Sad Endings - They die, they all just die!

[Screamarie]

So I'm bored and wandering the web, youtube, and wikipedia and just researching crap that will aid me in no way when I came across the actual story of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson. Now many of you probably know the Disney version so you know in general what I'm talking about but Anderson had a much bleaker tale than Disney did (honestly I don't know why I'm surprised as I know that lots of old fairytales have really sick, twisted, and horrible bits in them. Yeah the evil queen in Snow White? She was forced to wear shoes made of iron that had been heated on a fire and then danced till she was dead. In some versions of Goldilocks...she's eaten by the bears. Frog Prince? The Princess threw him against a wall because she thought he was ugly.)

Spoiler: I put an abridged but still long version of the Little Mermaid here

Taken from Wikipedia: The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her father the sea king; her grandmother; and her five elder sisters, each born one year apart. When a mermaid turns 15, she is allowed to swim to the surface to watch the world above, and as the sisters become old enough, one of them visits the surface every year. As each of them returns, the Little Mermaid listens longingly to their various descriptions of the surface and of human beings.

When the Little Mermaid's turn comes, she ventures to the surface, sees a ship with a handsome prince, and falls in love with him from a distance. A great storm hits, and the Little Mermaid saves the prince from a near-drowning. She delivers him unconscious to the shore near a temple. Here she waits until a young girl from the temple finds him. The prince never sees the Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid asks her grandmother whether humans can live forever if they do not drown. The grandmother explains that humans have a much shorter lifespan than merfolk's 300 years, but that when mermaids die they turn to sea foam and cease to exist, while humans have an eternal soul that lives on in Heaven. The Little Mermaid, longing for the prince and an eternal soul, eventually visits the Sea Witch, who sells her a potion that gives her legs, in exchange for her tongue (as the Little Mermaid has the most intoxicating voice in the world). The Sea Witch warns, however, that once she becomes a human, she will never be able to return to the sea. Drinking the potion will make her feel as if a sword is being passed through her, yet when she recovers she will have two beautiful legs, and will be able to dance like no human has ever danced before. However, it will constantly feel like she is walking on sharp swords hard enough to make her bleed. In addition, she will only get a soul if she finds true love's kiss and if the prince loves her and marries her, for then a part of his soul will flow into her. Otherwise, at dawn on the first day after he marries another woman, the Little Mermaid will die brokenhearted and disintegrate into sea foam.

The Little Mermaid drinks the potion and meets the prince, who is attracted to her beauty and grace even though she is mute. Most of all he likes to see her dance, and she dances for him despite her excruciating pain. When the prince's father orders his son to marry the neighboring king's daughter, the prince tells the Little Mermaid he will not, because he does not love the princess. He goes on to say he can only love the young woman from the temple, who he believes rescued him. It turns out that the princess is the temple girl, who had been sent to the temple to be educated. The prince loves her and the wedding is announced.

The prince and princess marry, and the Little Mermaid's heart breaks. She thinks of all that she has given up and of all the pain she has suffered. She despairs, thinking of the death that awaits her, but before dawn, her sisters bring her a knife that the Sea Witch has given them in exchange for their long hair. If the Little Mermaid slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life.

The Little Mermaid cannot bring herself to kill the sleeping prince lying with his bride and, as dawn breaks, throws herself into the sea. Her body dissolves into foam, but instead of ceasing to exist, she feels the warmth of the sun; she has turned into a spirit, a daughter of the air. The other daughters of the air tell her she has become like them because she strove with all her heart to gain an eternal soul. She will earn her own soul by doing good deeds, and she will eventually rise up into the kingdom of God.

A very shortened edition of it though is that the Little Mermaid...dies...she just dies. Yeah Anderson later added a part about her becoming air and getting to go to heaven for doing good deeds, but to me, either way it's a sad ending and even if she's air, she's still dead. Maybe it makes me a bleeding heart to prefer disney over Hans, but yeah, I do.

Now onto my point....I hate sad endings. I really do. I don't understand them. Don't get me wrong, some stories MUST have a sad ending, there's no other way, especially for stories that are trying to make a point of some sort...but for alot of stories...I don't get it.

