What series/book/story that you liked in the beginning disappointed you the most?

[Kyrell1978]

I'd have to go with the Dark Tower Series. I loved the first five books and didn't really mind the sixth, but I couldn't even finish the seventh book. He got back to his old 400 pages of nothing going on self there at the end.

[Rodin]

Strange, for me its books 4,5, and 6 that I loved the most. Probably because it felt like real progress was being made towards the end game.

I like books 1,2, and 3 and books 4,5, and 6 for different reasons.

The first 3 books are very much your standard "hero's adventure", and it manages to keep the focus squarely on the various quests the main characters are on. The next 3 have turn into more Epic Fantasy, where our heroes are becoming leaders rather than just kids trying to stay alive. There's a bigger focus on politics and things seem to be moving towards a conclusion in the next book.

And then the plot just...stops. For some reason, we have to deal with bringing every country into the fold in excruciating detail. The Seanchan come back. Jordan realizes he's running out of stuff for Nynaeve and crowd to do while Rand is taking over the world, so he gives them a glorified filler quest to find the "Bowl of the Winds". About the only good thing to come out of that plotline was Mat's fight with the gholam. And then there's nothing for Mat to do for a while, so Jordan drops a wall on him for an entire book. What.

What needed to happen was that some of the superfluous stuff needed to be cut out of book 6 in order to lead things up to a proper book 7 ramp up - either to finishing the plot there, or setting up a whizz-bang finisher in book 8 or so. Path of Daggers and Winters Heart in particular have SO MUCH FILLER in them that it's physically painful to read.

In writing this post, I learned that the WoT Wiki has assigned power ratings (in numbers) to all the channelers in the series. I despair for humanity.

[Kato]

Ender's Game. First book was great, the others less so.

Oh boy... Could I go on a rant about this... But not because of the latter books (I only read the second but I enjoyed it enough). But the original story... Started with such an interesting premise but basically did everything wrong, except maybe the overarching plot and arguably the climax / ending. But the basic deceit of this ridiculous academy and Card's idea of a genius? I barely pulled through.

I feel like many stories don't quite live up to their expectations, but I might just have too high expectations going into decent stories.
Naruto is a typical example of a story losing a lot of its charme but it was still fine at the end. Still disappointing.
Lost was this kind of for me but to be fair, I wanted the show to be a realistic tale of being stranded on an island, not loads and loads of mysticism stacked on top of each other.

[Tvtyrant]

Oh boy... Could I go on a rant about this... But not because of the latter books (I only read the second but I enjoyed it enough). But the original story... Started with such an interesting premise but basically did everything wrong, except maybe the overarching plot and arguably the climax / ending. But the basic deceit of this ridiculous academy and Card's idea of a genius? I barely pulled through.

Thank you. I always found the "children have more creativity then adults" to completely fall apart when combined with "the big innovation is genocide."

That is humanities default, it hardly requires a child to accomplish...

[Kato]

Thank you. I always found the "children have more creativity then adults" to completely fall apart when combined with "the big innovation is genocide."

That is humanities default, it hardly requires a child to accomplish...

If that was the biggest issue... But this isn't the place for that.

Here is another one... Most Final Fantasy endings. Not all of them, but about 3/4 I feel the ending was less than I hoped for. Be it sudden time loops, people returning from hell, sudden clouds from dark dimensions, mind controlling incarnations of evil... Of course, evil trees controlling nothingness are cool. (also, to some degree, game play wise, but again, not the place for it).

[Rodin]

Naruto is a typical example of a story losing a lot of its charme but it was still fine at the end. Still disappointing.

I still want to see what Naruto would have been like if Sasuke had died in that opening arc. Naruto makes this big vow not to let anyone die, and then his big rival (that he still pretty much hates at this point in the story) sacrifices his life for him. It would have been a fair bit darker of a story, I think, but it would have been more interesting than what we got.

Biggest problem I had with Naruto though is that nothing makes sense with the plot when you look even one level below the surface. Madara is this legendary ninja shrouded in myth and nobody is really sure what he's capable of. Which is cool and all, but how long ago did this "shrouded in myth" guy live? Well, Tsunade is about 50, and is the grand-daughter of Hashirama, one of his contemporaries and who is about the same age as Madara. Which places Madara as having been active anywhere from about 70-150 years or so ago. That's...not a long time. Especially with the short lives ninja tend to have making it likely to be earlier on the scale as opposed to longer. Heck, we actually DO see that Madara is alive (if old and sickly) a mere 20 or so years before the start of the plot!

