Literature / Endgame Trilogy

The Cover of the first book of the Trilogy

"Earth. Now. Today. Tomorrow.

Endgame is real. Endgame has begun.

The future is unwritten.

What will be, will be."

Endgame is a 2014 young adult book trilogy by James Frey.

Long ago, an alien race known as "Makers" descended upon earth and gave civilization to humans in exchange for gold. When they left, they promised to return some day and when they do, a game will initiate that will determine the fate of mankind, the titular Endgame. Ever since, the twelve original lines of mankind have been preparing for this event. Each line always has a player available, an adolescent between the ages of 13 and 19. Players are trained in all sorts of skills, combat and survival tactics to ensure their line's victory should Endgame ever start at some point.

The story begins when twelve meteor strikes on seemingly random places of earth signal the start of Endgame. The players gather at the starting point of Endgame and the race for the fate of man begins...

Each book also contains a tie-in ARG. Various clues and codes lead readers to a similar hunt with a large cash prize promised at the winner.

After the release of the original trilogy, three additional mini series were released that expanded on the Endgame universe:

• The Training Dairies: A collection of personal stories about each player before the Calling.
• The Zero Line Chronicles: The story of the titular group and its attempt to stop Endgame before it even starts.
• The Fugitive Archives: A romance developing between a Minoan girl and a Cahocian boy whose paths collide on a common mission

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the series contains the following tropes:

A - D

• Action Girl: All female players are an example of this.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Let's say no one is sad that Baitsakhan died.
• Anyone Can Die: There is no plot armour. Even characters that get a lot more attention than the others are killed off. Looking at you, Sarah,Jago, Chiyoko and Christopher.
• Affably Evil: Kepler 22b is willing to let countless people die and suffer, all for the sake of Endgame, yet despite that, he still maintains a gentle, polite look. he congratulates the players and calmly explains the game's rules.
• All Deaths Final: No magic or scientifical revivals - "When death comes, it comes".
• Anti-Hero: Apart from Hilal, even the generally heroic players don't hesitate to use every trick in the book, especially murder, to further their goals.
• Arc Words: "What will be, will be"
  • "Endagame is coming, Endgame is here"
• Attack on the Heart: Kala is stabbed into the heart by Baitsakhan. However, it doesn't kill her immediately.
• Ax-Crazy: An Liu is the only legitimately insane player, plagued by constant nervous ticks and doesn't care at all about his line's survival, only how he can cause the maximum amount of death.
• Badass Normal:
  • It is even explained in the intro that none of the players have any special abilities, rather, it is their inhuman training that allows them to pull off stunts that put elite military units to shame.
  • Christopher also counts, since he managed to track and tag along players without dying while being a normal high school senior.
• Battle Couple: Sarah and Jago
• Big Bad: The Makers are a mysterious alien race that consider themselves as masters of the human race and seek to eradicate the majority of it via the Endgame.
• Big Damn Heroes: Alice saves Shari from Baitsakhan's cousins, who are in the middle of torturing her. A villainous example occurs in the second book, where Baitsakhan kills Alice just as she was preparing to deliver a Coup de Grâce on Maccabee.
• Bittersweet Ending: While Endgame is eventually stopped, Kepler 22b is killed and no lines are eradicated still, a lot of people and players died, Abaddon still hit earth and massively altered the global climate and there is a whole species of Makers out there who god knows what are planning to do next, now that one of their own is dead.
• Body Horror: An makes a necklace from Chiyoko's remains in the second book to help calm himself down.
• Call to Adventure: The Calling is essentially a really violent version of this.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Baitsakhan. His answer to everything is to torture and kill it, until it no longer bothers him and feels proud about it afterwards.
• Catchphrase: "Peace and Blessings" for Kala and "I play for Death" for An.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: 75 % of the main cast dies.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: It is thanks to intense, brutal training that players can do stuff like catching arrows in mid-air, jump between moving cars and come out unscratched from fighting a squad of elite soldiers.
• Colony Drop: The Makers have the ability to spontaneously summon meteors and manipulate their trajectory so that it completely disregards physics. This is how they initiate the Calling and how they plan to eventually destroy earth by crashing the massive asteroid Abaddon into it.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: When a player dies, it's bound to be gory. Some examples include being blown apart by a grenade, being crushed by massive debris, getting your throat ripped out by a bionic arm, getting sniped... not to mention the countless ways innocents died when the meteors hit in the Calling.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Any time a non-player attempts to fight one, the result is always this.
• Damsel in Distress: Aisling briefly becomes one at the third book, when she is captured by Kepler 22b.
• Dating Catwoman: since everyone is supposed to kill each other, any relationship between players of different lines is essentially this. Like Sarah and Jago or An and Chiyoko
• Deadly Euphemism: Every time a player dies, it's usually followed by the phrase "his/her Endgame is over"
• Deal with the Devil: What the Maker's price for offering civilization to humans appears to be. In exchange for that, the Makers would one day destroy mankind and allow a select few to survive, all through Endgame.
• Died Standing Up: Chris, right after he is shot by Sarah.
• Dies Wide Open:
  • Chris dies with his eyes wide open, looking at Sarah
  • Sarah expects to be shot by a man any moment, while she is hanging out of a window. She deliberately keeps her eyes open, because her boyfriend Chris died this way. However, Jago rescues her in the last moment.

