Anyone else have a problem with the ending of Into the woods? Its pretty morally disgusting

Yet isn't moral relativism one of the major themes, indeed subjects, of INTO THE WOODS? One person's giant is another person's husband, another person's mother. Are we the product of genetics or environment, i.e. is a witch's temperament innate or acquired? The characters aren't smug in their various victories, they have paid an enormous price for their expeditious decisions, especially those involving loyalty and violent conflict resolution. Lapine and Sondheim let no one off the hook, but suggest every action has a reaction, every act faces a consequence. I think the sadder, wiser, lonely characters at the end are sobered and pragmatic.

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Updated On: 11/13/14 at 09:26 AM

It's made explicitly clear that the Giant's Wife will destroy the kingdom and will not be assauged unless Jack is turned over to her to be killed. Further- the Giant's death is depicted as accidental, and that while his Wife is kind, he is not.

The story deliberately ends on a morally grey note - after all, the group is all complicit in the death of the Giant's Wife.

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Updated On: 11/13/14 at 09:31 AM

And of course After eight will see the movie so he can complain about it endlessly here.

"Yet isn't moral relativism one of the major themes, indeed subjects, of INTO THE WOODS?

Yes, indeed. Moral relativism. The bane of our age, and the bad guys' best friend.

Actually, it should properly be called immoral relativism.

Jack is a child, a young teen, hardly a man with adequate experience and perspective to entirely transcend very temporary relief and a resulting need to own his success. But the ending is rife with subtext, everyone is fighting for abject survival, to make sense of the seemingly senseless. When this damaged, orphaned boy speaks with even a tinge of bravado, he reveals his painful, indeed tragic plight. Look a little deeper. It's not a cartoon. Perhaps try to find some compassion for his youth; the creators certainly did.

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Jack is old enough to know to not kill or steal. The witch was right, she should have fed him to the giant's wife. Or atleast make him apologize to her.

I have more problems with Les Miserables. Javert is just trying to do his job and he gets treated poorly. Valjean gets out of jail for stealing and then goes and steals again, this time from a Church! Valjean is the hero and Javert is the anit-hero. It's morally disturbing.

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...and in the end isn't INTO THE WOODS only a musical fable anyway?...much like the Bible, ITTW's fables are not meant to be real but meant to help others learn lessions...BECAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR is the main lession to learn here...

and BTW go see a shrink already...:)

Someone wasn't cast in their high school production, and hasn't quite gotten over it yet.

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D2... you need to first be in High School to be bitter about not being cast. What I cannot believe is that Broadway World is available on Leap Frog products.

I have great admiration for the ending of Into the Woods. I don't find it at all morally disgusting but rather, like life, morally complex and deeply troubling in the choices people have to make deep into the woods.

To find it morally disgusting is to relate to its surface facts as if it were a melodramatic good-v-evil musical. It is not that kind of show. Not by a long shot.

The audience is compelled to not be at all happy that the Giant's Wife is dead. Nor is the audience compelled to find the Giant's Wife unsympathetic. We are supposed to consider questions of community and sides and difficult choices and to understand that "no one is alone," that someone is on everyone's side - "they - as well as we - are not alone"

It's an extraordinary and extraordinarily demanding call for understanding, and presents a great many arguments. People make mistakes and do a great many things to survive, individually and communally, deep into the woods of historical wrongdoing.

You decide what's right. You decide what's good.

Updated On: 11/14/14 at 10:50 AM