Back when I was bringing the Oracle for Hire years to its end, I was thinking a lot about how to come up with a memorable ending. Endings are, in my opinion, the most important part of any story, and failing to stick that landing will cause disappointment at best and feelings of betrayal at worst. But there’s also the pressure to come up with something creative, and in those early days of considering the ending of Dominic’s story as a seer, there was an ending I was seriously considering.
That it was all a vision.
I can feel your eyes rolling as you read that. “It was all a dream” is one of the most notorious cop-outs in modern storytelling, and the revelation that the story you were invested in never actually happened is one of those aforementioned betrayals to the reader.
While it would have been thematically appropriate, given that Dominic’s story revolved around him having visions and dreams, I knew I couldn’t do it and have any of you trust me ever again. If I was going to commit to the “it was all a vision” idea, I would have had to take it a step further, which leads to the second part of this ending I was seriously considering.
It would have involved not truly ending the Oracle for Hire years at all, but continuing it after short break as Dominic Deegan: Second Sight.
I toyed with the idea of retelling the Oracle for Hire story, only now Dominic truly knows what’s going to happen next, and he would have to determine what events he was meant to preserve and which he would have to prevent. Could he stand by and watch tragedies unfold now that he knows how they play out, or would he be tempted to change the course of foretold events by trying to improve them?
It was an ambitious idea, but if I’d gone ahead with it I’m pretty sure it would have destroyed me.
The whole reason I ended the Oracle for Hire years was to prevent creative burnout, after being in one setting for over a decade and having to keep track of every narrative decision I ever made. Staying in that setting, and now being doubly-constrained by narrative decision I ever made and having to meticulously plan how affecting them differently would change things before and after over an eleven-year span? I’m certain I would have crashed and burned, and the comic would have fizzled out with no resolution.
I am very happy I never went ahead with that ending. I’m glad I stepped away from this world for seven years to make Star Power, because returning to it with a clean slate and total creative freedom going forward was the right call. Giving Dominic and Luna a definitively happy ending after all the crap I put them through, and giving you, my readers, that same definitive ending after such a long run was the right thing to do for you.