Jessy Chtilianova: "Dear Vina Jie-Min Prasad: A Twisted Ending"

Dear Vina Jie-Min Prasad: A Twisted Ending

By Jessy Chtilianova

            Several speculative fiction stories have had quite unique plots, but few have left me with an impressionable ending. Some of the ones that I really enjoyed were “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer and E.M Foster’s “The Machine Stops”. However, neither of these two stories had an ending that stood out to me. Two of the stories which had endings that surprised me were, “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station/ Hours Since The Last Patient Death: 0:” by Caroline M. Yoachim and “The Witch of Duva” by Leigh Bardugo. Yoachim’s story ending surprised me because I never expected a “choose your own adventure” story to have such a somber ending based on the content I’d been exposed to prior to reading this. Despite that, I think “The Witch of Duva” had by far the most well done ending because of the several different details that Bardugo factored in to make the ending make sense by the time the reader reached it.

*BEWARE Spoilers Ahead*

Who else expected the dad to actually be the one eating the girls?? And the stepmom, Karina, was protecting Nadya all along?? Whom?? What??

 
            The way that Bardugo is able to frame this story is so that it is nearly impossible to foresee the plot twist coming. Because of the choice in narration and point of view, the reader is confined to believing the information given to them, which in this case is biased, but we don’t know that. Towards the beginning of the story, the girl narrates, “the khitka might take any form, but the shape it favored most was that of a beautiful woman. Soon Karina seemed to be everywhere, bringing Nadya’s father food and gifts of kvas, whispering in his ear that someone was needed to take care of him and his children.” By juxtaposing these two sentences, the reader is inclined towards thinking that Karina is the khitka that is mentioned. Several times, Bardugo plays with the point of view that we are presented with in order to manipulate into believing certain things, but the ending definitely makes the reader pay a price for trusting the narrator's judgement.

To me, a good ending is often a memorable one, and one that is memorable is typically a surprising or interesting one. In this case, I was completely taken back by the ending and therefore it left an impression on me because I had to go back and reread several details to understand the tools that Bardugo was utilizing in order to trick me. In addition to the narration, the characterization of Karina is something that fools the reader into believing she is the witch eating the children. Karina is described as, “her eyes black, her lips turned down like peeling bark, her long, slender fingers like raw spokes of branches, stripped bare by a hard wind”. Phrases like, “slender fingers” and “eyes black”. This causes the reader to be wary of this character because the description depicts traits that we are raised seeing in evil characters in the media.

Overall, everything comes down to the ending of a story. The story builds up to it and it is the last thing that the reader remembers. “The Witch of Duva” includes several elements that are considered key in well-done endings, such as a plot twist, an unpredictable element, and a main character’s eureka moment. One standard that I personally hold for the endings of stories is that they must make the preceding events be meaningful in order for it to be a satisfying ending. My personal opinions is that endings that are left for interpretation are often too vague, and I see them as a cop out for the author from making a decision on how to finalize the ending. Bardugo’s ending for me was extremely satisfying because it made me appreciate the author’s attention to detail and it was a plot twist well done. In other stories I’ve read, the writers almost want the audience to figure out the plot twist, but the entire point of a plot twist is for us to be surprised. Instead, many plot twists are cliché and guessable and an endless amount of unsubtle cues get shoved down my throat. Ew. However, “The Witch of Duva” creates the perfect plot twist with the right amount of details, and it remains one of my favorite endings to a story.