This week in class we brought up the question of closure and whether or not Phantastes gives any type of closure with its ending. For the most part the class agreed that yes, it did have a good finite ending but, when thinking on it over the weekend I began to question whether or not any Fantasy book truly has closure. Google defines closure as a sense of conclusion or resolution at the end of an artistic work. I don’t think fantasy has this as at all, there is always room for a sequel or prequel or an extension of the place or people in other ways. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is a perfect example of a good ending without closure. In the end the ring is destroyed and everyone (Gollum not included) lives happily ever after in a sense. Then came the Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, these books came after the original story and still have so much to do with it. Yes the original story was over but there is so much that can be unexplored in a fantasy world that I truly don’t think there ever is closure within fantasy.
Another is C.S Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe was a great story with an epic battle and a resolution at the end of it, they saved the kingdom, ruled it then went home with lessons well learned. But still there were six other books related to this one world where so much goes on. To me there is no real ending to a fantasy book because the secondary world still goes on, people or creatures live and die, they have lives worth telling and valiant events can happen that we have no clue of because we haven’t read about it. In fantasy closure simply does not exist.
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