyond the talk phase]].
* ''[[
** The new 3-parter on Dave 10 years later does noting to resolve this, as it's set, well, 10 years later.
** Lampshaded/subverted with the end of Season 2. Season 2 ended with Dave pregnant with twins fathered by a female version of himself from a mirror universe. Season 3 opened with a Star Wars Crawl that explained it all away, but was too fast to read.
* The ending of the TV miniseries ''[[The Lost Room]]'' appears to totally forget about the fates of Detective Bridgewater and Dr. Ruber.
* The Fox sci-fi series ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]'' ended its one season run with an awful lot of loose ends left unwrapped. The show ended with one character presumed dead, two more falling in an escape pod into enemy territory, one reunited with his prisoner-of-war lover, and everyone else generally in limbo.
* ''90210'' started off as a series that involved both the old gang ([[Beverly Hills, 90210|the ones from the 90s]]) and a new fresh almost entirely unrelated (except for the half-sister of the franchise protagonist). For instance, it was revealed that {{spoiler|Dylan and Kelly had a son but then broke up, Brenda was sterile but ended up adopting, Kelly's mother relapsed in alcoholism and got cancer for which she'd die in the second season}}, but as the show changed executives, it was decided that it wouldn't rely on the old gang any longer (except for Kelly, who's now been downgraded to recurring supporting character), leaving the whole thing about {{spoiler|what happened to Donna and David, their divorce, their kid, David's flowers and message}} in the air.
* The popular sitcom ''[[Titus]]'' was canceled before they could write a proper episode to conclude the series. While the last episode was good and funny, it ended with {{spoiler|Titus being put in a mental hospital for a few months as a stipulation for everyone to avoid jail time.}}
* An episode of ''[[The Office]]'' dealt with Dwight finding a joint in the parking lot and becoming more paranoid than ever as he tries to find the culprit. By the end this morphs into Dwight covering for Michael, who had accidentally inhaled some pot smoke the night before, leaving the question of how the joint itself got there unanswered.
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* In ''[[Phil of the Future]]'', after Phil and Keely get together, the Diffys head back to the future, only to turn around for the cavemen Curtis. Then it ends...forever.
** Due to [[Executive Meddling]].
* The cliffhanger at the end of season 2 of ''[[
* Name a high-concept [[
** A lot of them eventually got [[Wrap It Up]] movies once they'd had enough time in syndication to get interest back up.
* ''[[Twin Peaks]]''. Perhaps David Lynch thought that by leaving ''every single subplot'' sadistically hanging on multiple cliffs that the fans would scream and cry for another season in which to see them all resolved. If such was the case, then the tactic didn't work as the show was canceled with little fanfare and with much grumping by the small devoted fanbase the show had.
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* ''[[Kyle XY]]'' left many plots dangling (although [[Word of God]] cleared up a few of them). In fact, the finale actually ''introduced'' [[Luke, I Am Your Father|a new plotline]] in the last few seconds of the episode!
* ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' ends with {{spoiler|John being sent into the future with a T-1001 where Kyle is the leader of the resistance and nobody has heard of John Conner. Also Sarah remains in the past, Cameron's human double is alive and John Henry the computer program which is apparently built to help the resistance has gone missing.}}
* ''[[
** This was [[Executive Meddling]]. The show had been renewed for another season, where the cliffhanger was
* The ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' episode "Harm" was rather bad with this. The detectives find that a woman may have been raped and murdered for helping refugees. They interview the widow of a man she helped, who claims her husband was murdered as well. They eventually book a doctor-slash-[[Torture Technician]] for the latter crime, but at her trial, one of the jurors faints, a mistrial is called, and the doctor's fate is left ambiguous. It appears to have been intended to make you "think" about liberty vs. security and all that jazz, were it not for two facts: first, the doctor is portrayed as an entirely negative character, and second, the plot of the initial murder is just dropped.
