Happy Endings

[piquant]

What do you think of happy endings? Usually they annoy me, and seem like a cop-out.

Another Happy Ending topic...Did any of you ever read Margaret Atwood's short story "Happy Endings"? It's only two pages long, so I recommend it if you get a chance.

[fayefaye]

yeah, I hate happy endings. Too sugary. But it depends on the specific ending. It would be stupid to end it in death just to have a sad ending, as much as it would be to have an incredibly contrived happy ending. It depends, I guess.

[Sindhu]

I would agree with faye that it depends. Louisa Alcott writes that she was severely tempted to end her Little Women series catastrophically- but in that particular context, that would have been ridiculous. It really depends on how the plot has been built up in advance.
Sindhu.

[IWilKikU]

Yeah. I dont really prefer happy or sad endings. I really just prefer endings that I can believe in. Like if the whole plot leads to Guy running away with Other Girl, Guy should run away with other girl. He shouldn't go "What the hell was I thinking" at the last minute and screw up the ending. On the converse, if its been an intense novel all the way through, it should have an intense ending. The most effective way to invoke intesity is through tragedy, although I have read some intense novels with happy endings.

[piquant]

Yeah that's pretty much what I meant, happy endings that don't suit the rest of the book (i.e. C+P). I hate the feeling of being faked out.

On the other hand though, happy endings, even if they match the rest of the story never strike me as particularlily realistic. In real life, things don't usually all come together to work out for the best. I guess that's the beauty of fiction though.

Even in real life when things end happily for the protagonist, their are minor charactors and the antagonist for whom it ends unhappily. And in their mind they are the protagonist, so actually the story doesn't end happily at all fo the protagonist.

I know that made absolutely no sense, but do you kinda understand what I'm saying? As long as you can stay in your own life, where you are the protagonist, things have a possibility of ending happily, but when you slip your consciousness into other people then it all gets messed up because your happy ending depends on their unhappy ending.

Nevermind.

[Sindhu]

Originally posted by piquant
I know that made absolutely no sense, but do you kinda understand what I'm saying? As long as you can stay in your own life, where you are the protagonist, things have a possibility of ending happily, but when you slip your consciousness into other people then it all gets messed up because your happy ending depends on their unhappy ending.

Nevermind.
Glad you said Never mind, piquant- my head's still reeling!:confused:
Actually, I guess I do see what you're getting at- sort of! ;)
Sindhu.

[IWilKikU]

I understand exactly what you mean!

[piquant]

I'm glad someone does, but let me try to be more eloquent.

Happy endings are possible as long as you are only one person. If you can transfer your consciousness from person to person, and feel the unhappiness on which you depend for your happy ending, then feeling that unhappiness ruins your happiness.

Maybe that makes more sense. If not, maybe Kik can help.

I just realized how Whitman-esque that is. O, the Song of Myself.

[Shea]

All the phsycology is making me a bit light-headed.:confused:

But I would have to go with the concensus that the ending must go with the story, or the message that the writer is trying to get across. Except for 1984, sorry the romantic in me hated that ending.:o

Many times I like those happy ending with a bit of tragedy in them to balance out the sugariness (I know, I'm making up words now, but sometimes phsycology has that effect on me). Like Les Miserables. I came away from that one feeling very satisfied.:)

[IWilKikU]

I think that what Piquant is trying to say is:

In a good story you have a good conflict. In allmost every conflict situation, someone or somthing loses and someone or something wins. There are "win-win situations" but even in these there is a third party that suffers. No realistic conflict can come to a conclusion where EVERYONE involved and effected comes out a winner. A traditional "happy ending" usually culminates with triumph for the protagonist and defeat for the antagonist. Now, if you take a look at the antagonist's reality, his POV, you see an unhappy ending. No realistic antagonist is all evil and knows he's evil and relishes in the fact that he's evil. What makes a really good villian, or antagonist, is the fact that he/she/it thinks that he/she/it is in the right. So when the villian is faced with defeat, its an unhappy ending through the antagonist's POV.

Am I on the right track Piquant?

[Sindhu]

Hold on Kik- so when you read you internalize ALL possible POV's- making a "happy ending" impossible as it is sure to be an UNhappy ending for some protagonist or other- but then doesn't that reasoning also render an "Unhappy ending" impossible? (If I am following your train of though correctly, that is!) So we would wind up with what could be described as "variable emotive endings" depending on the POV we adopt or the consciousness we enter into during each particular reading?
Sindhu.

[IWilKikU]

No, happy endings arn't IMPOSSIBLE, because if there's a real stinker of a character, it doesn't matter what he thinks of himself. When he gets screwed in the end, it makes the reader happy. It's just kind of interesting to look at the story realistically from the antogonist POV once in a while. It can really skew the heroity (I make up my own words too :) ) of the protagonists. For example, check out Lord of the Rings. When Saruman joins sides with Sauron, he's not trying to be as evil as possible. He's looking out for his own skin. He's a perfect example of a protagonist who is not concieously evil. He does some evil stuff, but its not just for the sake of being bad. If you read LotR with the outlook of survival rather than of Good must triumph over evil, it makes Saruman look like the smartest character in the series, even if he does lose in the end. And when he dies, it is tragic. I for one didn't say "Yay!! Saruman got stabbed in the back by his only 'loyal' follower!" even though he did deserve to die. If you remember, Frodo didn't rejoice at his death either. Thats just one example of a well written villian, but do you see what I'm trying to communicate with that example?

[Sindhu]

Got that- but as you said in your earlier post a realistic "antagonist" villain- has HIS POV, in which he is right. So, even if he is a "stinker":) IF you adopt that POV, then a Happy ending is OUT- irrespective of the "unheroity"(me likes:) )of the character.
Gosh- where am I going with this:confused:
Sindhu.

