system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: I think the ending to 1984 would have been far more poignant if Winston and Julia hadn’t been killed.

Oh, um, spoilers for an 80-year-old book. Anyway, my argument is that if everything else in the book is the same (Winston and Julia get together, get arrested, brainwashed, etc.), then the ending would have been way more powerful (Or at least more depressing), if Winston and Julia hadn’t been shot and just lived out the rest of their lives as loyal servants of the party. What if they even ratted out dissenters? That would be the utmost tragedy, IMO. Winston and Julia weren’t mindless drones in the brief moments that they were alive and loyal servants of the party. They remembered each other and their relationship, and felt guilt over betraying each other in room 101. They would have to see each other every day. Also, it doesn’t really make sense for Big Brother to murder dissenters, after they’ve been brainwashed into loyal citizens.
gpt
Technically, they didn't die at the end, it's just nearly confirmed that they will be shot at some point in the near or far future.

And you're right, the Party shooting its dissenters turned supporters doesn't make sense to *us*, but you have to remember that Ingsoc doesn't follow what we would call reasonable logic. They don't have a "logical" end goal in sight. As O'Brien says, they just want power. Power above everything. Power for the sake of power. "The future of humanity is a boot grinding a man's head into the dirt--forever" (paraphrase).

 From their viewpoint, killing dissenters-turned-supporters makes perfect sense. It is the ultimate form of power. They take a person who hates the Party and make them love it fully, unconditionally--and then they murder them, not because they need to like the Nazis or Soviets, but because they *can*. It's purely an expression of their unlimited power.