** There was also another episode that left whether 1. The "victim" was raped by her teacher/date (?) or 2. She was crying wolf entirely ambiguous. Said episode ended abruptly displaying the results of a survey whose participants thought 1. The man was guilty, 2. He was innocent or 3. There "wasn't enough" evidence to make a judgment on the facts displayed.
** The season eleven episode "Savior" did this. A young prostitute goes into premature labor and her baby is put on life support. The mother then runs away, giving power of attorney to Olivia, effectively giving Olivia the choice of whether the baby lives or dies. The episode ends with the baby needing immediate brain surgery and the doctors hammering Olivia for a decision that she never gives. This turns into a case of [[What Happened to
** [[Closing Credits|"Executive Producer Dick Wolf"]] are often claimed to be the most frustrating words in the English language, due to the many episodes of [[Law and Order]], and the spin offs, that end without enough resolution or sometimes any resolution at all!
* Due to [[Too Good to Last|being canceled by the second season]], ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' left a lot of stuff hanging, in spite of its sweet finale. Alfredo and Oscar were [[Put
** Even worse when they release one episode of the third season and it involves Emerson's wife appearing and disappearing again with Emerson's daughter.
* ''[[
** According to JMS's DVD commentary, the plague plot was to have been wrapped up in the second season. As with the original, the real plot was supposed to lead out of things that seemed like minor side details in the episodes that actually aired. The endgame for the Drakh war was handled in novels set more than a decade after the events of the full run of Crusade would have been over.
* The '90s AMC series ''Remember WENN'' ended with an unresolved cliffhanger after the network's new management abruptly canceled the show.
* The [[Myth Arc]] of ''[[The X
* ''[[The Sopranos]]'': Hey, what ever did happen to that [[Retired Badass|Russian guy]] in the woods?
* ''[[Deadwood]]'' was canceled after three seasons, and had been intended to run longer. As the series was based on [[Real Life|the real history of Deadwood]] in a macro sense, there was enough material and history left for at least a few more seasons. Due to the abrupt cancellation, several plotlines had to be hastily tied up, to no one's satisfaction.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'' was canceled at the end of the fourth season... which ended on a big cliffhanger and a To Be Continued...
*** Somewhat dealt with on ''[[Raising Hope]]'' where we find out that a "A local man who made list of good things to do finally finished it." Both shows are by the same creator, Greg Garcia.
* According to [http://www.platypuscomix.net/hollywood/shrunktv.html this page], the TV series version of ''[[Honey I Shrunk the Kids (TV series)|Honey I Shrunk the Kids]]'' ended its first season revealing that the leader of the Men in Black (no, not ''those'' [[Men in Black (
* ''[[
** The first, is the end of ''iThink They Kissed'' where Carly asks Sam and Freddie (who shared a [[First Kiss]], then hid it from Carly), how long it was, and if they enjoyed it. The episode ended before they answered the question.
** The second, is at the end of ''iSpeed Date'', Sam walks in on Freddie and Carly sharing a slow romantic dance in each other's arms. She walks out with saying a word. Again, it's not been brought up again, so speculation abounds on her motives and feelings for Freddie (or [[Ho Yay|Carly]]). Again, what people think is based around the shipping divide.
** Finally, ''iSaved Your Life'', where Freddie saves Carly's life, they enter a relationship. Carly tries to say she loves Freddie, but Freddie still breaks up with her because Sam put it into his head that Carly just loved that he was heroic and she's just hero worshiping. Freddie says to Carly that if she wants to be his boyfriend in the future, he'd love to.
*** None of these plot-points have been mentioned again, and a deliberate [[Cliff Hanger]] which adds even more questions, in the last episode of Season 4 means it'll be at least another 3 or 4 months before any could get possibly answered.
* An episode of ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'' had Cordell Walker rescue a girl who was trapped in a Christian cult camp, but with the last minutes of the episode devoted to Walker's rescue of Alex Cahill from the cult camp, it's unknown what has happened to the girl he was supposed to rescue.
