There were 2 forks in the road at the end there.
Fork 1) The people running the institute were being totally evil. But it was to save the world. Oh what a moral conundrum!
King’s choice : oh wait no, they were actually wrong about that. They were just being dumb. As explained by the genius. So all the bad stuff they did was for nothing good and the institute was just evil.
Fork 2) The psychic kids mindmelded into a magic hivemind deity. Wow. This is certainly something amazing and new in the world .
King’s choice. : oh wait no, that whole thing immediately faded away after the climax.
Why? Maybe he was hoping for a tv series, which requires no big changes and moral simplicity
isn’t Stephen King known for not knowing how to end a book?
Ya maybe. But it’s like he intentionally hacked off the obvious good ending in favor of a contrived bad one. So less can’t and more won’t.
So why would he choose that? I can only assume for money.
Oh ya it was the trolly problem. King doesn’t like the trolly problem. So he declared the 5 people on the first track illusions born of hubris and narcissicism. Another best seller
The only good ending I can remember from him is that of The Dark Tower series.
… the one with a warning to stop reading, in case you hate the ending?
The one he started in early/pre-college years and took up formulaic horror to pay the bills before finally finishing it decades later? Hunh.
What’s that saying about “infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters” again?
