The Best Ending (no spoilers)

Have you ever read a book where the plot goes something like this: an unassuming main character discovers they’re the chosen one. They have some sort of special quirk. They’re thrown against an impossibly powerful foe, someone with experience well beyond their years. And somehow, against all odds, the unassuming main character prevails. Sound familiar?

As a fan of SFF, this formula is pretty standard. I came of age during a boom of this trope — Harry Potter, Divergent, The Hunger Games, Mistborn, Shadow and Bone. I devoured them, crumbs and all. They all had their own fantastical ways to reach victory, but there was one story in particular that changed me. The kind of change that lingers twenty years later — the kind where you still find yourself wishing this kind of magic was real. Especially with the kind of real-world evil we’re watching unfold today.

Most of these examples are YA stories readable by adults, which often means the protagonists are young. Even in adult fantasy, the heroes are usually inexperienced. Realistically, there’s no way some baby-faced upstart is going to take down a brutal, cutthroat enemy with a lifetime of power and cruelty behind them.

To make it more lopsided, these newbie heroes are the good guys. They’re weighed down by morals and ethics, while still scrambling to master some skillset — magic, swordsmanship, dragon-riding, whatever. Meanwhile, the villains? They’re unburdened by conscience. Either they lack morals altogether, or their ethics are so twisted they’re unrecognizable. Not to mention they always seem to have endless money, armies, and resources while our hero’s out here fighting with a chipped heirloom sword in a potato sack.

And what are these villains doing with all their unyielding power? Turning the world to absolute shit. The poor grow poorer, hungrier, more scared. Communities fall apart, neighbors turn on each other. You get the picture.

And the young, determined hero? They have no hope. No real chance of winning. The outlook is bleak.

Until that special thing happens — that hidden power awakens and turns the tides. And as readers, we know it’s coming. Sometimes we hit the “I believe” button and just go with it, because we’re here for the journey. For the character growth. For the payoff.

Then there was this one story… this one ending.

(no specifics — I’m speaking in they/them/hero/villain here)

The protagonist tried. They trained and fought to the bitter end, but honestly — even with their special power, they were no match. Realistically — yes, even in a fantasy book — they were never going to win by force.

So they changed the way they saw the problem. Instead of trying to physically overpower the villain, they found a way to make them see. To make them understand the full breadth of harm they’d done to the world. Yes, magic was involved. And then — wham! — the villain was hit with the full comprehension of it all. Gifted with a conscience, morals, ethics, and… remorse.

The villain had been so blinded by hatred, fear, and disgust that they hadn’t recognize what they’d become over the decades. The hero stripped away that blindness, forcing them to see the destruction they’d wrought with raw, vulnerable eyes. The villain felt it all at once — remorse, guilt, shame — and it destroyed them from the inside. Because anyone with empathy, conscience, or basic decency would see such evil and rebuke it. Their soul crumbled.

And just like that, the villain became human again. And the hero won.

I think that’s the best ending. The hero didn’t win by luck, or by a last-minute fluke of power, or because the villain couldn’t resist monologuing. They won because they made the villain have a damn conscience!

There are so many evil people out there — especially in positions of power. We read about them daily, as our news apps ping us with alerts. I studied them in depth during my graduate work (if you’re interested, Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century by Nils Gilman & Jesse Goldhammer is an eye-opener). It’s prevalent. It’s hidden. It’s blatant. It’s everywhere.

And it’s easy to feel like the world is spinning out of control, like there’s nothing we can do. I look at some of these people and wish, with every fiber, that I had that spell. That I could force them to see the harm they’ve done — and feel it. Gain a conscience. Maybe then, they’d stop. How else could they be doing what they’re doing if not without a conscience? If not due to lost humanity?

Unfortunately, that spell doesn’t exist.

But maybe the root idea — the intent — still holds. Maybe the people at the very top are too far gone. But there are plenty of others being led by fear, hate, and disgust — people who’ve stopped feeling. Stopped understanding their connection to how they’re equally answerable for the unconscionable things happening around them. And that’s where we come in. Those of us who still have empathy, compassion, mercy, understanding — we have to help them see. Help them feel.

And maybe, just maybe, their soul will connect with humanity again.

Not through magic, but through persistence. Through stories, conversations, connection. Through refusing to look away. And if even one person sees the world differently because we didn’t give up on them, well... that’s a kind of magic too.

And that’s the best ending.