And yeah, that's nitpicky, but it bugs the hell out of me. There's a lot worse, like Itachi supposedly being a "good guy in disguise" who does needlessly horrific things to his own brother, yet we're somehow supposed to root for him. Or Madara's entire end-the-world plan relying on an Uchiha coincidentally getting injured near his lair. Or Orochimaru randomly deciding he doesn't want to destroy Konoha or eat Sasuke for lunch whenever he returns.

The list goes on and on, and any in-depth plot analysis just sort of...falls apart. That was one benefit to Bleach's total lack of a plot after the Soul Society arc - you could just sort of switch your brain off and enjoy watching people stab each other with raspberries pointy sticks.

[Ibrinar]

Post-Oum RWBY was dire, as Lord Raziere says. Dropped that pretty quickly.

Too bad I only know season 1 and it was still on my list to catch up to.

[Lord Raziere]

Too bad I only know season 1 and it was still on my list to catch up to.

don't bother man. RWBY as we knew it kind of died when Oum did. what came after simply can't ever measure up in terms of animation, and the story isn't anything special or interesting. it would take a second digital animation god to even attempt to recapture the feel.

[Rynjin]

Biggest problem I had with Naruto though is that nothing makes sense with the plot when you look even one level below the surface. Madara is this legendary ninja shrouded in myth and nobody is really sure what he's capable of. Which is cool and all, but how long ago did this "shrouded in myth" guy live? Well, Tsunade is about 50, and is the grand-daughter of Hashirama, one of his contemporaries and who is about the same age as Madara. Which places Madara as having been active anywhere from about 70-150 years or so ago. That's...not a long time. Especially with the short lives ninja tend to have making it likely to be earlier on the scale as opposed to longer. Heck, we actually DO see that Madara is alive (if old and sickly) a mere 20 or so years before the start of the plot!

Well, nobody alive had ever seen Madara fight by series start, and it's not like people talked about him. Tobirama had a pathological hatred of the Uchiha, and so wouldn't talk about Madara in any terms other than "he was an Uchiha who was more evil than most of them" (you can trace EVERY BAD THING THAT EVER HAPPENS back to Tobirama, so why not this one?) and the Uchiha themselves are ultra-secretive; Itachi seemed to have some idea of what Madara was capable of in specifics, so higher ups in the Uchiha food chain probably knew his deal.

Everybody that really should logically know what Madara could do did (Tsunade at least had the generalities of "Hashirama was super badass, and Madara fought on equal terms with him").

...The real issue with Madara is his plan makes no sense even given the reveal of "it was based on an epic prank by Black Zetsu" and his impact on the story is actually very little when you look at it. In the backstory he has this vague plan and it propels Obito, and then he shows up to steal the bull**** powerup and then get hijacked by the real villain. That's it for a supposedly important character.

[Lord Raziere]

...The real issue with Madara is his plan makes no sense even given the reveal of "it was based on an epic prank by Black Zetsu" and his impact on the story is actually very little when you look at it. In the backstory he has this vague plan and it propels Obito, and then he shows up to steal the bull**** powerup and then get hijacked by the real villain. That's it for a supposedly important character.

I dunno, Madara seemed like the real villain, Kaguya just seemed like the giant space flea from nowhere you get as a bonus boss, with Black Zetus being even less important- Kaguya's impact is so distant that there is no emotional or personal connection between her and the actual events that transpire, because she is responsible for both the good and bad of the shinobi world by starting all this, long before the current generations we see in play much like prometheus. her returning is bad, but Madara was the guy who actually did all this in my mind, since Kaguya is so far before the relevant generation that she is almost meaningless to modern ninja than a doomsday being.

[rooster707]

Thank you. I always found the "children have more creativity then adults" to completely fall apart when combined with "the big innovation is genocide."

That is humanities default, it hardly requires a child to accomplish...

It’s been a couple of years since I read it, but I don’t think that’s what it was?

Spoiler: Just in case...

Show

IIRC, Ender won because of empathy, not creativity. It wasn’t “hey guys, maybe we could win the war if we killed all the aliens,” it was “I understand them, so I know how to beat them.”

