Excuse me, but what the actual heck was that ending?

I finally did it. I read Lightbringer and finished the Empirium trilogy...and I think this has to be one of the most infuriating endings to a series that I've ever read. I'll go into details with spoilers following my review. Look, I went into this book with pretty low expectations just because I didn't love the first two books, and while the beginning of the book was much better than expected, I still can't get past the incest-y vibes between Lu and Audric, among other things.
Both Rielle and Eliana are prisoners of Corien, albeit in two entirely different times. The emporium is consuming Rielle's mind. Meanwhile, Corien intends to use Eliana to reawaken Simon's power and travel back in time to see Rielle again. The first part of this book was extremely interesting to me because it flipped the script from the previous books, and overall, the tension was just much higher. The second half was okay, but I'm still mad about the ending. It didn't go how I expected, which was fine, but there was barely any closure for half the characters, and the implications were never considered.
I honestly tolerated the characters a little more in this one, too. Lu is an intriguing character because I can't tell if her love for Audric and Rielle is romantic or familial...because she's really confusing. Rielle continued to get on my nerves, but Audric grew on me a lot because who knew a betrayal was all it took to give him a semblance of a personality? I liked Eliana's arc in this book, though I wish we got to spend more time with Remy. I have mixed feelings about everything going on with Simon. There were a handful of POV chapters from other characters, but they really felt unnecessary...
I'm so glad I finally finished this series, and honestly, I think Lightbringer is the best book in the trilogy (disregarding the ending).

3.5/5

Spoilers
Here it is, my rant about the ending.
To quickly summarize what I got from it, Eliana goes back in time with Remy (to act as a translator). Simon cries out as she slips into the past after Eliana hears gunshots, implying (to me) that he died. Eliana and Remy just happen to drop back to the exact night when Rielle is supposed to kill Audric, but Eliana intervenes and somehow convinces Rielle that she should kill Corien instead. Rielle ends up destroying Corien and Ludivine, essentially destroying all angels by default. Eliana and Remy disappear, Rielle gives birth to Eliana, and then Rielle kills herself closing the Gate and ending magic until Eliana will inevitably fix it.
I have a LOT of issues with this.
First of all, so much of this ending does not make sense to me. Remy just miraculously understands the old language because he's been training to become an assassin for months - which we never address, by the way. Literally, a few chapters from Remy's POV would've been extremely beneficial to the plot. But ignoring that, why not just have the languages be the same? I understand the evolution of language logistically, but Remy's presence had no other contribution to the end of the book.
Also, the whole time travel thing doesn't really work out in my mind. If Eliana saving Audric and the world by going back in time prevents her from ever having gone to the future in the first place, does that not create a paradox? Because if Eliana never ended up in the future, she would never have gone back in time, which means she would have ended up in the future.
Not to mention the lack of closure in general. We never find out what happens to the people in the future. Navi and Ysabet only ended up together because of Eliana, so do they not get their happy ending because of the time travel? Simon gets a bit more closure because of Eliana's time travel, as he ends up in the past as a child again. I have mixed feelings on this because that means adult Simon's suffering - while it did have a point - was entirely forgotten and no one recognizes his role in saving the world.
Probably my biggest complaint is what has been done with Remy's character. He's always just been a device in Eliana's story, but I thought that Jessamyn training him might give him a bigger role to play...and in a way, it does. But also, the lack of closure on his part really ticks me off. Remy lost both of his parents to a girl who he believed was his sister. He was tortured and abused to the point of feeling guilty for being alive because he could be used against Eliana. Dude literally went to the past at, like, ten and fought his way through armies, all to be wiped from existence. I guess we can assume that he lives happily ever after with his parents, as Eliana is probably indirectly responsible for his parents' fates...but it would take half an epilogue to address this.
That's what it all comes down to; an epilogue devoted to the people of the future could've solved most of my problems with the ending. Do I still think they chose the most difficult solution possible? Yes, but I would've been more okay with it if we got any payoff for literally all of the characters...especially because the current ending implies that Eliana is STILL going to have to step into her role as Sun Queen, which means she didn't actually fix anything.
If you're going to make history inevitable, don't pretend that you did anything to change it...