** An even worse example is the tv movie "Trial by Fire" which ends with Alex being shot in the courthouse and lying near death. Supposedly, the producers were expecting CBS to offer them the opportunity to make further TV movies but low ratings (supposedly due to a football game preceding the movie running an hour longer than anticipated) and CBS shortly thereafter scrapping their Sunday night TV movie has made further TV movie's unlikely.
* Probably due to extra seasons being planned but ultimately being cancelled by the [[Screwed
* The final episode of [[Unnatural History]] ended with the cast in the Mongolian desert, when they hear a strange noise. Jasper and Maggie wonder what the noise was, and Henry suggests the area is "more than just dust and bones".
* [[Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior]]. The first season ends with a sadist/masochist killer team forcing team leader Cooper into a [[Sadistic Choice]] of killing the masochist or the sadist will kill one of his teammates. The choice is right down to the wire, cut to black, gunshot. But, sorry, show was cancelled the previous week, NO RESOLUTION FOR YOU!
* So much for ''[[The Cape (2010 TV series)|The Cape]]''. Didn't help they reduced the
* ''[[This Is Wonderland]]'', a brilliant Canadian legal dramedy, ran for three seasons, and ended on ''three concurrent cliffhangers''. What a drag.
* In the fourth series of ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' Guinevere and (a fake) Lancelot are [[Brainwashed]] with magic into kissing each other on the night before Gwen's wedding to Arthur, resulting in Gwen's exile and Lancelot's suicide. Although Guinevere is eventually welcomed back to Camelot by the end of the season and becomes its Queen through her marriage to Arthur, no one (including herself) ever finds out that she wasn't acting of her own volition when she cheated on Arthur, even though it would have only taken a simple conversation with Merlin (who knew that Lancelot was being controlled by Morgana) to clear up the issue (Gwen being smart enough to realize that the bracelet Lancelot gave her was probably the cause of her abrupt change in
== Video Games ==
* The [[Metal Gear]] saga surprisingly avoided this problem. The fourth game filled up pretty much all plot holes, with the exception of {{spoiler|Fortune's [[Last Stand]]}} in the second game. According to [[Word of God]] however, it was originally supposed to be played straight, with [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]] being the last game chronologically in-universe; so whether or not Metal Gear counts as an example depends on whether one wants to invoke [[Fanon Discontinuity]].
* ''[[
** The techno-soldiers themselves finally turned up in ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]''.
* Early in ''[[
** Still you think the people in Timber would have cared, erm, fancy a card game.
* ''[[
** Fortress wasn't so much as canceled as Square Enix it away from the people making it and gave it to a currently unknown group to work. The original company went bankrupt as a result and closed their doors but the project is still apparently being worked on.
* At the very end of ''[[
** ''[[Dungeon Keeper]] III'' suffered the same fate. Trailer in the second game. Still waiting...
* The ''[[Fallout]]'' series has the Followers of The Apocalypse in the first game and the very similiar tanker vagrants in the second game, both are due to bugs. Although [[Fallout: New Vegas]] does feature the former, so now we know their canon fate.
** The ''Fallout3'' expansion ''Broken Steel'' leaves Colonel Autumn's fate unresolved if you let him walk out of the purifier. Was he killed or captured, or did he leave the Wasteland entirely?
* ''[[Warhammer
** The plot line is completed as of Dawn of War II: Retribution.
* ''Dreamfall'', sequel to ''[[The Longest Journey]]'', tied up about two of the many different plot threads left hanging over the course of the game. It doesn't even tell you what happened to the main characters. To be fair, though, it is the middle part of a trilogy.
** The last installment of which will most likely never get made. It's no excuse.
* The [[Interactive Fiction]] version of ''[[The
** Also book 4 of the written version which was supposed to be a final book before the author decided to write a 5th one: we get the Earth back (destroyed at the beginning of book 1) without any explanation and most of the cast is largely forgotten. Book five ties up most of the loose ends and replaces the previous resolution with a [[Downer Ending]].