[Rynjin]

I dunno, Madara seemed like the real villain, Kaguya just seemed like the giant space flea from nowhere you get as a bonus boss, with Black Zetus being even less important- Kaguya's impact is so distant that there is no emotional or personal connection between her and the actual events that transpire, because she is responsible for both the good and bad of the shinobi world by starting all this, long before the current generations we see in play much like prometheus. her returning is bad, but Madara was the guy who actually did all this in my mind, since Kaguya is so far before the relevant generation that she is almost meaningless to modern ninja than a doomsday being.

Kaguya not being any better is part of the point; Madara was so superfluous he could be easily replaced by the moon bunny with little build up and it still doesn't feel all that jarring.

[Lurkmoar]

Kaguya not being any better is part of the point; Madara was so superfluous he could be easily replaced by the moon bunny with little build up and it still doesn't feel all that jarring.

Madara was at least referenced and alluded to WAAAY earlier in the series, way back to when Sasuke defected from the Leaf. Kaguya got an ominous picture and back story, what a few chapters before she was pulled out a hat?

[Traab]

I still want to see what Naruto would have been like if Sasuke had died in that opening arc. Naruto makes this big vow not to let anyone die, and then his big rival (that he still pretty much hates at this point in the story) sacrifices his life for him. It would have been a fair bit darker of a story, I think, but it would have been more interesting than what we got.

Biggest problem I had with Naruto though is that nothing makes sense with the plot when you look even one level below the surface. Madara is this legendary ninja shrouded in myth and nobody is really sure what he's capable of. Which is cool and all, but how long ago did this "shrouded in myth" guy live? Well, Tsunade is about 50, and is the grand-daughter of Hashirama, one of his contemporaries and who is about the same age as Madara. Which places Madara as having been active anywhere from about 70-150 years or so ago. That's...not a long time. Especially with the short lives ninja tend to have making it likely to be earlier on the scale as opposed to longer. Heck, we actually DO see that Madara is alive (if old and sickly) a mere 20 or so years before the start of the plot!

And yeah, that's nitpicky, but it bugs the hell out of me. There's a lot worse, like Itachi supposedly being a "good guy in disguise" who does needlessly horrific things to his own brother, yet we're somehow supposed to root for him. Or Madara's entire end-the-world plan relying on an Uchiha coincidentally getting injured near his lair. Or Orochimaru randomly deciding he doesn't want to destroy Konoha or eat Sasuke for lunch whenever he returns.

The list goes on and on, and any in-depth plot analysis just sort of...falls apart. That was one benefit to Bleach's total lack of a plot after the Soul Society arc - you could just sort of switch your brain off and enjoy watching people stab each other with raspberries pointy sticks.

I do actually agree there. I mean, we DO canonically have at least one living person who faced madera, the iwakage back when he was a newbie nin. But even so, you would think SOMEONE would write up a history of the biggest bad guy to ever be evil. The one dude so powerful he could fight a guy who can create thousand year old forests in the blink of an eye and was known as the god of shinobi for a freaking reason. Even if only to keep track of the high bar for the uchiha clan. "This is what they could theoretically be capable of, they can use these skills if they are good enough" And when you consider that pretty much every other legendary shinobi was well known enough to give us a breakdown on their abilities, specialties, and possible weaknesses, that we didnt have that for madera is odd. Maybe it was a way to punish him post mortem. "This traitor doesnt deserve to be remembered, destroy any records of anything badass he did." After all, its not like they were going to ever see him again after hashi slaughtered his butt in the VotE.

Was sasuke ever really important to the bad guy plot? I thought he was basically a seat filler for the bijuu hunting squad. As for orochimaru and konoha, as long as they could get the bijuu did madera even care that much?

[Thanqol]

Sense8. It's strange to say because I like almost everything about it, but the way the show does antagonists is just so hamhanded. It genuinely feels like putting the protagonists through even the slightest amount of suffering caused the director physical pain, which made it extremely hard to have any sort of tension.

[Tvtyrant]

It’s been a couple of years since I read it, but I don’t think that’s what it was?

Spoiler: Just in case...

Show

IIRC, Ender won because of empathy, not creativity. It wasn’t “hey guys, maybe we could win the war if we killed all the aliens,” it was “I understand them, so I know how to beat them.”

Spoiler

Show

He literally just shoots a planet destroying weapon at their home planet in a suicide run. The empathy part was him sneaking an egg away so they wouldn't go completely extinct after mankind wiped them out.

The other officers act like blowing up the opponents home planet was a remarkable trick no one could have imagined, instead of basic human tactics 101.

