"Where Are They Now?" Epilogues in Literature.
- The epilogue of the last Age of Fire book is primarily focused on Wistala and her mate DharSii expecting eggs, but the narration also touches on what's happened to all the other living characters.
- Beauty Queens combines this with a Dance Party Ending.
- The book of 2 Timothy, in The Bible, which is chronologically the last piece of writing from the apostle Paul, contains a moving passage in which Paul, awaiting execution, writes his friend a reflective farewell. He then goes on to tell Timothy where all his various friends, who have appeared at the end of his letters, are now. Most are ministering in various churches across the Mediterranean area "Titus is in Dalmatia... Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus" a couple have fallen away from Christianity, and one is "ill in Miletus". This serves as a 'where are they now' epilogue for Paul's generation of church leaders, alongside the passing of the baton on to Timothy and those he must lead.
- The epilogues of Dave Barry's novels Big Trouble and Tricky Business end with a series of short paragraphs explaining what happened to various characters. He likely borrowed it from his friend Carl Hiaasen, who uses it in many of his novels.
- Erich Maria Remarque's novel The Black Obelisk. Most of them died in World War II.
- Dead End Job Mysteries: The first book ends in this, covering both the main protagonists and the assorted side characters. Later books downplay it, but most of the characters still get explanations about what happened to them afterward.
- Dear America:
- Every book (and those of its Staff Counterpart series My Name Is America) ends with one of these. Unusually for a kids' series, they aren't always happy endings.
- Same goes for the series' Canadian counterpart, Dear Canada.
- The last book in the Deltora Quest series ends with one of these, and describes Leif's reign with the exact same wording as King Adin's reign, described in the first chapter of the first book.
- The final pages of The English Patient, where it's written the characters are doing after the end of the war.
- In the last chapter of Eric, or Little by Little, two Roslyn alumni get together to talk about the fates of their former schoolmates.
- The Civil War novels by Michael and Jeff Shaara (Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, and The Last Full Measure) end with the major figures in each having a paragraph about their later lives or legacy. Measure features a lengthier sequence before the blurbs recounting the last days of Lee, Grant, and Chamberlain.
- The Golden Road by L. M. Montgomery ends with a scene where Sara Stanley (a girl who is always portrayed as slightly otherworldly and magical) receives the inspiration of prophecy and predicts the futures of all of the main characters. Hints dropped over the course of the novel confirm them to be true.
- In Stephen King's The Green Mile, it's not the epilogue, but near the end, during John Coffey's execution where Paul describes the eventual fate of his friends.
- Grent's Fall had one for surviving characters on both sides.
- The Distant Finale in Harry Potter, which confirmed a number of pairings, and was supplemented by Word of God to include what everyone's jobs were in the future.
- In In the Time of the Butterflies, based on the true stories of the Mirabal sisters from the Dominican Republic, the last chapter is told in first person by Dede, the only surviving sister. She describes what happened to her sisters' families after they were assassinated by Trujillo.
- Jaine Austen Mysteries: Each book ends with what happened to each character by the end of the story. That is, for the books except for Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge, which ends with Jaine going on a date and reconnecting with her ex-husband, the Blob. The format switches to a collection of news headlines in Death of a Gigolo, then reverts back to normal in Murder Gets a Makeover.
- James and the Giant Peach: The last chapter lists what happens to the main characters after the story is over. The Centipede becomes a boot and shoe showman; the Earthworm, with his lovely pink skin, stars in skin care commercials; Miss Spider and the silkworm are taught to make nylon thread, and make ropes for tightrope walkers; the grasshopper plays in an orchestra; the Ladybird marries the head of the fire department and lives happily ever after; and James lives inside the peach stone, in Central Park.
- Employed with variations in a number of James Fenimore Cooper's books. A few examples:
- The Spy: 33 years after the main events, during the battle of Lundy's Lane a conversation reveals the fate of various characters. Harvey Birch, the eponymous hero of the novel and now an old man, is killed in that same battle.
- The Wept Of Wish Ton Wish: A modern-day narrator visits the town of Wish-ton-Wish and inspects the gravestones of the characters.
- The Prairie: A year later, Captain Middleton visits the Pawnee village where the Natty Bumppo has settled down, just in time to witness the octogenarian dying attended by Hard-Heart and the others.
- The Deerslayer: Fifteen years later Hawkeye, Chingachgook and his son Uncas (who was conceived shortly after the events of the novel) revisit Lake Otsego and the locations of the story. In a subversion Hawkeye is unsuccessful in his attempts to find out what became of Judith.
- John Masefield:
- The Midnight Folk doesn't have chapter divisions, so there's no explicit epilogue, but the last couple of pages consist of a series of descriptions of what happened to various characters after the events of the novel.