I don't see WHY the main character that you've spent an hour and a half watching in a movie or days/weeks reading about in a book just dies. What was the point? I've spent a crap load of time getting to know and enjoying this character only for all their pursuits to lead to death or some bittersweet moment where the storyteller didn't want to completely leave the reader hanging which is probably worse because you might as well just go all in.

So what's the point of this diatribe? Well seeing as we're a gaming community where a lot of us spend our time reading, watching, writing, and playing through stories I thought yall could weigh in on why there are sad endings in stories that could just as easily have happy endings? Especially when there's no forseeable point in their demise or their grief and pain, no between the lines message to tease out and consider. Do you, like me, hate an ending where everyone dies? Do you on the other hand feel that sad endings are the only thing that should exist (though if you do you might want to see a psychiatrist, not judging just saying)? Are you indifferent to them? And just in general, what's your point of view on tragic and happy endings?

(And for anyone who wants to say it, yes this is in general a pointless thread, but that doesn't mean it isn't interesting to some people all the same)

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

It depends on the context of the show.

Spoiler: Like Code Geass

The point the show was trying to make would've been completely ruined had Lelouch lived.

 

[xvbones]

I don't see WHY the main character that you've spent an hour and a half watching in a movie or days/weeks reading about in a book just dies.

Happy endings should never be implicit.

Because they aren't.

What was the point?

This is why religion exists.

 

[Rainbowloid]

Because not everyone likes happy endings? Because the author didn't want to write a happy ending? I don't know what to tell you. I actually think exactly the opposite as you; when there's a happy ending, I find myself thinking "What, they all just live happily ever after? That's BULLSHIT!" I think that sad endings hold much more meaning, and they're just generally more beautiful. I mean, obviously there are some crappy sad endings and some good happy ones, but, in my opinion, the sadder the better.

 

[Spambot 3000]

Because some sad endings can generate a deeper emotional response from you than other happy ones?
I don't know really, maybe even because a sad ending (sometimes) provides more theme and moral than 'And they all lived happily ever after'.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

It depends. With the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo, the novel can and will fall apart if I shoehorn some happy ending in. Same with Game of Thrones. Not everything works with a happy ending, some things need to be depressing to carry their message.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I actually prefer sad and bittersweet endings to happy endings. To me, a completely happy ending is a disappointment, since it often means the events of the story didn't have a lasting impact on the characters. Some of the best endings I remember were pretty sad, whereas happy endings don't stick with me. Examples:

Spoiler: Final Fantasy X

Yuna saves Spira from Sin, but loses Tidus

Spoiler: Silent Hill

Cheryl dies, Harry destroys Samael and Alessa gives him Heather

Spoiler: Legacy of Kain

Raziel sacrifices himself to allow Kain to see and fight the Elder God

Spoiler: Heavy Rain

Ethan saves Shaun, but is shot down by the cops (this doesn't have to happen, but this is by far the most memorable ending)

If those games had had a happy ending, I probably wouldn't remember them this fondly.

 

[MassiveGeek]

I don't see WHY the main character that you've spent an hour and a half watching in a movie or days/weeks reading about in a book just dies.

Happy endings should never be implicit.

Because they aren't.

What was the point?

This is why religion exists.

What this guy said.

I fucking hate undeserved happy endings, or "good" endings that just fuck things up. For example, in Naruto Shippuden...

Spoiler: Stuff happens.

... Gaara has his sandmonster taken from him, and he's on the verge of dying. Then some-fucking-how he didn't, and then became Hokage and everyone suddenly loved him. I hated that. I hated it a lot.[/B] I would've rather seen him dead than having his character ruined like that.

But of course, Naruto sucks so there's an explanation.

I'd rather see the whole cast be brutally murdered by the bad guy than see them have a happy ending just because they're the "heroes". Fuck that shit.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Sometimes the point of the story is to be depressing. If it's the story about a suicidal depressive who encounters nothing but terrible things from day to day, without single happy thing in his life to balance it, you'd be disappointed if it didn't end badly.

Sometimes it's trying to mimic real life. The story of a child soldier in Africa will likely not end happily, and if it did then it wouldn't be true to life.

Sometimes it's because the writer isn't very good. True Art is Angsty after all, and so a hack writer will try and introduce drama into their story by adding 'rocks fell and everyone died' to the end of their story. This is when they have the understanding that other people have sad endings, but they don't know why.