E - H

• Excessive Mourning: Sarah after being forced to kill her boyfriend Christopher.
• The End of the World as We Know It: What the Maker's ultimate goal is.
• Energy Weapon: the Maker weapon Sarah and Jago retrieve from the Cahokian settlement is a needle-like device that shoots energy beams when charged
• Fatal Reward: The Training Diaries feature it. Hayu Marca kills Julio instead of paying him 100 000 $ for shooting Jago's girlfriend Alicia.
• Freudian Excuse: An explains to Chiyoko how the brutal abuse he suffered from his family as part of his training led to his current attitude and nervous ticks.
• Gorn: All over the place, as far as YA book series go, Endgame is definitely one of the most brutal.
• Groin Attack: Jago does this to Maccabee with his fists.
  • Maccabee cannot seem to catch a break from these. In the second book, Alice delivers a brutal one to him that literally leaves him in tears
• Heroic BSoD: Sarah goes into one when she's forced to kill Christopher.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Christopher allows himself to be shot by Sarah, so that the bullet will kill An too, who has him held hostage. It doesn't work sadly, as An survives.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Baitsakhan is killed when Maccabee activates a hidden command in Baitsakhan's bionic hand that causes it to latch onto his throat and squeeze until it is torn apart
  • An is eventually killed by the nuclear bomb suicide vest he brought to kill Kepler 22b, but failed
  • Kepler 22b is killed by Maker technology the Cahokians kept around

I - L

• Improbable Infant Survival: Played straight with little Alice Chopra, Shari's daughter, but possibly averted in the Calling as there were definitely bound to be children among all these victims of the meteor impacts. .
• Jerkass:
  • Baitsakhan again.
  • Jago seems to be this at first but is more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Killed Off for Real: Any character death is never negated. As the intro explains "when Death comes, it comes"
• Knight Templar: Kala Mozami thinks of herself as doing the Maker's work, or as her line calls them, Anunnaki.
• Love Triangle: Between Sarah, Jago and Christopher. It is resolved quite brutally in the first book.
• MacGuffin: The three keys Kepler 22b requires to complete Endgame. Earth Key, Sky Key and Sun Key. A plate required to access the Earth Key is a prominent MacGuffin of the first book

M - P

• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Sarah and Jago, much to the outrage of his parents.
• Mercy Kill: Chiyoko does this to Kala, as she's lying down, engulfed in flames
• Mind Manipulation: The Makers possess these abilities. they can broadcast thoughts among them and players and even take control of them when they deem it absolutely necessary, like Kepler 22b did to Baitsakhan when he refused to provide anything other than his name in the Calling
• Mood Whiplash: Near the end of the third book, Sarah is having a serious conversation with her mother that finally lets her forgive herself of Christopher's death and she and Jago triumphantly step out of their plane, ready to go face Kepler 22b....and then they're quickly sniped off by An
• More Dakka: Jago at a few occasions.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Abaddon, the massive asteroid the Makers want to use to end mankind, that shares a name with the Angel of the Abyss from the biblical revelation
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sarah manages to acquire the Earth Key, but in doing so, she starts a countdown to earth's destruction, as Kepler 22b states. That, and also exposing the lines, the players and the Makers to the general population, thus creating panic and chaos across the globe.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Any fight between players can result in this. Most notably, Alice vs Maccabee in Sky Key
• No-Sell: the field Kepler 22b surrounds himself with in the third book negates all possible damage done to him
  • Shari is captured and tortured by Baitsakhan's cousins at one point in the first book. however, due to her superior mental training, she doesn't react to anything the boys throw at her.

Q - T

• Sacrificial Lion: James Frey used Markus's really early death to establish right away how serious Endgame is.
• Saving the World: What Aisling, Hilal, Shari, Sarah and Jago want to do in the third book, after realizing the Makers are full of crap.
• Star-Crossed Lovers:
  • Jago and Sarah
  • Chiyoko and An
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Kala's death; She is stabbed in the back, then the heart, then set on fire and THEN finally dies with a slit throat.
• Together in Death: Jago and Sarah, after they are both shot in the same chapter. When Hilal finds the corpses later, it is stated that her arm is laid over his waist.
• Too Dumb to Live: Sure, Marcus, go grab that bomb. I'm sure it won't blow up in your face.

U - Z

• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Jago being ugly is constantly mentioned. His girlfriend Sarah, however, is described as inhumanly pretty.
  • Jago is ugly and menacing Jago's description
  • It means "ugly" - Jago about his nickname "Feo"
  • You are so fucking ugly. - Maccabee to Jago
• The Un-Reveal: Despite all the buildup and the conspiracies we never find out the actual purpose of Endgame
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Markus died right at The Calling
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: An Liu is a ruthless, cruel murderer who kills everything in his way. despite that, he suffered brutal abuse at the hands of his family that left him permanently damaged and he lost Chiyoko, the only girl who showed him love and calmed down his ever-present ticks
• Would Hit a Girl: Every male player.
• Yandere: An is obsessed with Chiyoko. He would do everything for her including murder and violence.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Sarah is killed off right after she made peace with herself over killing Christopher, an issue that tormented her for the entire second book

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