Depressing Endings

[Grottnikk]

The first "Saw" game is pretty bleak no matter which path you take.

Half Life 2 Episode 2 has a big downer quite near the end.

I Am Alive, while not completely forthcoming with the truth, does imply a bit of an unhappy ending.

Mafia 2 leaves a pretty messed up trail of guilt the whole way through the game. The ending does not break pattern.

Finally, The Walking Dead has a less than uplifting ending to say the least.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Book: 1984, The Sicilian, The Serpent Club, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Movie: Escape from L.A.

Game: Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Lufia 2. Additionally there's a lot of 'bad endings' in games that are understandably depressing given how badly you failed. Chrono Trigger and Breath of Fire 2's bad endings come to mind, and more recently Shin Megami Tensei 4's worst ending. That horrible insane laughing...

 

[Dalisclock]

No mention of "Spec Ops: the line"? There are 4 endings that run the gamit from "somewhat depressing" to "incredibly depressing".

 

[Fake James]

honestly, when i was younger i was prone to be sad when i finished a game.

i did not have many, super mario 64 and ocarina of time being the only games i had for a year or more. i would always get sad when the music rolled around. it was the end of something good.

i got that the most when i played halo ce. for some reason the end of that game, with the music and the fact that everyone was dead and the chaos had all died out put me in a downer mood every time.

but like a good downer mood. i loved that game.

 

[DuctTapeJedi]

I think this picture says it all.

Spoiler

Holy crap, I forgot about that one. You just won the thread.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7. If you've played FF7, then you already know how it's going to end. Despite that, the ending is presented so well that it's still a tear-jerker. It was years ago that I first played it, but I remember that this was the first game to make me feel genuine sadness at its ending.

 

[EyeReaper]

Do bad ends count? Because then you don't need to look any farther than Blazblue. Especially with certain characters, like Makoto, Carl, and Makoto. Good thing there's also the joke endings when things get too sad... unless you're playing as Lambda. Lambda gets no joke ending, just more sad

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Most definitely, 'Buried' starring Ryan Reynolds.

The plot of the movie is pretty interesting: Reynolds is a contract worker in Iraq who gets captured and buried underground in a coffin with nothing but a cellphone, and the bad guys who captured him won't dig him up unless he can get them a bunch of money. The whole interesting movie-making twist is that Reynolds is literally the only actor in the entire movie (except for the people he talks to on the phone).

So why is it so horrendously depressing?:

Spoiler

So by the end of this movie, Reynolds has cut off his own finger for what amounts to no reason whatsoever, been lied to by the one person who might actually save him, has discovered that his family will be screwed out of his life insurance (and thus be left destitute when he dies), oh, and he dies as well. It's seriously the most insanely depressing ending I've ever seen because literally NOTHING good happens to the main character at the end of it.

 

[Poppy JR.]

Just got back from the theater, where I saw The Book Thief *EDIT* This movie came out fairly recently. If you haven't seen it yet, you've been warned. Spoilers abound.

Spoiler

The movie ends with the protagonist's street getting hit by an air raid. Afterwards, she is rescued by a relief team, and sees her adopted parents covered by blankets. Then she finds her best friend, who dies in her arms. Cue the depression.

 

[AdamxD]

Agreed with the ending of Season 1 of (Telltales) The Walking Dead, it's why I'm anticipating Season 2 so much.

There's one episode of Futurama that really got to me though, more than the Jurassic Bark one, look out for an episode of Game of Tones. Had to hold back manly tears for that one.

 

[Trunkage]

Arlington Road. Being set up is the worst

 

[Hazy]

You want to talk depressing shit? Let's talk about some depressing shit.

We need to stop spending millions upon millions of dollars in the anti-drug campaign and just show people this movie instead.

 

[nuttshell]

Texhnolyze.
First I watched it alone, then with a friend, then with a girlfriend and I stopped somewhere in the last episodes because it's just too...crushing and I couldn't bare it one more time.

 

[dragonet111]

The ending of Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies). The entire movie is actually very very sad.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, my favouretest manga ever, is about a perfectly normal, psychotically optimist girl and her pessimistic teacher. It is a romantic comedy with a very bizarre artsyle (charming in its simplicity) and story (batshitcrazy and almost non-existent) and yet it had a rather dark ending.

Spoiler: Spoilers ho. If you plan on reading it yourself... read the first 50 chapters, skip to chapter 290. You just saved yourself a lot of baseball jokes

It turns out a main character, Kafuka Fuura, was killed at the young age of... I don't know, under 10, by her father after being thrown infront of a car. Then her organs all got sent to her classmates - a girl with a dry wit and abusive father got her eye, and immigrant "found" her liver, an OCD sufferer and yandere got her heart, a shrinking violet who sends abusive texts got her vocal chords, a bookworm - and the only male to get an organ - got her blood... so on, so forth. In order to keep the whole class from killing themselves from the influnce of their super pessimistic and repeatedly suicidal teacher, Itoshiki Nozomu, she decided to possess them one by one, keeping then sane - but not well adjusted - over the course of the series.

...Yeah. The last chapter before that was about Chinese knock-offs of things. And someone farted so hard they brooke a ceiling light. Or something. My mind's blurry.

And just to make it even more depressing, her teacher was in love with her. So he ends up marrying all of his students - yes, including the male bookworm - and having children by them - yes, including the male bookworm - without actually realising that the entire class is a huge harem mess.

...It really makes less sense than it's depressing, though, but... well... it's the manga that made "I've decided to put off losing my virginity" an important phrase for a short while.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Most definitely, 'Buried' starring Ryan Reynolds.

The plot of the movie is pretty interesting: Reynolds is a contract worker in Iraq who gets captured and buried underground in a coffin with nothing but a cellphone, and the bad guys who captured him won't dig him up unless he can get them a bunch of money. The whole interesting movie-making twist is that Reynolds is literally the only actor in the entire movie (except for the people he talks to on the phone).

So why is it so horrendously depressing?:

Spoiler

So by the end of this movie, Reynolds has cut off his own finger for what amounts to no reason whatsoever, been lied to by the one person who might actually save him, has discovered that his family will be screwed out of his life insurance (and thus be left destitute when he dies), oh, and he dies as well. It's seriously the most insanely depressing ending I've ever seen because literally NOTHING good happens to the main character at the end of it.

oh god this...

I actually REALLY liked that movie and found it amazing that it had me hooked the whole time.


but THAT ENDING. I am never watching that movie again, I enjoyed it greatly but I will not watch it anymore due to the ending.

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

All the ones I was going to say have been said so instead I'll say Apocalypse Now. The whole movie is so intense but the ending manages to take it up another notch. I mean Willard completes his mission but at what cost? Was it really worth losing his mind just to follow an order and do his duty to his country?

On top of all that the whole thing being an extended metaphor of the Vietnam War itself makes it even more depressing.

 

[Tiger King]

Iain banks use of weapons.
My most 'favouritest' book I have ever read. It's one of those books where I (can't speak for other readers) became quite invested in the main character to have X
Sorry for being vague but it's a huge spoiler!!

 

[Tiger King]

You want to talk depressing shit? Let's talk about some depressing shit.

We need to stop spending millions upon millions of dollars in the anti-drug campaign and just show people this movie instead.

What film is it?
Looks like (at a guess) requiem for a dream?

 

[NihilSinLulz]

Pretty much the ending of any Terry Gilliam film, especially because they laugh at the misfortune of the protagonist right before the credits roll.

Example: Time Bandits.

Spoiler

Kid just gets finished defeating the Big Evil and saving the universe. His reward? "lol you're now an orphan lololol"