- Odtaa ends with a section headed "Appendices and Notes", a collection of oddments and in-universe documents (including a letter from the protagonist to the author commenting on the manuscript of the novel) that collectively serve to show what became of the characters.
- Kill time or die trying does this in the form of last words and gravesite epitaphs for the main characters, mostly Played for Laughs. Some examples:Nathan's gravesite: 'Reserved Staff Parking'
Allan's last words: 'Bad idea? How bad?' - The Last Dogs: The end of the tetralogy shows most of the pets being reunited, on a TV show that Max and his nephews and nieces like watching. Several endings include:
- Panda and Possum, the two cat sisters in the house of cats, reuniting with their man.
- Georgie and Belle reuniting with their owners and helping them clean up the latter's filthy mansion.
- Zephyr and the other Dalmatians being hailed as heroes for looking after the other dogs.
- Julep and Dixie the German shepherd police dogs returning from their trip to the Praxis laboratory.
- Spots reuniting with his brother Dots, as well as Stripes the skunk becoming a part of their family. Along with that, Tiffany the raccoon finally got recognition as a master thief.
- Dolph the wolf having been relocated to a wildlife park, most likely giving up his quest for vengeance.
- The last Lion Boy book ended with a chapter saying what happened to every character.
- J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings did originally have an epilogue, but it was cut for publication. The Appendices do fulfill this role though, especially Appendix A (with the tale of Aragorn and Arwen) and Appendix B, The Tale of Years.
- Magyk, the first Septimus Heap book, has a "What happened to..." last chapter. Other books in the series have variations, such as "What happened before...", detailing each character's backstory. The twist being that they all detail what happens (or happened) to the very minor characters, those who are named but never shown or shown but never named. A nurse who gets two lines in the book, the never-seen girlfriend of one of the brothers, the gatekeeper's son, etc.
- A Memoir by Lady Trent: The Afterword to Within the Sanctuary of Wings has Isabella recount briefly what has happened in the life of her and other people involved in her story, as well as some general information about the differences between the world from her memories and the world as it is now.
- The "Finale" of George Eliot's Middlemarch brings the reader up-to-date on the forty years or so between the end of the main book and the time of writing.
- James Howe's The Misfits uses a variation where the epilogue is told from the perspective of the seventh-grade protagonist looking towards the future rather than an older version of the protagonist looking back, so it's framed as what will happen rather than what did happen (for example, the protagonist says of himself that "I will go into politics" rather than "I went into politics"), but it's clearly meant to be an accurate representation of what happens to the characters; the author likely wanted to be able to keep the epilogue in the same narrative voice (of a twelve-year-old) rather than shifting to an adult narrator.
- The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel) has an epilogue explaining how most of the surviving characters lived happily thereafter.
- The Phantom of Manhattan ends this way, briefly describing the fates of the surviving major characters as well as those of Historical Domain Character Oscar Hammerstein and the Manhattan Opera House.
- The last chapter of Pride and Prejudice describes what became of all the characters after Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth's marriage.
- Mrs. Bennet remained silly, but luckily Mr. Bennet still found her amusing.
- Kitty and Mary both improved in character: the former because she was influenced less by Lydia and more by Jane and Elizabeth; the latter because she was no longer compared with her more beautiful sisters.
- Mr. Bingley and Jane bought an estate only thirty miles away from the Darcys', much to Jane and Elizabeth's joy.
- The affections Lydia and Wickham had for each other quickly cooled off, and they lived by leeching off the Darcys and the Bingleys.
- Georgiana and Elizabeth developed a great relationship as Mr. Darcy had hoped.
- Lady Catherine eventually relented, and Elizabeth managed to reconcile her and Mr. Darcy enough for Lady Catherine to visit Pemberley from time to time.
- The epilogue of Rally Round the Flag, Boys! tells what happened to the characters after the Fourth of July. It mostly ties up loose ends, particularly Harry and Grace's Second-Act Breakup.
- There is a short epilogue of this type in Redeeming Love, which shows that Angel was at last able to break out of the Heel–Face Revolving Door firmly on the Face side, the ministry she founded was successful in rescuing hundreds of girls from being forced into the sex trade, she reconciled with her antagonistic brother-in-law, she and Michael miraculously had four children, and died calmly in their old age within months of each other.
- E. M. Forster wrote an appendix to A Room with a View 50 years later, detailing numerous adverse circumstances that befell Lucy and George after their wedding and through both world wars.
