Hello everyone. Recently, I was re-watching GTAV's story on Youtube and was thinking about the endings. One thing I noticed is that many people choose C and C is widely considered the Canon Ending. Which is fair but I wonder why people didn't choose A or B as much. I feel the idea behind them are pretty good but the execution is lacking but almost there to being great.
Let's start with Ending A: Something Sensible: Kill Trevor.
The idea behind this ending is actually quite solid. Trevor has been such a loose canon and liability that he's jeopardizing the future of the squad here. Franklin and Micheal are using that as a justification to kill Trevor.
And the first 3/4 of GTAV's story does a really good job in showing how there's truth to that. For example, In the mission "Three's Company", he refuses to evacuate Micheal because he hasn't killed enough IAA agents to which Micheal shouts "I knew you were a liability You Turd!". In "Caida Libre", he kidnaps Patrcia because he felt he wasn't compensated fairly by Madrazo. This results in Micheal getting excited from Los Santos and the plan to rob the Union Depository getting put on hold until after Derailed. Even the whole Merriweather Heist. The whole point of that mission was to show how Trevor wasn't suited to be a leader.
But I have 2 issues with the way Ending A itself plays out. The first is that Franklin doesn't have any reason to kill Trevor (I will discuss this more later) and that Trevor was essentially on "good behaviour" for the past couple missions. I feel this dilutes the feeling of "Trevor's going to ruin this" that is justifying the mission.
I feel it would have been better if during the past couple of missions, Trevor continues to make mistakes. Like, let's say he deviates from the objectives and picks fights with the police or Merriweather or the Triads and isn't doing a good job at keeping a low profile. You can a go a step further and have him lose some of the money along the way (it wouldn't be the first time. See the Merriweather raid). So now, that's something Weston brings up to Franklin/The Player as a possible reason when it's time to make a choice. That if he doesn't kill Trevor, he could bring down more heat and lose the money. So even if the player likes Trevor and hates Weston, they may be tempted by the Money and end up rationalizing it the same way Franklin is doing it now. A rare time when both the player and characters are in synch in GTAV's story.
Now for Ending B: The Time's Come: Kill Micheal.
The intention behind this ending is to make Micheal's story come full circle. He starts the game by betraying his crew in Prologue so he could escape the criminal life and retire with his money and keep his loved ones safe. So the game here ends with Franklin betraying Micheal so he can escape the Criminal Life and retire with his money.
But the obvious problem here is that once again, Franklin doesn't have any reason to kill Micheal. And unlike Trevor, Micheal isn't as much of a liability and loss canon that you can rationalize killing him. Plus, the story spends a good amount of time showing how Micheal and Franklin end up caring for each other. An especially poignant moment is in the "Paleto Score Heist" where Micheal pushes Franklin into the train first for his safety despite Franklin not having the money on him. Showing how Micheal cares for Franklin here.
This would be a hard ending to improve and justify given the story so far. But if I had to make suggestions, I feel the story should have had it where Franklin's life gets significantly harder as a result of Micheal's situation with the FIB and he can't really take it anymore. This is something the game tries to sorta do. The line Frankin gives afterwards is "You wake up one day, and your legs... They just give, and you just can't run anymore" but I feel it's not enough.
Like, imagine if because Franklin is associated with Micheal, there are goons sent to his house just like the mission "Meltdown". Or imagine if there were attacks on Tanisha, Tonya, Lamar and Denise. Or that Franklin now needs to keep a low profile and can't enjoy much of the money he earns now because of the situation.
So in the ending choice, Ending B could be framed by Haines as "look, you're a smart kid. But I know working with De Santa has made your life much harder. You have to deal with constant attacks on you and your family. If you kill Micheal, We promise they'll stop. We'll even pay you [extremely large amount of money] if you do it. Plus, consider this. Micheal already betrayed his crew that considered him family once to save his own skin. What makes you think he won't do the same to you?".
I think this would be sufficient to make ending B feel more enticing.
Now for the fan favourite: Ending C: The Third Way: Deathwish.
The idea here is solid on paper. The squad put aside their differences and survive an onslaught designed to kill all of them from the combined forces of their enemies. Then, they split off and kill each other's antagonists as to not get the other suspected. Like, everyone knows Franklin has beef with Stretch. If Franklin were to go and ice him, everyone would likely go after him. But since Stretch's crew don't know who Micheal is and Micheal has no connection to Stretch, if Micheal kills them, then Franklin isn't a suspect and Micheal can disappear more easily after doing the deed.
My problem here is more the timing here. The way the mission happens makes it appear that the squad could have done this at any time. That they didn't need to wait until the end to do this and it wasn't that much of a stretch to do it.
This would be hard to improve as I feel it would involve tweaks to much of GTAV's story before this but if I had to make suggestions:
The first would be the premise of the main plot. Currently, GTAV doesn't really have a "main story progressing events" and the characters don't really have goals to push towards. They kinda just do whatever the next mission says.
So the first change would be that from after the mission "Fame or Shame", Micheal's goal is to rob the Union Depository. He tells Trevor and Lester not to go kill Weston and Haines just yet because with the heists they offer them at first, they can save some of the money to use for the eventual Union Depository Heist. This would explain why Trevor wouldn't go and immediately murder Haines or something since they need to play them for the Big One.
The second change would be during the mission itself, the squad use some of the tools and gear they collected along the way like the Juggernaut Suits or Getaway Car or Helicopter. This would better indicate that they are prepared now to stand against the Deathwish.
So yeah, these are my suggestions for improving GTAV's endings. What are y'all thoughts on these?