* ''[[Gears of War|Gears of War 2]]'' is ''paced'' from beginning to end by dropping the latest subplot and introducing a new one.
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** While it was resolved in the true ending, the first "bad" ending of the game ends with {{spoiler|Travis being challenged for a rank fight while on the toilet.}} To get the real ending, you have to purchase all four beam katanas.
** Well, No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle did give answers to a number of these questions. The UAA is a legitimate organization in the sequel. The identity of Travis's parents do not matter, because that was simply intended as a parody of [[Star Wars]]. Darkstar was just some guy who confused Travis for someone else.
* The original Japanese release of ''[[
* ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R.]]'' has one of your allies, Spen Jankowski, in a different area of the same operation as you. He disappears on the site. Eventually, the support guy stops mentioning him, and he never comes up again.
** You find his body in ''Project Origin''.
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* ''[[Persona 2]]'' At the end of Eternal Punishment, we see Maya recognize Tatsuya. . .but walk past, because she can't talk to him. We never hear about Maya again.
** This is actually plot relevant. She can't get any closure (or the world will be screwed again like it was for the past two games), so by extension, we will never know how the rest of her life went since she obviously decided not to repeat history again, hence why we will never have another game set in the Persona2 universe that clears things up, unless she decides to attempt [[Screw Destiny]] again.
* When ''[[Mega Man (
* The ''[[Viewtiful Joe]]'' games were planned to be a trilogy, with a character in the first game even outright telling the protagonist that he'd have two more fights for justice on his hands in the future. This made it all the more incredible and infuriating when come the end of the second game, {{spoiler|Joe's father turns out to be an evil villain, powered by a mysterious black V-Watch he acquired somehow, the superpowers and other craziness of the movies have somehow made their way into the real world, and a fortress of evil rises out of the earth in the distance, signalling the final and oh-so-presumably-epic battle and the answers to all our questions...}} but then, OH DEAR, the studio shut down, and we never got closure on any of that, or the overall story of the games.
* ''[[
* ''[[Hydrophobia (
* The original ''[[Dead Rising]]'' left off with Frank and Isabella escaping the mall and defeating an insane military general. However, Carlito spread infected orphans all over the country and Frank himself is infected. It also isn't mentioned as to whether or not Otis escaped with the survivors successfully (and there's the fact that a few of the survivors were infected anyway). The sequel pretty much confirms that the country-wide infection has more-or-less succeeded.
** ''Case West'' reveals that Frank and Isabella have survived, Frank is suppressing his zombification via Zombrex, and the two are hard at work to get to the bottom of the whole mess.
* Mio's fate in the canon ending of ''[[Fatal Frame]] III'' is left deliberately ambiguous, {{spoiler|but given [[Failure Is the Only Option|how these games tend to go]], she probably didn't survive.}}
** In the fourth game, the question of whether or not {{spoiler|Misaki}} lived is also left unanswered.
* The bizarre ending to ''[[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge]]'' has never been
* [[Return to Krondor]] had an ending that was clearly intended as a [[Sequel Hook]]. Let's see... {{spoiler|Sidi is still alive and active, and puts the amulet back together. He intends to release the Dark God into Midkemia and the amulet is clearly a part of his plan. Meanwhile, there is the matter of the Crawler still alive and and active...somewhere.}} A sequel has never been made.
* ''[[Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
* ''[[Touhou Project]]'''s ''Hisoutensoku'' has three story arcs centered around three heroines searching for the owner of [[MacGuffin|a giant shadow/silhouette]]. Only [[Miko|Sanae]]'s arc has sufficient closure - that she had, in fact, found her "giant." [[Idiot Hero|Cirno]] gets sidetracked twice by [[Trickster|Marisa]] and ends up fighting one of Alice's experimental spell cards, pegging it as her ''Daidarabotchi''. [[Iron Butt Monkey|Meiling]] gets it worse: {{spoiler|either she dreamed the whole thing, or she did see something but never even got to her first stage battle.}}
* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' has lain dormant since 2003's ''Defiance'', with the Pillars of Nosgoth still destroyed and the future of the world uncertain. Crystal Dynamics' shift to the ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' series, the series' creator's move to Naughty Dog, and the [[Author Existence Failure|death of Tony Jay]] make the chances of a resolution appear unlikely.