- Rogue Planet: The final chapter changes tenses to one of these, detailing what becomes of most of the characters; Anakin and Obi-Wan return to Coruscant, as does Tarkin, who gets away from his misdeeds unscathed and presents his ideas on superweapons to a receptive Supreme Chancellor. Raith Seinar returns to his company, with no living ships to study, as they're cut off from their home planet and slowly die. Master Leem just randomly disappears one day, and the Jedi never heard from her again. As for Zonama Sekot, no-one was sure, but rumours abound of a mysterious planet wandering the Unknown Regions.
- The Saga of the Jomsvikings ends with a short summary of what later became of the Jomsviking chiefs that survived the Battle of Hjorunga Bay: Vagn marries Ingibjörg, the daughter of Thorkel Leira, and moves back to Fyn, Bjorn lives out his life in Wales, Sigurd Cape returns to Bornholm, and also that Bui (who jumped overboard in Hjorunga Bay) may have turned into a sea-dragon.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: Chapter Fourteen; arguably a Subverted Trope because they haven't gone anywhere, although a year had passed while they've been on the island and their views have moved on. The Beatrice Letters form part of an epilogue themselves. Even though the scrambled letters reveal that " BEATRICE SANK", there are hints that Baudelaires are apparently living out their lives doing what they love: 1) Sunny is said to be sharing her recipes on the radio in The Beatrice Letters. 2) In book 3 the narrator says that Violet would return to Briny Beach a third time in her life, and since she'd only gone there twice over the course of the series (in book 1 and again in book 12), she must have survived at least until they reached the mainland. 3) In book 2, the narrator states that Klaus would like awake in bed many years later wondering what would have happened if he'd managed to stop Count Olaf/Stephano from entering Uncle Monty's house - the last chapter takes place roughly a year and a half from this point, so his survival is also heavily implied. 4) Beatrice (that's the Beatrice born in Book 13) is currently trying to find Lemony Snicket, presumably to ask him the whole truth about what happened.
- Tales from Jabba's Palace (a Star Wars Legends anthology: Since most of the characters in this book never really figured heavily in future stories, one of these was included where it had been absent from the other Tales From... books.
- Malaki the rancor keeper freed Porcellus the chef from his cell, then the pair looted the treasury and opened their own restaurant in Mos Eisley with the proceeds.
- J'Quille the Whiphid found he now had a bounty on his head if he ever left Tatooine and, unable to take the planet's heat any longer, joined the B'omarr monks and exchanged his body for a brain jar.
- Mara Jade was kept very busy.
- Gartogg the Gamorrean left the palace with others heading to Mos Eisley, where he became an enforcer for a smuggling operation and faithfully took the dried-out mummies of the kitchen boy and a B'omarr monk (whose murders he'd solved) with him everywhere he went.
- Ephant Mon returned to his homeworld and started a religious sect that worshipped the Force.
- Max Robo and Sy Snootles split up; Max joined the Rebellion as an entertainer and later started his own successful multi-planet chain of restaurants, while Sy tried for a solo career that went poorly, forcing her to hook up with other jizz bands to keep her career going. Droopy vanished into the desert and is supposedly still out there with other Kitonaks, whose music can still be heard.
- Bib Fortuna remained in the palace, a brain in a jar, though he managed to contact other allies and still hoped to escape some day.
- Dannik Jerriko went on a killing spree in the palace and ended up a wanted man.
- Like Mara Jade, Boba Fett was kept very, very busy by his later adventures.
- Yarna Gargan and her business partner Doallyn lived on their new ship and became free traders; Yarna danced for credits when needed, including at Han and Leia's wedding, and there became recruited as a model for a new line of jeweled brassieres. Doallyn managed her new career, with a side job of capturing specimens for zoos. Yarna's son and daughters discovered a talent for music and eventually became a swinging jizz trio.
- Of the other eight stories, six ended with the viewpoint character dead, and Tessek and Bubo's ended with them joining the B'omarr monks.
- In Those That Wake, the first book and its sequel end with these epilogues.
- Taking place in the Warhammer 40,000 'verse, Dan Abnett's series for the Eisenhorn trilogy ends on this note, telling where the surviving characters go. They are: Ravenor went on with his own career as an Inquisitor (read: "got his own spin-off"), with a note that spoiled the end of his own series, and Nayl and Kara went with him. Medea retired from the Inquisition to work the family company, but disappeared years later. Inquisitor Heldane survived his encounter with Eisenhorn when Heldane tried to kill him, but left him radicalized and even more twisted and disfigured in his later life; he also went on to have a bit part in Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts. Eisenhorn and Cherubael both went missing after the events of the book. Also a subversion with the case of Alizabeth Bequin: she was in a coma and written off as dead by the end of the series, but she survived at least for a time, and her comatose body was spirited away by another subversive group...
- The Westing Game has an epilogue describing how every character became rich, famous and influential.
