Would it be okay to Hobbit the ending?

[radraccoon]

I just finished revising the chapter that was the ending in my first draft. The protagonist uses a spell that renders him unconscious but he hopes will deal a mortal blow to the enemy. Then I picked up in an epilogue where apparently much went on while he was out, only some of which is explained and other aspects can be implied. This is similar to how in The Hobbit, Bilbo is knocked out for much of the Battle of Five Armies and so it's not really detailed in the book.
In my second draft I continue on with what happened after the protagonist used the spell, but now that I'm revising it I kind of feel like it's unnecessary and drags out a foregone conclusion. Also, although I had a format of each chapter using one of several characters for the limited POV, these additional chapters are in 3rd person omniscient. Not sure why I decided to do that and if I continue revising they'll have to be adjusted to be more like the rest of the book.
So what do you think? Would you feel cheated out of one final battle if a writer just said "the main character didn't witness it so it doesn't matter" which seems a little disingenuous since I've been using other characters for POV already? Or after 34 chapters (totaling 108k words) would you just be like "end it already!"

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Yes, the protagonist's act is the true conclusion.

 

[georgelee5786]

Bit of both.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Do what feels right to you. Some people will love it. Some people will hate it.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

I'd say it depends on how consistent you are with your pov. If you exclusively use first person or third person limited to your protagonist, then either would be fine. Suddenly introducing other points of view can give your epilogue a very 'epilogue like' feel if you had never done it before. But if you often switch around your pov, then limiting the final battle to the pov unconscious protagonist could feel a bit jarring to the readers.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Either is fine, but I will say that you absolutely shouldn't go over the battle again with another POV in another book. That was the end of the previous book! The only reason you'd do that is if the other character's perspective of the battle was critical to the new plotline in the new book.

For example, if the main villain of The Hobbit 2 was one of the leaders of the losing armies, it would make sense to have a scene of it slipping away from the fight and swearing vengeance.

But why would you bother recounting the scene from an eagle's perspective, or from Bard's perspective? Maybe you could get away with it if they or one of the dwarves was reminiscing, as a sort of "Previously on The Hobbit!" section. (like this)But even then, it should probably contain information relevant to the new plot. It would be really weird if you had all these details about the battle in the 'Previously' section, and then none of them ended up being foreshadowing for something important. It's... a waste of words, I guess.

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So if you end up wanting to describe the battle after all, either make sure to edit it into a spot before the Protagonist wakes up, or just before it becomes relevant to the new plot.

 

[Story_Marc]

I'd say it all depends on what the protagonist's actual story is. If there is a huge battle that is going on at the same time while the protagonist resolves their own specific story/small part of this, it's fine. It sounds like a case of Little Hero, Big War, where they're just a small part of things. Or if it's some kind of literary thing where it's more about the character's emotional journey or whatever.

If they're just knocked unconscious and the final battle is meant to be the actual climax and the core focus of the story, however, then I'd say the entire concept here is flawed with both approaches. Neither solution works. It fails as a climax for multiple reasons, one of which is that it isn't proactive. I'm going to quote from Story Climax on this.

Quality Control Check #1: Proactivity

For your story climax to be powerful, for it to truly satisfy audiences, your hero must actively defeat his true antagonist (assuming, of course, that your hero is indeed victorious).

When your protagonist resolves the central conflict of your story, it may seem like you are, as you’ve promised audiences, paying off your narrative debts in full.

But if your protagonist goes about it in a passive way, you’re not.

You’re paying off your debts with counterfeit cash.

That’s because audiences expect your hero to solve his problem through his own choices and actions.

If you don’t deliver that experience, you’re going to disappoint them, and the overall quality of your climax is going to suffer…perhaps bringing down the rest of your story with it.

And with regards to casting a spell and "hoping for the best", I bring this up in proactivity:

Taking the Definitive Action

While your protagonist should share the spotlight with his comrades, there’s one shiny moment which is off-limits.

If you assign it to another character besides your hero—even if your hero has already accumulated a cornucopia full of shiny moments—you can wreck not only the climax but also your entire story.

See, it’s not enough that at the climax, your protagonist directly faces off against his true antagonist. Again, assuming your hero emerges the victor, to truly deliver on your promises to audiences, to pay off your narrative debts in full, your hero has to be the one who takes the definitive action which brings this central conflict to a close.

If you assign this action to another character, then your hero becomes the person being rescued, rather than the one doing the rescuing.

At this crucial juncture, he switches from an active character to a passive one—from dazzling to dim. The result is an unfulfilling ending with a bitter aftertaste.

Sometimes, writers make this blunder out of sheer laziness. It’s just easier for the protagonist’s associate to do the heavy lifting. For the most part though, writers bungle up this part of the climax out of ignorance or misguided intentions.

The definitive action may consume only a few words on the page. Accordingly, it may seem insignificant, especially if everything else the hero has done is epic in scope. As a result, writers can erroneously conclude that it’s acceptable to bestow the definitive action upon a neglected supporting character who needs a shiny moment of his own.

There's a lot of context for this climax I feel I'm missing to say for certain, but yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing either choice based on all I hear. Both options sound unsatisfying. If he casts a spell, it works, he passes out, and everybody else deals with what remains, that's fine, but the important thing is confirmation that he deals with the main antagonist or whatever. Know for certain he succeeds in his action before he passes out.

If do that, can just skip everything else. But yeah, I feel that's the bigger problem here.