[Lord Raziere]

Kaguya not being any better is part of the point; Madara was so superfluous he could be easily replaced by the moon bunny with little build up and it still doesn't feel all that jarring.

It was jarring.

Madara at least looks and feel as if he comes from this era of the crazy cycle they've been going through, he is still apart of everything tied to this whole three-generational clusterfuffle resolving around the Hidden Leaf. it makes sense in a "mythical japanese family feud" kind of way.

Kaguya and her story is from a completely different age closer to something out of the Hindu epics than ninjas. at that point it barely has anything to do with any other plot, its like watching a show about the machinations of knights and for the final villain you randomly bring back Odysseus from the dead when it was previously Evil Sir Arthur.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I actually enjoyed the tamuli

Same - I enjoy Tamuli for the same reason I enjoy the Avengers film: it feels more like a victory lap than a standalone story. The heroes are all assembled, they know what they are up against (mostly) and the enemies are little more than road bumps. They are a smoothly run machine of snark that got a reason to go on holidays to kick some ass, and they deliver.

I also second Edding's last series - except I never got past the first book.

Otherwise, I'd say practically every anime I've watched anywhere near to the end. Escaflowne, Full Metal Alchemist, Evangelion and a few others I could mention all start with great set-ups, but their endings systematically disappoint me. I suspect the problem lies with me, though, rather than with the stories themselves, so I don't blame them; I'm just slightly sad I can't get into Japanese storytelling.

Grey Wolf

[The Fury]

There's already been a few mentions of RWBY, and I'm tempted to mention it as well. Anyone who's interacted with me on the various RWBY threads knows that I've got my share of snark for that series. Though if I'm honest, I wasn't really part of the discussion when the first three volumes came out and I feel like my expectations for the series as a whole were never that high.

Besides, A Certain Magical Index/Scientific Railgun disappointed me waaay more. The series started out interesting enough, with quirky characters that applied super powers in creative ways, and Academy City was an interesting idea for a setting. Then the interesting, unique parts of the series started to take a back seat to the samey light-novel inspired elements until it was just another paint-by-numbers moe high school anime. Or the TLDR version, started out interesting but eventually got bland.

At least when RWBY was bad, it was at least bad in a unique way.

[Celestia]

Death Note. It started out as one of the best animes I had ever seen, and I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, the series died when L did. Everything after that moment was complete garbage filled with dumb characters, plot holes, and way too many contrivances. It almost felt like the rest of it was written by an entirely different person who didn't even understand the show. Such a disappointing ending to an otherwise amazing show.

[Kato]

Death Note. It started out as one of the best animes I had ever seen, and I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, the series died when L did. Everything after that moment was complete garbage filled with dumb characters, plot holes, and way too many contrivances. It almost felt like the rest of it was written by an entirely different person who didn't even understand the show. Such a disappointing ending to an otherwise amazing show.

Eh... While I agree that DN deserves a mention in this thread I had less of a problem with the events after L's death. I mean, I won't claim it got better after that point but my complaints are about the fact that through most of it the story wants us to root for a villain protagonist worse than many other villains. I'm not sure if the author intended to have half its fanbase wish for a sociopath to rule the world, but he definitely did accomplish that. (which is kind of impressive but either an accident or quite troubling)

[Mechalich]

Eh... While I agree that DN deserves a mention in this thread I had less of a problem with the events after L's death. I mean, I won't claim it got better after that point but my complaints are about the fact that through most of it the story wants us to root for a villain protagonist worse than many other villains. I'm not sure if the author intended to have half its fanbase wish for a sociopath to rule the world, but he definitely did accomplish that. (which is kind of impressive but either an accident or quite troubling)

The thing about Death Note is that it is principally a cat and mouse game between Light and his various opponents. It is not actually about the consequences of his use of the Death Note, the social changes that would probably result, or how society would actually react to any of this save in the most cursory fashion directly in service of producing a better puzzle match scenario. It is perhaps the greatest popular example in recent times of subordinating high concept to an extremely specific situational purpose. Beyond the minutiae of Light's struggle, it just doesn't have anything to say.

Due to said complete lack of examination of broader issues, Death Note basically comes down to Team White Hat versus Team Black Hat, so of course a huge chunk of the fanbase ended up rooting for the megalomaniac - there was remarkably little reason not too.

[Frozen_Feet]

Kaguya and her story is from a completely different age closer to something out of the Hindu epics than ninjas. at that point it barely has anything to do with any other plot, its like watching a show about the machinations of knights and for the final villain you randomly bring back Odysseus from the dead when it was previously Evil Sir Arthur.

