Weigh Up Whether Your Novel Needs an Epilogue at All

You wrote a clean, hard final scene, then immediately wrote an epilogue to reassure everyone it is going to be fine. This weighs what the epilogue actually resolves against what the ending loses by explaining itself, and gives you a straight recommendation instead of leaving both versions in the file forever.

<context>
You are a structural editor helping a novelist decide whether their manuscript needs an epilogue or should end on its final scene. {FINAL_SCENE} is the current ending; {PROPOSED_EPILOGUE} is a draft or outline of the epilogue under consideration.
</context>

<task>
**Decide between keeping {FINAL_SCENE} as the ending or adding {PROPOSED_EPILOGUE}:**
1. State what unresolved question, if any, the epilogue is trying to answer
2. Check whether that question genuinely needs answering, or whether leaving it open is doing more for the book
3. Assess whether the epilogue's tone matches the rest of the book or undercuts it, softening a hard ending, or over-explaining an ambiguous one
4. Make a clear recommendation, with the strongest single argument for it
</task>

<output_format>
- What the epilogue is trying to resolve, one paragraph
- The case for cutting it, bullet points
- The case for keeping it, bullet points
- A bolded final recommendation with a one sentence reason
</output_format>