* The details of Nero's background in ''[[Devil May Cry]] 4'' remain very blurry. We still don't know whose son he is (claims that he's Vergil's remain [[Fanon]]), when or how he got his [[Red Right Hand]], or how much Dante knows about him… and apparently we will never know since Capcom decided to let Ninja Theory make a [[
* This trope is one of the [[Internet Backlash|many]] complaints regarding ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'''s ending - no matter what you did throughout the entirety of the series, you receive one of three endings with no closure outside of the fate of the Reapers. "Side" missions such as {{spoiler|using/sabotaging the genophage cure, whether the Quarians or Geth (or both) were saved, and the fate of the Rachni}} have no narrative consequence outside of War Assets, and the fate of your squadmates is left completely unknown.
** {{spoiler|Another common complaint is that Shepard only can survive in the Red Ending if you do ''everything'' right, but even then, its a split second of his/her torso taking a laboured breath in a pile of rubble. [[Smash Cut]] to credits, leaving his/her fate completely unknown.}}
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== Webcomics ==
* ''[[
* Pick a comic listed on [[Orphaned Series]]. Nearly all of them stopped in the middle of ongoing storylines.
* [[Rumors of War]] frequently ends a [[Story Arc]] without resolving all of its plot threads. This is generally viewed as intentional on the part of the author. Not that it's any less frustrating to be left wondering [[What Happened to
* In ''[[Sonichu]]'', they had just reached big final showdown between Mary Lee Walsh, after her defeat they release the most powerful evil being in the comic, Count Graduon, and then... the creator angrily announces he hates his greedy fanbase and swears off the internet, and abandons his website.
* As Tessa Stone hasn't been heard from in months, [[Hanna Is Not a
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[As Told
* ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'':
* The ''[[Hey Arnold]]!'' episodes "The High Life" (Gerald has no money to buy rollerblades... and at the end, because of the phone line etc. he got to sell his watches to get the money, he ''still'' has no money to buy rollerblades) and "Arnold Betrays Iggy" (Arnold is mad at Iggy for forcing him to wear embarassing clothes in public and refuses to forgive him, mirroring an earlier scene where Iggy refused to forgive Arnold for exposing his secret, and he didn't even do so).▼
** "The High Life": Gerald has no money to buy rollerblades... and at the end, because of the phone line, etc., he had to sell his watches to get the money, and he ''still'' has no money to buy rollerblades.
** Not to mention we never do find out what happened to his parents. The episode that featured their flashback ended with Arnold finding a map and rushing to his Grandpa about it. This was actually intended to be the lead-in to a second ''Hey Arnold!'' film which would resolve this question, but Craig Bartlett's departure from the show coupled with the low gross of the first film led the series to a premature end before this could be resolved. This movie ''also'' would have resolved the cliff-hanger over how Arnold would have responded when Helga, at the end of the first film, confessed her true feelings to him.▼
▲*
▲** Not to mention we never do find out what happened to his parents. The episode that featured their flashback ended with Arnold finding a map and rushing to his Grandpa about it. This was actually intended to be the lead-in to a second ''Hey Arnold!'' film which would resolve this question, but Craig Bartlett's departure from the show coupled with the low gross of the first film led the series to a premature end before this could be resolved. This movie ''also'' would have resolved the cliff-hanger over how Arnold would have responded when Helga, at the end of the first film, confessed her true feelings to him. It wasn't until the movie's release in 2017, that the aforementioned plot points were finally resolved.
