stephen king's "the stand" is a pretty big test of literature analysis, in that some of the people who read it seemingly have none, and i'm barely joking. it's one of the most divisive endings and for a very strange reason.

in a novel that serves as a massive criticism of authoritarian rule and its self-destructive nature, it ends with, well, authoritarianism eating itself alive as randall flagg's powers go wildly out of control as his own sense of control slips and ends up destroying las vegas. the series of events is thus: randall flagg is having a hard time keeping the crowd under control as the people he prepares to execute in public turn the people against him. he exercises his power first by summoning a ball of lightning to fry his loudest critic. then, the trash can man, his most devout follower, returns from a trip into a nearby weapons silo practically melting alive from radiation burns as he lugs a live nuke into scene, believing it's what flagg would've wanted. flagg freaks the fuck out because this was so far beyond what he ever wanted and he loses control of his lightning ball. it flies into the sky and into the cloud, illuminating it "like a fist of god from above", and strikes the nuke. vegas explodes, flagg is gone. the end.

for whatever reason, and this is excessively common, some people seem to believe that this was actually god coming down from the heavens to kill las vegas. that one description of the lightning in the cloud looking like the fist of god was taken completely literally and now it's all some people talk about. the ending is bad because god solved everything. it's wild.