[IWilKikU]

I don't know. And quite frankly I forgot where I was going too. But I think it was here: Bottom line-> Including everyone's POV, happy endings are immpossible. However, an ending can satisfy a reader if he can't sympathize with a villian. Good villians should have enough of a realistic motivation that the reader CAN if not sympathize than at least understand where said villian is coming from, makeing the ending at best bittersweet. Thats good writing.

[Sindhu]

Originally posted by Helena_of_verona
We crave tragedy, just as much as we crave happiness.
Too true!

[Koa]

I agree that it depends, but too often the happy endings are like some 'we're good-everything is wonderful' kind of thing.. I don't know how else to say it.
Piquant (or azmuse) referred to Crime and Punishment I think (if that was what C+P meant :D)), that's one of the books I love most but the ending doesn't really fit too well...
I know what I said was meant to lead somewhere, but I forgot. (I need some sleep :D)

[piquant]

Yes kik, that's exactly it. Thanks for the help. Doing it in fiction is one thing, but when you start switching POV in real life everything gets confusing, and its impossible to discern right from wrong, good from bad, protagonist from antagonist.

With this, we have a total dissolution of right and wrong because right and wrong are relative.

I see what Sidhu is getting at with her no unhaooy endings half of the debate, but to counter that--

A protagonist who just had a happy ending can look at the happy ending of the antagonist, and thereby have a certain sweetness stolen from their happiness.

On the other hand, an unhappy antagonist, in most cases, can not glean happiness from the protagonist's happy ending. Therefore an unhappy ending remains possible.

Perhaps, the best ending would be one in which both the protagonist and the anagonist are empathetic enough where they each experience a piece of the other's happiness/unhappiness. It would produce a balanced yin and yang, a resonating stability.

My LoTR reference is gandalf, "Many who deserve to live, die; and many who deserve to die, live. If we can not bring life to the one, then should we bring death to other?" (or something to that effect.)

I guess what I am in favor of is a complete abandoning of moral judgement, a ture empathy where every person's sin is our sin, and where every person's guilt is our guilt, and every person's joy is our joy. We are all human. We were all born. We are much too similar to have any vantage point from which to judge another.

Eeek! Did I really ramble this long? Did this start out having something to do with Happy Endings?

[subterranean]

Happy ending stories (like those stories by the Grimm brothers) are only good as bed time stories. Which is actually bad for kids' brain in the future.

Sometimes I don't really like happy ending story, especially when I think the character who is considered as the bad guys, is somehow in the right track.

Perhaps, the best ending would be one in which both the protagonist and the anagonist are empathetic enough where they each experience a piece of the other's happiness/unhappiness. It would produce a balanced yin and yang, a resonating stability.

I see your point, why is it always be a game of winner and loser, good and evil..and so on!

[IWilKikU]

Because it makes little kids fall asleep better. If the hero only showed up a second later and the Dragon ate the maiden, but the hero was ok cause that made the Dragon less hungery and not want to eat the hero, and the maiden always wanted to see the inside of a Dragon's stomach, and everyone who loved the maiden was happy because she could finally see the wonderful glorius afterlife... well thats a crappy ending!

[subterranean]

Not crappy...,but silly.

I'm not saying that i don't like happy ending stories. But there are too many stories like that. Boring!

[PeeSlowlyAndSee]

Sorry, another necrobump; I'm new here, so forgive me if I go back through the forum and bump ancient threads.

Anyway, on topic:

I really dislike happy endings.

I don't view it as a cop out (which it can very well seem to be) as much as it just doesn't leave any kind of lasting impression on me.

Say I read a book and in the end it basically adds up to "blahblahblah and everything worked out and they lived happily ever after. The end."

Now, am I going to remember something like that?
No, because it's not unique nor is it exciting in any way.

I'll give you an (extreme) example of the type of ending I like--
(Read: this is from a movie, not a book, but it's still the ending of a story and could very well be the ending to a book.)
Take the movie "Combat Shock".
It's about a guy just out of Vietnam (a POW) who loses his mind on account of the way his life is going.
Anyway, in the end, he's had enough and so he kills his wife, takes his deformed (from Agent Orange) baby, turns on the oven, puts the baby in it, and then blows his brains out.

It's an extremely depressing ending, but one that I will never forget as long as I live.
To me, that's what a good story should do; it should stay with me for a long time.

[JuniperWoolf]

That's one of the (many) reasons why I disliked Dracula.
"And we had a little baby and we named it after Quincey, blah blah blah, all is right in the world."
Booooring.

[Modest Proposal]

There is a quote from an author I admire very much about a second rate tragedian being worth less than a third rate comedian. At first I didn't quite agree but then I realized what--I think--he meant.

I think tragedy is the first love of the, not intelligent, but intellectual type. I think there is a bias for things that are sad or depressing for many reasons, one of which--maybe the most prevelant--being that intellectual/artistic types tend toward pessimistic outlooks--sorry for the generalization but I firmly believe it--and they thus attribute tragedy to being more real and even more just to the world, giving an accurate assessment. I think also these types steer clear of comedies--specifically 'happy' ones--because it is so popular among the 'vulgar' crowds.

Now what I think the quote means, and have come to agree, is that it is false to think that sadness is 'deeper' or more 'realistic'. From creative writing courses I remember reading a hundred weak stories in which the author attempts some grandiose tragedy, but I can remember none of them clearly. However, I do recall the simple, honest stories of some that are not sappy but celebrate some of the joys, small victories of life--courage and unexpected, simple kindness.