I must admit that I was taken off guard by the incredibly dark ending of Asterios Polyp. Then again, should I really have been surprised? It’s not like any of the works we have investigated this semester left me feeling cheerful. We started off with Books of Hours in the beginning of the semester, which was not overtly dark. However, as we progressed in our discussion, darker elements of the illuminations started to reveal themselves. Moreover, we began discussing the underlying themes of many of the Books, including social injustices and other societal letdowns. We moved on to My Name is Red, which was riddled with the murder of people and the betrayal of longstanding notions of what it meant to illuminate – a dark theme indeed. Hoping for a change in pace, we moved to prints. One could only imagine how much more dark things would become. Our studies of Goya led us to Los Caprichos, a set of prints filled with dark humor and grotesque images. As if the prints themselves weren’t enough, the film Goya en Bordeaux was quite disturbing. So, we moved on to the study of collages – a style of art that I had cherished since my childhood. Surely, the collages in Max Ernst’s Une Semaine de Bonte will provide relief from the dark nature of the works we had studied thus far…right? As it turned out, the collages were eerily similar to Goya’s work, packed with grotesque imagery and filled with societal critique. Next up was Amphigorey, a collection of works with cats on the cover! How could a book with cats on the cover have anything dark inside? Cue The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Alas, we moved to Asterios Polyp. The narrative started off a little shaky but generally progressed to what was shaping up to be a happy ending. And then:
When I returned from class today, I cracked open The Arrival to get an idea of how we would be ending the semester. I had high hopes for a work free of any dark themes. Admittedly, I only skimmed a few pages, but I have a feeling I will be left with the same sentiment. Looking back on the semester thus far I think that the most cheerful work that we investigated was The Secret of Kells. Considering how this movie involves the entire town being ransacked and burned, one could only imagine what the remainder of the semester entailed.
Will the dark themes ever stop? More like will the dank memes ever stop amirite?
https://media4.giphy.com/media/DezzcCir7YRDa/200_s.gif
This comment… I just… I don’t know.
I also found the ending of the book quite surprising. I expected from how the narrative was progressing that it would end happily, and was completely unprepared for that image you posted. Looking back on the content though, David Mazzucchelli did set us up for the ending earlier in the book with the man in the diner. He did really well at tying together seemingly unimportant details to make a smooth flowing narrative.
I was definitely caught off guard by the ending as well. I felt like it was a complete left turn from the rest of the story and where the narrative seemed to be going. At first, I just sort of thought of it like the terrible ending of an otherwise decent anime:I simply wrote it off as an “oh, that was good, they [the writers] just didn’t know how to end it (and ended up doing a shitty job).” Then I realized that this probably wasn’t the case. It’s probably never the case, but I’m clinging to the belief because I refuse to believe that the poor endings of some anime (and shows in general) were planned from the beginning (looking at you, Tokyo Ravens). But anyway, I think it’s important to look at what the meaning of that left turn is. Clearly it wasn’t just a “fuck it, I’m done” moment, so there must have been a reason. That said, I still can’t figure out that reason with this one. Let me know if anyone figures it out.
I actually kind of expected these type of ending. After looking at our syllabus at the beginning of the year I had good understanding where the themes were going. I think it has more to do with plot. Without tragedies there is no attentive audience.