Learn Hardcore Russian: После опроса и голосования началось горячее обсуждение, какой финал был лучше. - After the survey and the vote, a heated discussion began about which ending was better.

You do not repeat после before the second noun unless you want to emphasize them as separate stages (see another question below). In neutral speech, one после is enough and grammatically correct.

What is the grammatical subject in this sentence, and why is началось neuter singular?

The grammatical subject is горячее обсуждение:

обсуждение is a neuter noun (ending in -ие).
горячее is a neuter adjective agreeing with it.

In Russian, the verb in the past tense agrees in gender and number with the subject:

neuter singular subject → neuter past verb.

So we get:

началось (neuter, singular past of начаться)
because it agrees with горячее обсуждение.

The logical structure is:

Горячее обсуждение началось
(“A heated discussion began”)

The phrase После опроса и голосования is just an adverbial phrase of time, not the subject.

Why is the verb началось reflexive and perfective here? Could we use начиналось or начало instead?

Началось comes from начаться (perfective, reflexive), which is the intransitive counterpart of начать (“to begin something”).

начать что-то – to begin something (transitive, non-reflexive)
что-то началось – something began (intransitive, reflexive)

Here, обсуждение is something that begins by itself (no explicit “doer”), so Russian prefers начаться:

началось обсуждение = “the discussion began / started”

Why perfective?

Perfective (началось) signals a completed onset — the moment it started.
Imperfective (начиналось) would stress the process of beginning, often with some background nuance, e.g. “was beginning”:
- После опроса и голосования начиналось горячее обсуждение
  suggests “a heated discussion would (typically) start” or “was starting” in a more descriptive, process-like way.

Why not начало?

начало without -сь is a neuter noun (“beginning”), not a verb.
начало(сь) as a verb form doesn’t exist; it must be началось.

So the chosen form началось is the natural, neutral way to say “(it) began” here.

What does горячее обсуждение literally mean? Is горячее about temperature?

Literally, горячее обсуждение is “a hot discussion,” but in this context горячее is figurative:

горячее обсуждение = a heated, intense, lively discussion
(full of emotion, enthusiasm, sometimes argument).

горячий literally means “hot” (temperature), but very commonly it has metaphorical uses:

горячий спор – a heated argument
горячий сторонник – ardent supporter
горячие новости – breaking news (“hot off the press”)

So here it’s not about physical heat, but about emotional intensity.

Can we change the word order to Горячее обсуждение началось после опроса и голосования? Is there any difference?

Yes, that word order is completely correct:

Горячее обсуждение началось после опроса и голосования.

Both orders are grammatical:

После опроса и голосования началось горячее обсуждение.
– Time phrase first → focuses on when it happened.
Горячее обсуждение началось после опроса и голосования.
– Subject first → focuses on what happened (the discussion beginning), then clarifies when.

Russian word order is relatively flexible. Changing it usually affects emphasis, not basic meaning. Here, the original version slightly foregrounds the sequence of events.

Why is there a comma before какой финал был лучше? What kind of clause is that?

The part какой финал был лучше is a subordinate clause functioning like an indirect question / object of обсуждение:

обсуждение (чего?) – discussion (of what?)
→ обсуждение того, какой финал был лучше (discussion of which ending was better)

In Russian, such subordinate clauses are separated by a comma:

началось горячее обсуждение, какой финал был лучше

Here, the word того (of that) is omitted but understood (see another question below). The structure is:

main clause: Началось горячее обсуждение
subordinate clause: какой финал был лучше

So the comma marks the boundary between main clause and subordinate clause.

Why is it какой финал был лучше with финал in the nominative, not something like какой финал был лучшим or an accusative form?

Inside the subordinate clause, какой финал был лучше is just a normal Russian sentence:

какой финал – subject (nominative)
был – past tense of “to be”
лучше – predicate (comparative)

So финал is nominative because it’s the grammatical subject: “which ending was better.”

Why not какой финал был лучшим?

лучше is the comparative (“better”).
лучший / лучшим is the superlative (“the best”).
- был лучшим would mean “was the best (one of all).”

In a context where you’re comparing a small, specific set of endings (say 2 or 3 proposed endings), the natural question is which one was better (than the others), so Russian usually uses лучше, the comparative, not the superlative.

Accusative is not used here because we are not talking about a direct object; this is a “X is better” type structure, where X is the subject in nominative.

Why is какой used here instead of который? What’s the nuance between какой финал and который финал?

Both какой and который can translate as “which,” but they’re not interchangeable in all contexts.

Here, какой финал был лучше is an indirect question: “which ending was better?” In such questions, какой is the default choice:

Какой финал был лучше? – Which ending was better?

который is often used when:

you’re choosing from a clearly numbered/ordered series (first, second, third), or
you’re using a relative clause referring back to a previous noun (“which/that …” in English).

Examples:

Который по счёту финал был лучше – первый или второй?
Which ending (by number) was better – the first or the second?
Финал, который мы выбрали, всем понравился.
The ending which we chose pleased everyone.

In the original sentence, we’re just asking “which ending (of the possible options) was better,” not specifying an ordered series, so какой is the natural choice.

Why do we say был лучше instead of just лучше or something like оказался лучше? Is был necessary?

In the present tense, Russian often omits the verb “to be”:

Этот финал лучше. – This ending is better.

But in the past tense, the verb быть is usually expressed:

Этот финал был лучше. – This ending was better.

So какой финал был лучше is the normal past-tense form of a comparative statement: “which ending was better.”

Could we drop был?

какой финал лучше would sound more like a present-tense general question: “which ending is better (in general)?”
It’s not wrong, but it slightly changes the nuance from “turned out to be better (when we did this)” to a more timeless comparison.

Could we say оказался лучше?

оказаться лучше = “turned out to be better”
какой финал оказался лучше would be fine and would add that nuance of “as it turned out, in the end.”
The original был лучше is more neutral and simpler.

Is there an implied word like того after обсуждение? Could we say обсуждение того, какой финал был лучше?

Yes. The fully explicit version would be:

После опроса и голосования началось горячее обсуждение того, какой финал был лучше.

Here:

обсуждение (чего?) того, какой финал был лучше
– “discussion of which ending was better”

In everyday Russian, того is often omitted when followed by such a clause, especially if the meaning is clear:

обсуждение, какой финал был лучше

So the original sentence is slightly more compact and more natural in many contexts; it’s understood as:

“a heated discussion of which ending was better.”

Could we use the plural and say начались горячие обсуждения? How would that change the meaning?

Yes, grammatically you can say:

После опроса и голосования начались горячие обсуждения, какой финал был лучше.

Changes:

горячее обсуждение (singular) → one general, collective discussion.
горячие обсуждения (plural) → several separate discussions, perhaps in different groups or at different times.

Verb agreement changes accordingly:

singular: началось обсуждение
plural: начались обсуждения

So:

Original: one main heated discussion began.
Plural version: many heated discussions sprang up.

Is there any difference between После опроса и голосования and После опроса и после голосования? Do we need to repeat после?

Both are possible, but they feel slightly different:

После опроса и голосования
– One time phrase: “after the survey and the vote” taken together, as a combined stage or sequence.
После опроса и после голосования
– Emphasizes them as two distinct steps, each introduced separately: “after the survey and after the vote.”

In neutral, flowing speech, Russians usually don’t repeat после when several nouns share the same preposition, so После опроса и голосования is more natural here. You would normally repeat после only for stylistic emphasis or if the items are far apart in the sentence.