The Devil's In The Ending

The fabulous Poynter.org wonders why writers have trouble ending things. The Sopranos blink to black, a cliffhanger implies continuation for no reason other than to have a sequel, or everyone expects a happy ending (especially Americans, who according to Gorbachev, require ourselves to win in the end, no matter the odds.) The wifey and I saw the new Harry Potter movie, and were disappointed in the film's ending. There's an endearing scene with Luna that has a nice "closing" feel to it, but then the film continues on to a bombastic procession of the main characters, espousing how they succeeded and won out over evil. We saw that already -- was it necessary? The ending of a book, or any story, is the last thing a reader walks away from. A book spends 600 pages getting the reader involved, then wraps everything up in 10 pages and suddenly ends (a minor complaint I had about The Diamond Age) is going to be dissatisfying, no matter how good the book is.