Which ending to choose?

First, I'll quickly tell you the premise:
Two factions are at war with one other faction. The military leader of one of the two (The Solarian Empire) is Liquius Sarb, a 12 year old genius child, who is completely bent on winning the war, no matter the cost. The other allied faction (The Sun Order) is ruled by Teleus Colth, a 27 year old man, who really, really wants control over the Empire, and Izene of Sky-13, his companion, who shares in his interests.
Liquius needs the Order to win the war, but he knows that as soon as it's over, Teleus will try to kill him. At the same time, Teleus also needs Liquius to fight the war, and is constantly forced to interfere with Liquius's attempts to seize power over the Order.
Along the way, Teleus and Izene get split up. Izene is brainwashed and is made to go against Teleus by a different group of people. They don't see each-other until the end.
Due to plot devices, at the very end the war is still not over and Teleus has about a month left to live.

Now, for the endings.
1) Desperate to accomplish something in his life. Teleus kills Liquius (who is now 19). The Empire is in complete chaos, the Order takes over, kills the Queen, etc. Teleus runs away to have a duel with Izene. In the fight, Izene almost kills Teleus, but he mind controls her to take him and walk off the edge of a giant hole in the ground, sending them both to their certain demise. Without Liquius's military genius, the Empire is quickly defeated. The Order survives, but is diminished. (Second book opens with Teleus and Izene waking up far away, 100 years later.)

2) Teleus tells his subordinates about "lifespan issue", tells them that if Izene comes back, she is the new leader and if she does not within a certain period of time, then Liquius is to be given control. After this, he himself goes off to duel Izene. She, once again, almost kills him. This time instead of mind controlling, he floods her conscience with all his memories and thoughts (Teleus has powers of transferring information through eye contact, and here we find out that he also has perfect memory) Izene breaks out of her brainwashing, but Teleus dies from his injuries. She goes back to the Order, where she is made leader, and promptly puts Liquius in charge, deciding herself to go after the people who brainwashed her, as she believes that would quicker fulfill Tel's "Grand Plan" (Second book picks up from here)


If you could come up with a variation, please post it!

That's way to many commas! =\

Honestly, I like the second option. It feels cleaner and more optimistic. As a reader, I would appreciate that ending much more.

Appreciate, yes. But would you be satisfied?
I mean the central theme, the driving conflict, the whole war, would not really be resolved in the second version.

It doesn't have to be resolved now. You're doing a sequel, right? You can always resolve it then. It took seven books to kill Voldemort for good and people loved it.

It's just that the whole book is a set up for a bigger plot. And the ending to this book will determine how it all plays out.
Ending 1 would be much closer to what I originally planned, but ending 2 makes more sense at the moment

Planning is a good thing, but leaving room for other ideas to take root is a good idea too. I wrote a series the first three years I did NaNo and I had everything planned pretty well. But then one of my MCs demanded a love interest in the second book. I gave in and she ended up reshaping the entire second half of that book from what I'd planned before. It was great though.

Нou may be right, but if I went by the original plan, the ending to the whole thing would have meaning, it would send a message, etc. If Teleus dies now, though, all that is completely ruined.

I would pick the second option, because if I enjoyed Book 1, it will be because of the war and everyone fighting for the throne. After the first option, it's just two hungover injured people trying to find their way back to the Empire(where Liquius has most likely taken over).

The message you planned to send might get wrecked. But then the story will send a different message. The challenge of switching endings would be to figure out what the new message is.

Bump

This sounds like a really cool story. If I had to choose one of those endings, I would pick the second. However, I can see why you’re having trouble choosing one. Maybe mixing them up would help?

Something like this:

Teleus tells his subordinates about "lifespan issue", tells them that if Izene comes back, she is the new leader and if she does not within a certain period of time, then Liquius is to be given control. After this, he himself goes off to duel Izene. She, once again, almost kills him. This time instead of mind controlling, he floods her conscience with all his memories and thoughts (Teleus has powers of transferring information through eye contact, and here we find out that he also has perfect memory). Izene breaks out of her brainwashing, but Teleus is nearly dead from his injuries. They are near a giant hole in the ground, and knowing that Izene would probably go crazy or hurt herself trying to carry him back to get help, he decides to drag himself over to it and take his life quickly rather than make her suffer and watch him die slowly and in pain. However, she tries to grab him at the last second and they both fall into the hole. In this case, I guess Liquius would be given control of the Order like in your second idea. Teleus and Izene would wake up far away in the future like in idea #1, except the Order did probably well thanks to Liquius and the war is over. If it’s 100 years in the future, I’m guessing most people who knew Teleus are dead (unless they aren’t human and/or live longer than we do now), but at least the two never became enemies and their side likely won (though the Order still could have lost and/or been diminished despite Liquius' genius if that is necessary for your plot).

Does that help at all? Awesome character names, by the way!

Thanks, I'm glad I could help a little bit!

Oh... I didn't interpret it that way. I took it to mean that being flooded with Teleus' memories and thoughts basically jarred Izene out of her brainwashing, and that she was her old self again once she snapped out of it. But actually, she's pretty much brainwashed again, this time into being Teleus? That's pretty interesting and could make for a neat beginning to the second book, with them both waking up 100 years in the future with the same memories, thinking they are the same person. If you want to go that way, then maybe Izene thinks she is fatally injured too (since those are Teleus' most recent memories), and they both jump into the hole thinking the same things? Though that would probably only work if Teleus doesn't realize that Izene basically thinks she is him. Maybe she jumps in and Teleus tries to stop her and they both fall in?

Or, if none of that works, maybe you could just replace the mind flooding part with mind control from the first idea and avoid such a sticky situation altogether, especially if it wouldn't work with the second book.