Anyone else hate happy endings?

[737492]

i was thinking about this earlier. I hate stories where miserable protagonists somehow find love and happiness at the end; to me it all just seems so unrealistic and forced.
Part of why i enjoy sad stories is the ability to relate to characters suffering like i am. It makes me feel less alone. If they get a happy ending, however, I can no longer put myself in their shoes.
I much rather prefer stories where characters like me end up killed or committing suicide.

 

[charlottewilts]

gosh, yes. what annoys me most is when people say "but it feels so anticlimactic to have this character kill themselves at the end of the book/show/game!!! it undermines the struggles of real people who are suicidal and diminishes their hopes of things getting better!" that's true, but there's still some people for whom it does not get better. why lie to us? pretty cruel. but i digress.

i totally agree with you on that. seeing a character with the same struggles as myself get a happy ending feels so fake.

 

[Empty Smile]

When I finally ctb, it'll be my happy ending.

 

[chrijo]

I hate happy endings too.

The best movies/series have a "bad" ending. Just like real life - almost everything ends badly. If not today, then tomorrow :-)

 

[RealLostSoul]

Can relate but from times to times I still dream about my utopia, where I am happy again and have a family that I love.

 

[Life sucks]

I hate endings regardless of being happy or not. Ending - > not continuing anymore - > death

 

[737492]

When I finally ctb, it'll be my happy ending.

Me too.

 

[Enabran255]

Yea, it's annoying, formulaic and unrealistic. I liked how the anime School Days broke this usual mold, it was a lot more realistic about what high school is like. The ending was more horror movie style though.

 

[ArtsyDrawer]

I think it helps a little to not see the movies as the stories they're trying to do, but a story about the actors and actresses themselves. Usually, happy ending is one of the two - getting laid or getting lots of money.
If I see Ryan Gosling popping out anywhere I can guarantee a "happy ending". Especially if he's the main guy. Look at him! Do you really expect me to believe Ryan fucking Gosling can't get a woman?
If he offered such a service, women would arrange into several lanes to fuck him!
I'm not sure his dick would survive the ordeal, but that's a question for another day. RG is young, handsome, and at the end of the day, regardless of how he plays it, he wants some tail. Even if he himself genuinely doesn't think he wants some tail. In a Ryan Gosling movie the final goal is fucking the main female.
Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Downey Jr, Will Smith, Johnny Depp and others as such, the main goal is... again, sex, but with a girl half their age (secondary goal), and fucktons of money (primary goal). They're pretty old, they're already thinking of retirement.
I wish I could do a longer post about this and involve books too. I don't read much. I wish I would, but I don't. I can't. Physically. My brain won't let me sit (or, god forbid, LAY) quietly for some hours and read. Quietness makes me extremely anxious and scared. Don't know why. But yeah, US stories? The ending is never defeating some evil and going home, it's either sex or money. Or both. As @Enabran255 said, the Japanese? Pretty much all of Asia, but specifically Japan? Japan knows how to craft one hell of an ending.

 

[Marz]

That's why I only read angst.

 

[DoNotLet2]

Because it often destroys the logic of the whole history.
Oh, ancien magician attacked my country and I know almost nothing about magic! In 3 days he will conquer the entire kingdom! Ahhh, nevermind I found an ancien diamond that had been digged a few thousands years ago so we are all safe. Where is the logic in this?

 

[Crushed_Innocence]

When I finally ctb, it'll be my happy ending.

I could not agree more

 

[alfie]

happy endings give false hope and a fake sense of comfort

 

[Escargot Shorts]

lol i actually don't care for downer endings that much. but then again, i'm not totally seeing like, examples of what media has endings yall like so i'm not really sure what we're going by here. i'm really...choosy about what movies or shows i give my time to (which isn't to say i like good things, i'm just discerning about garbage). but for the most part, i watch a lot of dramas where people endure difficult things -- endings that are better than what other characters endured but still with difficult compromises -- or horror films that aren't like...schlocky and over the top, but rather what i consider tragedies with elements of the paranormal or perilous danger. either the protagonist and their close ones see very sad demises because of careless mistakes or character flaws or just simply because this is just what happened and it just happened to have happened to you -- or some combination of the two. (Ultimately, i already know life is hard and full of awful things. i go to media to see this artfully reflected back so i hopefully pull nuanced truths about myself from it)

The two films that immediately came to mind while writing this up were
Monos (2019) by Alejandro Landes and The Wailing (2016) by Na Hong-jin