The way I've put it, the Western equivalent to Naruto's ending would be ghosts of Catholic Saints appearing to congratulate reincarnations of Cain and Abel for defeating the evil Sleeping Beauty, before Cain and Abel have a grudge rematch.

[Misereor]

Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles:
Started off spectacularly, but around book 4 or 5 it started getting tedious when yet another invincible Norse horde would appear from nowhere, try to bribe Uthred into joining them, and then getting beat by him after an obligatory moral conundrum. And then of course he would get betrayed by his own people again. Then when the plot finally seems to be moving forward, he'll do the wrong thing or kill the wrong person and be back to square one again.

[Eldan]

The way I've put it, the Western equivalent to Naruto's ending would be ghosts of Catholic Saints appearing to congratulate reincarnations of Cain and Abel for defeating the evil Sleeping Beauty, before Cain and Abel have a grudge rematch.

Could you please make that? I want to see it.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Death Note. It started out as one of the best animes I had ever seen, and I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately, the series died when L did. Everything after that moment was complete garbage filled with dumb characters, plot holes, and way too many contrivances. It almost felt like the rest of it was written by an entirely different person who didn't even understand the show. Such a disappointing ending to an otherwise amazing show.

I sort of understand this, and I sort of don't. There's a sudden change there, for sure, and from what I hear not a lot of people stick through the shift in the story's focus.

When I first watched the show I had the same kind of reaction to Light and L and the early story. But after a while, I started to understand what the writer was going for. So when that same sort of thing started happening again later on, I went with it.

Spoiler: Death Note symbolism and stuff

Show

I actually really like the second half. It's depicting that although Light had won the battle, he was still nailed down by the compromises he had to make in order to get that victory. He was going to have to continue being careful in a post-L world. Both against people seeking to take up L's mantle and those seeking to take Light's position.

It's really all about how Light's ideal world is ultimately arbitrary and doomed to failure. Although Light beat L, Light will inevitably lose and whoever comes after won't continue what he's done.

[Kato]

The thing about Death Note is that it is principally a cat and mouse game between Light and his various opponents. It is not actually about the consequences of his use of the Death Note, the social changes that would probably result, or how society would actually react to any of this save in the most cursory fashion directly in service of producing a better puzzle match scenario. It is perhaps the greatest popular example in recent times of subordinating high concept to an extremely specific situational purpose. Beyond the minutiae of Light's struggle, it just doesn't have anything to say.

Due to said complete lack of examination of broader issues, Death Note basically comes down to Team White Hat versus Team Black Hat, so of course a huge chunk of the fanbase ended up rooting for the megalomaniac - there was remarkably little reason not too.

Hm, point taken. I guess it's similar to Lost, I wanted something the Setup could have delivered (an Investigation of the morality behind Kira's plan) but which was never meant to be the focus of the story. I mean, I'm still disappointed but I'll agree critizing the author for not doing what I want is poor judgement. (And going on about the Moral quandaries of villain protagonists is not the point here)

Something else (wow, I only now realize how many examples I can think of) were many Stephen King stories... Though, I guess those are cases where I did enjoy them mostly just the reveal / resolution was disappointing. But I feel like that is something People are generally Aware is a Problem with his writing, as good as it is otherwise.

[Outrider]

The Daniel Faust books by Craig Schaefer

Just got sick of how dumb the main character was sometimes. Walking into obvious traps and not taking obvious precautions in most situations

[Tvtyrant]

Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles:
Started off spectacularly, but around book 4 or 5 it started getting tedious when yet another invincible Norse horde would appear from nowhere, try to bribe Uthred into joining them, and then getting beat by him after an obligatory moral conundrum. And then of course he would get betrayed by his own people again. Then when the plot finally seems to be moving forward, he'll do the wrong thing or kill the wrong person and be back to square one again.

I have this issue as well. The development of Uthred is often reversed between books, and he never gets any better at politics or personal relationships.

[GrayDeath]

Another one to add.

The Red Rising Sage from Pierce Brown.

Loved the First Book.

But it continues in the second with the same scheme in book 2, just with higher stakes (It start with "All goes more or less well, tribulation, hard batltes, Victory, bitter betrayal, horrible end?, repeat.).

Stopped after the completely stupid End of Book 2.

Too bad, really liked the concept....