* ''[[The Weekenders]]'', "Croquembouche" (about Carver in a food essay contest: Tino does his usual end-of-episode [[An Aesop|Aesop]] routine while Carver presents his essay on a French cake, which gives the ep its title, and the ep ends with people applauding Carver's speech, without showing if he won or not)
* ''[[All Grown Up!]]!'', "Izzy or Isn't He?" (when the episode ends, you realize they never mention the result of the election that forms a major part of this episode's storyline).
* ''[[
* In the ''[[
▲* In the ''[[Battle Tech]]'' animated series, the final two-part episode pits the main characters against the bad guys in a Trial of Possession for the main characters' home planet of Sommerset. When it finally breaks down to a hand to hand fight between the bad guy and the hero, it ends with the hero winning the planet... but not the people, including the hero's brother, who were all spirited off the planet. The series was not continued. However, in a novel set in the same universe, the main character shows up nearly 15 years later. He is presented with the temptation to make an unauthorized attack to retake Sommerset, meaning that the Trial of Possession (much like the rest of the series) had little or no lasting effect on the larger Battletech universe.
** Actually, the animated series is consider non-canon. One of the books notes that there was a [[Shout-Out|unpopular, short lived holovid show]] based off his actual career.
* ''[[
** [[Sequel Series]], ''[[
* ''[[Spider-Man
** A book on Spider-Man{{context}} mentioned that had the second season happened, Spidey and the resistance would save the day. The class system on the Second Earth would be abolished and Spidey would return to his own planet. Looks like they were going to go back to basics.
* The animated ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' notoriously ended halfway through with no warning. There was supposed to a second movie to wrap things up, but it never got off the ground; ''[[Return of the King]]'' was produced a few years later by Rankin and Bass, the company who made the animated version of ''[[The Hobbit]]''.
* ''[[Robotix]]'' ended with Nemesis, who had been presumed deceased, still alive in space. If the episodes had been picked up as a full series, he and the other Terrakors would have most likely returned to Skalorr to get revenge on the Protectons.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)]]'':
**
** Lampshaded again in a different episode, where a supermarket [[Ripped from the Headlines|bagging boy strike]] tangentially led to the family going on an African safari. As the family drifts down a dangerous river on a ''very'' makeshift raft, Homer wonders if the strike back home is over. Then Lisa realizes they're about to careen over Victoria Falls...as Homer continues to rant on why those bag boys don't deserve crap.
** Interestingly inverted in one episode where Homer, going crazy with [[Throwing Down the Gauntlet]] to scare everyone, ends up offending someone who ''accepts'' his challenge and he and the family are forced to flee the house while he's waiting on the lawn. At the end of the episode when they return from a failed farming venture, Homer finds his opponent still waiting for him and they end up dueling after all.
** There was another episode with Homer on an island, where he and a girl are at the top of a tower, which is about to fall into a lava flow with them in it. The episode's plot ends there as they get interrupted by a callback to the telethon fundraiser Homer ran away from in Springfield (and a joke about Rupert Murdoch being so greedy that the show's revenue from commercials and merchandise isn't enough).
* The first season finale of ''[[Xavier
* ''[[Duckman]]'''s last episode, "Four Weddings Inconceivable", ends with the titular character about to [[Wedding Day|remarry]]
* The French and Vietnmese dubs of ''[[
** One could argue that the series ''itself'' ended up like this. While the ''main'' plotline was largely resolved, the nature of the Vok aliens (who instigated some of the series' biggest episodes) and the origins of Tarantulas were not explained. This was a result of the series being [[Executive Meddling|rushed to completion so that the sequel]] ''[[
* ''[[Roughnecks
* The ending of the second season of ''[[Legion of Super
* ''[[Sonic
* ''[[The Spectacular Spider
** ''Every'' Spider-Man based animated series so far{{when}}
* "Things Change", the final episode of ''[[Teen Titans (
**
{{reflist}}
[[Category:This Might Be an Index]]
[[Category:Continuity Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Left Hanging]]
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