And fairytales are a little different, because at the heart of them what they are are morality tales told to warn children against things. The story of the little mermaid is about giving in to temptation (Hans Christian Anderson was devoutly religious after all), and so if something horrible didn't happen to the mermaid then children wouldn't learn the lesson of not wanting what they shouldn't have.

Little Red Riding Hood is about not talking to strangers or straying from the path, Goldilocks is about greed (seriously), Jack and the Beanstalk is supposed to be about arrogance (IIRC).

Almost every fairytale is built around the idea of teaching children simple morality.

 

[Metal_Head]

the ending of 2012 was far to happy. I thought it needed more of a sad one. like when the dad goes to fix the engine or whatever and his son follows. than the dad comes back and the kid is gone. it would have been far better if the kid died. Morbid i know, but my opinion.

not that the movie needed more death...........

FYI: i love sad endings. yes some happy endings are ok. but i prefer a sad one.

 

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

...

Sadness, pain, misery, mourning, heartbreak, loss losing and lonliness ARE ALL part of the human experience, and to ignore them because of their power would be a big mistake to make.

...

Aah gawd. I really don't cry that much, but those clips get me the closest to crying I'll ever be from a show.

Also, this one:<youtube=dyeMPWpA2AA>

Now, back OT: I don't really have much more to add... bahumat42 and others in this thread have already said what I'd like to say. Especially the lines quoted above, they're pretty much my exactly sentiment too.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm kinda conflicted about it.

I'll take Disney's Tangled as an example: At the end of the movie there's the suggestion that it might have a sad ending, but then love ultimately prevails and it becomes a happy ending after all. Now eventhough the sad ending would've given the movie much more impact and staying power, half of me is still glad it didn't end in this manner.

But then most sad ending are of the "redemption through death" or "sacrifice for true love" kind. You know? The sappy ones that tug at your heart strings.

There are very few truly horrifiyng sad endings, like Lilja4ever, or Princess.

 

[Danzavare]

Good stories should have a mixture of happiness and sadness with a suitable ending. Anything that leans to excessively towards either is either shallow or trying to force a knee-jerk reaction from the audience. (For example, stomping a puppy to death will likely depress most people, it doesn't take talent to use that) I tend to dislike sad endings because they're a lot cheaper than most happy endings. A crappy happy ending is boring or annoying at worst, while a crappy sad ending can still depress you by showing you something conventionally horrific/depressing. (Like unnecessarily cutting down a character that's being built up.)

There's a philosophical theory on the transmission of feelings through art (or in this case any decent tale) that specifically argues against forcing reactions. I follow it, but am a little too tired to elaborate.

Overall I prefer a happy ending though, one that can contemplate the sadness of the narrative but still give us good reason to feel a sense of joy toward the characters and/or their progression through the narrative.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

To much into either direction and you lose. For example, Portal 2 is has my favourite ending to anything ever, because it carries just the right amount of emotions from every edge of the spectrum for an ending to that type of story (not JUST because of that).

It's more about what's appropriate and good than positive or negative.

 

[Furioso]

I vastly prefer that version of Little Mermaid, the Disney one just teaches you that it's perfectly ok to sell your soul for legs and a vagina, just to possibly marry a guy you met once when he was unconscious, things have consequences

 

[Trivun]

The thing is, life doesn't have happy endings as a matter of course, and I always prefer an element of realism in the stuff I watch or play or read or whatever. Sometimes there is a happy ending in real life, but just as often people don't get that, and that's what makes life special, because the happy endings are worth waiting for. Plus, I'm a firm believer in the idea of having to earn your happy ending (and yes, that is a trope). I'm working on a story at the moment where the main characters have to track down a killer - the victim is one of them (and yes, she dies for good), her sister/girlfriend is obsessed with getting justice, and one of the other main characters is framed for the killing. The plot is only resolved when the real killer (another sister of the victim) is revealed much later, and even then her overarcing plot is successful, with only a brief moment of temporary victory for the good guys when they manage to stop a minor part of said plot from working (and even that gets resolved by the villain later on). It all makes sense in context. The point is, it's hardly a happy ending, but it's the kind of ending I like, and it serves to heighten the challenges that the main characters have to face in order to earn their happy ending at the very end. Of course, no spoilers here on whether they will eventually get that, but even so...