King Lear-Ending

We finished King Lear in class last week. We also had a seminar last friday
discussing the final scenes of this play. I think that it went pretty well although
there was some controversy over some of the topics that we covered. One of the
biggest debate was about Lear and if he should be classified for evil or good.
At first, I thought that Lear should be classified as evil. In my critical article, the
author wrote that Lear deserved his daughter's betrayals because he was choosing
favorites among his daughters, he was rash, selfish, violent, and prideful. The author
of my critical article found the daughters' betrayals justifyable and thought that Lear
deserved the fate that he got although it was a little extreme. I also thought that same.
Although Lear was pitiful and I sympathized with him, I did think that choosing
favorites among daughters was unfair. However, after discussing about this with
my classmates, I started to think that Lear wasn't as "evil" and "selfish" as I thought
he was. I remember when I first started reading this play, I thought that it was
normal for a king like Lear to be prideful and live the way just as Lear did.
Lear was a typical king full of ego and pride. It's seems reasonable that the
ruler of a nation have some pride. I also found out that Lear didn't pick
favorites as much as I thought he did. He was going to split the kingdom
equally among his three daughters and the reason why he asked the question
to his daughters was just like a "game" to him; it didn't mean much. This made
me think that Lear wasn't evil nor good. However, he brought the consequences
to himself and even though his actions were reasonable for a king during that time,
it wasn't able to stop him from falling. One of the discussion questions were whether
banishment brought enlightenment or alienation to the character. I said that
thought the alienation Lear received, he was able to become enlightened to the
truth. Lear was able to finally see the truth even though he lost everything
he had.
I thought that the ending would be a lot more sad because it was a tragedy. However,
honestly I thought that it was kind of funny. (?) Every single character started to
die in the last scene, from Gloucester to Goneril and Regan, Edmund, Cordelia,
Lear, etc. The only three characters that seemed to survive in the entire play
was Albany, Edgar, and Kent. The three good guys. Even though everyone
died, at least the three good guys are still alive. That means that at the end,
the good was able to win the evil, which is basically all that matters. People's lives
were sacrificed, but at least the ending result is good. Even though it
seemed like Shakespeare stretched it a little by killing almost all of the characters,
I thought the ending was pretty good.