Having taught Shakespeare to some very bright high school seniors and, earlier in my career, having designed and taught remedial reading to a number of students, grades 9 through 12, who had been grouped because of disciplinary problems more than academic ability, I found HAGSEED marvelously entertaining because of the deft adaptation of THE TEMPEST to a plot within a plot. The characters of the prisoners who performed the play in prison reminded me of the students I taught years ago, and my question about those characters is whether they adequately reflect the ages they are to. (They may; maturation these days has become a difficult and sometimes a confusing thing to assess.) I especially appreciate the reliance Felix places on verbal ability -- especially on expression of personal reflections and self-effacing humor. (I found the ability to verbalize their feelings differentiated students in a good way. Students who verbalized their feelings and aimed to reflect about them -- not just to sound off -- tended to stay out of major trouble. Margaret Atwood is extremely adept at dramatizing this effect, as was Shakespeare, for that matter.So, yes, the ending is way cool. I remember thinking, during a break before the storm happened, that I hoped Ms. Atwood wouldn't go for the easy ending. Felix's been through a melt-down previously, and Anne-Marie would give Ms. Atwood writer's cramp if she dared to destroy the marvelous and much-deserved trickery. But the story is far more than the ending; the development of Felix's plans, the social relations that permit their realization, and Felix's self-consciousness make the story. Even Felix's consciousness of his Miranda would be cloying, were the man not conscious of how goofy and how saccharine he could seem. So when he lets her go, he grows.Felix Philips has failed to dominate all of the scenes he wanted, but in choosing to wait and see what Anne-Marie and her cohorts have devised for the scenes they want to revise, Felix learns the sort of mentoring that engenders creativity on the part of the student and maturity in all. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Fortune holds for the overall plan -- the bad guys remain greedy and self-centered, and the guards, whether they realize Felix is pulling a fast one or just don't care, remain predictably affable and uninvolved, as long as there are cookies.If the tragedies are any measure, Shakespeare saw absolute monarchy as, at best, a necessary evil. His rulers tend to be absolutists, but they also tend to be controllers -- cold fish who do not know how to love and as a result are both destructive and insecure. Richard III is probably the clearest example; Prospero is interesting in that giving up his magical powers is a large part of what makes life become meaningless. He's no longer absolute, and besides, his beautiful, perfect daughter has prospects of a happy marriage to a prince who is madly in love with her. What's left for him? Felix, however, not only becomes something of an emeritus, but relaxes so that he can look forward to an opponent's son as Anne-Marie's love interest and artistic collaborator (and, of course, Felix's replacement.)