Fandom Gank
The Fandom Gank is a Sister Trope to the Gainax Ending, and can easily be mistaken for it. Both can be confusing, or enraging, or just plain strange.
The difference between them comes from the creator's motivation. A Gainax Ending is intentional -- it's designed to confuse or piss off the viewer, either for Grand Artistic Reasons or for Creator Lulz. A Fandom Gank, on the other hand, is unexpected -- the creator or creative team behind a property were attempting a Twist Ending or Esoteric Happy Ending that they thought would be cool and interesting, or appropriate to the setting/story, and sincerely expected the reader/user/viewer base to Get It and applaud them. However, instead of fascinating the audience and inciting discussion that enhances replay/rerun value, it ends up alienating a large portion of their fanbase, possibly to the point of being a Franchise Killer.
Expect a Fandom Gank to happen if phrases like "Avant Garde" or "High Concept" were being bandied about unironically in the writing department during development.
The important thing to remember when deciding if a work is a Fandom Gank is that the story is almost always a good one, and might well be an excellent one -- until you get to the critical last few minutes or pages. A work that sucks or confuses all the way through is just bad. It's that sudden left turn into Epic Fail at the end of an otherwise enjoyable work which creates the Fandom Gank.
Compare Intended Audience Reaction and, of course, Gainax Ending. See also What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?, which fans may ask the creators.
WARNING! There are unmarked Spoilers ahead. Beware.
Anime and Manga
- The original ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion, before the movies, has been held up as a Fandom Gank by some viewers.
- Some viewers had this kind of reaction to the ending of Vision of Escaflowne:
"Seriously? She could be the queen of a magical kingdom, and instead she goes back to high school, subway molestation, and a glass ceiling as an OL?"
- The ending of Ojamajo Doremi anime left fans wondering, "why the change in tone?" It starts out as cutesy and nothing life-threatening, but then... a Fandom Gank.
- In Happy Lesson, the reason why fans see the ending as a Fandom Gank is because Chitose and Fumitsuki found love at the end, but didn't hook up. Because of "they forgot" reasons.
- More than a few viewers of Magikano were less than thrilled that the solution to the great crisis at the end of the show was to have the characters go back in time to prevent the future from happening. Without their memories of what happened. Worse, it's implied that this has happened before -- possibly many times -- in a massive Groundhog Day Loop.
- In Vampire Princess Miyu's ending, she can't have nice things. Because her friend Chisato's brother shows up, and it turns out that he's a Shinma. Naturally, this means Chisato is also a Shinma and kills Miyu's other friends, because they know too much. Miyu then upholds her duty and kills her last remaining friend.
- Death Note fans question if the ending is a Fandom Gank, merely because Light got defeated by Near, who switched the real death note with a fake one. The young Yagami is set up to be the most brilliant criminal ever.
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt's ending left fans in tears, when Stocking said, "Surprise, I'm actually a demon."
- Basically the ending of Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Rebellion is this for many: Horuma loves Godoka so much that she steals a portion of Madoka's god powers, gives her amnesia, undoing every single thing in the past episodes, and becoming the devil.
Video Games
- The Trope Namer came out of the massive negative backlash to the end of Mass Effect 3 as it was originally released. The fandom reaction to the ending was equal parts "Huh?" and "You gotta be kidding!" and eventually grew to such a size that Bioware was forced to release DLC that tried to put a more acceptable spin on what happened. It's debatable if they succeeded, but the franchise managed to stay alive to spawn 2017's Mass Effect: Andromeda, which seems to have redeemed the property.
- The original ending of Fallout 3 spawned a similar response, but rather than a half-hearted effort like Bioware's, Bethesda's answer dramatically improved the endgame play.
- The end goal of No Man's Sky, as promoted by developer Hello Games, is to reach the center of the galaxy. Players who went to that exact spot (this takes a lot of time and effort) were shocked to discover that the end, contrary to their expectations, is simply the game zooming back all the way to its start, where another planet to explore is randomly selected, and all the tech they got from a lot of grinding breaks. What was probably meant as a "look at how much you traveled" kind of ending angered a lot of players.